BE -- "death wish for the planet"

[Monte Davis]

SK> ...the collective human psyche can be thought of as somehow emblematic
of an individual human psyche in some senses, in that it is created by so
many of them

You've hedged, but I'm still wary of cross-domain metaphors. Are you
"somehow emblematic" of a eukaryotic cell (and if so, which? in your liver,
lung, or bone marrow)? Is the US Capitol building more emblematic of a
brick, a slab of marble, a steel beam, or a nicely sculpted plaster
cornice? Is a library emblematic of a Dewey decimal category, or a
complete-works set, or that buckram-bound volume right there. or its author?

We'll be talking about the distinct paths of Freud and Pavlov from
neurology to psychology in the course of the BtZ read; I'll just say here
that their cross-domain metaphors for "energy," "excitation," "inhibition"
etc. are (1) ideal raw material for P's brilliant exploitation, and (2)
deeply suspect and, if taken as science, deeply misleading.

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 11:08 AM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It does make sense, though I think the collective human psyche can be
> thought of as somehow emblematic of an individual human psyche in some
> senses, in that it is created by so many of them. And from there I think
> some might say--maybe Brown, whom Mark mentions here and elsewhere, though
> I have not read Brown to exhaustion--that the death-urge is not only as
> "universal and natural" (and abundant and ubiquitous) as those "laws of
> self-interest and self-preservation" you mention, but rather they are both
> equally and inextricably part of the same constant churning thing inside
> the world of people. That is kind of unfalsifiable, I know, vague, probably
> meaningless. I mean it in a thought-experiment sort of way. I'm not super
> well versed in much of anything related to psychoanalysis as of now, let
> alone, as Brown has it, the psychoanalytic meaning of history.
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2016, at 1:26 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Agreed. Very much so. It also is chilling, to me, as a student of
> post-Enlightenment aberrant thought, in the sense that there are certain
> "new" habits or ways of thinking that seem almost tailor made to circumvent
> these heretofore considered universal and natural laws of self-interest and
> self-preservation. I see this perverse, willful, spite-like death-urge that
> is present in both the so-called medievalist manifestations of Modern Islam
> AND a lot of end-game capital-M Modernism's nigh unto psychotic,
> narcissistically self-aggrandizing suicidal abnegation of the totality of
> meaning in life... this Cosmic Horror that all the kids seem to be grooving
> on these days.
>
> I dunno. Does that make sense at all?
>
> Jerky
>
> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>
>> Ernie on the internet in BE:
>>
>> "'As it kept growing, it never stopped carrying in his heart a
>> bitter-cold death wish for the planet, and don't think anything has
>> changed, kid.'"
>>
>> BE, 420
>>
>> John Kennedy on the search for peace:
>>
>> "We must, therefore, preserve in the search for peace in the hope that
>> constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach
>> solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a
>> way that it becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on a genuine
>> peace. Above all, while defending our vital interest, nuclear powers must
>> avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a
>> humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the
>> nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy -- or of
>> a collective death-wish for the world."
>>
>> http://www1.american.edu/media/speeches/Kennedy.htm
>>
>>
>> Kennedy also said:
>>
>> "In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union
>> and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace
>> and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests
>> of the Soviet Union as well as ours -- and even the most hostile nations
>> can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only
>> those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.
>>
>> So, let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct
>> attention to our common interests and to means by which those differences
>> can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can
>> help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our
>> most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe
>> the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
>>
>> Quite impressive.
>>
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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