VLVL The Wayvones; drugs

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2003-10-11 at 10:59, Terrance wrote:
> Reading VL one could argue that TRP doesn't like  Drugs and Sex. But, I
> think this kind of reading is absurd.  However, from the get-go, drugs
> cause big problems for the characters in VL. Prairie doesn't quite trust
> her old man because she thinks he smokes too much pot and she thinks his
> memory is bad and he's paranoid.  
> LSD blinds people with X-ray vision, turning them into children forever
> young, who actually believe that they have taken a chemical that strips
> the State's power over life and  death. A mindless pleasure or a mental
> hand job? Which do you want it to be?  While cities burn in the USA and
> villages burn in Vietnam, the flower children drop acid and play in the
> pasture, drinking and dancing with the local fuzz.


I wouldn't be surprised if the Pincher had thoughts about Sex--that is,
the revolutionary, liberating power of sex--not unlike those of Herbert
Marcuse.

For Marcuse these were second thoughts. In the "political preface" to
the second edition of Eros and Civilization (1966) he wrote:

Can we speak of a juncture between the erotic and political dimension In
and against the deadly efficient organization of the affluent society,
not only radical protest, but even the attempt to formulate, to
articulate, to give word to protest assumes a childlike, ridiculous
immaturity. Thus it is ridiculous and perhaps "logical" that the Free
Speech Movement at Berkeley terminated in the row caused by the
appearance  of a sign with the four-letter word. It is perhaps equally
ridiculous and right to see deeper significance in the buttons worn by
some of the demonstrators  (among them infants) against the slaughter in
Vietnam: MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR.