Atdtda [4]: What Kit knows, 99-104 #2

[Joseph T]

On Mar 12, 2007, at 1:46 PM, Joseph T wrote:

> Another way in which Foley Walker is more Vibe than Vibe himself is  
> that he seems to be the slightly off-center  personification of the  
> Horatio Alger stories in which the eager young man serves his boss  
> diligently and gains his attention through a brave act  to be  
> promoted to wealth and success. This story of bootstrap miracles  
> was the mythic "justification" for  the "success" of the super  
> rich, and a capitalist interpretation of Calvinist theology of lost  
> vs. found.
>
> Here, Foley knows it is his insights that have skyrocketed Vibe to  
> his current wealth and power. Now Foley is offering the same kind  
> of deal to Kit. There is an additional element of interest. Alger  
> was a pederast and it turns out Foley has similar inclinations.  
> Right now I am reading the whole thing as a critique of Patriarchal  
> power structures and the difficulty of escaping this pattern.
>
> There is a larger pattern of the  attempt to recruit and direct   
> scientific inquiry,  the colonization of talent through scholarship  
> programs, in which the payback is allegiance to the colonial game  
> plan.

> Of course "human" capital is not so easy to control, and there are  
> scholarships which have no self interest but valid questions are  
> raised, especially as we watch the political manipulation of  
> scientists doing global climate research.
>
> A liberal arts education is supposed to be liberating, but how so  
> if one graduates with a large debt load?
>
> On Mar 10, 2007, at 12:20 PM, Paul Nightingale wrote:
>
>> Foley Walker's seduction immediately gives Kit access to Foley's  
>> back-story.
>> Everything does connect, and we have already been told that  
>> Tesla's World
>> System "uses the planet as an element in a gigantic resonant  
>> circuit" (33);
>> similarly, Kit has access to "the electricians' grapevine" (99).  
>> We should
>> hardly be surprised that Foley decides to tell all. If this is "a  
>> chore
>> growing, with the years, ever more wearying" (100), it simply  
>> underlines his
>> place in the scheme of things, part of the bureaucracy that serves  
>> Wealth.
>> He is doomed to repeat, ever in search of the original,  
>> unrecoverable moment
>> (just as, eg, Veikko reads to recover the moment he first received  
>> the
>> postcard, 84).
>>
>> Foley explains why he can say he is Scarsdale Vibe; from being a
>> "substitute" (100) (a signifier for the absent signified, Wealth)  
>> he becomes
>> a kind of guardian angel. His "voices" facilitate a "critical  
>> acceleration
>> in the growth of the legendary Vibe fortune" (101); and Foley ends up
>> thinking for Vibe, who can no longer make a move independently.
>>
>> Hence, Foley can say he is "more Scarsdale Vibe than Scarsdale  
>> Vibe himself"
>> (102). Kit, however, remains doubtful: his state of innocence  
>> means he still
>> believes in "Scarsdale Vibe his mighty self" (100). Receiving the  
>> money the
>> following day he "took it as a message from perhaps farther beyond  
>> where
>> it'd actually come from" (103). Another religious experience,  
>> another key
>> moment ("assaulted all at once by a yearning"): he is  
>> "unaccountably, ready
>> to sign up with Foley's plan for his life". This version of events  
>> is given
>> retrospectively ("or that's how he'd think of it later"); yet  
>> hindsight
>> makes his view no more perspicuous: ever elusive, his readiness to  
>> sign
>> cannot be accounted for, or turned into words.
>>
>> Foley describes the deal as "paid conscription"; as he went to  
>> war, so will
>> Kit "hav[e] to learn all that college stuff". Perhaps he even sees  
>> Kit as a
>> younger self, signing up to a deal: "us below". And perhaps "[e] 
>> ternal
>> youth" (104) is enjoyed here by Foley himself seeing Kit replicate  
>> his own
>> actions from 40-ish years earlier. The section ends with Tesla also
>> "recall[ing]" what it was like "at [Kit's] age". Foley might be a  
>> seducer;
>> he is also a father-figure of sorts. Tesla too: if he thinks of  
>> what it was
>> like for him at Kit's age, it might be tempting for Kit to think  
>> ahead to
>> Tesla's age. If Foley can stand in for Vibe, both Foley and Tesla  
>> can stand
>> in for Webb; and Kit follows them as he refuses to follow Webb.
>>
>>
>

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