Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.

Sun Jun 2 16:04:44 CDT 2013

No tag team today, MalignD.

On Sun, Jun 2, 2013 at 4:14 PM, <malignd at aol.com> wrote:

> What a stupid comment.
>
> Science can't wash it hands of these crimes.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sun, Jun 2, 2013 11:33 am
> Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.
>
>  Science and thus the scientist is essential, is indispensable to the
> villainous acts, the evil we have seen in the 20th and 21st century.
> Of course there are connections. But when we define the connections,
> clearly, honestly, we see that science has been and is instrumental, has
> been an essential element, in holocaust, in genocide, in war, in evil.
> Science can't wash it hands of these crimes. While no one would attempt to
> defend generals, businessmen, politicians, scientists take exception, make
> excuses for the evil that science has been an integral part of, for the
> evil deeds of scientists. While it would anger nearly everyone in the USA,
> were they to learn that the government protected and defended, even
> supported, a Nazi politician or general or businessman, the Nazi Scientists
> are given special treatment. Von Braun is but one example. Why? Well,
> because the Sciences are defining the fundamental ways in which we
> experience the world by defining the world as we experience it. This is
> quite a powerful position to extend to any group in a society. As the
> saying goes, power corrupts. And, although science is quick to put on the
> cloak of theory, to shield itself from claims to absolutes, for they know
> that power and absolutes exposé them to claims of corruption, to claims
> that science is against life, to accusations of gnostic death dreams (the
> causal and causation is embodied in Blicero), it continues to divide nature
> from human endeavors and it refuses to accept the limits of its reach.
> Science smashes atoms and makes big data virtual tours of space for
> voyeurs, because it can not abide a mystery, magic, or the man who makes a
> house of nature with an extension of his hand.
>
>  Today, I worship the hammer.
>
> On Sunday, June 2, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:
>
>> "taking responsibility for both the good stuff and bad stuff you do" --
>> I'm
>> down with that.
>>
>> It's what you mean from moment to moment by "you" that I can't get my head
>> around. Sometimes the villainous agent or agency is science, sometimes
>> it's
>> technology (not the same, and much older than science), sometimes it's
>> industrialization per se, sometimes it's industrial capitalism, sometimes
>> it's the global scaling-up with population of our species' ecological
>> footprint.
>>
>> Are there many connections -- both causal and corollary -- among all
>> these?
>> Yes.  Are they one and the same Big Bad Thing? No. I'm well aware that I'm
>> doing that analytical/dissective approach you reject... but if yours is as
>> coherent as holism gets, I think I'll pass.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Joseph Tracy
>> Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2013 2:20 PM
>> To: P-list List
>> Subject: Re: Pynchon knows this, I say. Sorta always known.
>>
>> Bullshit. I don't support, believe in or advocate Luddism though I don't
>> particularly despise those with  true and sincere distrust of technology
>> or
>> tribal peoples who don't want to adopt the technologies and science of the
>> modern world. I do advocate taking responsibility for both the good stuff
>> and bad stuff you do.  I advocate technologies  and science that don't
>> require theft and destruction. I advocate methods that are bio-spherically
>> respectful and sustainable.
>> On Jun 1, 2013, at 12:16 AM, David Morris wrote:
>>
>> > You essentially advocate Luddism.  I think Tea Party, stupid party,
>> fearful and reactionary.  I really hope TRP isn't that dumb.
>> >
>> > Dr. Mengele looks a lot like TRP:
>> > http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
>> >
>> > Maybe he feels the Dr's guilt.
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Friday, May 31, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> >  But scientists and technologists are not merely adjuncts to bad
>> political
>> pressures, they sometimes lead the way into ethically abusive terrain,
>> atom
>> & then hydrogen bombs, nuclear power plants sited on unstable terrain(
>> Fukushima) with approval of scientists, medical scientists came up with
>> the
>> things like the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments, US military experiments
>> exposing people to radioactive materials, MK Ultra's experiments using
>> drugs, sensory deprivation and torture on unwitting Canadians. The Nazi
>> "medical" experiments were often as "scientific" as current experiments on
>> rats.  The  pragmatic, for some more than others, philosophy  of
>> "Scientific
>> advancement " demands that materials be mined and provided cheaply no
>> matter
>> the human and eco costs. Science and the products generated by science
>> demand access to the materials and cannot ask for a free pass.
>> >
>> > Sometimes scientists provide the disease and then the cure as in DDT,
>> > HFCs ,phthalates, and Thalidimide. With global warming there may be no
>> > cure
>> >
>> >  You want to say these things are entirely political, but politicians do
>> not make dioxins or PCBs, do not figure out how to mine with mercury, are
>> not the inventors of fossil fuel technologies or new plastics and other
>> products  and techniques that poison the waters and soils.. The
>> presumption
>> that all the questions and difficulties we face are neatly divisible in
>> such
>> a way as to absolve  scientists and the  scientific method is not an idea
>> to
>> which I will be genuflecting.  The science we inherit  has relied heavily
>> on
>> analysis through dissection, dissolution, explosion and the reduction of
>> all
>> things to the observable component parts. This has been a mindset with
>> some
>> very dark consequences because life, and the only reality humans can
>> actually experience is interactive, conscious, interdependent and more
>> than
>> the sum of parts or rules. There is no rule by which things desire to
>> live,
>> and no methodology of science has ever produced a living reproductive
>> organism. Once again as in the original article there is a large gap
>> between
>> what  science claims  to know and what can be demonstrated by experiment.
>> Scientific practice is not  able to be isolated as some pure and benign
>> pursuit. It has been heavily fueled throughout history by war and greed
>> and
>> has itself fueled war, injustice and avarice.  Some of this comes out with
>> heart-rending intensity in Mason and Dixon, Gravity's Rainbow, and Against
>> the Day.. Equally so in The Metaphysical Club, Frankenstein, A Brave New
>> World.
>> >
>> >
>> > On May 30, 2013, at 10:44 PM, David Morris wrote:
>> >
>> > > Good point.
>> > > But your beef is entirely political.  It has nothing to do with
>> science
>> or philosophy, except beyond their application in politics.
>> > > In the US 3rd parties are almost lays losers.  You seem to be
>> advocating
>> a allegiance of scientist as a political voice.  And Amen!
>> > > But that goal isn't about science or philosophy.  It's about
>> pragmatics.
>> > >
>> > > David Morris
>> > >
>> > > On Thursday, May 30, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> > > No.  I
>
>
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