Squaring TRP's Luddite Essay with His Sloth Essay

Fri Apr 14 18:50:42 CDT 2017

Sorry, for context: that link seems pertinent as the 'robot army'
that's long been predicted is now looking more like an invisible army
of algorithms, digital commerce, Internet of Things, self-service
checkouts etc.
And then there's the astonishing success of the 'gig economy' (do they
call it the 'sharing economy' in the US or is that just here?). Every
left-leaning progressive liberal I know uses Uber, even though Uber is
a hypercapitalist corporation that pays no tax in Australia, takes a
huge cut of driver's earnings in exchange for no insurance, no
maintenance fees, no legal representation, no transparency etc. But
because there's a rhetoric of 'sharing' and folksy cottage industry
fun and a slick, frictionless app, people think it's a more socially
positive choice than the heavily regulated and, let's face it, largely
immigrant-based taxi industry.
You don't need to automate an industry if you can get workers to act
like robots and pay them about the same. See also: 'content creation'.

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 9:41 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> This review of an Amazon bricks-and-mortar bookstore is a very fun
> read. It strikes me as the Stepford Wife of bookstores:
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-amazon-store-chicago-rev-ent-0403-20170401-column.html
>
> 'what human being-based company would install a Kindle Reader in a
> book aisle with this encouragement: "Explore books in this aisle on
> the Kindle Reader"?'
>
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 9:15 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm reading about the Great Railroad Strike in 1877, in which workers
>> objecting to (repeatedly) lowered wages not only strike but also destroy a
>> bunch of railroad equipment.
>>
>> Does destruction of the means of production (I guess this'd include machines
>> in an industrial setting/time) seem like an inevitability to most
>> post-industrial labor unrest?
>>
>> Bartleby (talked about in the Sloth essay) is an increasingly good link
>> here...in a capitalistic setting in which one's brain and attention (and
>> even morale//complicity) are such integral parts of the means of prod,
>> destruction of the mind (through acedia, through despair) shares a direct
>> ancestry with Luddite destructiveness?
>>
>> (Some bullshitting here, if destroying the means or at least factors of
>> production is one of the ways labor tends to resist ownership/'s
>> exploitation, then the increasing invisibility and interiorization of the
>> means of production--an increasingly brain-powered market, one in which
>> ownership doesn't know how to distinguish between raw materials and
>> labor/human attention, the factory goes inside the head--is maybe one of the
>> ways the spirit of capitalism stays elusive, shapeshifty, fundamentally
>> toxic to the human. Not all laborers have physical looms to smash, factories
>> to raze. The stuff they feel compelled to tear down is inside them. Scary
>> shit.)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 5:24 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Snow is a useful lever for P's thesis in the Luddite essay.
>>> Challenging Snow and defining Luddite, like defining Sloth in the
>>> Sloth essay is nearly boilerplate. The essays are pure Pynchon, so
>>> they are about him and his talent and his work. Is it OK to be a
>>> writer, to write the kind of fiction Pynchon writes? Or is it a sin?
>>>
>>> And that one Talent, which is death to hide,
>>> Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
>>> To serve therewith my Maker, and present
>>> My true account, lest he, returning, chide
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>> > I Agree that sensible clarity is imperfect as a description of anything
>>> > P and probably also of what Monte did. But I think his (MD’s) points are
>>> > clearly derived from the text, which is what I meant.  What P does do rather
>>> > solidly is challenge the Snow essay and the automatic derogatory tone of the
>>> > the word Luddite. Beyond that he makes us think about the roles of science
>>> > and the humanities with a delightful irreverence.
>>> >
>>> > As to the the displacement of human labor by robots, what we do know is
>>> > that the wealth and political power of the owners has created a new
>>> > aristocracy, and a divide that is deep and terrible . That robots have
>>> > deepened that divide and will continue to deepen that divide seems
>>> > inevitable without a socialist revolution.
>>> >
>>> >> On Apr 14, 2017, at 9:17 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> One things for certain, the essays don't offer sensible clarity, or
>>> >> certainty, or anything for sure. Pynchon doesn't do well in the world
>>> >> of take-away talking points and bottom lines. The rabbits hole the
>>> >> Luddite and Sloth essays fall into are paradoxically specific about
>>> >> Modernism & Technology (yes, I've gone ahead and used the Capital T)
>>> >> and the Faustian American Tragedy of Development (Berman,  Chapter
>>> >> One), about the Bomb, and ambiguous, even ambivalent about the Comic
>>> >> and Romantic Marxian contradictions of capitalism (Berman Chapter
>>> >> Two). We fall with Alice and meet a White Rabbit with a copy of Rilke
>>> >> who, as a bureaucrat is pitiful, but as myth is terrible and beautiful
>>> >> and in Love with Death.
>>> >>
>>> >> RICHARD LOCKE, in a Review, nailed this. There are advantages to
>>> >> living when the wind that the answer is blowing in is all around you.
>>> >> I don't take solace in sensible clarity, but to each a peach.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 11:15 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>> Reading through this thread.
>>> >>> So far I particularly like the sensible clarity Monte brings to the
>>> >>> essay and the intersting tangent Ish produces.  In my mind Pynchon is not
>>> >>> talking about the specific technology but the change in status and power
>>> >>> structures and more deeply the change in  the sense of identity and self
>>> >>> brought by the paradigm that defines 2 primary categories:  owner capitalist
>>> >>> ( successful businessman) and worker/replaceable part .
>>> >>> While Snow is talking about the artist/tthinker as held back ( from
>>> >>> PROGRESS) by lack of scientific knowledge,  Pynchon, scientificly literate,
>>> >>> is seeing  a resistance to an imposed social order that offers not so much
>>> >>> progess as the legitimately questionable status of parts of a machine, and
>>> >>> celebrating the spirit of the "badass”  who resists that assigned status and
>>> >>> insists that a better bargain is possible for those who refuse to be owned
>>> >>> and operated.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I could not help, in reading the article ish posts, feeling that there
>>> >>> are quite a few who resist sales pitches, and that when you have the habit
>>> >>> of resistance, the algorithms are particularly formulaic and easy to resist.
>>> >>> But they obviously  work enough to be very lucrative science and challenge
>>> >>> worn out ideas about decision making.   Snow looks for science education to
>>> >>> free men from Luddism, but what frees them from the unintended consequences
>>> >>> of selling shit as science?
>>> >>>
>>> >>> As to convergences, so far I have seen no examples of AI, just faster
>>> >>> and more multimedia electronic communication and computation.  Robotics
>>> >>> seems bent toward a kind of weaponized capital with little restraint on
>>> >>> where they get pointed and huge investment in genetics has not turned up
>>> >>> nearly what was expected in usable return on investment.   The bombs
>>> >>> continue to fall, the factories are still mostly pretty miserable. Does
>>> >>> anyone win this Snow/Pynchon argument?
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I admit I was a bit lazy ( a kind of personal experiment in acedia)and
>>> >>> didn’t re read either P essay.
>>> >>>
>>> >>>> On Apr 13, 2017, at 6:15 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>>> >>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> from NYRB  APRIL 20, 2017 ISSUE
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Invisible Manipulators of Your Mind
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Tamsin Shaw
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> We are living in an age in which the behavioral sciences have become
>>> >>>> inescapable. The findings of social psychology and behavioral
>>> >>>> economics are being employed to determine the news we read, the
>>> >>>> products we buy, the cultural and intellectual spheres we inhabit,
>>> >>>> and
>>> >>>> the human networks, online and in real life, of which we are a part.
>>> >>>> Aspects of human societies that were formerly guided by habit and
>>> >>>> tradition, or spontaneity and whim, are now increasingly the intended
>>> >>>> or unintended consequences of decisions made on the basis of
>>> >>>> scientific theories of the human mind and human well-being.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/kahneman-tversky-invisible-mind-manipulators/
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 10:45 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>>> >>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>> Things haven't been so heated about automation taking away jobs
>>> >>>>> since the
>>> >>>>> '60s.
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> Rather than those technologies based on physical science, the ones
>>> >>>>> based on
>>> >>>>> the social science are the sine qua non.
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> Economies of scale for Ludd;
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> The behavioral science of persuasion for us moderns.
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>>> On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 6:18 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
>>> >>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> Wot Monte sed.
>>> >>>>>> There's also been a massive resurgence of "Robots are Coming to
>>> >>>>>> Take Your
>>> >>>>>> Jobs" stories in the media of late. Same thing - displaces the
>>> >>>>>> responsibility away from the businesses preferring automation and
>>> >>>>>> the
>>> >>>>>> minimisation of human labor costs onto a mythic army of androids
>>> >>>>>> we've been
>>> >>>>>> primed to imagine by fiction and film. It's the same as explaining
>>> >>>>>> offshore
>>> >>>>>> outsourcing as "Bangladeshis are Coming to Take Your Job."
>>> >>>>>> I think classifying Pynchon as a Systems Novelist makes even more
>>> >>>>>> sense
>>> >>>>>> when you read his essays, rather than the fiction.
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 12:44 AM, Monte Davis
>>> >>>>>> <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> >>>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>> I don't resist at all Pynchon's kinship/affinity for the Luddites
>>> >>>>>>> --
>>> >>>>>>> especially for  Ned Ludd himself as Badass folk hero, which is his
>>> >>>>>>> route
>>> >>>>>>> into the subject. But Pynchon reminds us four times in the essay
>>> >>>>>>> that their
>>> >>>>>>> struggle was not against new machinery (it had been in their homes
>>> >>>>>>> and
>>> >>>>>>> workshops for generations), but against the Birmingham and
>>> >>>>>>> Manchester
>>> >>>>>>> "cotton capitalists" who could put together hundreds of those
>>> >>>>>>> machines and
>>> >>>>>>> water or steam power under one roof. Those economies of scale,
>>> >>>>>>> that newly
>>> >>>>>>> enlarged bargaining power, swept away a 150-year-old,
>>> >>>>>>> decentralized
>>> >>>>>>> "letting-out" system of craft textile production, tilting the
>>> >>>>>>> playing field
>>> >>>>>>> so that workers who had been independent contractors had no choice
>>> >>>>>>> but to
>>> >>>>>>> become employees.
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>> Historians have known this all along, but the broad-brush pop
>>> >>>>>>> version
>>> >>>>>>> (which is what "Luddite" came to mean over time, and what C.P.
>>> >>>>>>> Snow invoked)
>>> >>>>>>> conflates the *scale and economic organization* of a technology
>>> >>>>>>> with the
>>> >>>>>>> technology itself. Some think that's a quibble; I don't, because I
>>> >>>>>>> see a lot
>>> >>>>>>> of very deliberate stitching back and forth across that
>>> >>>>>>> distinction
>>> >>>>>>> throughout Pynchon's work.
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>> ...And because every day I read heated arguments -- say, about Big
>>> >>>>>>> Data
>>> >>>>>>> and social media and online privacy and NSA/Google/Facebook --
>>> >>>>>>> which get
>>> >>>>>>> hopelessly confused as people slide back and forth between
>>> >>>>>>> 'technology is
>>> >>>>>>> doing this to us' and 'we're allowing/paying specific
>>> >>>>>>> organizations with
>>> >>>>>>> specific agendas to do this to us.'
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 5:49 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com>
>>> >>>>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks for reposting. Yeah Pynchon obviously goes out of his way
>>> >>>>>>>> to
>>> >>>>>>>> demonstrate (or even generate) a more complicated idea of Luddism
>>> >>>>>>>> than
>>> >>>>>>>> simply anti-tech.
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> Do you resist the idea that Pynchon demonstrates some kind of
>>> >>>>>>>> affinity
>>> >>>>>>>> for or even kinship with Luddism as you understand him to
>>> >>>>>>>> understand it?
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> So to use some of your phrasing, let's replace Luddite (adj.)
>>> >>>>>>>> with
>>> >>>>>>>> "[anti] concentrated capital and market power" in the end of the
>>> >>>>>>>> sloth
>>> >>>>>>>> essay...
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> "Perhaps the future of Sloth will lie in sinning against what now
>>> >>>>>>>> seems
>>> >>>>>>>> increasingly to define us -- technology. Persisting in
>>> >>>>>>>> [ANTI-CONCENTRATED-CAPITAL-AND-MARKET-POWER] sorrow, despite
>>> >>>>>>>> technology's
>>> >>>>>>>> good intentions, there we'll sit with our heads in virtual
>>> >>>>>>>> reality, glumly
>>> >>>>>>>> refusing to be absorbed in its idle, disposable fantasies, even
>>> >>>>>>>> those about
>>> >>>>>>>> superheroes of Sloth back in Sloth's good old days, full of
>>> >>>>>>>> leisurely but
>>> >>>>>>>> lethal misadventures with the ruthless villains of the Acedia
>>> >>>>>>>> Squad."
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> So then Pynchon's--and maybe history's--more informed sense of
>>> >>>>>>>> what
>>> >>>>>>>> Luddite means/meant eventually catches up with the popular
>>> >>>>>>>> anti-technology
>>> >>>>>>>> sense anyway, at least so long as we are in the age of
>>> >>>>>>>> technology, resisting
>>> >>>>>>>> which looks for now an awful lot like resisting concentrated
>>> >>>>>>>> capital and
>>> >>>>>>>> market power?
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Monte Davis
>>> >>>>>>>> <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> >>>>>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> Nothing to contribute beyond another pitch for my own reading --
>>> >>>>>>>>> that
>>> >>>>>>>>> however we use the label now, the historical Luddites mobilized
>>> >>>>>>>>> *not*
>>> >>>>>>>>> against technology -- the same that they and their grandparents
>>> >>>>>>>>> used
>>> >>>>>>>>> routinely -- but against concentrated capital and market power.
>>> >>>>>>>>> And thjat
>>> >>>>>>>>> Pynchon knows that. As I wrote 9/2015:
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> **
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> Re Christy Burns' "Postmodern Historiography" (and looking
>>> >>>>>>>>> forward to
>>> >>>>>>>>> Mason's recollections of weavers vs. clothiers in the Golden
>>> >>>>>>>>> Valley, 207
>>> >>>>>>>>> passim)
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> Once again, in Burns' note 2, we see the Luddites' activities
>>> >>>>>>>>> described
>>> >>>>>>>>> as "the vehement workers' rebellion against the advance of
>>> >>>>>>>>> machinery..."
>>> >>>>>>>>> along with a reference to David Cowart, who (in TP and the Dark
>>> >>>>>>>>> Passages of
>>> >>>>>>>>> History) describes Pynchon's 1984 essay "Is It O.K. to be a
>>> >>>>>>>>> Luddite?" as "a
>>> >>>>>>>>> meditation on distrust of technology."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> And once again I wonder why, if that's really what the essay
>>> >>>>>>>>> says the
>>> >>>>>>>>> Luddites were about in 1811-1816, Pynchon would clutter its
>>> >>>>>>>>> exposition with
>>> >>>>>>>>> distractions such as
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> "...much of the machinery that steam was coming to drive had
>>> >>>>>>>>> already
>>> >>>>>>>>> long been in place, having in fact been driven by water power
>>> >>>>>>>>> since the
>>> >>>>>>>>> Middle Ages..."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> "whenever a stocking-frame was found sabotaged - this had been
>>> >>>>>>>>> going
>>> >>>>>>>>> on, sez the Encyclopedia Britannica, since about 1710..."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> "… the target even of the original assault [Ned Lud's] of 1779,
>>> >>>>>>>>> like
>>> >>>>>>>>> many machines of the Industrial Revolution, was not a new piece
>>> >>>>>>>>> of
>>> >>>>>>>>> technology. The stocking-frame had been around since 1589...
>>> >>>>>>>>> [and] continued
>>> >>>>>>>>> to be the only mechanical means of knitting for hundreds of
>>> >>>>>>>>> years... And Ned
>>> >>>>>>>>> Lud's anger was not directed at the machines, not exactly."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> "The knitting machines which provoked the first Luddite
>>> >>>>>>>>> disturbances
>>> >>>>>>>>> had been putting people out of work for well over two
>>> >>>>>>>>> centuries."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> Golly, those Luddites must have been awfully stupid not to have
>>> >>>>>>>>> noticed
>>> >>>>>>>>> "the advance of machinery" for so long. Or maybe the Luddites'
>>> >>>>>>>>> activities
>>> >>>>>>>>> were not what Burns, Cowart, C.P. Snow, and so many others
>>> >>>>>>>>> project upon
>>> >>>>>>>>> them, but exactly what Pynchon calls them:
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> "They also saw the machines coming more and more to be the
>>> >>>>>>>>> property of
>>> >>>>>>>>> men who did not work, only owned and hired... [they were] trade
>>> >>>>>>>>> unionists
>>> >>>>>>>>> ahead of their time... It was open-eyed class war."
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> ---
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> IOW, the Luddite disturbances were actually about a
>>> >>>>>>>>> concentration of
>>> >>>>>>>>> capital arising from changing markets and business models: where
>>> >>>>>>>>> previously
>>> >>>>>>>>> a lot of small local clothiers had dealt with a few weavers
>>> >>>>>>>>> each, now a few
>>> >>>>>>>>> large clothiers -- not neighbors, but increasingly in far-off
>>> >>>>>>>>> cities -- had
>>> >>>>>>>>> much more concentrated power over (and systematically lowered
>>> >>>>>>>>> the rates of)
>>> >>>>>>>>> all the weavers in a district. The Luddites smashed machinery
>>> >>>>>>>>> *not* because
>>> >>>>>>>>> it was new, *not* because it was in and of itself putting them
>>> >>>>>>>>> out of work,
>>> >>>>>>>>> but because it was what they could reach of the bosses' assets.
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> I recognize that it's much too late to change the consensus that
>>> >>>>>>>>> "Luddite = anti-technology," but given that TRP was at pains to
>>> >>>>>>>>> show that he
>>> >>>>>>>>> *did* understand what the Luddites were about, it annoys me to
>>> >>>>>>>>> see him --
>>> >>>>>>>>> and sloppy readings of that essay -- enlisted in the general
>>> >>>>>>>>> misunderstanding.
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com>
>>> >>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Typed my way through a brief attempt to understand or at least
>>> >>>>>>>>>> meditate on these two essays in tandem upon a revisit of them
>>> >>>>>>>>>> yesterday...
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Maybe not worth your time, but if anybody's interested in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> reacting or
>>> >>>>>>>>>> offering any insight, I imagine it'll be worth mine. The
>>> >>>>>>>>>> maybe-finite
>>> >>>>>>>>>> resource of my time, that is.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Luddite essay here:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Sloth here:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-sloth.html
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Luddite essay is '84. Sloth '93.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> End of the Luddite essay:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out
>>> >>>>>>>>>> for will
>>> >>>>>>>>>> come - you heard it here first - when the curves of research
>>> >>>>>>>>>> and development
>>> >>>>>>>>>> in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all
>>> >>>>>>>>>> converge.
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Oboy. It will be amazing and unpredictable, and even the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> biggest of brass,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> let us devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It is
>>> >>>>>>>>>> certainly
>>> >>>>>>>>>> something for all good Luddites to look forward to if, God
>>> >>>>>>>>>> willing, we
>>> >>>>>>>>>> should live so long. Meantime, as Americans, we can take
>>> >>>>>>>>>> comfort, however
>>> >>>>>>>>>> minimal and cold, from Lord Byron's mischievously improvised
>>> >>>>>>>>>> song, in which
>>> >>>>>>>>>> he, like other observers of the time, saw clear identification
>>> >>>>>>>>>> between the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> first Luddites and our own revolutionary origins. It begins:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> So we, boys, we
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Will die fighting, or live free,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> And down with all kings but King Ludd!
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> The last two paragraphs of the Sloth essay:
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Unless the state of our souls becomes once more a subject of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> serious
>>> >>>>>>>>>> concern, there is little question that Sloth will continue to
>>> >>>>>>>>>> evolve away
>>> >>>>>>>>>> from its origins in the long-ago age of faith and miracle, when
>>> >>>>>>>>>> daily life
>>> >>>>>>>>>> really was the Holy Ghost visibly at work and time was a story,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> with a
>>> >>>>>>>>>> beginning, middle and end. Belief was intense, engagement deep
>>> >>>>>>>>>> and fatal.
>>> >>>>>>>>>> The Christian God was near. Felt. Sloth -- defiant sorrow in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> the face of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> God's good intentions -- was a deadly sin.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Perhaps the future of Sloth will lie in sinning against what
>>> >>>>>>>>>> now seems
>>> >>>>>>>>>> increasingly to define us -- technology. Persisting in Luddite
>>> >>>>>>>>>> sorrow,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> despite technology's good intentions, there we'll sit with our
>>> >>>>>>>>>> heads in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> virtual reality, glumly refusing to be absorbed in its idle,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> disposable
>>> >>>>>>>>>> fantasies, even those about superheroes of Sloth back in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Sloth's good old
>>> >>>>>>>>>> days, full of leisurely but lethal misadventures with the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> ruthless villains
>>> >>>>>>>>>> of the Acedia Squad.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Does this seem like an evolution in his thinking from the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Luddite
>>> >>>>>>>>>> essay?
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> He's so--even in his nonfic--exploratory, proceeding by a kind
>>> >>>>>>>>>> of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> thinking-at-speed logic, but also ambulatory, wandering,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> without apparent
>>> >>>>>>>>>> destination, toying with different ideas, tones...
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> So while I'm both (for better or worse, not really purposely
>>> >>>>>>>>>> but
>>> >>>>>>>>>> inevitably) always studying Pynchon for lessons in how to live
>>> >>>>>>>>>> and think,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> I'm also always hesitant to decisively identify too much
>>> >>>>>>>>>> explicit opinion or
>>> >>>>>>>>>> ideology.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> But I usually come out of the Luddite essay--or at least look
>>> >>>>>>>>>> back on
>>> >>>>>>>>>> it--feeling like he's kind of pro-Luddism, or at least
>>> >>>>>>>>>> entangling Luddism
>>> >>>>>>>>>> with certain lineages and inclinations that he might either
>>> >>>>>>>>>> note with some
>>> >>>>>>>>>> affection or even identify with. Basically it feels like it has
>>> >>>>>>>>>> some note of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> endorsement to it.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> The sloth essay I usually look back on with the idea that he's
>>> >>>>>>>>>> offering a kind of defense/endorsement of sloth, a kind of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> passive
>>> >>>>>>>>>> resistance to capitalistic/only-forward time, to the treatment
>>> >>>>>>>>>> of time as a
>>> >>>>>>>>>> finite and exploitable resource. But actually his movement
>>> >>>>>>>>>> through it is
>>> >>>>>>>>>> complicated. It is sometimes the way I remember it. But then
>>> >>>>>>>>>> it's also other
>>> >>>>>>>>>> things. He initially frames it as one of Aquinas's seven
>>> >>>>>>>>>> deadlies. Aquinas
>>> >>>>>>>>>> calls it acedia. Pynchon seems to formulate his idea of it
>>> >>>>>>>>>> primarily from
>>> >>>>>>>>>> this vantage point.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Here are the different mentions of acedia in the essay.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> 1) "Acedia" in Latin means sorrow, deliberately self-directed,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> turned
>>> >>>>>>>>>> away from God, a loss of spiritual determination that then
>>> >>>>>>>>>> feeds back on in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> to the process, soon enough producing what are currently known
>>> >>>>>>>>>> as guilt and
>>> >>>>>>>>>> depression, eventually pushing us to where we will do anything,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> in the way
>>> >>>>>>>>>> of venial sin and bad judgment, to avoid the discomfort.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> 2) Between Franklin's hectic aphorist, Poor Richard, and
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Melville's
>>> >>>>>>>>>> doomed scrivener, Bartleby, lies about a century of early
>>> >>>>>>>>>> America,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> consolidating itself as a Christian capitalist state, even as
>>> >>>>>>>>>> acedia was in
>>> >>>>>>>>>> the last stages of its shift over from a spiritual to a secular
>>> >>>>>>>>>> condition.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> 3) BY the time of "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Wall-Street"
>>> >>>>>>>>>> (1853), acedia had lost the last of its religious
>>> >>>>>>>>>> reverberations and was now
>>> >>>>>>>>>> an offense against the economy. Right in the heart of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> robber-baron
>>> >>>>>>>>>> capitalism, the title character develops what proves to be
>>> >>>>>>>>>> terminal acedia.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> 4) In this century we have come to think of Sloth as primarily
>>> >>>>>>>>>> political, a failure of public will allowing the introduction
>>> >>>>>>>>>> of evil
>>> >>>>>>>>>> policies and the rise of evil regimes, the worldwide fascist
>>> >>>>>>>>>> ascendancy of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> the 1920's and 30's being perhaps Sloth's finest hour, though
>>> >>>>>>>>>> the Vietnam
>>> >>>>>>>>>> era and the Reagan-Bush years are not far behind. Fiction and
>>> >>>>>>>>>> nonfiction
>>> >>>>>>>>>> alike are full of characters who fail to do what they should
>>> >>>>>>>>>> because of the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> effort involved. How can we not recognize our world? Occasions
>>> >>>>>>>>>> for choosing
>>> >>>>>>>>>> good present themselves in public and private for us every day,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> and we pass
>>> >>>>>>>>>> them by. Acedia is the vernacular of everyday moral life.
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Though it has
>>> >>>>>>>>>> never lost its deepest notes of mortal anxiety, it never gets
>>> >>>>>>>>>> as painful as
>>> >>>>>>>>>> outright despair, or as real, for it is despair bought at a
>>> >>>>>>>>>> discount price,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> a deliberate turning against faith in anything because of the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> inconvenience
>>> >>>>>>>>>> faith presents to the pursuit of quotidian lusts, angers and
>>> >>>>>>>>>> the rest.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> 5) Is Sloth once more about to be, somehow, transcended?
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Another
>>> >>>>>>>>>> possibility of course is that we have not passed beyond acedia
>>> >>>>>>>>>> at all, but
>>> >>>>>>>>>> that it has only retreated from its long-familiar venue,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> television, and is
>>> >>>>>>>>>> seeking other, more shadowy environments -- who knows? computer
>>> >>>>>>>>>> games, cult
>>> >>>>>>>>>> religions, obscure trading floors in faraway cities -- ready to
>>> >>>>>>>>>> pop up again
>>> >>>>>>>>>> in some new form to offer us cosmic despair on the cheap.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> And 6) happens in the last paragraph I pasted above. I guess
>>> >>>>>>>>>> looking
>>> >>>>>>>>>> at it now it doesn't necessarily seem like TRP's really
>>> >>>>>>>>>> abandoning or
>>> >>>>>>>>>> shifting his identification with/endorsement of/sympathy for
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Luddism. Maybe
>>> >>>>>>>>>> he's even saying, as we're increasingly defined by technology,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Luddism
>>> >>>>>>>>>> becomes a more logical, potent, holy, common(?), effective(??)
>>> >>>>>>>>>> kind of sloth
>>> >>>>>>>>>> than ever before.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Really maybe he's saying sloth was once--in the Age of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Miracles--an
>>> >>>>>>>>>> inhibition to a vividly felt/engaged experience of the world,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> but now, in a
>>> >>>>>>>>>> less holy world, sloth isn't despairingly turning away from the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> holy but
>>> >>>>>>>>>> from the unholy/unholiness.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> So by a weird kind of divergent and antagonstic evolution,
>>> >>>>>>>>>> sloth gets
>>> >>>>>>>>>> decoupled from its "acedia" origins and becomes a resistance to
>>> >>>>>>>>>> some old
>>> >>>>>>>>>> ghost-half of itself. Despair against despair. A face and its
>>> >>>>>>>>>> mirror image
>>> >>>>>>>>>> turning away from each other.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> But was it that original coupling of sloth and acedia
>>> >>>>>>>>>> itself--the
>>> >>>>>>>>>> turning away from the holy--that led out of the Age of
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Miracles? Or maybe as
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Aquinas would have it, it was 1/7 of the story.
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>> Do you see much movement in TRP's thinking over the 9-yr
>>> >>>>>>>>>> publication
>>> >>>>>>>>>> gap between these two things?
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>>
>>> >>>>>>
>>> >>>>>
>>> >>>> -
>>> >>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>> >>>
>>> >>> -
>>> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> >> -
>>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>> >
>>> > -
>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l