BOOKS’H THE ARTS ‘More Dithsrambfc Than Athletic’ LOVE’S BODY. By Norman 0. Brown. to the “supernatural,” if you are theo- Random House. 276 p p . $5.95. logically mlnded). Even when considered

close up, the identity of the “self” or KENNETH BURKE “person” becomes part of a collective M r . Burke’s most recently published book texture involving language, property, 1s Language as Symbolic ActLon (Um- famdy, reputation, soclal roles, and so versify of Calrfornza Press). on-elements not reducible to the in-

dividual. The same is true of our According to Norman 0. Brown, the physical nature, but with one notable suggestive nature of aphoristic, frag- exception. Physiologically, the centrality mentary expresslon makes for continual of the nervous system is such that, al- resurrection, In allowlng us to be re- though I as a person may sympathetically born wlth each fragment, whereas identlfy myself wlth other people’s systematic thought condemns us to pleasures and pains, in my nature as a death. However, I assume that a re- sheer body the pleasures of m y food and vlewer should be as systematic as pos- the pains of m y toothache are experi- sible, even If It kills hlm, for any at- enced immediately by me alone. Thus, tempt to sum up a book‘s contents will although even as a body I merge into necessarily requlre hlm to ask how one my environment, there 1s thls physio- fragment fits wlth another. And there’s logical condition (in the realm of sheer always the paradoxlcal possiblllty that “matter” or motlon) that serves as a even the errors of an unsystematlc book rudlmentary “principle of indivlduatlon,” can be shown to have a systematlc the grounds for a purely empirical d m ongin, from whlch they are forever born tlnctlon whereby, however social our anew, thereby at least provlng to that nature in other respects, we are born extent the author’s clam for an intimate and dle one by one, with certain tie-up between resurrection and the pIeasures and palm experienced imrne- fragmentary diutely. bodily, or If you will, “carnally,”

For Instance. when we are told that and not ldentlcally experienceable by “there IS no literal truth,” we are in the others. presence of a statement that on Its face So far, 1 have made two quite dlf- is in dire trouble. There would be no ferent moves. Flrst, workmg from wlth- Point in making the statement unless in the book itself, I slngled out a baslc it is to be taken literally, as univocally statement of termlnlstlc pollcy that manl- “true.” Yet i t could be true only by festly undoes itself. Next, when turning being false. to the key word, “body,” I introduced

Slmllarl~, we are told that “the con- a preparatory consideratlon of my own. fllct between sclence and religlon in the Brown says nothing about the "ten- modern world stems . . . from modern trality of the nervous system.” In fact, literalism. Protestant llterahsm and the main emphasis throughout hls book Catholic scholastlclsm; both extermma- is upon the respects In which the In- tors of symbolism.” And whether or not dlvldual 1s rather like a drop in the we agree. what is the author’s purpose ocean, though somehow divided from in making the statement unless he its fellows by a kind of primal “fall” literally m e a m what he says? Here cer- from the ultimate oceanlc oneness. talnlj’ is a kind Ok tangle from whlch But when he says: ‘‘Love and death many others could spnng. are altogether carnal, hence their great

maglc and thelr great terror,” I would The book’s title is accurate, so suggest that before we ever get to the

we mlght well proceed from there. As “maglc” and the “terror.” we should regards the term “body,” I’d propose try to be as expllclt as we can about one prernonltory observatlon. The more that word “carnal ” I have explmtly one speculates upon the paradoxes of proposed the need for thls notlon of an the term “substance,” the more dlffl- indlvldual human body’s susceptlbillty cult becomes the task of lsolatmg the to certam sensatlons not thus Immedl- “~ndiv~dual.” We all merge into our ately experlenced by other human envlronment, the circumference or scope bodles (In the sense that, though other of whlch can be extended to the bodies may have physlcal pleasures and farthest limlts of ”nature” (and beyond, pams l lke mlne, they don’t have rnrne)).

THE NATION 1 Murcir 27, I967

And I have suggested that, although Brown does not mention such a con- cept, he greatly needs it; and a concept of that sort is at least implicit in his statement about the immediately carnal nature of love and death. (True, I would want to haggle considerably about his reduction of love to nothing but carnal terms, slnce the norms of love and friend- ship are strongly modlfied by soclal factors. But in any case, there must be an ultimate bodily reference of some sort, even if it take the form of strict- ly ascetic dissociation.)

Even If nelther the author nor the reader would consent to my proposal as regards a sheerly “material” or bodrly prlnclple of individuation, surely all can agree on this minlmum basx once a wrlter chooses to build a nomenclature that features the word “body,” there are certam resources readily avadable to that term. Thus, whatever might be your deflnition of a “carnal” human body, It must differ considerably from the meanlngs Implicit or exphcit in refer- ences to the state as a political body, or to the Church as an ecclesiastical body. Surely, no political or ecclesiastlcal body can experience the carnality of sex or food as the particular members of such collective bodies can.

Further possibilities are avail- able. There can be words for another kmd of body, indrvidually resurrected after death, though somehow not dlvlswely. Such terms are possible, whether or not there can actually be such a state. Thls requires further book- keepmg operations, as per the statement that “incarnation is not to be under- stood carnally.”

A related but different set of trans- formations 1s possible. Bodles don’t only sex, they also eat. In fact, without a lot of preparatory eatmg, there’d be no sexing. Hence, along wlth his pan- sexuahsm, Brown mcludes many terms connected with food. And well he mlght, If one can believe reports to the effect that when war prlsoners are deprived of both food and sex. then dreams are not of beds but of banquets. In any case, food as well as sex provides a baslc bodily term~nology of appetltlon, plus corresponding connotatlons of substance, and hence of consubstantlahty, In keep- ing wlth the “carnal” notlon that we

405

can all become allke by partaking of fliF-CaZe- subsiance (mdwlduals thus be- ing made one by partlclpatlon in a com- mon body. as per the popular aphonsm, “tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are”). Thls line of development allows for notlons of transubstantlated body, when bread and wme are rltual[y transformed Into the blood and body of a Dlvlne Word shared by all be- lievers. And although, as I trled to show In my RhetorLc of Relcgcon, a sacrlflclal prmciple IS lntrlnslc to the nature of the soclal order as such, you might (hke Brown) center attentlon upon the pure- ly “carnal” aspects of eatlng whereby one thmg lives by the “sacnflce” of another.

I have suggested that you mlght be- gin wlth some overall term such as ”ap- .petition," under whlch you might In- clude terms for food and terms for sex as subdlvlslons. ”Deslre” would be a handy synonym I f we recall Spmoza’s formula, “It is of the essence of man to deare,” along wlth the etymologlcal admonrtlon (too often overlooked by cur- rent myth men) that desrre In general is the baslc meanlng of the Greek word eros. Proceedrng thus, you wdl have PO dlfflculty In seemg how Brown‘s book mlght have chapters on both food and sex. But if you begin wlth the partlcu- lars of such imagery and the correspond- ing problems of termlnlstlc accountancy (as the book encourages you to do), you are almost sure to get lost; and you w~l l doubtless be left vaguely wonderlng how you got from body to sex to person to

NIGHT WATCH

food to sacriflce to resurrection and on finally to the culmlnatlve celebration of “Nothing.”

As for the other word, the possessrve. in the tltle: I submlt that Plato-s Phaedrus can serve us best, to Indicate what kmd of potentlalltles (correspond- mg to those lmpllclt In Brown’s word. “body”) are lmpllclt in the word “love ’. I have ~n mlnd the "literal" tact that the Phaedrus begms on a qulte low con- cept of sexual ddhance, then graduates through a solemnly ecstatlc vlew oi “noble” love, to such kinds of court- ship as come to fulf~llment rn the Socratlc erotlc (the whole constltuhng a dlalectlc ladder that leads from sexudl seed to doctrinal msemmatlon) In brlef. the idea of communion embraces a range of meanlngs as wlde ds the dlf- ferences between sheerly lustful coupling, unlty In love. and such modes of per- suasion. or communication or corre- spondence In pnnclple, as flower In ardent rhetorlcal appeal to love of WIS-

dom. (Brown’s book features the sex side of such a contlnuun1 Worklng at the other end of the spectrum, Marshall McLuhan’s UrrderJtarldrng Medcu fed- tures some conslderatlons to do wlth the sheer technology ot communlca- tlon.)

Brown tells us that “symbolism is mlnd makmg connectlons (corre- spondences) rather than dlstlnctlons (separatlons).” Here we confront the same kind of self-cancelmg statenlent with whlch we began. For if Brown’s

And now, outside, tire walls of black flrnt, eyeless. How pale in sleep you lie. Love: my love IS lust a breaih blown on the pane and drssolved. Everythrng, even you, crles srlently for help. the web of the splder is rrpped wrth ram, the geese fly on mto the black cloud. Whal can I do for you? What can I do for you? Can the touch of a finger mend what a fmget‘s touch has broken? Blue-eyed, wrth yellow hair, I stand m my old nrghimare besrde the track, whrle you, and over agarn and always ~ O U

wearlly plod rnto the death-cars. Sometimes you send me a last srn~h, and I - I srnlle back at you. How sweet the smell of the station-master’s roses! How pure, how poster-llke the colors of t h ~ s dream!

hURIENNE RICH

statement makes any sense at all, it is making a d~s t~nct~on. He might answer that he never Intended thls particular klnd of sentence to be thought of as ”symbolrsm.” I would call It “symbohsm” In the sense that i t uses a symbol sys- tem. and thus IS a kmd of "symbolic action ” I thought ot solving the problem by reference to these remarhs by Soc- rates, also In the PhaedruJ

I am great laker of these processes of dlvlslon and generahzatlon. they help me to speak and thmk. If I fmd any man who IS able to see uluty and plurallty in nature, 1 follow hllu, walking I n his steps as If he were a god And those who have thls a t , I usually c d dlalectlclans

But thls possrble dlstlnctlon between ”sym bollsm” dnd ”dialectrcs” won-t help LIS For Brown also says “Every sen- tence IS dtalecllcs. an act of love”. and ”all Intercourse IS sexual untercourse”; and sex ~tself IS ”symbol~c ’’ Brown turther trlcs to equate “unlon o r unl- tlcatlon“ wlth L‘I‘US. and ”separallon. or d~vrsron” wlth “the death Inbtlnct .’ though bodles grow and reproduce by the drvls~on of cells. and metabollsln In - volves both anabollc and catabolrc PI ocesses.

Brown seems to leaye no room for thc shccrly tcchnlcal aspects of the com- munrcJtlon spectrum 1-0 be \(Ire. one may say that love (or sex) I S “dlalectlcal.” In the sense that It rnvolves both dm- parateness and unlflcatlon But dlalec- t m , as the use of words for unity and words for plurallty. cannot be intel- llglbly reduced to an utterly “carnal” concept of love. Such an equatlon would amount to saying that the dlstlnc- tlon between a word hke “books” and a word hke "library" can be aidequdtelv drscussed as an “act of love .’ Or. I f you must call it “love.” then please at least admlt that it‘s not in exactly the bame “carnal” category as sedentary eating or recumbent sexing, though we mlght gain a certain perspectlve by in- congruity if we transferred a term horn one such realm to the other ( a s wer-e we to call some beauty queen an ”In- vltlng morsel”).

If you would equate “symbollsm” solely with the unity side of the unlty- dlverslty pair, no one need haggle wrth you, In case your scheme somewhere expllcltly allows for both. But, so far as I can make out, Brown can admit such considerations only roundabout and unmtentionally, as when nlaklng a dlstinctlon in the very act of outlawing dlstmctlons, or when saying that all language IS a kmd of “fall” (as i t un- questionably is, in the sense that It necessarily makes Brown’s statement of

r n ~ NATION / March 27, 1967

his own unitary ideal undo itself, since even hls word “undication” implies the unlfymg of a dlversrry).

The trlck is: Where do you start, and where do you go from there3 If you start with particulars, well and good But if you try to make them do the work of generalities, the prognostica- tions are bad. I mean: there’s nothing wrong wlth sex as a “way In.” But when, llke Brown, you flrst reduce “love” to penls and vaglna, and then Impenalistl- cally expand untll you fmd “a penis in every convex ob~ect and a vagma in every concave one.” you’re necessarily out of bounds For geometric forms must also be treated In thelr own nght, fall or no fall. Even 1f you began wlth a purely psychoanalytlc interpretatlon of the egg-and-dart motif. you’d have to grant that its use in Greek friezes “transcends” thls “origin ”

Too often Brown merely re-enacts the termlnlstic devlces we have been dls- cussmg. rather than helpmg to make us more conscious of thelr operatlon: In thls respect his book becomes obfuscat-

ing, rather than the “apocalyptic” enter- prise he apparently wants it to be. And now, after a reference to some surpris- ing omisslons, we shall have frnished:

One might have expected that a stress upon the body would also entail a cult of bodily motion for its own sake. But the satlsfactlons of the kmetic In gen- eral are treated in keeping with the genius of the possessive In the book’s title, thus: “All movement is phal- lic,” a doctrine temperamentally more dlthyramblc than athletic. A greater surprise lurks in the fact that despite urgent praise of poetry, there IS no con- cern with such kinds of sensory re- sponse to nature as John Crowe Ran- som deals with I n his thoughts on the relation between poetry and the “world’s body ” The stress upon unity makes the book in effect even more severe than orthodox churchmen In frownmg on the prlnclple of divorce. And perhaps the dlthyrambic element is also responsrble for shghting the major role of body- thinkmg in connection with dlsease and the ~magery of the ethically problemati- cal: bodles sick or soiled.

Reforming the Unr’versfties COMPULSORY MIS-EDUCATION and THE COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS. B y Paul Goodman Vzntoge Books 339 p p . $1.95 paper.

PETER CLECAK M r . Clecal ieacIm E ~ ~ g l ~ l l 01 the Uni- versrry of Culrfomm U r b r r w ) . C J I ~ IS n t WOI+

on ~1 b o d on conletnpornlv Anzartcun Aocraf crrlrcrsrn.

Postwar studles of education, llke anal- )ses of poverty. race relatlons. the break- down of the fannly. and the recently publiclzed death of God. constitute an Important branch of the flourishmg Anlerlcan soclal crltlcwn Industry Thls sudden and unprecedented concern over the state of educatlon is, of course. nerther touchlng nor mysterious Slnce every malor Income-dl\penslng mstltu- tron in American soclety-the corpora- tlon, the government. the mlhtary-re- qulres increasing numbers of skllled and semi-skilled mental workers, everyone who asplres to full membership I n the Great Soclety musl “hold a degree’’ (cducatlon In Amcnca is regarded es- sentlally as a possesson, not as a state of mind). Complementary economx in- terests. therefore, unlte buyers and sellers of braln power. together they Im- pose ~rres~stlble external pressures on the unlverslty, at OIKE camlng and guaran-

THE NATlOPJ .hlffrCh 27# I967

teeing its ultimate transformation from a detached center of humanlstic learn- ing into an efficient instrument for cre- ating, as well as protectmg. profits and jobs.

Colleges and unlversitles have gen- erally responded to massme external pressures by moldlng themselves to the contours of a “changing society.’’ In the accelerated interactlon wlth dom- inant social Institutions, the university has developed a momentum whlch over- powers indlvlduals who would srg- nlflcantly alter Its central dlrectlon. Yet In the process of expandmg Its scope and Influence. the universlty has be- come a parasltlc Instltutlon. closely bound to the social whole by the con- necting tlssue of relative affluence Most adminlstrators and professors endorse the alllance by accepting heavy doses of capltal from government agencies and private foundatlons, and by pro- vldmg in exchange, large quantlties of “new knowledge” and large numbers of specialists and professionals. (Research and teaching, we are tirelessly informed, are Slamese twlns)

But the transformation from uni- verslty to multiversity has been nelther as coherent nor as effortless as the dominant trends toward speclallzahon and professlonallzatlon suggest In fact.

Can anything be done about

our foreign policy?

JAMES I? . WARBURG

says YES.

‘This is the kind of sensible plain talk that the American

L too little of: eople, Senators included, hear

“SENATOR JOSEPH S. CLARK ( DernJ”. )

“A remarkable book, to be read slowly and to be fully digested.”

-Cleueknd Phin Dealer “Should be hailed as Construc- tive criticism; its remmmenda- tions for the €uturq,should be cErefdy cansidered.

“Denver Post ‘“ri htly reasmed objective and at &e same time s ~ a p ~ y criticat this is a usehl and rovocatlve book.+”Virginia K i r L ’ Semice

“Jim Warbur is in the great tra- dition of t i e 18th-centur pamphleteers who did so mu& to form hler ican opinion.”

- h N E. STEVENSON

THE UNITED STATES IN THE

POSTWAR WORLD

What We Have Done, What W e Have Left Undone,

and What W e Can and Must Do

By James P. Warburg $6.50, now at your bookstore

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