Way-out, Saturday party-time, plist-type open-ended question....grounded in Puritanism maybe?

[Madeleine Maudlin]

Mr.Cissell, you are my idol.

A man who like his Wellington *desalinated*.  Just the beef, forgetaboutit.


On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 5:14 AM, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:

> Too simple? As in simplisitc or over-simplified? I think not. "There are
> thousands of other considerations..." for what? You mean the fact that
> people are manipulated through advertising to kill themselves and their
> world?
> "We cannot accept the benefits of Big Business technologies without
> accepting the moral imperatives and the aesthetic forms that come with
> them." I'm not sure aobut the first part, maybe you can explain those moral
> imperatives a little bit more. I take the last part to mean I have to
> accept the package of the product and some other aesthic issues. I don't
> know if that's true. When consumers are offended by ads they can pressure
> the company to change them and the same goes with packaging. I agree that
> you can't have industrial producition without some of the conflict involved
> and that we must respond to that in the way we see fit. Maybe that's what
> you meant about moral imperatives.
>
> And as for those two obvious things... Wow, Alice, you surprise me. Do you
> really think that someone in a grey suit is concerned about somebody having
> more free time or an esier life? let me deal with these.
>
> "Big B.... made life easier for those..." Let me attend to that first. Ok
> so now my grandmother doesn't have to hand wash, great. but what happens?
> alnog wiht the growth that allows poor folk like my grandparents to buy
> these products it also allowed them to buy more clothes, which meant more
> washing. Washing the clothing now takes less time but there is more to do.
> My gradma cleaned all day when she was young and the burden only decreased
> when her children all moved out.
> (Businesses big and small have only one goal, and you now it, make money!
> that is their moral imperative. If it means that someone has more time time
> consume in soem other direction, great, and if it has no affect on theiir
> well being - tough shit.)
>
> Next. "The major changes that Big Business technologies haveproduced are
> most evident most in the social distinctions they tend to
> eliminate." So you mean that someone in Manhattan is now on the same level
> as some one from poor Appalachia because they both use Tide or Cheer? Or do
> you mean that it has caused men to take up an equal share of the domestic
> duties? Please explain.
>
>   "Because Big Business place emphasis on standardization, because its
> immediate objective is effective work, it makes of a culture,
> standardization and puts great emphasis on the generic. Like the Army, it
> seeks to make us uniform." First, as stated before, business has one
> objective - make money, everything follows from that. Interchangeable parts
> and line assembly were simply better ways to reach a wider market. And
> uniform production that "makes us allthe same" ended with the old Ford
> Model T. Now they want to offer you a thousand different options so that
> you can feel different even in the midst of your mass culture of
> consumption. Ray ban doesn't want us all to wear the same glasses anymore
> than GM wants us to drive the same car.
>
> "So equlity, while not its goal, is its result." Many people have cars, is
> that what you call equality? Many people buy Tide, does that make me equal
> to Bill Gates?
>
>  "...the world is flat because Big Business technolgies are, again, not bu
> design, but by nature, deomcratic." Did you really write this or were you
> channeling some tormented capitalist spirit? The world id not flat either
> geographically or socio-economically. Please look around (then again, maybe
> from where you sit it appears that way). Business is emphatically not
> democratic. I dont even know where you get that. You think Monsanto is
> democratic? They will cover your mouth, they will attack your person, they
> will stop at nothing to stop anyone who stands in oppostion to their goal
> of money. Go ask people in Bhopal or a thousand other places if business is
> democratic. Business thrives in democracy, no doubt, but that hardly makes
> it democratic. Take this from somone close to people at the heart of big
> names in big business.
>
> Alice, I respect you greatly when it comes to your posts on literature and
> other related issues, but i think we stand far apart regarding this
> particular subject.
>
> all the best
> mc
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 11:33 AM
> Subject: Re: Way-out, Saturday party-time, plist-type open-ended
> question....grounded in Puritanism maybe?
>
> Isn't this too simple? That is, the argument that its all down to Big
> Business profits and damn Everything and Everybody elese? Sure it is.
> There are thousands of other considerations and ignoring these is
> rather foolish. We cannot accept the benefits of Big Business
> technologies without accepting the moral imperatives and the aesthetic
> forms that come with them. Sure. And puritan themes are not
> scientific.
>
> But, here are two fairly obvious things to consider. So, the Big
> Business soap, the washing machine, made life easier for those who
> were condemned to do the laundrey (the powerless and poor, most of
> them women). The major changes that Big Business technologies have
> produced are most evident most in the social distinctions they tend to
> eliminate. Because Big Business place emphasis on standardization,
> because its immediate objective is effective work, it makes of a
> culture, standardization and puts great emphasis on the generic. Like
> the Army, it seeks to make us uniform. So equlity, while not its goal,
> is its result. The invisivle hand of Smith was made a Visible Hand, as
> Chandler explain. Or, if you prefer a modern phrase that omits much of
> the moral tones of Smith, the world is flat because Big Business
> technolgies are, again, not bu design, but by nature, deomcratic.
>
> Second, the goal is more leisure time or the freedom of other human
> capacities. So, if one is not scrubbing a rich man's drawn down by the
> river side, well, one might be making up a blues tune for the ages.
>
>
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