The Anonymous and TRP/: Max Weber

[Mark Kohut]

Forgot this ending line: 
        I suggest that for Thomas Pynchon, to accept any public adulation, any 
award, any honor is by definition to be singled out--you have to read him to get 
other resonances for this phrase as well--and would be the mirroring of charisma 
and a deeply hypocritical act. 


----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>; pynchon -l 
<pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, February 9, 2011 10:11:42 AM
Subject: Re: The Anonymous and TRP/: Max Weber

From an almost-published in a mainstream way, --still trying,-- longer essay on 
TRP and privacy. 


"his coherent, comprehensive vision of human beings in the modern world, heavily 

formed by his earliest mature work. What part of what vision? Let's quote 
another near-contemporary of genius, Bob Dylan, from 1965's Subterranean 
Homesick Blues: "don't follow leaders/ watch the parking meters". "Watch the 
parking meters" might embody a metaphorical truth about the nineteen-sixties and 

early seventies that is bandied about by those who know the early work best. 
        That was then, even the Bush surveillance years are gone, and through 
today Pynchon has turned down every request to accept an honor, to speak, to 
appear. Because "don't follow leaders" reverberates even deeper with Pynchon's 
vision. That line can bring Max Weber, the great sociologist, to mind, quoted in 

and very influential for Gravity's Rainbow and still rippling through Against 
the Day. In Weber's famous essay "Politics as a Vocation", he touches bottom on 
how a 'leader' emerges out of any group of people: charisma does it. Charisma: 
being seen to be differently better--naturally exceptional. People recognize the 

quality--and want to please whoever has it. A leader is a charismatic individual 

who can command followers. To want followers, however-- like politicians and 
religious figures, which are Weber's examples---is where the truth of 'power 
corrupts' begins, Pynchon's whole oeuvre shouts. From Gravity's Rainbow: "One of 

the dearest Postwar hopes: that there should be no room for a terrible disease 
like charisma." The villain in Vineland, is defined as charismatic. Contrast 
with a deliberately offhand image of a pile of T-shirts used by all in Against 
the Day or read the "anarchist miracle" dance scene in The Crying of Lot 
49--some cures for charisma, so to speak, in Pynchon's world. Mr. Pynchon wants 
no followers of any kind and the deeper into him one reads, the more one can 
learn that follow oneself could be Pynchon's equivalent of Socrates' know 
thyself. "








----- Original Message ----
From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>; Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Sent: Wed, February 9, 2011 9:43:01 AM
Subject: Re: The Anonymous and TRP/: Max Weber


Max Weber's diagnosis of Occidental modernity Pynchon makes use of, especially 
in Gravity's Rainbow,
is that of 'bureaucratic dominance' ("bürokratische Herrschaft") which is 
characterized by the
"ROUTINIZATION of charisma". You know, organizations, science, the law, 
Pointsman ... It's true that,
according to Weber, the system now and then needs a shot of temporary charisma, 
but the general
tendency goes just the other direction ... RATIONALIZATION along the ways of 
capitalism (and please
don't forget that Weber appreciated the work of Karl Marx very much!). Oh, and 
thanks for the hint, but alone in "Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft", Weber's opus 
magnum, there are literally dozens of pages dealing with the issue of 
'charisma'. The general problem with charisma is, according to Weber, that 
charisma is 'alien to economy' ("wirtschaftsfremd"), and that's why it is doomed 

to die in the modern
world. At least in the long run ... "On this way from a stormy emotional life, 
alien to economy, to slow
entropic death under the pressure of material interests is any charisma in any 
hour of its being, and  indeed, with every passing hour to a rising degree" (Max 

Weber: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 661,
fünfte, revidierte Auflage, Tübingen 1980: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), edited by 

Johannes Winckelmann;
the translation is my own). Btw, with the sociology of the artist this has not 
that much to do.

KFL


On 09.02.2011 14:18, Mark Kohut wrote:
>   and esp his anti-charisma rants--read
> the definition of charisma from Weber: it means standing out publicly and 
using
> THAT
> ---which he will never do.



____________________________________________________________________________________

Don't get soaked.  Take a quick peak at the forecast
with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time 
with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news