48-54 The Problem of the Pavlovian Penis

[Joseph Tracy]

To my mind the link is valid because of the exact parallels of  paranoia and ambition of the scientist that appeals to the paranoia and ambition of the security apparatus of the state to get permission for unethical human experiments. I think there are many instances too where Pynchon makes anachronistic connections because the novels are not really about the past.  G. Bush and 9-11 both made appearances in ATD.

As far as the therapies, I don’t think either has as much credibility today as they once did. Interventions based on theories  without careful research, have done much harm.   

> On May 9, 2016, at 12:23 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 09.05.2016 um 04:49 schrieb Joseph Tracy:
>> Thomas has suggested the connection of
>> Pointsman's pursuit of experimental subjects to MK Ultra which was
>> clearly drawing upon  ideas emerging from behaviorist research. Those
>> MK Ultra scientists also had wacky and unproven notions of reducing
>> human experimental subjects to "a clean slate”. They sold these ideas
>> to the CIA on a remarkable scale with nothing but theorizing and
>> scientific sounding mumbo-jumbo. Part of P’s point in contrasting the
>> psychics with the behaviorists is to show how easy it seems to be to
>> seduce the powerful into any scheme that might afford greater
>> control, no matter the moral or metaphysical implications.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> I assume that Pointsman's efforts to wipe the slate
> of the human mind clean can be linked to Pynchon's
> apparent knowledge about the CIA's mind control
> experimentation. For me, the scene in COL49 I referred to
> suggests that Pynchon was aware of these experiments, some
> aspects of which could be traced back to human experimentation
> in the concentration camps.
> 
> (Experiments similar to those of the MKUltra scientists
> were conducted by the military at Edgewood Arsenal and
> in Porton Down/UK.)
> 
> It is a tenuous link though. As far as I can tell,
> Pointsman is not and cannot be related
> to MKUltra which of course started much later (perhaps he
> will be linked to the OSS later in the book?).
> 
> Probably one should not focus on MKUltra too much here
> but instead on Pointsman's misuse of trauma therapy (cf.
> Weisenburger) to further his own goals. It is clear that in Pointsman's
> hands psychiatric science is not a therapeutic instrument
> to cure people from their neuroses and traumata but
> a tool to achieve control over them (put the control
> inside, perhaps?).
> 
> But then there is the next question:
> 
> If I am not mistaken, Pointsman's therapy consists of
> inducing a series of abreactions (reliving the traumatic experience)
> until his patients give in to the pressure. Then, catharsis is
> achieved, the patients' memories are erased and they
> become (like) children again.
> 
> I find surprising that the abreaction/catharsis scheme is
> linked to a complete erasure of memory in GR. Aren't these two types of trauma therapy
> two very different things, in fact mutually exclusive?
> 
> 1) "reliving an experience to purge it of its emotional
> excesses -- a type of catharsis" (Wiki); indeed a return
> of the repressed, of repressed desires and memories, into
> the consciousness, the cornerstone of Freud's
> psychoanalysis.
> 
> 2) memory erasure or induced amnnesia (including
> drug-induced amnesia) -- which is still a method of
> trauma therapy today, the goal being to erase unwanted
> memories (not to "wipe the slate clean" as Ewen Cameron
> and Pointsman want nor to reprogramm the mind after it has
> been emptied as the CIA
> wanted).
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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