BE ch 5 nerd wars

[Mark Kohut]

I say this is the best analysis of this famous quote that I've read. Simple
"doing logic" (as Graebner and Wengrow say, not positively sometimes)
question: if Ego's meaning is in dispute and always has been, DID Pynchon
mean Brown's
meaning here?...arguable, but* I agree with David. Pynchon pushed to the
limits conceptually in GR so, deeply influenced by Brown, why would he not
mean that meaning? ......*

However, for continued discussion I also ask this, I hope logically. The
white albatross is only the corporate emblem, which even under the original
sin use seems to work as a superb nuance from Pynchon since the
bulk of the meaning of The Man and us is in the rest of the sentence. We
show/feel guilt like an emblem. More brilliance.

 AND, I've read Brown and I would say he does not believe in "original sin'
in the way that concept is usually used. That is, as inherent in human
nature, religiously so to thicken this paragraph, no
matter how that human nature created itself from the earliest human times;
from the non-existent Garden of Eden (and its original sin mythos) thru
other ways of interpersonal, social existences. Brown did believe, am I
right? ,
that it all could have been different and still could be with the same
'human' stock?

PS. Writing the word "inherent' above, of course, reminds me of *Inherent
Vice* and the famous (for us) scene of violence and its telling in that
novel. As well as the title;  all leaving some of us--me--with the belief
that Pynchon
is purposely never clear on that inherent original sin (as we also called
it then).

I think I would agree with that here about this quote BECAUSE of David's
glossing with Brown. Our repressed id wants what it wants but it did
not,does not, have to be repressed, does it? Is that part of the later
meanings of Cyprian and Yasmeen
in AtD??

PS: By the way, Graebner's and Wengerow's book is great on 'human nature'
in all kinds of societies, esp on those before or outside (largely) of our
written History and what might be 'inherent", although I read them like
Pynchon, philosophically agnostic on THAT in all the ways that matter.

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 7:17 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> “each local rep  [of The Man in our brain]  has a cover known as the Ego”
>
> So, let’s dig a little deeper into that pivotal GR quote:
>
> In GR, Pynchon was *immersed* in Norman O Brown’s *Life Against Death,*
> and thus into a deep consideration of Freud’s theories.  If Pynchon says
> that our *Ego* is the Man’s “cover” (a spy’s false identity) inside our
> brain, that’s essentially Pynchon saying that “The Man” inside our brain is
> our *Repressed** Id!!!* That’s what Pynchon is calling the “bad shit”
> which is  *The Man* inside our brain.  (Are you following all that?)
>
> So, calling the emblem of the white albatross “a sign of guilt or
> frustration” isn’t even a pale shadow of what Pynchon meant it to represent
> in GR.  Joe was much closer when he called it “original sin.”  It’s a sign
> of the malignancy of *the repressed Id* in every person’s psyche.  And
> that’s why we can’t shake it.
>
> Like Mark said, it’s not our fault, but we are responsible (for what we do
> with it).
>
> I don’t know how much of GR’s ontology is Pynchon’s, and if it has
> survived into BE.  But I think some of it is and has.
>
> David Morris
>
>
>