Another Pynchon theme manifesting again in the real world.

[Joseph Tracy]

Isms and ies (monarchy, capitalism, socialism, fascism, democracy)manifest many problems because human and natural complexity reveals their brittleness and inadequacy. Democracy can easily become the tyranny of a small majority or well organized minority. Corporatism/capitalism often translates into warlordism. Opposition to rulers and the problems asociated with concentrated power is the essence of a dictionary definition of anarchism. On the other hand few anarchists express opposition to the Sun, which is a hell of a lot of concentrated power. 

 Anarchy itself as a term may be more descriptive than prescriptive. Anarchy can be viewed as randomness within the physical parameters of the universe. Much of current science sees life and human existence not as  resulting from or guided by goals or a planning intelligence but by random activity. In that sense Anarchy is not so much collapse of order as the actual underlying reality. In this view the universe is ungoverned and ungovernable; it’s dissolution started with the accidental nature of it’s origin. This line of thought says we are experiencing a virtual event governed by rules that guarantee extinction. 

Some scientists disagree...

Life has self-organizing goals driven by the desire to exist and reproduce which Buckminster Fuller categorized as anti- entropic.  He located the nexus of this anti entropic quality in intelligence/DNA/. This consciousness that exists in all life, and may be an inherent part of existence,  is the hardest quality for science to measure or definitively understand, but the idea holds revolutionary implication. It says there is something embedded in the fabric of the universe that is anti-random.  The Gaia hypothesis emerged as the largest and most encompassing science based example of this line of thinking that I am aware of, but one could look at sacred geometry or other patterns that seem pretty elegantly organized to be random. Does the universe have an anti entropic language that might help us evolve? Many think so, but would such a language favor hierarchies or more egalitarian social arrangements. Almost all the mystics are anti-violence and call for liberation from cultural bias. Is that a clue?

Families, tribes, Isms, religions, warlords and various other hierarchies are thought of as human attempts to organize our existence to enhance survival. One of the biggest problems to emerge in these schemes is the efficacy of organized violence as a pricipal that tends to serve the power and comfort of an elite at the expense of others. One attempt to correct that imbalance is Democracy. But the imbalance remains in many nations claiming to be democracies. If Democracy is a means of distributing power more evenly and preventing the tyranny of a majority it has to be seen as an anarchistic tendency in theories of governance. In that sense anarchism may be a philsophic friend of self reformng democracy, without being a new plan. 

One way of thinking of anarchism is more as a goal in human relations than a system.  More a principle of preventing un restrained power and maximizing collaboration over coercion than a lack of any community government at all.  

 When Pynchon writes about the role of anarchism in social development and history, I hear a general tone of amused approval.  
> On Sep 4, 2017, at 5:35 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I only push this because Pynchon does, and it needs context.  For P, Anarchy goes back to GRs Zone, a place of crazy freedom in wake of total collapse, which can't be sustained.  It is not a model of sustained living, despite AGD's silly golf game.  It is a very short-lived thing.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 4:16 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> So your anarchism jag isn't a real proscription.  It is a plaything.  A Pynchon fanboy thing.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 3:57 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anarchism as I wrote about it here is working with whatever, jumping in spontaneously before or with  FEMA HELP and FEMA is goddam necessary OR ELSE. ...More incalculable deaths and reams of suffering and hurt. 
> 
> I wrote " part" of....not as a guiding political philosophy, like libertarianism, which is  perhaps the exact opposite of helping ANYONE but oneself. ...anarchism allows selflessness. 
> 
> I just read a decent piece about the horrible tornado in Kansas, killing more than Harvey has, and the gist was FEMA was invaluable for money (paid 90% of clean-up cost) and worked best when "spontaneous groups" --like churches-- local leaders and Orgs were the go-to ones for advice and disbursement. 
> 
> And I'm a big Govt " liberal" myself. Who loves selfless helping and dancing. Esp in musicals. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Sep 4, 2017, at 1:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Anarchism is akin to Libertarianism: freedumb from guvmint!
>> 
>> Imagine a world in Houston without FEMA!  Such a dream!
>> 
>> And no interstate highways!  And no EPA!  And no Medicare or Social Security!
>> 
>> You may sat I'm a dreamer, but they're about to be deported.
>> 
>> David Morris
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 11:48 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anarchism. Pervasive as we know (and been written about).
>> 
>> Anarchism, not as any kind of policy or new government notion but
>> precisely as getting shit done without government, outside of it. 
>> 
>> The natural way hundreds of thousands of simple citizens "self-organized"--
>> this is the key,-- like the deaf-mute dance under the bridge where everyone
>> dances together without bumping with no one having to direct the dancing--
>> like the search and rescue and help operation in Houston after Harvey. 
>> 
>> Since a guy named Prince wrote about the "spontaneous groupings" of volunteer
>> help after the Halifax explosion disaster , it has always been a part of every disaster 
>> since. They say. 
>> 
>> Spontaneous groupings = self-organizing= equal apolitical, non-violent anarchism in
>> the real world. 

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l