Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 2003-05-29 at 09:04, Terrance wrote:
> Orwell's  use of the F-word (Fascist, often hyphenated) can be traced to
> historical events and ideas. So I agree with Paul N. if we're talking
> about how Orwell used the F-word. I agree with Paul M's reply too, that
> is, that fascism as a word is like any other word. 
> 
> As someone pointed out word scholars or etymologists (I don't think Paul
> M.'s explanation much different--some political scientist...) have
> provided  a historically based meaning. 


The "some political scientist" wasn't meant to mean anyone in particular
--just that the name was invented at some point to describe a specific
thing happening at a specific time in a specific place. That Il Duce
himself coined the word doesn't surprise me. Thanks Eulenspiegel. 

> 
> But the F-word can mean whatever it is we decide it means. If Paul and
> Paul define their terms and "fascism" is defined as,  


Actually my druthers would be to retire the term from general usage.
It's been so degraded.

> 
> "the lint that accumulates in the navel" 
> 
> they needn't have a falling off to a hard/soft landing and call for all
> the kings men and all the king's horses. 
> 
> 
>  "Tyrants Destroyed" Nabokov's Excellent short story for the political
> heads on this list.  
> 
> 
> Orwell talks about fascism in Ireland, in India, in France, in Spain, in
> schools, in poetry...etc...&Co. Check out his essays. 


Orwell lived a long time ago. 
> 
> Anyway, Fascism is all over American Literature and the Postmodern
> authors toss the F-word about like Orwell. Question is, Why do they? 

It's wonderfully expressive.

Student radicals call their teachers fascists.

Children call their parents fascists.

In the TV version (haven't read the book) of White Teeth the stay at
home twin who joins the Islamic radicals calls his better educated 
brother's crackpot science affiliation fascist.



> 
> 
> It has something to do with the Korean Conflict. But,  Otto, I agree
> it's larger than that. For the younger members of the generation (I do
> realize it's not quite a generation I'm talking about), Vietnam & JFK
> are the blinders that prevent them from seeing that what they are
> looking at is not fascism at all, but something else. Fascism's
> prominence in American postmodern literature is not so much a product of
> historical events as it is in Orwell's writings or in the so-called
> "fascist poets." 
> 
> It's a  product of the development of the American Intellectual
> Imagination and specifically, how the generation adapted liberalism to
> the korean conflict, to racial segregation, to corporatization, to
> vietnam, and to the nationalism or the creation of political identities
> by the marginalized (Catholics, Blacks, Woman...) ....
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with Paul N., that's it's a good idea to look at how P
> structures his essay and  his novels and when we do we discover agons
> and conflicts and oppositions. 
> 
> In Pynchon's last novel,  Nationalism and the creation of political
> identities  by the marginalized ( for example, colonists like the Scots
> and Anglo-Irish) and resistance to it by power syndicates. 
> 
> Long before current debates over the marginalized and multiculturalism
> and the like, American civic life involved inescapable tensions between
> the nation and other collectivities Americans hold dear, between
> democracy and freedom of conscience, between liberalism and pluralism.