Ethical Diversions

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Mackin [mailto:paul.mackin at verizon.net]
>
> >> ideology could survive.... The Jews, all the Jews, would have to be
> >> murdered while he still had control, before the war was ended."
> >>
> > that's how Weissmann symbolizes the Holocaust to me: a leader so  
> > out of touch as to make batshit decisions that are obviously wrong  
> > and evil 
> > As to how I might conceptualize Weissmann more in line with  
> > Pynchon's calm depiction of him, I'd welcome any clues.
> 
> Hard to see Weissmann as standing for what Hitler and Stalin were  
> about--mass murder as a means for advancing  political or cultural  
> goals.
> 
> Better to read the 00000 project as part of the subordination of  
> humanity to technology theme.
> 

well, mass murder as a means of advancing political goals is pretty batshit.  I mean, they've got to be pretty shitty goals in the 1st place to require mass murder - otherwise people would just vote for them (actually, the integral of that argument is that if any of what government does for its subjects were really worth doing, they (the subjects)would do it better voluntarily, "voting with their feet" as Reagan used to say)

subordination of humanity to technology does play, in that all his victims interface with of Weissmann is the weapons he sends against them (and subrodinates them with)...but somewhere behind all that weaponry is a squirrely son of a bitch who probably just needs love, and what wonderful plowshares that stuff will make, eventually, inexorably...