Leon Thomas /interface / Benton article on anarchism in P-Notes 42-43

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Keith <keithsz@[omitted]> 
Subject: RIP Alice and Michael 
>http://tinyurl.com/yluaac
>http://tinyurl.com/yl4pq7

Leon Thomas passed away years ago, but his yodel will live forever
I couldn't find it on YouTube though.

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incomplete thought: I mentioned that IG Farben was an interesting 
interface, but I didn't say between what.  It was a demonstrable 
co-operative interface between so-called "sides" in a rivalry between 
states, but what is probably more interesting is the interface between 
big business and science.  

How can a bunch of boring old golfers in suits so totally dominate 
truly clever and worthwhile people and bottleneck/impede their 
useful discoveries, while superconducting their destructive 
ones?  and why?  because they felt threatened?  because other people's 
lives are just a game to them, so they can play with Buddha-like 
detachment (like Salinger's Seymour Glass playing marbles?) 
Are they like the Robert Vaughn character in Superman III: "it's not 
enough that I win.  Everyone else must lose?"

still an incomplete thought, I guess.  Not something I can solve today.
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Graham Benton's article on anarchism in Pynchon Notes 42-43 is called
"Riding the Interface: An Anarchist Reading of Gravity's Rainbow"

He has another article in Oklahoma City University Law Review, dated 1999,
called "THIS NETWORK OF ALL PLOTS MAY YET CARRY HIM TO FREEDOM:  
THOMAS PYNCHON AND THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF ANARCHISM" but I haven't read
that one yet.

Just to cherry pick my favorite bits, from the very good selection in
the article:
"I don't wish to claim (for obvious reasons) anarchism as a master
narrative that would serve as an exegetical key to unlocking the
mysteries of the text, nor is this project meant to be a wholesale
celebration of anarchism, for even as Pynchon draws on anarchism, he 
also amplifies the flaws inherent in anarchist theory."

The first few pages grapple with the concept of anarchism.
" ... anarchism is categorized as a doctrine or movement that rejects the 
principle of political authority, anarchism is situated as a
theory of history that envisions the eradication of hierarchical
structures in social formations, or [why not "and" I wondered]
anarchism is classified as a philosophy born out of the confluence 
of European socialism and classical liberal ideals.  Even these basic precepts, generally 
agreed upon, hinge on a way of identifying, organizing and processing
anarchist theories by constructing and then operating from under a
governing vision that is antithetical to anarchist thought."

Hmm, don't know if I would agree with that.  Any anarchy that I would
be attracted to would still allow organized thought...I'm twisting
his purport, of course...

He cites Bakunin (who I sort of think of as a bad guy, advocating violence
as he did; in the 2nd International - correct me if I'm wrong - Marx's guys
betrayed the cause of freedom by suggesting the replacement of the 
oppressive government with an oppressive government (dictatorship of
the proletariat), while Bakunin's faction, unhappy with the fact that
Proudhon's co-ops couldn't keep their enterprises going, decided that
they must take everybody's enterprises over by force and run them
by the principles that had failed in the limited trial...both those
guys and their big fuck-off beards, as Eddy Izzard would say, needed
to go back to the drawing board and tweak their principles...
their description was awesome - still is -- but their prescription sucked)

Then he gives a few good pages on different anarchist angles in GR.

...anyway, great article.   Emile Henry - a new one to me - quoted to
good effect.  Also a legal historian tag team of Gaus and Chapman
have written a book on anarchy that sounded pretty sweet.  And he
quotes Deleuze & Guattari - somebody I must get around to reading
those guys, they turn up everywhere, like Zelig, except in my local
library.  Need to bring Interlibrary Loan into play, I guess.