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
>
>  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 current usurpers certainly try to run it that way.  

The same guy who sang Waterloo Sunday had also expressed doubts about running things any other way: "tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no rich no more" - not much danger of that these days 

>> 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.
>

but that was at the hands of Pointsman, far from an anarchist.  Slothrop's silliness saves him, gives his persecutors a target but it's only a shell he leaves behind; while Marvy, lacking grace (I would suggest because he has embraced violence) can't inhabit - and doff - the pig suit that way.

The Chums avoid violence whenever possible, as a matter of taste.  Perhaps that's an optimal formulation.