joanna wrote:
>
> One of the biggest snow jobs was that everything was diff after WWII.
> One of the outstanding things about Pynchon was that he argued against that.
>
At the right abstraction (roughly, that which deals with commodity
fetishism) nothing has changed in the last 300+ years -- as can be
determined by an extensive enough comparative consideration of Milton,
Pope, Wordsworth, & Pound. But all abstractions are true, they only
differ in relevance. From the viewpoint of life conditions _as_
experienced by the bulk of white workers (and this is one of many valid
abstractions) the world had been rather extensively transformed. This is
also true of large numbers of small farmers (the remainder of the 19th-c
petty producer & small capitalists classes). There really is a
difference between a kerosene stove, an icebox, and an outhouse on the
one hand and an electric stove, indoor bathroom, a refrigerator and a
freezer on the other hand. Pynchon, from my reading of him, grasped
capitalism through the lens of commodity fetishism, so he could grasp
the continuity.
For Plato there were false appearances behind which hid a true reality. For Marx, the distinction was between _true_ appearances and the reality which explained those appearances. That is, commodity fetishism is a material reality, not just a psychological error through being fooled by appearances.
Carrol