Re: _1984_ Foreword: Pynchon & the Internet

[MalignD at aol.com]

> <<and I'm assuming that since Pynchon appears to have been watching the 
> development of computer and communications technologies snce 1984, he knows 
> what's happening with them. >>
> 
He likely knows no more than the average educated person.   Perhaps less, 
given his avowed distrust of technology.   
> 
> <<I expect more intense use of the Internet for homeland security purposes 
> is underway in the US now, too.>>
> 
Perhaps.   Perhaps not.   No evidence either way.

<<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.>>

It's not on the money; it's speculation.   Whether or not it's accurate will 
be answered only in time, your breathless hopes notwithstanding.


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