Question concerning GR

[John Bailey]

The 'They-System' seems pertinent here - perhaps he's referring less
to 'elites' as individuals than as functions within a (death) system.
In becoming those functions (think of Brock Vond, Scarsdale, Blicero)
they become less individual people and more symbols, objects, roles,
icons, myths, even cartoon figures. None of which have the slightest
agency in their own right.

Although that gets me thinking about the idea of the individual I'm
opposing this too, and I've struggled for a while to work out what P
makes of it. If GR and some of his other work is deeply critical of
The System (typical of the era of its writing) I'm not sure if he
poses individual agency as a preferable philosophical alternative,
given that that way can lead to libertarianism, Ayn Rand objectivism,
etc. I think AtD's ambivalent handling of anarchism is obviously
touching on similar questions. The oft-lamented 'family is all ya got'
get-out isn't much more satisfying.

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> After a day I ask, what is the major freedom--determinism embodiment in GR?
> Perhaps conditioning? Pavlov, of course, back to Slothrop's childhood.
>
> Are The Elite conditioned into their role? TPRs use of They is some
> circumstantial evidence for a yes to that; and the influence of Weber's
> Protestant Ethic might be more evidence? Calvinists believed their fate was
> predestined, we know.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jun 14, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Andrew Field <andrewfield2002 at hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> ________________________________
> From: andrewfield2002 at hotmail.co.uk
> To: dkholm at mac.com
> Subject: RE: Question concerning GR
> Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 01:29:21 +0100
>
>
> I'd love to troll you all and say that I am the famous Nabokov scholar ....
>
>  But no, I'm Andrew Field the wannabe, possibly future novelist, trying to
> write a 9/11 novel that cannot see pass nihilism, due to the savyness of
> Nietzsche, Camus and a distinct lack of meta-narratives. Saying this, it
> seems the only way to transcend nihilism is the attitude that things
> profoundly matter to me in themselves for me without any concreteness to
> them. But for me I know this thought is illusionary and thus self defeating.
>
> If you search for Andrew Field hard enough though on google, you'll see a
> guy who wrote a philosophical masters on cornell realism and program
> explanation - thats me.
>
> P.S. - Thanks for all the suggestions so far, some really interesting
> thoughts. Really liked the one about "elites" not being able to have an
> identity through the public sphere that is not really their own. But my
> personal
> ________________________________
> Subject: Re: Question concerning GR
> From: dkholm at mac.com
> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:37:18 -0700
> To: andrewfield2002 at hotmail.co.uk
>
> Hi! Is this the same Andrew Field who wrote the great critical study of
> Nabokov, and the wonderfully readable bio, plus the novel Fractals? I've
> liked your work for years, and despise the VN mafia.
>
> On Jun 14, 2014, at 7:56 AM, Andrew Field <andrewfield2002 at hotmail.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> Hey P-Lister's,
>
> I'm going through my second reading of GR and it is clear that it is an
> absolute masterwork. There has been a passage that has always stuck out for
> me, and I'm undecided what rationale Pynchon gives to the following:
>
> "I would see you free [talking to the rats), if I knew how. But it isn't
> free out here. All the animals, all the plants, the minerals, even other
> kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an
> elite few, who are the loudest to theorize about freedom, but the least free
> of all."
>
> The character who speaks it is Weberly Snail, but it is almost an inclusion
> of the author's voice at this part.
>
> - This paragraph mirrors, ostensibly, the key theme of the book, technology
> and control (or freedom and domination, if you will), but the question is:
> why are the few elite the least free?
>
> To me, it seems this is an evasion on Pynchon's part - an almost throwaway
> answer - that resists the complication of the obvious reply: they are more
> free than you because they are not part of the system of control the same
> way that we are. So who can blame the master for making you a slave, if he
> becomes more free because of it.
>
> From the outset, to me, it seems the elite are more free because they can
> choose your bondage, and you will always be part of the
> scientific-technological control system. It doesn't make sense to think the
> elite are less free because they have to spend their time controlling you.
> It would amount to, in the master vs. slave dialectic, that the slave is
> more free. A counter-intuitive answer.
>
> So, who is more free, and why did Pynchon think they were the least free?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andrew Field
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l