SLSL Succession of the Criminally Insane (was Has anyone seen a Pynchon book lately?)

[prozak at anus.com]

> <<Not to jump in, but it seems to me that Pynchon is
> speaking on the paradigmatic level ...>>
> 
> That's one way of putting it.  Another is that what
> he's saying is idiotic.  If you heard the same
> statement out of the mouth of a bus driver--Every
> President and everyone else that has wielded power
> since the second world war has been criminally
> insane!--would you consider that the fellow was
> speaking in paradigmatic terms?  (Not that all bus
> drivers are idiots ...)

I'd interpret it the same way. Similarly, when we talk about Iraq, I 
assume it is paradigmatic and it is not being suggested that every 
Iraqi owns, wields and proudly displays WMDs.

In my mind, Pynchon is characterizing gov't, much as we characterize 
groups, and there's no value to making a large semantic obstruction 
of it.

-- 
Backup Rider of the Apocalypse
www.anus.com/metal/
DEATH AND BLACK METAL