BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): at the window while he sleeps
Kai Frederik Lorentzen
lorentzen at hotmail.de
Thu May 19 01:34:52 CDT 2016
On 18.05.2016 13:26, Mark Kohut wrote:
> We differ it seems. One of those ultimate interpretation possibilities
> that verses to many ....I see the threatening of cause and effect
> itself to point to science as an overdetermined explanation of the
> world,-- as well as a power play by Pointsman and Jamf et al,--if
> science is all the world IS.....I remember the fierce metaphysical
> satiric slam, if that is the correct description of Mondaugen's use of
> Wittgenstein's positivistic remark in V:
> Every third letter spells “GODMEANTNUURK,” which is an anagram for
> Kurt Mondaugen. ... letters read “DIEWELTISALL— ESWASDERFALLIST,”
> which is the opening line of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, “The world is
> all that the case is” (V. 278).
> This was received as a code, remember.
>
But can Wittgenstein's sentence, and his (early) philosophy in general,
be called "positivistic"? I don't think so. Positivists don't consider
"the mystical" to be a reality. And even the famous opening sentence
has, in the German original, a religious dimension. "Die Welt ist alles,
was der Fall ist" does mean "The world is everything which is the case",
but "der Fall" (the case) bears also, Taubes and Sloterdijk have hinted
at this, connotation of the Fall of Man (in German: "Sündenfall"). As
Michael Mandelartz puts it: "The first sentence of the /Tractatus/
states as the condition of contemporary philosophizing the finiteness
after the Fall of Man."
https://books.google.de/books?id=u2fpnX9a6kAC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=wittgenstein+die+welt+ist+alles+was+der+fall+ist+s%C3%BCndenfall+mystik&source=bl&ots=A2_wqCecL8&sig=PQgbMw7T9GCi0AYFeYurrXJVW7A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjh1cyotuXMAhXGB8AKHRljB3cQ6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=wittgenstein%20die%20welt%20ist%20alles%20was%20der%20fall%20ist%20s%C3%BCndenfall%20mystik&f=false
> I think P links it intellectually to determinism among other places
> where he has Roger see Spectro/Pointsman as
> Calvinist, in a quote I recently posted.. Calvinist determinism
> is anagogic here and beyond questions of power/control---as I see
> Roger saying it as a blow to scientific determinism, since he wants to
> believe in 'magic'.
>
> Esp when we see Pynchon actually repeat that phrase "you're gonna want
> cause & effect" almost sarcastically further on, *by the narrator,* as
> he then DOES subvert cause and effect in the text. P does allow the
> world to have stuff in it that is NOT "scientifically"--in a narrow
> logical positivism way---determined and he did not need all of this
> 'metaphysics' or "philosophy of science" if he were ONLY showing
> totalitarian control and domination, I suggest.
>
> P scores heavily against that whole positivistic strain of the Vienna
> Circle, from Carnap thru early Wittgenstein--a presence in TRP-- and
> lots in-between ,I think, thinking of the Vienna section of AtD (I
> have a personal reading story here for follow-up).
>
> it reminds me a little of Moby Dick, of course an allegory (and more)
> about a mad Leader of a multicultural Ship of State but
> Melville also adds the religious/metaphysical with some of Ahab's
> obsessed blasphemies. Starbuck knew it was more than personal madness:
> "Ahab's vow to dismember his dismemberer needs further exegesis. In
> this sinister allegorical framework, this sardonic promise to treat
> God even as God has treated Ahab amounts to another Melvillian
> burlesque of the Golden Rule."--one found snippet
>
> I see this GR interpretation as one way of parsing the Pynchon science
> question: Of course he believes in it and "loves' it and
> knows all it has done THAT is not used for power and domination over
> others (unless we see oversubduing nature as a necessary element of
> science gone bad from the beginning). ONLY when it becomes to some
> the only answer; the controlling tower in a culture [LOt 49]; a
> technological step-function of Western history so high that one can't
> get back is it clearly BAD SHIT in TRP, I suggest.
>
>
> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 10:53 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com
> <mailto:montedavis49 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I submit that the fear, suspicion, and satire are directed not at
> determinism -- or at science -- but at the ambition for control
> over other people and over the course of history.
>
> On p. 56, Pointsman frets almost hysterically about Roger: "in his
> play he wrecks the elegant rooms of history*, threatens the idea
> of cause and effect itself... is it the end of history?" Is that
> Pynchon's own mini-seminar in the philosophy of science, or
> science and society? Or is it the voice of someone interested and
> invested in Slothrop as a step toward predicting or averting the
> V-2s -- something his government paymasters want very much, even
> if it means vivisecting Tyrone?
>
> The portentous "end of history" is just parodic Henry Adams
> dressing for "My funding, my career prospects, and maybe even my
> Nobel Prize depend on showing that there's a meaningful pattern to
> V-2 impacts, and something that can be done about them... and
> Mexico is denying it!"
>
> * Himmler-Spielsaal, anyone?
>
> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 7:37 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I think that in GR Pynchon 'fears' the too-logical determinism
> of science.
> Fears (and investigates) that supposed determinism. Allows
> thru Roger and
> in other ways---The Counterforce?---a possible 'escape" while
>
> Yes, he satirizes everything, everything....esp maybe in GR
> and AtD. Fully,
> totally, mind-bogglingly, in a hard to find a footing way....
>
> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 6:30 AM, ish mailian
> <ishmailian at gmail.com <mailto:ishmailian at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Does P fear science? I doubt this is a supportable thesis. He
> certainly doesn't condemn it. Nor do all creative souls.
> So, Monte is
> making a point with sarcasm. What point? That foxes and
> dogs.....?
> Science, along with nearly all other institutions of
> power, of western
> culture and history, is subjected to P's satire. So, BTW,
> is art,
> religion, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, history,
> linguistics,
> statistics, Chemistry, economics, physics, biology, philology,
> anthropology....and so on. All are satirized with the
> conventional
> weapons of the satirist. For example, the obsession with
> The Book, is
> conventional. So much that P does in GR is not novel. The
> Book, the
> obsession with the Rocket, the quest...etc. One
> conventional strategy
> of the satirist is mock erudition. P loves this tool and
> uses it
> brilliantly. He also makes use of the satirist's cranks
> and hysterical
> characterization. He loves parodistic encyclopedism.
>
> As Kharpertian says, pp. 108-109, it
>
> exposes all explanatory codes as partial, problematic, or
> repressive,
> and the rejection of the monological nature of such
> autonomous codes
> leads to radical fusion and fantastic alternatives.
>
> A Hand to Turn the Time the Menippean Satires of Thomas
> Pynchon
>
> Theodore D. Kharpertian
>
> Kharpertian goes to school on decades of Pyndustry
> publications and,
> in a dense and clear style, shows how the ideas of V. and
> CL49 are
> combinesd in P's masterwork. Not the first to recognize P as
> satirist, more specifically, Menippean Satirist, but a
> fine work,
> dense and clearly composed. Easy to read.
>
> But we know all this so....
> On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Mark Kohut
> <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Monte writes:
> > 58.24: "Pointsman’s... his... a bleakness whenever she
> meets him.
> > Scientist-neutrality." How does that differ from Roger's
> commitment to the
> > data and only the data about rocketfalls, which was only
> recently "cheap
> > cynicism"...? Or is Roger's version of neutrality less
> creepy to her
> > *because* it makes him uncomfortable even as he insists
> on it? NB he
> > repeatedly, parodically *plays* the mad scientist in
> exchanges with her. If
> > I didn't know that Pynchon fears and condemns science
> like all good creative
> > souls, I'd think there's some quite interesting
> ambivalence being modeled
> > here.
> >
> > There IS a good mini-essay here on science and Pynchon
> in GR), which Monte
> > might write. Focussing leads me to offer
> > THIS possible reading: Roger believes that there might
> be SOMETHING
> > ("magic") beyond the "scientific", beyond the
> measurement of material
> > reality. ( One might be reminded of Oedipa's "something
> beyond the visible"
> > or not).
> >
> > Pointsman has no such belief. His science-neutrality is
> really a
> > positivistic belief in nothing but science.
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Monte Davis
> <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> end of P. 57 -> P. 58
> >>
> >> Foxes and dogs again, among the latter a painted
> pointer "alerted by the
> >> eternal scent, the explosion over his head always just
> about to come." Good
> >> boy, Tyrone!
> >>
> >>
> http://www.old-print.com/mas_assets/full3/J5141807/J5141807448.jpg
> >>
> >>
> https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/02/f0/4302f06cbc44b3b2e6fbc371f51b2bce.jpg
> >>
> >>
> >> What makes these images -- standard English fare at the
> time for exurban
> >> bourgeois as well as country-house aristocracy -- "even
> more autumnal,
> >> necropolitical, than prewar hopes"..? This section has
> reminded us before
> >> and will remind us again that Roger & Jessica's evasion
> of the war is
> >> temporary and precarious -- but here we're told that
> golden autumnal meadows
> >> are *becoming* a City of the Dead (necropolis). Just a
> _memento mori_ for
> >> the lovers, for a nostalgic English self-image? More?
> >>
> >> 58.11-15: something blocks Roger's speech, and "how
> does she know... so
> >> exactly what Roger meant to say?" (Reinforcing 56.37's
> "Roger really wants
> >> other people to know what he’s talking about. Jessica
> understands that.") A
> >> hug, melting into arousal for both, is more than a
> consolation prize for
> >> "failure to communicate" -- it *is* communication,
> "mind-to-mind."
> >>
> >> 58.16 brings us back to the framing night of winter
> solstice. Perhaps the
> >> clinch just above was earlier the same night -- the
> section began with
> >> "pillows in front of the fire. Roger’s clothing...
> scattered all about." Or
> >> perhaps all their nights here are one, off the timeline
> and off the books.
> >>
> >> 58.24: "Pointsman’s... his... a bleakness whenever she
> meets him.
> >> Scientist-neutrality." How does that differ from
> Roger's commitment to the
> >> data and only the data about rocketfalls, which was
> only recently "cheap
> >> cynicism"...? Or is Roger's version of neutrality less
> creepy to her
> >> *because* it makes him uncomfortable even as he insists
> on it? NB he
> >> repeatedly, parodically *plays* the mad scientist in
> exchanges with her. If
> >> I didn't know that Pynchon fears and condemns science
> like all good creative
> >> souls, I'd think there's some quite interesting
> ambivalence being modeled
> >> here.
> >>
> >> 58.33: "And the people who might have been asleep in
> the empty houses here
> >> . .., are they dreaming of cities that shine all over
> with lamps at night,
> >> of Christmases seen again from the vantage of children
> and not of sheep
> >> huddled so vulnerable on their bare hillside, so
> bleached by the Star’s
> >> awful radiance?"
> >> Spoilers be damned, this is a sweet foretaste of the
> Advent evensong
> >> coming up three nights from now (p. 127)
> >>
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
>
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