War & The Death Instinct?

[cathy ramirez]

War & Death Instinct? 

M&D seems to argue that man is not free to choose his
actions. If so, then
War becomes a fated fact of the universe. In Pynchon's
fictions, War, like death and life are determined.
Humanity has no power to challenge it. From GR, I
understand war is a necessary and ineluctable event,
and one that man can never shirk from. As I read V.,
VL, war is inevitable, and humans have little power to
prevent it or even minimize its ravages. Keeping cool
and caring is not a slogan for the peace movement. We
could even say that man is not responsible for his
actions and hence not responsible for war. 

Wherein lies its cause of war, the War that seems to
have to beginning and no end in Pynchon's fictions? Is
it in the stars and the planets? Something in the
earth? Are there forces in the universe that cause
war? Are we humans subject to inexorable forces that
prompt us to wage war? Or are only the Elect
responsible for war? Either way, it seems that no one
can be saved. Or is there an alternative Elect? Does
Al Gore or the newly elected German government you are
all so proud of the new Elect we need only enslave
ourselves to so that we may have peace? Do these
alternative Elect possess the intellectual ability to
perceive what changes are required to alter man's
martial
predispositions? And how is it that Al Gore or any
other Elect can stand outside the determined fate of
everybody else and keep us at peace? 
Does Bush and the Elect convince the peace love people
of the world to go to war? 
Or do the Elect ultimately and reluctantly pursue war
because it is what the majority of the people want? 

There is an argument in GR that says man's inherited
biology is the cause of war. Although Pynchon seems to
warn that the Elect are criminally insane, his
argument seems to imply that the Elect are only
criminal because they have the power to blow up the
world, but are they are no more insane than rest of
us. We all lack the inherited inhibition to fight with
increasingly dangerous weapons. 


 Iraq has dangerous weapons. Iraq will use them.
Better to make war with Iraq now and gain an
advantage. After all (this seems to be the consensus
here), war with Iraq is inevitable. 




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