Squaring TRP's Luddite Essay with His Sloth Essay

[Joseph Tracy]

Seems like all these Uber workers need to do is pool enough money to hire a good code writer and make their own online cab service where they get a bigger slice o the pie. What would stop that? 
> On Apr 14, 2017, at 7:50 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
>>> 
>>> 
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