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

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, P and transcendence. Ye olde, always new, religious meanings and in M
& D, perhaps Emersonian Oversoul vibrations.

I think the duck's progress herein might be a parody of transcendence, even
of transcendence obsession.

On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 5:18 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe in relation to this dynamic of being owned is the automaton's
> progress.  The duck frees itself and gains agency through accessing
> invisibility, another dimension, as did Slothrup in GR.  Vibration, a kind
> of physical transformation, is its transcendent path.  I think Pynchon is
> enamoured with transcendence, and its opposite, boundedness.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 4:58 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Smoke!
>>
>> Great observation.  "Ownership" might be further explored in relation to
>> some of its opposites.  GR goes to great lengths with the S&M of the daisy
>> chain.  Nietzche's concepts of civilization might be a thread: Is all
>> civility born of coercion?
>>
>> Is the LED owned?  Does his learnedness free him from being owned?
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 11:26 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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