Ch 14 306-315 revisited

[Paul Mackin]

There is much to agree with in what you say, Joseph.

I wouldn't  want to be the one to say such thing could never happen.

Yet the idea of VL folks believing they will never die sounds an awful lot 
like what happens to some young people when they get behind the wheel of a 
car.

In GR the hope-dashing possibility  that "They" will live forever is raised, 
but it is presented as a reality not a hallucination.

Anyway it's a good point for discussion--what message VL sends about "The 
Sixties."

P


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 2:16 AM
Subject: Re: Ch 14 306-315 revisited


>
> On Apr 1, 2009, at 4:21 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Thoughts on the revelatory power of hallucinogens? What is TRP  getting 
>>> at?
>>
>>
>> Could be Pynchon's jocular way of explaining the failure of the 
>> revolution.
>>
>> If it depended on hallucination it wasn't likely to succeed.
>>
>> VL is not kind to youthful revolutionaries.
>>
>> On the other hand perhaps the dream is enough.
>>
>> Doesn't one sometimes get that feeling in AtD?
>>
>
> I have been thinking about what you say here and I see something more 
> complicated. I know the dangers and potential destructiveness of drugs ( 
> passivity, addiction, physical debilitation) but drugs are not what  I see 
> as the essential focus here. The focus is the moment of  transcendent 
> enlightenment  when the person sees the the continuity  of life and spirit 
> as  real and the self and body as temporary  vessels. Language is 
> inadequate but Zoyd puts his experience in  powerful terms. This kind of 
> event takes many forms but often marks a  dramatic turn in the life of an 
> individual and the beginning of a  larger worldview.  The great leaders of 
> social change almost all  describe such a process or moment. It is this 
> fearless sense of  transcendent power that has often activated movements, 
> organizations  and  moments of change. Violent revolutions have never 
> brought the  promised changes fully to fruition because a meaningful 
> revolution  requires  a far reaching transformation of consciousness. 
> Every power  arrangement is corruptible if there is not a shared and 
> guiding sense  of direction or deeply shared principles.
>
> I am not comparing Zoyd to Gandhi but his experience gives him a  powerful 
> resistance to  fear tactics and to bitterness or hate, and  he is one of 
> the few characters here to have moments of happiness:  hanging with and 
> caring for Prairie, finding a sense of home in  Vineland, the harmony, 
> rhythm, and playfulness of music. . But the  whole effect which LSD, 
> eastern mysticism, earth mysticism  and the  questioning and rejection of 
> the military, racial , gender and social  power arrangements all had  on 
> the 60's generation was much more than  a hallucination. The real danger 
> for Nixon and the cultural  imperialists was the vision of a new kind of 
> world and the demand  that the promises of democratic ideals become real. 
> The danger for  the  revolutionaries was that like South Africa, they 
> would win power  and fail to adequately continue the deeper process of 
> change needed  to realize the dreams of justice and shared prosperity.( 
> not judging  here, just noting that there is along way to go.)
>
> In some ways this settles nothing, because there is the question as  to 
> whether any revolutionary change can be more than a hallucination.  Is 
> entropy the final word in the universe? Bucky Fuller proposed that 
> intelligence is anti-entropic. If so consciousness  and the greatest 
> possible accuracy about  our ecological and spiritual framework is  the 
> true battle ground of every change.
>
> Right now in the US the battle is intense because the shift that is 
> needed to survive with any kind of human grace is  obscured by the  lusts 
> of power and greed  and fear that hobble both the poor and  powerful.
>
>
>
>
>