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

[Mark Kohut]

wonderful stuff, yes......Pynchon loves the water, too.....very visible as
a value in Against the Day, I think and all the stuff in that book about
the natural land being older than the nation-states seems to dovetail with
the Law of the Sea, yes? 

--- On Thu, 8/13/09, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> Subject: aw. RE: lagan or ligan/: Carl Schmitt: Land vs. Sea
> To: markekohut at yahoo.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 7:06 PM
> 
> 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).
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>