SLSL Intro "Racial Differences"

[jbor]

I can see how "those who deplore them (i.e. 'racial differences') most"
might equate to "rednecks", but I'm not sure that the jump from this to
Reagan/Bush (Bush the First's presidency came well after the 'Intro' was
written, didn't it?) is really legitimate, or that it's a connection Pynchon
is actually making. "Rednecks", in Goad's terms, are another disenfranchised
group, and "racial differences", whatever these might be, don't further
their interests at all, because it's their attitudes of racism and
intolerance towards ethnic minorities which have marginalised them within
the society in the first place.

And, in fact, it's JFK who Pynchon is criticising in this paragraph. I don't
think you can so easily avoid the global context which Pynchon has brought
in here: "John Kennedy's role model James Bond was about to make his name by
kicking third-world people around ... " (p.11) Third-world people, almost
without exception, might be described as being "racially" "different".

I'm much more comfortable reading that "us" as an all-inclusive, global
category, rather than just a reference to US society and politics. But I'm
not 100% sure about it, and open to persuasion.

> It may 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 most, in keeping us divided and
> relatively poor and powerless. (p.12)

best



on 10/11/02 1:00 PM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> Well, again, as always, the caveat, "content does not
> necessarily reflect the views of management."  Goad is
> one of those guys I'd really rather NOT agree with,
> but, in outline, at least, he does seem to make some
> valid points.  Why he makes them is one thing, but how
> they've been taken up, that's another, and that in
> particular is what concerns me here ...
> 
> Pynchon, I think, is relatively straightforward, or
> straightfoirwardly relative, at any rate, there.
> Divide and conquer.  However it can be done.  The
> positive factor in Goad's manifesto is, perhaps, that
> presumably opposed groups like "rednecks" and
> "minorities" might well have common interests,
> interests which might well unite them, save for
> potentially (if not practically) irrelevant
> distinctions (e.g., race ["race"]), prejudices, which
> prevent either group, and, esp. most precariously, the
> more (relatively) enfranchised one ("rednecks"), from
> recognizing and acting on those commonalities, for the
> common good ...  
> 
> Net result: eight years of Ronald Reagan, four more of
> GH Bush, and so forth.  "Rednecks," "blue-collar
> workers," et al., suffer badly, but not nearly as
> badly as various minorities, so ... so they keep
> voting to cut off their noses to spite someone else's
> (darker) face nonetheless.  Of course, that's me
> making a perhaps generous reading of a book I haven't
> actually read (which is why I posted blurbs previously
> postred by others here), but ...
> 
> But I was hoping my James Bond and/or Archie Bunker
> stuff would generate further discussion as well.  In
> the meantime, I'll look for an alternative to Goad.
> Just wanted to get a quick one in, is all, and it came
> to mind, so ...
> 
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> I guess it depends on the interpretation you apply
>> to "racial differences", and who you then define
>> as "those who deplore them most". The Goad stuff
>> isn't necessarily apt at all (and seems to have more
>> affinity with what Ayn Rand has to say about race
>> and "racism"). But I admit that the train of
>> thought in Pynchon's sentence is quite difficult to
>> untangle, if not downright, and worrisomely,
>> ambiguous.
>