IVIV (12): 195-197

[Joseph Tracy]

I did fine in Algebra  and personally think most technology is  
neutral. But I cannot read my own ideas into Pynchon. Mark is giving  
many examples, all  of which come to mind rather easily to anyone who  
has read through Pynchon's work.  I do not think this advances an  
argument for scientific ignorance, but a skepticism about engineering  
a better world through engineering. The assertions you and John are  
making about Pynchon's ambivalence to technology lack examples and  
textual reasoning.
I don't think it's a matter of  Pynchon ascribing agency to the  
technology but to the mindset that fails to  account  either for the  
negative effects of technology  or for what is frequently the  
essential and inherent violence of technology.
On Nov 1, 2009, at 6:38 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> John Carvill sez:
>
>> Interesting that some question the claim that Pynchon is
>> generally ambivalent about technology. Personally I struggle
>> to conceive of him being anything but ambivalent.
>
> At least after he channeled Henry Adams' dynamophobia in _V._, he's  
> been
> quite clear that technology is *not* an autonomous force:
>
> "All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but do  
> you think
> we'd've had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a  
> name and a
> penis hadn't *wanted* to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow  
> up a block
> full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify  
> it [or
> reify it - MD] if it'll make you feel less responsible-but it puts  
> you in
> with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem  
> of our
> stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans,  
> human elite
> with no right at all to be where they are-".
>
> That theme carries through all the way to the dynamite, the morphing
> liner/battleship, and the exhilaration of the proto-Fascist dive  
> bombers in
> _Against the Day_. Pynchon is ambivalent in that he knows very well  
> how
> technology (like language, or religion, or government) amplifies and
> empowers our every instinct and impulse, for better or worse.
>
> But he doesn't ascribe agency to it. That seems lost on the many  
> readers who
> would enlist him in some late-late-Romantic crusade to Get  
> Ourselves Back to
> the Garden: "we're warm and human because we bailed out during  
> Algebra 1,
> and Technology is our chill external foe." The passage above is pretty
> un-ambivalent about that stance: it's not just clueless, it  
> actually makes
> things easier for the *people* -- not  the trends, not the  
> tendencies, not
> the historical inevitabilities, not the technology, the *people* --  
> who are
> fucking us over.
>
> -Monte