#189

“It was widely believed in those days that behind the War – all the death, savagery, and destruction – lay the Fürher-principle. But if personalities could be replaced by abstractions of power, if techniques developed by the corporations could be brought to bear, might not nations live rationally? One of the dearest Postwar hopes: that there should be no room for a terrible disease like charisma... that its rationalization should proceed while we had the time and resources” (Pynchon, 2006: 82).

PYNCHON, Thomas (2006). Gravity's Rainbow. London: Penguin.