Crackpot Realism

[Monte Davis]

Could be wrong, but I think sociologist C. Wright Mills coined "crackpot
realism" circa 1960 for the kind of pseudo-realpolitik thinking that, e.g.,
had the Bushies in 2002 envisioning Iraq as a beacon of freedom and
democracy for the Middle East.

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 8:57 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> In an online fragment of a book about some "modern writers',
> the (minor) novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet---one of whose books
> pays overt homage to GR, I remember---called writers like
> Thomas Pynchon CRACKPOT REALISTS long before Wood
> found his descriptive adjective for REALIST. @1995.
>
> Besides exaggerated "reality" in description and characterization, he
> found the use of coincidence
> and chance instead of true-to-life plot movements to be a major part of
> his meaning with the term.
>
> I like it better than HYSTERICAL REALISM (which shows Wood's
> bias via verbal associations of Hysterical.
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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