VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

Don Corathers gumbo at fuse.net
Sun Aug 10 16:41:02 CDT 2003


The question had to do with the degree of Hector's villainy. Some find the
1984 Hector lovable, and he is in fact a partner in a very funny scene in
the bowling alley. I was just pointing out that the 1971 Hector was capable
of setting up Zoyd in a massively bogus bust to further Brock's scheme to
isolate Frenesi, and that wasn't, you know, very nice.

D.C.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector


> Hector has changed over the years, but it's worth remembering
> > that for all of his endearing and entertaining qualities in 1984, he's
the
> > dude who thirteen years earlier set Zoyd up in a bogus marijuana bust in
> > service of Brock Vond's vision of America. At that point he wasn't very
> > different from the scabs who felled the redwood across Jess Traverse's
legs,
> > back in the day.
>
>
> This doesn't make sense.
>
> Are you saying that Hector finally comes in from the outside, gets his
> GS-14, becoming a bureaucrat, giving up the cold parking lot, door
> kicking, dangerous, death (Death & Fascist Bureaucrat, i.e. Blicero,)
> defying, maverick ways and becomes a more entertaining and endearing ink
> shitting human(e) cop at the same time?
>
> Hector changes. What else changes?
>
> As I said previously, Hector doesn't have a fucking clue. He thinks he
> does. It's funny that he knows Zoyd so well. Problem is, Zoyd is only
> one man. Zoyd is not the '60s any more than Frenesi is the '60's.
> Hector's theory has some street credence. He was in the trenches.
> Problem is, the trenches are like blinders. Now that he's in an office
> job, at last, he's getting a different perspective. Well, he hasn't been
> in the office for that long so he's got a lot to learn. And things
> change. His theory is just "trickle down" Brockisms--Reagan budget cut
> revolution and so on. Of course, even Brock doesn't know what Reagan
> will do. Hector has no idea what's going on in his own world and
> affairs. How will the Budget cuts and the Reagan revolution affect DEA?
> Again, Hector is a Mexican-American.
>
> Anyway, changes.
>
>
> As Weber writes, charismatic authority "cannot remain stable, but
> becomes either traditionalized or rationalized, or a combination of
> both."
>
> Theory of Social and Economic Organization, p. 364.
>
> p. 156.
>
>
> The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A.M.
> Henderson
> and Talcott Parsons; edited with introduction by Talcott Parsons, Oxford
> University Press, 1947
>
> p.156.
>
> Since the concept of the state has only in modern times reached its full
> development [earlier sovereign powers had been empires, dynasties, and
> corporate bodies like churches and guilds often with overlapping
> authority and jurisdiction], it is best to define it in terms
> appropriate to the modern type of state, but at the same time, in terms
> which abstract from the values of the present day, since these are
> particularly subject to change.
>
>
>
>
> The primary formal characteristics of the modern state are as follows:
>
> It possesses an administrative and legal order subject to change by
> legislation, to
> which the organized corporate activity of the administrative staff,
> which is also regulated by legislation, is oriented.
>
>
> This system of order claims bringing authority, not only over the
> members of
> the state, the citizens, most of whom have obtained membership by birth,
> but also to a very large extent, over all action taking place in the
> area of its jurisdiction.
>
>
> It is thus a compulsory association with a territorial basis.
>
>
> Furthermore, to-day, the use of force is regarded as legitimate only so
> far as it is either permitted by the state or prescribed by it. Thus the
> right of a father to discipline his children is recognized-- a survival
> of the former independent authority of the head of a household, which in
> the right to use force has sometimes extended to a power of life and
> death over children and slaves.
>
>
> The claim of the modern state to monopolize the use of force is as
> essential
> to it as its character of compulsory jurisdiction and of continuous
> organization.
>





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