_1984_ Foreword: Pynchon & the Internet

[Michael Joseph]

Michael, thanks for the clarification. Are you inferring "Pynchon appears
to have been watching the development of computer and communications
technologies since 1984, [and] he knows what's happening with
them" from "Pynchon's brief comments about 'computer technology circa
2003' and 'the Internet, a development that promises social control on a
scale those quaint old twentieth-century tyrants with their goofy
mustaches could only dream about' (p. xvi)?" I'm not implying that this is
a radical inferrence, but I suspect you see a vital marxist dynamic in
Pynchon's writing and I'd like to understand this better.

> The same multinational corporations that control the
> traditional publishing business are rapidly reaching
> critical mass on the Internet and are in the process
> of transforming it into something much more like cable
> TV than the Internet we have enjoyed in the past.
> They can now use Web sites to extract extraordinary
> amounts of detailed personal and financial information
> from individuals -- simply by offering free goodies at
> a Web site in exchange for providing this information
> by registering and filling out survey forms. Pardon
> the shameless self-plug, but I've co-written the only
> recent book that shows organizations how to do this.
> (_Firebrands!  Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet
> Age_ by Michael Moon and Doug Millison,
> <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072124490/qid=1053214457/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-2605801-1116938>)

Thanks for pointing this out to me.
>
> Pynchon doesn't go into this sort of detail in the
> _1984_ Foreword, but his observation "the Internet, a
> development that promises social control on a scale
> those quaint old twentieth-century tyrants with their
> goofy mustaches could only dream about" is on the
> money as far as it goes.
>

>
> --- Michael Joseph <mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Lessig's blog however . . .
> >  Midway through,
> > Andrew Orlowski writes,
> > The Internet is dying, he writes. Actually, thats
> > not quite what I wrote,
> > the quotes not withstanding. What I wrote was: The
> > Internet that is to be
> > the savior is a dying breed. That is, the end-to-end
> > Internet, where the
> > edge holds the intelligence, is a dying breed.
> > Something called the
> > Internet will be with us forever, so in that sense,
> > the Internet will
> > never die. But the end-to-end internet (the only
> > internet that really
> > matters to any important issue) is a more fragile
> > beast."
>
> >
> > allusion to TP seems misplaced. Did Pynchon's
> > "social control" passage
> > allude to free market economy issues?
> >
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> =====
> <http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>
>
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