VLVL 24fps and "the Movement"

[jbor]

> I think that, in Vineland, Pynchon establishes a tragic motif of how the US
> government used anti-labor, anti-Communist, and anti-drug hysteria to
> advance nondemocratic agenda. Pynchon shows how government agents use their
> power to exploit weaknesses in popular movements, undermining them by
> deliberating creating "failures and sellouts" in their ranks. There's an
> element of satire throughout Vineland, but this motif prevails (in
> accordance with Pynchon's belief that power is a sworn enemy of writers).
> Everyone's a caricature, but the caricature of Brock is that of a
> manipulative, powerful predator.

It's not a one-dimensional caricature -- none of the characterisations are.
As well as Brock asking and Frenesi *willingly* agreeing to undermine PR3,
Van Meter happily accepting bribes from Hector to rat out his friends and
score more drugs, and Hector trying but failing to enlist Zoyd, there's a
whole lot of other stuff in the novel -- the bulk of it in fact -- which
depicts in an often sarcastic and constantly satirical way the faults and
failings of "the Movement" itself.
 
> The above critique seems misguided in judging the Pisks according to a
> puritanical standard of
> behavior. So
> what if they chain smoke, have sex, use "illegal substances," mouth off, and
> feel nostalgic?  

No-one's "judging" them by a "puritanical" standard of behaviour. It's the
huge gap between what they pretend to be ("anarchist bombers", politically
committed) and what they are shown to be (sybarites, dilettantes) which
comprises this part of Pynchon's critique of the devolution of the '60s
student movement. As I said, 24fps, the Pisks especially, are depicted as
part of the problem. They've been around since those early days at Berkeley
but they don't have any consciousness at all of how "the Movement" has
shifted ground, of how the original causes have all been forgotten and lost
in the dance and thrill of protest. They're into dressing up in battle
fatigues and pretending to be martyrs and spray-painting violent slogans,
but what political or social causes do they actually support ("Signism"? a
higher standard of department store? wider distribution of Danish?), what do
they ever actually do?

I actually think that the pro-'60s whitewash which gets served up here as a
fait accompli so often is what is "misguided" and biased, ignoring as it
does so much of what's actually *in* Pynchon's text. Where -- in the novel
itself -- is there any inkling that anti-War, Civil Rights (Elliott X from
BAAD excepted), drug decriminalisation or free speech causes are the driving
forces behind what these students and agitators are protesting against?

best