Atta (9): 242: Today's kick-ass question

[David Morris]

Yeah, inequality exists.  Power, money, etc.  As Paul Simon said (Gumboots):

I was having this discussion
In a taxi heading downtown
Rearranging my position
On this friend of mine who had
A little bit of a breakdown
I said breakdowns come
And breakdowns go
So what are you going to do about it
Thats what Id like to know

But Pynchon does display choices other than selling one's time, two of
which I mentioned earlier.  There's martyrdom (street
activists/idealist murdered in the fight), stealing (outlaws of all
sorts), beggars, scroungers & undergrounders (many in Vineland,
including Zoyd), suicides (Herero).  All these are system
system-outsiders.

But what system would provide for everyone's "survival" without
requiring their selling their time?

David Morris

On 5/16/07, Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh ... lol... I certainly did not... sorry.  The choice Chomsky states is between renting your life away to some authority in order to obtain the basic requirements for survival and to not do that... his point is that since the choice of not doing that essentially equals not being able to survive (and survive would be to have a life where the basic needs are met and one has access to education and healthcare etc etc...) then there is no "choice" to be made... most people will "choose" or rather be forced to sell away their time, often doing tasks that leave a wake of destruction (since capitalism is a system that, to quote TRP "is only buying time").
>
> My main point was that I think TRP is using the railways to illustrate the laying of divisions between two very different classes (have/have-nots, rich/poor, preterite/elect).  I think he does it well too: the elect are the responsible party (buying the land, hiring engineers, hiring workers (at horrible wages, an opinion TRP shares with people like Chomsky and Zinn) and all that goes with being in control of production.  The people affected by this class division are the ones doing the grunt work of laying the tracks... creating a "right" and "wrong" side of them.
>