"fascistic disposition" paragraph

[Otto]

>
> Unless you're arguing he's a "shitty" writer who doesn't know how
> to communicate his meaning effectively, I think this part of your argument
> is a weak one.
>

Nobody is a shitty writer only because some readers don't get the full
meaning of the writing. We're talking about Pynchon and not J.K. Rowling.

> >We're talking about truth, lies & propaganda
>
> In this particular paragraph, only in a very general way.
>

Yes, I think this the difference in our understanding of the passage. In
times of war (and we're at war right now) it's the general rule that the
truth is the first victim.

> > and wartime necessities
> > in general.
>
> Yes. Or, more accurately, what the government has "defined" as
> necessities.
>

Or what any given government might define as such as long as the state of
emergency can be maintained. That's the danger.

> >> All the descriptive terms and
> >> phrases in the paragraph: "prewar thinking", "enemy bombs", "one's
> >> homeland", "altering the landscape", "casualties among friends and
> >> neighbors", "the homeland in danger", "strong leadership and effective
> >> measures", "air raids", "the all clear", "emergency"; do relate
> >> specifically to the Blitz, and to Churchill's Coalition government.
> >>
> >
> > I disagree, how does "altering the landscape" relate specifically to the
> > Blitz?
>
>     "Blitz" ... The name was derived from the German word
>     *blizkreig" (lightning war), which in World War II
>     was applied to the German strategy of making a rapid
>     advance after initial strikes by aircraft, tanks, etc.
>     The tactic was hugely successful in the invasion of
>     Poland, France, and the Low Countries. The Blitz on
>     London, however, never achieved its prime objective of
>     terrifying the population into submission. In fact, it
>     hardened the resolve of those subjected to its nightly
>     harassment to destroy Nazi Germany. "London can take it"
>     and "business as usual" were the slogans commonly
>     chalked up on the walls of buildings damaged in the
>     bombing of the previous night. (Brewer's)
>

Do you really believe you have to tell me the meaning of the word
Blitzkrieg? What has that to do with the expression "altering the landscape"
Pynchon has used? I think I can remember having heard that "business as
usual"-phrase shortly after 9/11 too, when people were urged to go out and
spend money to help the suffering economy.

> > How can we rule out that Ground Zero is meant here?
>
> It's unlikely in my opinion, as I've said, because *all* of the
> descriptive
> phrases in the paragraph do apply to the Blitz but very few apply to 9/11,
> and even to make two or three of them fit you need to do quite a bit of
> stretching and distortion. Some of the descriptive phrases quite obviously
> *don't* refer to 9/11 and its aftermath at all.
>

I still don't see how the images apply to the Blitz specifically and not to
a country attacked in general (thus including 9/11)? Isn't it a public call
for a change in attitude that Pynchon is speaking about ironically?

> >> I agree that some of the generalisations might be applied to post 9/11
> >> America, or to Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, or to Belgrade or
> >> Chechnya
> >> more recently, or to Saddam's Baghdad in March-April 2003 for that
> >> matter,
> >> what I don't agree with is that there is a specific reference to any of
> >> these situations in the paragraph.
> >>
> >> But the USA are at war right now, we're all part of the war against
> >> terror,
> >> paying for it with our tax money. So why apply the generalisations to
> >> wars
> >> that are over and not to the actual one still going on?
>
> It's the context of the piece of writing. Pynchon isn't writing a
> polemical
> piece about current events. He's writing a Foreword to a classic novel
> which
> is meant to be read in 10, 30, 50, or 100 years from now. He knows this.
> The
> paragraph refers specifically to Churchill's coalition govt and the Blitz
> during WW II, and to Orwell's responses to these in his essays and reviews
> of the time. The generalisations which Pynchon makes, about people's
> attitudes to what govts do when one's homeland is under attack, can be
> applied beyond the specific reference to situations from before WW II,
> after
> it, recently, currently, and, potentially, on into the future.
>
> >> Furthermore, I don't know that I entirely agree with Pynchon's argument
> >> here. One of the examples in the list of "effective measures" which
> >> Churchill's govt adopted during the Blitz, and which Pynchon argues
> >> "could
> >> be called fascist", is "restricting travel". It immediately brought to
> >> my
> >> mind the opening scene in _GR_, where people are being forcibly
> >> evacuated
> >> from London, and also the one where Roger and Jessica drive to a house
> >> in
> >> a restricted zone in the south-east of England to spend the night
> >> together.
> >> To my way of thinking, some of the homeland emergency measures enforced
> >> by the British government in 1940 were entirely sensible and justified,
> >> and saved
> >> lives, and I think the same can be said of the way the U.S. govt
> >> tightened
> >> up airport and airline security in the wake of 9/11. I'd describe these
> >> measures as wise and necessary rather than "fascist".
> >>
> >
> > I think this is very important: you say that you disagree with Pynchon
> > here.
> >
> > You cannot take the most harmless of those "measures" to demonstrate
> > that this wasn't exactly what fascism is about.
>
> Please. All I'm saying is that some of the "measures" which Churchill's
> govt
> introduced were wise and necessary. Pynchon does not acknowledge this.
>

Yes, he and Orwell seem to be more critical of some of Churchill's measures
than I am.

> Further, Pynchon misuses the term "fascism", "fascistic" etc. In my
> opinion.
>

I see much irony and sarcasm on his side in the sentence in question. Irony
as a special kind of doublethink. As I wrote on the 30th:

"Not that I had a problem with it, but I stumbled across & smiled about that
"sarcasm" (and it must be read as this) too. I really wonder if  "those who
remain . . ." would like to be called proto-fascists. Especially in the
light of what has happened in the USA concerning "homeland security" versus
"civil liberties" in the last two years."

But I think you did not accept this binary opposition of 'homeland security'
versus 'civil liberties', what to me is the heart of the matter and, what I
believe, is something he wants to point out to. Reading 'homeland security'
in a post-9/11-text by Thomas Pynchon or any other postmodern writer makes
my ears ring. Good to know that I'm not the only one.

> > Pynchon speaks about a number of
> > measures, and he is very precise in this: "censoring news, controlling
> > wages
> > and prices, restricting travel, subordinating civil liberties to
> > self-defined wartime necessity." Given what I know about the "Battle of
> > Britain" from history books and movies, plus from oral history as a
> > descendent of the aggressor I really do believe that all this together
> > has been absolutely inevitable for Britain in 1940 to survive
>
> Well it seems as though you're disagreeing with Pynchon on this point. He
> presents his version of Orwell's attitude towards the measures introduced
> by
> Churchill's govt during WW II, and he seems to be tacitly agreeing with
> it,
> though there's quite a bit of hedging, and a seeming unwillingness on his
> part to say much of anything straight out.
>

Yes, it seems so because I take a different view to history, to
differentiate between the past and the present. But I absolutely agree to
the term "self-defined wartime necessities" which is the real danger because
it can be used to justify nearly everything and to silence every opposition
or different meaning in times of war.

> As to the rest, I'm a bit suspicious of your uncritical endorsement of
> those, often self-defined, "critical Brainy Smurfs" - what Pynchon wants
> to define as "the 'dissident Left'". There's a whole lot of zealots and
> malcontents amongst that particularly lobby, and while they're generally
> strong on criticism and polemical rants they're pretty light on when it
> comes to constructive and practical alternatives.

The secret word is of course 'self-defined' -- I agree that one has to look
carefully. So I prefer the "Guardian" to "Counterpunch." Those zealots &
left sectarians are making the discussion difficult. But I believe there's
just as much idiocy among the right-winged thinkers dreaming of a new
unipolar world order (á la Wolfowitz) too. What I'm calling for is to stay
critical, never to forget Proverb No. 3: "If they can get you asking the
wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers." Which is why I
like Pynchon in his non-fiction texts who remains critical without taking
sides, which is the real definition of 'dissident Left'.

> In real terms, this
> "left of the Left" category which Pynchon invents, in the period from
> WW II to now, has generated some of the most destructive and
> heinously cruel totalitarian regimes the world has ever seen, and
> some of the most despicable tyrants: Stalin, Pol Pot, the Gang of Four,
> the Ceausescus, Saddam, Mugabe, Kim Il-Jong ... The list is a long one.
>

None of these I would call really "left" or "socialists" -- the usage of the
term socialist in official statements is very wide. It appears even in the
name the German fascists had given to their party NSDAP: National Socialist
German Workers Party -- nothing could be more wrong than 'socialist' and
'workers'. If those tyrants you mention were "Left" they were only
"official" and not at all "dissident Left" which is the term Pynchon applies
to Orwell on p. 9:

"Orwell thought of himself as a member of the "dissident Left," as
distinguished from the "official Left," meaning basically the British Labour
Party, most of which he had come, well before the Second World War, to
regard as potentially, if not already, fascist." (ix)

To my knowledge there hasn't been a democratic socialist state anywhere on
this planet yet. Allende has been stopped very early.

And, on the other side the 'liberal democracy' USA has fought a murderous &
criminal war in Vietnam, is guilty of financing & promoting terrorism &
totalitarianism in Latin America in various cases, all done in order to
prevent foreign countries from becoming socialist. Does this speak against
liberal democracy in general? I don't think so.

> Further, isn't this whole Left (= "good") versus Right (= "evil") one of
> those constructed binaries which you're always banging on about? It's so
> often used (not by you, please note) by these self-defined "dissidents" as
> a rhetorical tactic to discredit and dismiss opposing points of view
without
> engaging with them, and likewise to label and marginalise the opponents of
> their, similarly self-defined, "party line", that it seems little
different
> from the sort of propaganda and attempted coercion which they're always
> accusing elected governments and the media of indulging in. Opportunities
> to consider and debate every case, every issue, on its independent merits,
> and
> for elected officials to offer a "conscience vote" when one is warranted,
> are far more likely to occur in a liberal democracy and within an elected
> parliament than under any other political system.
>

I agree to the last of course, and I think that "Left is right and Right is
wrong, better decide which side you're on" is as wrong as "right or wrong,
my country" and both sayings are absolutely the doublespeak Orwell was
critical about, on one hand that pseudo-"socialism" that invents excuses for
Stalinist gulags or alike if it serves the official party line, on the other
hand that proto-fascism that declares everything as allowed as long as it
serves the national interest. But I wonder if we liberal democrats aren't
guilty of the same doublespeak too in accepting that there are good (ours)
and bad (those of the tyrants of the world) weapons of mass destruction. And
I'm feeling uneasy about Guantanamo, the partly suspension of the legal
system as a wartime necessity.

What Churchill's measures mean, what 'homeland security' means to me (and I
believe to Pynchon too) is that in order to fight the totalitarian enemy
effectively you have to become a little bit like that enemy, take some of
his 'qualities' and there's always the danger that something remains when
the raids are over. And with modern technical possibilities there's the
danger that some of the meaning of the word 'freedom' might be gone forever.

Otto

> best
>
> > (and I've said
> > this in a previous post already) but I have my doubts that it's
> > justified today.
> >
> > This "self-defined" is still worrying me 'cause it gives me the
> > impression
> > that Pynchon is critical about this. There can be no doubt about that in
> > the
> > USA today civil liberties are subordinated to self-defined necessities
> > in
> > the war on terror. This doesn't mean in my opinion that Pynchon says
> > that
> > the Bush-gov. is fascist but as I understand it it's a clear warning
> > that
> > these things are exactly some of the positive values liberal democracies
> > are
> > standing for, that are defended in justified wars against
> > totalitarianism.
> > We have a saying I cannot translate: Wehret den Anfängen. And who else,
> > if
> > not critical Brainy Smurfs in a liberal democracy should be the ones to
> > raise their voices.
> >
> > I guess I have more understanding for Churchill's measures than for
> > those of
> > the current US-government. Compared to Saddam's Kasper-army the
> > Wehrmacht has been a real threat to Europe. The Republican Guardes
> > weren't
> > like the SS as asserted.
> >
> > Churchill never had supported Hitler but the West has supported people
> > like
> > Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for a long time.
> >
> > Otto
> >
>