Pynchon as propaganda

[Terrance]

s~Z wrote:
> 
> >>>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),<<<
> 
> Calvin and Wesley use nothingness in the way it is most commonly used in
> Christian theology, as a description of the individual's nothingness in
> comparison to God. The free will interpretation works for Calvin, but Wesley
> would cringe at such an accusation, being an Arminian. Both Calvin and
> Arminius did agree that one of the central tenets of Biblical teachings was
> the individual's nothingness vis a vis God, though. This usage fits well in
> the army-chaplains' list.

Vanity & Nothingness 

But, Zurich is
  also the city of "Reformation country, Zwingli's town." A
  place of "grave markers" a place "to find vanity again." The
  weary order of the Swiss burghers betokens the bloodlessness
  and the worship of Nothingness which are "dusty Dracularity,
  the West's ancient curse." The West, the cities of the West
  are allied with the "dead white," built in spite of Nature,
  consecrated to Man who is consecrated to Nothing save
  himself. Squalidozzi the Argentine anarchist speaks not only
  of his country it seems, but of civilization:

  "In the days of the gauchos, my country was a blank piece of
  paper. The pampas stretched as far as men could imagine,
  inexhaustible, fenceless. Wherever the gaucho could ride,
  that place belonged to him....We cannot abide that openness:
  it is terror to us..."

  To Freedom in the zone....

  "Que es mi barco mi tesoro,
  Que es mi Dios la libertad,
  Mi ley la fuerza y el viento,
  Mi unica patria la mar."

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9910&msg=42087&keywords=vanity%20lycidas

GR.267  ...it was vanity, vanity as his Puritan
  forerunners had known it, bone and heart alert to
  Nothing..." 

  In common parlance "vanity" and "vain" apply to
  conceited persons with exaggerated self-opinions.
  While the biblical usage includes this nuance, it
  describes the world as having as no ultimate meaning,
  a concept shared with some philosophies. The meanings
  of emptiness and lacking in reality are already
  present
  in the Latin vanitas, from which the English word
  "vanity" is derived. This approaches

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0303&msg=76619&keywords=vanity%20puritan%20

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