ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Joseph T]

On Feb 27, 2007, at 5:13 PM, Joseph T wrote:

> I am enough of a quaker to believe that non violent resistance is  
> the most powerful and deeply transformative form of resistance and  
> social change. I am also an Irishman enough to hate  bullying and  
> am not altogether displeased when a bullying sumbitch gets his come- 
> uppance. People who participate in violence, even passively, should  
> not be surprised with the karmic feedback.
>  I don't know if this is a given of the human condition but there  
> are, especially in violence prone societies, people who become  
> criminally sociopathic , some of them "great" leaders. It looks to  
> me like even in  a fundamentally nonviolent society force is  
> usually needed to restrain or effectively stop them from committing  
> violence.  The anarchists Pynchon follows are part of the majority  
> mindset of a country begun in a violent revolution against an  
> oppressive empire: that is- they believe in fighting to defend  
> themselves against the abuse of power. They are very concerned  
> about not hurting innocents, in marked contrast to Vibe, Deuce, or  
> the Great Gamers and their complicit servants.
>
> This is a time in history when a Populist revolution, or a  
> balancing  3rd party  which would have made workers a more powerful  
> political force was still possible. Unfortunately the anarchists  
> use of violence became one of the  tools of the plutocrats who  
> control the major press, and the justification for collective  
> punishment. Not hard to see the parallels between Haymarket story  
> and the 9/11 /Iraq story.
>
> I see dynamite as a stand -in for active resistance , the need to  
> destroy abusive power structures and find a better way. The word  
> has interesting roots. Since dynamite is a kind of religious force  
> in ATD I thought these wikipedia refernces apt.
>
> The word dynamite comes from the Greek word δυναμις  
> (dunamis), meaning power, and the Greek suffix -ιτης (-itēs),  
> meaning small.
>
>  Oracle of Dunamis
>
> In Greek mythology, the Oracle of Dunamis (ca. 1400 BCE), believed  
> to have been situated south of the island of Rhodes, contained a  
> statue of a man who was to lead humanity into a time of spiritual  
> prosperity. Early Christians assigned this to Jesus in support of  
> Biblical prophecies.
>
>  Aristotle
>
> The word dunamis appears in Aristotle's works as a term for what is  
> only potentially real. The word can be translated by such terms as  
> power, capacity, potential, potency, capability and faculty  
> (ability, skill, or power). Aristotle contrasted dunamis with  
> energeia.
>
>  Christianity
>
> In Christian theology "Dunamis" is sometimes used in conjunction  
> with the Holy Spirit.[1] It describes the activities of the Holy  
> Spirit as believers receive Him (Acts 1:8, 10:38). From the same  
> root derives the English words dynamic or dynamite.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2007, at 6:00 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:
>
>> Monte:
>>
>>> The discussion of how and where to strike at the railroad,  
>>> blending into
>>> Webb's anger "like a kid about to cry" at  _provocateur_ attacks  
>>> arranged
>>> "not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves," opens a can of  
>>> worms, of ends and means, of justifications and smoke clouds  
>>> tinged with blood, that will be with us throughout the book.
>>
>> It is indeed a can of fat, wriggling and blind worms that is  
>> opened here. Is dynamite a valid means for the end of an Anarchist  
>> Utopia, especially when the wrong people have an annoying way of  
>> getting in the way of explosions? Webb has clearly given this  
>> issue some thought:
>>
>> "The tricky patch, it had seemed to Webb for a while now, came in  
>> choosing the targets, it being hard enough just to find time to  
>> think any of it through, under the daily burdens of duty and hard  
>> labor and, more often than you'd think, grief. Lord knew that the  
>> owners and mine managers deserved to be blown up, except that they  
>> had learned to keep extra protection around them - not that going  
>> after their property, like factories or mines, was that much  
>> better of an idea, for, given the nature of corporate greed, those  
>> places would usually be working three shifts, with the folks most  
>> likely to end up dying being miners, including children working as  
>> nippers and swampers - the same folks who die when the army comes  
>> charging in." (84-85)
>>
>> We can easily agree with Webb here that bombing innocent children  
>> to oblivion is not a good idea, but can we also agree with him  
>> that "the owners and mine managers deserved to be blown up"? Webb  
>> clearly thinks so, but does the author of AtD think the same? A  
>> very similar discussion takes place on p. 922, where Ewball Oust  
>> stresses the importance of going after the right people:
>>
>> "After a while they got into a discussion about Anarchists and  
>> their reputation for rude behavior, such as rolling bombs at  
>> people they haven't been introduced to.
>> "There's plenty of folks who deserve being blown up, to be sure,"  
>> opined Ewball, "but they've got to be gone after in a professional  
>> way, anything else is being just like them, slaughterin the  
>> innocent, when what we need is more slaughterin of the guilty. Who  
>> gave the orders, who carried 'em out, exact names and whereabouts  
>> - and then go get 'em. That's be just honest soldiering."
>>
>> Ewball's "to be sure" here mirrors the "Lord knew" in the previous  
>> quote: Both Webb and Ewball find it self-evident that there are  
>> people that deserve to be blown up, and the narrator doesn't  
>> question their assumptions in any explicit manner. He just lets  
>> them fly by, so to speak, but should we as readers do the same? Do  
>> we *really* need, as Ewball argues, "more slaughterin of the  
>> guilty"? Should we cheer when Frank blows up a trainload of  
>> federales with his máquina loca?:
>>
>> "The explosion was terrific, shrapnel and parts of men and animals  
>> flew everywhere, superheated steam blasting through a million  
>> irregular flueways among the moving fragments, a huge ragged  
>> hemisphere of gray dust, gone pink with blood, rose and spread,  
>> and survivors staggered around in it blinded and coughing  
>> miserably." (985)
>>
>> Is this is explosion really terrific, or should we rather regard  
>> it as terrible, and try to listen more closely to those accusing  
>> words whispered to Frank by that statue "Victory"/"The Angel" on  
>> p. 989 -words Frank never wanted to hear? It's a subtle game  
>> Pynchon plays here, perhaps more subtle than anything found in GR.  
>> The narrator never explicitly condemns all this dynamitic mania,  
>> and if one sympathizes with the Anarchists' quest for freedom it  
>> is altogether too easy to refrain from questioning their violent  
>> methods and to agree with their assessment that there are several  
>> people who "deserve to be blown up." The Pynchon I know wouldn't  
>> agree with this assessment, despite his sympathies for outlaws and  
>> preterite rebels, but in AtD he leaves it up to the reader to take  
>> a stance. Should we agree with Webb and Ewball that we need more  
>> slaughterin of the guilty? Should we even grin elatedly along with  
>> Flaco as he and Reef are nearly killed in an explosion in a café?:
>>
>> "Some of these bandoleros," Flaco still grinning, "they don't care  
>> who the hell they do this to." (851)
>>
>> Or should we do what Webb has a hard time finding the time for:  
>> should we think things through, and try to consider other  
>> viewpoints that are not explicitly stated in AtD, or that are at  
>> least hard to hear amid all the happy dynamite blasts of the novel?
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
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