BE ch 5 nerd wars

[David Morris]

And just after I hit “send,” I see your real question:

“*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??*”

So, setting aside the question of inherent structures of the psyche (and I
don’t think Freud assumed they existed - but I could be wrong), let’s look
at how an infant might first experience the repressed:  It is helplessly
laying there hungry, and no one comes to feed or comfort it.  It starts to
cry, then it starts to scream, and then shake in extreme duress. Yet still
it is given nothing. At each turn it feels higher levels of pain and
frustration and fear and WANTS TO DIE!!!  But, no matter what it wants,
that want is denied it.  So, what next?  There’s only one option:  repress
that desire.

Now that’s only a very simple example. Life proceeds with more desires and
frustrations, and the Holy Books are full of lists of possible conflicts
and desires and situations for one to maybe get some pre-set directions for
resolutions or rules of engagement.  But at some age, usually by the age of
two, the person in a life-trauma is convinced that the only solution is
either murder or suicide.  And he/she has to repress that desire.  So
repression of the Id is plainly unavoidable.

That’s just the first step in answering your question. And the
Cyprian-Yasmeen episodes ARE part of Pynchon’s attempts to address the
issue further.  A part of that exploration has to do with something like a
concept of polyamory, explored in Brown’s subsequent work “Love’s Body”
(but that’s not the word he used).  Give me a little more time, and I might
be able to dig it up.

David Morris


On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 3:41 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mark,
>
> Regarding Brown, he never mentioned anything religious like original sin.
> But the concept of having been “born this way,” as in having structures in
> the psyche that are common to all humans - despite whatever post-birth
> training or trauma that might (or might not) occur, is assumed.  So in
> considering “the repressed,” I don’t think he (or anyone) envisioned any
> situation where one might not have those components as a part of their
> psyche.  Of course that suggests that these aspects aren’t developed by
> experience, but are structural, inherent.
>
> Was this your question?
>
> This leads to a parallel question:  Is the human race, and thus all
> cultures and human-systems, pathological by nature?  THAT is what I meant
> by “original sin,” except “sin” is just an incorrect word in this context.
>
> David Morris.
>
> On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 5:56 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>