MDDM Dixon's act of violence

[jbor]

on 8/3/02 10:02 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> Are you arguing that Pynchon is advancing the notion that a violent
> response to injustice is justified? I don't think you can support that with
> textual evidence from M&D.   And, if that's what you are arguing, how does
> that square with your perennial argument that Pynchon does not make such
> choices or judgements, that he leaves things open and ambiguous letting the
> reader make her own interpretation, reach her own conclusion?

No, I was just questioning your interpretation of the passage, which I don't
believe is a valid one.

I think that the importance of this scene in the novel - its centrality - is
due to the fact that Dixon's conscience *does* lead him to defy his Quaker
principles for once, that he *does* resort to this act of violence in the
face of obvious injustice. If it was just more of the same Quaker pacifism
that he'd been advocating and practising for the last 700-odd pages then it
wouldn't be the climactic scene that it is.

I also understand the arguments you are parroting in regard to the military
intervention in Afghanistan. You advocate "reconciliation" - appeasement in
other words - which would thereby legitimise terrorism as a political
strategy and lead to more atrocities such as the attacks of September 11.
You also recommend that some type of non-violent "police action" should have
taken place after September 11 instead of the unanimously-sanctioned
international military action against the terrorists and their protectors.
In other words, you would have left the Al Qaeda and Taliban armaments in
place and sent (unarmed?) public servants in to try to apprehend the
perpetrators and their armies? I'm extremely thankful that decisions of this
kind will never be left in your hands.

best