BOOKS AND BOMBS
Mayer, Milton
Books and Bombs By MILTON MAYER IT IS a form of hysteria to talk about anything gay in this time of death and taxes, and it even seems to strain sanity to talk about anything hopeful. Yet we know...
...Everybody is the peer of everybody else, because all that's required is to have common sense and common experience and to have read that week's assignment...
...He opened Prof...
...I had not got into the Great Books to get rich, or even wise...
...And, as usual, the two discussion leaders had to play both devil's advocate and MILTON MAYER, whose regular contributions to The Progressive draw more mail than do all other features combined, is a lecturer for the Great Books Foundation, whose program he plugs in this month's article...
...It was education, too, and the only education I had ever got or given...
...I think I said, "Amen," but nobody heard me...
...Adler out, "is where it tells how...
...Ten years thrown away, and, worse yet, I was no longer a popular writer...
...He had, in the interim, changed his name to Chancellor Hutchins and become very rich...
...IV All over the country people are reading the Great Books now, and getting poor, and discovering for themselves the secret of getting rich...
...It is— fl^tHfr*^ the distance-Jo tfee fire escape...
...Where there is life, there is hope...
...After an hour's discussion of the books, we turned the meeting over to the audience for general questions and observations...
...The Great Books program laughs at the locksmiths of the intellect, at home and abroad...
...Your riches...
...Lindner's fellow-Stocktonians...
...You want to get rich, don't you...
...He did not remember me until I reminded him that he had dared me to read the Great Books to find out how to become rich...
...The answer to every argument that has ever been advanced about iron curtains is that love laughs at locksmiths...
...Look," I said, "do you mean you have to get virtuous in order to get rich...
...It's a vicious circle...
...The way to get rich is to get virtuous, isn't it...
...But reasoning together is one of those little things we can do and is therefore bigger than the big things we can'r do...
...I forget what I said...
...There was a pause, and then he said, "No, not a book about the New Testament...
...But when I went up and down the country proclaiming it the answer to falling arches and fallen souls, I felt that I was overselling it the way in which everybody oversells his line of work...
...You can learn everything by reading the Great Books...
...Has the Great Books Foundation any money...
...They certainly do," he said...
...I said...
...I was right about books when I told Chancellor, then President, Hutchins that we don't learn from books...
...I said...
...I told Hutchins so...
...It is Americanism at work...
...Now there are books, and I am trying to learn from them...
...No," he said, "but at least I'm trying to find out...
...Epperson was that he was a prominent and respected lawyer and a pillar of the American Legion's Americanism Commission...
...that there are, in addition to the envy and pride and fear that divide them, a common store of common concerns that arise from their common humanity...
...Why should I be...
...If you're medium rich, you become, voluntarily, a Great Books Associate and kick in $3 a year (or more, if you want to) to help keep the program going...
...Now I am much more virtuous, and consequently much richer, and I am willing to share my wisdom for you...
...It is the answer to the isolationism which is much more dreadful than the isolationism of geography...
...I am already rich, and I am reading them to get richer...
...III Ten years later, after I had read the books, I went back to see President Hutchins...
...I do not pretend to be an idealist like you, you Pharisee, you...
...They may even learn, some day, having learned to talk to one another, how to talk to Russians, some few of whom are said to be human, too...
...We in America are free to discuss communism, fascism, and everything else...
...Epperson, was tough...
...The objections—most- of them misunderstandings—of the academics have watered away...
...toadying to the rich and deceiving the poor and running a losing football team...
...That's fine," he said...
...They discover that, because of their common humanity, they can talk to one another...
...I am going to let you in on the ground floor of the Great Books Foundation...
...My hunch was that he dared them to invite him and they had no choice...
...There," said President, now Chancellor, Hutchins, you have two Great Books on how to get rich...
...In a time of death and taxes, it is hard to be hopeful about civilization, or even to remember what civilization is...
...He had spent two billion dollars building the atomic bomb, and two billion dollars would feed a lot of chickens, if it were used for that purpose...
...I was fit for nothing, now, but reading the Great Books...
...Mr...
...I urge you all to join a Great Books Group...
...Do you think I am an eleemosynary institution...
...Neither education nor money will ever move a man to look for help, but education, the best education, and the best education over a whole lifetime, will show us our own condition and the nature of our problems...
...His articles have appeared in Harper's, Commonweal, Fellowship, Negro Digest, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, and Christian Century...
...The sniping has pretty well disappeared...
...Nobody ever learned anything anywhere else," he said, "except Socrates, and Socrates had to learn without books because there were no books...
...It was in 1936 that I went to see President Hutchins of The University of Chicago...
...Prof...
...How...
...Mortimer J. Adler, to whom all promising aspirants to great wealth were turned over for processing...
...But a virtuous civilization, if we ever have one, will be a civilization of the dialogue, in which all men will use the inalienable right of freedom to argue freely and to argue about the problems that always have, and always will, beset every man and every civilization...
...What do you mean...
...Well, indeed," he said...
...Otherwise I am as you describe me, only worse...
...It is,"saidMr...
...You will be poor, and that is the way to get virtuous, and from virtue comes money...
...said Chancellor Hutchins...
...The books being discussed were The Declaration of Independence and The Communist Manifesto, The panel members were the usual cross-section in the Great Books Program—housewives, office workers, insurance salesmen, teachers...
...He promised me, however, as had President Hutchins, that I would find out how to get rich by reading the Great Books...
...Nobody ever yet learned anything out of books," I said...
...I have learned nothing...
...Mayer...
...The estimate of 400 communities is conservative...
...If you aren't rich," said Hutchins, disdainfully, "it's because you aren't virtuous...
...I took the dare, and went to see Prof...
...And it's in another Great Book, too, one which, however, you and Prof...
...Come back and see me after you have worked for 10 years for the Great Books Foundation...
...Anybody and everybody can start or join a Great Books discussion group, regardless of color or creed or previous conditions of educational servitude...
...I supposed that he had come to wave the flag, and wave it he did...
...I used to think, as I say, that the Great Books were nothing but an education, the best education, to be sure, but only an education...
...They, beginning with Homer and the Bible, are the great participants in the great conversation, the heroes of the civilization of the dialogue...
...One was a lawyer, Epperson by name...
...I was sweating blood, but what could I do but say, "Certain-, ly...
...Adler had got rich reading the Great Books, but he was no more generous than President Hutchins...
...I said...
...Nobody in the Great Books Program thinks that laymen become scholars by a quick reading of a few books, and nobody in the Program thinks we should read the ancients because they were ancient and, therefore, holy...
...Epperson sat down, while thousands cheered...
...We mean to remain free...
...It is alive all over America in the Great Books Program...
...Epperson said, grimly, "I'd like to' say a few words to the audience, Mr...
...A virtuous circle," said Chancellor Hutchins...
...I said...
...Shall I read you the rest...
...The civilization of the dialogue—the phrase is Leon Bloy's—is still alive...
...This is what distinguishes us from Russia...
...Epperson," I could have sworn I heard him mutter, "Dirty Communist...
...Yet we know that while there is life, there is hope...
...laration of Independence with the wretched and rotten Communist Manifesto...
...And how are you going about trying...
...They call this the Great...
...I didn't know how he got on the panel, which was selected by the local Great Booksers, but I had a hunch...
...Lawyers make good Great Books discussion group leaders, because pushing and pulling is their business...
...Everybody participates...
...When somebody asked Shakespeare why he wrote plays like Hamlet, he blushed and said, "It's a living...
...Epperson, "more than education...
...You can learn how to be a sophist, too, by reading the Great Books," said Hutchins...
...The groups meet one evening a fortnight, in public libraries, churches, union halls, clubs, for two hours of hard and enjoyable infighting...
...I'll do anything for money," I said, "and nothing for anything else...
...I jfound that out in Stockton...
...But at least they agree to sit together and go on disagreeing about things that are important to disagree about...
...He got the New Testament Department on the telephone and said, "Do you boys happen to have a New Testament over there...
...He lectures, too, for the American Friends Service Committee — Educational ann of the Quakers—The Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the Jewish Peace Foundation...
...It is the answer to the isolationism of ideas...
...None," he said, "and no prospects of any...
...angel's advocate, taking no position themselves but continually pushing and pulling the discussion in the direction of genuine examination...
...There is no point in being moved at all, or in doing anything, if we don't know what and where we are, what we need, and how to go about getting it...
...My name had winked out on Broadway...
...Adler to Page 69 of Plato's Apology and read Socrates' words: "Virtue is not given by money, but from virtue comes money and every other good...
...Ten years of reading about meaningless abstractions like ends and means, truth and falsehood, good and evil, and the order of goods...
...What...
...Fellow Stocktonians," he said, "You have just heard 12 Americans discussing a doctrine which—I hope: —they hate...
...You bet...
...I said...
...I am reading the Great Books," he said...
...I got to my feet...
...II What made me doubt my own dishonesty, all along, was that it wasn't even a living...
...Books discussion groups in some 400 American communities, but we don't really know, because there is no formal registration or tuition...
...I am never surprised when a ball player or a stockbroker proclaims double-headers or dividends as the thing this country needs, and I figured that people smiled at one another when they heard my Great Books spiel and said, "After all, it's a living...
...If you want to get rich, you will have to read the Great Books...
...What is wonderful about me," he said, "is that I am trying to find out what I am doing...
...I hadn't thought of the Great Books that way until a couple of months ago in Stockton, California...
...The authors don't agree with one another, and neither do we...
...Epperson got to his feet, his Legion button glittering...
...Frank Lindner and I were conducting a Great Books demonstration, with a panel of 12 of Mr...
...Because," he said, "I wasn't virtuous enough...
...Virtue —which is what this country needs —is no more the product of education than it is of money...
...So I said, "Certainly...
...It is Americanism...
...Epperson not only was no exception...
...I said...
...At the Foundation we guess that there are Great...
...And from money," I said, "comes the requirement to get poor again in order to get virtuous...
...That's what it says in the Great Books," he said...
...All I knew, in advance, about Mr...
...Reasoning together won't make us love one another, and neither will bigger and better laws or bigger and better bombs...
...I was a gone goose, a has-been...
...A New Testament...
...Here," he said, going to his filing cabinet and taking Prof...
...By the same token, they sometimes make difficult group members because they are so much tougher than most of their fellow-citizens...
...I dare to read the Great Books...
...For 10 years—what am I saying?—for 15 years I had thought of the Great Books as a living...
...Do you know what you're doing...
...We learn, I think, from knowing our own condition and the nature of our problems and then being moved to look for help...
...What we need, as the authors of the Great Books from and to (and including) Jesus and Freud have observed, is to love one another...
...You'll have to read them yourself," he said...
...Do you mean," I said, "that the Great Books tell you how to get money...
...You can go around getting other people to read Great Books...
...When I said I had read them and hadn't found out, he said, "You haven't read them right...
...And then, one by one, they said, no, they didn't believe in human equality, or inalienable rights, or God the Creator, or revolution...
...You should be," he said...
...But I want to get even more...
...As usual, nearly everybody on the panel said sure-—they'd sign the Declaration...
...That," he said, "is how you get rich...
...I have stumbled on Great Books groups in Fresno, Calif., Ottumwa, la...
...There was a pause, and then he said, "Thanks, anyway," and called the Department of Press Relations and borrowed its New Testament, opened it, and read: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you...
...Do you know what has kept you from getting virtuous...
...A whole community program got going in Bridgeport, Conn., without our ever having heard of it...
...You are not even trying to find out...
...You can get the books, 18 of them for each year of the program, for $9.60 a set, from the Foundation, which gets a royalty on them, and tries to support itself that way, or from your local bookstores...
...I am worried," I said...
...Well," I said...
...I am everything you say I am, only worse...
...At this point Mr...
...And what is so wonderful about you...
...he was terribly, terribly tough...
...Books Program, and they call it education to compare our glorious Dec...
...But they'd sign...
...You ought to be ashamed of yourself...
...And he was right when he told me that we don't learn from anything else...
...We in America are not afraid of any idea...
...Up until that occasion—and the same thing happened later when we had the same discussion in Denver and in San Francisco—I had thought of the Great Books the way Shakespeare is said to have thought of Hamlet...
...We read the ancients because they were good, and Darwin and Marx and Melville and Mill and James and Dewey and Einstein not because they are modern, but because they are good...
...The Great Books is not only true education, it is true Americanism...
...Nix," I said, "I can't afford it...
...The leaders are trained by the Great Books Foundation...
...Shall I read you The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost and Faust and The Brothers Karamazov...
...And, as usual, the lawyer, in this instance Mr...
...Ten long years of reading books that were written centuries before television and canasta were even invented...
...Because," he said, "you don't know what you're doing...
...The leaders, two to a group, are themselves laymen, whose sole function is to push the discussion...
...When the Great Books program first began—with great teachers like John Erskine and Alec Mieklejohn, who were sick and tired of the lecture method and the third-rate textbooks that characterize education-^there was considerable sniping at it...
...and Meadville, Pa., where we didn't even know they existed...
...That will keep you busy...
...That's why I am reading the Great Books...
...education...
...As a university president I am as much interested in money as you are, and, being a Gentile, I get more than you do, you publican, you...
...I was richer, if no more popular, back in the days when I was a popular writer...
...It was "unrealistic," "medieval," "superficial," as if television and canasta were realistic, modern, and profound...
...When he said that the Manifesto was a tissue of lies, and I said, in the best Great Books manner, "Prove it, Mr...
...In the Great Books discussion groups people discover, to their mutual amazement, that they have something in common...
...People will not necessarily love one another if they know one another, but they certainly won't if they don't...
...I had got into the Great Books on a dare...
...Why didn't you tell me that 10 years ago...
...The Great Books Program, and not television and canasta, is the civilization we are trying to preserve, if we are trying to preserve any at all...
...Adler are not allowed to read...
...Pharisee, my eye," he said...
...If you're very poor, your local Great Books Committee sees to it that you get a set free...
...You bet...
...It is not education...
...You're a sophist," I said...
...Or you can buy the standard, fancier editions anywhere, if you're very rich...
...Obviously you have not taken the Great Books' advice...
...Mr...
...And as for the Manifesto—a foul and filthy tissue of lies...
...This is what distinguishes democracy from communism...
...Are you willing to share your riches with me...
...I have done everything else except read books, and look at me...
...Ten years...
...They call it, as I say...
Vol. 15 • January 1951 • No. 1
