On Moral Equivalence

[Mark Kohut]

I'm sorry but I must argue that the readings here are simply wrong.
Wrong for fiction. 

Fiction is not non-fiction grounded in fantasy or irreality. Fiction is not history judging the literal equivalence of historical actions, historical evils. 

Pynchon's works are NOT Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke"--a recent non-fictional work which I think fails for large historical moral inequivalent reasons...[Mr. Baker is on Charlie Rose toninght, if interested]

Moralism, first, is usually used to characterize self-righteously expressed
statements judging facts or situations. In fiction, it MEANS the intrusion
of such non-fictional literalism into the whole visionary world of the fiction. 

A moral vision is a writer's whole worldview. For a writer of fiction, that worldview is only literal in the worst fiction; irony, satire, vision of who says what, in context, enwraps it all. 

Pynchon's outraged [see satire as the deepest ideals frustrated by reality]  linking of historical situations, historical evils and modern companies in GR and Against the Day IS the vision....by satirizing them individually yet linking them shows he does not see them as equivalent.....we cannot leave simple distinctions at home as we read; he didn't.............we have to judge why he links them, where he sees common sources..............Pynchon tries to do that (and largely succeeds in my opinion). He finds the repression of certain universal psychic realities, the structures of the modern world and the way it warps all in it leading to much of the evil in it..........

His 'moral vision' is his deep condemnations AND his moments of transcending, being human within, surviving such History. GR, passim. .....Mason AND Dixon............the whole 'spiritual' exploration in Against the Day......the whole finding of a human wholeness in pre-modern history, communities in Against the Day....  

I am sorry but TRP has incorporated such "reductionism" into his vision of 
what is wrong with our thinking in the modern world. 

 

--- On Thu, 7/10/08, malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com> wrote:

> From: malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com>
> Subject: Re: Repost: "The Big One"
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 3:54 PM
> As far as Pynchon's concerned, Shell's just as much
> a Nazi as the rest of 'em.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which was, or course, my point:  that that is
> Pynchon's moral universe.