Pynchon Interview Playboy Japan -- Translation Questions

[barbara100 at jps.net]

I was thinking the kind of "rich" that makes Pynchon's stomach turn are IB
Farben and Shell types, or their modern-day equivalents. You know, the super
rich.
It's not so unhealthy a feeling, is it? To be sickened at the realization
that only a few thrive on the backs of many? I certainly wouldn't call him a
hypocrite. His father was a city Superintendent of Highways, and whatever
money he has he earns, don't you think? There's a nuance in the word "rich"
that you two seem to be missing:

[  ]

The higher one goes up the income scale, the greater the rate of capital
accumulation. Economist Paul Krugman notes that not only have the top 20
percent grown more affluent compared with everyone below, the top 5 percent
have grown richer compared with the next 15 percent. The top one percent
have become richer compared with the next 4 percent. And the top 0.25
percent have grown richer than the next 0.75 percent. That top 0.25 owns
more wealth than the other 99 percent combined. It has been estimated that
if children's play blocks represented $1,000 each, over 98 percent of us
would have incomes represented by piles of blocks that went not more than a
few yards off the ground, while the top one percent would stack many times
higher than the Eiffel Tower.

Marx's prediction about the growing gap between rich and poor still haunts
the land -- and the entire planet. The growing concentration of wealth
creates still more poverty. As some few get ever richer, more people fall
deeper into destitution, finding it increasingly difficult to emerge from
it. The same pattern holds throughout much of the world. For years now, as
the wealth of the few has been growing, the number of poor has been
increasing at a faster rate than the earth's population. A rising tide sinks
many boats.

[  ]

The Super Rich Are Out of Sight
by Michael Parenti

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Superrich.html





----- Original Message -----
From: "S.R. Prozak" <prozak at post.com>
To: "Scott Badger" <lupine at ncia.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2003 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Pynchon Interview Playboy Japan -- Translation Questions


>
> > A Man They Call Pynchon:
> > When I see a wealthy person, I instinctively feel
> > anger deep in my stomach.
>
> Nietzsche calls this a form of resentment, and revenge. He's right. No
healthy person would feel this.
>
> > Barbara:
> > > the poor's (justified) hatred of the rich, the easy shift between
points
> > of view--
> > > all sounds like Pynchon to me.
Proz
> The rich should be rounded up and put into gas chambers for not wanting to
lower themselves to the levels of the generalized masses? How revengeful.

"Scott Badger"
>> Given the Pynchon family's income bracket, past and present, you're
saying
> > it sounds like Pynchon because he's generally such an hypocrite? And
> > prejudiced?

Proz
> WASP guilt - it's easier than designing a long-term solution. Find an
enemy instead, even if it's you. A predominant reason why many of us quit
being liberals.