'Togetherness'

[jbor]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_together.html
 
> Yup--the roots of Pynchon's dread/skepticism/concern regarding what might
> seem to be "progress" go way back. We've seen the theme in the Luddite essay
> as well as the essays
> on 1984 and Stone Junction.

Huh? It's an article written by a paid employee for a corporate newsletter
to augment the operation manual. It's written in a light and breezy way to
make a dull topic more interesting -- and, more overtly, to foreground the
potential for "tragedy" in a context where the safety record is 100% clear,
i.e. to address a potential complacency issue -- so that the target audience
(Boeing employees involved in the airlift operation) will actually read it
and benefit from the practical, "common sense" safety advice it
incorporates. 

As well as jazzing up a dull topic, I'd say that it's far more likely that
the slightly facetious tone Pynchon employs in a couple of spots in the
article actually *downplays* whatever ideological demurs it might be
speculated he held about US militarisation or nuclear weaponry at the time.
In fact, on the strength of his *choice* of employment with Boeing the more
logical speculation is that he *didn't* hold any such demurs at the time.

The express concern in the article is about accidents and loss of life
amongst Boeing employees and US military personnel, not about blowing up
people and places on the other side of the world. NB that in describing one
of those "near misses" which exemplify the purpose of the article, Pynchon
is emphatic that there were "no explosions ... because explosive items like
squibs and initiators are shipped separately". That missiles = explosions is
not the issue. The article is providding practical advice about how to
airlift the Bomarc missile safely, so that accidents are avoided in the
loading and offloading phases of transporting the missile from Boeing to the
Air Force base. The aim of the text is to maintain the current good domestic
transportation record so that the US Armed Forces *can* continue to bomb the
crap out of anyone they like.

The pun in the title of the article is on working "together" -- both the
"positive communication" between members of the crews at either end of the
airlift (interestingly, as well as referring to the "in-group" communication
between the human workers Pynchon talks about "communication" between the
supervisors and the equipment they are using, which pre-empts or echoes the
predominant animate-inanimate theme in _V._ in particular), and the Boeing
corporation and the US Air Force continuing to work together cohesively (and
productively) -- and on people like "Smith" and the tarmac supervisors at
either end "keeping their heads together", so to speak, while the loading
and unloading is going on.

best



> When we argue over it here, it seems that the "So Far So Good" scenario is
> being enacted.