MDMD Dixon's nonviolence

[Doug Millison]

jbor:
> Dixon's "act" (698.7) seems very spur of the moment to me.

I do agree, and have made it clear in previous posts that he's not acting
out of some plan or project. He's making it up as he go along.  this is
what shows his true nonviolent roots, in my opinion -- when given the
choice, without advance preparation, he chooses to use the least amount of
force necessary to achieve his objectives.

jbor:
> 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.

Agreed.  I suspect that Pynchon is using Dixon to make a point about
slavery, how people react to it (or not -- Dixon didn't manage to "see"
slavery on his earlier trip to Virginia), how to end the suffering that
slavery entails without more violence and suffering.   It is interesting
that Dixon, earlier in the novel before they come to America, does seem to
be aware of slavery, he and Mason talk about America being another
slave-owning place before they get to America, but then Dixon appears to
ignore it when he travels through a slave-based society in Virginia.  What
is it about America that can thus dull sensibilities in this regard?


jbor:
> Dixon has just punched him in the face hard enough to
> break a tooth

I don't think you can support this categorical statement with evidence from
the text, which remains, at best, ambiguous about Dixon's "punch".  Pynchon
writes that Dixon stops his punch and the slave driver runs into his fist,
leaving it ambiguous.  Did Dixon punch him or not?  Pynchon doesn't answer
that question in the text, obviously, given the way that we've seen
reasonable people can disagree about how to read this episode.  Pynchon
could have made it crystal clear, I expect, had he wanted to do so.


jbor:
> 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.

Agreed.  See above.

jbor:
> I don't think that what you are advocating is a viable or
> responsible option in many real life situations,

Ghandi, the leaders of the successful nonviolent struggle against apartheid
in S. Africa, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and many
others would tend to disagree with you here, I expect.
Was it violence that brought down the Berlin Wall?


jbor:
> and I don't think it's what
> Dixon's about at this point in Pynchon's novel either.

That's your opinion, of course.  I disagree.  M&D pulls together themes
that Pynchon has been working with throughout his career, and from his
early stories to "The Mind of Watts" on, he's concerned with race relations
in the US.  Slavery's role in building the America economy, and the way
people  respond to the cruelty and injustice of slavery -- and, later,
discrimination, segregation, etc. -- plays a significant role in this novel.