Is Pointsman based on Dr. William Sargant?

Tue May 31 09:39:09 CDT 2016

"kinda allows"

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 10:37 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> yeah. I might have been parsing some non-existent distinction
> I was making in your post.
>
>  I just wasn't sure if what you wrote
> about Pointsman's desire for control was
> felt in any way differently by the characters,
>
> and I wanted to reemphasize my surprise this reading about 'the idea of
> the opposite"
> which, in real life, gave P an overlapping real world possibility to show
> that
> determinism (in some sense) might not be total. As the Counterforce kids
> allows
> about social control/determinism.
>
> but, I think we are on the same page, as they say,
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> MK> Doesn't he want to use Pavlov's beliefs as part of the overarching
>> crushing control theme?
>>
>> Blicero believes that launching Gottfried will transcend the Nazis'
>> defeat and bring about our Perfect Polythene S&M Home in the Sky. How'd
>> that work out?
>>
>> MK>  ...'the idea of the opposite' seems to be based on fact, or a real
>> world fantasy, so to speak...
>>
>> Fact = fantasy, or maybe not = but so to speak, as it were, in a sense,
>> both/and. There's really no difference worth thinking about between the
>> *desire* for control and actual control, is there?
>>
>> I'm just a cranky blinkered old dualist, I guess, and really don't know
>> how to engage with this sort of thing. Roll on.
>>
>> On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 6:42 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Monte writes: "there's an enormous gap between the "fire/not fire"
>>> duality of single cortical cells, or the observation that one cell's
>>> activity can inhibit its near neighbors... and global, whole-organism
>>> phenomena ("belief system," "stress," "breakdown" etc.)"
>>>
>>> yes, but does Pynchon overleap that gap in the set up of meanings for
>>> Pavlov-Pointsman in GR? Doesn't he want to use Pavlov's beliefs as part of
>>> the overarching crushing control theme? See Pirate's accurate paranoia that
>>> They now all about him.
>>>
>>>  Monte writes: " Pointsman has nothing but handwaving phrases like "the
>>> idea of the opposite" to fill that gap. Just because he wears a lab coat
>>> and has a budget line doesn't make him less of a fantasist than Blicero...
>>>
>>> yes, Pointsman is also a fantasist but in the guise of a controlling
>>> scientist. We might know this, but those in the novel do not, do they? and
>>> I think this read of Pynchon's genius unseen, half-felt,  before: 'the idea
>>> of the opposite seems to be based on fact, or a real world fantasy, so to
>>> speak: p. 49 Pavlov writing to Pierre Janet. About the *untraparadoxical
>>> phase "*which is the base of the weakening of the idea of the opposite
>>> in our patients." Fowler sources this to fact; Pavlov writing
>>> to Janet when he ran a research facility at a hospital for insane women.
>>> Janet pioneered hypnosis for hysteria, which he believed rooted in the
>>> emotions and not somatic in origin.
>>> He sez Pynchon is setting up an aternative to John B. Watson's
>>> "Behavorism" and its Iron Cage [Weber] of Cause and Effect, heredity, and
>>> conditioning which will reappear @p. 85.
>>>
>>> Pynchon found a perfect real world metaphor for a possible escape, a
>>> possible viable 'counterforce' for the deterministic control of
>>> Pavlov--Pointsman's psychological system.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I agree, with the caveat that "mechanistic" has a very loosey-goosey
>>>> sense here. As I cautioned earlier w/r/t Pavlov->Pointsman: there's an
>>>> enormous gap between the "fire/not fire" duality of single cortical cells,
>>>> or the observation that one cell's activity can inhibit its near
>>>> neighbors... and global, whole-organism phenomena ("belief system,"
>>>> "stress," "breakdown" etc.)
>>>>
>>>> Pointsman has nothing but handwaving phrases like "the idea of the
>>>> opposite" to fill that gap. Just because he wears a lab coat and has a
>>>> budget line doesn't make him less of a fantasist than Blicero...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 29, 2016 at 4:44 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <
>>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._R._Rivers#The_Great_War
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Very interesting. Again, Robert Graves turns up (along with Siegfried
>>>>> Sassoon).
>>>>>
>>>>> As opposed to Rivers, Sargant detested psychotherapy. The full title
>>>>> of his autobiography is "The unquiet mind: the autobiography of a physician
>>>>> in psychological medicine." A physician. One article cited by Wiki is
>>>>> "Psychiatric treatment in general teaching hospitals: A plea for a
>>>>> mechanistic approach."
>>>>>
>>>>> Wiki also provides:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Sargant connected Pavlov's findings to the ways people learned and
>>>>> internalised belief systems. Conditioned behaviour patterns could be
>>>>> changed by stimulated stresses beyond a dog's capacity for response, in
>>>>> essence causing a breakdown. This could also be caused by intense signals,
>>>>> longer than normal waiting periods, rotating positive and negative signals
>>>>> and changing a dog’s physical condition, as through illness. Depending on
>>>>> the dog's initial personality, this could possibly cause a new belief
>>>>> system to be held tenaciously. Sargant also connected Pavlov’s findings to
>>>>> the mechanisms of brain-washing in religion and politics."
>>>>>
>>>>> Internalise belief systems, i.e. put the control inside...
>>>>>
>>>>> All of this helps to answer an earlier question of mine:
>>>>> Pointsman's/Sargant's abreaction is not Jung's abreaction.
>>>>>
>>>>> The verb linked to "abreaction" or "Abreaktion" has, by the way,
>>>>> entered German everyday language: "abreagieren" means "to let off steam".
>>>>>
>>>>> We may, perhaps, see a renaissance of the mechanistic approach in
>>>>> so-called evidence-based medicine or education -- although there is of
>>>>> course nothing wrong with evidence per se...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2013/mar/26/teachers-research-evidence-based-education
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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