Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

on 7/4/03 7:44 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:

>>>> Is it ever called or conceived as "nothingness"? Please do cite.<<<
> 
> Having already quoted Tillich's usage of the term nothingness, Here's one of
> many from Eckhart:

The post with the Tillich quote hadn't yet come through to me from the list.
But, now that it has, I will point out that it's a very rhetorically-loaded
couple of sentences, with his "certainly one can", "astonishing prerational
fact", and the dismissal of "aboriginal" belief systems, all of which seems
to be geared towards discrediting rather than positing a conception of
"nothingness". Further, he appears to be quoting someone else with his use
of the clause "'being is the negation of the primordial night of
nothingness.'" I assume the term as cited by Tillich refers to that void
from which "God" supposedly created the world and, if so, it doesn't fit
into the series death -> redemption -> salvation at all.

In the other snips posted, Calvin also uses the term in a negative sense to
denounce the vanity of any assumption that humans possess free will (and
Wesley follows him in that usage), while Eckhart is somewhat more
idiosyncratic in using it synonymously with "God's infinity" and, I'm
assuming, the beatific vision (which is a definite possibility in the
context, although it still doesn't qualify "nothingness" as a *term* of the
same status or currency in Christian theology as the other four).

The OED listing of the uses of the term by poets and writers as metaphor or
hyperbole aside, where in orthodox Christian "preaching" is this idea of
"nothingness" enlisted to name or describe a state available to humans after
death, which is how it is situated in the passage? More specifically, is
there any reason why these generic "army chaplains" should be talking to the
soldiers about it in the garrison-churches? I can see very concrete reasons
for why they would be talking about the other four things, which are central
tenets of Christian theology.

All that aside, I'm more than happy to acknowledge my error and dissociate
myself from any assertion that it is a term which has *never* been used in
Christian theology, and am appreciative of the effort that's been put into
disputing this very minor point. I am surprised, however, that no-one else
sees the term as out of place in that list of things which the chaplains
talked to the soldiers about in the novel. It certainly did stand out to me,
and still does, and I'd re-emphasise that it is a term and concept which is
most commonly and typically associated with Sartre and Heidegger.
 
And, still, the poignant tone and irony of the passage does reside in that
disconnect between what the chaplains preach to the men, the pathos of the
soldiers "holding on to what they could", and the cold, hard finality of
death, death envisaged from an overtly atheistic standpoint: "There were
actually soldiers, dead now .... "

best

    There were men called "army chaplains." They preached
    inside some of these buildings. There were actually
    soldiers, dead now, who sat or stood, and listened.
    Holding on to what they could. Then they went out, and
    some died before they got back inside a
    garrison-church again. Clergymen, working for the
    army, stood up and talked to the men who were going to
    die about God, death, nothingness, redemption,
    salvation. It really happened. It was quite common.
                                        (GR 693)