Re: M&D: Learnédness (vs. Bornness//as reason for hope?)

[Monte Davis]

"...Mason understands that the vocal assaults of the Vrom Poultry are not
inborn, but rather learn'd in this World from their Owners."

We've had cockfighting both formal ("a length of turf fertilized with the
blood and the droppings of generations of male Poultry," 24) and informal
(Mason "hurries to Breakfast thro’ the back reaches of the two Yards,—
edging past a bright-feather’d Skirmish-line of glaring poultry, a bit more
forward than the usual British Hen," 60). P often rings Animal Farm-ish
changes on those "hierarchical chains of ownership" (or more broadly, power
and compulsion). Remember the parodic dog town (Hundstadt) in GR, the
hunting of Dog Vanya, Pointsman's craving for "one... little... fox"? And
coming up in AtD -- which begins over the killing ground of the Chicago
stockyards --  there's bookish Pugnax (“Rr Rff-rff Rr-rr-rff-rff-rrf” =
“The Princess Casamassima”), whom I sometimes think is an agent or at least
observer for the Chums' never-specified management.


On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 11:25 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Third time through this book, and I am struck (again) by just how early in
> the text the LED comes--as if there should be no question about how many
> questions there will be about the world of the book.
>
> But the learnedness is interesting to me. The LED is the most civilized
> member of most every group of talking mammals he encounters. The LED's
> learnedness is the most foregrounded part of his identity. His civility is
> acquired.
>
> And this, some time later, p. 92, amid the rainstorms, the young and
> learning Seductrices Vroom, pursuing their "malicious fun," trying to
> trigger what we might assume are at least somewhat born-in sexual responses
> from our Astronomers (mostly M, though even he may be a more acceptable
> substitute for the African boys ("Babies, rather," as Austra reminds and
> admonishes the V sisters) they might otherwise be exploiting) as they await
> the Transit ...
>
> "[Austra's] blond Procuresses all begin to expostulate at once, and Mason
> understands that the vocal assaults of the Vrom Poultry are not inborn, but
> rather learn'd in this World from their Owners."
>
> Does ugliness, just like civility or refinement, descend through great
> hierarchical chains of ownership?
>
> I think some version of this question underlays the book just like so much
> of the political philosophy that background the novel, the Hobbeses and
> Lockes and Hamiltons of what is, we are told, the Age of Reason. Isn't it?
>
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