"fascistic disposition" paragraph

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> There's nothing in the paragraph, or the one before it or the ones after,
> which indicates that he's alluding to the USA in particular. If anything,
> the specific context is Britain in the late '30s and '40s, as it is for much
> of the Foreword. 

Agreed. 


There are several specific references to the USA throughout
> the Foreword, and there's no question about those and what they do say, but
> there are a greater number of specific references to Britain and British
> history. I just don't get this great urgency to make *everything* about the
> US, as though no-one else matters, no-one else suffers, no-one else has ever
> been bombed or lost family and friends in war. It's so self-centred. Perhaps
> it's because I'm not an American, but this attitude seems to me to be
> symptomatic of the idea of American exceptionalism - the way many Americans
> define themselves as being above everyone else on the planet - which gets on
> the rest of the world's goat a lot of the time. Maybe it is Pynchon's
> attitude too. Maybe he did mean to allude specifically to 9/11 in the
> paragraph. I'm inclined to think he didn't.

I don't know for sure what his attitude is, but  I doubt that he
endorses any sort of "American exceptionalism" as you describe that
phrase here. 
Not everything in the Foreword is about the  US. That's pretty obvious. 
But P is an American and while he writes about and for the world, his
focus is America. American exceptionalism, as I understand it, and as I
have described it here, is what Pynchon writes about most. 

> 
> But by all means focus on the US. Think of 9/11. Think of Vietnam. Or think
> of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example. That was also a time of "strong
> leadership and effective measures", when warnings of the "homeland in
> danger" were to the fore. Think of the measures introduced by the government
> then. Think of the internment of Japanese and German people in the US during
> WW II. The comments Pynchon makes here have wider applicability in my
> reading of them.

Yes, mine too. Think of Iraq if you like. I think of of Colombia,
Brazil. 


> 
> As I've said, I agree that a reader might apply what Pynchon's saying in the
> paragraph to the situation in the US after Sept. 11, and I acknowledge that
> some readers perceive an allusion to Sept. 11 in the paragraph itself. All
> things considered, however, I disagree with their interpretation, as do
> others here. The cases have been made, and no consensus has been reached,
> and that's about as far as the discussion can go. It is, after all, an
> argument about the writer's intention. In terms of the discussion here, it's
> about respect.
> 
> best

So right. It's difficult to earn respect here, but you've earned mine.
ANd , Offlist, you're an absolute gentleman, scholar and  humanitarian.