TOO reBEel or naught to reBEel ?

[Ray Easton]

kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> I don't think I or anyone else here has expressed some naively optimistic view that if they (lower case) had been more politically aware in the '60s, there would have been some more successful rebellion against THEM, or attributed that view to Pynchon.  The conversation originally arose because someone expressed frustration about the window-breakers and police-fighters in London, and others of us thought such people had their place in "the rebellion" against the powers that be.
>   

You may well be right.  Perhaps my reason for thinking otherwise is that 
I have trouble distinguishing what is and what is not intended as 
commentary on Vineland.


> If the antiwar movement succeeded in the '60s, it was because of the broad spectrum of people involved.  

The antiwar movement succeeded in the 60's?  You sure could've fooled me.

How so?  Because the war ended?  Well, of course, it ended.  Wars always 
end.  Even the hundred years war only lasted a hundred years or so.   We 
did not defeat THEM, even temporarily. 

> In terms of Che (not Guevara, but the lingerie-lifting teen-hooker), I think Pynchon looks upon her without judgment and with some fondness and more than a little prurience (he clearly has a thing for teenaged girls).  But I don't think he or any of us here would consider her form of rebellion an effective one.  Ultimately, there's never going to be an effective rebellion 

Well, if there's never going to an effective rebellion, then why is her 
form not as good as any other?

> -- we're not in line for any Nirvana on earth --but informed rebellion is one of the great experiences available for the lucky few on this planet.  It may be that Che finds shoplifting and taking creeps for their money to be a thrilling form of rebellion.  Personally, it's hard for me to believe that Che's life is as thrilling as that of a genuine rebel:  a Wobbly or a Paris Communard.  And the anti-war demonstrations must have been more exhilarating for the SDS activists than the apolitical potheads.  Rebellion for the hell of it is fun, but political awareness can only increase the high (just a gut feelin!
>  g here).
 
I don't believe this.  I was an SDS activist for a time.  Anti-war 
demonstrations *were* thrilling.  But it was not my experience that they 
were any more thrilling for me they were for the pot heads beside me who 
were only "looking ahead to the next toke or the next piece of ass".

Isn't the notion that the *experience* is different rooted in fact in 
the judgment that the "political types" were doing something "moral" or 
"heroic" or "important" and that the others -- the "hippie bums" -- were 
not?  I certainly did think that I was doing something "important" and, 
yes, at times, even "heroic".  

Ah, but I was so much older then...

Ray