SLSL Intro. Burgess continued

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Zantzinger" <williamzantzinger at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: SLSL Intro: "rock 'n' roll will never die" meets "the
meta-Elvis"

> America needs a measure of
> socialization, as Britain needed it. Things-especially
> those we need most-don't always pay their way, and it
> is here that the state must enter, dismissing the
> profit element. Part of the present American neurosis,
> again, springs from awareness of this but inability to
> do anything about practical implementation.
> Perhaps only a country full of bombed out cities feels
> capable of this kind of social revolution.
>

Is he talking about Japan and Germany in the last sentence?

> Progress was possible, and the wrongs
> committed against the Indians, the wildlife, the land
> itself, could be explained away in terms of the
> rational control of the environment necessary for the
> building of a New Jerusalem. Right and wrong made up
> the moral dichotomy; evil-that great eternal
> inextirpable entity-had no place in America.
> At last, with the Vietnam war and especially the
> Mylai horror, Americans were beginning to realize that
> they were subject to original sin as much as Europeans
> are.
>

"Mason & Dixon" doesn't accept that rational explanation.

"At last" -- a little late, even back in 1971, and not recognised by the
majority of the population.

> (live is evil spelled backwards)
>

Interesting point. I like these reversions.

> We can't escape the heritage of
> human evil by building communes, usually on an
> agronomic ignorance that, intended to be a rejection
> of inherited knowledge, that suspect property of the
> elders, does violence to life. The American young are
> well-meaning but misguided, and must not themselves be
> taken as guides.
>

The German Greens had to come to terms with that problem too and to decide
between fundamental opposition and taking up responsibilities.

Generally a very interesting text, thanks for it, eh, William.

some other quotes:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/3610/america.htm

Otto

"It's the same shit all around the globe." (Dr. Dre)

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