Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

>>> The term "nothingness" derives from Sartre and Heidegger and not from
>>> Christian theology, and it is not the same thing as Preterition at all. If
>>> Preterition was what was meant then that would have been the term used. It
>>> isn't. (Preterition wouldn't sit happily in that list either, by the way.)

on 6/4/03 10:19 PM, Paul Mackin at paul.mackin at verizon.net wrote:

>> Yes, of course there is the existential thing. But nothingness also
>> means the non-existence of the person one once was, which Christians
>> seem to want to avoid and hope they can through the resurrection of the
>> body. . Preterition is the frustration of that hope. The fate of being
>> passed over. It's a neat little bundle of metaphysical thinking but
>> there you are. 
> 
> I sound here like I'm might be saying that Sartrean or Heideggerian
> Nothingness (or No-thingness) is not consequential to the passage. I
> don't want to suggest this. It's just that I don't (or didn't)  think of
> it as something the chaplains would be discussing. I saw only the
> nothingness (non-being) of ceasing to be as a result of death in battle.

It only struck me as odd because, unlike the other four terms, it's not
something that's commonly or typically associated with Christian theology.
Neither the term, which derives directly from Sartre and Heidegger and
atheistic existentialism, nor the concept. And I see it as very conspicuous
in that list because: 1) it's right there in the centre; 2) it's not a
proposition (either way) which is going to give any succour or comfort to
the doomed soldiers; and 3) it doesn't fit with what is otherwise a
chronological sequence, starting with God, who is ostensibly omnipresent and
the First and Final Cause, moving then to the immediate prospect of death
which is facing the soldiers, and then turning their frowns upside down with
the promise of redemption and salvation in the afterlife. Where and how does
"nothingness" fit into that blissful schema? It doesn't; it is anomalous.

I guess I don't really agree that the passage has got nothing at all to do
with religion or faith, or that the *only* point is the frightened men
dying, because the chaplains are right there in theme position and what they
preach juxtaposed with the dead and about-to-die soldiers is the substantive
content of the paragraph. If it is only about frightened men dying then the
chaplains and the preaching are irrelevant and superfluous.

The irony and pathos, as I see it, comes from the disconnect between faith
and reality, the desperation of the men "holding on to what they could"
juxtaposed against the cold and unyielding finality of their deaths: "There
were actually soldiers, dead now .... " It's there as well that that
atheistic "nothingness" seems to have been brought into play in the text.

It's a poignant and moving passage, and it annoyed me to see it being
wielded as propaganda. I am grateful, however, for the discussion.

best