Children of the Revolution?

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 2003-06-23 at 07:53, Otto wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 10:53 AM
> Subject: Re: Children of the Revolution?
> 
> 
> > on 23/6/03 10:56 AM, Richard Fiero at rfiero at pophost.com wrote:
> >
> > > I can see that we're in for a deluge of anti-60's stuff.
> >
> > Including _Vineland_ itself, which is, in large part, a satiric portrait
> of
> > student "revolutionaries" in America in the 60s. And it's part and parcel
> of
> > Pynchon's ongoing critique of Leftist ideologies and political movements,
> > and of "phony antifascists" in general.
> >
> 
> It's a much more mild & friendly criticism than you're trying to make of it,
> Rob. The real criticism (the other part of VL) is his anti-fascism, his
> anti-capitalism, anti-Puritanism, his criticism of structures that even
> could turn the USA into a proto-fascist state (which America was in the late
> sixties, early seventies)

Proto-fascist? Actually there was an immense feeling of freedom and
safety among the middle-class white protesters (notwithstanding a few
Kent State type incidents) as they marched to the very front door of the
Pentagon without fear of getting shot. Try doing that today.

P. 


> 
> In the end the hippies were just humans, like everyone else bound to error
> and failure. It's just an ideology but what makes "socialism" more
> sympathetic than every other ideology is that it has a generally positive
> view of humans, contrary to capitalism that sees humans only as part of the
> production line & as consumers and fascism that sees humans as generally bad
> & egoistic who must be terrorised to serve the state.
> 
> Which is why I like Orwell's "Left of the Left"- notion.
> 
> Love & Peace
> 
> Otto
>