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

[Mark Kohut]

The savage Swiftian subversion of The Great Chain of Being world-view.

On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 9:24 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> "...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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