Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau:

[Mark Kohut]

I was so blinkered. I do not remember seeing our soldiers on drugs on TV news. Just remember the major 'news' shots and the steady drumbeat of the war and protests against. 

Discussion question:
Were "addictive" drugs, as they spread out from more limited circles, such as musicians' worlds, the inherent vice? 

This question presumes pot is not addictive yet that 'harder' ones are. Which might be one way Pynchon sees it??





--- On Sun, 11/15/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau:
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 7:03 PM
> Remember watching this with my mom on
> Cronkite or Huntley/Brinkley.  It was kind of shocking,
> though it was clearly a "good" thing for "our" side, because
> it showed that the soldiers didn't want to be there any more
> than we wanted them to be there.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_5RJNo_oF8
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Otto <ottosell at googlemail.com>
> 
> >To put it plain and simple: were drugs the 'inherent
> vice' of all the
> >hippie-story, the reason behind its failure? Because
> drugs were part
> >of "the System" long before the whole thing started? As
> Doug says in
> >his post about Vietnam. Vietnam was the first fully
> televised war, we
> >had it in our living-rooms every evening before the
> weatherman. We
> >knew that many soldiers were stoned, could only cope
> with the
> >situation by taking drugs and that on the other hand
> young Americans
> >were in riot against that war taking the same drugs as
> those soldiers.
> >
> >Dope and LSD doesn't make sure that you don't become a
> killer like
> >your boozing neighbour? We knew that from the
> Manson-story.
> >
> >To claim "Love & Peace" is surely a good thing, but
> what if the term
> >"Love" is overused (p. 5), abused by people to
> manipulate others, in
> >combination with drug-use, as Manson did.
> >
> >Dope and doper's greed make you vulnerable in a system
> like ours, you
> >can be blackmailed to snitch on your people, if you
> don't want "Them"
> >to destroy your live.
> >
> >The hippies had no insurance against that, it was
> something that
> >couldn't be avoided (p. 351).
> 
>