Show Me The Bloodmoney! (or, Fun with Dick and Jameson.)

First, Brave New World (revisited) - but not the book "Brave New World Revisited," just a revisiting of Brave New World, you know, the topic...

Let me revisit the topic and answer the unanswered question from last week. (You remember when Anthony asked me to define science? and you remember when I declined? Yeah, that was cool...) Anyway, here is something that approaches identifying my idea of Science & Technology as the object of the uncritical acceptance and obeisance to which I referred. (Such uncritical acceptance, I help, was the root of the "dys" in dystopias of Huxley and Forster.)

The idea of Science & Technology as the new "God" of these ages might be reflected by the comments on the names in BNW (Marx, Ford, Freud, etc.) made by Peter Firchow, in The End of Utopia. Firchow points out that points out that “All these forces share the claims of ‘totality,’ to a final knowledge… All are fundamentally materialist….” So, THIS is maybe what I meant by SCIENCE.
That is basically where I get off proposing that:

These dystopias have enthroned Science and Technology as God and King. The new ruler sets out to accomplish that bureau-lutionary process by which the ruling paradigm insulates itself from other ideas. (This same bureau-lutionary process is what creates “normal science,” and privileges ruling paradigms in theory, politics, and any number of other systems.) This process insures unity in the topia it rules. This unity is what Kenneth Burke might call a “congregation by segregation.” Oppositions to the throne (heretics) are segregated, excluded, marginalized, ghetto-ed, interred, but…. still existing in the ex-stasis, waiting. (from my previous blog)

Now, onto my ponderings on this week's readings...

So much to say - and my last blog was not a blog at all - but rather a "paper" - shiver! Does this reflect the power of the ages of print-centricity as ruling paradigm? You bet you sweet bippie!

This week, a shorter, more focused observation on... Bill. Bill, the "invisible friend" revealed to be invisible only because of his (ex)status/(ex)stasis as homunculus - contained within a more visible, but still marginalized body of a girl - his sister. Jameson's use of the communication grid situates Bill as the "receiver" or the "Other."

In order not to rehash or summarize what you have already read, let me problematize Bill's position as the "Other" in relation to his movement within the narrative of Br. Bloodmoney. For Bill to escape his position of ex-clusion, he must enter the world from which he is ex(oc)cluded, and must move within that world. Readers may see the world from which Bill is excluded as being primarily visual, or perhaps socio-political. Jameson sees the linguistic/communicative dimensions of the world from which Bill is cast outside:

Clearly, Dick's solution of the fundamental politico-existential problems facing humanity is here slanted toward art and language rather than toward an explicit scientific diagnosis which would meet the political problem head on. Nonetheless, Dick seems to realize that the verbal, linguistic or communicational field cannot by itself provide a solution. The playful character of Bill rises therefore, by his at least approximate synthesis of verbal and kinaesthetic powers, of communications and active physical intervention, to the status of final mediator, arbiter and one could almost say saviour in the microcosm of Dr. Bloodmoney. (Jameson, "After Armageddon," Archaeologies of the Future)

“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”Audre Lorde's famous quote regarding ruling paradigms (particularly patriarchy) may be challenged by the movement of Bill in Dick's dystopia. Bill's narrative movement depends on access to, and conveyance through, those "within" the master's house (system), even if only marginally "within" and even if the "system" is only marginally a ruling paradigm. Edie was useful, as was Hoppy, both within the dominant system. (Admittedly, so was the owl, but that's another discussion...)

• It seems that the master's tools are always already being used to dismantle the master's house.
  
• In fact, perhaps the master's tools are a NECESSITY to dismantle the master's house.
• And further, perhaps the master's tools are teleologicaly DESTINED to dismantle the master's house.
• OR - is the master's house EVER REALLY dismantled? Can it be? Or is every "revolution" simply a REMODELING of the same house after all?
  

But, to quote Dieter (of Sprockets)

"Yes, Ve are doomed and I am filled with remorse, and it is most delicious. But enough, I have become bored vith this... Now is the time on sprockets ven ve dance!"