1984 Foreword "fascistic disposition"

[jbor]

on 1/5/03 5:53 PM, Scott Badger wrote:

> Which is my take as well, though, admittedly, after several readings. Of
> course, I wouldn't admit, even here...especially here..., how many times
> I've dived into GR, and how much of that text I'm still trying to get my
> head around.
> 
> The last two sentences are tricky though. From what comes before, the
> "unseemly" arguments would appear to be those against "fascistic" actions,
> even during war-time. And the Churchill bit could be read, not as support
> for the suspension of some civil-liberties during war-time, but, still, as a
> challenge to those that hold civil liberties above all else i.e. would the
> greater risk of military defeat of Britain, and "nazi-rule all over
> Europe"(Otto), *really* have been worth the preservation of those freedoms
> restricted by the Churchill cabinet. But, the way the last sentence begins,
> "One could certainly argue[...]", does keep tripping me up. It suggests,
> instead, that a supportive statement will follow. For example, a
> contemporary fascistic state that can be traced back to such war-time
> "expediencies".

I agree and originally noted that there's a lot of hedging, particularly in
that last sentence, but throughout the rest of the paragraph as well. Eg.
Pynchon says the "unseemliness" of an argument against government policy
during wartime "does not necessarily make it [the argument] wrong" - leaving
completely open the corresponding option that it doesn't necessarily make it
right either. It's as if he doesn't quite want to own up to what he's
actually saying, as if he doesn't have the courage of his convictions or
something. It's not ambiguous, it's just purposely inconclusive. Further,
stating that "one could certainly argue that Churchill's war cabinet had
behaved no differently than a fascist regime" is one thing - I don't really
think it can be argued at all but my disagreement is with Pynchon¹s
seemingly indiscriminate use of the "fascist" label, as I've said - but when
later on he plops the post-war British Labour government in with the Third
Reich and Stalin that's when the historical and political analysis goes
completely haywire:

>> Orwell in 1948 understood that despite the Axis
>> defeat, the will to fascism had not gone away, that
>> far from having had its day it had perhaps not yet
>> even come into its own - the corruption of spirit, the
>> irresistible human addiction to power, were already
>> long in place, all well-known aspects of the third
>> Reich and Stalin's USSR, even the British Labour
>> party - like first drafts of a terrible future. (xv-xvi)

The comparison - and it's Pynchon's, not Orwell's - is absurd. And the word
he's looking for here, the word Orwell uses in the novel, is "totalitarian",
not "fascist". And even so, Attlee's post-war government was neither
totalitarian nor fascist, and not in the slightest is he, or any British or
American leader since the war, in the same category as Hitler or Stalin.

But, as often in his fiction also, the bulk of Pynchon's political swipes in
the Foreword seem directed at the political Left which, as always, is
proving a little tough for some here to acknowledge and accept.

best  

> If, on the other hand,  the Churchill cabinet is offered as an example of
> the restriction of civil-liberties as *acceptable* in certain situations,
> then wouldn't it follow that the "unseemly" arguments (that are not
> necessarily wrong) are those that support such restrictions? And then, how
> would "prophecy" (_1984_, right?) fit in?
> 
> Whack, whack, whack.
> 
> Scott Badger
> 
>