What *did* Bakunin say?

[Mark Kohut]

p'raps part of Oedipa talking non-bakunin is TRP proposing--thematically---non-violence?

From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: What *did* Bakunin say?

Joseph Tracy wrote:
>  Another relevant Bakunin quote :
>.... absurdities of religion, they turn up their noses at all the miracles, but they cling >desperately to the principal absurdity; the source of all the others, to the miracle that >explains and justifies all the other miracles, the existence of God.


maybe Oedipa as one of those lukewarm believers...rather than as the
whimsical fallen God ("I've fallen and I can't get up...") ...

>
> One doubts how hard Bakunin actually grasped at any God, let alone this straw God of his own devising.  No possibility considered that mind is not divisible between spiritual and material, that such distinctions may be as much of a mirage as a particular picture of God. Anyway, not my main point.
>

> I would like to know if someone can give a reference for Oedipa's  embrace of Bakunin.
> I find your last sentence about her challenging and clearly identifying my own sense of her >state of mind.

that was Ms Nuchols's sentence, actually.  I was surprised by it too.
sorry for the confusion, I should've inserted some indication of the
quotation continuing to the end of the post!


> The challenging part is the discord  between what she sees with her own eyes and what she feels because of that. She sees the interconnectedness of things, and because of that new sight, another preterite world which is material but formerly unknown.  She feels estranged both from her past life and from the world she has entered. Irony is the right word. It's as though the truth that should make her free is an expensive ticket into a funhouse hall of mirrors.  But my own feeling for Pynchon's approach to forks in the road is that he is inclusive. intrusion of another world --- plus--- underground material communication system which implies alternative power arrangements= fork in the road taken.
>

Oedipa, though, is a creature not too far from the mainstream.  At no
point is she shown as wanting to *belong* to any of the undergrounds;
but at every point she is interested in them and wants to find out
more...


> Seems to me like the preterite at OWS or many other places a person might actually go hang out with a given preterite is livelier than the preterite  in Lot 49. The 49 ers are too ghostly to be much more real to this reader than echoes of Oedipa's own mental state. She has seen another reality but has not yet embraced it.   Later in Vineland we encounter a preterite which is more like a family; there is music, conversation, dumb jokes, difficult family histories, and binding love, sometimes deeper than blood; not sentimentalized but exhibiting  heat, life.  I remember times when I felt like Oedipa, numbly confused as my road map was revealed as a fantasy and only a confusing array of actual roads remained.
>  So taking the fork, more on OWS.  OWS is fascinating in that it is secular but also displays aspects of early Christianity or tribal communities- sharing food, inclusive healing relations, honoring others stories, letting those of traditionally lower status lead in discussions of justice, communal chanting of shared messages. It is also Bakunin-like in the general assembly and secular political pragmatism, opposition to hierarchy. Chris Hedges( war correspondent and ex-divinity student), in a recent article about his experiences at OWS, referred heavily to Bakunin.


I haven't been to Occupy Orlando yet, although my niece brought them a
pie on "Occu-pie Orlando" day...

Bakunin's reputation with me is clouded.  I understand that the
totality of his work is much more than the sound bites that I object
to, and treasures may lurk in those texts.  But I have a real
abhorrence for the implications of "propaganda of the deed" type of
ideas, and not just because history is replete with its proponents'
resounding defeats.
(although that is certainly something to contemplate)

I'd be a lot more comfortable if they were talking about Gandhi and
King, Henry George, Proudhon, eg.
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