aw. RE: lagan or ligan/: Carl Schmitt: Land vs. Sea

Thu Aug 13 18:06:27 CDT 2009

Gai-conciousness is a possible (Erdbewusstheit?) correspondence, but one
of the things that appears to be --- compared to the smooth way the dialogues
are rhythmically woven into the text (I really love it!) --- some relativly outstanding
motif in IV is the Law of the Sea. It's, so to speak, far away from Doc Sportello's
usual affairs, and for a moment, no matter how much hooked by the plot (and I think
this time Pynchon really made it according to the standards he had formulated in the SL-intro:
TRP wanted to create something definitely DIFFERENT from GR, that way featuring American VOICES),
you cannot help but have to stop reading for a moment and wonder:

Why does Pynchon put maritime law in the foreground, though the story would largely work
without it?

Must be something serious. Or just some 'selective perception' of mine ...

And then I though that the Diffentialdiagnose of 'tellucic law' vs. 'maritime law' is something
both, Schmitt and Pynchon seem to have an interest in; regarding the understanding of the complete crash
of European (public!) international law by, first of all, German, then, later on, UK/US Air-Terror
(vgl. "Raumwandel des Luftkrieges" [NdE, pp. 293-8] ... "A Screaming comes across the sky ..."),
I'm 100% sure about this kute korrespondence.

"Soon a pair of greenish blobs appeared on the radar, moving closer with each sweep, and Sauncho got on
the radio. Some of the transitions sounded like a Gordita Beach Bar any night of the week.
'Your buddies from the Justice Department,' Doc guessed.
"Plus the coast guard. Saucho looked at the schooner for a while through the binoculars. 'She's seen us now.
Pretty soon ... yup. Some smoke. She's switching over to diesel power. Well, that lets us out.'"
(Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice, p. 356)

There are 'special' (overseas) ships in V, GR, M&D, AtD, and, now, --- in Inherent Vice.

(Right, there's also Col49's "Godzilla II", chapter three, but "a 17 foot aluminium trimian" does
not leave its Heimatgewässer, so it's likely not relevant in our context).

Enough for today, next week: How much is the title "Against the Day" influenced by Schmitt's concept
of the Christian Kat-echon (vgl. NdE, pp. 28-32)?

With best wishes,
Kai

http://www.itlos.org/

>
> wunderbar!...and given P's Gaia consciusness, who knows what relevance?
>

> --- On Thu, 8/13/09, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
>> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> Subject: RE: lagan or ligan/: Carl Schmitt: Land vs. Sea
>> To: markekohut at yahoo.com, pynchon-l at waste.org, rpmahnke at gmail.com
>> Date: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 2:00 PM
>>
>> Mark Kohut schrieb:
>>
>>>
>>> Maritime law, mentioned in IV, is perhaps the oldest,
>> most convoluted, most deeply intertwined with the past,
>> since the oceans were
>>> there before
>>> the lands were 'nationalized', so to speak.
>>>
>>> So, lawyers and paralegal friends have told me...
>>>
>>
>> Now, in terms of the continental law tradition, 'maritime
>> law' was, after the 'discovery' of the New World, kinda
>> problem:
>>
>> Land vs. Sea!
>>
>> Do perhaps check out the third chapter ("Freedom of the
>> Sea") in the third part of "The Nomos of the Earth"
>> (Telos Press) by in/famous CS:
>>
>> http://books.google.de/books?id=Qayg5HqaY18C&dq=The+Nomos+of+the+Earth+%26+Carl+Schmitt&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=kB8KLDL8Xn&sig=XDtR1OQnovOtHITpclZ4wlXllL8&hl=de&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPP1,M1
>>
>> (Yes, the man did really racist things --- kicking Jews out
>> of the German lawsphere --- between 1933 and 1936, was for
>> parts
>> of his lifetime a clinical paranoid, and is nevertheless a
>> brilliant law-theorist and political philosopher; if you're
>> interested in 'Pynchon and International Law' or somesuch
>> you will, also re: GR's Air-Terror, find many gems in "The
>> Nomos of
>> the Earth"; for a Jewish interpretation of Schmitt's
>> Politische Theologie see "ad Carl Schmitt", Merve-Verlag:
>> Berlin, by Jacob Taubes;
>> and then there's one American book we sometimes discuss
>> here Schmitt did in fact know very well, it's "The Education
>> of Henry Adams")
>>
>> "Das MEER bleibt außerhalb jeder spezifisch staatlichen
>> Raumordnung. (...) So ist die im 16. Jahrhundert
>> entstandene
>> europa-zentrische Weltordnung nach Land und See in ZWEI
>> verschiedene globale Ordnungen auseinandergetreten. Zum
>> ersten Mal
>> in der Geschichte der Menschheit wird der Gegensatz von
>> LAND und MEER die weltumfassende Grundlage eines globalen
>> Völkerrechts.
>> Jetzt handelt es sich nicht mehr um Meeresbecken wie das
>> Mittelmeer, die Adria oder die Ostsee, sondern um den
>> ganzen
>> geographisch vermessenen [Hallo: 'M&D'!] Erdball und
>> die Weltozeane. Dieser völlig neue Gegensatz von Land und
>> Meer bestimmt
>> das Gesamtbild eines jus publicum Europaeum, das einer von
>> Europa aus entdeckten, wissenschaftlich-geographischen
>> erkannten Erde
>> ihren Nomos zu geben suchte. Hier stehen sich demnach zwei
>> universale und globale Ordnungen gegenüber, die nicht auf
>> das Verhältnis
>> von universalem und partikulärem Recht gebracht werden
>> können [!!]. Jede von ihnen ist universal. Jede hat ihre
>> eigenen Begriffe
>> von Feind, Krieg und Beute, aber auch von Freiheit [!]. Die
>> große völkerrechtliche Gesamtentscheidung des 16. und 17.
>> Jahrhunderts
>> gipfelte also in einem Gleichgewicht von Land und Meer, in
>> dem GEGENÜBER zweier Ordnungen, die erst in ihrem
>> spannungsvollen
>> Miteinander den Nomos der Erde bestimmten. (...) Das große
>> Gleichgewicht von Land und Meer bewirkte ein Gleichgewicht
>> der
>> kontinentalen Staaten untereinander, verhinderte aber
>> gleichzeitig ein maritimes Gleichgewicht der Seemächte
>> untereinander.
>> Insofern gab es ein kontinentales, aber kein maritimes
>> Gleichgewicht."
>> (Carl Schmitt: Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus
>> Publicum Europaeum [1950]. Berlin 1997: Duncker &
>> Humblot, pp. 143-5.)
>>
>> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt
>>
>> Just for the record? Oh well ... there are still some
>> things that could be said re: Pynchon/Jackson (Robert H.,
>> grandfather of Melanie)/Schmitt ... In Nürnberg, Mr.
>> Jackson became --- at least you can read this here and there
>> --- kinda fascinated by CS;
>> fact is: Carl Schmitt got not, as Jackson had originally
>> planed, filed a charge against him yet was upgraded to the
>> status of
>> an expert-witness. Strange story (true!), my story, her
>> story, your story, history ... not bunk ...
>>
>> KFL
>>
>>
>>>
>>> --- On Wed, 8/12/09, Robert Mahnke wrote:
>>>
>>>> From: Robert Mahnke
>>>> Subject: lagan or ligan
>>>> To: "P-list"
>>>> Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 10:10 AM
>>>> It even took several centuries before
>>>> the law could make up its mind
>>>> about exactly what constituted wreck. The legal
>>>> historian Lord Coke,
>>>> writing in 1817, defined it thus:
>>>>
>>>> "Flotsam is when a ship is sunk or otherwise
>> perished, and
>>>> the goods
>>>> float upon the sea. Jetsam is when the ship is in
>>>> danger of being
>>>> sunk and, to lighten the ship, the goods are cast
>> into the
>>>> sea, and
>>>> afterwards notwithstanding the ship perish. Lagan
>> or
>>>> ligan is when
>>>> the goods are so cast into the sea, and afterwards
>> the ship
>>>> perishes,
>>>> and the goods are so heavy that they sink to the
>> bottom;
>>>> and the
>>>> mariners to the intent to have them again, tie to
>> them a
>>>> buoy, or
>>>> cork, or such other thing that will not sink, so
>> that
>>>> they may find
>>>> them again."
>>>>
>>>> Bella Bathurst, The Wreckers 9-10 (Houghton
>> Mifflin,
>>>> 2005).
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
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