ATDDTA (3): Control issues, Chums, They

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net [mailto:robinlandseadel at comcast.net]
> Subject: RE: ATDDTA (3): Control issues, Chums, They
>
>> Can't say as I disagree with Webb. Can't say that the author does
>> either. I'd consider the possibility that our beloved author might
>> have some experience running contraband. I'd also consider the
>> possibility that our beloved author might have some experience
>> running with outlaws. Just a thought, mind you. . . .
>

that just goes to show, different readings are possible.  

I'd venture to place Pynchon with a Voltaire or Dostoevskii in terms of being a poignant and insightful social critic - but not with Nietzsche or De Sade or Bakunin in terms of advocating terrible behaviour.  

Not just because N, De S and B's notions horrify me (though they do) -

The evidence I'd cite is textual: his most likeable characters have been mostly apolitical, his descriptions of violence don't say "go thou and do likewise" at least to me, he's willing to bend reality in all sorts of directions but he doesn't depict anarchy taking over by force at any point (moreso instead the creation of temporary autonomous zones to be relished and learned from)  

 -- and extratextual: he's positioned himself within society as an outsider with a different world - or worldview, subjectively pretty similar a proposition - to share, not as a leader of a counterforce toppling and taking over the existing order

It seems to me that what's objectionable about -archy is the use of force - not authority itself, which in its legitimate form is granted to those who earn it by achievement, persuasion, service...
an authority based on violence is illusory

but by the same token, to equate authority with the use of violence is to accept the premise, and to then use violence to counter it compounds the error (a violent ethos will foster hierarchy of talent in those who practice it, will kill innocent bystanders, polarize and coarsen the discourse, funnel energy and money and genius towards the production of more terrible arms...)

Practicing a non-violent ethos will rebirth real talent-based authority, and is the truly revolutionary act.

These are the blinders I read Pynchon through, so I tend to see that moral.

and yet, and yet... you have made some telling points.  I tend to subsume his sympathy for rebels within his love for humanity, but that's not the only way it could be read.  If one accepts the fact that we all rebel against what we feel to be unfair;then perhaps there are certain acts, certain lines which when crossed deserve a violent response.  I don't think so- but Webb certainly does, and a lot of history continues to be made by those who do.  

But that history is the nightmare from which Stephen Dedalus awoke. The real progress occurs through negotiation, moral suasion, reformism. Those processes are stronger anyway since they don't destroy the means of production.