1984 Foreword "fascistic disposition"

[jbor]

on 30/4/03 10:48 PM, Malignd at malignd at yahoo.com wrote:

> This I think is far more ambiguous.  First, the word
> "unseemliness" is clearly Pynchon's in my reading, not
> the position of a fascistic disposition not his own,
> would you agree?  You think he's calling the preceding
> argument unseemly,

No, I think what Pynchon is saying is that those of "fascistic disposition",
or those who "are all too ready to justify" whatever the govt does (like the
proles and the Party faithful in _1984_) perceive arguments like Orwell's,
critiques of their own govts etc, as "unseemly" in times of war and duress.
It's Pynchon's choice of word, but he's using it sarcastically to imply that
people who take that attitude are a bit precious and condescending.

I have to say that I agree completely with Otto's reading of the section,
and the case he makes for imbedded allusions to 9/11 and the consequent
assault on civil liberties by the American govt is sound imo.

best

> Now, those of fascistic disposition - or merely
> those among us who remain all too ready to justify any
> government action, whether right or wrong - will
> immediately point out that this is prewar thinking,
> and that the moment enemy bombs begin to fall on one's
> homeland, altering the landscape and producing
> casualties among friends and neighbors, all this sort
> of thing, really, becomes irrelevant, if not indeed
> subversive. With the homeland in danger, strong
> leadership and effective measures become of the
> essence, and if you want to call that fascism, very
> well, call it whatever you please, no one is likely to
> be listening, unless it's for the air raids to be over
> and the all clear to sound.  But the unseemliness of
> an argument - let alone a prophecy - in the heat of some
> later emergency does not necessarily make it wrong.
> One could certainly argue that Churchill's war cabinet
> had behaved no differently than a fascist regime,
> censoring news, controlling wages and prices,
> restricting travel, subordinating civil liberties to
> self-defined wartime necessity. (ix-x)