CoL 49

[Ian Livingston]

As to Catholicism and its relation to the adult, one can do worse than
consider the role of metaphor and meaning as they shape the experience
and 'history' of the individual through his identification with the
events of the day and how he talks about them.  What we learn as
children does not go away as we grow older and more complex, it just
becomes sublimated in our psyche.  Although I do not identify as a
Christian, there can be no denying that my ideas of good and evil are
derived from my Christian upbringing.  The ways I look at the events
of our time are largely shaped by that core structure in my
intellectual, emotional, moral and ethical framework.  So too, with
anyone, however well-informed.  Even great authors.  Even
psychologists, philosophers and Buddhists (you might be impressed to
learn how many Tibetan Buddhists are disaffected Catholics -- the
resonances between the two religions are startling when viewed from a
distance.)

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explore the role of metaphor and
experience significantly.

As to the rest -- Good show!  I might argue with a few points you make
but those would be arguments for the sake of gaining deeper insight
into how you arrived at your conclusions.



On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Joseph Tracy<brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> How is it known that TRP is a devout Catholic, as some suggest? I have never
> read the Jules Siegel piece but don't know where this idea comes from or
> what other biographical sources I am missing.. If  TRP was catholic at
> Cornell  that would be interesting but not convincing to me, I was raised in
> Irish Catholic family and have no association or interest with it now. Very
> few people I know retain the religious faith of their College years. Anyway
> further info on this would be welcome. The roles of Catholics seem mixed in
> the 49 text:  Seemingly innocent King of Faggio's devotion used against  him
> by evil Duke Angelo, tristero seems to align with catholicism and holy Roman
> empire but also to engage in murder, Catholic integration into Fascism is
> ugly and alluded to in the novel. Any way I see no clear religious
> sympathies.
>
> Sorry for skipping out on most of the CoL 49 discussion.  Have been reading
> the list  from time to time and finished another reading of the novel, but
> have been spending a lot of time expanding my vegetable garden. I also just
> re-read C Hollanders Magic Eye essay.   One thing that has come to trouble
> me about the story is the dual role of the tristero/trystero.  In one sense
> they seem to stand for an alternative to the official state controlled lines
> of communication, and to connect the dispossessed in a community of the
> preterite.  On the other hand they seem to simply represent the bitterness
> and violent revenge and  self interests of an out of power empire as nasty
> and murderous as any other.    Maybe this is the journey that everyone
> follows who wants to understand what is going on.  One starts from a
> particular identity and sense of moral injustice and finds that what ever
> that group identity is it is implicated in some of the very behavior one
> despises. In some sense every successful nation, culture, religion is a kind
> of power conspiracy with some ugly stuff lurking in the shadows or in the
> open like knocking off Kings  or tribes  or religious and political
> scapegoats and getting away with it.   This confronts one with a lonely
> choice, particularly if one is unwilling to abandon core ethical values or
> reasoned ethical equanimity.   In Oedipa's case she has moved from the arms
> of a good looking actor/lawyer/firmly rooted in the upperclass and despite
> his Jewish name not too concerned about looting graves for profit, to the
> arms of a dying drunk , from the Suburban Gallilee of the ruling class to
> the metaphoric Gallilee of the lost , weak, pathetic, poor. To resolve the
> disposition of the imperial estates of her time  she has plunged deep into
> the political, religious and intellectual culture wars that led to that
> moment  and traced them back as far as the end of the Holy Roman Empire, but
> still has no sense of having discoered what she set out to find.
>
> If we take this, as Hollander argues rather convincingly,  as an indirect
> portrait of the behind the scenes political and economic forces that led to
> the  assassination of JFK by power players in the CIA, Oil barons, etc. ,
> then Oedipa becomes every American who, freaked by this bizarre event and
> its discordant and unsatisfying public explication, probed deeply enough to
> find a world that looked nothing like the  sanctified history of school or
> TV land. If true,  The implications make a mockery of all our public
> discourse and reveal a society stunned into catatonic denial  and doomed to
> an endless round of  greedy incestuous power players pretending to be
> patriotic princes . One thing I found in rereading about the Kennedy Killing
> with the aid of Wikipedia and the web is  that the world of spooks, Mafiosi,
> Drugs, and the very rich and politically powerful are a lot more intertwined
> than has ever been shown in popular media.  The story of Mary Pinchot/Meyer
> is particularly poignant and Pyncho nesque involving an affair with Pres
> Kennedy and LSD, James Jesus Angleton,  her unsolved murder, and the
> deathbed statement of Her ex husband Cord Meyer that she was killed by the
> same bastards that killed Kennnedy.
>
> What all of this  darkening intrigue plays ou against is the continual
> insertion of comic relief. You laugh at the ridiculous and  get a little of
> the individual freedom and comic distance that earnest and serious
> information alone fails to supply.  Watching fake news is now one of the
> last ways to look honestly at the news of the day on a mainstream outlet
> without bowing and scraping before the sacred cows and their sacred cowshit.
>  Of course there's also the aspect of laughing just to keep from crying.
>  How do we know, and how do we know that what we"know" is real. Oedipa looks
> for the truth, then looks for a reason to discount what she finds, hoping
> the mad Doctor will tell her she is  delusional. There was also a
> fascinating phone call between Pinchot and T. Leary)What is valid empirical
> evidence and who decides. CoL 49 looks backward and forward in time at  the
> medium of information as the key point of social transformation, decisions .
>   The simple truth appears in the courier's tragedy as a miracle.
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