Question concerning GR

[David Morris]

The elite here are the obvious ones, those addicted to wealth.  And thus,
they are the biggest  huxters.  Pretty simple.

On Saturday, June 14, 2014, 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
>
>
>
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