Interim Report
Nollson, John
"Interim Report" knife on him, he is hauled away to solitary, and the process of moral deterioration begins. When Freddie Fender is urged by fellow prisoners to sing, the film comes dangerously close to lapsing...
...The psychoanalysts themselves, beginning with Freud, have tended to discourage empirical exploration ofanalytic constructs, on the grounds that these are too subtle and entangled to be assayed properly by current methods...
...In keeping with now well-established precedent, it should be filled only by a foreign-born linguistic anthropologist...
...The fact that the inevitable happens doesn't seem to be much of a point, and though the climax is rife with emotion, there is no discernible focus to it...
...When Freddie Fender is urged by fellow prisoners to sing, the film comes dangerously close to lapsing into one of the worst Hollywood cliches (terrible visions come to mind of Frankie Avalon pleasing the gang with a song on the beach...
...Those who work on a straight commission basis for Nelson Rockefeller are something else again...
...You will recall that the authorizing statute charges the Commission with answering certain specific questions...
...You have defined the National Purpose...
...6) Does man's ability to do sums support Aristotle's contention that man is rational because he can do sums...
...So much material...
...Fisher and Greenberg have been able to locate—by a rough count-2,400 references, many of these obscure, some of them unpublished doctoral dissertations...
...We further recommend that thefunds previously appropriated for the study of life after death be impounded, it now generally being known that such life exists...
...The large number is quite unexpected, for several reasons...
...1) What is the role of the federal government in establishing a National Philosophy Policy...
...Within the last month, making no special effort to find examples, I have come across the following: a radical-feminist tract arguing—if that is the word —the wickedness of psychoanalysis in diverting attention from the authentic enemy, male oppression...
...but there must be many general readers like Johnson who are not, and who might learn a thing or two from this book, both about psychoanalysis as a theory and even more about the enormous difficulties one faces in doing "science" on complex psychological processes...
...On the other hand, if there is Something, how can there be Nothing at the same time...
...The result is explosive naturalism of the highest order, but for no particular reason...
...Definitely...
...The staff of the Commission is at work developing a formula to achieve this...
...If a study is well-designed, and its findings therefore deserve special attention, they will say so...
...Despite its impact, it is difficult not to feel that the movie falls flat when it is all over...
...John Nollson Interim Report MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT From: Executive Director, Blue Ribbon Commission on National Philosophy Policy Subject: Toward a National Philosophy Policy Ihave the honor to submit the first interim report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on National Philosophy Policy, authorized by Public Law 94-971, with members appointed by your predecessor...
...In that there already exists a National Endowment for the Arts, the Commission recommends the creation of a National Endowment for Life—or maybe the evolution of a National Endowment for Life...
...9) Is there a need for further research...
...Yet to say so will not help the publisher sell many copies, since these are Apollonian virtues in what has become a Dionysian age in psychology...
...We can Joseph Adelson is professor of psychology and director of the Psychological Clinic at the University of Michigan...
...The scene in which he is "executed" by his fellow convicts is as unnerving a sequence as you would ever want, or not want, to see, due not only to the violence but to Davison's torturous performance...
...accordingly, there should also be a National Philosophy Policy...
...It is hard to imagine any possible reason for this full scale production number, other than the fact that Mayfield's voice probably is not substantial enough to match Fender's...
...assume that the first two of these writers are safely beyond any appeal to reason...
...You may remember that Freud ends the second chapter of his great work on the dream with the dramatic sentence: "When the work of interpretation has been completed, we perceive that a dream is the fulfillment of a wish"—the rest of the book being an elaboration of that sentence...
...This Interim Report summarizes tentative conclusions only...
...and if it is a poor or inadequate design, they will also say so, without any huffing and puffing...
...7) As for man's relationship with the other animals, is the difference one of kind or of degree...
...Indeed, a certain number of the highest positions should be reserved exclusively for philosophers, with proportional representation for all schools...
...What makes him additionally pathetic is that Davison is so successful at bringing the viewer close to his obsession (when I saw the picture, many people in the audience giggled nervously as he confessed his sins...
...There is a 71 percent probability that the mere mention of Ortega y Gasset to a Spanish-surnamed American will cause him to yell, " i Viva la Causa...
...They have tracked down and reviewed all of the available scientific evidence bearing upon Freud's observations and theoretical constructions—the word "scientific" in this case denoting studies which are more than anecdotal, which attempt to follow at least rudimentary rules of system and control...
...The evidence is not especially encouraging...
...Freedom and Dignity will be preserved if sufficient incentives are written into the tax code...
...The relevant documents concerning the Commission's deliberations on this sensitive question were lost in a tragic fire...
...5) Does Art follow Lift, or does Life follow Art...
...Accordingly, we must continue the search for Nothing, so as to find out whether Nothing exists...
...The Commission's survey research shows considerable support for the right to Life, much less support for the right to Art...
...As we might expect they discover a considerable range in methodological rigor, yet one of the most appealing qualities of this book is the steadfast refusal of its authors to lecture us about Method and Evidence and all that...
...On the other hand, middle Americans exhibit great regard for Locke and Mill...
...Indeed, the authors are able to show, through a careful scrutiny of Freud's entire body of work, that Freud in a sense understood this, that his insistence upon "the wish" alone may have been a rhetori30 The American Spectator January 1978...
...8) Is it time to move beyond Freedom and Dignity...
...Most academic psychologists believe either that it is all nonsense anyway, or that the concepts are too murky to lend themselves to inquiry—that there are, in short, easier paths to fame and fortune than the tortuous work involved in testing the theory...
...And, if there is, is it life as we know it, or is it the kind of life one finds on Mars, viz., life as we do not know it...
...Jews—and Unitarians—show a similar preference for Martin Buber...
...However, the favorite philosopher of the American people—and by the same consistently wide margin—remains Leo Durocher...
...If you assume—as the Commission did—that there is Something, then it should be a small matter to tote up Everything...
...And we have been getting what we ask for...
...He is a striking contrast to everyone else in the prison—blond-haired, mild mannered, middle class—in other words, completely unprepared to handle the viciousness that lies in store for him...
...1. The dream theory...
...This tone—amiable but firm —is in marked contrast with what we find in many previous surveys of psychoanalysis, e.g., those composed—more or less annually—by the egregious and unreliable Professor H. J. Eysenck...
...What Fisher and Greenberg have done may seem to be simplicity itself...
...A preference for Machiavelli and Croce correlates highly with the insistence, among certain groups, that there is no Mafia...
...Arson is suspected...
...10) Is the shortage of Natural Philosophy real or contrived...
...The favorite philosophers of the American people are as diverse, differential, determined (maybe), and demographic as the American people themselves...
...The Commission has made a careful study of experiments which seek to The American Spectator January 1978 29 establish communication with porpoises...
...The Commission has concluded that this is far from inevitable...
...To turn now to the Fisher/ Greenberg appraisal of the evidence, first warning the reader that what follows is a summary of summaries, hence a somewhat simplified account...
...Fisher and Greenberg offer a careful survey of recent research on dreams and dreaming, and conclude that although the dream may sometimes reflect the presence of underlying wishes, it does not do so exclusively...
...And people who take from Joseph Coors are yet a third category...
...The Commission believes that adequate supplies of Natural Philosophy can be made available for the winter if the price of Natural Philosophy is decontrolled at the godhead...
...The shortage is real and not contrived...
...Meanwhile, the staff cannot remember the Commission's conclusions...
...A sensible artist will not bite the hand that feeds him...
...The Commission, after much digging, has established a clear relationship between the two...
...Lance has not yet replied to the Commission's questionnaire...
...This issue is dealt with in a separate appendix...
...It could fill a library...
...The animals have much to teach us about how to live together in energy-efficient communities, about how to relate to biosphere, about the delicate ecological balance...
...month after month every meretricious idea running loose in the Republic somehow finds its way into the pages of Psychology Today...
...We demand sensation—discoveries, however dubious, which will dazzle and titillate...
...We believe that the American people deserve a clear, comprehensive, coordinated—need we add rational?—National Philosophy Policy, as clear, comprehensive, coordinated—need we add rational...
...Recently, those who have been getting their money from the Ford Foundation have shown a tendency towards socialist realism...
...Much depends on the source of the artist's grant...
...No one, however, has offered a satisfactory response to Alexander King's inquiry: Is there a life after birth...
...3) Should philosophers be appointed to high positions in the government...
...The fairness and sobriety of this book is particularly striking given its object of study—psychoanalysis—which, three-quarters of a century since its inception, has lost little of its power to attract abuse and denunciation...
...For this purpose, we recommend an appropriation of $611 million...
...The Commission's headquarters frequently have been picketed by demonstrators chanting, "What you see is what you get...
...Empiricism is the dominant school, especially in the field of epistemology...
...as the American people themselves...
...Clearly, open politics requires that everyone—and everything—become involved in the process...
...an advertisement for a new book by a clinical psychologist who, it is said, has made a "surprising discovery of affinity between Freud's psychological system and world view and those of satanists, witches and moral nihilists, and other disturbed nonconformists...
...So it comes as a pleasant surprise to see how much work has accumulated nevertheless, and how clever much of it is...
...Other aspects of the inner life, other themes in addition to "wishes," are represented...
...The Commission considers it prudent to keep an open mind about where we came from and where we are headed...
...Research psychologists, who have many faults, have one abiding strength: They sometimes design ingenious experiments, and we find in this book some exquisite examples of the craft...
...It adheres to a brand of fatalism that tends to leave one cold rather than aesthetically depressed...
...He does an impassioned a cappella number that, for a moment, takes the prisoners away from the insane boredom they have to cope with...
...BOOK REVIEW The Scientific Credibility of Freud's Theories and Therapy Seymour Fisher and Roger P. Greenberg / Basic Books / $20.00 Joseph Adelson Afew words about the mer- its of this excellent book: It is a balanced, thorough, and fair-minded treatment of its topic...
...As Short Eyes, Bruce Davison is uncomfortably good...
...Particularly bedeviling is the issue of why there is Anything instead of Nothing—or whether Everything is in fact Anything, or whether it is really Nothing as some suppose...
...The staff of the Commission has not yet completed its sifting of the documents and testimony presented to it...
...The Commission believes there is need for much more research...
...The Commission is as yet unable to render an opinion...
...However, it is the Commission's unanimous view that the position of Principal Foreign Policy Advisor to the President should never be filled by a philosopher...
...The executive branch needs to be reorganized to reflect this preference...
...The same, however, cannot be said for the follow-up performance by Curtis Mayfield which is accompanied by a full instrumental backup...
...But Fender's musical interlude turns out to be one of the more moving scenes in the film...
...and a new book by Paul Johnson (whose recent history of Christianity I rather admired) offering some cranky and ill-informed opinions contrasting Freud's doctrine with a figment of the imagination called "true science...
...Our survey research shows a marked preference among German-Americans for Kantand Hegel...
...The scene is a plausible diversion from the main line of the story...
...2) Who are the American people's favorite philosophers...
...4) Can we learn from History or are we condemned to repeat it...
Vol. 11 • January 1978 • No. 3
