AtD post...the Chums, misc. and even more misc

[Joseph Tracy]

On Mar 28, 2009, at 2:48 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:

>> Ian L writes:
>>
>> "Maybe Wilber is near the heart of the matter when he says that  
>> people
>> all start out at the same developmental stage and progress along  
>> their
>> particular developmental path until they get off and say "that's
>> enough.  I'll just stay at this stage."  Most commonly that stage is
>> the stage of ethnocentric values in which "my group" is the right one
>> and everyone else is wrong."
>>
>> Q: Could this summarize, in a tangential way, where the Chums are  
>> at the end of AtD?
>> Western Civ-centric historically?

I see this  "my group" is the right one
and everyone else is wrong." as where the chums start out, not where  
they end up.  Their journey has paralleled western civ in some ways  
but  they start out authority-male centric, trusting that they are  
working for the good guys, accepting the pay( economic) arrangements  
without questions, and full of the cliched presumptions of  
Christanity /western progess through gee whiz science and being on  
the right side.   By the end of the story  they have seen the dark  
soul  of the  future, most of their presumptions have been challenged  
and overturned  the power structure has changed radically and they  
have given a very equal status to the feminine, the eastern, the  
collective, the democratic.   The style is still boys adventure  
story  but they are no longer in a "my group is right" frame of  
mind.   The problem is that their  positive send-off takes place in  
the most fictional of the 3 worlds Pynchon is juggling in this  
book:   history ( a good portion of the characters, setting,  
background  and events)- a fictional interpretation of history( the  
journey of the Traverse clan)  - and  imaginary mythos  (  the  
adventures of the chums of chance)  .  But I think Pynchon  finds the  
changes in the chums to be evident in the real world too.