GR 'Streets' (death and/or afterlife)

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2003-04-21 at 14:00, Scott Badger wrote:
> Paul:
> > For Rapier return is a desired goal, the going back to a more
> > paradisiacal state, though an elusive one, which may never be achieved.
> 
> In Pynchon's books, I don't recall any suggestion that a true return, to the
> Garden, is possible. 

No return to the Garden of Eden, but only going back to a RELATIVELY
better time in history, is the way I would read it. Before wars. Before
the despoiling of Mother Earth. Before loss of freedom.

All this is predicated on the belief that there ever WAS a more perfect
time. The environment might have been cleaner once, but is there any
reason to think times were ever better overall. Fewer wars, more
freedom. Less suffering? I'm very doubtful.

I wonder, even if Return were possible, whether
> Paradise offers any more "freedom" than Rapier's critical mass of
> connectedness/control.

If we were to define freedom as the ability to improve well being and
happiness, then a Paradise would by definition have no use for freedom. 

> 
> Maybe freedom (through the possibility of change)lies in the tension between
> the Force and the Counterforce, just as Terrance suggested that faith lies
> between religious certitude and doubt.

I'm not sure.

P.