Fw: Arendt and Heidegger, the postwar 'friendship"

[Fiona Shnapple]

1. Bloomberg is mayor now and was when the novel, BE was published.
2. BE is as about the dotcom to Sept 11 period when Rudy Giuliani was
mayor.
3. In the book Pynchon targets RG and R Moses for changes the made to the
City.
4. Though MB is not named, the critiques of RG and RM are critiques of MB
as well.

RG & Bloomberg are the new Moses, in that they have made what the mayor
elect calls, two cities. Rip down the housing of the working class, make a
playground for the rich.

On Thursday, December 5, 2013, wrote:

>  Though he's not mayor then, he is now, and he seems to be, ironically,
> neo-Robert Moses.
>
>  Wonder what you mean by that.  The distinguishing things about Moses,
> who never held elected office, it seems to me, was creating his own seat of
> power, a parks commissioner with more real power than the mayor or the
> governor, then head of the Triborough Authority; his vast reshaping and
> creation of the city's and the state's roads, buildings, bridges, parks;
> the inability to remove him, up until the end.  Bloomberg's a billionaire;
> Moses died with less than $100,000 in the bank.  I really don't see any
> parallels.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thu, Dec 5, 2013 2:45 pm
> Subject: Re: Fw: Arendt and Heidegger, the postwar 'friendship"
>
>  Why did Jews, in Arendt's case, a Jewish female, who, certainly had to
> deal with a double prejudice, end up intellectuals? In OT Arendt provides
> the history.  Not saying that history repeats itself exactly, but it seems
> to me that in the USA, after WWII, what Arendt describes, the 19th century
> shifts that caused Jews to get out of banks and store shops then garments
> and department stores and into professions, to become intellectuals, then
> to get into fame, not necessarily their own, is a cycle that came round
> again here and is the Jewish world Maxine is raised in. The golden age of
> security can't get anymore secure than nyc under bloomberg. Though he's not
> mayor then, he is now, and he seems to be, ironically, neo-Robert Moses.
>
>
>
> On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>
>> Didn't hear the one about the sock tucker, the cork soaker and the coke
>> sacker. Do I want to?
>> I do have a note to blow and nut to blitherate. This is it. Far as I can
>> tell Heidegger didn't really let his fascist fire glow in the dark but he
>> did  endorse and join the Nazis and that is where the break with Arendt
>> came.  Assent is all that is required from most people to start an imperial
>> reign of terror by the truly committed creeps. But even if he failed to see
>> what was coming, he never appears to have fully reckoned with the effects
>> of his co-operaton.
>>
>>  The strain in Heidegger's thinking that seems most dangerous to me was
>> something very common to his time. It is the idea of race , of some
>> essential unique identity of a "people" which was becoming synonymous with
>> nation. This identity generally turns out to be the master race, the chosen
>> ones, the exceptional nation, the smartest kids in the room, the true
>> faith, the royal rulers of land and sea. Purity ain't easy; there is all
>> that cleaning to do: ethnic cleansing,  political bloodbaths, lapel pins on
>> crisp blue suits, orwellian linguistics, regular checkups on your
>> whereabouts and associations,  passport complications, private interviews
>> with the secret police, stress release in the form of fantasy violence,
>> etc. etc. Thank God and George and Obama it can't happen here.
>>
>>
>> On Dec 4, 2013, at 10:36 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>>
>> > Guys, guys, ain't you heard of compromisation?  Remember the one about
>> the sock tucker, the cork soaker and the coke sacker?
>> >
>> > I gather, as one might gather nuts in May (here we go blithering nuts
>> in May...) that this Heidegger dude was a philosopher of some repute and
>> may have had some fairly interesting things to say (which is possible, I
>> guess) and that that Hannah Arendt (yes she are...) made some philosophical
>> hay out of the postwar coming to grips with the Holocaust (insofar as there
>> can be any coming to grips with such monstrosity)
>> >
>> > So that Mark's speculation on their relations is the sort of shocking
>> addendum that may have given Kai the same sort of jolt as I got reading (lo
>> these many years ago) Abbie Hofmann's _Revolution for the Hell of it_
>> wherein he recounts encountering a liberal priest at an antiwar rally or
>> someplace and telling him, "go fuck a nun"
>> >
>> > A comment like that is made for pure outrageousness and was in keeping
>> with Abbie's public image but Mark's comments usually run to more
>> thoughtful territory...
>> >
>> > Yes I guess it is in keeping with a theme of FATF (female attraction to
>> fascists) but Heidegger wasn't so much an operative a la Brock Vond or
>> Windust or Deuce (not deuce Bigelow, he wasn't at all fascist), rather...
>> > - a-and I think this is a point Kai has been sharpening - his writings
>> were co-opted (not without a degree of consent) as apologia for the odious
>> deeds.
>> >
>> > Anyway one might be taken aback by the conjuring of specific carnality
>> in the case of these widely-considered-August personages, but as somebody
>> said in GR, "he came out of a quim just like you"
>> >
>> > Ayn Rand probably would've jumped his bones as well...
>> >
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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