Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["Karl M. Terrell" <kterrell AT sheastokes.com>]

On reading the quote below, I found myself thinking about one of the
characters in Dr. Strangelove: the Air Force pilot with the nuclear
payload played by Slim Pickens, who, after he gets the signal to drop
The Big One, can hardly contain his joy.  He puts on his cowboy hat,
lets out a yodel, and rides that bomb down rodeo-style all the way to
the target.  With his one free hand, he happily waves his hat back and
forth on his way to blowing up 'the Rooskies.'

Percy wrote about how the prospect of bad things happening -- like an
impending war, or perhaps an approaching category-5 hurricane -- do not
cause dread or anxiety.  We are instead filled with excitement.  We
couldn't be happier.  

By contrast, WP saw a man who has everything going for him, sitting in
his fine home in, say, Short Hills, N.J. on an ordinary Wednesday
afternoon, with no identifiable problems on the horizon, but who
nonetheless finds himself ..... unsettled, anxious.

The subtitle of Dr. Strangelove was "How I Learned to Stopped Worrying
and Love the Bomb."  

The quote below speaks of war in positive terms, as a means of
delivering 'solidification' and the 'hope of a common emancipation.'  It
seems to me that what's really going on is the pull of the death wish
that we all share.

Isn't that what Percy was talking about?

Karl


-----Original Message-----
From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Eckert, Robert G
SPC MIL USA FORSCOM
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 1:39 PM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Re Lit Crit on Percy - Where to Start?

I wonder if Percy ever read DeChardin's "The Great Monad", written in
1918 when he was with his regiment in Champagne. Even during the horror
of that war DeChardin found something positive that I believe applies to
this current clash:


"Mankind in armed conflict with itself is a Mankind in process of
solidification....
The whole of history teaches us this lesson, that after every revolution
and after every war Mankind has always emerged a little more
self-cohesive, a little more unified, because the links that hold its
organism together are more firmly locked together and hope of a common
emancipation has become strengthened." (p.184, The Heart of Matter)

In a peculiar way, war is how we get to know other cultures. Americans
know much more about Islam now than they did in August of 2001. We can
hope that this struggle will settle, that Jewish, Muslim and Christian
people will learn to live together peacefully.

If we can survive the initial clash, we can converge. 

CPL Robert Eckert

"What's so funny about peace, love and understanding"
        - Elvis Costello


----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Forest <jhforest AT gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 25, 2008 5:00
Subject: [percy-l] Re Lit Crit on Percy - Where to Start?
To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
<percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>

> Thanks, Robert. God knows you're right about the pure horror of 
> inflicting indiscriminate harm, whether by bio-weapons or any of the 
> numerous other methods that have been developed as a means of mass 
> murder. Developments in killing methods this half century or so make 
> Genghis Kahn look like Elmer Fudd.
> 
> When I was a US Navy meteorologist working with a Navy unit at the 
> Weather Bureau headquarters just outside of Washington, DC, one of our

> daily exercises was to plot fallout patterns over 12-hour 
> intervalsshould a 20-megaton nuclear explosion occur over the capitol.

> It was a sobering task, as you can imagine.Of course all the 
> meteorologists at the Weather Bureau would be among the instant dead 
> if it were the real thing.
> 
> I wonder what Walker Percy would have to say about the word "hero"?
> Was it a topic that ever came up in the numerous interviews that were 
> done with him?
> 
> One group's hero is very often another groups icon of evil. But there 
> are heroes who are beloved across borders. Saints. Now there's an 
> interesting word, one that meant a great deal to Walker Percy.
> 
> Friendly greetings,
> 
> Jim
> 
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 5:45 PM, Eckert, Robert G SPC MIL USA FORSCOM 
> < robert.g.eckert AT us.army.mil> wrote:
> 
> > Jim is right, of course.
> >
> > Scientists like Dr. Ken Alibek, M.D. who developed bioweapons
> for the
> > Soviet Union are good people.
> >
> > I would still argue that the sort of killer who would use an
> agent like
> > small pox in an attack is not the same type of killer as a
> soldier who
> > engages insurgents firing on a convoy just hit by an i.e.d..
> >
> > The insurgent or the soldier may be your hero.
> >
> > But, who could have as their hero, who could conceive any
> possible good in
> > the use of a deadly contagious disease to indiscriminately
> inflict harm?
> >
> > CPL Robert Eckert
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Jim Forest
> > Date: Sunday, February 24, 2008 5:50
> > Subject: [percy-l] Re Lit Crit on Percy - Where to Start?
> > To: Walker Percy List
> >
> > > An extract from Robert Eckert's posting:
> > >
> > > >> In one interview, Percy, when asked a question concerning
> > > something about living at another time, said he would like to sit 
> > > on a park bench in NYC in the year 2050 to see how we were doing.
> > > To see if we made it.
> > > >> Will we?
> > > >> Percy's questions concerning human destiny are still relevant.
> > > >> Even more so in a post 9/11 age.
> > > >> Bad people possess the capability to inflict inordinate damage
> > > upon you and everything you know.
> > >
> > > I have a feeling that, if Walker Percy were still with us and
> could> > respond, he might point out that it's not only the bad
> people (Them)
> > > but the good people (Us) who all too often inflict inordinate
> damage> > upon a great many people.
> > >
> > > My guess is that his response would be along the same lines as 
> > > something Thomas Merton (a writer Percy greatly admired) wrote 
> > > while the Vietnam War was gaining momentum.
> > >
> > > Having read Hannah Arendt's book about the trial in Jerusalem of 
> > > Adolph Eichmann, the chief bureaucrat of the Holocaust. Merton was

> > > inspired to write an essay: "A Devout Meditation in Memory of 
> > > Adolf Eichmann."
> > >
> > > Eichmann, Merton noted, had been declared sane by examining 
> > > psychiatrists. This sane man who had been involved in the
> death of
> > > millions seemed to Merton an archetype of all those who were 
> > > brilliant perfecters of new technologies of killing. They were
> simply> > doing their job, following orders, being good citizens, etc.
> > >
> > > Merton wrote:
> > >
> > > "The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a
> sense> > of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the
> capacity to love
> > > and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the
> world> > to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And
> now it
> > > begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who
> are the
> > > most dangerous. It is the sane ones, the well-adapted ones,
> who can
> > > without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the 
> > > buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that 
> > > they, the sane ones, have prepared.... No one suspects the sane, 
> > > and the
> sane> > ones will have perfectly good reasons, logical, well-
> adjusted reasons,
> > > for firing the shot. They will be obeying sane orders that
> have come
> > > sanely down the chain of command." [Thomas Merton, Raids on the 
> > > Unspeakable (New York: New Directions, 1966), 45-53.]
> > >
> > > Of course we regard ourselves as sane, not to mention good and 
> > > decent and even God-fearing. In the Hollywood movie we make of 
> > > ourselves, we're never the bad guys.
> > >
> > > Jim Forest
> > >
> > > * * *
> > > Jim & Nancy Forest
> > > Kanisstraat 5
> > > 1811 GJ Alkmaar
> > > The Netherlands
> > > personal web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ *recently 
> > > published:* *"Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a 
> > > community of* *rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris:*
> > > http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-
> mother-
> > > maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/
> > > *another new book:
> > > "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life":**
> > > http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-
> > > pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/
> > >
> > > * * *
> > > Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our
> recent kidney
> > > transplant. A blog has
> > > been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See:
> > > http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/
> > > * * *
> >
> 
--
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