On Moral Equivalence

[Mark Kohut]

Robin writes:

"I figure that a lot of the personalities in the scenes in Dante's Inferno 
come from the real-life experiences of that illustrious Italian poet.
We see these monsters through the eyes of a poet with an agenda.
Pynchon is a poet with an agenda. Just like Dante, he's keen on 
karma. Karma's the rule in Pynchonland. I realize, vide his 
Dudeness, that you could call it Justice. But Pynchon's mind
is filled with internal dialogs that merge with vectors and bell curves, 
the poetry and essentially Taoist nature of mathematical equations, 
and of nature's accounting of all things in time. Justice is the 
imposition of will and order. Karma's just nature doing her job."

And I, in my own narcissistic humility [of faux humility], am absolutely
in agreement in principle with the above.........(and maybe in 
all the particulars as espressed)..............karma, Justice and such
other themes as i mentioned, are all part of a full worldview......
Or Aren't...................

Which is why TRP is a moralist not just an entertainer or ironic postmodernist, in my opinion........










--- On Fri, 7/11/08, robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: On Moral Equivalence
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Friday, July 11, 2008, 10:16 AM
> 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. 
> I figure that a lot of the personalities in the scenes in
> Dante's Inferno 
> come from the real-life experiences of that illustrious
> Italian poet.
> We see these monsters through the eyes of a poet with an
> agenda.
> Pynchon is a poet with an agenda. Just like Dante, he's
> keen on 
> karma. Karma's the rule in Pynchonland. I realize, vide
> his 
> Dudeness, that you could call it Justice. But Pynchon's
> mind
> is filled with internal dialogs that merge with vectors and
> bell curves, 
> the poetry and essentially Taoist nature of mathematical
> equations, 
> and of nature's accounting of all things in time.
> Justice is the 
> imposition of will and order. Karma's just nature doing
> her job.
> 
> 
> Mark:
> 
> 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.