TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)

Wed Jun 12 17:38:33 CDT 2013

So
 about this two cultures thing. One strong element is traceable as far
back as the pastoral mode. By 600 BCE in Greece, it was an established trope
in Greece 500BC that there had been a golden age when we were at one with
the natural  world, but cities / commerce / too much book-learning, or some
other apple we shouldnt have eaten, were drawing us away from all that.
Nymphs and shepherds in Arcadia, Works and Days, Virgils Eclogues, blah
blah blah. Ive read that there are counterpart tropes in the oldest
Egyptian and Chinese literature; I suspect that Mohenjo-Daro and Jericho 1.0
had them, too,  but evidence is sparse.  

But for modern English-speaking readers, surely the taproot is in the
English Romantics. Their nation was the cutting edge of industrialization
and urbanization; their time was when the feedbacks among science,
technology and engineering really picked up speed  when invention became a
businesslike craft. It wasnt just urban life, getting and spending, that
laid waste our powers: it was those damn machines, and theories, and those
Morlocks working on better ones.  Any halfway educated reader should
recognize Keats lament in  Lamia: 

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine
Unweave a rainbow

Or Wordsworth claiming that the countryside lets us intuit all thats worth
knowing:

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

A-and hey, foax, do I have to remind you of those dark satanic mills? Weve
seen them again in Sarumans caverns, contrasted them with the sweet fields
of the Shire and the quiet forests of Lothlorien. Arent the scientists and
engineers obviously the bad wizards and the orcs? 

Capitalism, the industrial revolution, colonialism/imperialism, poor Charlie
C in Modern Times, the technological horrors of world war, automation
breeding alienation, rape of the good green earth -- dont we all know that
science and technology did all that because they just wouldnt listen to the
awesome poets? If we read and think and care about human values, isnt it
obvious that weve got to get ourselves back to the garden? 

OK, enough. You know the drill. Theres nobody here who couldnt vamp on
this for pages. In fact,  its part of the default worldview for most people
of literary and artistic culture. Its why, as Snow  said, the scientist who
knows nothing of Shakespeare is *expected* to be embarrassed if the Bard
comes up in conversation, but the writer or artist who knows nothing of
thermodynamics is *expected* to laugh it off: I never was any good at
math.

The relationship of the two cultures is not symmetrical. Its not just that
they have different sets of values; one side claims the exclusive right --
because its all about *people*, and only people have values and give them
meaning -- to define what is a value, and why this value merits priority
over that one. Curtis Whites got all the latest steps:

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion-Questions-Culture-Answers/dp/16121920
09/ref=sr_1_1?s=books
<http://www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion-Questions-Culture-Answers/dp/1612192
009/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371071064&sr=1-1>
&ie=UTF8&qid=1371071064&sr=1-1

Im part of that cultural configuration, too. And the default view is indeed
there to be found  all through Pynchon.  Who doesnt  pick up on Rachel
Owlglasss unhealthy relationship with her car shift, and that pervert
Nefastiss rap about Maxwells Demon? And its genuinely powerful and
chilling when Pynchon goes all Dante on some shlub of an engineers
short-sighted career choices, because he knows and we know the carnage that
will flow from it. 

The trouble is, a few pages away theres some beautiful, empathic, *knowing*
passage about the beauty and transcendence of a formula or aerodynamic
principle that drew the shlub into engineering in the first place. And over
there are Chas and Jer, wringing out the last systematic errors from their
obs and getting it by-god right. And somehow it feels right that it feels so
good to them. (I know that one, because I spent some time on a survey crew,
as did Benny; it wouldnt surprise me if TRP the town surveyors son did
too.) And as we survey, going by on the road is Merle, moving on to salts
of gold, platinum, copper, nickel, uranium, molybdenum, and antimony,
abandoning metallic compounds after a while for resins, squashed bugs,
coal-tar dyes, cigar smoke, wildflower extracts, urine from various critters
including himself
  This is all actual photochemistry, people, not
handwaving.

Tell me: is it really plausible that all this (and a metric buttload more)
is there as nothing more than bait? As examples of how people get drawn to
the Dark Side? If these are just the snares that lead sinners into doomed
congress with science and technology, hes sure putting a lot of work into
them, isnt he? 

No  wait. Just spitballing here
 but could it be that theres more going on
in Pynchon than a superbly written 10,000th version of Keats and
Wordsworths warnings? Is it possible that at the same time he is suspicious
and minatory and worried about science and technology (and he is, like so
many other writers),  he is also (like very few others in literary fiction)
really interested in it? Attracted to it? Even fascinated by it? Concerned
to show us some real, important human values that come to us through, even
because of, math and science and technology?

Could it be that the more understanding of science and technology you bring
to his fiction (and Alice notwithstanding, he brings a lot himself), the
richer and more interesting it gets?   

Nah. Thats crazy talk.

[end part two]         

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