terror,paranoia,hilarity and calculated madness on the way to the transit of Venus- tone in chapters 456

[alice malice]

Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Yes. Poignant example. Also how technology is an extension of human lusts, fears, addictions, competing  world views.

Isn't it the other way round? So Technology Extends human lust, fear,
addiction, ideology, and not only these negatives but also love,
security, generosity, cooperation, magnanimity, hope.

Our boys are taking measurements to draw a boundary, an extension of
law, of agreement and settlement of a bloody conflict.

But there is a problem with such arguments no matter how we make them.

Heidegger, who waxes poetically into mystical poetic engineering and
seems a positive on humanity's capacity for wonder, for we can still
live well if we ally ourselves with forces beyond our control and
beyond our grasp, beyond our comprehension. But this doesn't work.
Look at China! India! Look at the postmodern human society. It doesn't
remain fixed and as it evolves its view of Nature shifts. The view of
Nature as a place, as a sacred space, as ineffable spirit, as garden,
as home, as dwelling....and as an unruly and hostile beast that must
be defeated, tamed, exploited...are in flux, and our position to
Nature is also not fixed and so we may long to dwell in the pristine
forest or we may long to cut the forest down and toil in the Good
Earth. Each age in each region responds differently to the call of the
wild. The coal age, now blackening the lungs of the Chinese is not the
coal age of English Industrialization because the technology and more
importantly, how Nature is perceived is different.  Where is the Earth
that is not subjected to this human view, that is not reshaped and
transformed by the extension of our evolving desires and needs? Where
is it that I may dwell in it poetically.

Dwight Eddins wrote a unique and beautiful book with an unfortunate
name and a difficult introduction, _The Gnostic Pynchon_, and in it he
defines what he calls Pynchon's Orphic Naturalism. I think Eddins is
on to something.

In any event, Mumford and McLuhan, Pynchon sources, perform magic too,
and are much better reads than Heidegger, let alone those unreadable
D&G guys, and each, in the end puts a positive spin on Technology, but
if you read only the history of what Mumford provides and not hos more
positive view of the future, it seems about right and GR, I've always
thought, takes much from Mumford.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l