Let's think about Byron the Bulb

[Bryan Snyder]

Really one is either aware of their own "election" or "preterition" or I
think they would be defined as such by the elect mostly through action... In
direct or not. 

So the Hereos have their own belief system and they may be elect, a la "the
meek shall inherit the earth" and there is certainly something to be said
for being for lack of better terms "minimal" or "simplistic"

However the reality would be that, regardless of self awareness of
preterition... If you're on the short end of the world's stick, as directed
by humans with means to take advantage of various historical cusps... You're
not in the driver seat... You are not using the earth and profiting from the
in for the "grace of god's bounty"... You're preterite.

I implore those interested to check out "Science, Politics & Gnosticism" by
Eric Voegelin.  

B


On 5/10/08 4:40 PM, "grladams at teleport.com" <grladams at teleport.com> wrote:

> Wehlp, thanks for the grammatical approach, the pluperfect, the has beens!
> I know, or I thought I knew, as a WASP descended from hundreds of years of
> Presbyterians m'self, I guess I thought I knew the basics of the now
> questionable formula. The only thing I took from it was that the "world is
> meant". Goethe had some good words about this I may post under separate
> cover. William Pynchon's writing, and later that of his grandchildren, and
> reverend children of the Cotton family line (I think--I turned over a lot
> of stones doing genealogical work on that tree) would try to patch up that
> giant sucking sound in the Neo Calvinist early American New England
> churches. Those sort of beliefs dwindled church membership and begged for
> fresher more unitarian writings. It's just that William was waay before his
> time. Contemparary protestantism lays the emphasis elswehere, such as the
> atonement, rather than being a descendent of elect, because as elect
> bloodlines peter out, what then?
> 
> Let's compare. The dodo gets killed off, so it is _elect_ or is it
> _preterite_? The multiple choice answer is b, preterite. But does the dodo
> metaphor extend out to all the people who would be killed by the bad
> cruisaders, Belgian congo indusrialists, Are preterite the Hereros in
> Namibia? The Asian peasants living in China's valley where they plan to
> open a huge dam and flood it? Do we say they are the preterite? Maybe what
> I'm coming to is that the lifestyle they once enjoyed has passed.
> 
> But do we extend the anxiety to ourselves, as educated better-off (people
> who communicate with computers generally are) that _we_ might _be_ those
> nasty elect ourselves, staying our hands as we reach for the latest plastic
> toy? Calling the elect the Chosen people always makes me think of the Jews,
> yknow, complicating matters in that they got gassed, the chosen people got
> gassed. Is it bad to say that I hope I am not offending anyone I am just
> coming to the table with what I got..  But one could also say the Jews
> today enjoy much success as integral members of society, many brilliant and
> esteemed in every community, at least where I live no one cares if you have
> a minora or a christmas tree.
> 
> I once read a partial book on the Rothschild inheritance, and have read
> Merchant of Venice.
> 
> I think the elect and preterite thing always confuses me because there's a
> radical point where it flips back in on itself, paints itself into a corner
> and struggles with words words words -- the tortured writings -- if the
> Meritorious Price is any indication of what you gotta do to make sense of
> our salvation, is why to me, Zen Buddhism looks better every day. Someone
> on this list expressed similar sentiment earlier this year, maybe Laura or
> Heidi or someone.
> Jill
> 
> 
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From:  robinlandseadel at comcast.net
> Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 11:12:58 +0000
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org (P-list)
> Subject: RE: Let's think about Byron the Bulb
> 
> 
>              Jill:
>              I'm still not sure I get the preterition thing.
>              I can honestly say that's one huge Pynchon
>              element that escapes my grasp or lies just
>              outside of it.. as soon as I think I "get it" I
>              admit I really do not get it.
> 
> Teacher! Teacher! I get it, always did. All you have
> to do to understand "preterite" and "preterition" in
> Pynchon is to understand the "Elect". The Elect is a
> Calvinist concept [dem W.A.S.P.s agin], this seems
> to be a variation on "The Chosen People". The preterite
> are all the rest. Also, preterite is a condition of being in
> or of the past tense. Of course, that condition of being
> in or of the past points to older, perhaps discarded, ways
> of living and belief systems.
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/5cbdeh
> 
> Having spent a fair amount of time in Watts right after
> the "Insurrection" [1965], I find "A Journey Into The Mind
> of Watts" very much to the point, particularly illuminating
> as regards Mason & Dixon and The Crying of Lot 49.
> 
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/watts.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
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