SLSL Intro: Pynchon on class barriers

[jbor]

> It may yet turn out that racial differences are not
> as basic as questions of money and power, but have
> served a useful purpose, often in the interest of
> those who deplore them the most, in keeping us divided
> and so relatively poor and powerless. (p12)

Don't the clauses after "but" relate back to "racial differences" as the
subject of this sentence? It seems more logical to read it like this, seeing
as the immediate referent for the comment is tv character Archie Bunker,
comic racist stereotype from _All in the Family_.

best


on 9/11/02 7:53 AM, pynchonoid at pynchonoid at yahoo.com wrote:

> Egg on my face! Not long after I hit Send and posted
> that email to Pynchon-L, I turned on the Tube, voila!
> An in-depth documentary  on Fox News Channel examined
> how upper-class families like the Bush tribe manage to
> profit from connections with their peers, inside
> government and business, while the lower classes have
> to make do without that sort of network, 60 minutes
> later, boy was I ever enlightened.  I especially liked
> the way Fox looked at the way the Bush class will
> profit from a war in Iraq even more than they have in
> Afghanistan, considering the oil spoils that will
> flow, once they get all those pipelines built.  Fox
> went in-depth on all the oil industry connections of
> the Bush Administration, too, and how the war will pad
> their portfolios.  Flipping the channels a bit, there
> was CNN at it, as well.  Checked the TV Guide -- ABC,
> NBC, and CBS will be featuring this topic on the
> Sunday morning talk shows, with shows presenting a
> class analysis approach to the upcoming war on Iraq
> scheduled every night next week, sez here the network
> news execs "want to help people to understand how
> those with the money and power manage to divide the
> rest, to upper class advantage."
> 
> 
>> But the >"American Dream," using now
>> that not very useful term to mean "a greater degree
>> of self-determination and
>> opportunity than one is likely to find elsewhere,"
>> isn't a sham. 
> 
> Change the definition, make it mean whatever you want
> it to mean. Every Man a King! Two chickens in every
> pot! That American dream is within reach of anybody on
> food stamps, boy are you ever right.
> 
> Back to Pynchon, agreeing, apparently, with the
> class-conscious Fox News Channel:
> 
> "It may yet turn out that racial differences are not
> as basic as questions of money and power, but have
> served a useful purpose, often in the interest of
> those who deplore them the most, in keeping us divided
> and so relatively poor and powerless."
> 
> Wildly,
> Demagogue Doug
>