Pynchon and fascism

[Michael Joseph]

>
> place (he was talking about media coverage). Not so. The real world is
> out there somewhere; we can only know it through the way it's
> represented, the text as mediator.

Paul, I'm tempted to agree with you, but I wonder if I might ask for
clarification, so I can better understand your point. When you say "real
world,"  I presume that you are referencing what might be called "material
actuality," that you do not mean to imply a value judgment or confer
ontological status upon it, and hence you do not mean to suggest that text
(broadly interpreted) occupies a one down position. That's not a question,
by the way, but an observation, although the 'clear goblet' implication of
the term "mediator" is problematical. Anyway, that's a bit of a sticky
wicket, and beside the point, which is, what you mean specifically by
"know." Do you mean that language, as a body of culturally constructed
codes of signification, precedes the relationship between the self and
experience? That seems to be how your respondants have interpreted your
statement, and runs smack into the "he never knew what hit him" problem.
However, another way of interpreting your statement, would be to
understand "know" to signify an act of conceptualization in which symbol
making is essential. Thus, the only way we can understand, make sense of,
and communicate about the chaotic, evanescent, unpredictable and
unrepeatable experiences of the world is through the mediating agency of
language.



Best,

Michael