Gravity's Rainbow in depth on Studio 360

[Joseph Tracy]

David, can you give some context for your dialog. Is this a passage in GR and where?

I would certainly insist, to be clear,  that their are people with power, influence and money in many spheres who are in very fact organized in secretive and criminal or simply immoral plans to get what can only be obtained through violence and theft and to eliminate opposition to their plans.  These people are often joined in very large numbers creating historic forces of massive proportion. One could argue that this is just the meaningless wars of ants driven by instinctive territorial genetic programs, but some ants will still be organized against others. The idea that human perceptions about the physical, biological and psycho-social  order  is delusional because it seeks patterns is unprovable just as the idea that there there is some perfect,logical and true explanation for everything is unprovable.  My own sense is that Pynchon regards some patterns of thought as more delusional, more damaging to beauty and life  and thus more morally offensive than others.  To me the pattern of Pynchon's satire is very Buddhist in seeking to evade illusions and delusions but not negating degrees of enlightenment  about self and universe. By drawing the reader to real and false patterns of thought, neglected and well worn interpretations, he asks us to have a questioning mind and use information without expecting some reassuring answer to all our questions. 
On Mar 8, 2012, at 11:13 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> On 3/8/2012 12:56 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> " . . . . From Auschwitz we can get to Hiroshima, but how do we get to the roots of either? We can’t bear this blankness, and so we invent roots, social, psychological, racial, anthropological, archaeological.
>>> 
>>> "All these inventions are paranoias, Pynchon is telling us, they create connections where there are none, and he sets out, in Gravity’s Rainbow as in V., to make elaborate, sympathetic, but devastating mockery of all such enterprises . . . ."
>>> 
>> don't mean to be pissy but...
>> to make a mockery is to impose order, which is a lot like telling us. There ain't no non-meaning so you gotta make yer ownlyiest won there is directly between you and the rest of the universe. to abdicate to a planet killing plunderful order  is to father oneself smaller than too small for me. fear is part of seeing the real. paranoia is just a word.  peter peter paranoia was gone when the cops came jollying up his sweetie pie elsewhere inthegrassisgreener. some order forms get you what you want . others are more or less free formless. some very paranoid people thought Hitler was going to bring  misery and death rather than the glorious rebirth of the master race, but homeland security made sure they didn't start any silly conspiracy theories. because of their hard work and no-nonsenses   beautiful clusters of bombs are falling planless on the paranoiacs who persisted in not being from the right place quietly and without any wikileaks. make sure nobody bad ever comes to you
> r pure and perfect nation and whatever you do don't take no wikileaks, it's a pee that fails to please the non paranoid with the uniforms and the ABombs that don't scare nobody who's already dead. Thomas Pynchon wrote a bible for little Joe everyman. it's just like the other ONE in an inscrutable kind of way. I completely agree with him and you and me too.
>> 
>> i'm afraid yer wrong about them connections. the connections are proliferous, continuous, seamless and pretty as a pitcher of revolutions, bags of moolah, redredwine, water water heaven's daughter, revelations,  and unregulated hocky pucks with only the lies missing. You don't need em anyway.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> You sayin' sometimes they really ARE out to get you.
> 
> Or, all the time they are.
> 
> Oneirene paranoid is "nothing less than the onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that everything is connected, everything in the Creation . . . . "
> 
> But later in the book, Roger needs enlightenment:
> 
> "You're a novice paranoid, Roger," first time Prentice has ever used his Christian name and it touches Roger enough to check his tirade. "Of course a well-developed They-system is necessary but it's only half the story. For every They there ought to be a We. In our case there is. Creative paranoia means developing at least as thorough a We-system as a They-system-"
> "Wait, wait, first where's the Haig and Haig, be a gracious host, second what is a 'They-system,' I don't pull Chebychev's Theorem on you, do I?"
> "I mean what They and Their hired psychiatrists call 'delusional systems.' Needless to say, 'delusions' are always officially defined. We don't have to worry about questions of real or unreal. They only talk out of expediency. It's the system that matters. How the data arrange themselves inside it. Some are consistent, others fall apart. Your idea that Pointsman sent Gloaming takes a wrong fork. Without any contrary set of delusions delusions about ourselves, which I'm calling a We-system the Gloaming idea might have been all right-"
> "Delusions about ourselves?"
> "Not real ones."
> "But officially defined."
> "Out of expediency, yes."
> "Well, you're playing Their game, then."
> "Don't let it bother you. You'll find you can operate quite well. Seeing as we haven't won yet, it isn't really much of a problem."
> Roger is totally confused . . .."
> 
> Kind of figured Michael Wood would get a rise out of some p-listers.
> 
> P