MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon's act of violence

[jbor]

on 11/3/02 7:59 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> My quibble with jbor's formulation below is the use of the word "brute" to
> describe force.  In fact, Dixon's use of force appears measured and
> thoughtful -- he pulls the punch instead of following it through, and after
> consulting his conscience he decides not to inflict any further harm,

Dixon's "act" (698.7) seems very spur of the moment to me. And I note also
that the slave driver, "having abandon'd all control, and Striking
ev'rywhere with the Whip, mostly encountering the Air", has "fail'd to
inflict much injury" on his slaves, either. (698.17) The word "Striking" is
capitalised, but it's not so much the physical violence which is focused on,
or which propels Dixon into action. It's the way the slave-driver is
"screaming" at the slaves - the total disregard for their humanity which his
curses and tone of voice reveal, his unthinking assumption of the wholesale
inferiority and worthlessness of their race, and of each of them as
individual human beings - as much as the way that he is thrashing the whip
around as though they were dogs or horses, which Dixon is depicted as
reacting to. (It's like what Scott was pointed to re. the way that Dixon
emphasises the word "*you*" when he begins to lose it with the guy.) As such
the actual incident represents (for Dixon ... and for the reader as well?)
the institution of slavery rather than, or as well as, a specific instance
of physical brutality. Imo.

> takes
> the whip so the slave driver can't harm the slaves with it, with some stern
> parting words (which the slave driver mocks -- apparently not taking them
> for a serious death threat).

I agree that the slave-driver's first reaction is to abuse and threaten
Dixon (698.29), but I think that from when Dixon seizes the whip at the
bottom of page 698 to when the man is observed "cringing there among the
Waggon-Ruts" (699.19) the slave-driver is taking Dixon's threats pretty damn
seriously indeed. Dixon has just punched him in the face hard enough to
break a tooth, is threatening to use the whip on him, and then possibly does
start using it at 699.5-7. Why else is the slave-driver suddenly on the
ground? (Cf. "Dixon reaches down ... " at 699.8)

> Dixon uses just enough force to prevent
> further harm to these slaves in this situation, having resisted his urge to
> kill the slave driver, and he appears to use the force in a thoughtful way
> -- stopping to think about it -- instead of proceeding as an unthinking
> brute intent only on inflicting violence to effect the desired change in
> the slave driver's behavior.

I meant "brute force" in its connotation of greater strength rather than of
unpremeditation. I do think that Dixon is impulsive here, but I also think
he knows what he is doing, that he is acting in the sudden clarity of
crisis. And I don't think effecting a change in the slave-driver's behaviour
is his objective. He wishes merely to free the slaves.

I agree with Thomas that references to current events in the context of
_M&D_ are spurious at best, and I obviously disagree with much of what you
write below. I don't think that what you are advocating is a viable or
responsible option in many real life situations, and I don't think it's what
Dixon's about at this point in Pynchon's novel either.
 
best


> Pynchon may or may not have had in mind, as he finishes M&D in the
> early-to-mid '90s, the Vietnam War or  the more recent Gulf War. but a good
> example of brute force and violence (as opposed to the smart, judicious use
> of force in nonviolence that Dixon exhibits) would be carpetbombing --
> that's brute force with no obvious concern for the consequences to innocent
> bystanders, and with no concern for the possibility of reconciliation with
> the enemy, for the possibility of finding creative ways to resolve
> differences.    Dixon's use of force is categorically different, congruent
> in many ways with the principles of nonviolence that became widely known,
> in the U.S., in the '50s and '60s (the period in which Pynchon comes of age
> as a writer), in the civil rights and anti-war struggles in the US.
> 
> Pynchon Notes has published an interesting article on the relationship of
> Pynchon's texts to the discourse of environmentalism beginning in the late
> '50s (taking, if I remember correctly, the book _Silent Spring_ as a
> starting point).  I suggest that an equally interesting article could be
> written on the relationship of Pynchon's texts to the discourse of
> nonviolence; I'm thinking in particular of Vineland and Mason &  Dixon, but
> I expect GR, V. and COL49 offer much in this vein as well.
> 
> 
>> Pynchon acknowledges
>> through his portrayal of Dixon's "act" that the only way to begin to achieve
>> "justice" in certain extreme situations of injustice and violence is to
>> neutralise the adversary's potential to do violence through an initial act of
>> brute force