The ugly truth of science

Tue Jun 18 12:52:07 CDT 2013

You have acted nobly in resurrecting the spirit of P-list flame wars of
old, but in a lot more civilized manner.  It serves a function.

On Tuesday, June 18, 2013, Monte Davis wrote:

> An afterthought: Think about how many times over the years you’ve seen
> the lines I omitted for space below –****
>
> ** **
>
> “*dawn is nearly here, I need my night’s blood, my funding, funding, ahh
> more, more…*” ****
>
> ** **
>
> quoted as evidence of Pynchon’s satiric hostility to IG
> Farben/Krupp/GE/Shell/ICI, to the military-industrial-R&D complex of 1945
> (and 2013), to Technology itself. The voice is the voice of a vampire,
> right? And vampires are evil, right? Q.E.D.****
>
> ** **
>
> Now: in the same book he gives us King Kong, the Schwarzkommando, the
> White Visitation’s play on German fears of blackness, Major Marvy’s racist
> ravings and his castration, rag-poppin’ Malcolm X, etc. etc…. ****
>
> ** **
>
> And we don’t say “Pynchon is a racist,” or “Pynchon reveals his pervasive
> fear of Africans’ and African-Americans’ righteous revenge.” We recognize
> that he is writing about *projection…* about whites’ and Europeans’ and
> Germans’ *mythologized fears… *about an* Other *that is shot through with
> ambivalence. (Who brought Kong to NYC? Who tormented him? And in the end,
> for all the sexualized horror of a nubile blonde in that big black fist,
> wasn’t it Beauty that killed the beast?)****
>
> ** **
>
> But when he gives us Technology as a vampire – a creature just as mythical
> as King Kong, just as compound of fear and attraction and grudging
> identification, just as shot through with ambivalence (see prime-time TV
> for all the personable, hot, misunderstood vampires anyone could want)…***
> *
>
> ** **
>
> Why, that’s just Pynchon harshing on his target, Technology. Move along,
> nothing to see here.****
>
> ** **
>
> Mm-kay… anything wrong with this picture?****
>
> ** **
>
> Foax, I’m going to start now to do what I should have had the sense to do
> all along. I’m going to stay out of generic discussions of “Science,
> Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Good or Bad?”****
>
> ** **
>
> … or “Scientists: Noble Benefactors of Mankind or Robotic Fascist Vanguard
> of Doom?”****
>
> ** **
>
> … or “Would Power and Wealth and Preterition Have Played Nicely if They
> Hadn’t Had Pointy Sticks, Metal, Gunpowder, Calculus, Steam Power, Electric
> Utilities, Behavioral Psychology, Nuclear Weapons, IT, and Genetic
> Engineering?”****
>
> ** **
>
> I know I instigated some of them, and have jumped into others, and I
> apologize. God knows there are whole libraries about that, and many other
> places online to discuss that – some with more knowledgeable and eloquent
> discussants than me or thee.****
>
> ** **
>
> From now on I ’m going to try to deal with those Big Questions only *as
> reflected and refracted in Pynchon’s fiction*, and *as Pynchon’s fiction
> has shaped my own take on them*. ****
>
> ** **
>
> I didn’t write those long posts on Eden/Arcadia, the Romantics, and the
> “Two Cultures/Luddite” memes because I have anything fresh to say about
> them as such. I was groping toward an understanding of why so many Pynchon
> readers and critics are quick to recognize aspects of Pynchon that *are*aligned with the “literary intellectuals’” culture (per C. P. Snow) and its
> critiques of the scientists’ and technologists’ culture … and why they miss
> or deny aspects of Pynchon that point the other way, or are ambivalent, or
> undermine/transcend the “two cultures” dichotomy entirely.    ****
>
>       ****
>
> That’s where I have questions and ideas that weren’t chewed to pulp a long
> time ago. That’s where I’ll try to stay. ****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* owner-pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
> 'owner-pynchon-l at waste.org');> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'owner-pynchon-l at waste.org');>]
> *On Behalf Of *Monte Davis
> *Sent:* Monday, June 17, 2013 11:01 AM
> *To:* 'Christopher Simon'; 'Joseph Tracy'; 'P-list List'
> *Subject:* RE: The ugly truth of science****
>
> ** **
>
> CS> Talking about potential misuse of powerful technologies as a fault of
> "science"… is shifting the blame and missing the point.****
>
> ** **
>
> Yes. That’s why I keep coming back to Enzian’s meditation in the ruined IG
> Farben factory near Hamburg (pp. 518-520 in the Penguin trade pb). It’s a
> marvelous example of Pynchon’s supple voice, sliding in and out of a
> character’s consciousness, in and out of multiple authorial stances,
> arguing with itself. First it reifies technology as an autonomous,
> irresistible force hungering for its funding like a vampire for blood. WWII
> and global capitalism are just a sideshow for the rubes:****
>
> ** **
>
> “…this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all
> just to keep the people distracted . . . secretly, it was being dictated
> instead by the needs of technology . . . by a conspiracy between human
> beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war
> [...] The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among
> firms—it was only staged to look that way—but  among the different
> Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are
> understood only by the ruling elite […]”****
>
> ** **
>
> Then reified Technology denies its own agency and responsibility (some
> Alice in Wonderland paradoxing going on here):****
>
> ** **
>
> “Yes but Technology only responds (how often this argument has been
> iterated, dogged and humorless as a Gaussian reduction, among the younger
> Schwarzkommando especially), ‘All very well to talk about having a monster
> by the tail, but do you think we’d’ve had the Rocket if someone, some
> specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn’t *wanted* to chuck a ton
> of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians? Go ahead,
> capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you feel less
> responsible—but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the
> eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless
> hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they
> are—‘ ”****
>
> ** **
>
> NB that here we, too are, engaged are in the P-list’s longest-running
> “dogged and humorless argument.” Have some ersatz coffee, Christopher; I
> think there are few drops of that godawful potato schnapps left to give it
> a kick. ****
>
> ** **
>
> One faction of readers takes the first part of the passage as “what
> Pynchon really thinks,” and either ignores the second part or responds
> with: well, Technology **would** say that, wouldn’t it? Like Verbal Kint
> sez in *The Usual Suspects*, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled
> was convincing the world he didn't exist.”****
>
> ** **
>
> I’m inclined to the opposite view: that the second part is closer to what
> we should take away, and the first part a “dance of the seven veils”: if
> you think you’ve seen through War and Capitalism to the real villain in
> Technology, you’re falling for the same shuck and jive all ovcr again.
> You’re neutered – useless – and in fact HELPING the elite, by playing their
> misdirection game. NB that in the movie, little lame Verbal Kint **was**
> the master criminal himself, and got away scot-free by building up
> imaginary Keyser Soze. In fact, the Devil’s greatest trick was to say “Hey,
> look over there! Isn’t that the Devil?”****
>
> ** **
>
> Until you stop ranting about Technology (and Conscienceless Scientists)
> and start asking who paid for the research,
>
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