P's SJ intro

[David Morris]

The essay is, of course, "shitty," in that it's argument's initial
inhabitants shape-shift from "evil-doers" to "the digital storm"
without the least bit of justification.  I know that Pynchon's implied
bugaboo is an "information age" a la science fiction thrillers where
*They* can track your every move (and thought) - but it's just that:
fiction.  Maybe he has a hard time keeping tract of what's not
fiction.  But, that said (whether you agree with my assessment or
not), the intro does reveal a lot about Pynchon's world view and his
picture of his place within it.  Consider the following sentence:

"Equally difficult for those who might wish to proceed through life
anonymously and without trace has been the continuing assault against
the once-reliable refuge of the cash or non-plastic economy."

Wouldn't you say the "those" he refers to bears some resemblance to
himself?  It also bears resemblance to some of his main characters,
people who also resist being controlled by "evildoers" by the
following method:

"One popular method of resistance was always just to keep moving --
seeking, not a place to hide out, secure and fixed, but a state of
dynamic ambiguity about where one might be any given moment, along the
lines of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle."

Slothrop comes to mind here.

David Morris