IVIV (12): 195-197

[Monte Davis]

Tore Rye Andersen sez:
 
> I am constructing a reading that points its finger at the Ruling Elite AND
points its finger at all the rest of us who are all too eager and willing to
relinquish control of our lives to that Ruling Elite (cf. Gottfried's (and
Pökler's) desire to be taken); a reading that points a finger at the
neutered, in other (Pynchon's) words. 

That p521 "neutered" recalls Revelation 3:16's "because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth" as well as
Dante's strictures on those who refuse moral choices.
  
> And I am constructing a reading that points a finger at Technology, the
vast Moloch, the many-headed monster that interferes with our lives and our
planet in so many unpleasant ways, but a reading which also points out that
that monster wouldn't be moving at all if we didn't have our hands up its
ass.

Exactly (and bravo for a perfect Pynchonian backflip into bathetic-demotic
at the end) 

For every scary technology you can name, someone WANTS and someone PAYS FOR
every link in the chain: the pure and applied research, the prototypes, the
engineering for manufacture, the scaling-up and staffing and all the rest.
Pynchon insistently *plays with* the ascription of agency, autonomy,
inevitability, and life itself to technology -- hell, he ascribes sentience
and intent and historical agency to COAL AND OIL STRATA, foax! But I submit
he *knows* it is play, *knows* our preference for Molochian projection over
looking in the mirror.

Yes, looking in the mirror. 

1813, American commander's dispatch after defeating a British flotilla on
Lake Erie: 
"We have met the enemy, and they are ours." 

1971, "Pogo" comic strip on a trashed environment: 
"We have met the enemy, and he is us." 
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Pogo1.gif

Pynchon *plays with* villains like those in the comic books and pulps he
inhaled: Vibe, the ShellMex/Utgarthaloki crowd, Golden Fang, et al. _Pace_
Robin, I submit that he *knows* that is play, too. I submit he *knows* (and
shows, many times) that most of the evil in the world -- evil in its
Technology mask as much as in any other mask -- is implemented a bit at a
time, by lots of mild middling people quite like us, going about their mild
mindless pleasures, not asking too many questions.

Which brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation to: "If they can get
you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."

I am constructing a reading in which all the gorgeous, florid paranoias of
the Pynchon oeuvre tell us: As long as you (WE) keep asking questions of
your (OUR) masks and hand puppets -- reified projections, Technology or
Trystero or Capitalism or the System -- you (WE) are pretending not to know
whose is the only hand inside. 

You want agency?  Hold the puppet up close, make it speak, look into its
eyes. All together now: where is the hand pointing? 

-Monte