Pynchon's anti-Americanism

[Otto]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith McMullen" <keithsz at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Pynchon Shitlist" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 6:12 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon's anti-Americanism


> >>>That makes at least half of the US-population scoundrels.
> I'm sure you didn't meant to say that.<<<
>
> http://www.samueljohnson.com/qotw02q2.html#0630
>
>

Great, many thanks for this, Keith.

All scoundrels may resort to patriotism, but this doesn't mean that everyone
who expresses patriotic sympathies are automatically scoundrels. (...) A
further argument that Johnson felt Burke a manipulative scoundrel comes from
Boswell. Burke is a topic of discussion following the "last refuge" remark,
and about Burke, Johnson says, "Sir, I do not say that he is not honest; but
we have no reason to conclude from his political conduct that he is honest."
And on another occasion, Johnson said of him, "In private life he is a very
honest gentleman; but I will not allow him to be so in publick life. People
may be honest, though they are doing wrong; that is between their Maker and
them. But we, who are suffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy
them. We are sure that [Burke] acts from interest. We know what his genuine
principles were. They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions
between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have
not come honestly by their conviction." -- Frank Lynch

I especially liked this: "we have no reason to conclude from his political
conduct that he is honest."

Otto