Squaring TRP's Luddite Essay with His Sloth Essay

[David Morris]

1. Organization
2. Knowledge
3. Leadership
4. Vision
5. Skill
6. Etc.
On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 7:28 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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