{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

...to a larger unit, I mean, that's not the -- through the -- through the international languages, through first Latin and Greek, {then} French and English, and German. -- Believe me that the -- the one moderating influence on nationalism has been the fact that everybody had to talk one other language at least. And you are the -- at this moment the only really nationalistic country is America. Because it's the only country in which an educated person takes it for granted that he can stay within his own language. That's an ostrich -- that's an {ostrich}. I mean this very seriously. There is no liberal arts education in this country at this moment, because you don't learn any other language. I mean this in every -- in every respect; that's very serious, you see. The one drawback for the unity of the world is the nationalism of the United States. This is the most chauvinistic, and jingoistic, and die-hard country I know in the whole world, because you simply -- assume that everybody else has to learn your language.

And since you have given up the classical tradition, you see, and you have given up the European tradition, where is the third? Now you learn perhaps Russian or Chinese. I don't know. Well, I don't see -- accept you as educated people, with all your degrees. You can be Ph.D. I -- I asked a gentleman who -- who invited me for a lecture, and said, "Do you read German?"

He said, "Oh, well, for my Ph.D., I had of course to know some German, but I forgot it all."

"Well," I said, "so you also are a barbarian."

"Yes," he said, "I am one."

This is barbarism. Absolute barbarism. And -- it is incredible that this -- you -- you aren't ashamed of yourself, to say that you go to a liberal arts college, where all the words are -- are -- are of Latin origin. -- You don't -- don't care. You don't understand these words.

Here, I have two books on Plutarch. How can I cope with them? They are -- one is written in German, and one is written in French. You can't report on them. You can't read Plutarch in Greek. You can't read the books on him in German and French. There are no books in English. It's just this -- this -- this porridge, Everyman's Library, which is no good for anything, because it's just a -- as all these translations; they're just forgeries. Popularizations for idiots.

Nobody tells you these -- words, because they are all here in the same

boat. I think, I -- one person has to tell you, "You don't improve yourself," but you must then allow -- at least certain institutions to develop other standards. It's your -- and you get on the s- -- board of education, or the school board and -- for the rest of your -- and you have to do something about this. You are lost generation, beat generation, angry generation. I don't care what you are. But certainly you -- you're no use for the -- for the interna- -- for the -- for the fellowship of the human race.

You have to have one other language. This is the duty of hospitality. Hospitality is not -- not just giving sandwiches to a beggar on the -- at the door. But hospitality means to make room for your -- for somebody other of yourse- -- than yourself in your heart.

Formerly it was French, you see. When an American in- -- invited any European, they always could communicate through this polite language of the courts, you see. And in the 19th century, Americans sub- --take Fenimore Cooper, or take Emerson, or take any man who--they could speak -- French, you see. Of course, he couldn't decide these -- the -- they read Greek and Latin, I mean.

I just yesterday read the diary of -- of a famous -- George Templeton Strong, a lawyer in New York who kept a diary for 35 years. It's now one of the most famous sources for 19th-century American history. He lived -- in New York, a very -- was trustee of Columbia, but nothing extraordinary; just a lawyer. And his -- his diary just says that every day he reads one Greek tragedy in Greek. He just jots it down as a thing of course. I mean, it's not -- not mentioned as any thing of a specialty, you see. But that's his nourishment.

Now of course this man lives in a wider world. But you read The Examiner or The Bruin, or all this stuff. You don't know how narrow-minded you are. This I call "narrow-minded" to expose yourself only to the things written in one language. You can't -- nobody can be educated within the circle of one language. It's not an accident that the Bible has to be translated in 1,017 different languages. That makes it -- is an important book.

Here, I brought you, you see, a German, and an English, and a French text. And I thought some one of you might be willing to -- to report it. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 -- here twelve -- a dozen apostate apostles.

I -- I -- I tell you, I mean: higher education stands and falls with the language requirement. And since it has been dropped, I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, I would say the next requirement is that you have to live for a year abroad, and that nobody could be a student unless he has been to -- at least 15 months in another country. I mean, this way you may -- you may, so to speak,

replace -- substitute for the language departments. But before, I wouldn't say you are educated.

I put -- give me my dear books. I have a -- so I wanted to read this with you. It's hopeless.

Here, Mr. Chamberlin has lived in Denmark at the international house. You know very well this plight, isn't it true?

(Yes, in fact, I'm on the board of a program that takes students abroad for a year, so that they can study abroad and get credit for a year's work. And in fact the cost is less than staying here in the University of California at Los Angeles.)

(What city is that in, Phil?)

(It's in any of the Scandinavian countries, Holland, or even possibly in Germany.

(Stanford University has opened a campus in Germany for 60 students, and they're now opening another one in Italy, and another one in Spain. Whittier College over here has just opened a campus in Copenhagen.)

Ja. These may be the only way.

You see, the educational process of these United States for the first time in your generation complies with the instincts of the immigrants themselves, the immigrant -- these large groups of immigrants. The first education in Harvard, 1636, was for the top man, for the future clergy of this country, you see. So they had no fears of a -- being im- -- called "immigrant." They were the salt of the earth. They were the aristocracy -- if you use this word. I mean, the elite, the leading class. Therefore they just did what they thought was right. But everybody else in this country, being second, third generation--or first generation even more so--has to turn its back on Europe, and wants to forget his language. Because the -- less he speaks Italian, or Mex- -- Spanish, the more he becomes an American.

And I know it from my own family, when we came to this country. The fear of being di- -- rediscovered, so to speak, as having still any tinctures hanging around them of the -- of the former language. I intervened myself in a family where the -- the parents came from Czechoslovakia, and German was their mother tongue. And they insisted that their child -- their boy should talk English at home.

And I intervened and said, "Don't make him do this. He -- he wants to speak English, because he feel -- is afraid that people hold it against him that he is -- an immigrant, you see, a newcomer. And so he wants to go native, and therefore, allow him to forget his German. He'll recover. He'll learn later a second time, you see, without this nostal- -- with this fear."

And you must understand that our school system at this moment has, for the first time, given way to this natural dread of the second-generation Americans to be rediscovered by their grandmother to have talked German, or Italian, or Polish at home. And so the masses of the people who have been reached by -- you see, by public education, have, so to speak, written the law, the ticket. But that's an -- an anti movement. It's a dread -- it's anything dictated by fear is not very -- you see, very good. It's always -- fear is of course -- anxiety is -- and anguish are narrow. "Anguish" means you -- "narrow," you see. Anx- -- Age of Anxiety means that the -- the throat is -- is choked. And it is a -- a choked education which you have in this country today. Giving in to this turning-away from any non-American factual background, which is so strong in 90 percent of the American, you see, nation. And this has written the law.

But you must conquer this. I mean, you must look -- face this in your own background, in your neighbor's background, your friends' background and say, "Yes, all right, that's the first reaction. We want to be native Americans, 110 percent." But that is not -- has nothing to do with your ambition to get an education. If you want to get the privilege of an education, fear is not a good basis. And I feel that all American education today is based on fear. Fear, not imposing on the children. Fear, not -- not making them dislike school. Fear, you see, of not reminding them of their background. Fear of reminding the Americans that they are a composite of Europeans and Asiatics. All this is fear. The whole -- American education is based on fear. The whole system. All the unpleasant things cannot be mentioned. All the difficult things cannot be men- -- the same with the desegregation issue. It's all just based--or the decision of the Supreme Court--all based on fear. We cannot admit that there are problems. That's not a way of handling all these problems. That's why the Supreme Court will never solve the desegregation problem, you see. The first thing would be to give the vote to these unfortunate people, you see, and then let them develop their own schools and invite white people to go there. That's the -- probably -- the moral solution. Have such excellent schools, and if they gain the vote, they can have better schools than the white people. Then it will be the fashion to go to a good Negro school.

You see, you can only win by -- not by fear, but by going ahead, always beyond that which is today. And especially in education, you can --.

I have to talk to the Parents' Teacher Association next week, and I'm

going to tell them that their -- their whole system is based on fear.

We have a -- I have a boy here in my friendship, in this town, who is distracted. And he's intelligent, but he cannot -- follow any train of thought at the age of 13 for more than five minutes. Then he'll forget it. And so the -- the parents very reasonably went to the teacher and said, "You have to insist. You have to trip him up. He cannot get away with this."

"Oh," the teacher said. "I can't do this. He might begin to dislike school."

This -- I mean, with dread, with the dread that is hanging over the -- our whole school system. And it's the same with this university, you see. They don't -- they dis- -- they fear that you may dislike it, so you let them -- they -- they emphasize beauty, and -- and -- and physical education, and all the requirements you should undergo { }.

What's an education based on fear?

(Dr. Huessy, you said last time that you studied under von Treitschke when you were 16. Was it von Treitschke?)

Ja.

(That -- was that Heinrich von Treitschke?)

Yes.

(I just wanted to make sure.)

Wie?

(I wanted to know if it was the same man, that was the German nationalist.)

Ja. Well, he was a tragic figure. It's a long story, if you care to -- I'm glad to talk to you about him. I mean, he went to pieces really over this issue. He had to -- but the -- the others wouldn't be interested. They haven't read --. He was much more liberal than he -- you would have -- you would think, I mean. He came from -- from a completely liberal -- and very generous man, he was, in his actions. Very tragic figure; he was deaf. That's such in- -- it hedged him in more and more as time went on. Of course, he became more secluded, and only heard himself, so to speak, shouted. And he had a -- well, it goes too far. I mean, I -- I think the others would -- would be less --. But I'm glad to talk to you about it.

So let's go back to our translated biographies.

How about your -- your own findings about -- about -- Fabius? Do you find any similarity in the structure of the Fabius and the Pericles? This was my request from --.

(I -- I thought that we had a choice of -- Caesar and Solon.)

Because you didn't have the Fabius. I understand, yes. Who was the other fellow? Caesar? And -- and Solon. Yes. Well, did you read the Solon? Well, did you find any similarity between this treatment of the Solon and the Pericles?

What I'm -- inviting you is, when a man today writes a biography and when a man in Greece wrote a biography, they had two very different purposes. Because -- the prophetic element of history, you see, the -- the rapid movement through time--what you call "dynamic," it's not a very good and profound expression, but which tries to translate into secular terms the religious idea of destiny, of occasion, of calling, of being -- asked to develop what you are -- what you have been, so to speak, meant for in this world...

[tape interruption]

...but out of which we had to escape in order to become His -- His real creature. This whole notion is of course quite foreign to the Greeks, who, quite the contrary, assumed a man when he's born is what he is. So the dynamic idea is a strictly biblical idea, and is quite foreign to the Greeks. A man is what he is. And we -- Lincoln is -- when he was born, nobody could have said who he was. You see, he had to discover this, and he had to explode the shell, the inconspicuous shell. And finally the butterfly, you see, comes out of the larva. This is your idea of life, I hope. And if you trace back yourself to the qualities in a -- in a -- in a test, then you can only be what you already are. But you can never become what you never have been.

Now all the great careers in this country of course are careers of changing. You can take George Washington. He's the most static, and most undynamic person in the world, but he came -- became from an English gentleman the first American president, and the father of this country, you see. And it cost him tremendous pains, because he -- for the first half of his life, he would have preferred to be an English gentleman, you see. This was a much more natural ambition for a man like George Washington, you see. And to be -- make himself dependent on the rabble in this country, the -- the -- was a very -- very difficult decision for him. And it came very painfully, you see. And to identify himself with the people in this -- these colonies, which in his youngest days, he looked

down upon --. There was no democracy when he was born, you see. And men were not all equal -- born equal and free. It was very far from him mind, such an idea. In England, it is just -- you were either bred -- well-bred, or you weren't. And if you read any -- any novel in the 18th century of Samuel Johnson's life history or so, contemporary with George Washington, obviously the -- the thing was you distinguished, you see. It takes three generations to make a gentleman. And -- you had to wait until you could become one. You couldn't make yourself, you see. The idea of the self-made man is absolutely foreign to the English tradition. You cannot be self-made, because you -- you have just missed the first half of your life in this respect. Somebody else has to watch you -- send you to Eton and Rugby, and Oxford and Cambridge.

And it's very hard for you to understand -- this, but you must thing that in 1800 and 1780, the -- people became lawyers, and ministers, and doctors on their own, without going to a university in this country. Three -- three-quarters of the people here, you see, who were even profe- -- called themselves "professionals" later at best were apprentices, you see, somewhere -- in a -- in a private relation to a -- some doctor or some lawyer. They read the law, as -- as you know -- it wasn't taught. They never saw a college. They never saw a university, because there were no universities in this country. And it was quite exceptional that a man would go across the sea and -- and study. And so even the ed- -- so-called "professional class" in this country, down to 1900, you could become a lawyer in this country and have never gone through a law school. You must think of this, let alone through a college, you see. You must know such biographies by -- in great numbers.

Therefore, for George Washington, the -- the idea of a gentleman--I only mention this to show you that even the most static, and most stable, and most stolid, you may even say -- or solid man in this country, like George Washington, underwent a tremendous education here for sloughing off one nature and acquiring a new one. And this is all untrue -- not -- non-Plutarch -- non-ancient. And I don't think that you could find any -- any place in Plutarch where even the -- least idea of evolution is in a man's life, you see, is traceable. And evolution is a strictly Christian idea. And that's why I always have thought it's so very funny that the Darwinians think the -- this is an anti-Christian idea, anti-biblical idea, just an imitation of the biblical idea that man is in -- in becoming...

[tape interruption]

...I have -- never understood why Mr. Darwin -- Charles Darwin -- and the Bible have ever -- have ever been thought of as being in -- contradicting each other. It's exactly the same story, and it is anti-Greek; it is anti-Roman. The pagans had -- had not the idea that anybody could be anything but what -- who

he was. There you are, you see--like trees, and animals--you were a Greek, you were a Roman, you were an Athenian. And if you have ceased to an Athenian, you had to commit suicide, like Emper- -- like Themistocles, you see, who -- who was exiled, you see. When it comes to the decision of a war between Persia and -- and Athens, he ends his life, you see, because this cannot be done.

To give you the comparison. I -- you know the name Moltke, perhaps, in -- in German history, the great general. Well, his descendants have been my friends and students. And when the -- Hitler came, the -- the heir of the title, the Count Moltke, had three brothers. And he said to these brothers, "Now, you go abroad. This is the end of Germany. And I have the -- inherited the title, and the estate, and therefore I cannot get out." And so he was executed by the Nazis. He accepted this as his due, so to speak, you see, because--he is the great hero of the resistance--and -- because, he said, "Since I have -- have enjoyed the good of this tradition, I also have to accept the bad of this tradition. I'm -- I'm stymied."

But his brother, who lives in Philadelphia, fought on the American side in this last war against his mother -- fatherland, you see. That's possible in a Christian era, because nationalism is -- is only second, you see, to your real loyalty. And in Greece, this would be -- have been impossible, { }. You understand, that's the whole difference between our era and -- and paganism. Yes?

(Well, there was the -- the Athenian general that lost the battle at Syracuse, and was banished. And he went over to the -- the Spartan side -- I forget his name.)

(You mean Alcibiades.)

(Yeah, Alcibiades.)

Wie?

(Alcibiades. [Al-sih-BYE-a-dees])

Alcibiades. [Al-kih-BEE-a-dees] Now you read the -- the front page there? Who has this front page? What ha- -- what is the -- what is the subscription of the -- of the { }?

(Traitor. Traitor.)

He is siding with the Greek idea, you see. But my friend Moltke is not a traitor. He's not a traitor. He has given the slip to a -- to a pagan tyranny, you see. So not -- he's not a traitor. Nobody would ever have thought of calling this

-- this Mr. von Moltke in Philadelphia a traitor. It's an open story. It's nothing -- you see, treason is always underhanded. You see, is a break in character. So I think -- here -- of course, America is now back to paganism, and so { }. That's the difference. Traitors have always existed, you see. But it's a blemish on their character which cannot be wiped out, so to speak, you see. Such -- such mishaps do occur, you see. I'm { }. But as long as it is crime, you admit then it is negative, negated, you see. Whereas in George Washington's case, you can also -- from the English point of view, of course he was a traitor, was he not? But that's not his definition. You understand? It's just the digestion of the aspect of treachery, you see, then -- which is the problem of life, you see. But it is not treason, when you act, you see, in -- in -- openly, in full risk, by giving the slip to one allegiance saying, "I -- I forgo this." That's not treason.

I -- I think the study of George Washington and Alcibiades is very instructive.

(I think the study of Alcibiades and --.)

You see, Benedict Arnold is a traitor and -- and -- and -- and Washington is not. That's very interesting. Why? Why is that so? Because of the Declaration of Independence, "When in the course of events..." this is an idea, you see -- this never occurred in antiquity, that the course of events transforms men.

(Alcibiades even was treacherous while in Sparta. He -- became { }.)

Oh no, it's very serious that you should see this. Antiquity, China, Mexico -- all the -- all Gentile ord- -- civilizations. And I think that's the impoverishment of Mr. Toynbee's whole vision. He cannot distinguish the Christian era from the non-Christian era. He -- muddles this, or confuses it. There is -- some definite, you see, limit to our secular -- secular engulfment, so to speak. In Christianity there is {freedom}.

(I guess we also have to take into consideration that whose viewpoint looking at him as a traitor. Like your friend from Germany, maybe the German -- the people over there -- or his friends might consider him traitorous.)

I don't {think so}. They might -- they might not understand him. They might stand aghast that a man has this in him. This resistance. But no.

(Well, would -- what -- in the Civil War did they consider brothers that fought against each other?)

Well, Robert E. Lee was not a traitor, was he?

(No, but brothers who had fought with each other consider -- ?)

Not a traitor. They would weep. Mourn. It's not the same thing. You see, the -- all these things are very painful. Of course, in this country, life must be, so to speak, always kept -- must be "keep smiling." Life is tragic. That's something quite different. I mean, the Cross is tragic. Jesus had to die on the Cross. That's a tragedy, you see. But it is nothing of treason. He didn't betray His people, did He? I mean, from the point of view, He was co- -- He was condemned for high treason. But you don't accept that. That's the whole -- the whole problem of Christianity. Of course, He betrayed his -- the Jewish tradition, you see, of -- of the Messiah. Of course, He did. No doubt about it, that He was guilty according to the Jewish law. Have you ever considered that? He had to be condemned.

(Judas was the big traitor.)

What?

(Judas was --.)

We say Judas is the traitor. That's the difference. That's the whole reversal. You must ad- -- understand that a completely new humanity has entered the field with Christianity. This kind of men have not existed before. It's a new creation. It is something new that the -- your whole lack of education comes from the fact that you have been -- live now in the 50 years which have tried to -- to desegregate the Christian era, and say there is no such thing as a Christian era. There are civilizations. Well, gentlemen, if you are just in an American civilization, I certainly don't wish -- to live in any one part of { }. God created me, God help me, and whether -- if there are five continents, that doesn't alter the fact that I cannot live as a -- as a member of one continent. He created Heaven and earth; that's the first sentence we learn. Doesn't this mean that we are part of His creation, that if we are parts of His creation, no one country can -- can constrain myself? Otherwise how can go -- missionaries go out into the world, you see? That's why missions today are no longer understood in this world.

This country is just, as I said, if -- the isolationism has gotten the upper hand, mentally, of you. You talk big about -- or ai- -- or aiding other countries, but the whole structure of education in this country is I -- nearly making it impossible for aiming at anything more than becoming an American. That's not enough. You're going pagan at this moment. That's exactly, you see, that's why Plato and Aristotle must no longer be read on -- in colleges, and so on. They're doing harm, because it's -- it's -- it's pure-blooded paganism without this criticism, which Christianity applied to the ancients, you see, over the last hundred -- hundreds of years, knowing that people were first brought up as Christians; then

in addition, they read Plato, looking back into something, you see, through a mirror, so to speak, or through glasses.

Now you read -- learn anthropology from Margaret Mead, and you learn Greek from Mr. -- Durants -- and you never hear what Christianity stands for, and so you are sunk.

Paganism is in the -- on the advance in this country. The churches invent holidays, like -- like Joseph the Worker's Day, and -- and -- and -- and -- and Mr. Eisenhower invents Law Day. That's just as in Athens. They did the same, I mean. That's mythical, has nothing anymore to do with any -- any function of the Church. It's just arbitrary.

All the institutions which try to give you the Christian era now function in a nationalistic way. Missions are giving up. They are withdrawn. In China, there are no missions anymore, you see. And as -- so as -- as long as the missions represented the American faith and the unanimity of the human race, you could still, so to speak, despite this -- the flag in the churches here--the American flag, in -- on an alt- -- over the altar, you -- or in front of the altar--you could still believe that Christianity was preached here. But with the missions cut off, practically, and abandoned, and no longer popular in this country, there is nothing in -- in -- in the -- in American Christianity, which is really holding out against your idea that -- it's the Mormon ideal that the -- only the Americans are Christians. All others are -- are wicked. They are Communist, or nationalist. And the only dec- -- good people in the world are the Americans. Well, that's exactly what the Greeks did.

With this word "democracy," you see, you have -- you have broken faith with all the other countries who -- who believe that political forms are of second- -- are not important, that you can have a monarchy and just be as -- be as much a child of God as when you are a democrat. You have this substitute. The American democracy is the only religion that is at this moment recognized by the American people. That's pure paganism.

Christianity says all political organizations, you see, are temporary, are second-rate. They are not the real thing. They come and go.

They -- they are good in their time, for their age, and you should -- must be loyal. All the -- you see, that's why Paul says that you have to obey the powers that be. I mean, { } it just comes from God. That's historically -- but it is nothing you must put your faith in, because the political power there can be very wicked indeed, can become a despot. And you have to sacrifice your life in order to renew it.

But I think it has all to do with each other. It's this {dread}; first it was, "I must be 150 percent American," then you abolish all the means by which the schools and the education remind you that you cannot be 150 percent American in a -- in the Christian era. And after you have cut out -- cut down all the -- all the -- the measures, the guarantees, you see, which would keep this ship of state within the human race, you see, then you no longer imbibe this -- this spirit.

I -- have advocated, as some of you may know, and -- that everybody ha- -- needs to spend one year abroad in order to bring -- replace this language requirement, by -- by affirming his faith, that he belongs to a wider society than just the -- the local one.

Well, let's go back to the traitor, the world of traitors. What do you -- can you give me some? What you should have done, I -- I didn't want to spell it out, because I thought you should have done it yourself. You're so lazy, you won't do it. So you should write down--point by point, chapter after chapter--the sequence in which Solon and -- and Pericles are treated. And you would find out an interesting scheme, you see, which Plutarch simply follows in every biography. And then you would see immediately that these are qualities -- which he dispenses. And it is not a biography in our sense of the word.

Shall -- could we do this? Let's look it up now, and go to -- to the Pericles. Did anybody make such a scheme, perhaps? Would anybody be good enough to volunteer? Did you?

(I left it at home.)

Oh. How do you recall?

(I don't remember. His first one was a genealogy { }.)

Now you all take a sheet, and -- just like a { }, let us try to reconstrue this. This is really -- worthwhile, because it gives you a -- a foil. You will understand that really, when we go to the pagan world, they may create systems and pictures, and whenever you speak of your own language as mental pictures, you are a pagan. That's a typically pagan word today, to speak of "mental pictures," you see. And -- a man who's under the impact of the spirit would never call his language "mental pic-" -- I do not paint "mental pictures." Speech is dramatic, and commanding, and imperious. It's certainly not picturesque. That's a by-product. And certainly not painting pictures, because I want to move you. And I won't -- don't want to stabilize you. But in front of a picture, you stand, or you sit. That's I think -- ja?

(I just read a very interesting article called -- by a Herbert Palmer, in Beverly Hills. The title goes something like, "Counteracting -- The Pictoral -- Pictorial Influences in Education." It -- it shows the -- the idolatry of the picture. And it isn't only of -- of photographs and of audio-visual aids, but also of -- of the attempt, even in language, to create strong visual --.)

You see, whenever you hear a noun used instead of a verb, you are pa- -- going pagan. That's very interesting. The -- the child must be educated through verbs, because a child will only understand anything that's told to him really, existentially, when it has done or failed to do what the verb implies. You -- if you say, "Stand," or "Understand," to a child, and it has to stand for an hour until it's tired, it knows what standing means. But if you say "standpoint," and -- the child learns this word by heart, whether in English, or in -- a foreign language that he learns, it is nothing. And so it is with "Dress."

A dress is of course something for vanity. When you talk of 300 dresses in your drawer, there's one thing that's missing, usually. And if you demand from a child to dress, and follow this whole process of dressing, until the child understands what it means to dress, it will also develop the sense of nece- -- what is necessary in dress, and what is vain. But it is only by dressing that you can draw the line between idiotic dressing and -- and -- and good dressing, and -- and right dressing, and vainglorious dressing. And so the 300 dresses can only be prevented by the imperative, "Dress," by which a child is told that our humanity, you see, gives us liberty under dress.

What is -- why do we dress, gentlemen? So that we may gain time. The physical being, you see, is just who he is. Whether you are in lust, love, hunger, illness, the dress conceals this. All these minor movements of your body are concealed so that the main stations of your life can be lived by you. The dress allows you to treat your whole life as a unity, you see. If we would go naked, we would completely be overtaken by the moment. Even a baby is dressed so that it has time to grow and become a full -- a full-fledged being. If it was just an animal, you see, it would be -- sold as the slaves were on the slave market, naked. Because they were just sold for what they were worth at this moment. Weight, and width, and so on.

And -- you -- we are -- watch out, I mean. We are moving again into -- in paganism, because in any description of a man, it is immediately said, "Five feet 7, and -- tall, and 145 pounds, and a brunette," and so on. This is -- unheard-of. Infamous. That's not the person. The person is, you see, some person who is protected against all these momentary, passing stages of his life, because the dress and the name make a unity, give him a biography to this person. She can outgrow any one of these phases. That's what the dress does. -- Distinguish

between the lasting, the permanent in you, and the passing.

And therefore, a child must learn to dress. But it must not be shown, as they are in all these wicked suburbs today, all the dresses his mother has, or her mother has. Like the domestic servants, well, you know mutually boast of the many dresses the -- the lady has, the boss has, you see. They -- they take each other to each other, drawers -- and drawers and chests, and say, "Oh, my -- my lady has many corsets." That's a total misunderstanding.

But I think -- I know children who are absolutely corrupted already, because they do show each other the number of their dresses. And they have not been -- learned to concentrate on the process of dressing. That's the great honor of humanity. Thereby you become a political being, and a pro- -- future voter, and a future president, that you dress right. But today, you all want to go naked, because dressing means nothing to you, in this naturalistic world. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has conquered your mind. You all think that to be naked would be the ideal state. It would -- you see, condemn you never to be able to slough off your present state and become somebody different.

And that's why old age has no honor. In old age, the dress, you see, is the -- the -- has found expression in the spirit of this man, you see, and his body no longer matters.

So the -- and why? Because the imperative, "Dress," would be dynamic, would teach the child how much it takes, or how little. I mean, how -- how precise dressing is. As soon as you speak of "Dress," you get the plural. And you -- the difference in education between pluralism and singleness of purpose is of course that singleness of purpose educates, and pluralism--you see, many dresses--distracts, di- -- confuses. All of you are -- are intellectual stammerers and stutterers, because you think 300 is better than one. But obviously, if you put on one dress right, it's much more important than to have 300 dresses.

(Another striking example comes to mind. A professor very recently was explaining the idea of operational definition. And he had the -- the gall to give as an example: a child always -- he said this is a very childish concept, the operational definition, because if you ask any child, "What is?" to define something, such as a spoon, he will always give you an operational definition, because he'll tell you, "Well, a spoon is for eating." And children tend to do this; they tend to -- to explain things in terms of its function, and in -- in -- and in terms of what it does. The action. So a -- a dress is for putting on. And he -- he was ridiculing this. Being a good Aristotelian, he wanted to classify in some -- either in terms --.)

That's how you destroy mankind. The devil has gotten the upper hand in

Dart- -- school. You are in hell.

If you want to understand the -- thing, cling to this expression: Children are liturgical. That is, they want to execute, enact, and they want to be allowed by this execution to participate in society.

And therefore, in the liturgy, the -- the -- the most -- the thing that the intellectual pious, or the intellectual stoic--or whatever you are--doesn't understand is for the child the most important: the fact that the priest in the Catholic Mass has to -- has to wipe off the chalice and to clean it. Water it -- and then clean it. Use it -- the towel, you see, that everything, you see, has to be put back again strikes the modern adult as childish. And he thinks the Mass is ridiculed, so to speak, by this very prosaic act that it -- that something is dirty, and something has to be cleansed again. Dishwashing. But for a child, this is a tremendous discovery, this cycle, this rotation of actions, you see, by which an act is -- is finished. You and I, I mean, you go to the restaurant, and you make their dishes dirty. And you never think that in making it dirty, there is already, you see, stated -- included the necessity of cleaning it again. So that he who makes it dirty also must wash it up. That's what the priest is doing.

And to me, the only way in which I can ex- -- today I think build up an understanding of the meaning of Mass, is not the secrets that go on, on the altar, but the fact that in front of the audien- -- in front of the faithful, the priest has to clean up this mess, by admitting that we are earthly, by admitting that we are creatures. We are of this -- of this earth. And therefore the whole process has to be sanctified and not just the -- the one by which we enjoy ourselves, you see, eating and drinking. But the same with the dishwashing. And that's a -- just as important, and should just be honored as the taking out of the dishes, and putting on a wonderful linen, and -- and adorning the table. And in this country--I think we are quite good-natured--the guests go -- do go out and help, doing the dishes, in recognizing this liturgical circle -- cycle, you see.

And so we are much better people in fact than our mental instruction. I think the schools are lagging behind the real fact of life, because -- it's a great fact that guests in this country do -- wash the dishes. That isn't done in Europe, you see, where you have servants. Or at least allegedly servants. The poor woman has to do it afterwards, you see. Here, we go out--after all, you do, don't you?--and help them wash the dishes. Well, there you are on the right track, because the whole -- all the acts that belong to the noun, "dishes," or "food," or "meal," you see, are -- enacted by you. And as long as...

[tape fade-out]

...{observe, it takes} to act out one social action, you are on the same side, because the definition "meal," will not mean anything to you, except operational -- Phil, your wonderful, I mean, this example, you see. The meal is a -- can only be defined by operations. It should not be defined by anything else. It just is.

That's why all the tribes, you see, of antiquity, are -- the pa- -- the primitives, are so superior to us, because they have more verbs than nouns.

I went into this. The Greek New Testament was translated by -- into the Gothic language by the famous {Wolffinger} Bible. And people have counted the stem-verbs used in the Greek, and the stem verbs, the original verbs like "go," "dress," I mean, "march" -- in Gothic. And there are 30 perce- -- 25 percent more verbs -- original verbs in Gothic than in Greek. Now Greek is the richest language in -- we have of the -- our Indo-European languages, we thought. You see, it's very rich. But it cannot hold -- the candle to these -- this much older, and much more -- so allegedly primitive language, you see, of the Goths, who had no writing. It's the first book which was, you see, put in writing in -- in -- in -- in Gothic in 400 of our era. And they have 25 percent more verbs.

But -- just {gone}. You see, they have the word "cut." They didn't have the word "sect," "sectarianism," "sectioning," "dissecting" -- "section" -- we -- "sects." We have now made many nouns out of this one word, "sect," I mean, which means "to cut" in -- in Latin. So we are bounding in -- in -- in -- in -- in nouns. But the -- the real -- we are -- we are -- we are -- become concrete.

The Russians have a famous novel, by { } which I recommend very much to you. It's called Concrete, and it shows how the personal life in Russia is smothered, and people become part of concrete. But I feel that's exactly what's happening in this country. The modern mass and corporation life makes man into -- into concrete. And the expression of this, that we try to tell -- to teach your children nouns. You must never do this.

We need to learn to listen, to obey, to hear--that is, to imbibe a language, which after all is the spoken word, which you can only learn as an auditor, I mean, by -- by audit--is -- takes seven years. A child can only -- has only learned to spea- -- to speak after it has obeyed sufficiently long to know what it costs to carry out one order. Because the meaning of any verb, you see, is -- you see, you say, "It rains." Now the child must have experienced all the consequences of rain: that you get wet; that the seed begins to grow, you see; that you have to close the windows; and you have to put on an over- -- a raincoat; and that you have to dry this raincoat again afterwards, you see; that the rain passes; that it comes either, you see, unannounced, or announced. This all has to do with the word "Rain -- It rains." The word "rain" is an abstraction, you see, although you think it is not,

you see. The only act that the child must learn to understand is "It rains," you see. It -- it must experience that after rain, there comes sunshine before it can understand this -- this -- proverb, you see -- saying, "silver lining," et cetera. "It rains" therefore rules all the experiences connected with rain, including the noun--"rain"--as with "dress," you see.

My wife wanted to -- introduce prayer -- in -- to our boy in a -- in an understandable way. So she took him to the kitchen, and -- and prepared a very -- a special cake. And he was allowed to -- to bake it. And since this was quite extraordinary, all the -- with the raisins and the plums, and everything used, and the -- icing, he was very excited. And so in this excitement, she took the occasion, you see, and said, "Now let's thank," you see. And he -- he had never -- there was never a prayer before.

Now in this excitement, he found it only natural that something special had happened, and you had to praise the Lord. And from then on, he had experience in the act, that prayer was not in -- you see, something silly put on from the outside as a ritual. But it was liturgical in this excitement, it burst forth as the -- as the logical consequence of the acts in which he had been involved. It followed, so to speak. Like in rain, you have to put on the raincoat, you -- you make a special -- the special -- special dish, and you have to do something special about your excitement, that you have succeeded.

We are sick and dead, because every one thing is defined out of -- in Aristotelianism, by itself. That's impossible. Don't believe it for a minute. Every thing you allegedly know, you see, is -- a moment in time, experienced in a sequence of events. The very word "thing"--may I tell you this?--is originally meaning "time" and not "thing." It doesn't mean -- meant "chair," but it meant "now."

You are all killed by the word "thing." They -- you even call God a thing. You think that -- that He likes this? Bec- -- that's blasphemy. But I have seen it discussed, I mean: "What is God?" As soon as you say, "What is God?" you blaspheme. You can only ask "Who is God?" "What is man?" You can't ask this question. You can only ask "Who is man?"

It's a very interesting fact; in the Bible, there is in the New Testament somewhere the question, "Who is this man?" "Who is --."

("{ } Thou" or "What is man { }.")

Oh, that's -- for -- towards God we are dust. We are "what." That's quite correct, you see. I've written a whole book on this, so--where to say "What?" and

where to say "Who?" you see. No, there is in the New Testament the question "Who?" "Who is that man?" And the King James Version and Luther, both in English and German, fall from grace and translate it--although it says in Greek, "Who?"--"What is this man?" Then you get -- never get the right answer. If you ask, you see, not "Who is this man?" but "What is this man?" you already fall into thingness, into deadness, into neutrality, into description, you see. You don't see it as a moment in history, you see, of this hour. He is now who -- the speaker of the hour, you see. "Who is the president of the United States?" means "Who is allowed to put his -- his name under the laws which are binding to you and me?" you see.

Well, the -- what I'm trying to say at this moment is that to learn a language does not consist of learning 300 words, or thousands words. Basic English is again, such an act of paganism--real paganism--because it takes years to understand the processes suggested, I may say, by the one verb, you see. The consequences of any one verb involve you in the whole process of creation, you see, where there is -- winter, there is summer, you see; where there is rain, there is sunshine. But you have to experience this by the act, by the actuality with which they follow each other and beget each other.

All the -- in politics, I mean, you will always see that rabble-rousing in the long run, you see, leads to another -- opposite rabble-rousing. I mean, you get McCarthy, and then you get the opposite swing of the pendulum. That is, anybody who is only educated by verb- -- by nouns, will always believe in what happens at this moment. And it is only experience which shows you the limitations that all these verbs, these -- are processes that exhaust themselves and beget their very opposite, that you can be taught, that you can experience anything. A child that hasn't yet learned the opposite of every word that it is told obviously has not -- is still misunderstanding obedience.

There's a tragic case of -- a neighbor of mine had a wonderful boy of 5 -- 4 or 5 years. And the child was brought up very obediently, and ran into -- against an electric wire, because the father had told him -- taught -- I mean, taught him to obey, but the child had never seen the relativity of an angry command, you see, that the ch- -- father could counteract, it was too late. The child was terribly hurt, because the father in vain tried to stop the child, running towards him, you see. The child hadn't yet experienced the limited meaning of every one command, so to speak, that you -- a command wasn't absolute. This again can only be learned by experience.

I have tried to -- to run camps -- educational camps in which work would beget discussion; discussion would beget art; art would beget eating; and eating would beget sleeping. That is, what we -- you need today is to see that there is

not art by itself, and sports by themselves, and politics by themselves, you see. But when a group is together, you have to have drama in the evening, or singing, you see, because that's part that begets -- one thing begets the other.

It -- as soon as we would see this again, you see, education would become a process, instead of being a thing with credits and -- and marks, and -- to be put away on your diploma. That is not the story. But it's a constant -- one thing begets the other. Because we sleep, we want to get up. Because we get up, we want to work. Because we work, we want to think. Because we me- -- think, we want to discuss. Because we discuss, we want to explain. On it goes, you see. Every one part of life -- department of life begets the other department. And that -- can only be done if you see these are verbs, you see. If you say, "Get up," you also imply, you see, that 12 hours la- -- later, you must hear in your ear the command, "Go to bed." One and the other are reciprocal. And this, I think, is destroyed in our -- in our whole system of thinking today, that one thing doesn't beget the other. But it's just a -- an enumeration of possibilities, as we call them, you see. Opportunities.

(Smorgasbord.)

Wie?

(Smorgasbord.)

Yes, exactly. Department store. In your mind, the -- life is a department store, you see, while it is a marching order.

Now -- well, I won't be- -- let's go back to Plutarch. There is much more to be said about this. But -- the Greeks moved in the direction -- from the verbs towards the nouns. And I think we are today obliged to move back from the nouns towards the verbs. That is why at this moment, the Greeks have shot their whole -- I think they -- at this moment, they don't help us. I was brought up on Greek, and I mean, saturated with it, I can -- can only tell you. But Aristotle and Plato certainly today are enemies of education.

With the -- the -- --the washing of the -- of the -- of the sacred vessels, the -- the cup -- and the plate in the church, from there -- can start it, and make the child see how -- how inescapable, inexorable, so to speak, the -- the -- the circulation, the movement is, once you enter societ- -- the social order. That's what the ch- -- you wouldn't have any juvenile delinquents if you would bring up the child -- children on -- on imperatives, and not on nouns. We produce these juvenile delinquents every day by -- in reams. I mean, the -- a teacher who -- who ridicules a child with -- by operational definitions, throws out this child out of its

own -- own -- own reality.

(Well, of course he was a bachelor.)

When you hear a man say, "Define your terms," just laugh at -- him in the face. Nobody -- we have to speak. And afterwards, somebody else can define our terms. But when a -- when a mother says to the child, "Dress," it is absolutely unnecessary that you -- she can define what -- what it means to dress, you see. She only has to insist that the child dresses. That's all there is to it. Speech is all -- first-rate, and not second-rate. I never can define my terms. I hope I cannot. Because the language, that's the -- that's the very thing. There is no other word { }. "Get up." As soon a I can synonymize it, it has no longer any unique character.

Define -- you can only define when you assume that for every word there are synonyms. And I assure you, there is no synonym for your proper name. You are just this one -- unique {sequence}. And if you allow to belie- -- yourself to believe that your name can have a synonym, you cannot be loved. Because you expect that one woman will say that you are the only one. And all your -- our self-realization, all our -- our incarnation in this world depends on this fact that there are no synonyms.

I think that's the greatest heresy, you see, all this Aristotelianism, that--again, I've written a whole chapter on this--there are no synonyms. And if ever your mother, or your father, or your friend has -- has shouted at you with your -- your own and very name, especially in great danger, you know that there are no synonyms for all the important language. For -- I mean, for -- for indifferent things, where you can use a spoon as well as a fork, well, then --. The deader the things they -- are, the more synonyms. You can have a refrigerator, you can have an natural-ice plant. So -- but even there you call one thing a "refrigerator," and the other you call the "icebox."

You can -- you can -- I think you can catch every modern heresy by seeing that this man thinks that there is -- is for everything a synonym. Then -- but then language wouldn't be a creation. There are no synonyms.

An old -- an historian of art wrote a book on Italian art, and -- being an Italian himself, a famous man in Italy, he said that a Tus- -- a peasant in Tuscany didn't know what a synonym was, that every word had its unique use. And that's why he spoke such wonderful Italian, because there couldn't be -- you see, an inappropriate term -- word. That was just impossible. Every word stood for what it said, and you could not replace it by any other word. And that's education, you see. And you are all made paralytics -- mental paralytics, because you

are taught that for everything, there are many, you see, synonyms. That's sloppy. There is for every truth that is really filling you, only one way of saying it. That's -- we call eloquence. An -- an eloquent word is the one word that has to be said at this moment, and nothing else. The rest is rhetorics and oratory. That's any -- found as -- like a nightgown, you see, slovenly.

But you feel in all great poetry. I mean, if a -- if a man writes to his sweetheart a -- a poem, it -- there can only be said the -- at this moment, in this pain that they are in, you see, or in this despair, in this one way to -- to comfort the heart. And there is no other way. You cannot transcribe a poem into synonyms. It has ceased to be what it is. But you { }.

And -- in all ways of life, people know the -- I had a friend in -- in my -- I have a friend in my neighborhood. She's a lawyer, a great lawyer. And she had a will -- she -- they sent her from New York a will on the -- written by the richest woman in town, in Woodstock, Vermont. There's a town where retired people -- rich people live. And the lady was 95 of age, so it was quite an event, of course. And the estate was of $50 or $60 million. And so her will had to be fireproof. And -- this New York office -- by the famous firm, sent it to the local lawyer. She was, so to speak, an assistant lawyer, this woman lawyer, to -- to correct it, or to criticize it, make amendments. And she sent back that she would like to have a comma inserted in two places. That was all she had to say.

And they wrote back and said they were very interested in her remarks. But they felt that in such an important document, it should be understood without commas. And they had managed now to -- following her suggestion, to put it in -- the comma wouldn't make any difference, because it had to be -- the will had to come out, you see, in a unique and unmistakable fashion, and you couldn't depend on -- on comma -- on -- on inter- -- interpunctuation. That was too -- mediocre, you see. If you -- if the judge should then, you see, have to base his criterion on the comma, and interpreted it one way or the other. It had to be much more unambiguous than just to be decided by commas, one way or the other.

And I think that's a very wonderful story, because it shows you the power of language, even in a legal document, that this is nothing to be tampered with. You cannot replace any one term there, or any one sentence, you see, by any synonym. It has to be said in this one way in which it will make, you see, sense and law. And try to write your -- your letters this way and you will become very eloquent indeed. You will always find that when there is no way out, man does his best. As soon as you give a man leeway and say he can do it in 10 ways, he'll never do it well. It's always for the -- excellency one way of doing it. And that makes a document an outstanding document. That makes the Gettysburg Ad-

dress a real Gettysburg Address, that you feel that couldn't have been said -- in any other way than just this.

So no synonyms.

Now the Greeks were always, being Aristotelians, on the way out, tried this, but the name of the hero of course is the -- is the unique thing, I mean. Prometheus is still Prometheus. Pericles is still Pericles. They can be compared with each other, but still there is an unrelinquishable category by which the -- the name -- named characters cannot be transferred into Camillus. You just can't, I mean. Let's go now back.

You had some -- Sir. You have something?

(Well, I was thinking -- before even the genealogy, Plutarch talks about the -- of a virtue, and I can probably -- { } show us that these men -- were very concerned with reason as a --.)

Quite right. Yes. I think the introduction to the Pericles deserves your greatest care and attention. You are absolutely right, because it is an attempt to classify -- using these -- under these philosophical terms of -- of -- and categories. It's a -- it is. That's Greek. Now what -- what are these -- his -- his tenets there? This introduction is very strange.

What is his -- what is his general denominator? Isn't there a hierarchy of values in the first -- chapter? What are they? What is his hierarchy?

(Well, knowl- -- first of all, knowledge, and the virtue of -- of knowledge is -- should not be a pursuit of knowledge just for knowledge's sake, but -- but knowledge pursued as a means for some further end, perhaps happiness.)

Well, isn't there a whole hierarchy? He -- what's the first story? Here. And then comes -- it goes -- however there is a whole climax. These are the story of the apes. What does he say? There's a hierarchy for observation. The highest is not then what we -- {here}, { } children, and the next is virtues. And if you go excellently, this would have A, and this would have B, and this would have C. Isn't that right? As I read it. The whole chapter is, after all -- what is his whole reasoning about the first chapter? What does King Phillip say? Because we have to insert here still another A-1. Isn't that very strange that his -- in -- introduction to Pericles we -- we should be warned that -- that not -- it's neither apes which we see and admire, nor children, nor just arts. There is a complete contempt of the Muses. That a -- what does King Phillip say to his son? It's a very great saying, gentlemen. For you it's very hard to understand. Wie? No! What does he say

to Alexander? "Are you not ashamed to be so good at play?" Wie? What.

(Just what I was saying. "I would not have changed his { } sing so {loudly}.")

I {know it as} singing. Singing is playing.

When I learned that Tallulah Bankhead was the -- daughter of the speaker of the House of -- of Congress, I pitied the father. I thought she had -- she had stepped down. In this country, now, you see, where you have movie stars setting the pace for this country, you live in an absolutely bastardized world, because the -- the imitators make law. But to be an actor is not the same as to be president. And it's very hard -- we are -- you are -- it's very hard for you to understand that even the Greeks were very religious people, very austere people, and that Pericles, as an actor, just couldn't be -- measured in the same way. This is for you very hard to understand, because all your standards come from the stage. I me- -- a movie actress has today the -- the -- the -- the -- the court of the nation, so to speak. She -- she -- she is the Court of St. James.

(A courtesan.)

Of course, a courtesan -- it has been said. And you must know -- this is very charming.

It's very serious, gentlemen. Men have no standards of behavior, because the serious man -- Mr. -- Mr. Kennedy is -- is now treated as though he was a movie star. That is, the -- the people mention those features in his appearance which we -- would befit Elizabeth Taylor. And you are meant to elect him president because he looks like a good movie actor. That's a complete perversion.

Everything stands on its head at this moment in this country, because they have the limelight. But you will -- still understand that a father might prefer to have a -- a daughter marry a good man and having five children than to go to Hollywood. That's -- and -- that he throws up his hands in despair as soon as she appears in Hollywood, since she's not -- hasn't disgraced herself, but she has just made her life more miserable and more dangerous, at least.

Now we -- this is the expression, of course, in Plutarch, you see. There is then -- in play-acting is no virtue. There may be knowledge, there may be skill, there may be, of course, in this perfection of the -- of the artisan, of the craftsman in a stage play, but it's not virtue. Because to play Hamlet is less virtuous than to -- to act Hamlet out in life.

That shows you that -- an ape in naked, and is of the moment. The child is already dressed. The actor and the artisan -- the craftsman, you see, is -- is dealt with -- with the commodity, the goods he delivers, the -- furnished, you see. But the virtuous man is contained in the -- his whole life from birth to death. And there is nothing outside, no commodity he produces, you see, no dress he wears, and no natural body heat he represents in the zoological garden. And I -- I think this climax is quite instructive. I have said -- rated A-1 and A-2, because A-1 in, you see -- in humanity is concentration on single acts, on commodities, or on plays. You play, you sing; and you are -- for the song you deliver you are paid -- "gainfully employed," you say. But you are left out. But now of course he means by "virtue" the whole person is the -- is more than anything he can, you see, deliver. And the arts and the commodities, you see, we produce are of the moment. I mean, you go to a play--never forget this--the poor actor who has to deliver Hamlet within three hours in the evening, you see, is only condensing in a form of a pill, in a semblance, the real life that goes on for 50 years. Obviously the life of 50 years is more difficult to live than the -- the furni- -- you see, the -- delivering the good in one evening. That's a small edition. That's a -- or not even a small edition. It's a--how would you call it?--an abbreviation, semblance of the life. And the poor man, as you know most -- most actors are melancholic, because the -- on the stage they have to be cheerful, so they have to take it out somewhere. So they are -- they are melancholic.

And they -- and you know the story of the psychiatrist here in Hollywood, who -- when somebody came and said he was so melancholic. And the psychiatrist said, "Well, then go to the play tonight. You'll laugh your head off."

And he says, "Yes. I'm the comedian."

(A few lines later, after he mentions this comment that Phillip made to his little boy, he discusses the fact that you are being nothing but a slave to anything which is so mechanical -- employment, and therefore the sign of inattention to something which is much more noble, within your own self, rather than aiding or being assisted other things in order to be a success.)

Ja, well. The strange -- the strange, static character of the Greek comes out, that he tries to define this greatness by -- by a static concept, and not by the biography. I would think that cer- -- I would express it, saying a whole life, you see, 70 years, the phases, or the chapters of your development, or whatever you call it. The Greeks cannot say this, you see, but they try to put over the -- let's read this today. Will you read it? "If a man..." Will you read it out loud?

("If a man applies himself to servile or mechanical employment, his {empathy in noticing} the proof of his inattention to his nobler studies.")

Go on. Go ahead.

("No young man of high birth or liberal sentiment, who would, upon seeing the statue of Jupiter at { }, desire to be { }.")

Well, you see, that's the -- the Latin is Fabius and the Greek is {Faibias}, and I don't know what in -- at this moment here { }. He is so famous that you simply have to comply with what is usual. How -- how did he?

("Fabius" is the usual sound.)

Fabius, in the old Latin tradition, ja.

("Or in the sight of the Juno and oracles to be Pol- -- Polycreres -- {Polycleitus}, or wish to be Anachrion or {Themitas}, {Theimiti -- Thimitus} -- or {Archilotus} --?")

Archilochus.

("Archi- -- Archilochus, though he { } great poem. For though a work may be agreeable, { } for the authors not the necessary consequence. We may therefore conclude that things of this kind, which excite not a spirit of emulation or produce any strong impulse or desire to imitate them, are of little use to the beholders.")

That's very unsatis- -- "of little use to the beholders."

("But virtue has its peculiar properties, that at the same time as we admire her conduct, we long to copy the example. The goods of fortune we wish to enjoy, the virtue we desire to practice. The former we are glad to receive from others; the latter we are ambitious that others should receive from us. The beauty of goodness has an attractive power. It kindles us at once an act of principle, it forms our manners and influences our desires. Not only when represented in a living example, but even in an historical description.")

I think there's a terribly important notion, which I think in our modern ethics are not even mentioned, you see. I'm --- always -- I mean, America is sick with morality and -- and ethics. I don't believe that there -- ethics is a course, or thinking. I've always all my life defied it. Christianity came into the world to show that life had to be fruitful, and not ethical. What is fruitful, what deserves to bear fruit, that's -- we shall decide. It can be inconspicuous. But if it is fruitful,

you see, it's important. Fruitful mothers are inconspicuous. Movie stars are not fruitful. They have to adopt children. And -- that -- I mean this, I mean. This modern fashion that you all have to be so slim is just an attempt to make the sterile woman the -- the type, instead of the fruitful woman. And it's terrible. Women must have hips, but they are not allowed to have hips. They all have to look like boys in this country, because you have the movie star ideal. It's a wrong ideal of beauty. Because it is of the moment, and not of -- of the -- of the race, not of the continuity of humanity. And a Madonna has to -- has to give you the feeling that she may have children.

Well, this is all -- all movie-star business; and here in Los Angeles, I think you should be the first to shake yours- -- shake it off, because you are here at the source, and you can look through all this.

Now virtue in the Greek sense then means--even the word "attractive" and "imitation" is too poor--to produce sequence, to have consequences. And I think this is terribly important that Plutarch should say, you see, "At least my heroes produce offspring, spiritual offspring," you see. "They are irresistible," you see. Whereas if I look at a -- at the statue of Athene, I feel helpless. I'll never be able to make an Athene, you see, but if I read the life of a great man, I know that although I am not placed in the same position -- the decisions he has to make, the hardship, you see, the power, of courage, and -- and virtue, they are, you see, identical. Or I -- it's very hard even to find the word -- I think the word "fruitful" is still the -- or "fecund"--although even the word "fruitful" would not tell you that you are the man who bears the fruit, you see. "Fruitful" is still too -- so abstract.

But any reader of a biography is expected, you see, to get going, you see, to be moved, as we say. Now to be moved is not se- -- sentimental. But it means literally to be moved, that is, to be transformed, to be changed into -- into somebody who hadn't been before, because he didn't even know that this existed, this type of humanity, you see.

So we learn by biography, according to Plutarch. I think that's very important. That's the best of the Greek spirit, I think. We are moved into a -- upon a highway of life, where you keep going, as on a freeway, where you have to go 30 miles an hour, and you -- you cannot just sit by and drink. Have to keep going. It is this mobilization of your energy which Plutarch here says is the meaning of his biography.

So he does admit from this point of view a concerted effort of mankind, an accumulation of effort. Although once you are set going, everything -- in the Greek mind I think is more or less then pagan. He does admit--and this is the

funny thing: the -- the tremendous power of the Greeks is in education. They still think that -- that the influence of somebody else, you see--that's the one thing they will admit--that can transform you.

You see, that's why education is their obsession, you see. The beauty, the love of the -- of the master, the love of the -- of Socrates makes Plato. And -- and there you have to do them justice. This is -- their best -- the best part of them. For the rest, I -- I couldn't {agree}. But with this enthusiasm, you see, for the example for a young man, they -- went overboard, as you know. That's why the friendship between men is of course -- their -- one overbearing passion, you see, to the point of homosexuality. But it -- the first thing is emulation. Never use the word "imitation." That's aping, I mean. The translation is wrong, young -- young lady. You should understand. You cannot imitate virtue, you see. In the sense that you take something external and -- and -- and copy it. And the word "copy" that she uses, again, very misleading. "Virtue" means literally "power." You don't know this, but "virtuous" means -- is much more a process in Latin and Greek { } than it is in our -- in our language, you see. Virtue is -- you -- you are just, you see. But -- that is, if -- if you want to translate it, in -- in Greek { } is the power, you see, to act justly.

And I once was asked to write a letter -- an article on lying, on mendacity, hypocrisy. And I said it's a question of power, and not of morals. Most people lie because they are so weak to say -- tell the truth at this moment. It's not a question that they wouldn't like to tell the truth, but they don't have the power to tell the truth. It's a question of strength, you see. This was the meaning also of -- of virtue. To be veracious means to be very strong, you see, to be unafraid. Because what does it help you? You -- you know that you should tell the truth, but you just haven't the strength in a -- party to break up there the polite form by telling an unpleasant truth. And so you -- you may not positively lie, but you allow another man's lie to stand up. And if you think how many lies are told in any -- at any cocktail party, it's just unbelievable. Or untruths, to put it mildly. Because people are drunk, and therefore they don't have the moral strength to tell the truth.

(Is this something on -- Aristotle meant when he said to act on virtue is an activity of the soul, and --?)

That our danger is, you see, that we treat ethics, the ethical qualities, as mere binding qualities, and not as processes.

(Would you -- would you explain that a little more? I'm kind of lost on this difference between ethics and virtue. I mean, I don't see a sharp distinction to make here, because of -- { }.)

Well -- today the modern ethics course. I have a -- a colleague who is -- teaches at Riverside, and he has written a book on ethics, you see. And I -- I argued the point, time and again. He used to be my colleague out -- east. And he is an Aristotelian. And he thinks that he can define justice, you see; and he can define goodness; and he can define all these things. And the American hankering for such a nice dictionary of ethics is very great. And I think it has ruined the American character. Destroyed the American character. And all, I think -- all soldiers, and adventurers, explorers, inventors, and -- and pioneers had to break away from this because action comes first. I mean, you are -- engaged in a certain network, you -- can't take out a book of -- on ethics and find out what you -- whether you should shoot a horse thief in Wyoming, you see. There is no such list of -- of -- of actions, one or the other.

(Well --.)

It's innomine. It's without name in every moment where you have to decide. You cannot act by definitions. This is my whole objection against ethics. It's a primary discovery of what you have to do -- now, and must be -- remain undefined. They can define it afterwards what you have done. But you have to do it, and not looking up in a book how this is defined.

The -- all the people -- you see, the -- my topic yesterday in class about this difference between our standing by our commitments to the destruction of Europe in the First World War by giving up the Austrian-Hungarian empire, giving up the Ottoman empire, you see, then we had to stand by our commitment, and cannot go home and say, "We have done nothing. Good-bye," you see, as we did. Instead, we replaced it by a ethical concept of the League of Nations, which was an abstract concept taken from the book, so to speak, of good behavior, you see, and had nothing to do with our real involvement, and our actual commitment into certain -- in certain places, and in certain actions. Where we had destroyed the political structure of a whole continent, we of course had to make sure that there could be another structure. This was our commitment. But it was a definite commitment to these acts, but not a definable abstract commitment to virtue in -- as a -- as a nice behavior in -- in the -- in the vacuum.

This was yesterday's topic in my class. Was any- -- did anybody attend except you, Phil? Well, you don't -- well, it's always --. All American politics are destroyed by this ethical concept of "peace-loving" and "We'll never attack." And -- and all this.

(Lone Rangerism.)

Wie?

(Lone -- Lone Rangerism. Do a good deed and run away.)

Was an old lady in Frankfurt, in Germany. When I had a terrible fight there, she always said -- I had tried really to do something difficult, but not, I thought, not necessary.

She said, "Do no good, lest -- lest nothing bad arises from it," you see. She says the -- the do-gooders, you see, are always producing terrible results, because they intend to do good. But that's not the way to -- to act.

({ }.)

What? Would you?

(Harry Truman said a good thing the -- the other day in that speech, when he said, "If you're in church, and you hear a -- a bunch of 'Amens' coming from one of the corners, you'd better go --.")

What?

(Harry Truman said his grandfather once told him a story that when- -- whenever you're in church, and you hear a whole bunch of "Amens" coming from one of the corners, he says you'd better go home and lock your stock -- stock in. That -- that was in a speech here.)

Well, he knows it, obviously.

[tape interruption]

If the writer, the historian, does not look up to legislators, and soldiers, and explorers, and -- and creators, and priests, he is lost. But if he wants to have this -- "all men are born equal and free," but the functions in society are not all equal, and to be, you see, the leader of man in battle must be admitted by the biographer to be more honorable, more difficult than to write a book. And today, there is a complete confusion, and that's why I think the intellectual doesn't find his place in society, because we are told that the actor in -- in Hollywood, you see, is better than the composer. Or more important--you find this very often--you find Mr. -- Mr. -- in the last 30 years, at least, you had a worship of the conductor instead of the composer. Leop- -- who was this -- is this man with "Fantasia" or --?

(Shostakovich. I mean, Stokowski.)

Ja. Such a madman is -- is -- was valued higher than the compositions he -- the composers who had written the music which he produced. Oh, what is a conductor, you see? And in this country, all the -- the -- the producers, as the word says, ranking above the -- the scriptwriter, you see, he's -- the producer is the man. The conductor is the man. The actor is the man here, you see. And I don't -- I think that therefore the man who really is the creative genius, you see, always -- had -- to emigrate from this country and find this recognition in Europe.

I read you this sentence by Herman Melville. He has said we prefer now { } themes for authors, instead of promoting our authors in this country, you see. And that's probably true. But, I mean, you must understand that this again, a Barnum & Bailey is more important than Jenny Lind, so to speak. And Jenny Lind is more important than Schubert whose songs she sang in this country. You have heard of Jenny Lind, perhaps, I mean. She -- was the first artist to produce on a large scale in this country.

And -- so you have in -- in Plutarch this strange humility that he admits that writing the life of such a man is the easier task, compared to living it. And this scale of values is, in all of us of course, today threatened.

Here's a man called Goodspeed. He's the greatest liberal theologian of the New Testament in this country. And he can't get over the fact that Jesus didn't write a book. And so he -- in his mind, John, and Luke, and so, are far superior to Jesus, who didn't write. And he goes so far to prove that He -- obviously only didn't write, because He never learned how to write and read. So he was illiterate. So that's the outcome of this -- this wonderful idea that if a man can write and read, he would of course prefer to write a book than found a religion, you see. And of course, Jesus wouldn't have been Jesus if He had cared to write a book, because it would have shown lack of faith. If you have to write a book, then you don't believe that you -- the life, as Plutarch says, will be so powerful, you see, that everybody has to imitate Christ. However, 1300 years later, there was book -- written a book, The Imitation of Christ, in which it was just shown that you couldn't escape the imprint of this life, you see, and you wouldn't like to follow in His footsteps -- the footsteps of the master. It's a condition, of course, that He didn't write a book. Because His real faith, of course, could only shine if He relied on this imprint of His life, you see, and didn't propagate it programatically by a theory of what you should do.

So -- this country is standing on its head today. The great -- the greatest achievement, the greatest act of faith of Jesus was that He didn't put His ideas in a book, but left it to the Apostles and the evangelists and said, "That will come later." He had only three years to live, and He couldn't spend ti- -- any moment

of this in going to a desk and using ink. He had to write it in blood, soil -- sweat, and tears.

And there you have this wrong scale of values. Mr. Goodspeed poses here as the great authority in this country. And so all the Apostles, you see, are better off than Jesus in his mind, because they write books -- letters, and He doesn't. It's wonderful. It's very hard to -- in a -- in this modern world of yours, they -- and so I find that most biographers in this country think they are bigger than the life they write down. Because the intellect is today running amok. You really think that the use of ink is better than the use of blood. That's a second-rate performance, I'm sorry to say. -- I wish it wasn't. But here, I have to write a -- books. Well, that's imperfection, not a perfection.

So this scale of values, I think, is important. All antiquity has never doubted that kings, and prophets, and priests, you see, and -- are above the -- the -- the onlooker who tries to define it. And all -- they knew that definition was second to operation, you see, that to act was more than to -- than to define the act. And this is today all so strange. The actor today is -- is the star, then comes the producer, then comes the director, then comes -- and finally there is somebody who -- poor scriptwriter who is kept a prisoner for two years. He has a little cell, and occasionally they'll ask him, "What do you think?"

Here, the scriptwriter, a lady -- quite successful in Hollywood. And she -- she was asked to write a -- a Beethoven movie. And she came, and she -- she -- I -- she told us the whole interview. There were three of these tycoons. And -- and she -- they said, about deafness, how this would be played up. And "Now, sh- -- when he became deaf," they said, "this is a great moment."

"Yes," she said. "But he was deaf 20 years earlier." And so they gave him chapter and verse. And with every one point, it was so that they were just absolutely ignorant of the true life story of Beethoven. And she knew it all. She's a very educated woman.

And so they said, "We're sorry. You know too much. You can't write the movie."

And you were -- you told me the story of Bill Mitchell, did you?

(Yeah.)

Well, Bill Mitchell, you see, took a battleship, and a -- and an airplane and -- proved that the battleship, the dreadnought was just obsolete, because it could be, you see, sunk by one bomb, as it was in World War II. And they didn't believe

him, of course. The whole brass of the Navy was of course up in arms against the man who would disprove the beauty of their dreadnoughts. They lived, after all, by bigness.

So the movie had to be shot by -- here in Hollywood. And the man -- the -- the producer insisted that the -- Bill Mitchell had to intoxicate himself in -- for this experiment, because he would be so excited, and that would show his excitement that he got drunk, you see, on whisky first. And they said, "But he didn't. And that's his greatness, that he was absolutely sober," and that he exposed himself to this -- this was after all the climax of his career, you see. It was die or -- live or die, you see, do or die. And this idiot, you see, of the producer, insisted on -- on -- on this alcoholic excess, which would have weaken- -- of -- did--of course, it was inserted--did weaken the whole point. So the man left in a huff, the author. And was left aside, and -- and they took over, and -- and spoiled the whole thing by -- by inserting this lie, you see, this -- what ever -- never had happened.

But I think this is how things are done today, that the -- the nearer you come to the public, the -- the -- the more authoritarian the -- the person becomes who -- and he -- he decides.

I -- and so we misread all -- all biography. They always tell you that Shakespeare was such an experienced stagehand and an actor, that's why his plays are so wonderful. It's obviously an absolute lie, because every one of his plays was three times too long for the time -- two hours allotted to a play in the Globe Theater in London. And so -- he was so enthusiastic, you see, and so much a poet, that he first wrote thousands of lines, you see. Then they all had to left out -- be left out. So in practice, you see, he was much more a poet than an actor. And overwhelmed by -- you see, by his creation, you see. If you take Antony and Cleopatra, it would have filled three evenings, if it had been acted out as he wrote it.

Just to show you how -- how even the past is reinterpreted from all point of view, you see. "O practical man," you see, Shakespeare knew success, you see. And so he did -- he just was so successful compared to Marlowe and Ben Jonson, because he -- he -- he knew the stage. Well, he didn't. He -- the stage was a handicap to him.

So -- even the past is misread. And I think most people think today that -- take naturally that Mr. Plutarch, writing on 50 lives would feel superior to any one of the lives lived. But he didn't. He admits here that it is better to be one Pericles than to be one Plutarch.

Shall we read on from there? Please.

What is your translation of the sentence on the -- on the "between them mo- -- most useful and serviceable to the interests of their country"? What does your text say?

("{ } for this reason { }.")

What? It's the same text, which means that most --? I'm interested in the word "useful" and "serviceable."

(No, no, no.)

They are the -- important, you see, because virtue is something we are -- {can't help}, imitating, he says, fruitful. But he has another viewpoint, you see. This is the -- the use of this -- men to their countries, which is after all something quite different than their relation to the reader. What is it? What is the expression? "Useful and serviceable"? You have a different translation, haven't you?

You see, "useful" is a -- is a little bit like utilitarianism, and I'm always --. Human beings are, you see, they're just sum- -- summarizing their -- their role to "use" is always dangerous, you see. "What's the use of a newborn child?"

(How many paragraphs is that, in?)

(Is that just before the genealogy?)

It's before the genealogy.

(Just -- just before it. Well, the sentence I have before that, the immediate one, is: "Whether we are right in our judgment, were it not for the immediacy { }.")

Then the sentence before; the one sentence before.

(Well, there's more than a sentence at the beginning -- from the beginning of a new paragraph. I'll start at the beginning. "For this reason, we choose to proceed in writing the lives of great men and have imposed this { } life of Pericles and of Fabius Maximus who carried on the war against Hannibal.")

That's the same translation. That's the same translation we have here. Is it all identical?

(No "useful" or --.)

(This is not. No. His words deviate. "Men who resemble each other in many virtues, particularly in justice and moderation, and who effectively serve their respective commonwealths, and patiently endure the injurious and capricious treatment they receive from their colleagues and their countrymen." { }.)

Well, I --.

(Well, Dr. Huessy, I have the -- {Dryden} translation has "useful and serviceable." It goes on. The part where Hannibal, where the column breaks -- after Hannibal, says, "Men alike, as in their other virtues and { } parts, { } and demeanored. And their capacity to the cross-grain { } all through, which made both of them useful and serviceable to the interests of their countrymen.")

(Well, that's Dryden's translation. Well, this isn't.)

Well, that's just what I'm trying to find out. I haven't yet found a substitute. I would like to know if no -- everybody else translated this "useful." You have the same text?

(I have nothing. It's incomplete. It's nothing.)

(They didn't have that, because they didn't treat it both -- they didn't the comparative there. They cut it out.)

Och! Oh! Isn't this forgery? You know -- and they don't even tell you. They were not even dots.

({ } in the introduction -- I just put the dots in here for him. I just put them in myself, too. { }. But in the introduction, the author says --.)

Traitor!

(He says in the introduction --.)

Traitor. Write to him a letter: "Traitor."

Now it -- is I think important for you to know: here is a virtuous man, you see; and here is the offspring. That's the reader. And there he uses very strong language. But then he suddenly has another frame of reference. And that is -- and there I would like to have the Greek expression--I for- -- unfortunately didn't bring the Greek text. We have only one Plutarch in this library. It's a very poor

library. You have to insist -- tell all -- everybody that the library of the University of California is a miserable library. There should be at least 20 Plutarchs, if you want { }. There are so many editions, you see, that are pub- --. Should all be here. I couldn't bring -- the one Greek text is -- is loaned. And it's just -- and so I have none. And that's in- -- not right. A man like Plutarch is more -- one of the most popular and -- writers, you see, and in -- there should be many -- all these different editions should be there. { } commentary. It isn't. It's just an example of how haphazardous this library has been brought together. It is of course it's very late, and so it hasn't -- hasn't been able to find many -- many different editions.

But I found out the -- the most famous book on the South, by {Fitzhugh}, Sociology for the South, 1854, doesn't exist in this library. It's just scandalous. This is -- that's the greatest self-indictment of the South ever produced, you see. It's the great glorification of slavery. In 1854 it was produced, { }. You cannot understand the South without this apogee of its -- of its tenacity, of its stubbornness. We don't have it. When I told this to my colleagues in American history, they didn't believe me. But it of course leaked out that they never had read the book.

You see, there are obviously two quite different directions of a biography. As long as you don't have a class of writers and a literature of a nation, the memory of a great man in his own city, or in his own nation, will be cut up like Washington's Birthday. That has nothing to do with learned biographies on George Washington. A grateful country keeps his memory because of his services to his country. Now the Plutarch position, coming after a hundred years of despotism of Rome over all the cities of Greece, has a different idea. Fruitfulness, you see, is direct in the reader. He is imitating him. He is evoking virtues. And it has nothing to do with this -- with the succession within the one country, that this is Athens. You read -- as a non-Athenian now, you read Pericles, you see, with the same power of assimilation as though he was the father of the country. And here is the remnant of the pre- -- pre-Roman, Greek tradition. He says "serviceable to this country," that was of course the reason why the Athenians would worship Pericles, you see.

So there are two reasons for biographical monumentalization, so to speak. You erect a monument -- a grateful people to the man who made you, the people. But you read biography in Plutarch already, you see, on this much wider scale, that you are provoked, you see, when this man is evoked, to walk with him through life, and he paved -- he's a trailblazer of your own virtue. And I -- I think you cannot locate Plutarch in his own time--in 110 A.D., where he does write, you see--without seeing that he -- he has these two -- these two values. Inside one's own frame of reference, where one lives, the hero is "serviceable," as he

calls it. I don't think the word "useful" is a Greek word. I -- I would have liked to -- that's why I -- wanted to hunt up this term, you see. Here he uses the word "serviceable." But he's serviceable, regardless of his fruitfulness. But here he has offspring, you see. He produces results in the heart of the reader, regardless of their living in the same frame of reference.

And you have to distinguish in literature these two functions, you see. The primary function of memory is to remember. You know, this is a very beautiful word. It's not a pun. The English language has changed the Latin term "re- {memore}" which is -- should be "re-memorize" into a "re-membering," making the man a member of society in which we live again. Or that -- anything we remember. It's a very strange "re" in this, you see; that's arbitrarily put in. It has nothing to do with the Latin term "memory." And yet we use it, you see, and I think you should exalt it to its -- to its full meaning. The people who invented "remembering" didn't know what we could do with it, so to speak. And you must make George Washington again a member of the American community, by remembering him, you see. And -- as soon as he becomes a member again, he functions again, and he is the father of this country. And I think it's a very beautiful vivification, you see, of memory, you see. That "to remember" means to make that which we remember a part and parcel of the reality in which we live. You understand?

I think it is very helpful, and -- because that's why we have to remember, lest we have to -- Santayana has this great saying, you see: men who remember the past don't have to repeat it. Because this living member, you see, re-presents, keeps the present. Therefore it is still there. Otherwise, if it is forgotten, somebody -- the act has to be performed anew.

So I -- I invite you to -- to -- to change your mind about the -- the value of the word "remembrance," you see. It is a tremendous power to make, you see, a dent -- a living member of your -- inner community again.

It struck me as a very strange -- where do you look up the story of this -- of such a word? Which is the -- the book, the treasure where you find the story of the -- book -- like "remembrance" and "remember"?

(The Thesaurus?)

Where you go to? You go down to the reading room and said, "I would like to know whether this is all nonsense, what I'm hearing here about "remembering"? It's a very strange word. The "be-" is -- you see, unexplainable -- inexplainable -- inexplicable. Well, which is the book where -- the authority on all the story of the English words? Where do you look this up? You can't go to the

Webster, because he doesn't give the history of the word. Which -- which book -- takes -- gives the history? Bears out what I'm saying about the "be-" and so on is -- is not all nonsense. Where do you find this? You have to work with this. And you will derive great pleasure of doing so.

Well, it's the Oxford Dictionary, the great Oxford Dictionary in -- in 10 volumes, which came out in the middle of the 19th century, and which traces all the history of all these words by giving you the -- quotations, chapter and verse, how the word was used first, and how it was used in middle, and how it was used at the end. It is of the -- unfortunately too -- too old now to serve all the good purposes. But the first vol- -- dictionary who did this was the Grimm -- Grimm of the fairy tales. The German dictionary. And then the Oxford Dictionary is an imitation of this for the English language. But it's most valuable, because the -- the -- you get the living sto- -- history of every word there, step by step, all its shades of meaning. {It can be a} deep secret, but all the poets use this dictionary, because it gives them all the suggestions, all the assonances, all the shades and variations.

{Tununcio} wrote his -- Gabriel {Tununcio} wrote his greatest poem on the way -- first from the famous diction- -- {Dictionario de la Tusca}, the great Italian dictionary, by getting all the shades of meaning there, and then following it simply in a poetical -- as poetry. Because the ramifications of a word, you see, that's what the poet is after. A -- a mathematician wants to have one sense for a word. Any poet must worship and conjure up all the different meanings of the same word. That's his suggestiveness. And you know this is -- that's why we have no poetry in America, because you think you have to define your terms. But poetry means that the word has grown through thousands of years, through -- all the shades of meaning. And the more you can evoke in your poetry, in one word, the more poetical the use of the word is, you see. If it alludes to all kinds of -- shades of meaning, then the word is used poetically. Never use a word as a def- -- defined. That's why the Oxford Dictionary should replace in your reading the Webster, because the Webster defines. That's the surface meaning. The poetical meaning is always in geological me- -- layers of thousands of years.

There is no poetry, except in this belief that the poet is at the growing point of this word at this moment, and uses it in his -- in his next living avatar. The word has a story, you see, and the poet discovers the -- the last, next meaning of the word, just as the historian--as I told you--is the last chapter of the history, himself, you see. The -- in the poet, the words work; in the histori- -- -storian, the events work. And it's this -- that's -- you can compare a poet to an historian, you see. The poet is the life of the language as of this moment. And since he is the growing point, where the sap is running, he is not interested in the cross-section of the world, you see, flattening it ou- -- out, but he is interested

in the -- in the stream, and in him it bubbles up. That's the poet. And the historian, in him, the history, the events themselves bubble up. And so you can compare the two very well. A historian has all the better -- the more all the implications of this event, you see--the origins, the causes, the relations are there. That's what Thucydides did, you see, by going to the -- to the roots of the story.

And today you are all so flat, because you have philosophical poetry, and rational history; and that is, the words and the events are -- just used in their latest surface sense, but not in their -- how -- what's the opposite of cross-section? Length-section?

({ }.)

No, no. In -- geometry, I mean. Here -- here you have a river. Now this is a cross-section. You take the -- the bed of the river. But what would be the -- you see, such a section?

(Transverse-section.)

Wie?

(Transverse?)

Well, is that the word? Transverse-section?

(We don't have a -- an opposite to "cross-section" in our { } vocabulary.)

You don't say "transsection"?

(We don't have its opposite. We don't have { } -- in things that aren't in cross-sections.)

(It's "with the grain," you might say.)

(Or "lineal.")

Well, "lineal" is very poor.

(In terms of a tree, you see.)

Yes, exactly.

(Instead of a cross-section of a tree, you could say "with the grain." This

would work with wood. But -- that's sometimes used.)

You see, our modern mind, our rational mind is just a cross-sectional mind, and thinks he can afford to cross-sect everything--language, history, and so--as of this moment. And I assure you that poets and historians are transversesectionists, you see. They try to restore the -- the flow. Can you see the difference?

That's quite -- you see, mathematical thinking is always cross-sectional, geometrical thinking. And historical thinking is always transverse thinking. And that's why they can't understand each other, they're just -- you see, the --.

And something interesting happened two days ago. I got a large -- long review by a man; and a friend of mine sent me the publ- -- and he -- this happened in Germany, so I hadn't been aware of this -- this debate going on. My alter ego over there, a man who has always tried to -- to publicize and popularize my doctrine, saw this review, and wrote an answer. And so I got at the same time the critical review of my historical writings, and the answer of my friend objecting to this man, the review. And it was quite funny.

The issue was the following: the man who wrote the review only has the idea that you can either be objective, you see, or you can be subjective. Now all my life, I have said this is a cross-sectionists' attitude. Here is the subjective, and here is the objective attitude. But I am in the transverse attitude. I am prejected into the future, and I have already been trans- -- trajected from the past. I am my father's son, and I am my -- my children's father, and therefore I look at everything in -- in this streamlined fashion.

And so the review ran on this case, that I was the most colos- -- colossal subjectivist there had ever been, and he -- admired this, but of course, he was an objectivist.

And then my friend wrote in, as I said, "But this is impossible. You can't use the term 'subjective' for a man who has just divided reality into past and future, and says that he is -- the future compels him to look at the past in suchand-such a way and admits it. And so he -- I am divided, you see, into prejective, and trajective attitude." And this is his reply. And he used very strong language against the man.

But it is only interesting that in -- in -- in your mind, you see, you have dogmatized, coming all from Cartesius and Benjamin Franklin -- you have dogmatized that the only two acts possible for the human mind are either subjective or objective. You really believe it, you see.

Now Plutarch and I are neither objective nor subjective, you see, but we hope that the past can come to life in the future. And that has nothing to do with objectivity and subjectivity, you see. But it has to do with past, where we have lived, trajected the abyss of time, and the preject, where we are thrown into the future and have to live. And both are imperatives, and verbs. The object and the subject are nouns for people; here they stand. And they can move and they don't move. Usually they don't move. They just sit and -- and talk, or -- or look, or sit before a mirror; or sit at a seat and listen to a lecture. And this is the academic attitude, you see. In academic -- here in this room, of course, we are either objective or subjective. But what I'm trying to talk to you about is that we are in a stream of events, you see, where it is up to you what we remember; what of the past is a part and parcel of ourselves, you see, as a living member, you see; and what we inc- -- how -- we corporate, or what we create, or what we -- what we allow to happen, as inevitably supplementing that which is at this moment, and is not enough, it -- doesn't suffice, you see. And the lacunae have to be filled up by -- because we are thrown into the future, to be prejected into the future, and to be trajected is my attitude. And of course I can prove it to you.

All the people who are either objective or subjective -- what do they do according to psychoanalysis? They project. If you analyze what a -- what these so-called objective sciences do, they project into the past all their own passions. I mean, Mr. Charles Beard, being a Marxian, had to project his material, economic obsessions into the fathers of the revolution, so he wrote The Economic Interpretation of History, as you know, and -- of American history, and proved to his own satisfaction, you see, that it was all just landowners who wrote the -- the Declaration of Independence. And now then there have to be wri- -- have been written books disproving it again. You may have heard of this debate that's going on now. Mr. MacDonald wrote a very marvelous book in which he just proved that there was just no point in this. They never thought of it.

You will always find that people who do not admit their concern with the future and the past must project. Projection is the curse of the -- of the -- of the mathematicians and the subjectivists. I mean, Mr. Einstein projects, of course, a dead universe, he already knows from the beginning that the universe consists of electrons and things dead. But I don't know this. I suppose, at least, that I'm alive. And that the -- that as little as a -- as a glacier explains the one -- the one flower that you find at the foot of the glacier amidst millions of stones, just as little the -- all these mathematical laws explain my or your existence, because we are alive, and the universe of Mr. Einstein is totally dead. And Mr. Einstein after all isn't quite so dead. He -- he creates something new. Where does this come from? He never can explain this. It's all nonsense. But he projects, projects.

And the word "projection" then is, I think, an important discovery to -- to

show the limitations of this, what you call "objective science," or what we -- I call "Cartesianism," you see, where it is assumed that we live in a dead universe as machines ourselves. Projection is the curse of the objectivists. They all project. I don't have to project anything. I admit my -- my place in the bill. And I say what I want. I -- I can o- -- be open about my desires, my necessities, my urges. I haven't to project anything into a dream world.

(I proposed this term "with the grain," because it -- refers to -- it -- it has reverberations, poetic overtones of the organic, the tree.)

Delighted.

("With the grain," and then you can say, "It's against the grain," this crosssection.)

Ja, then everybody wakes up to the fact that this is vio- -- you're -- there's violence, you see, because "against the grain" does violence to -- to the growth of the tree.

(Wit no sap running sideways.)

The -- physics is always cross-section. That's its meaning. The -- nature is already complete.

Now I live with the deep feeling of the incompleteness of the story. We are just in creation. We don't know yet who we are to be. Do you know who you are going to be tomorrow? I don't. Mr. Einstein didn't know when he was born that he would be the inventor of the problem of relativity. That was his discovery. That was absolutely new and he -- and --. And the physicist can never explain the physicist, you see. That's absolutely beyond himself. He cannot explain any one of the physicists, because he cannot explain that anything new can happen in the world. It's -- from his system of nature, the new is excluded.

But I have no such -- no such prejudices. I can write the history of mathematics; I can write the history of physics, you see. Because I can show that the -- the man, in order to rescue himself from death and annihilation, had just to -- you see, find -- to -- to discover new, absolutely unheard-of ways of -- and attempts, and -- and risk his life for them, and -- and die in the process.

There you have sacrifice, you see. You have freedom. And where a man can sacrifice himself for a new, you see, untried thing, he is creative. He is -- he is part and parcel of the divine power that creates the universe. Every mother that gives life to a child, you see, knowingly, instead of using -- using -- using preven-

tive measures, knows that she is able to produce a new race, a -- a better man, at the risk of her life. Sacrifice means divinity. Divinity means creation. These are just -- we use the word "divinity" in order to e- -- to express this power that the world isn't finished yet. Where you have God, you have unfinished business.

And where you have God, you have the limitation of our insight. If we try to judge the complete universe from what we -- is already there, we must misjudge it. You cannot judge a -- the full-grown man from the embryo in the mother's womb. That's what all the physicists try to do. They try to derive the complete story, you see, from the antecedents. You can only -- write the complete story from the end backward, you see. You write the biography of Lincoln, because he has proved to be a great man. But people here tell you this today that they write the biography from the beginning forward, projection. They want to forget. They repress the reason why they write this biography of Lincoln. The reason is that they are impressed by the dead. Don't you see this? The -- they are impressed by the end of the story, but they never admit it. They write the books -- Mr. Sandburg never can finish the whole thing, you see, because he gets stuck in the prairie years and so on and so forth. But why does he write it? Because he and his readers are already u- -- united in the experience of the greatness of Lincoln, from the very beginning.

Very strange. You are all hipped on this physis- -- physicists' attitude. And that's why America at this moment is -- is snowed under, and is a dead country. Physics means to deal -- treat man as dead, to be explained from the causes. And history means to treat a man from his destiny. And to find up the beginnings of the future life already in the past.

-- You see, why do we sit here, Sir? It only makes sense because you are responsible that all the future that already got started in Pericles must not be destroyed and omitted by you, you see. The future has already begun yesterday. The good future, the vital future has now of course its mainsprings already somewhere in the past. Like a tree has its roots somewhere in the pa- --. So you -- we study history lest some part of the future, you see, that already started a thousand years ago, be omitted. Why do you -- learn to write? Because writing after all was invented 1500 years ago -- 3,500 years ago, 3,000 years ago. It's obsolete, is it not? So old! No. The -- final thing, that all men should be able to be literate, you see, was invented there. So you have to learn it, you see.

I don't understand your relation to past and -- and future at all. I'm always overcome by this -- by your -- your -- your calculating method, that you think the past is something that went before you. The past is that which makes demands on you not to obstruct its growth into the future. You are the hurdle to be taken by -- by history. Because -- since you are ignorant that the good things

of life have already been planted, you see, you -- take down the redwoods that stand there, and not know that they already belong to the final creation of man. You are the hindrance of history. And as long as you think that history is talk -- taught to you, for you, so that you get something out of it, you cannot te- -- learn history. History means to get you out of the way of obstruction. Because as long as you no -- don't -- are not im- -- immersed into this stream of history, you will act as a -- as a block against it. You have to turn it all around. History is not written for you, gentlemen. But you are, so to speak, thrown into history so that you may be dissolved in your -- in your stubbornness, and -- and become a part and parcel of the stream, where you, before, have a -- have been an ice block.

The -- freshet--you know what a freshet is, I mean, the -- when the ice breaks in the spring. Now you are -- have to be -- the freshet has to -- reach you. You have to be melted into the stream of history. -- There are no other ways, I think, of getting you out of your -- of your -- of your attitude of sitting on your fannies and look at history. The -- the problem of the history teaching is not the events that happened, but you are the problem. Because "problem" means, as you know, threshold, some stumbling block in the way. And the history cannot go on if all the newborn children remain ignorant of what has gone on before. You have to join the -- the procession. And history -- is told you in order to make you join the profession -- procession. Which all again means that history consists of imperatives: "Remember." Re-member. That is, allow these parts of the past to become members of the living history.

And so I -- I at least can justify myself as being consistent, since all teaching -- in my conviction consists of imperatives, and not of nouns, you see. I have to -- carried it to this length to tell you that to -- to learn history means to get oneself moving, to be moved, in the most literal sense of the word. And that's -- I'm so glad I -- this Mr. Plutarch agrees with me, because that's what he says, you see. That it is irresistible. And the historian will be judged of course by his shortcomings. If I cannot move you, I've missed my -- my profession. But history is not there to deliver facts, you see, but to make you chain the facts into fiats.

You know that "fact" is a perfect participle, and the word "fiat" is the same verb as "let it be." Fiat, God said, "Let there be -- light" and then light became a fact. That's how the Bible is written, you see. "Let there be light, and light was -- and there was light." But if you would translate it literally, it would say, "Let there be light," and the answer is, "and light became a fact," you see. "Let there be water, and water became a fact." "Let there be men, and men became a fact." That is, fiat becomes fact. That's the theory of the Bible, and that's the story of all history, turning the other way around, that we read again into the facts their fiats.

You have understood any historical event if you understand that what -- what looks at you as a fact at one time only was a fiat, and had not yet happened. The transformation of facts into fiats is the -- is the goal of history. Follow?

(Looking backwards in history. Is that what we do?)

Yes, admittedly. We live in this place, 1959. Now what else could we do? It's all nons- -- projection if you say that you begin really in the Stone Age. You don't, of course. Here we are, and we want to remember the Stone Age. That is, we want to see how much of the Stone Age facts have still to be -- to -- to reach us as -- as fiats. They spoke; well, we have to speak, too. So in this sense, we have great admiration for the Stone Age men. They sacrificed bulls. We won't. So that's, you see, a fact that we left. We try to explain, of course, but we will leave it a fact, you see.

Now D. H. Lawrence wrote a book, The Woman That Rode Away--who has read this novel?--in which he said we must reintroduce human sacrifice. The Stone Age must come back in full flower. And it's a very majestic novel. The Woman That Rode Away. I recommend it highly to you, because it shows you the future that threatens the human race. I take it very seriously. He says we are -- Americans will be the first to reintroduce human sacrifice. In 1500 they introduced slavery, because they regenerated Rome and Greece. Slavery is nothing but Renaissance, you see. Nobody in 1500 thought of slavery; but then Plato was read, and there was so much slavery taken for granted, so that they said, "Let's try slavery."

Slavery is just an accompaniment of the Renaissance of Greece and Rome. And now we have s- -- human sacrifice, because you all become anthropologists, and you all read Margaret Mead; and you read Malinowski; and you read Frazer, The Golden Bough; and you read The King Must Die. And you become very cruel. Have you -- who has read The King Must Die? That's the newest novel, you see, on -- on -- on human -- sacrifice. Haven't you heard of the book? Oh, it's a best-seller. The King Must Die? It's on Theseus, the Athenian. Oh, it's all over the place, because it's so obscene. It's as bad as Mr. Nabokov. And it's all wicked, and very bad, infamous book, but it's accepted. -- I have been -- here, the peo- -- my friends here all talk -- talk about it in high terms. You will hear of it. Well, it's -- the great -- importance of it is that it takes human sacrifice for something very nice, and { }. It's just, you see, all the time people are sacrificed, there, in this old Athenian, you see, and Cretan day.

Well, I'm afraid Lawrence anticipated that the -- the -- bored and -- and schizophrenic American will only find his salvation in -- in human sacrifice, you see. {There will -- but -- like the Loeb brothers}, you know, just to find out how

people behave when they are murdered. And -- see, cruelty and violence are -- are the essential ingredients of the American scene. When you are so bored, as 90 percent of the American people are at this moment, your -- violence is the only cure. Perversion to violence and sacrif- -- other people's death.

(Isn't that what the Greeks were supposed -- supposed to have done with their God of wine and -- Bacchus, that they would intoxicate themselves --.)

Oh yes. Ja, but you see, still, the Renaissance first only took Pericles and the Age of Pericles, then the Peloponnesian War, and the -- Homer; there is no human sacrifice. The -- the Dionysian is older, you see. And there is a layer in Greece which you wouldn't call "Greek" anymore, but just "Mediterranean," or wholesale, you see, and Assyrian, and Egyptian, where there is human sacrifice. So within "Greek" today, only those most ancient elements today become interesting--like Dionysus, you see--which, have in common this human sacrifice with all the other Asiatic, and -- and you -- you see, Thracian traditions, I mean -- . But we -- when the Renaissance came in 1500, we didn't look -- we looked away from those layers, and we were only interested, in -- in, so to speak, in the later Greeks--the philosophers, and the poets, and the artists, and the statesmen. You're quite right, the -- every -- every -- we -- we have -- in our society we have the Navajo Indians. They have their rain dances, and their snake dances, but they also have remembrance -- memory of witchcraft and human sacrifice. Of course, they have. So in 200 years, you will have human sacrifices in this country. No doubt about it. We are marching into this direction, because you are so bored. You see, boredom is -- always introducing the vices of the past.

({ } historians say we're going to sacrifice these things to, I mean?)

Vitality, your vitality. Just as you have Vitamin A today. Everything is today vitamins. You just look around. The idol of our time is vitality. This is an impotent country, so that's -- worships vitality. Where you have no creativity, and no fruitfulness, everything is sterile, and -- and -- and cellophane wraps, you see, where you have no dirt, where you have pasteurized milk, where you have no cheese, but you have Kraft processed cheese, I mean, where nothing is allowed to live. What's a cheese that doesn't crawl? You see. You buy cheese here; it's not cheese. You buy milk; and it's not milk. And you buy bread; and it's not bread. It's all phantom. And everybody reflects this sterility in his own life. And since you have -- this cellophane civilization here, you see, where -- where nothing can germinate, human sacrifice replaces it. If you aren't fruitful, you see, you try to get vitality.

Tell you a story. The king -- do you know how the Christians -- the Swedes became Christian? In 1070, the -- the Swedish nation turned Christian.

That's rather late, as you can see. Not so, you see -- not so long ago. And so it took them 1,070 years before the Swedes abolished human sacrifice. And how did it look? Exactly as in the days of Noah -- in the days of Abraham.

The king, {Erik}, aged. And he had seven sons. And so he took his first son, when he felt old age coming, and sacrificed him to get vitality back into his loins. Well, he aged just the same, and got the gout; and he sacrificed his second son. And then he sacrificed his third son. And when there was only the seventh left, the -- the -- the people rebelled, killed the old man, made the seventh son king, and asked him to become a Christian, because it meant the abolition of human sacrifice. That's what Christianity meant, you see. Christianity abolishes human sacrifice. Christ is the last human victim. It should be -- any Christian tradition. There again you have a -- the break of the Christian era, you see, with the past. Human sacrifice was given up. That's -- happened in 1070; and was literally done so that the ch- -- the king might be more fruitful, you see, more vital. He dispossessed his -- the life of his son and tried to -- to -- so to speak, project, you see, this boy's energy into his own veins. You understand? This was taken quite literally.

Now D. H. Lawrence thinks the same will happen to the American businessman. He's so empty, and so sterile that he will sacrifice life to get back vitality.

Boredom and cruelty are two sides of the same thing. If you can understand this, you can solve the American riddle. Boredom and cruelty are two sides of the same thing.

An interested person can be merciful and -- and -- and forgo all cruelty, you see. But a bored person, he wants to be shot back into reality. And that has to come from the outside, because -- in him, that has been suppressed, the stream of life, you see. He is -- looks at everything objectively. It's just what I said, you see. And -- and -- and he is not propelled into any direction. He doesn't have to reach any goal. He hasn't to reach the next shore, you see. He's not {static}. Swimmers have -- know -- you cannot drown another man, even when swimming. You just have to keep afloat yourself, you see. But a -- put a man on land, looking at other people, that he tries to experiment with them, and puts the needle into their calf, and -- with -- they jump. He's experimenting {then}. Any man who experiences life, Sir, cannot experiment, you see. And every bored person tries to experiment with the frog. And pulls out its leg and sees -- you know little boys who are bored. They -- they are very cruel. They -- they -- they take out nests, and -- and -- and, you see --.

Cruelty and boredom are -- always go together. That's -- when education

gets boring, watch out. Then something frightful is bound to happen. Then you get juvenile delinquency. What else can you get? You see, when the school bores the children, they must commit murder. No help. Can't be helped.

So I think this first chapter of Plutarch should remain -- stay in your minds. And I wish -- has Solon such an introduction, too?

(He mentions -- Solon makes a statement -- Solon is saying something about money.)

Well, let's then read next time. But I wish you would try--please, do this for me, and in writing--analyze the sequence of the chapters and -- with regard to their content, you may use nouns.

(On Pericles, or --?)

(How many more meetings do we have?)

Three. Isn't that right? What do you mean? You -- wish to -- go over to some other topic. What -- why do you ask?

(I wondered whether this should be considered, whether we should think --.)

Well, any proposition? I'm perfectly -- you see, we -- we -- we have meandered here, because I wanted to follow your suggestion that we gave up the study of the Bible and went over to this. So I'm not -- well, I think this was -- was quite useful. And serviceable. Wie? What? It wasn't? Really?

(It's really funny because we were talking about those two words.)

That's why I'm using it, Lady.

(But we -- are we going to give time for the American historian, that we want to deal with? That you were going to deal with, you said, an American historian. Did you not say at the last meeting for us to think about an American historian?)

Ja. Did you?

(No.)

Well, this is an old { }.

(What did you think about?)

(Sandburg.)

Well, I had thought of Victor -- Stephen Ben‚t. But I'm all -- see, I don't accept biography in itself as his- -- historiography. -- It's -- today everything in this country is transformed into biography, because people have no -- no categories for the real history. And I think history is destroyed in the long run by having only biography. I -- will not fail you if you say Sandburg. It's all right with me. But you ought to know what you're doing.

People who no longer have a relation to the history--that is, to the fulfillment of certain tasks of the human race in -- in coming -- in -- in building up more and more solidarity -- that's the problem of -- the task of history from the very beginning, the creation of solidarity of the human race, you see, which analysts don't have in { }. Everything goes by itself, you see; every animal dies and lives by itself. It has no consciousness of past and future for this reason.

We have, because the more past and future we develop, the more we must construe a society in which we bear each other's burden. Now that's history. As soon as you isolate this by biography, you can see that it -- it particularizes so much that the -- the flow of the centuries is -- is broken up. So that's why I'm personally not that much interested in biography. And Sandburg hasn't written a history, you see. He has only written a biography.

(Did you want to discuss these --?)

Ben‚t has written the history, at least, of the Civil War, in John Brown's Body. And -- if you still insist that biography after all is a relevant topic--I've written biographies myself--but I have always, by the way -- did it the left hand, as -- in a rush, because I felt I was indulging in the fashion of the time, and my task should be to -- to assure the continuity, and not the -- this -- you see, this -- this particularlizing. And I have a bad conscience about it, biography. That too { } everyone. Everybody tells you biography, but they're completely disconnected.

(I -- what I would personally love to hear you make some comments about Hegel.)

Ja, but these -- people cannot read it, you see. I'm perfectly willing to do this, but would -- would this -- would this be a need in their own mind? They are not burned up either by Marx or by Hegel. So if you aren't burned up by something, it's no use talking about it. By what are you burned up? I mean, what

aspect of American or -- history is -- is today to you -- the stumbling block, a hardship, a difficulty? Tell me. The future of America, future in America, past of America? I don't know. You aren't -- I -- it's just -- you -- you are indifferent.

(How about the change from -- the kind of democracy -- Jeffersonian democracy to the kind of democracy -- Jeffer- -- you know, Jacksonian democracy, to what we have today.)

(The change from probably idealism to materialism.)

(The difference between Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy and how we are really now today { }.)

Well, I give you a -- neither { }.

(That's why I said, to compare it with those two. { }.)

Well, this is just -- you see, I said these would be my --.

(I would second this, yeah.)

{ } that's your problem, you see. But Ben‚t stops at the Civil War, after all. And that has nothing to do with your problem of democracy, really not, because he is still describing the individual farmer and the economy is still individualistic. And so it is still a Jeffersonian democracy. Every man a -- his mule, and --.

Well, we have still five minutes for a vote. You can have a plebiscite.

({ }.)

Wie?

({ }.)

You see, there is only one difficulty. It isn't -- it is not in a paper { }. Wie? { }, ja. { } In what edition did you have it?

(-- It's not in paperback. It's just in hardback -- hardcovered edition. That's the only one they have in the bookstore. The only one they have here on the campus.)

Well, I'm all for it. Read it right through from beginning to end in the last

four weeks, so I'm -- certainly -- you haven't done this now, have you? Who has read it { }?

(I didn't read { }.)

I think that it is a -- a real -- the way in which history should be written. It's very conscientious. { } A re-membering of -- of the Civil War, I mean, of the -- {as I said,} of remembering.

({ } tell the story of the Civil War.)

What?

(You always say, to tell the story of the Civil War. But he has written the history of the Civil War. But { } don't go further { }. That's why we raise the point { }.)

Are you bringing your texts back? I will not go back on my assignment of the order of things in the Pericles. I still feel that this is -- I shall receive tomorrow from the library the volume of my German premium. I told you that I was given as a boy his book on Plutarch and his biography. And it was in the bindery, and they said I couldn't have it before August 1st. And then I raised hell, and said that you had to learn something. And so they were kind enough to send to the book binder and get it, this one book out of -- from there, you see, before August 1st. And tomorrow, they promised me, I could have it. So I want to -- not to let them down, and -- after I have made so much trouble with the library, you see, to get the book, I want to report on -- on the book's content next time. And you bring me the { }. And also bring Ben‚t and then we'll start right in, with the second half, to -- next time with the Ben‚t.

(I'd like to ask -- my fellow class members whether anybody else is as concerned as I am, with what I feel is the real challenge which Marx poses to us in his interpretation of history, and whether -- whether we can't find some -- I mean, at least be concerned enough to deal with it -- with him as an historiographer.)

Well, these people here, to tell you the truth, my dear Phil, they have no relation to history. It doesn't burn them up. They don't think they are led or misled by history. You all think that you are outside history. Just look at history. You don't know that you are swept away by tremendous tides of pseudo-histori- -- history, your little mythical existence. -- They don't know that there are such stumbling blocks to the real history of mankind. You are nice, me- -- well-meaning, nice, innocent boys. As long as you do not see your original sin, that you are

stumbling blocks--that's the meaning of original sin, you see, that you have fallen by the wayside, and you are not part and parcel of the historical process at this moment.

(You say we are outside of American history, but --.)

({ } to discuss this problem? Why can't we go on to the problems of the American man, or -- how we look at our founding forefathers, and what -- they actually were in reality?)

Oh.

(I mean, why -- why go -- why go to Marx? I -- I know he's great, and you can go to Hegel, or anyone. Why don't -- we simply know so little of these men; why don't we go to somebody we think we know? { }.)

Oh, do -- as I said. I see your difficulties. You see, sometimes, my dear man, by moral mood -- { } a new beacon, so to speak, standing far out in the sea, you get more { } you see, than the { }.

({ } to go into Marxism is --.)

(Well, it's a question of past and future, too; because Marxism is an historical philosophy, which is going -- we're going to meet down the stream a little further. And I'm -- I'm quite in agreement with our fore- -- founding forefathers had something to say to meet Marx downstream, but I think that -- but the two at least --.)

({ } one integrate both of them, rather than separating them into -- antagonistic forces, rather than seeing them both { } in certain ways. I think that's a very good suggestion.)

(Maybe one period could be spared to them, for the two.)

(As well as his -- its thoughts. I mean, that's { } critical analysis of --.)

Well, then I would ask you a question. To start this -- you -- I think -- I want to respond to your question. But I would then put the question in a -- in a narrow fashion. And I would say, "What was the future promised by the founders of this country?" Because I feel that the sense of future has been lost at -- in the last 30 years in this country. The Americans no longer feel sure of their future. And -- and not as a whole. They are trembling and they think, the -- "If the Russians treat me right, if they can out-produce the Americans, that -- that

would mean the end of America -- the question: Is that true? Is that the future promised in 1783 to the American people, that can be finished by the -- by the Russians?" so to speak.

You see, the -- what I really feel is the -- the fervor at this moment in this country is that -- beginning with the -- the condescension with which the Russians were treated in 1929 and 1933, a nice little brother now finally having a democracy too, and a revolution, you see; when this ended in 1945, and the Russians marched into Poland and showed that they had very different ideas indeed, there came a great disgust with the press, and -- and dismay, and finally the -- Americans { } they thought of throwing the bomb over Moscow, and finishing once for all with the terrible people. And at this moment, when the Sputnik came, people began to say, "Well, is it possible that somebody else is carrying the ball? We don't seem to be any longer carrying the ball."

This, I think, is the deepest feeling of dismay in this country, that the time span covered by the vision of the founding fathers, you see, seems -- suddenly seems to have come to an end, that the future at this moment doesn't go on uncontestably to this country. Whereas in 1900, there was absolutely not question that the future was in America. You see, the future of the whole world was in America. Now with the Russian -- onslaught, people -- in this country suddenly say, "Well, we never thought that we were limited; we thought we were unlimited." The whole future, the infinite future was with them. But if they were right, in 1975, we may have to acknowledge a competitor, you see, and we won't do that. We can't do that. This would mean that we are a finite nation, just one, and not the one and only. And I think that is your -- historical crisis, of the historical consciousness. Wouldn't you agree? Wie? Is there something to it? Wie?

So I -- I think the thing is quite subtle. I'm all for -- the American approach. But you must allow me this -- this -- to note this break in -- in the good conscience of America. There is at this moment a faltering. The -- the question hasn't been our future, we thought so na‹vely, as absolutely secured, so to speak, that we were carrying the -- the -- the torch in the { } of the nations. And now there is another man who says, "I'll take the torch from your hands." He hasn't yet done it. But since he promises to do it, there's some gnashing of teeth, and some trembling. Would you -- would you think? And that's of course -- is the Marxian "anti" vision.

The American vision, and the -- the Marxian vision -- in this certain manner, do. Look at your dollar bills. I have no dollar in my pocket. What does it say? You have a dollar bill? What does it say? What's the -- the text? No, the other side. What does it say?

({ } "In God We Trust.")

(And a New Order -- something.)

Now the question is: is -- has this new order exhausted itself, or is it still new? You see, yes, you take this a little more seriously, my dear man, as you used to do. It says Novus -- wie? Annuit coeptis. God, you see, nodded at our beginnings. That's what it says. And then --? Ja, you -- you -- you don't know this? And they allowed you to go to college? That's really {striking.}

("One out of many." I know that one.)

Done. You are all wrong. You have heard this. That's just --. Everything is hazy in this country. It's all smog, long before there was any smog. Intellectual smog has produced the other smog. Novus ordo --? Can you read this? I'm not interested in that one. I'm interested in this one. Novus ordo --?

("Seclorum.")

What is "Seclorum"?

(Is it "God"?)

No, no. It's very secular. The word has to do with secular, "saeculorum." It's hard to believe that students of a university, at the -- of the age of 20 and more, do not know what is printed on the dollar note of their own country. It's very remarkable. Quite an achievement. You live a mythical existence. Absolutely mythical. You are in a fairy tale. Why should I teach you anything about Plutarch if you can't even read a dollar?

(Towards the sun?)

Not -- that's just -- they -- they still were Christians, so they didn't say "Society" -- a noun, a thing. But times -- saecula are the -- the "siŠcle" in French, you see. These are the centuries, the ages. And the question is, you see, how many of these centuries? Marx would say the bourgeois century is over. Annus -- annuit coeptis.

(What does that mean?)

I wonder. Oh, it's boring, Sir. I shall become cruel. You bore me, so I must become cruel. Here should really be the new { } the little { }, the more complete, you see. "God nodded at our beginnings, and now there begins a new

order of the ages," of the century, a new chronology, a new era. That you are { }. "Era" contains many centuries, you see. Sixteenth, 17th, 18th century are all contained in one era. And the novus ordo seclorum--that's a very bold expression--time is ordered from now on, with the viewpoint that the Declaration of Independence is a decisive new start in the history of the human race, you see. Very proud, and -- and very arrogant statement, to tell you the truth. Two and-ahalf million people making this after they have been chased out -- 300 Loyalists out of this country, the best citizens. There they were, this rabble in arms, saying that they started a whole new order of centuries. Quite some -- some -- some conceit. And that's your question before the house: Is it still true? And you have to ask: What was started -- what was so new? And -- and has it any future, and does it all end in ice cream?

It -- is the question before the house: Does -- is this dollar note goi- -- going to be printed tomorrow? On an inflate- -- inflated dollar note, you see? Certainly if you get inflation, the novus order is a -- going under in -- in shame and -- and debasement. It's -- it's -- you see, the funny thing is that they did not say, "Novus ordo seculi," "of the age, a new century beginning." "Saeculum" you see, is "century." SiŠcle in French. You must have known the word. "Fin de siŠcle," the end of the age. And -- but that he used the plural. Now the -- the Roman tradition had it that the Etruscans, the -- the -- the educators of the old Romans, from whom they learned the calendar, and the heira- -- priesthood, and their religion, and --.

(The numerals, too.)

Wie?

(Even the numerals. They're not Roman numerals. They're Etruscan numerals.)

Ja, ja. These Etru- -- quite -- you're right; you're absolutely right. I mean, Tarquinius was an Etruscan. This -- the town Tarquinia contains the most beautiful Etruscan {tombs} and -- from which Tarquinius got his name, the last king of Rome.

Well, the -- the whole -- this idea is an Etruscan idea. The Etruscans said that their state would last ten saecula. And a saeculum was formed by the relationship of the birthday of one man, who was the oldest in the community in his own generation, and the death of the man who was born the day before this man died. So -- a very strange idea, you see. Two human beings -- let us say, one being born in 1780, going to be 90, you see; this would lead -- bring you up to 1970 -- 1870. In 1870 then, one day before his death, or on his dying day, a child is

born, and--or many children are born, in fact, you see--and the one who reaches then the greatest length of age comes 90 again, and he would die in 1960. So then the Etruscans would say, "God has ordained this to be one saeculum." That's His creation. He has allowed two men to look into each other's eyes, and thereby connect the times, you see, the ancestor and the grandchild. And so from 1780 to 1960, they would have an organic saeculum, because they -- didn't think in decades, and in mechanical geometry, but life was -- was created here now. And so the Etruscans had a -- a -- a changeable idea of a saeculum. And the Romans accepted this. And "saeculum" in their days was not our abstract reckoning: 1800 -- 1900, you see. They -- think man was not geometr- -- to be geometrized. They had to observe the facts of human life, they felt, you see. And so the measure for man had to be taken out of man's real life, and not out of this abstraction of -- of a yard, and a foot, and a -- and a -- an inch, which I think very wise. All the Greeks tried this. Heraclitus tried this, and the -- the Athenian constitution. They tried to find the measurement in men, you see. The proper measurement of time--and of space, by the way, too.

And you do not know how abstract you are when you -- when you believe in these -- in these miles, and in these centuries, you see. That's all abstraction. Why a hundred? You see, that's just a bridge, I mean. And to say "19th century" obviously is a -- a great superstition. Why should the 19th -- anybody born in 1780, you see, not have the same features of a creature born in 1920? The Etruscans said, "Of course. If they can look at each other -- one of them, at least, they impart to each other that what makes a human being, our face." When we face each other, you see, we beget each other.

Well, this is only to show you that all this is implied in this very strange idea -- that's an Etruscan idea, that 10-steps century -- or, I don't know--nine; I don't know the number, and how they reason it out--would -- would out-- would be the story of Etruria. That's the -- old Tuscany, Florence. And -- and so "Ordo saeculorum" mea- -- meant the togetherness of more than one age of man. And an order in which there would be one purpose, and one act of faith, and one devotion, you see. And this is the American claim, of whose existence you even haven't known. Very strange.

And I think this claim is more important than Abraham Lincoln. And you are quite mistaken to try to -- understand American history from Abraham Lincoln. It's impossible. That's why I'm a little hazy about Mr. Sandburg, you see. That's an exaggeration. The American experiment and the American { } obviously is -- is Christoph Columbus, and -- and -- and the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Irish immigration. And it is a much longer story than you can -- than this, you see, than Mr. Lincoln can -- can explain to you. He is one president of the United States, and a very great president. But he is not the whole destiny of the

"ordo saeculorum" of America. Mr. Lincoln cannot explain to you why we are at this moment occupied in Berlin, and in -- and in Guam, and in the Philippines, you see. The -- obviously the destiny of America is a much more -- of a global character as Lincoln ever thought, who was very happy when he could neutralize the -- the South, and -- and get it back into the Union, you see. So he is after all a -- a reactionary who -- who -- who defeats secession.

And pardon me for using this strange word for him. But I want you to -- only to understand that "ordo saeculorum" is infinitely more ambitious than what our Civil War did. The -- Civil War made it possible again to get back into these ordo saeculorum. If the secession had happened, of course, the ordo saeculorum would have been destroyed.

We have to go.

(Well, we don't have to. I don't have to.)

Well, but you have a right to claim that this is all over. All right. The ordo saeculorum is all over.