On Thanksgiving Day Velikovsky telephoned me to express good will and banish the coldness which my anger had caused to our relationship. I cannot hold a grudge nor did I ever intend to cut our friendship, so naturally responded cordially and suggested a brief visit before dark. Cathy and Vicki walked with me and we chatted with V and Mrs. V. for a while. Mrs. V. has two string ensembles going and I am to look for ensemble music that would include a trumpet so that I might join them on occasion.
We spoke of the new diggings in Grecian Thebes and of a cuneiform inscription that may further correlate Greek and Near East chronology along the lines of Velikovsky's theories. We spoke also of the Great Fear, which V. refers to vaguely as the perennial anxieties and religious exaggerations of man that came out of cosmic catastrophes. I can see the psychological dynamics a little more clearly than V because, despite his psychoanalytic training, he is too unilaterally authoritarian to project himself into a variety of minds and souls.
This morning it occurs to me to look into the sex of the gods. I remember Sebastian saying once that the fundamental Godhead is ambiguously female. Does the sex vary along any significant lines among peoples. Could the origins of divine fear be sexless, e. g. cosmic?
There is an underlying stratum of behavior which continually reveals itself or is exposed. The survey researchers walk over it with their tool-kits, with strange ideas and attempt to tap the stratum, often rejecting the obvious judgment about events in favor of seeking presumed "secrets of nature". Then they also concoct instruments without relation to the task, and rely overly upon all instruments.
* * * * *
Last evening, after the failure of the latest of some two dozen attempts to pass our programs through the 7094 computer, Ted McNulty and I walked to the 8th Street Delicatessen for supper. I consumed a cup of heavy soup of fresh vegetables, a hot pastrami sandwich and a bottle of India Ale. We talked with the proprietor for five minutes before leaving. It is rare for anyone to have the time to talk to anyone else in New York City. Yet time is wasted beyond measure. The man has been a familiar face to me, yet he had always been rushing about. Last night few people were outdoors because the temperature was far below freezing, and he could pause in his work. Everyone should be frozen solid often, in some comfortable and elevated mood.
Some figures on where I stand:
4500 x 8 = 36,000 gross after premium + 10,000 ads = 46,000 + 4200 other inc. = 50,200
500 Juliette + 300 Sara + 250 Barbara = 1050 + 100 new studies + 100 In news + 380 Secretary = 1630 + 2000 Codex group (6)
1630 Salaries + 300 Rent + 300 AdG expenses + 1400 Printing + 200 misc. + 200 Postage, etc. = 4,030 per months for ten months
40300 + 3200 = 43500 + 3000 promotion = 46,500
Grants, etc:
2000 Economic issue subsidy + 200 BRC + 500 Royalties + 300 Reprints + 1000 Back issues + 200 Simulmatics = 4200 (BRC is Behavioral Research Council)
Almanac
2000 Codex IA coding
2500 Codex LP coding
5000 Punch cards for Codex IA & LP
1000 Other
3000 Printing & B. (2000 vols.)
500 New Studies Edit.
3000 New Studies Printing and Binding (1000 vols.)
1000 Miscellaneous
____
18,000
4000 Promotion
______
22,000
2000 x 24 = 48,000 + 14000 = 62,000
Feliks Gross wrote me from Rome urging the creation of a Center for Invention of the Future. It is my old idea that we had once discussed for a Federation of Forces for the Future (FFF). I replied that it was "taking shape in my mind. I wish that I had the time and means to transform thought into action." The gap between concept and action for all except the most stupid and unimaginative men is astronomically large. Not even the heavy lifting of a paralyzed limb by the will resembles the disproportion.
Could we conceive of an opposite condition -- wherein men's thoughts came slowly, but his execution rapidly? What a strange, wonderful, and perhaps happy world it might be! A tranquilizer would be built into the human condition -- for action tranquilizes, thought agitates. The pressing of thought to keep up with activity would be pleasurable. This almost occurs in a few restricted areas of mental and physical life, I think, but for the moment -- since I must get back to my work -- I cannot trace them.
December 5, 1964 Saturday 10 AM
Jill was in good humor, boyish, this morning and, after she bathed, was pale pink from crown to toe, smooth as marble in the faint dark light of the damp sunless morning of the filtering blinded room.
She said what was very wise later, that, to endure, sexual desire must be fed by the several roles of a lover. A cow may find desire perpetually renewed and so may a primitive man in his blank rustic cottage. But a primitive one in a civilized habitat quickly dissolves into sexlessness. Unless she -- or he -- plays one role after another and is several persons to the other, and the other is several persons, and the two do not clash, while their costumes and different beings are not more than slightly incompatible.
In all of the discussion and analysis of race relations and racial assimilation in America, I have yet to see attention given to this fact: owing to the semi-caste system in America, the Negroes have produced an authentic upper class - educated, professional, and financially stable. Such has not occurred in Latin America, for example, where assimilation has proceeded in various countries from the bottom up. As the U.S.A. caste system disintegrates, we can expect more rather than less rapid assimilation on all levels of culture than in Latin America. It would be interesting to examine the rates of miscegenation among different social strata to get biological confirmation of this theory. We would expect, for example, to have a number of established and notable North American families with some Negro relatives before the same condition occurs to the same degree in Venezuela, Brazil, and the West Indies.
* * * * *
The myriad aspects of the relation between frustration and aggression have been made manifest. Basically, aggression is probably a useless concept. At any rate, it has not been often enough noted that the "respect" component in the aggression context may be the critical determining factor. The context (chain) is broken if any party feels secure. Alfred Adler's theory of the origins of great strivings (related to aggression) in feelings of inferiority is not without meaning for the problem. "Aggression" must be a frustration of respect.
Dad's despair
December 28, 1964 Princeton 7 AM
I no longer keep a journal. I merely keep a list of things to do, I have a ragged manila folder marked "action". It is fat as a hog and never gets thin. Then I add and subtract items incessantly. About once every 2 weeks I gain surcease by writing down all the major tasks of the short-term future. it is a momentary tranquilizer.
All the good stories of a journal are left out -- how the seven children grow -- how my wife changes -- what my father is like in his last phase of life -- what the relation is between Rosalyn and Tom Frelinghuysen, between George and Betty Barry, between Sebastian and his family -- The misunderstandings and acrimony between my mother and me -- the arrival of Dante Matelli in America -- what Velikovsky is like -- my plans for the Universal Reference System and now the Documents Publication Service -- Stephanie's beauty and annoying childishness -- the books I read, Abe Kaplan's method of inquiry, Collette's jewel Vagabond, Fosbett's Classification in the Social Sciences, on Zen Buddhism -- the silly philosophy of men who realize how fatally weak is man and all he builds, etc.
I have drunk much since last Thursday. Christmas was pleasant. it was the warmest Christmas weather of my whole life. We played football and soccer in the street in front of our house on Linden Lane. On Saturday night we had 50 guests to a cocktails and supper party for Cathy and Dante. Yesterday, Jill and I had cocktails at the Barries, supper at the Frelinghuysens.
The decades should count for more, especially now that the average person lives through more of them. My father is now in his eighth decade and his life is closing upon an enfeebled memory and motor control. Yet he is agreeable and comfortable. his tragedy only comes from our seeing him as the lion he once was, as the man who could outwalk us until a few weeks ago, as a youth who swirled out the runs of a clarinet, who waved a baton before an orchestra, and played the beautiful saxophone solo on stage in "Turandot".
We should have rites de passage every 10 years, so that we must take stock of each other and say "I greet you as a new person." The rituals of puberty are universal. But puberty is only one of a half-dozen critical passages in life. The intent is the same. The effects would also be similar..
1964?
Ben Jonson ("An Ode to Himself")
"Let this thought quicken thee:
Minds that are great and free
Should not on fortune pause .."
1964?
BEYOND THE "ETHNIC" CLICHÉ -- "THE OLD ETHNICS"
There is little study of the "old ethnic" factor in voting and social behavior on exact analogy with new ethnicism. Writers talk about the Jewish, Catholic, Irish, Negro, Polish, etc. vote, but have no concrete idea of the various subdivisions of the balance. From time to time they go into Swedish, German, etc.
But my hypothesis would be that there is a parallel breakdown of the total vote into more or less similarly activated ethnic groups.
Cf. e. g. the "old Confederate" vote...
Cf. e. g. the California Okie vote
Still persisting 30 years afterward.
Cf. also the (?Swany), Yankee vote.
Cf. also the hillbilly Baptist.
Shouldn't there be a classification of ethnic types in U.S. going far beyond the typical "ethnic" as if the recent immigrants were the only "ethnics". I think that race, national origins, etc. play as much a part in old groups as in new.
Cf. Sam Lubell on Ohio
Cf. Alfred de Grazia on Haoles and Japanese in Hawaii
Cf. polls on Goldwater/Johnson/Kennedy in the South - showing how Goldwater, whose principles were supposedly other, lost sharply his Southern support when Johnson became president. This makes complete group theory Also soft-pedals the absolute (misleading) theory of American "minorities".
Postulate complete list of ethnic models: say: these models are real if x% of model grouping or more behave ethnically according to model.
Conclusion: Ethnic voting strongest among groups A, B. Q, W, which need not be old or new but respond to another characteristic (exclusive?)
1964
My poems are not personal in this sense: if they do not almost immediately and then successively impart values, sensations, and other appreciative and desired meanings to those whom I respect or love, then they fail, no matter how much pleasure they bring me. Singer or poet or musician will give a curt or otherwise brief expletive or statement at the end of his presentation, even when it is not written in formally. I formalize often this commonest [page missing]
1964.
Myths of India -- India is too diverse, is unique, is poor, socialism is more moral than capitalism, "irrational" politics are bad, etc.
1964
I have felt, then observed, then refashioned, and finally applied several principles in my poems. They all depend upon the ideational nature of my poetry.
1. The length of line depends upon the speaking and the meaning. (But this in turn depends upon the length of the poem and the units of speech (breath).
2. Alliteration = rhyme
3. Rhyme can be used anywhere. Often it is used at the end of the line for several reasons:
a. convenient reading
b. pause
c. emphasis of the thought or image previously contained.
d. need for more music
e. to carry less important ideas and phrases along
f. Where the poem is generally in blank verse, to give the ending finality (a version of c)
4. Poetry is ideation
Ideation is the continuous scale between ejaculation and pure self-conscious controlled theory. The principle in any case, however, is that a substantive "learning experience" (as the educators say) must be imparted.
5. There is no one "sprung rhythm" system, as that great poet, G. M. Hopkins put it, but many possible half-sprung, quarter-sprung, and other functional rhythms. This occurs because there is a very large number of differently communicative rhythms to which the human ("mind" and "body") respond.. There is no reason to differentiate between poetry and music in this regard: if there is a rhumba for music, there may be one for the spoken or read word.
[margin note::] Cf. Duke Ellington and Opera
(insert 3a)
6. Difference between music and poetry = Music can produce more tones -- poetry more meanings. The two can merge, however, whenever there is some point to a juncture. some of my poems are more musical than others because the meanings intended merge upon the emotions that sounds evoke better than grammar or the more purely poetic sounds.
7. The difference between "prose" and poetry is far from the popular and even expert belief. For most purposes of writing, contrary to popular belief, they may be considered as the same. Stripped to essentials, there is only poetry in communication.
But then:
a. Poetry is more creative prose (not "more creative than"). Prose is repetitive, conditioned by its logic.
b. Prose may have, in its pure sense, only an operational purpose. Therefore, all its other necessary features (language, grammar, vocabulary, etc.) must be subject to that priority. Something very close to pure prose is a system of signals that cause things to occur exactly as signaled. A long step removed from this is a "how to do it"book which is strictly prescriptive of a set of operations to be performed; however, in this last case, it is apparent both deductively and from the history of "polity" that "how-to-do-it" will profit operationally, if it is memorisable, enjoyable to read, etc. In short, if those at whom it is targeted will really use it.
c. Prose is aimed at audiences of subject matter, who have purposes in mind differing from those of the audiences of poetry. What they are interested in and what they want to do with it are statistically different. Yet take a test: as poet, write on how to fix a tire.
d. Prose is recitative, repeating existing agreements on "how to behave and do". Indeed, it may be said that prose is only poor poetry. That is, prose is poetry written under poor conditions and with crippling limitations.
e. Poetry is aristocratic: it says "Only what I say and how I say it are worthwhile"and "worth more than the way prose people have to say it."
8. Endings may be climactic or anticlimactic. Both may respond best to a non rhythmical or rhymed set of lines and phrases. They are parabolic, the last ironic, or resigned, or heroic statement of a parable. A comment on the song.. Note how often a [page missing]
Postscript - To introduce a poem predicts its failure as poetry: It should speak for itself. But poetry can be explained. It is part of the symbolic life of man. There is order in poetry as there is in all activity: it remains only to be discovered and imparted to others. Even if the poet intends disorder, disorder is then to be understood and its rules conveyed.
If the poem must speak for itself, as a painting, a work of music, and a theory of man or nature will, the poet may still follow his nature and his rules. As others are entitled to explain him, so he is allowed to explain himself, and, not only to explain himself but to adopt his explanations as his poetic operating principles.
These principles relate to several basic dimensions of poetry: goal, idea, sound, rhythm, metaphor. By one or another trick of definition almost every Statement one critic may wish to make can be subtended from them .... etc.
A life whose years hung shapeless and forlorn as clothes flapping on a line in a dull day of Pittsburgh wind.
1964
1. Is there any way of storing data that is indestructible yet retrievable?
2. Is a good idea today any more likely to be lost than a good idea in olden times?
Cf. Word of Christ -- not carried yet to most people of the world.
Is a useful fact today ... etc.?
3. Pliny, Alexandria Library, lack of books, etc. Afrique Noire project? More about it.
4. World language Conference
5. Indexed Annotated Bibliography always good
75,000 Book Titles
30,000 Journals
2,000,000 articles, new journals, increase at several thousands per year.
25 billion pieces of government paper a year = $4 billions / Department of Defense 1963. Documentation in the military = $2 billions a year.
Financial Capabilities
Lib Q April 1950: Bibliographical Services in Social Sciences with recommendations.
Mayoral campaign of 1964
Open Letter to Lindsay running for mayor of New York City
\ Mimeo and mail out 500 copies -- Insert in Journal.
Revise the textbooks and school materials for the kids using them.
Move schools into the big buildings.
Make the streets safe at night
Get the trucks off the streets by day
Put every addict under the responsibility of a doctor
Roof the wharves for recreation parks
Put the garment industry in new quarters off of Manhattan
Mingle the rich and the poor in new unsegregated housing developments in Manhattan
Get all metropolitan region government going.
Guide all newcomers
Set up foster-friends system
Put the bums in country Bowery
Open the museums in the evenings
Ban subway advertising except for education and law
Create a second all-music station with good jazz and classics
License all news vendors for 'good character' sponsors.
Install electric buses or clean exhausts
Make pay of politicians equal to that of schoolteachers and ban receiving anything they can't eat or drink at a sitting.
Block organization throughout the city -- civic corps.
Executive commission : Technicians on first Aid, crime, family, food, defense, education, race relations
Ask for apportionment of half of the metropolitan Region seats at large.
Criminal court dockets.
Senate Metropolitan Regions in Proportion to numbers
Assembly by Proportional Representation
Increase in Numbers.
[1964]
The obsession with uniqueness in Indian Political Science
? Reflection of Inferiority and lack of self-confidence
? Reflection of assertiveness connected/unconnected with the same inferiority.
1964 Outline of Remarks to NY Chapter of Society for Advancement of Psychotherapy.
Political Arena and Madness
[Scan this 2-page outline. then word-process them]
Political Arena is a playground for madness. Psychological reasons are ample. Katzenhefer defined it as branch of psychopathology. Wife and child story - garage man who praises her child resembles her child. Political Scientist and Psychiatrist: nothing wrong with that behavior! ABUSE IN POLITICS (Anyoneheree? Didn't think so!)
I. Political Science = Ready to give opinion on anything. e. g. city manager plan, Woonsocket, League of Women Voters, 1-man 1-vote, Medicare, line-up of presidents for Johnson
II. Businessmen - 1. Lack of information
in foreign policy 2. Simplism
3. Lack of exercise in the area concerned
4. Lack of foresight
They are involved, after all.
III. Psychiatrists are Applied scientists
Features of their Behavior
in the anti-Goldwater case. Kennedy.
A.. Response to Request A. Don't respond - convicted pornographer
B. Civic Interest B. Yes, but not particularly
C. Uncareful C. Education
[Vs] shoot first and think later
for talk first and think later
D. Correct? (What is "Fitness" to be President?)
Measure? Facts? D. Great gain [grain?] of Salt
The paranoid response
Psychological exam of political activists:
Lincoln; Wilson, Roosevelt, Jackson
The public e. g. R. I. Law to require identification
of hrs to ed.
[In margin] Joseph Wilder; Cotton; Sam Lubell; Costigan
E. Long-Distance Diagnosis E. 1. Self-knowledge
by a single doctor of a passing man 2. Identification of l-d
1. Impossible in one sense diagnosis as such.
2. Possible or best in another
F. Use of Prestige of Occupation F. Do not be grouped for this
purpose
G. Welfare of Country G. Better to let the Political Pros
(a "white lie" -- Psychiatrists tell them officials of the country tell
all the time). Propaganda white lies.
More tests of politicians (Harold Lasswell, but Plato before him)
Any kind of psychiatry exam is given.
More education of psychiatrists
D. Wilder
1. Not more expert in political affairs except diseases of character
2. Should mental health exam be made of candidates for public office.
Screeners would not work, not because they would let in evil men, but they would let in only uninspired men.
3. Bar right of medical men to attest to mental state on basis of documents (1/6 of all inductees for mental reasons)
No conflict of interest exclusion.
Physical, mental as well as economic affidavits from candidates.
Rough? Not whether to test psych. What diseases: Paranoias.
Churchill -- paranoia of Russian Communism
Neurotic Inferiority
Psychiatric Challenge better than performance in a debate
Neutral groups giving diagnosis
Fatty liver vs. feminine tendencies , weak legs , self-destructive tendencies
Psychiatrists could do very well in politics. Better than lawyers. Resolve hesitations.
Reinforce. Very little conversion
Voting pop. will accept and demand strange things. Economic tests many tests [insanity] e. g.
