GR 'Streets' (death and/or afterlife)

[Terrance]

Scott Badger wrote:
> 
> I understand Chardin's theory of evolution to be that of a progression from
> inanimate matter at one end to a state of pure spirituality at the finish
> line; the initial spark resulting from a "convergence of matter", unto some
> critical mass, that Paul mentions above. A process of ceaseless change (no
> return), but directed towards a particular end-state (a lot like the
> "popular" view of evolution, beginning with the primordial ooze, and
> contemporary Man a stepping stone to some giant-headed, telepathic-talking
> superhuman). Chardin's idea of evolution assumes a tendency towards greater
> complexity - lower to higher forms - that results, I think, from an
> "attractive" force (Love) between disparate elements. Lower, or less
> complex, elements are gathered by this force through an evolutionary process
> until a critical mass is reached, and a new higher/more complex form is
> created. The first of these points of critical mass being the emergence of
> Life.
> 
> Father R warns of another point of critical mass, one of political
> "connectedness", which leads to a totality of control - and end-state that
> offers "no return". But for Rapier, no return is a *cessation* of the change
> possible through Their death. And it seems the padre understands, in these
> times, how difficult it can be to have faith that They *can* die, that there
> *can be* a "Return". Here I read Return as, not to the Garden, but to a
> directionless (scatter-brained) process of change. Evolution without the
> Meaning that Chardin invests it with.
> 
> I'm reminded of the pea-pod in MD, "something never seen before, and never
> to be seen again"(paraphrased).



Rapier is a Devil's Advocate, a carping or adverse critic, but he is at
the service of the "System."

The chapter opens with a bogus citation (a Fragment from a "heretical"
text) and Pirate ends up at a Convention where a delegate for the
Erdscweinhohle is debating the Heresy Question with an advertising
executive. Of course, Chardin's texts were considered heretical too. 

What about that delegate? 
Why is he arguing with an advertising executive? 

This is where Pynchon places the load on the reader. 

The Eliot, Dante, Thomas, Conrad....is all part of the cannon, but we
have to go back to page 315, unless we remember that the underground
communities are Herero factions and we need to know a bit about how the
Herero split up and what they were like prior to "falling Apart. 

  "Life itself-Life is Irreversible." --de Chardin

  and

  "This is not a return to primitive and undifferentiated
  cultural forms..." -de Chardin

  Probably arguing right out of Aristotle and perhaps
  analytical psychology, de Chardin sez, 

  "In the passage of time a state of collective consciousness
  has been progressively evolved which is inherited by each
  succeeding generation of conscious individuals, and to which
  each generation adds something." 

  This is part of his idea that social heredity is  an
  evolving progress and Mankind cannot go back or Return to
  his primitive and undifferentiated cultural form since he is
  progressing, by divine purpose, towards a wholeness of human
  collective consciousness united with Christ. 


Ah, well Slothrop seems to be returning to his roots and at the same
time learning about African roots and all sorts of other stuff. 

  "We cannot recapture the animal security of instinct."
  

That sounds like something Rilke says. 

  "When it has passed beyond what we called the beginning of
  its 'critical point of socialization' the mass of Mankind,
  let this be my conclusion, will penetrate for the first time
  into the environment which is biologically requisite for the
  wholeness of its task." 
   
  The "critical mass", and "the word has ceased to have
  meaning" (GR.539) are de Chardin's ideas and Rapier/de
  Chardin makes an eloquent and moving argument, but this narrator here
doesn't like the "loss of freedom." The narrator puns into jokes, "get
it, critical mass, 1945,
  criticizing  de Chardin's "critical mass", "progress", and
  "socialization". The terrible (terrible is again given a
  duel meaning here) possibility is de Chardin's idea that we
  are at a critical time and it is also the bomb. Rapier goes
  on to advocate the System and all the most terrible lies and
  dirty trick the System plays on critical
  masses.

We'll have to take a much closer look, but this Jesuit seems to be quite
a contrast to the army-chaplains. No? 

Tanks a Parking Lot, Paul and Scott and Robert, 

T