Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

on 11/4/03 8:21 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:

>> You said at one point that the text "remains silent" (which I agree with,
>> by
>> the way) on what happened to the soldiers after death,
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> is agnostic in other words,
> 
> No. It is silent.

OK. The text doesn't express an opinion either way about what happened to
the soldiers after they were killed. But it does adopt a vantage point after
their deaths (viz., the first statement that the soldiers are "dead now").

The chaplains do express an opinion about what happens after death
(redemption and salvation), and it's reasonable to infer that this is what
they were talking to the soldiers about.

There is a difference here. I think it's an important difference within this
passage. Others don't, and that's OK too. But there is a difference.

> It mentions that some of the soldiers which listened to
> the chaplains are dead now. The term agnostic has implications that the text
> does not address. For conservative Christians, afterlife is where dead
> people go, so they would speak of the soldiers being dead now just as
> atheists would. The paths diverge when you ask them where the dead people
> are. 

I understand what you're saying, but I think that there is enough in the
contrast between "dead now" and "death ... redemption, salvation" - within
the context of the passage - to make the point I've been making.

> E.g., If I had asked my father where his dead mother is, he would say
> that she is in heaven. The text is silent, not agnostic, nor atheist, nor
> theist. 

The text is silent. The chaplains are not. There's a difference.

> It is describing what happened.

Yes.

>Soldiers who listened, died.

Yes.

> No
> surprise to the chaplains there.

This is not indicated in the text, but it's not something I'm contesting.

>> but you flatly refuse to acknowledge that this is any different from
>> what the chaplains, who are not silent on this issue at all, are
>> preaching.
> 
> To say someone who was listening to a sermon has since died, is not the same
> thing as saying they died and we don't know what happened to them
> afterwards. The text does not indicate that what happened to them after
> death is one way or the other. Were we somehow able to check on those
> fictional soldiers and determine that they had died and gone to heaven, the
> way the passage is written would remain valid.

I do understand your argument. But the point remains that the chaplains do
preach with certainty about what happens after death, and that this is
*different* to what the text narrates.

>> Agnosticism, which countenances the non-existence of God, redemption,
>> salvation &c (i.e. it countenances
>> *atheism*) as a possibility, is *not the same thing* as Christian belief,
> 
> This view is not present in the text. The soldiers could be in heaven, and
> the text still reads just fine.

As I said earlier, if this is the case then the passage loses much of its
force and meaning and the narrator's tone of incredulity is out of place. In
my opinion. The passage also reads just fine if the soldiers are just dead.
It is even more poignant read that way, in my view. But it is definitely
possible to read it in this way on the strength of what's there in the text.
It's not an erroneous reading, or insupportable, as you've claimed.
 
>> Ergo, the way the text tells it is quite at odds with the chaplains on
>> the subject of what happened/will
>> happen to the soldiers, and this is the discrimination upon which the tone
>> and the semantic content of the passage hinges.
> 
> I seriously doubt that any army-chaplain has ever suggested that any soldier
> is not going to die.

This isn't my argument.

> There is no internal contradiction between the text and
> the chaplains. 

But there is a difference. I called it a "disconnect", not an internal
contradiction. I don't accept that the narrator's point of view and the
chaplains' point of view are in alignment here. I thought this non-alignment
was significant, and worth commenting on.

> The fact that the text does not address afterlife when
> mentioning that soldiers have died does not set up a contrast between
> atheism/agnosticism and faith, it emphasizes the reality of death which is
> the context of the chaplain's work, and which chaplains are as certain about
> as any atheist or agnostic.
 
Christianity - which is the ontological framework from within which the
chaplains are preaching - is also certain about redemption and salvation and
the existence of God. The narrator and the text, however, are not. There is
a difference. Thanks for the discussion.

best