In Answer to George P. Elliot and Robert Boyers
Abel, Lionel
It is a pleasure to be commended by George P. Elliot,* whose style is quite as good when he praises as when he is finding fault. Elliot finds this fault in my Maratl Sade piece: I went too...
...In my judgment that madmen cannot today be called inferior to the philosopher, there was no fellow-feeling for the mad...
...How could we make a rational choice...
...A fully attractive position on this matter would have to assert that consciousness and happiness are not contradictory...
...I cannot believe it...
...I did not attack the young leftists in my piece on Marat/ Sade, though I did criticize the play: and Irving Howe did attack the young leftists in his article on the New Left, an article for which Robert Boyers declares that he is grateful...
...he also thinks that I did not complete my argument...
...And if I did say something to be refuted, why call on someone else to do it...
...In fact I gave no less than four arguments: (1) there was never a moment of yielding of the one to the other during the lengthy discussion between Alarat and Sade...
...Elliot goes on: "There are people whom I respect who do not believe that God exists or that society is perfectible, but who can and do assert that the philosopher is better than the drug addict, the criminal, or the madman...
...But then neither Barth, nor Auden, speaks out of—or for—this epoch...
...But he must have missed something in my statements, and something which I suspect is dearer to him than clarity...
...And do I really have to complete my argument...
...None whatever...
...I even said that there is no logic for asserting today that the philosopher is superior to the madman, the criminal, Since liberalism has a long agenda of needed action, it is crucial that we put the important items first, and not be diverted by imaginary bogiemen...
...I said, too, that such a feeling of sympathy with the mad was in my opinion ideological...
...Who today would ask Auden: What should I do...
...As a matter of fact, in my own piece, though with a certain nuance for which I feel no need to apologize, I defended the young leftists as against Howe's criticism...
...Are not happiness and consciousness equal values...
...All this should be clear to anyone who is not ready to change, for the purpose of argument, what he has read in a text...
...They do indicate an ideological interest in madness...
...What bothers me most, though, about Robert Boyers is his seeming lack of sincerity...
...he has not proved his case and he has to, once he raises the question...
...Did I? I said that the play appealed to a fellow-feeling for the mad in the audience, among whom I imagined there were many young or would-be young leftists...
...Elliot thinks I still have to attack the young leftists, but here is Robert Boyers insisting that I have already attacked them...
...But since it was based on one given by Kojeve, I think I should complete it as he did his, and for this I must use new terms...
...In a lecture on humanism, he said: "I do not believe in the humanism of man, I believe in the humanism of God...
...Does Robert Boyers think that these words of his are "silly...
...Boyers claims that I asserted rather than demonstrated Marat/Sade to be "merely theatrical, not dramatic...
...I shall...
...Auden's belief in God, if indeed he believes in Him, seems to me to be quite conventional...
...They are not, indeed, in the vision of God, nor in the contemplation of human affairs in a perfected society...
...Is human life perfectible...
...3) there was no real coup de thedtre in the play...
...never said anything about God which I could take seriously, I have to concede that Karl Barth did...
...He also asserts that I based a "criticism of contemporary culture, more particularly of modern left-wing youth" on my "misinterpretation" of Peter Weiss's play...
...One last point...
...pie to be reasonable or philosophical...
...But then why does he call me "silly" for having known just how he thinks even before I ever heard of him...
...Yet Boyers interprets these judgments of mine as adding up to an oldfashioned admonition to the young to be reasonable...
...I thought it was too bad that one cannot call madmen inferior, also dope addicts and criminals, and I indicated that I would have liked to do just that...
...Now what would there be for someone to refute if I gave no arguments...
...As for Auden, of course I respect him, especially for his early poetry...
...And I am inclined to agree with what Jean Wahl once said of Christianity, in praise of it, to be sure: "Whoever takes Christianity seriously is bound to become a heretic...
...On my position: I shall probably always adhere to a humanist view even if I cannot defend that view...
...No doubt, it was this difference in feeling which impelled Robert Boyers to set down his garbled and self-refuting criticism of what I wrote...
...They picture for us a future in which we must choose between eating to the vomiting point (although, since we shall be jobless, we won't be able to or the dope addict...
...I did not say that people ought to be reasonable, or that they ought to be philosophers...
...Later, he asks me to go further still...
...Boyers goes on to justify a fellow-feeling for the insane among the young, and to justify it how?—ideologically...
...He goes on: "Placed against the fact of society's inexorable incursions into the recesses of our private lives, against the fact of TV advertising and political consensus, we must respond warmly to those free spirits who at their peril refuse to bend or to those forever benighted spirits who have been broken in the attempt to resist...
...Robert Boyers, who begins by accusing me of misinterpreting Marat/Sade—I offered no interpretation of the play, rather I interpreted the audience's response to it—has for his part misinterpreted all my remarks about philosophy and reason...
...Maybe Elliot respects these people...
...Having characterized this judgment of mine as "silly," also as a "diatribe consisting of various ridiculous notions about the ideological status of madness in our culture," Mr...
...Suppose we are asked to choose between (1) consciousness involving much unhappiness and (2) happiness involving much unconsciousness...
...But I do not particularly respect his assertion that God exists, nor do I even think he ever said so with conviction...
...also for the sophistication of his critical writings...
...Now Elliot knows someone who says God exists and who is indeed to be respected: W. H. Auden...
...Elliot finds this fault in my Maratl Sade piece: I went too far, he claims, in my argument...
...George P. Elliot did understand that this is what I said...
...4) the mad—almost every character in Marat/Sade is mad—are theatrical, not dramatic...
...But when I cannot defend that view, I shall not pretend I can...
...2) the arguments of both were platitudinous...
...Because I said that no one to be respected can answer "yes" to these questions: Does God exist...
...Aside from these possibilities, I must agree with what the Old Testament, a truthful book, tells us: "Increase of wisdom is increase of sorrow...
...They cannot defend the conviction they hold—this was the point of my article...
...My italics...
...He writes: "In the midst of commitment to Social values and participation in social projects, the young are beset by intimations of inadequacy, of a passion which cannot be rationally controlled or channeled...
...Why, according to him, did I go too far...
...he ought not to respect them as philosophers...
...For my part I think I would always choose (1), but I must admit I could never refute someone's choice of (2...
...But Elliot thinks that I have not made my own position clear...
...Insisting that I did not really argue the point, Boyers writes: I shall not take the space to refute him, though someone should...
...But if Auden * DISSENT, May—June 1966...
...Let Elliot refute it if he can...
...Now the person who claims the drug addict is not inferior to the philosopher is simply indicating a preference for happiness with unconsciousness as against consciousness with unhappiness, and this preference of his I concede to be irrefutable...
...Criers of alarm— notable among them Don Michael, Mary Alice Hilton, Robert Heilbroner, and now Ben Seligman—preaching cybernation and the Triple Revolution, have sought a place for automation toward the top of the agenda...
...It is a pleasure to be commended by George P. Elliot,* whose style is quite as good when he praises as when he is finding fault...
...I said something very different: that there is no logic on the basis of which one can today tell peo...
...and I said further that young leftists do nowadays have a fellowfeeling for the mad...
...Did he really misunderstand me to this point...
Vol. 13 • July 1966 • No. 4
