Squaring TRP's Luddite Essay with His Sloth Essay

Sat Apr 15 09:18:29 CDT 2017

Meanwhile, along come self driving cars.

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 8:59 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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