AtD: Chums of Chance and the Prime Directive

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The ATD p-list Prime Directive: "ATD: Spoiler Alert" should be used in subject heading, as required.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel Wolf <djwolf at snafu.de>
>Sent: Nov 19, 2006 3:41 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: AtD: Chums of Chance and the Prime Directive
>
>One small thing jumped out for me in the first pages of AtD:  The 
>Charter of the Chums of Chance directs the members "never to interfere 
>with legal customs of any locality at which we may have happened to 
>touch." This is, of course, familiar to us as basic ethical guidelines 
>for post-Colonial ethnography, or, perhaps more to the point, as the 
>Prime Directive in a famous television series.  I wonder, however, if 
>there is an earlier source. In imperialist times, as in AtD, this was 
>scarcely the prevailing attitude. 
>
>Daniel Wolf
>Frankfurt