BE -- "death wish for the planet" why the internet?

[Thomas Eckhardt]

> Why is Pychon using Ernie, a kind of prophet of the market to draw
> attention to a death wish contained in the internet? Why the internet
> in particular?

As I stated before, I believe the main political theme of the novel is 
the continuity of cold war structures after 1989. Ernie's statement is 
highly relevant in that context ("(...) and don't think anything has 
changed, kid.").

As you wrote in an earlier post, "This question about a collective 
death-wish for the planet runs like a cold shiver through all Pynchon’s 
writings."

Why the internet?

First, the facts as far as I can sift the wheat from the chaff:

Ernie's statement that Arpanet was an element of 
Continuity-of-Government-planning after a nuclear attack is 
controversial. Sez Ernie:

"Your Internet, back then the Defense Department called it DARPAnet, the 
real original purpose was to assure U.S. command and control after a 
nuclear exchange with the Soviets." BE, 419

This is from a randomly chosen website:

"It was not, however, created as part of any command and control system. 
Nor was the notion of surviving a nuclear attack a consideration 
according to statements from those who were in charge at the time (...)"

http://www.alphr.com/features/369490/top-ten-internet-history-myths

The RAND Corporation, however, referenced on p. 419 of BE, supports 
Ernie on this:

'US authorities considered ways to communicate in the aftermath of a 
nuclear attack. How could any sort of "command and control network" 
survive? Paul Baran, a researcher at RAND, offered a solution: design a 
more robust communications network using "redundancy" and "digital" 
technology.'

http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html

Ernie, in what I believe is a conscious reference to JFK's speech on P's 
part (I had not thought Kennedy was much different from other US 
Presidents until I read James Douglass' brilliant "JFK and the 
Unspeakable", the "unspeakable" referring to nuclear Armageddon), takes 
the relation to COG planning for granted. The rhetorical flourish of the 
"bitter-cold death wish for the planet" may be interpreted 
psychologically or spiritually but I prefer to see it as P's trademark 
technological Gothic. The internet is being anthropomorphized -- "It was 
conceived in sin, the worst possible." -- a child out of a horror movie.

The real meaning of this develops in the course of the conversation 
between Maxine and Ernie. It starts with Maxine's observation "Maybe TV 
back then was brainwashing, but it could never happen today. Nobody's in 
control of the internet." BE, 419.

If there is any satire here, and I believe there is, it is surely 
directed against Maxine. Just listen to her:

"And look how it's empowering all these billions of people, the promise, 
the freedom." BE, 420

Understandably Ernie gets a little annoyed:

"Call it freedom, it's based on control. Everybody connected together, 
impossible anybody should get lost, ever again. Take the next step, 
connect it to these cell phones, you've got a total web of surveillance, 
inescapable. (...) What they dream about at the Pentagon, worldwide 
martial law." BE, 420

Neither P nor Ernie are obliged to present a coherent argument. If I try 
to make sense of Ernie's various points, it would go something like this 
(see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19871.htm for 
further background information): We remember that VL on the political 
level was also concerned with COG planning and martial law in the US. 
The internet now makes total surveillance possible, and thus brings 
fascism ever closer to our doorsteps -- put bluntly: total surveillance 
makes it possible to pick out the dissenters and card them off to the 
camps (REX 84 made it clear that this is not a conspiracy fantasy). 
Fascism also brings us closer to nuclear Armageddon because the people 
in charge then may just be MAD enough to think it is in their interest 
to finally initiate the nuclear first strike against Russia that the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff planned for at the beginning of the 60s -- when 
JFK openly opposed them.
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l