VLVL "the Movement"

[Dave Monroe]

Confusion again ...

--- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Ah, you mean to suggest that all that weird sex and
> violence in the books is the kind of stuff one
> expects to read in novels authored by dissident 
> Lefties? Oh come now. 

Again, neither "traditional" nor "conservative" here. 
But ...

> Flip from the European chapters to the American
> chapters in V. and what do you find? A whole sick
> crew and whole sicker one. 

Here's where a heretofore largely unremarked
realtionship with Symbolism, however, might be
reamrked upon.  Not with any authority by me, but ...
but Catholic, conservative, though decadent to
outright debauched nontheless.  I've made occasional
mention of Baudelaire, Villiers, maybe Huysman, not to
mention Mario Praz on D'Annunzio, Swinburne ...

> If Pynchon is a Lefty why does he rip the Left to
> shreds in Vineland?

No Reaganite Pynchon be, either, there.  And, again,
dissidence, critique.  The advantage the Right has ahd
in this country is, they don't argue much amongst
themsleves in public, certainly not to teh extent that
yr liberals and/or Lefties do.  Then there are various
strains of libertarianism, in both directions ...
 
> Orwell would not be a dissident Lefty (as P employs
> that term)   today, Dave.  No way.

"Dissidence" changes with whatever one is dissenting
from, of course ...

> In any event, Pynchon describes himself as a very
> conservative young man. He grows out of his flaky
> conservatism (bigotry, Playboy misogynist, archie
> bunker, james bond protofascist), but he
> remains a very conservative man.

Again, if you're attemtipng to use "conservative" in a
depoliticized way here, it's getting confused
nonetheless with what you seem to imply about his
politics above.  Again, clarify ...
 
> No! It's a conservative and traditional working
> class value. It's been the province of labor, the
> workers,  here in the USA, not the Left and
> certainly not the dissident Left.

Confusing "conservative" and "traditional" here, and
it's been very much the province of the Left, I'm sure
you're more familiar with the events of the 30s or so
referred/alluded to in Vineland than I am ...

> The workers in the USA are Lefties. The limited
> success of the New Left that Pynchon describes in SL
> Intro is owed in large measure to the failure of
> the college kid Lefties to get together with the
> workers (the workers were not and are not Lefties). 

There a word missing here somehwere?  Anyway, that's
precisely where I see a similarity with Rorty.  And
keep in mind, tehre were, are, and likely always will
be plenty of "liberals" and "Lefties" who hardbor all
sorts of unprogressive attitudes (sexism, racism,
classism, what have you) nontheless.  This reminds me,
The Prseident's Analyst (1968?) ...

>   As we all know, the big union bosses sold the
> heart and soul of the working class to the
> democratic-republican party and labor has been
> systematically dismembered by that two party
> coalition and the governemt-corporate state.
> Condemnation of the exploitation of workers
> is not something the Left in the United States
> even understand. It's beyond the pale of their
> experience.  

I think a number of "Lefts" at various times/places
might be being confused here ...

>Besides, the Left in USA is completely bankrupt.

Dammit, they still owe me last month's rent ...

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