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Lipton’s Journal/Correspondence of Robert Lindner and Norman Mailer/November 18, 1952: Difference between revisions
Lipton’s Journal/Correspondence of Robert Lindner and Norman Mailer/November 18, 1952 (view source)
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Moreover, I resented the ambitiousness of your book. A theory of history if it is to be something other than cocktail party talk must be more than grandiloquent and confined to twenty pages; an attack on Marxism if it is to be other than fashionable has to be a little bit more precise than (I quote approximately) “his economic theories have long been disproved.” How have they been disproved? By whom? By what economic data? If you’re going to be truly serious and truly ambitious, you owe it to yourself to study economics, and to be able to disprove a book like ''[[w:Das Kapital|Das Kapital]]'' concretely and not condescendingly. | Moreover, I resented the ambitiousness of your book. A theory of history if it is to be something other than cocktail party talk must be more than grandiloquent and confined to twenty pages; an attack on Marxism if it is to be other than fashionable has to be a little bit more precise than (I quote approximately) “his economic theories have long been disproved.” How have they been disproved? By whom? By what economic data? If you’re going to be truly serious and truly ambitious, you owe it to yourself to study economics, and to be able to disprove a book like ''[[w:Das Kapital|Das Kapital]]'' concretely and not condescendingly. | ||
I consider myself to be a rebel and a radical, an anti-communist radical who believes that both the Soviet Union and the United States are both driven by insoluble economic problems toward war, a war which may destroy civilization—I tried to express those ideas in my last book, ''[[Barbary Shore]]''. Since I consider myself neither a True Believer,{{refn|A reference to the 1951 work of social psychology, ''[[w:The True Believer|The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements]]'' by social philosopher, [[w:Eric Hoffer|Eric Hoffer]] (1898-1983), a study of the forces that impel fanaticism.}} “proletarianized” nor | I consider myself to be a rebel and a radical, an anti-communist radical who believes that both the Soviet Union and the United States are both driven by insoluble economic problems toward war, a war which may destroy civilization—I tried to express those ideas in my last book, ''[[Barbary Shore]]''. Since I consider myself neither a True Believer,{{refn|A reference to the 1951 work of social psychology, ''[[w:The True Believer|The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements]]'' by social philosopher, [[w:Eric Hoffer|Eric Hoffer]] (1898-1983), a study of the forces that impel fanaticism.}} “proletarianized” nor “adjusted,” I must say that you alienate a very large part of your small audience when you make attacks so clumsily on Marx and company, that I really wonder whether you have read ''Das Kapital'', whether you’re familiar with the tragic history of the [[w:Russian Revolution|Russian Revolution]], have grappled with the kind of things Reich engaged in ''[[w:Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf|The Sexual Revolution]]'',{{refn|One of the key works of psychoanalyst and sexual philosopher [[w:Wilhelm Reich|Wilhelm Reich]] (1897-1957), who argued for the establishment of “natural” sexual relations and the overthrow of puritanical laws restricting them.}} or if your ideas on revolution as opposed to rebellion come from no higher source than [[w:Philip Wylie|Philip Wylie]] or someone like him. I will add in case you may think that this is only in response to my Marxist fanaticism that I was terribly disappointed in your book long before you got around to disposing of Father Karl. | ||
I don’t pretend to know all the answers, or to be less pompous, I’m not asking you to write the kind of book which will accord exactly with every one of my ideas as they exist at this moment. What I do ask is that you be truly serious, and that you keep to what you know, and that when you attack, you know what you are talking about because it comes from your experience and your study. Many years ago I worked in a mental hospital for about a week—I could stand it no longer—and I was very excited about what you had to say about methods of treating the insane, for at the time I was horrified by the callousness of the doctors, and the roaring brutality of such therapy as the hydro baths. I assumed that my reactions of disgust and horror were perhaps misplaced for I knew so little about the subject and was so inadequate for the job of an attendant. In your chapter on how psychotics are treated, I was able to learn something, and something well worth-while—you gave an important confirmation and extension to my experience, you taught me something. And the reason was there you knew what you were talking about both by experience and study. [. . .] | I don’t pretend to know all the answers, or to be less pompous, I’m not asking you to write the kind of book which will accord exactly with every one of my ideas as they exist at this moment. What I do ask is that you be truly serious, and that you keep to what you know, and that when you attack, you know what you are talking about because it comes from your experience and your study. Many years ago I worked in a mental hospital for about a week—I could stand it no longer—and I was very excited about what you had to say about methods of treating the insane, for at the time I was horrified by the callousness of the doctors, and the roaring brutality of such therapy as the hydro baths. I assumed that my reactions of disgust and horror were perhaps misplaced for I knew so little about the subject and was so inadequate for the job of an attendant. In your chapter on how psychotics are treated, I was able to learn something, and something well worth-while—you gave an important confirmation and extension to my experience, you taught me something. And the reason was there you knew what you were talking about both by experience and study. [. . .] | ||