IVIV (12): 195-197

[Mark Kohut]

yeahp...in the political anarchist tradition, if that isn't oxymoronic, there are lots of ways to organize capitalism (and machine use; and technology in general) more equitably. I am a minor expert on employee-owned companies, which I'm just sayin' and trumps nothing. 

But, I will play my bass line again: In TRP's vision, the whole Western world--maybe wider than that?---since, I once again suggest hyperbolically, maybe the Enlightenment has been in the wrong hands almost everywhere. This is a major reason why technology, maybe science itself, is much more against us---in his vision---than for us. The preterites have no power; never have.  

The 'wrong hands' created the technology that even the well-intentioned preterites have to use, be part of. But TRP still, mostly,heavily, believes the technology takes us away from ourselves. Once again, where we started: photography is a classic example in his oeuvre, despite nice Merle--exemplified by Merle's life in AtD. In all other writers we might talk about, most less hard to just 'understand' as TRP, we would judge the author's 'meanings' by what he allows his characters to become; what happens to them, etc. That's how I suggest we have to see Merle--and the Traverse family for that matter. The writer's overarching vision explains his words, scenes and event choices, as I say perhaps condescendingly---we all might agree with that, we all just disgree on that meaning in the works re technology. So it is. 

I will throw out for those arguing against my position one of the major parts of Against the Day that might supply a great example for your case:
That city-in-the sky that the Chums (and family) make, which if it could not answer every question, could provide a way to answer them---or some such, i am paraphrasing..........what a "positive' view of an advanced 20th Century city......

But then we know what happens at the end. 

Later,

Mark
 

--- On Tue, 11/3/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: RE: IVIV (12): 195-197
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009, 9:04 AM
> In Michael Moore's latest,
> Capitalism: A Love Story, he gently brings up the idea that
> there's nothing inherent to technology or work that makes it
> necessary to treat workers like garbage. It's master-slave,
> boss-worker, corporate board-work force that distorts the
> workplace.  Once could (only in theory of course!)
> imagine a work place where the workers owned the high
> tech-factory, set the work conditions, etc., where
> technology wouldn't be oppressing the worker.  Or one
> could imagine (less theoretical)the same factory where
> workers are coerced into long hours, in horrifying
> conditions, paid slave wages, etc.  I think Pynchon's
> against technology (and photography, and electricity) only
> when it's in the wrong hands (which it usually is).
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
> 
> >
> ><<
> >Tore:
> >
> > In M&D, for instance, Mason rages against the
> bloody
> >Mills (313) which steal the work from the proud British
> workers,
> >whereas Dixon points out that Engines can sometimes
> also remove
> >the need for slave labor (697).
> >>>
> >
> >Yes, and sometimes the thing that makes a technology
> 'bad' is the same
> >thing that makes it 'good. In fact it's often the irony
> of that
> >contradiction which makes the matter so interesting. I
> think Pynchon
> >is ambivalent about a lot of things. HIs work is full
> of dualities.
> >And technology is just one of the more important
> ambivalences that run
> >through his work.
> >
> >Lots of handy aide-memoires here:
> >
> >http://www.thomaspynchon.com/gravitys-rainbow/extra/technology.html
> >
> >Particularly:
> >
> >"But Technology, alas, braid-crowned and gold-thighed
> maiden, always
> >comes up for grabs like this."
> >
> >
> >> Tore:
> >> Machines are bad, but sometimes they're not so
> bad.
> >
> >O-or, machines are good, but sometimes they're not so
> good. Well, no,
> >that would be stretching it way too far. My own,
> utterly unscientific,
> >memory-based impression of Pynchon's general attitude
> to technology,
> >is that on the approval/distrust scale, his needle
> would balance out
> >over on the distrust side. So, he's ambivalent, but
> erring on the side
> >of caution.
> 
>