On money and billy clubs

[Ian Livingston]

> right on.  the biggest instance I can think of is how although by 1966
> Leninist Marxism was still lumbering along, even at that early date it
> was pretty clear that every anarchist movement that had arisen
> anywhere had gotten the everliving crap kicked out of it
> (which is a shame, as it's by far the most attractive theory in many respects)
> but knowing that history probably has something to do with her
> approaching it gingerly

Yes, and, too, I wonder how clear Pynchon might have been at that time
that "anarchist" was mostly a government-applied term to any political
group that did not toe the line with those in power. Unions,
Communists, Socialists, Atheists, Italians, Irish, Poles, etc.--all
were cited as "anarchists" when the Bureau of Investigation wanted to
marginalize, fragment, and ostracize them in the public sphere,
creating enemies of the American people wherever they deemed it useful
in preserving the status quo.

And so, once again, we are back to Bakunin, I suppose, and I've not
read Bakunin, so I am all ears (well, eyes) on that. I wonder what
Pynchon read of Bakunin?

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:23 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ian Livingston  wrote:
>> Remembering that Oedipa is a Young Republican, of course.
>>
>
> exactly!  that meant something a bit different in 1966 than it does
> now, although there are still similarities...
>
>>> a bit about learning from history...
>>
>> As per Santayana's infamously misquoted assertion that those who fail
>> to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them?
>>
>
> right on.  the biggest instance I can think of is how although by 1966
> Leninist Marxism was still lumbering along, even at that early date it
> was pretty clear that every anarchist movement that had arisen
> anywhere had gotten the everliving crap kicked out of it
> (which is a shame, as it's by far the most attractive theory in many respects)
> but knowing that history probably has something to do with her
> approaching it gingerly
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant