Pynchon and Rorty

[Dave Monroe]

Well, Rorty's other emphasis is indeed the parting of
ways betwixt labor and students during the sixties.   
Achieving Our Country covers quite a bit ground
familiar from Vineland.  But with Rorty's contention
that good ol' North Atlantic, and, esp., American (=
United States) lowercase-l liberal democracy and/or
capitalism is, if the not the end of history ((c)
Francis Fukuyama), the best off all opossible worlds
that we know of at this time, and his more-or-less
bourgeois (who deployed that one here? that might
indeed be a more accurate alternative to
"conservative" and/or "traditional"--reminds me, think
Garrison Keillor here, maybe, "progressive" politics,
"traditional" tastes) neopragamatist apologetics for
the aforementioned, I doubt he and Pynchon vote quite
the same ticket (if Pynchon votes at all--I can see
him being a conscientious objector there).  But i do
think his, and, more elaborately, Edmundson's,
characterization of "ideology" as "gothic" might well
shed some light on the workings of Power in Pynchon. 
As does Foucault's conceptionof teh later.  I'm
tempted to say that Pynchon seems to be holding
both(/and) positions in a state of superposition, but
... well, perhaps his ("his"? his novels', at any
rate) "paranoia" is both grounded in real facts and
realistic fears thereabouts, but conginzant
nonetheless of the pitfalls thereof.  something like
that.  Edmundson/Rorty seem to make it all to easy to
blow off said facts, fears.  At any rate, the opening
several pages of either are readable at amazon.com,
that's where I went to get that Rorty citation (the
Monroe College Library being in storage these days). 
But, yeah, the problem we Lefties have is, we're nigh
unto by definition critical, makes it dificult to form
a united front, much less to tow a party line.  A
floor wax AND a desert topping ...


--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> Btw, thanks for posting this. Internecine
> disagreement does seem to have been the Achilles'
> heel of "the left", "dissident" and otherwise.


	
		
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