Grace again. Misc.

[Paul Mackin]

Oh yeah and the Chums also have the knack

On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 11:25 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:

> Isn't using "grace" in reference to the new invention a metonymy? *Using
> a thing to stand for another thing with some similarities.*
>
> Also, the word "knack" occurred to me as figuring in the grace discussion.
> I remember an episode of Two and a Half Men in which Alan asks Charlie how
> he can be so successful with women.  It's a knack answers Charlie. If you
> got it, you got it.  Slothrop had the same knack.  Hemingway's grace under
> fire is a knack too, isn't it? You got it or you don't got it.  I remember
> a movie The Knack in which one guy tries to teach another how to win Rita
> Tushingham.  But you can't teach these things. They're freely given by some
> external force.
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 10:43 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Maybe hyperbole, but given so much else he said that I have no ear for,
>> this rings truer to me than the rest of it. McLuhan and many others thought
>> so.
>> If not provably, precisely true, then hysterically true, so to speak.
>>
>> But to your other point, how many of the millions of first books printed
>> were Bibles is staggering.
>>
>> The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire> by the German
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany> Johannes Gutenberg
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg> around 1440, based on
>> existing screw presses <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_press>.
>> Gutenberg, a goldsmith <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldsmith> by
>> profession, developed a printing system, by adapting existing technologies
>> to printing purposes, as well as making inventions of his own. His newly
>> devised hand mould <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(printing)> made
>> possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type> in large quantities. The
>> printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in
>> a dozen European countries.[3]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#cite_note-Febvre.2C_Lucien.3B_Martin.2C_Henri-Jean_1976_by_Anderson.2C_Benedict_1993.2C_58f.-3> By
>> 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe> had already produced more
>> than twenty million volumes.[3]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#cite_note-Febvre.2C_Lucien.3B_Martin.2C_Henri-Jean_1976_by_Anderson.2C_Benedict_1993.2C_58f.-3> In
>> the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose
>> tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.[3]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#cite_note-Febvre.2C_Lucien.3B_Martin.2C_Henri-Jean_1976_by_Anderson.2C_Benedict_1993.2C_58f.-3> The
>> operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing, and
>> lent its name to a new branch of media, "the press
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper>".[4]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#cite_note-4>
>>
>> In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing
>> introduced the era of mass communication
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_communication>, which permanently
>> altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation
>> of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the
>> masses in the Reformation
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation> and threatened
>> the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in
>> literacy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy> broke the monopoly of
>> the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle
>> class <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class>.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 8:48 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hyperbole, but he did learn of the concept from the scriptures, which
>>> weren't available to the masses at the time.
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>>
>>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free.
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>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 7:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have learned from a book review that Luther said the highest form of
>>>> God's grace [in history] was the printing press.
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 31, 2017, at 6:56 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Luther's revolution was born of his concept of Grace.  Say "grace,"
>>>> hear Luther.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 2:32 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Could it be that Pynchon's understanding of Grace is Lutheran?
>>>>>
>>>>> > ... Martin Luther’s theology can be fundamentally construed as the
>>>>> development of his thought regarding the nature of grace, the nature of
>>>>> God’s favor and blessing bestowed upon undeserving human beings. The many
>>>>> dimensions of Luther’s biblical teaching and theological reflection have,
>>>>> in the background a desire to understand God’s grace most fully revealed in
>>>>> Jesus Christ. As such, Luther’s concepts of the righteousness of God,
>>>>> justification by faith, the bound will, the distinction of law and gospel,
>>>>> the new obedience, the “happy exchange,” and many related concepts are, at
>>>>> heart, attempts to describe what it is to have a God of grace.
>>>>> Most interpreters have rightly understood that in Luther’s view, to
>>>>> have a gracious God means to have a God who does not require human beings
>>>>> to fulfill a set of prerequisites in order to receive God’s gift in Christ
>>>>> or to reciprocate God’s giving in order to continue receiving Christ and
>>>>> his benefits. For Luther, to have a God of grace means to believe and trust
>>>>> that through Jesus Christ, God has already met all prerequisites and
>>>>> fulfilled all reciprocations. On this point, Luther found himself breaking
>>>>> new ground (or recovering lost ground) in the understanding of divine
>>>>> grace. Luther “broke” with those theological forebears who taught that
>>>>> divine grace was, in one way or another, partly dependent on human willing
>>>>> and doing. For Luther, God graciously wills and works “all in all.”
>>>>> Nevertheless, when Luther’s many descriptions of what it is to “have a
>>>>> gracious God” are analyzed, a more nuanced understanding of the
>>>>> relationship between the One giving the gift and the ones receiving it
>>>>> begins to reveal itself. For Luther, faith—that gracious means through
>>>>> which God graciously bestows the righteousness of Christ—creates a dynamic
>>>>> rather than static experience of possessing and being possessed of a God of
>>>>> grace ... <
>>>>>
>>>>> http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/978019934
>>>>> 0378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-335
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Am 30.07.2017 um 13:58 schrieb Mark Kohut:
>>>>>
>>>>> In Calvinism and other religious traditions, grace gets earned--or
>>>>> shown-- by human free will choices.
>>>>>
>>>>> if grace is not earned or shown-- by free will human choices, then
>>>>> grace as Pynchon uses it, is unearned, totally unexpected (by Lew and in
>>>>> the text) and is somehow a function of the cosmos. Chance or otherwise. No?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 7:41 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If Free Will replaces Grace, then it is it's equal, not its opposite.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 5:27 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Now THAT'S an answer I did not expect---nor really know (although I
>>>>>>> know some of that shit from that tradition).
>>>>>>> Another theologian rendered into the dustbin of churchyards because
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> Augustine's dominance.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A heretic, P's tradition. One might say a theological preterite,
>>>>>>> analogously speaking? As Bailey alludes, and Morris fills in:
>>>>>>> a kind of theological shlemiel, maybe? Profane Pelagius.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm going to suggest that as Pynchon transformed the concept of
>>>>>>> Grace within the religious tradition, for him
>>>>>>> in the fiction, it became like "the free will" of the cosmos---which
>>>>>>> might all be predetermined, of course, per your observation---
>>>>>>> when Lew experienced it unexpectedly.....when Against the Day
>>>>>>> ends....
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In the way back, Pelagius (St Agustine's antagonist) thought we
>>>>>>>> didn't need Grace--that our free will was sufficient to overcome sin. So,
>>>>>>>> the opposite of Grace is Free Will.  Which science now says doesn't exist.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 4:03 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> From the wayback (but eternal?) religious uses, the opposite might
>>>>>>>>> be damnation.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> What might it be in Pynchon's transformation of the meaning of the
>>>>>>>>> word?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 3:28 PM, Jochen Stremmel <
>>>>>>>>> jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> You are the native speaker, Mark, but I would say it's bullshit
>>>>>>>>>> if you don't provide context. What kind of grace? You have disgrace, you
>>>>>>>>>> have clumsiness, I'm sure you have more opposites of grace.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 2017-07-29 21:11 GMT+02:00 Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I suggest "trump"
>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>>>>>>> From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>>>> Sent: ‎7/‎29/‎2017 20:06
>>>>>>>>>>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>>>>>>>> Subject: Grace again. Misc.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Gracelessness is an absence of grace, but the English language
>>>>>>>>>>> lacks a word for the opposite of grace.--Cass Sunstein, very
>>>>>>>>>>> recent essay.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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