VLVL Is it OK to be a misoneist?

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2004-03-06 at 16:37, jbor wrote:
>       Brock Vond's genius was to have seen in the activities of the
>     sixties left not threats to order but unacknowledged desires for
>     it. While the Tube was proclaiming youth revolution against parents
>     of all kinds and most viewers were accepting this story, Brock saw
>     the deep -- if he'd allowed himself to feel it, the sometimes
>     touching -- need only to stay children forever, safe inside some
>     extended national Family. The hunch he was betting on was that these
>     kid rebels, being halfway there already, would be easy to turn and
>     cheap to develop. They'd only been listening to the wrong music,
>     breathing the wrong smoke, admiring the wrong personalities. They
>     needed some reconditioning. (269)
> 
> on 6/3/04 8:03 PM, jbor wrote:
> 
> > (And I believe that Paul did refer to this passage ...
> 
> See below. (Sometimes it seems as if all the flamebait and accusatory
> blather are designed to further divert attention from passages such as this
> one, to try to pretend it's not really there -- it's a crucial passage, and
> it has been avoided like the plague. There's no malice involved in pointing
> this out, as Toby also had with the "misoneism" passage.)

It's a fine passage, there's no denying . . .

And I couldn't agree more about the accusatory tone some p-listers use. 

But why complain. This is quite a diverse group. People are different.


> 
> Anyway, back to the text. Though the fact that the '60s "Youth Movement"
> *was* a failed revolution is still being disputed -- bizarre as that may
> seem -- I don't agree that what Pynchon is up to in his depiction of its
> collapse in _Vineland_ is merely to egg it on and enjoy the spectacle (How
> does one "egg on" a revolution which has already failed? 

Because he's Pynchon. And the kids don't know it's failed. They are
still undergraduates. I thought "egg it on and enjoy the spectacle" was
quite aptly put. It's taking Pynchon's widely acknowledged love of the
underdog and then giving the screw another half turn. Look, if you're a
novelist you traffic in these kinds of irresponsible behaviors.

> And, why would you
> bother?) It's not that he's appointing blame for its failure;

Don't see the connection but as far as blame is concerned several
p-listers have argued relative blame among the cast of characters. This
never makes sense to me. It's not as if any of the crowd has control
over things. 
 

>  he is
> identifying the various and inter-connected reasons for its failure and
> depicting these with a satirical and critical eye, however. His writing, as
> always, is forward-looking, much more in the spirit of facing up to our
> mistakes and learning from them than revelling in cheap nihilism or
> wallowing in cheap nostalgia (à la Proust, say).

If that is what he's doing (for its own sake and not as a backdrop for
the very special Pynchonian bizarrerie) he's wasting his time. I've said
this already many times. If you don't see it you don't see it. You've a
perfect right to your views. They are not my views.


> 
> Whether or not the American Left, or the '60s "Youth Movement", are as
> irrelevant as you say in your most recent post, is a side issue -- 

I said it was irrelevant to the Neocon critique of America's failure to
assert itself in the world--to the degree Neocons would like, that is. 
I thought Otto was giving the student anti-war demonstrations too much
importance in Neocon thinking. Just trying to be helpful.

> I'd argue
> that they are much more important than you've allowed,

I think the student movement starting with the Port Huron Statement was
important. Also student demonstrations WERE important in that they
embarrassed Johnson and Nixon, whom many of us deplored.  They didn't
stop the war.  The war stopped when the cost of continuing it became too
high.  The March on the Pentagon gave me a good feeling. However not as
good a feeling as the earlier civil rights march on Washington. You
would have had to be there to imagine the exhilleration. Alongside the
civil rights movement (which students also participated in) the student
take overs of a few buildings and shouting their lungs out seemed a
little frivolous. I shouted too. Glad I did. It felt good. And I was
already a longtime grownup.




>  and was reminded of
> this by a reprint of a Doonesbury cartoon strip from 1971 in yesterday's
> paper depicting John Kerry -- but in terms of the Pynchon novel we're
> discussing the collapse of the "Youth Movement" is the main focus and it's
> being presented as a quite important cog in the advent and trajectory (71-2)
> of the "Nixonian Reaction", and the Reagan years of the '80s. 

In the novel this is so, no argument from me. I said as much this
morning.

> In fact, it's
> the political debates, and Humphrey and the '68 Chicago Demos in particular,
> which are *not* depicted or even mentioned in Pynchon's text, and thus which
> are being seen -- rightly or wrongly -- as irrelevant to the lives of these
> characters.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.


> best 
> 
> 
> >> Subject: Re: VLVL the collapse of the Youth Movement
> >> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin@[omitted]>
> >> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
> >> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:55:26 -0500
> > 
> > [...] 
> >> Surely, "attracted to men in uniform" is a metonymy for "the revolution
> >> will fail."
> >> 
> >> If Proust hadn't already said something so similar sounding, Pynchon
> >> might have said "the only revolutions are failed revolutions."
> >> 
> >> 19 and 20th C revolutions, we're talking about. 18 C revolutions had a
> >> completely different dynamic.
> >> 
> >> Pynchon not only has sympathy for failed revolutions he eggs them on and
> >> enjoys the spectacle.
> >> 
> >> The phrase "failed revolution" is very problematic for the simple reason
> >> that if one should actually succeed (miracle of miracles) its very
> >> success would mark its failure. The faction gaining power would
> >> immediately set about to turn itself into the preceding regime.
> >> 
> >> What was it Brock said?
> >> 
> >> Brock's genius was to have seen in the activities of the sixties left
> >> not a threat to order but unacknowledged  desire for it.
> >> 
> >> Trying to assign "blame" for the failed youth revolution isn't a
> >> productive activity. Frenesi didn't do it. Brock didn't do it.
> >> 
> >> Frenesi is a bad girl. Or at least she is no better than she should be
> >> (as the saying goes). Perhaps she should be in jail.
> >> 
> >> Pynchon doesn't need to critique revolutions. It would be fiddling work
> >> for a genius writer. Nothing to critique.
> >> 
> >> I keep repeating myself.
> 
>