Asimov and Pynchon

[Mark Kohut]

First thought --(best thought) as that koan goes...

that psychohistory "recalls' Calvinist theology is only because
psychohistory uses
depth psychology in its explanations, and the depth psychology of Freud and
his caboose of
later psychologists and psychology extenders---Fromm and Brown---go deeper
in explaining
the grip of forces we are unaware of which 'control' our behavior......and
Calvinist theology is real good at explaining the worst of our behavior in
a similar fashion.

Overarching explanations are always 'deterministic' in their ways of
explaining and the question of free will vs determinism exists under/within
both of them. IMO.

On Fri, May 1, 2026 at 11:31 AM Corbeau Castrum via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I recently acquired an Everyman Library's edition of Isaac Asimov's
> Foundation trilogy, and in the introduction Michael Dirda makes some very
> interesting comments:
>
> "Pulp-magazine heroes traditionally save the day, or the universe. But
> where is the place for heroes against the 'dead hand' of the Seldon Plan?
> If the concatenation of myriad forces, carefully analyzed by Hari Seldon,
> determines outcomes, what of individual effort? In essence, psychohistory
> recalls Calvinist theology: If God, or Seldon, rules, then one should
> simply trust in his wisdom, bow to circumstances, and know that all is
> ineluctably predestined" (xiv).
>
> The fact that psychohistory is a statistical science of prediction which
> produces a Calvinist-esque fatalism is very reminiscent of much in
> Gravity's Rainbow. Pynchon for his part references Asimov in the
> introduction to Slow Learner as one of the people whom he read on the topic
> of entropy. I briefly searched for essays and articles connecting the two
> but couldn't find anything. My thoughts are still churning about how the
> two might relate to each other. What do you folks think? Have you ever made
> the comparison before?
>
> Happy May Day,
> Cormac
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>