drugs in Vineland---and drug laws

Paul Mackin mackin.paul at gmail.com
Tue Mar 31 14:35:03 CDT 2009


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: drugs in Vineland---and drug laws


> Drug use is a form of social protest in a society where it's outlawed. 
> But it's an easy, ineffectual, and basically self-serving substitute for 
> real protest (strikes, demonstrations, civil disobedience, riots, 
> organizing, alternative media, education campaigns, etc).
>
> Laura

In real life a drugged population most likely would be a more docile one.

In VL the use of drugs serves as a symbol of the power to the individual to 
resist the power of the state and Pynchon plays with the idea in a way that 
makes a kind of crazy sense.

The flaw in logic gives the figure a double purpose.

The oppressors are properly held in contempt while the victims are shown to 
be a little foolish.

P



However this is a


Pynchon's power as a writer does not drive from his logic.





>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Mar 31, 2009 2:02 PM
>>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Re: drugs in Vineland---and drug laws
>>
>>
>>Premise: Crackdown on pot smokers in Vineland is major embodiment of The 
>>State interfering in what
>>should be our simple right to ingest what we want. New fascist Prohibition 
>>State, so to speak.
>>
>> Yet, just as we should be and are able to drink alcoholic beverages in 
>> Vineland
>>America, being too much drunk would not be part of "the good life", 
>>whatever that is, right?
>>
>>OBA, like all the best writers, has a perspective on 'the good life" in 
>>Vineland.
>>
>>Contentious perspective for discussion: drug use, despite our freedom to, 
>>is "part of the problem" in Vineland????
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> 




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