Pynchon as propaganda

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2003-04-06 at 09:23, jbor wrote:
> >>> 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.

I think I'd agree the passage HAS something to do with faith. What I
really had in mind, but didn't formulate well, was that I didn't think
the truth or falsity or a particular religion was important to the
thrust of the paragraph. The important thing, I thought, was the relief,
succor, help in time of need offered the men regardless of whether the
content of their faith was a myth or possibly had some  actual reality.

I know several p-lister read the paragraph as a condemnation of the use
of chaplains as a strategy to induce soldiers to kill the enemy with
greater efficiency and impunity. I can't see this reading. I don't think
the words are there to support it. Also I don't think it's the way war
works. Not in the modern Western world. 


> 
> 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.



Yes, I also am grateful for the discussion and regret that my answers
weren't always completely thought out. There are always things I wish
I'd said in place of the words that so quickly pop out.

P.