In terms of the hard-boiled character: It is clear that most
are loners,
somewhat living apart from the mainstream. Until this little
discourse, it
had never occurred to me that the loner hardboiled private
detective can
live on either side of the political spectrum, but seems to
be in either tail of
the bell-shaped curve. For non-stat types, this simply means
that starting at
the middle of the curve which is the mean scores (everything
is translated
into numbers) 45% going each was is considered normal
variation and it is
the 5% at each extreme which is exceptional or beyond
chance.
The loner hardboiled private detective is clarly in that 5%,
but it never
occurred to me that the 5% could go either way. The classic
semi-Marxian,
class struggle job holder revealing the weaknesses of the
capitalist society is
on one extreme. This would be many of Hammett's characters.
But
actually, Mike Hammer is just as disenfranchised by his
status in the
opposite 5%. While I haven't read a Hammer book in quite a
while, he
feels frustration at the too-often compromising nature of
society. He feels
like his actions are made necessary by a corrupted
society.
I'd be interested in seeing a list of characters categorized
by whither they fit
the Hammer mold (on the right) or the mold on the left.
Unfortunately,
when you deal with these extremes, there is far too much that
is quite the
same.
That's JohnsTon with a T, son.....
On 14 Jul 98, at 13:48, rikke & hanne Kesten wrote:
> Re: Joe Johnson's earlier post, it's not unwarranted
to look at all
John: > While this accusation may or
> may not be true, you are partying on anti- >
American conjecture. > >
>
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> Joseph M.
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