New Age Imperialism

[Robin Landseadel]

Very interesting proposition, seems as though your observations would  
apply to an even greater degree to "Against the Day."

There was never any doubt in my mind that Mystical Female figures play  
prominent roles in Pynchon's novels, never really looked at Sister  
Rochelle in that light before but what you've posted certainly  
applies. It appears to also apply to the other MFFs in Pynchon's  
novels. Oedipa experiences change at a basic level of consciousness,  
becomes aware of the social context of her life in a way she was  
closed off to before. Geli Tripping deals with a harrowing social  
reality and has spells that work. There's all sorts of Western Mystic  
Mumbo-Jumbo throughout Mason & Dixon that just happens to be  
completely intertwined with social context of these two scryers of  
land. There is a great deal that points to the loss of our western  
spiritual traditions during the so-called age of Enlightenment.  
Ironically, M & D is the author's darkest novel, leastways as far as  
the lighting is concerned. Sortilège always seems perfectly practical,  
least until she slips over into Lumeria and who knows? Maybe there's  
practical knowledge in that, like "Run For The Hills!"

And then there's Cyprian.

On Nov 13, 2010, at 6:25 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

>
> In all his books, from V to Inherent Vice, Pynchon is making fun of  
> us Westerners trying to learn
> from the wisdom of the East. There is not only something helpless  
> about it, it's also politically
> problematic. Just some minutes ago I read a passage from David  
> Cooper's "The Death of the Family"
> [1971] that sheds some light on this. Since I read it in German I  
> give you a short summary of his
> basic argument and just (back)translate Cooper's final sentence.  
> What he says is that - although
> the cultural imperialism the West is forcing the East into is bad  
> enough - the true crime is the
> expropriation of the Eastern traditions by our Western cultures.  
> Cooper says we're "parasites"
> sucking out older civilizations. This he calls "reactionary  
> mystification". His example is the selective
> transplanting of elements of Mahajana Buddhism from Bhutan to San  
> Francisco without taking into
> consideration the different social contexts. The outcome of this is  
> a political "quietism" which,
> according to Cooper, goes along only too well with the global  
> exploitation. David Cooper finishes
> the passage with the sentence: "True Mystics were always very  
> conscious of the nature of society
> they lived in and, thus, really political human beings."
>
> Is Vineland's Sister Rochelle a "true mystic" in this specific sense?
>
> Kai
>
>
> "Es gibt heute in der Ersten Welt eine weitverbreitete Sehnsucht  
> nach großen Lehrern und geistigen
> Meistern, die, wenn sie auch nicht alle Probleme lösen können, doch  
> zumindest den richtigen Weg zum
> richtigen Ziel zeigen können. Eines der ausgeprägtesten Merkmale des  
> kulturellen Imperialismus sind
> nicht die kulturellen Modelle, welche die Erste Welt der Dritten  
> aufzwingt, was an sich schon brutal
> genug ist, sondern ist die Weisheit, welche die Erste Welt jeder  
> älteren Zivilisation wie ein Parasit aussaugt. So entsteht eine  
> reaktionäre Mystifikation, die von Mystik keine Ahnung hat. Wenn zum  
> Beispiel einige Elemente des Mahajana-Buddhismus nach dem Westen  
> verpflanzt werden ohne Rücksicht auf die unterschiedliche soziale  
> Realität in Bhutan und San Francisco, dann ist das Ergebnis ein  
> Quietismus, der insgeheim völlig mit dem ausbeuterischen System  
> übereinstimmt. Echte Mystiker waren sich der Natur der Gesellschaft,  
> in der sie lebten, immer äußerst bewusst, und in diesem Sinne waren  
> sie wirklich politische Menschen."
>
> (David Cooper: Der Tod der Familie. Reinbek bei Hamburg 1972:  
> Rowohlt, p. 61)
>
>