Ch 28 In which George Washington and his happy negro smoke dope with Mason and Dixon

[Mark Kohut]

This is what I want to mean by Commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

JT: “I think P is mocking this whole portrayal of slavery which was still
quite alive when he was writing M&D.”

I want to be careful here not to offend. JT is an artist and reads a lot
of stuff I don't, so, if this implies that there has been a noticeable
change
in portrayals of slavery since the 1980's-90's, JT has seen it and I haven't
in the same way. But, as we know, the territory precedes the maps and
I am (too) map-bound a lot of the time, so maybe.

I think TRP saw slavery the 18th Century way, and the eternally human way
in M & D. (Nothing special here)

My sense is that the world, as in so much, has slowly, slowly turned to
different attitudes toward slavery. Perhaps since 1948, with the Universal
Declaration
of Human Rights and its, well, universal, agreement that slavery was an
absolute evil have
attitudes slowly changed.

Hunting for this change in any decades, I found only this on 1940s
attitudes, it says:
https://books.google.com/books?id=6RZXvfZEDKMC&pg=PA23&dq=
attitudes+to+slavery+in+the+US?&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirhe
WI2p7aAhVMmuAKHa8HAHI4KBDoAQgoMAA#v=onepage&q=attitudes%
20to%20slavery%20in%20the%20US%3F&f=false

That the turn of the understanding screw, so to speak, has happened since
the time
TRP was writing M & D seems irrefutable though as well. I've recently heard
historians talk
about the deeper uncovering of slavery's horrors by American historians,
more hidden
physical brutality, even more economic exploitation (as if there COULD be
more but yes,
the work squeezing of 'more' was worse in many ways).

In looking for 18th Century attitudes toward slavery, I learn that great
writers of that century,
such as Swift, were aware of its moral horror and said so in certain works.

I also learned this as your bonus tidbit fro reading this far: there is/was
a Brazilian word
*banzo, *that meant the psychological shock and total self-loss of being
taken in slavery.





On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 1:52 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> JT
>
>
>
> “we have north, south and middle England,  along with the unknown
> African homeland of Gershom”
>
> Interesting to consider this vector, makes me wonder what we’d learn
> by running such analysis on every scene in the book
>
>
>
> “I think P is mocking this whole portrayal of slavery which was still
> quite alive when he was writing M&D.”
>
> I get this sense also. This scene is interesting in its points of
> departure—from the “historical” and even from the “mythical” as we
> recognize it. Gershom feels like one part of the chapter/book that
> departs from the historical but not the mythical—though obviously in
> an ultimately satiric way
>
>
>
> MARK
>
>
>
> “that always-exploited 'commons' in P's vision,
> it might be fair to say”
>
>
>
> You say you want pushback…I guess maybe you could say that even
> calling it the commons is a sort of municipal designation, makes
> commons (land, the earth) the object to ownership’s subject.
>
>
>
> But I do agree that land-ownership as a fallacy does seem, in my mind,
> to be part of the complex of original civilizational sins
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The conversation thus far makes me appreciate that P is engaging, in
> this book, with actual history and with actual myth, and with the
> history of the myth. And he engages with all in specific and variable
> (relative to each other) ways throughout.
>
>
>
> Here P is remythicizing the myth, I think. Almost a kind of reductio
> ad absurdum. Reminding us how much ahistory we bring to (or inherit
> from) these myths, our ideas of these people, these times. Reminding
> us that all we think we know about GW, the Founding Fathers, is
> relative to something that is a radical mutation of the actual—shaped
> powerfully though not totally by the timeless forces of power. What’s
> apparent here is how much good faith we ascribe to the system of
> relations (see how happy and harmonious everyone in this domestic
> scene of abundance is), and how that only makes sense if we totally
> dismiss the subjectivity of some of the actual human beings involved.
> Let’s not forget Martha, the other one who’s so Stepfordianly happy to
> make all the indulgence possible. Who owns the land owns the myth. Ad
> coelum et so forth.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I’m reading back over the chapter now. Will send more thoughts soon.
> One thing I’m thinking about is this thing Gersh says after Mason asks
> him about eating pork…
>
>
>
> “Please,--you don’t think I feel guilty enough already?”
>
>
>
> But he belongs to a sect that doesn’t care about Dietary Rules. So why
> does he feel guilty? And feel guilty generally, as he seems to
> indicate?
>
>
>
> Nietzsche, I believe, talks about guilt being the sort of psychic
> weaponization of slave (Judeo-Christian) morality. Interesting to
> think about how that might relate to the idea of mythmaking and
> history-building here.
>
> On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 12:13 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Because it's the plist, to give one of JT's refs (GW's "six dicks")
> > some context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7iVsdRbhnc
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 5:23 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> My gawd, Chapter 28 is soo rich with ...stuff! JT lands, like a good
> >> critic, on a key chapter in a rich book, imho. I did not even remember
> that
> >> everything that is in it is in this one chapter; memory said as
> scattered
> >> around as Slothrop.
> >>
> >> Geo Washington, land speculator too. Incipient Pres, embryonic
> >> self-crystalizing leader of the nascent nation, surveyor has 'insider
> >> trading' knowledge of
> >> the rich and beautiful land that Tocqueville goes on at length about to
> >> start Democracy in America. Land developer motif, just like what's his
> name
> >> in Inherent Vice and land, that always-exploited 'commons' in P's
> vision,
> >> it might be fair to say. [pushback wanted]. The ownership of which means
> >> the non-propertied
> >> are always starting from behind in this coming country, in the world
> then
> >> too.(If one had fled England, one could get his own land in the new
> land,
> >> basically--unless, of course,
> >> you were a woman or a slave).
> >>
> >> And that's just the beginning.
> >>
> >> More in future days so as not to watch the M & D Read die too soon of
> empty
> >> days of no postings.
> >>
> >> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 6:18 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> A--and, obvious follow-on re part of the Why?: MLK and Malcolm X embody
> >>> that full resistance, later, to the overwhelming sin of slavery, so
> they
> >>> stand invisibly with those non-satirizing slavery scenes
> >>> in M & D. TRP finding NOTHING to joke about there.
> >>>
> >>> We know what happens to Malcolm's vision via P in GR.
> >>>
> >>> And, from anyone who knows more Ishmael Reed than I might (from too
> long
> >>> ago), is Chap 28 as JT lays it out easily seen as indebted to Reed?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 5:17 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I have been away from any copy of M & D and am now rereading this
> >>>> section.
> >>>>
> >>>> Reflection on this interesting post, however, leads me to one short
> >>>> answer to one question in it: P does this
> >>>> because, as pointed out, America, the US, in the social aggregate, did
> >>>> this re black stereotypes. (Still thinking re Gershom,
> >>>> but, as with every read, I am reminded that I wish I had read
> Melville's*
> >>>> Israel Potter* to see what I can see, if anything, and maybe I will)
> >>>>
> >>>> Yes, with slavery as the horror of M & D, the inherent vice, loosely
> used
> >>>> here, of one "owning' another, I would think P's intention is to show
> >>>> some ways America accommodated itself to its 'original sin'--as some
> >>>> historians even call it. The reality can't be borne, as T.S.. Eliot is
> >>>> always saying.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> M&D chapter 28  first installment
> >>>>> In which George Washington and his happy negro smoke dope with Mason
> and
> >>>>> Dixon . As told by Dick Gregory playing Sammy Davis Jr. playing
> George W’s
> >>>>> man Gershom.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Well something like that. Hard to peel away the layers of absurdity
> and
> >>>>> historic make believe when it comes to George Washington ala
> Pynchon. P  is
> >>>>> playing as  satirically fast and loose as he can get away with
> portraying
> >>>>> the Father of our country, a man well known to have six dicks. I
> know from
> >>>>> listening to Jerusalem( Alan Moore) that Washington’s family came
> from
> >>>>> Northamptonshire. So between the 4 smokers we have north, south and
> middle
> >>>>> England,  along with the unknown African homeland of Gershom. An
> Israelite
> >>>>> in whom is no guile? Interesting choice of stereotype, direct from
> the holy
> >>>>> scriptures.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> During the course of the day Pynchon’s George Washington goes from a
> >>>>> harsh tactician analyzing the wars with Indians,  along with the
> politics
> >>>>> of Ulster Scots and William Penn to spaced out  happy stoner
> enjoying the
> >>>>> munchies with M&D and his all-purpose slave/historian/comedian/cook/
> butler/
> >>>>> convert to judaism, Gershom,  and at the close of their time
> together  ends
> >>>>> up  indulging paranoid (apparently this is one of those kind of
> Sativas)
> >>>>> speculations on the dangers of the insidious Jesuits, chiefest of
> threats
> >>>>> to human freedom.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The conversation is not reassuring to M&D due to the heavy emphasis
> on
> >>>>> the many sources of mortal danger in the western hills where they are
> >>>>> ultimately headed.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As a satirist and bent historian, what are Pynchon’s targets and
> goals
> >>>>> here? And what particularly is he doing with Gershom? I would love
> to hear
> >>>>> others thoughts.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Historically several of Washington’s many slaves escaped when they
> had a
> >>>>> chance, including the famous Hercules, his talented cook.
> Apparently they
> >>>>> were not so happy after all. Hercules would have been between 10 and
> 15
> >>>>> years old when this chapter takes place  so not  historically
> realistic as
> >>>>> model for Gershom. My wife is reading a book about Ona Judge’s
> escape from
> >>>>> George Washington and her lifelong pursuit by the Washingtons. At
> the time
> >>>>> M&D was published there were still chidren’s books on Washington
> showing
> >>>>> happy slaves. I think P is mocking this whole portrayal of slavery
> which
> >>>>> was still quite alive when he was writing M&D. Gershom strikes me as
> a an
> >>>>> unlikely meld of Dick Gregory satirism with the eager to please
> Sammy Davis
> >>>>> Jr.  the last of the rather sad minstrel show uncle Tom style black
> >>>>> entertainers and a famous black convert to Judaism.  Thus P is
> marking out
> >>>>> the most comfortable and accepted  then contemporary role of black
> people,
> >>>>> though clearly not that of MLK or Malcolm X.  Why?
> >>>>>   In some ways this is a  George Washington for a generation that
> >>>>> inhaled. Who laughed at the sanctimonious shit dispensed by history
> >>>>> teachers and knew that there is something majorly fucked up about
> freedom
> >>>>> fighters with slaves. It is hard to take seriously and Pynchon
> doesn’t.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>