"not arresting growers, but supervising quality control"

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Nightingale" <isread at btopenworld.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2003 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: "not arresting growers, but supervising quality control"
>
> Otto wrote:
> >
> > But it's a strange way opening the Foreword, isn't it? Pointing to the
> > fact
> > that what his father did in his job isn't exactly what we today would
> > expect
> > from an agent of the Opium Department. In those days the OD still
> > deserved
> > its name, no newspeak.
> >
>
> Yes, it's not 'just' biographical detail, 'mere' background information.
> Any time we read anything we have to ask ourselves (perhaps but not
> necessarily consciously) what the text means, what it means to us. Two
> possible responses to dwell on here. We might think, well, we're a bit
> more advanced (or civilised/enlightened?) nowadays, drugs are a bad
> thing, thankfully governments nowadays do arrest growers etc.
> The war on
> drugs is a good thing. This response locates the reader 'here' looking
> back with the benefit of hindsight.

I don't think that I can agree to that arresting the poor growers in
Third-World countries who make the smallest profit in the whole deal is a
good thing while the big dealers mostly go free. I think the growers are the
last to critisise. As long as there's a demand there will be an offer.

> Another response is to ponder the
> possibility that, because government-sponsored opium production then, in
> 1903, was a bad thing, well, maybe government actions now, in 2003, are
> (sometimes) questionable. Maybe someone looking back from 2103 will be
> critical of (aspects of) 2003's thinking. This second response
> historicises thinking, and in my view it's what P does throughout this
> essay.
>

I think this is the better conclusion.

Otto