SLSL Racial Differences

[David Morris]

--- calbert at hslboxmaster.com wrote:
> This exercise really seems to piss you off......There is no such thing as
"dumb as dirters" around here.......The occasional outburst of obtuseness
perhaps.....

Not at all.  Of course there aren't any "dumb as dirters" around here. 
Obviously it's just a rhetorical reference to the #3 option I posted earlier. 
I'm perfectly calm, thank you (but I do think Mr. Maas was making a silly
statement about "P's unique skill" - and was being just a bit too puffed-up
about his natural ability to glide right into Pynchon's mind.  Everyone thinks
their politics are P's politics.).  I only want to repeat that think it is
self-evident from all the back and forths of this thread that this statement by
P is poorly written, for whatever reason, and requires people like you to
explicate it below.  I think you've done a fine job of it, and this is probably
what P meant.  But the Pope thing, well that's you're interpretation of all
this (I'm in no way pissed-off).

DM
 
> IF you put the fragment back into its context, I think it reads a little 
> more clearly, and becomes less "seminal"......that done, I believe 
> that the only remaining issue is what is referred to by the "them", 
> and I think it is "power and money' rather than racial differences, 
> because then "deplore" makes more sense.
> 
> Also bear in mind that this "hypothetical" is in the context of an 
> "opposition"  (It may yet turn out)  twixt the young "crypto fascist" 
> and what I believe is the  "us"........what makes the issue so 
> "sticky" is that, as phrased, the fragment does at least ALLOW for 
> the possibility that the US could POSSIBLY be as concerned 
> about the accumulation of money and  power, and that 
> "empathy/sympathy" offers but an excuse to some of US to 
> indulge in such fancies....
> 
> He does, after all, continue with "This having been said, 
> however......"
> 
> 
> 
> "  Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,
>      Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
>      The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
>      All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
>      Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
>      They rave, recite, and madden round the land. 
> .....
> 
> Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
>    He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
>    Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
>    The creature's at his dirty work again;..."
> 
>  ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)
> EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS: EPISTLE TO DR. 
> ARBUTHNOT 
> 
> 
> http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/pope14.html
> 
> I'll leave it to others to determine how relevant Pope is to the issue 
> at hand - but I just had to share this......
> 
> 
> love,
> cfa

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