Jefferson's Pillow

[Doug Millison]

Chicken or egg?  At any rate, Pynchon anticipates you both, as I quoted
earlier in this thread:



"But here is a Collective Ghost of more than household Scale,-- the Wrongs
committed Daily against the Slaves, petty and grave ones alike, going
unrecorded, charm'd invisible to history, invisible yet possessing Mass,
and Velocity, able not only to rattle Chains but to break them as well. The
precariousness to Life here, the need to keep the Ghost propitiated, Day to
Day, via the Company's merciless Pristhoods and many-Volum'd Codes, brings
all but the hardiest souls sooner or later to consider the Primary
Questions more or less undiluted, Slaves here commit suicide at a
frightening Rate,-- but so do the Whites, for no reason, or for a Reason
ubiquitous and unaddress'd, which may bear Acquaintance but a Moment at a
Time."  (M&D 68-69)


At 1:10 PM -0400 7/18/02, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

>I'm elaborating on Paul Mackin's point.  I'm suggesting that keeping slaves
>was contemptible to those who did it leading to self-loathing on the part of
>the slave owners.  Rather than own it, the loathing was sublimated and
>transferred back onto the slaves.  Slavery thus the cause of racism and not
>the reverse.
>
>All just speculation.