Crackpot Realism

[Mark Kohut]

Seems Mills thought " crackpot realism" was caused in practice by the very self-interested trinity of military, corporate and political Leaders.....quite naturally Pynchonian and maybe the novelist
Who used the phrase knew its origins?

Sent from my iPad

> On May 23, 2015, at 7:54 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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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