Karmic Adjustment & Weber

[Markekohut]

Thanks  for the dialogue. 

My basic reasons for  posting this distinction are 1) we know P was influenced by some Weber, but not how much and from where.
2) we know religious notions matter a lot to P
3) interesting to me to see a genius pattern-finder find ( and analyze) how A) linear eschatology
Leaps to God's eternal inscrutability which humans rationalize about to believe in their own "salvation" . Such transcendence usually minimizes the phenomenal world
B) a karmic eschatology , in contrast, maximizes the phenomenal world---I see ATD here in bright sunlight--and/but is also based on some kind of faith in...the possibility of balance? Ultmate cosmic justice?   ( don't you just love Pynchon playing with the " come out even" concept? )

Sent from my iPad

On May 16, 2013, at 11:32 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Regrettably, personal matters prevent me from continuing this philisophical inquiry (my younger son is getting  married). I checked my bookshelf for other references to Weber and found only one: The World of Goods by Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood. I had the good fortune to hear Dr. Douglas speak twice in 1979. Good luck with your quest to decipher God's inscrutable Wil.
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> No links..My synopsis from The hard copy...
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On May 15, 2013, at 10:58 AM, Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> You wrote: "For my purposes below in Sociology of Religion, Weber assumes the truth of his major thesis and finds that Calvinist pattern
>>> in a lot of religions. See on God's inscrutable Will."
>>> 
>>> Was there a link "below" not included in your message?
>>> 
>>> Off topic: Is the proliferation of electric shopping carts in grocery stores an outward sign of an inward moral decline?
>>> 
>>> On topic: Did Pig Bodine have charismatic authority? If so, what was his source for that authority? Beer? Poontang? Both?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 4:16 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Yeahp.
>>>>  For my purposes below in Sociology of Religion, Weber assumes the truth of his major thesis and finds that Calvinist pattern
>>>> in a lot of religions. See on God's inscrutable Will.
>>>>  
>>>> Then he finds a different pattern, more akin to Pynchon's allusions to karmic adjustment, maybe? with a 'complete closure of the moral system over time".
>>>> What's that mean to us, esp in relation to Pynchon?
>>>> Ye old Arc of Justice? Reaction/Counterreaction in History? In life? Jacobean--like Revenge as a ..closure??
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> From: Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com>
>>>> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 3:50 PM
>>>> 
>>>> Subject: Re: Karmic Adjustment & Weber
>>>> 
>>>> HA! (Is the elephant in the room LOL?)
>>>> First, Schroeder's paper 'Weber, Pynchon and the American Prospect' tops Google search results. Are there any other online refs you'd suggest? Did Schroeder pay Google $ for that premium placement?
>>>> 
>>>> So...
>>>> 
>>>> Wading into Weber:
>>>> Weber analyzed the historical shift from the conspicuous consumption of the Renaisance priveleged class including the Catholic Church to the economically calculating Protestant classes that sprouted around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The shift occured at three levels, economic, doctrinal, and moral. He identifies the "spirit of the age" to explain the shift in behavior from the traditional inheritance and religious calling to individualist capitalist determination; from working for salvation in the afterlife to accumulating wealth here on earth. That covers a lot of territory and time periods but Weber focuses on Europe after the Renaisance. To be continued...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 1:58 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> This is the plist....'Don't follow leaders; feed the parking meters"...
>>>> 
>>>> From: Jeff Sunbury <jsunbury at gmail.com>
>>>> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
>>>> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 1:43 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: Karmic Adjustment & Weber
>>>> 
>>>> Mark, the water's lukewarm but how deep do you want to go? I still have a paperback copy of Protestant Ethics from college.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Parsons, long-winded, sez in writing of another of Weber's key concepts 'rationalization'
>>>> "which is the master conception through which cultures define their religious situation".................... 
>>>> which is resolved, basically, in one of two ways....."in the two fully consistent philosophies of moral meaning,
>>>> or theodicies, which have appeared in religous history."        
>>>> 1) One is the Calvinistic conception that resolution depends on the relationship between an absolute, all-powerful, unknowable, God
>>>> upon which his Creation--all of us--is dependent on his Will and
>>>>  
>>>> 2) the doctrine of karma, which postulates a complete closure of the moral system over time spans altogether
>>>> commensurable with the human life span, though not, strictly speaking, eternal.
>>>>  
>>>> Justifying God's ways to man involves accepting unproveable postulates, of course, but similar considerations apply
>>>> in the case of karma, Parsons says of Weber's notion.
>>>>  
>>>> Kai, all, jump in, the water's lukewarm here.
> 
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