ATDDTA (3): Control issues, Chums, They

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

The model I'd point to (and one I'd bet Pynchon wouldn't have any trouble
promulgating himself) would be something like Howard Zinn's "A People's
History of the United States". Pynchon's "Revisionist Histories" serve, in 
large part, to give voice to the "Preterites", those that the Captains of State 
chose to deploy as cannon fodder, the "dispensibles". Advocating violence 
is not necessarily part and parcel of advocating Anarchism, and the flood of 
disinformation we choke down daily as regards "Terrorism" and other forms 
of rebellion against an armed (and generally non-representative) state is the 
basic fodder for all of Pynchon's books. Anarchy is not necessarily the 
advocacy of violence against the state, it is the refusal to bow to the power of 
the state, a refusal to accept the limits of the state. The armed encampment
we think of as the representative government of the United States, serves
primarily to serve the needs of the wealthiest individuals and corporate 
entities. The Chums don't know (at first) that these are the folks giving them
their flying orders. By the end of the book, they know and:

"The Boys call it the supranational idea," explained Penny Black. . . ."

Extending beyond or transcending established borders or spheres of 
influence held by separate nations: a supranational economy; 
supranational federations.

http://www.answers.com/topic/supranational

But being supranational---independent and "Above" whatever State they 
may be floating over (and somehow still trusted by the powers that be)
is not really enough for "The Boys":

"She referred to the document by which the girls had agreed to join their 
fortunes with those of the Inconvenience, only on the understanding that 
they would always operate independently. They would be the frigates, 
the boys a dreadnought---they would be freebooters and irregulars, the 
boys Military High Command. The boys would sail along, keeping pretty 
much to the ship, in an illusion of executive power, and the girls  would 
depart the ship at right angles to its official course to do the adventuring, 
engaging the Exterior, often at great risk, and returning home from their 
missions like weary commandos to Home Base. (1083/84)

mikebailey:
"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. 

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)."  

You mean like Major Marvy? I'm not saying that the author would literally
neuter someone, though he did seem to display a certain relish in
de-masculating that Major Asshole, if only in fictional form.