The Crying of Lot 49. Group Read 2024

[Mark Kohut]

“The disenchantment of the world” is a phrase that I take from Max Weber,
who spoke of the eclipse of magical and animistic beliefs about nature as
part of the more general process of “rationalization” which he saw as the
defining feature of modernity in the West.

On Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 5:46 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> *1. Modern world has lost its: “enchantment [ ] spiritual/religious chain
> of being”*
>
> A?) How/Why did “it” get lost?
> B?) Shall we try to define “it”?  Or should we assume it is ACTUALLY
> ineffable?
>
> *2.  Losing that connection in modernity[…]*
>
> A?) What? Big jump of assumptions (see 1.A? above)
> B?) What about “Modern” makes it the change-maker?
>
> *3.   **individualism […] *
> *therefore is wholesale pervasive narcissism.*
>
> A?)  I don’t think individualism is the core of the problem (or Modernism)
>
> B?)  I don’t think  individualism is even remotely connected to
> narcissism
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 2:31 PM Mark Kohut
>
>> *The Ethics of Authenticity *by Charles Taylor
>>
>> This: the modern world has *lost its enchantment. (This, in a famous
>> quote from Weber, a Pynchon fave, we know). That enchantment held all of us
>> in a spiritual/religious chain of being*, so to speak. [See The Great
>> Chain of Being book or concept] Wherein we were all connected beyond our
>> {puny) selves. That great chain bound us in communities of all kinds. Basic
>> earthbound communities as well as others. In which we defined ourselves. (
>> PS, this organic community concept is what I would argue is Morris's
>> fingering of Pynchon's Garden of Eden nostalgia, but in history not myth. P
>> shows and says so in *Against the Day, imo. *And it is in another P fave,
>> Henry Adams*)*
>
>
> * Losing that connection in modernity,*
>
>
> we are thrown back on our *individualism*. THAT is the problem Taylor
>> tackles. Such individualism, he sez is psychologically grounded in nothing
>> beyond itself, (as the word kinda implies. I have ordered his* Sources of
>> the Self)*) Such individualism is self-grounded, kind of like Morris's loop
>> analogously and *therefore is wholesale pervasive narcissism*. --(He
>> uses others here; he says this is seen everywhere by some, such as Lasch in
>> his book The Culture of Narcissism. Which I read but while not fully
>> "woke", so am looking at again) The whole rootless culture echoes
>> it--allusion to Echo Court intended. This reflection tower is everywhere,
>> is also a mirror.   Seeing the men wanting Oedipa can be seeing full-blown
>> narcissism in all of them. (Oedipa not feeling any sexual relevance in her
>> situation may be a way of saying she ISN'T narcissistic anymore.)
>>
>> All of the religious-like signs Oedipa sees that are signs that do not
>> lead to religion as known are like the disenchantment of the--her--world.
>> (This, from Weber, seems very likely to me as part of Pynchon's intent.)
>>
>> Taylor works hard in the rest of his book to show how individualism can
>> overcome itself, he thinks.....(an authentic connection to the polity of
>> one's country is one way---Taylor is Canadian and near the end he contrasts
>> his Canadian readers with "the country just south of us" )
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>