Foreword "Goofy Mustaches"

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2003-04-27 at 12:44, davemarc wrote:
> Pynchon:
> 
> most notably the Internet, a development that promises social control on a
> scale those quaint old twentieth-century tyrants with their goofy mustaches
> could only dream about."
> 
> MalignD
> > > >
> > > > So Pynchon sees the Internet not as the life-enhancing
> > > > technology most of us find it to be, but rather as a
> > > > method for government control.
> > > >
> > > > The great man is apparently aging into a paranoid
> > > > crank.
> > > >
> > > Paul Mackin:
> > >
> > > "I was wondering when someone would notice that."
> > >
> > > davemarc:
> > >
> > > I can't believe Paul and Malignd are unable to see how the Internet
> could be
> > > used for social control by tyrants of the ilk of Hitler, Stalin, and
> even
> > > Saddam Hussein.  It's easy:  Just take note of what those dictators did
> with
> > > the technologies that preceded the Internet, and imagine what they could
> > > have done with the Internet.  For an added bonus, look at 1984 for
> analogous
> > > technology and see how Orwell anticipated its use for social control.
> >
> > Yes, David, but look at the calendar. It's 2003, nineteen  years later,
> and
> > none of Orwell's nightmare has happened.
> >
> > "1984" was what is known as a self-negating prophesy. It projects into
> > the future what COULD  happen provided nothing occurs or nobody steps in
> > to act as countervailing forces. Tbe fact of the matter is, things
> > happen on BOTH sides of the equation.
> >
> > OK,.let's be Pynchonean for a second and divide the world into "them"
> > and "us."  But why does the next step have to be that "them" get smarter
> > and smarter and "us" get dumber and dumber. Maybe the reverse might
> > happen once in a while.
> >
> > There's no question the Internet COULD be a force for repression, and
> > they will not doubt try to use it for that purpose, but the Internet
> > will also, as far as anyone can see, be a great disperser of knowledge.
> > You can find out important useful information--survival information--in
> > a few seconds now that would have been, for all practical purposes,
> > inaccessible a few years ago.
> >
> I still don't see how Pynchon's assertion that the Internet is "a
> development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old
> twentieth-century tyrants with their goofy mustaches could only dream about"
> justifies the remark that that "[t]he great man is apparently aging into a
> paranoid crank."

It was an exaggeration of course, David. We love the guy as much as
anyone. Nevertheless p's assertion is overly paranoid and presented in a
silly non-serious manner. It's not helpful to grown up thinking about
anything. This gets at what's wrong with Pynchon's nonfiction writing.
He forgets readers may at any moment take him seriously.


> 
> Contrary to what has been suggested on this thread, Pynchon does not write
> that the Internet is entirely evil, or exclusively a tool of repression.  He
> simply states that it has the potential to be used for social control on a
> scale only imagined by the likes of Hitler and Stalin.  (That Paul concurs
> with this position makes his remark about Pynchon's mental state really
> puzzling to me.) 

All right as I've confessed Pynchon's mental state was not really in
question. (Sure he still had a few more books in him.) But as you quote
him (that's what I'm going by) he "promises" social control and he is
plainly using social control in a pejorative manner. This cannot be
taken as a serious position. Pynchon didn't mean it to be so taken. He
just can't help hamming it up. 

>  Considering how those dictators used technology--including
> forerunners of the Internet--as a means of mass oppression, Pynchon's
> position makes plenty of sense.
> 
> The Internet, as I understand it, wasn't merely conceived as a place where
> we can conduct flame wars--it was conceived by the US government as a way to
> maintain control even after a nuclear catastrophe.  In other words, it was
> created as a tool for social control. 

Isn't this indulging in word tyranny? The very thing 1984 warns us
about. The automobile can be used to go to the market and get food It
can also be used to run over your next-door neighbor.



>  Today it is probably a more powerful
> influence around the globe than anyone had anticipated at that time.
> Tomorrow it will probably be more influential.  It's easy for a rational
> individual to imagine a dictator using that kind of technology as a force of
> suppression or at least control.  That's all that Pynchon posits in the
> paragraph under examination.

It's easy to imagine just about anything both good and bad. Life would
be impossible without countervailing forces working together. 

> 
> Paul writes, "It's 2003, nineteen years later, and none of Orwell's
> nightmare has happened."  I disagree.  Setting aside the fact that Orwell's
> novel is not a calendar (and that even within the novel, Winston is not even
> sure that the year is really 1984), one can find many correlations between
> practices in Oceania and those that exist in the post-Orwell world--not just
> in the US and the UK, but all around the globe.

Around the globe, no doubt, but the U.S. today bears no resemblance to
Oceana.  Even under the accursed Bush. And the U.S. is where the
Internet and Technology flourish in the extreme.

Another relevant point is that regimes that resemble Oceana's are
invariably dysfunctional or soon become so. It's not something "they"
are very anxious to achieve. There won't be any money produced to stash
away in Swiss banks.

Anyway, that's the way it looks to me.

P.;

I keep in mind that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so I'm
glad we're keeping vigilant.
. 


> 
> That said, I suggest that we try to limit our discussion of the 1984
> foreword until sometime after the publication date, when more participants
> have had a chance to read and think about the entire introduction as well as
> the novel.  Those who haven't read 1984 in a while might be surprised by
> their experience reading it today, especially with Pynchonian themes in
> mind.

Suggestion are fine, but when have anyone's suggestions ever been
followed HERE? It wouldn't be the p-list.