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

Whose report is it today, please? Would you come forward, and who else?

[tape interruption]

...deserves to be recommended for two reasons. First, it's quite a good report. Second, Mr. {Cook} has given you a wonderful example of the academic rot. There are certain expressions which I have never used, but which creep in just because, I think from -- a kind of embarrassment, or a kind of shyness, he prefers the academic manner. There are -- four examples which I would like to give you as typically academic, and I don't think that I ever use them, being an anti-academic, more or less.

"Perhaps therein lies much of the greatness of Shakespeare." That's an academic phrase. I had said that the true poet, according to Plato, must be a comedian -- be able to write comedy as much as tragedy. And I said, and Shakespeare fulfilled the requirement, and therefore he became the greatest poet of the last thousand years. That's too much for an academic man -- mind, and so Mr. {Cook} says, "Perhaps therein lies much of his greatness," by which the whole statement seems to be some more -- more solidly bound.

I don't believe, Sir, and now I'm quite serious, that this manner of the literary critic, to say "perhaps," and to say "much of his greatness," you see, is worth anything, except to getting -- trying to be treated better by your colleagues. It's an invitation, so to speak, that they listen to you, because you do- -- look less arrogant. If it comes to the truth of this -- the -- sentence, you either say, "This is his greatness," or you say -- better be silent. Otherwise you have no reason to say it at all. This is just so, that this great poet prophesied by antiquity here has come to life. Hamlet is Oedipus reversed. Now this whole stretch of 2,000 years, you see, that in Hamlet the murder is thought about first, and then the revenge, you see, and in Oedipus the -- not in Oedipus, in Orestes, in Orestes, in the Eumen- -- in the whole trilogy, you see, of the -- of the Agamemnon, Orestes, and Eumenides, Orestes first has to kill, you see -- Agamemnon first is killed without any thought. That is the -- the greatness of the -- of the Shakespearean drama. And that's why he was able to -- write comedy and tragedy. I couldn't go into all this.

You either believe then that Shakespeare is fulfillment, and great, or you don't believe it. And there is absolutely nothing gained by this kind of -- prattle between people who want to sell their textbooks in colleges and therefore want

to make a good impression on their colleagues, and therefore say carefully, "Perhaps," so that Mr. {Childs} or Mr. {Jensen} here are not cross with them, and are -- say, "Yes, we'll introduce your book, and you can sell them here on campus." That's the only reason why these people have to say, "Perhaps," to ask for good weather. With the truth, this -- and your respect for the truth, and with your discovery of the truth, it has absolutely nothing to do. This -- this kind of "perhaps." It isn't worth anything, the "perhaps," because it is a discovery which you make, you see. You cannot say "I -- I discovered America, perhaps." This is nonsense. If it -- you see, this is as real as the discovery of America, that you suddenly can understand the greatness of something. You cannot say, "Perhaps Lincoln was a great man." It's nonsense.

The second thing all academic minds do is, they say -- if you want to plague a poet, or a painter whose picture you want to admire, or any -- don't write this. Don't write to a girl, "You are one of the prettiest girls with whom I ever have slept."

That's another thing, pluralism. Gentlemen, the academic mind can only see things. He's only moving in the critical av- -- world of reflection. So he remains -- they remain outside reality. They stand by. They -- have a mirror -- they are the mirror of the age. And in the mirror, the things are pluralistic. In your own life, you must be mono- -- monotheistic. There is one thing at a time which has to be judged, which has to be loved, which has to be hated, which has to be repudiated. And therefore it's "yes" or "no." Your words may -- "yes," and -- the same as with the "perhaps." It's no praise to say, "This is one of the finest lectures I ever heard." It's an of- -- insult, because in the very moment you are under the spell of a good lecture, you cannot compare it to all the others. Once you compare it, it's in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Then you can buy it for something. The unique is insulted when it is compared to m- -- others. And when you say, "It is one of the finest," I know that this is a worldling, and I -- don't want to have these letters of recommendation, or acceptance, or gratitude. I don't want to have a man who has stayed at my house for a week, and has been my summer guest perhaps for a month, even, you see, here: "This is one of the nicest summer I have ever spent." It's an insult. But you do this all the time. It's one of the stock phrases of American life, you see. It's no use saying that Mr. Eisenhower is one of the nicest presidents of the United States. That's no relation to the -- to your president, you see. You are either for him or against him. That's all what counts.

Now that's very hard for you to grasp. You have been brought up in the salesman society, where you have to enter every house like the Fuller Brush man, and you must not insult anybody. So you have always to be kind, nice, sweet, and what-not, you see. But the only thing is, you're boring. These state-

ments don't make any dents. They make no difference, because they are stock phrases. The -- like this other, "perhaps, he is" -- "this is one of the reasons" -- I don't know anything after that. I don't know where you stand. I don't know where Shakespeare stands. I don't know where I stand. Nothing has been done.

Now, do you think you can just shun -- the saying of the Gospel, that you say -- your speech be "Yes, yes," "No, no"? You cannot. Only the people who still have the courage to say, "Yes, yes," "No, no" are the sa- -- people who count. The others are the henchmen. They don't count.

So I warn you. That's very nice for a Symposion of learned professors, {upon} the item, "Is the stratosphere habitable or not?" That is, about experiments to come, about problems unsolved, about hypothetical question, "Is there a continent called America?" In 1450, it is perfectly okay to write, "Perhaps there is a continent called America," you see. You see the difference. In research, we must say, "perhaps." In research, we say, "This is perhaps one of the -- one of the important question to be asked." When you carry research attitudes into life, you see, you compare the discussion about the existence of America with the discovery of America. You cannot say, "Perhaps Columbus discovered America," without being ridiculous, being impotent.

Pluralism, gentlemen, is academic. All these wonderful scales of probability are -- are typically scientific, you see. Perhaps these gradations of which you make so much -- you must have -- taken a course in logic. Have you?

(No.)

But you have heard of this in school, you see: "there is perhaps," and --. Well, that's all very nice, you see, about that which is under investigation. But it has absolutely nothing to do -- Shakespeare is not under investigation. He either impresses you as the greatest poet and dramatist, or he doesn't. We only talk there of things, you see, which come within our life, enter our life. They are not the things to be looked in -- upon in the laboratory, or over -- across the counter in a butcher shop. You don't buy 10 pounds of liver, when you buy 10 -- 10 dra- -- 10 pieces by Shakespeare.

(Sir?)

Ja?

(Have you --)

The third, pardon me.

(Go ahead.)

The third thing, and let me just give you, the third thing which you -- tried -- by which you try to mitigate the truth and make it palatable is, "It seems to me." You can always drop this sentence, you see. If it seems to you, you speak. We know that you only say it, because it seems to you. To add this, it's just one more reflection. So we know that you, at the moment while you were saying, stand before the mirror and know what you are doing. You are speaking. So you say, "It seems to me," you see. "I'm staying here by" -- and so on.

No man who wants to make -- impress his audience can speak this way. Al Smith could never say, "It seems to me that..." He had to say how it seemed. He had to announce, you know, on Brooklyn Bridge the -- the -- the boats that came in, you see, and had to be the first, the crieur who -- who announced the fish, you see, because the price of fish depended on the number of ships that would come up the Hudson River, you see. He had to be the first. He couldn't say, "It seems to me there is a ship." You know -- who Alfred Smith was. He had to say, "A ship!" you see. No time for more.

"It's seems to me" is -- that's a -- typical for the reflecting mind, you see, who, even when he speaks says, "Oh, don't -- believe me. I know that I'm just speaking. I'm doing not more," you see. "I'm not in this. I'm just -- I'm looking at me, how I say this." So "It seems to me that" is always reflective, in the second power. And it always weakens your statement. And it is all -- only do -- due I mean, here in the classroom, we may -- we may indulge in this.

But since I want to show you even what a classroom is, I must free you from these habits, just as much as I must free you from other habits, because we must here get beside our habits. The whole problem of this course, you see: that you know when to say, "It seems to me." I don't say that there is no room for "perhaps," and no room for "It seems to be," and no room for pluralism, "One of the nicest," you see, "girls I ever saw." When you say, "She's one of the nicest girls I ever saw," you mean that you have never loved her. In this case, you are entitled to say this, you see. Do you understand? But you cannot say, "She's one of the large number of my conquests." Do you understand the difference? One means that you speak of real life. The other is that you look at this as you -- as a mirror of beauty, you see, because you are so old, and decrepit, you see, or so weak, or so tired, or so impotent, you see, that you have nothing but to look at things, because you are -- feel unable to -- to really live with them, with these nice girls. Now I hope to my dying day I shall always hope to be with these girls. So I'll never say, "She's one of the nicest girls."

It may be -- then there is the last word. That is "value." "Value" is an

academic word by which we deny the divinity of man, and -- and creation, and deny God Himself. It has been invented by the economists, you see. "Give me value." And it's obs- -- an obscene word for people. I have tried to show you that Mr. Paul -- Saint Paul is not to -- as you say it so kindly, "perhaps" -- you said "perhaps," Sir -- should be conjured. He should not "perhaps" -- I wouldn't dare to think of the Saint -- Apostle Paul as "perhaps." He's still far ahead of you and me. He has created an office.

And this is what you have misunderstood in your report totally -- that Aristotle isn- -- has not created these things, but he represents the function by which we can recognize what men in all ages have always done, only he has done it to perfection. The same is true of Paul. What I am inviting you to is not the Apostle Paul in any biographical sense of the word, but just as he says himself, "I don't care for the Lord in the flesh." Since he never tells us the life of Jesus, he's not interested in the life of Jesus. He never quotes Him, you see. What he's interested in is the divinity. That is, in the fact that the power to decide whether this is past or future, whether this is serious, or game, or play, or sport, whether this is -- "seems to be" or whether this is, whether this is reflection or creation, that these things have come into the world and can be quoted now by relying on the Lord. And that His apostle mediates between Him and the schools by demanding this apostolic succession.

Now that's not now "perhaps." No "perhaps" in this. It is just as true as "2 and 2 is 4." And if you can't see it, then deny it. Attack me. You could have written a report and say, "I do not understand this. It doesn't seem to me true." All right. That's your privilege. Or you have to say, "This is so," because you must be struck by the -- overawed by the greatness of this orga- -- arrangement for the last 2,000 years, that you have been redeemed, that it is revealed -- how the truth comes about. That's no "perhaps." You can be against it or you can be for it. But you cannot say "perhaps."

Now in order to talk down the reality, you see, of real people, we call them "values." I don't give a damn for "values." I never use this phrase. Whenever people talk of values and philosophy, they want to deny the existence of God. "Value" is -- an attempt to -- to speak of the divinity in a pluralistic fashion. Here is a little bit of divine, and there is a little bit. There is beauty, there is truth, it's goodness, you see. There's heroism, there's interest, there is importance -- I don't know what the values are. And I don't care for the plurality if I don't have the -- unity. Values is attempting to quote what other people by their lifeblood have created as unity of life, as -- as yardstick, as standard, as the sine qua non, that which is indispensable. And then they take it apart at the tea-table, or at the cocktail party, and say, "Oh, this is a little bit of this, and a little bit of that." It is, so to speak, the color spectrum without the white light. That's values.

You can never, Sir, believe in any values if there is not unity of these values. And that's the singular. And that could never be anything but the carrier of the divine, the soul of man, and a named man, a real person, by which you recognize, you see, the valor, the -- perhaps the bridge between the human -- the -- the man-god in you and me, your soul, your -- your dignity, your immortality, and the -- what you call "values" -- would be in the word "valor." Because the valor is the life force, you see, which is more than just vigor, obviously, you see. Valor is that which forces others to stand by and -- and ratify it, so to speak, you see, and say, "This is it. This is -- would be me, too."

Down with values. It's an evasion. It's the philosophical, the academic, the classroom, the liberal-arts-campus evasion of the divine. It is too disturbing to speak of God in the classroom. Now I grant you this, Sir, it is. I think that any decent boy in a classroom must deny the existence of God and the soul, because it is a -- anybody is too bashful to admit it. And I grant you that a classroom is not the occasion of making confessions.

Therefore I have nothing against this talking around about. But you must allow me to protest. You s- -- understand? I have to warn you, gentlemen, and to show you that in this classroom, certain great truths cannot very well be asserted by students. Because we are suffering in this country from the idea that you think that everything can be said in the classroom. Everything can be said {expect} the important things. Only unimportant truth can be stated in classrooms. And I have to shout you awake to the fact that we are here in a perfectly artificial situation, because gentlemen, in a real hour of need, when you have to implore another man's help, when you have to beg for the prisoners in Korea, because you are the brother of the Korean -- Korean pri- -- prisoners, you cannot discuss the political truth there in Korea and the treatment we have given Mr. Syngman Rhee and his -- the Korean prisoners as a coun- -- a bargain, as a logical, as a rational thing as you do -- all do here on this campus. I'm ashamed of the student body in Dartmouth, because of their -- of your discussion of the -- of the prisoner question. You have treated the -- these people not as prisoners as we pray for in every decent, divine service. For 2,000 years, people have been asked not to forget the widow, and the orphan, and the prisoner. But you treat these prisoners as commodities, to buy something from the Russians. I am ashamed of you. I have heard now too many voices here, these pusillanimous, faint-hearted people say, "We don't want war, so why don't these prisoners behave?"

Gentlemen, if you don't want war, you have to behave. And the first behavior towards the prisoner is to be serious and to weep for their fate and fortune. They are poor and miserable creatures. You have forgotten that. You have made them into an article of -- of -- of -- sales. It is scandalous how the

student body in America has reacted to this prisoner question. No -- you are dealing with such nonsensical questions of McCarthy or so. Why do you care? If you do your duty, you do -- are not involved in these -- investigations. Why don't you come out with a petition for the prisoners of war in Korea? That would be your business, and not all these absolutely stultifying discussions about -- about the McCarthy committee. Let them -- them do what they -- what -- that's you -- no -- business. You haven't been Communists. It's not your business. Leave them alone. But it is your business to pray for prisoners at any time. Free men have to do that. That would be your duty. That would be a -- an {application} of your so-called liberties. And you t- -- call liberties this -- this -- this humiliating talk about somebody else's liberties. That's not liberty. You don't make use of your freedom at all. Well, you have forfeited it long ago, with your indifference. Playboys are -- have no liberty, because you don't want to sacrifice for that.

But this is a minor -- another point, I mean, this -- but the point of the story is very serious, gentlemen, that in a -- we are -- I understand your situation. Students are apt -- outside bull sessions and outside their meetings with a girl -- to be mute about serious things, because in a classroom really you cannot speak of the soul -- your soul. -- You would have to blush. And there is a decent -- decency in your reticence, which I -- one has to honor.

But I may invite you to reverse the process, because I cannot demand from you a confession of the Trinity, or of your faith, or of your immortal soul in this classroom; have to be satisfied if you -- laugh at me when I mention these things. You -- on the other hand, you must also know that what you say in this classroom is not true. You are in a special predicament here, and I -- you have every right here to -- to crack jokes, at -- at -- at solemn things and to say, "Well, this man gets excited. And I don't really know anything of these things." Gentlemen, that doesn't mean that what you think at this moment in this classroom is what you are allowed to think for the rest of your life, in -- in {all these serious} { }. You cannot think this way -- while you are waiting -- when your child -- wife is in childbed. Because there you have to decide whether you want to be present at -- when she is in travail or you will not. Now the American playboy says, "It's -- it's too gruesome. I don't go in there." So he brings himself and his wife -- you see -- how do you say? -- he steals, deprives his wife and himself of the greatest duty and the greatest obligation a husband has, to be with her in her hour of -- of need. He leaves this to a doctor called {Bornman}.

Scandalous in this country, you see. Or you did -- you -- because if you have married for better and for worse, and you have slept with a woman and you have now a child, you have to be there in this hour of travail. But since you laugh all this off, the solemnity of the marriage -- vows, because "There is no

soul," "Well, that's just a contract," or "We have fun together," everything is academical- -- meant, you see: it's just sex, pluralistic, you see. "Many women -- everybody does it this way." You have no obligation. So -- academic people have lost their -- their -- their most -- simplest instincts. Any -- any man on Tobacco Road -- knows this still. But you don't. You're just academically amused away.

Because, as I said, the classroom situation in which you grow up and the campus on which you play, they are two abnormal situations with which half of the truth cannot be stated. And will you kindly take it down: the class -- campus and the classroom say, "Perhaps." They say always, "One of the best." "One out of many." They speak of "values." And they say, "It seems to me." These are four good examples.

If you want to know what happens, let me today gather the gleanings of all this first part on the illusionary part of life, the playing part. You live here in the illusion that life is play. You make a beginning. You make an end. It's all up to you. Arbitrary power. I mentioned to you that a man -- a student even could say, "God is -- arbitrarily called God," because he thinks that all life is ga- -- a game. You can say what you believe -- what you want. You can believe what you want. Gentlemen, that is neither belief nor saying. If you say what you want, it's just prattle. Gossip. It's not saying something. A man who says something is a man whom I can take up on that something. And there are very few things you can say, because you can only wa- -- wish to be taken up on very few things. So you don't even know what's to -- what it means to say something, because you have corrupted the whole world into a playground.

This is a world of illusion in which you live. But I -- let me today finish this. And let me give you an example of the -- of the refl- -- reflective mind hurting the greatest field of human illusion, art. That is Bernard Shaw, incor- -- embodied in Bernard Shaw. As you may know, Bernard Shaw was a critic of the theater for 20 years before he wrote plays. And he learned to write plays by a reflection about plays. Now com- -- and then he compared himself with Shakespeare. Now you compare Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, and you say -- see how poor little England is deprived of her vitality today, and how -- why she is so run down, and has this austerity and -- and -- and is really very dull. I once took a vote in a -- such a class like this: who was more vital to us, the artist or the critic? And the majority at that time said, "The critic."

These are the people who are contemporaries of Bernard Shaw. You all are ruined by Bernard Shawism, because there the critic came first and the artist came second. First, he had seen plays; now he wrote other plays. What's the story of Shakespeare, gentlemen? Shakespeare saw the Tudor dynasty in great danger, to be left without posterity. Elizabeth had no heirs. And he saw the

Scotch, with their specter of -- of murder -- Mary Stuart, and Bothwell, and --. And he wrote Hamlet, and Macbeth, to warn against the Scotch. And he wrote ten kings' stories -- the histories -- famous historical plays, Henry VI, and Richard II, and John to explain to the British that they could only survive if they would keep out all foreigners, and solve their -- their squabbles and their -- course of succession in peace. And that's why there is still King Eliza- -- Queen Elizabeth in England, despite the Puritan revolution of Cromwell. He immortal- -- immortalized royalty. And if you -- have seen the coronation, that -- it is just an ode to Shakespeare, because what does he do? He did not see -- plays and then wrote plays himself. But he saw drama in reality, the danger of Elizabethan England, and conjured up reality and squeezed it into drama. That is, his ref- -- art is nourished, fed by serious danger, mortal danger of his country. And that is why he is immortal.

(Sir, is it not so that Shakespeare was an actor long before he was a writer?)

Well, we don't know.

(No, he was, Sir. And he was also --)

Well, you know this. But I am not so sure. So, you see, very doubtful. Very doubtful.

(Well, I --)

Very doubtful, because the -- the story of the { }, the -- the -- you see, his greatness is not in this, because the greatness is the concern with England.

(True, but there was a reflection on -- before this -- this message, or whatever you call it, {came}. As an actor, he was reflecting on the plays he was acting in. Just as Shaw, as a critic, was reflecting on the plays he was criticizing.)

Is that the same? Is the player -- are the players the same as the -- the idiot who writes the review in The Dartmouth? I don't think so. Who -- I hope he isn't present. I mean, you -- how can you compare an actor with a critic? Something quite different. Mr. -- Mr. Toscanini is not the same as Mr. {Irving Edmund}. Or Santayana. One is the critic, and Toscanini is the conductor. He's exactly in Shakespeare's position.

Yes, a conductor is exactly what an actor is. I mean, you can take the first violinist, I don't care. Or the pianist, because he's on the side of the -- of the -- of the -- of the art. He's not looking at it. He's undergoing it, or exposing -- express-

ing it. He's an instrument of this -- of this composition, is he not?

(True, but also reflecting in it. Reflecting. Considering it all the time. How else can a -- how else can an actor give an -- any -- any kind of a performance if he doesn't think through it? And how else can a critic write anything that's -- that is worthwhile if he also doesn't think through the play, think through the parts?)

I'm very interested. That is -- just typical of your time. I think you are a very unfortunate generation, that you really can think that the actor is in the same position as the critic. It's marvelous, the idea of yours.

(Oh, I see a -- I see a distinction, Sir. But I also see that there is a similarity in the two.)

But it isn't that what I'm talking about. The plays that Shakespeare wrote come from a direct political concern. That is, there is no reflection on the plays he has acted, but there is a reflection on something in the serious world which has to be solved and he offers solutions. I told you that drama is the highest art, because it offers solutions that in reality do not yet exist. Any art -- piece of art must be original. If you have seen it before, that's not art anymore. Art must surprise you. Every piece of art must have something sensational, because it is the future not yet created, which is hinted at. Art is the semblance of future.

You may believe it at this moment or not. But I have to insist on this. And so whether Shakespeare has been a critic, or an artist or not, what is important is his concern with the future of the dynasty of the Tudors. That comes first in order to explain his plays. And you -- this you do not understand. This has nothing to do with the fact that on the side he learns the techniques of acting, and of -- structurizing a play. We are not interested, you see. Modern men say so much, "Art for art's sake," that they judge a man -- a painter for the colors he uses, and a poet for the rhymes he make, and this is just { }. I am interested with the fact that whether these have been put into blank verse, or hexameters, or into prose. It is the concern, the future of England that is at stake, Sir. You haven't even heard -- listened to me.

(I said --)

I'm not interested in the t- -- style of the -- his acting, but the fact that there is something going on inside which his heart is moved to concern, to perturbation, to perturbance, you see, to excitement, to sorrow, to worry, to sleepless nights, and that he is -- as a poet, is able to formulate it doesn't estrange him from the chancellor of the empire at that moment. He's an equal to

Burleigh, an equal to the -- Raleigh, an equal to Drake, an equal to the men who try either to reform this kingdom, you see, or to give it a successor, or to give it colonies, or to rule it wisely like Coke and -- and -- and Edgerton, the -- the judges, you see, of the time. You do not see that this poet is trying to prophesy the -- or to -- to -- to mold people into a potential, peaceful future of their silver island, you see, in the sea, then you do not -- see why Shakespeare today still is great, and why he is not just a clever writer like Mr. Hemingway or these people, you { } as of today, which you call poets, and really are not poets, because they are just thinking what will sell.

(So did Shakespeare.)

(Sir, cannot all these--)

Well, my dear man, if you say these things, you obviously are very far from Shakespeare. Just read one of his plays.

(Sir, Sir. Cannot all these things as political concerns --)

Ja, I'm sorry that I can't protect Shakespeare against you. It's very -- really you don't -- you have no right to read him.

(Can you not say --)

What you know -- this is like saying George Washington, because he was the greatest landowner, you see, had to write the Constitution. This is -- all this debunking business.

(Is not Shaw --)

Or I will -- I'll tell you the truth because I get the salary, you see. You can also say that I tell you what I say here because I want to be a professor at Dartmouth College. I don't want to be a professor at Dartmouth College, but I want to tell the truth. So they asked me to become a professor. And I now tell you the truth despite the fact that I am a professor.

You cannot see the paradox of human existence at all. That -- this man Shakespeare of course had to make a living. But that has absolutely nothing to do with his creative power. All creative power in men is gratuitous. The gifts of the Holy Spirit cannot be sold. There was a great revolution in the world, and will always be made. Whenever anything is commercialized, like science and art in this moment, you get the Bolshevik revolution. When the priesthood was commercialized 900 years ago, you got the -- this famous -- struggle against the

emperor, you see, when the pope said, "Out you go, all your -- secular patrons of the Church. All the emperors, princes, dukes, counts, city magistrates who say that they can," you see, "sell baptism and sell the sacraments."

This is, what you assume is, you see, is the simony, the fallen state, where the gifts of the spirit are only used for monetary purposes. But that is always the def- -- deprivation of the times. But you grow up in an era and in a country where you really think that you can buy the spirit. And that's why I have such pity with you. To say that Shakespeare wanted to get money for his plays is utterly ridiculous. It's really blasphemy. You condemn mankind to the pigsty. That's what you do. Just read Charles Beard, I mean; this -- rude, this kind of history from which we are awakening. Sure. But why aren't you a Communist? You are certainly much more strict than the Communists. The Communists say all people follow their material interest, except the Communists. They sacrifice for the future of the human race. You say, "Nobody sacrifices for the future of the human race. Shakespeare wanted to make a living." That's what you have said. Which means -- makes you into an ultra-Communist.

Marx always knew that he, Marx, was not swayed by commercial, monetary consideration. Only the bourgeois. But you say we are all bourgeois. That's the end of the world.

Why do you listen to me? You must then believe that I'm just selling my wares. This is a hopeless situation which you involve yourself as a student. Nobody then -- wants to tell you the truth if he doesn't get something out of it. That's the logic of your -- statement. You can't get out of this. And I'll always ask you now, from now on, when you say anything in class, "You only want to -- arouse my attention so that I give you a better mark. You want to buy my attention -- buy my -- my opinion." This is not -- I know it isn't true. But that's where you get into, when you make such remarks.

(I think you're stretching it a little.)

I'm not. I'm not. This is the immediate consequence of what you have said.

The main point is that you -- when -- whenever one of the activities in play, gentlemen, are carried over in another field. When the critic invades the field of creation, the thing collapses. The thing perishes. I'll give you another example. If you have love embellished by art, and you get -- go to a burlesque show and see a stripteaser, that's perversion, because instead of the veil of beauty, it's the unveiling. And that is a -- a contradiction in terms. It's making something into factual nakedness. And therefore, people who go there make

themselves impotent, which they by the way do. It's only in this country possible, you see, that hoary heads and students go to these things because they prefer to be impotent. They are so afraid of the -- of the act themselves that instead of going away with a girl and sleeping with her, they prefer to look at other people doing this. So the poor woman on the scene there has to striptease.

Ja. You shake your head.

(I disagree.)

Why?

(Because I think that they would prefer to go away with a girl and sleep with her.)

(It's not for -- it's not for love. But just for the -- for the sake of the { } physical act.)

Anybody who really wants to build up his creative power to love, gentlemen, would run away from such a spectacle. This subs- -- I say only, this is an invasion of another element, of seeing, you see. You don't understand it, that a -- the man who wants -- who feels power in this, doesn't want himself -- to make himself impotent. That's what he does. Good for you if you have no -- no further experience in the matter.

I have two other examples which I jotted down, for what it -- they are worth. Well, the quiz. Reflection is -- meditation is relax -- bodily relaxation, you see. It is not athletic. -- The quiz contest is an invasion of the field of sports into the field of thinking. So it is ruinous to thinking. We had even, you know, five senators of the United States Senate competing with five quiz kids over the radio. That's the ultimate in degradation. For the kids.

Now I think it is quite important to study these examples. Sir, I'm still thinking that my -- my example is quite well chosen for { }. It's a misunderstanding of the meaning of the stage. If you go to the Midsummer Night Dream, you see the love embellished by all the charms, you see, of the imagination. If you go to a stripteaser, you -- -- it's treated as a circus. It's treated as a show. It's the very opposite from what it should be. Now, I'm not dealing with the reasons why people go there. But I'm dealing with the act himself, with the idea that this is something that should be done. It should not be done, because it's the -- what the Greeks called the transgression, metabasis eis allo genos. You have no -- I think you should have heard this term. Who has heard the term, in logic? Metabasis eis allo genos. It's a very important thing. And today we -- it happens

every moment in the business world, in the scientific world. Metabasis -- a trans- -- transgression, as in metaphysics, you see, behind physics -- phusis -- means to step beyond -- step beyond into another type. Eis allo genos. Perhaps you take this down as a technical term. It may stand you in good -- good stead. If you use this term, the man to whom you are talking, you see, will fall dead on the ground, and you have stopped him. Metabasis eis -- the transgression into another frame of reference. That's what it means.

Now the -- the stripteasing is a metabasis, you see, an atal- -- analytical attitude into another field where vel- -- velation, illusion, the nine Muses, the -- the -- the wedding gown, beauty, lipstick, fantasy, imagination should prevail. When you put a veil over something, you attract. You arouse. When you -- tear the veil off, you strip naked.

Therefore the stripteaser is a contradiction in terms. It is just obscene. It's nothing but an attempt of having a -- a brothel without consequences on the stage. The quiz is the same. It's analytic -- athletic prowess. "How fast?" "How many?" "It's a record." And we saw already that all sports have this -- ambition to have a record. But quiz -- a quiz therefore has nothing to do with the real process of Socrates asking questions. To call a -- Socrates { } or Platonic mood of thinking, of meditation, of philosophizing, of knowing, you see, to bring this under the question -- under the heading of a quiz contest is perversion. Can you see this? I think it is -- I -- I'm not therefore -- you can go on in winning in quiz contests. I don't mind this. But you must see that it is perversion, why it is. Otherwise you have not understood this Cross of Reality. There is taken of -- some prowess of achievement, doing something quick, and doing something in quantity, you see, into a field where there is neither quantity nor time. Because we said, in the world of reflection, we forget time. Therefore nothing is improved whether anything goes fast or -- or -- or -- or -- or slowly, you see, because in this classroom here, we just don't wish to remember how much time it is -- takes us to understand something. We want to understand it. And it -- we give so much time to it as we need to understand it. And that's all.

That's why I cannot come into this classroom here with a fixed program. I have to meet with your resistance and your -- and disgust. And therefore I have to give time to -- that much time to my elucidations that is necessary, you see. Because as soon as I would say, "I have to get through this," you see, I would let you fall, so to speak, and I would not care for your understanding. We would stop to think together. Can you see this?

(Yes.)

Well, I'm very grateful that you do agree on one point. Good.

(Well, do you want to see our understanding? Is that what you just said, Sir?)

Well, thinking together. Not understanding, yet. I don't want agreement so much as understanding what it is all about.

Now this quiz, the striptease, the -- what was Number 3? I had a -- third example -- Bernard Shaw -- they are quite definite transgressions -- transgressions into another field. One principle which is very good in its own field; analysis is very good in medicine and in -- in science -- is carried into the field of -- of beauty. You can also say a beauty contest is a contradiction in terms. When you have a May queen crowned in the old days in England, that's -- comes in quite different from a beauty contest, because the secret of -- electing a -- May queen, or as they do on the Cape, a -- a king of the spirit, you know, of the Holy Spirit, the Portuguese there, is that you suppress all rivalry. That the man or the girl who are chosen, are chosen in such a manner -- or are determined and nominated in such a manner -- that nobody else is hurt, and that there is no comparison. It's -- it's unique, you see. She and -- is it. She's a May queen.

If you have a beauty contest, it's -- it's again the many, the pluralism. And that's against the forward front of art, because all future, gentlemen, is this only. The unum necessarium, the Gospel calls it, the one thing necessary. If you have to make a decision, you cannot be happy with a decision -- or don't make the decision -- if you do not know that's the only thing to do. As soon -- as long as you think you can do either way, don't do either way, because these are unimportant decisions, you see. You can only eat if you have to eat. You can only propose to a girl if you have to propose. You can only do anything in life if it is necessary. That is, if it is the one thing now to be done.

We live in a world where we have unnecessary laws, unnecessary money, unnecessary food, unnecessary -- here, studies. You go to this college because you want to get a college degree. So I'm the unfortunate victim. You come to Philosophy 50 -- 9, because you have to take one course after all and so you take this. There are very few among you who felt that they had to take this course. Well, they are the only students that are important, because gentlemen, the -- the serious is only the man who knows that he has to swim or sink. If he knows sink or swim, he'll mobilize all his energies. If you are -- we are -- in the { } of 120 hours' credit, "what shall I -- else shall I do? I have to sit in classes sometimes," you are only present with 20 percent of your wit. And it's -- it's an -- it's -- you are in a foggy, in a most unreal existence, because you feel, "I could go," and "I cannot go," and I told you already anything which we feel we can, you see, omit, too, which is unnecessary, is playlike, is an illusion in the --.

So gentlemen, the metabasis eis allo genos can show you -- that's why that -- when you carry pluralism, like beauty contests, in the realm of the future, where there has to be this or not, or vice versa, when I would insist that -- or, as we did in -- 500 years ago, when a creed has to be recited in a classroom, which would be impersonal, pluralistic, "perhaps," "seems to me," et cetera, you see, we get into trouble. If you -- if you all were forced to -- get up and now recite your religious creed, you see, you would feel that this was -- be blasphemy. It cannot be done. But it wasn't considered blasphemy, you see. For many -- thousands of years, people had to discover that a classroom situation, where people are here in a -- just en masse, impersonal, registered students, you see, is not the place to make personal statements. You understand?

So here, too, this would also be a metabasis eis allo genos. I recommend you this very much, gentlemen, because you will find that most discussions today of the so-called scientist are of this order that they carry over principles of their research into relations which are established quite outside their research. Personal relations between two or three physicists can never be solved on the basis of physics, you see, because these people first must trust each other, because they even can build up a science of physics, you see. They are very personal relations, you see. And they have nothing to do with physics themselves.

Or another thing, gentlemen. In a classroom, I can never teach you mathematics mathematically. I cannot teach logic logically. I cannot teach anything by any other method but by the method of teaching. And teaching is sovereign here. A -- a teacher who wants to teach mathematics must enthuse his students for mathematics. Mathematics has nothing to do with enthusiasm, but teaching has. I want to -- and therefore you must learn this, gentlemen. Put this down. It's very important. If you -- if a classroom itself must be kept free from the illusions that many people nourish today. The physicist is never -- he's a very poor thinker always. The chem- -- the natural scientists, they cannot think -- they cannot think at all about themselves. They are completely uncapable of seeing that when Mr. Hull, Sr., who was an excellent teacher, taught physics here for 40 years in this compu- -- on this campus, is a very great man and very great teacher, that he got these men to be enthusiastic about physics. And that has absolutely nothing to do with being a good physicist. It has something to do with being a good teacher.

What is a -- being a good teacher? Allow other people into your own inner life, in -- invite them in and see how you s- -- yourself are passionately at work. Open here your -- your -- your cache -- how do you call this? -- the iron curtain of your faith -- face. And what I have tried to show you is how I think. And that is infectious.

But this kind of infection comes only when I put my own thinking on higher circ- -- revolutions, and beget some heat, you see. And if I stood here, you see, and would proceed, as I -- in the way I begin to think when I wake up, and -- at 6 o'clock in the morning, the -- it would be very hazy. It would leave you completely cold. I have to get up some heat, some condensation. And this condensation of thinking is called "education," or is called "teaching." That has nothing to do with the production of mathematics, but it has to do with the super-temperature begotten by my interest in you, because I feel somebody else must know this, too. I can only get you to know it, too, if I beget so much heat that it begets heat in -- in -- inside of you.

This is forbidden today, because you have today the illusion of the metabasis eis allo genos. Teaching is invaded. That is, the field of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Paul is invaded by the outer, factual, so to speak, observance. And people really -- I have talked to many mathematicians and physicists who actually believe that they are physicists when they teach. And then you tell them that they are teachers, you see, who try to teach physics, they do not even understand what you are talking about.

This is one of the great miseries today in this country, you see, that -- that the thing has -- they have submitted, so to speak, to the field which they teach.

Let's have a break here.

[tape interruption]

(Can I ask a question about the { }?)

Yes.

(You said that the -- this idea of "one of the greatest" -- now if I -- if I say that the -- Shakespeare is a -- either is the {common lover} or a comparative degree or the superlative, he's the best, or he's -- he's a -- he's a -- not the best. Are you -- seem to say, "If I think Shakespeare is the best," and if I talk about Milton or somebody else, am I supposed to say that he's nothing. Can't I say he's one of the best? That he's just nothing, because Shakespeare is the best? Everybody else is nothing at all?)

No. But I think it is -- doesn't help to say that the sun is one of the nicest stars, or the moon is one of the nicest stars, or Orion is one of the nicest stars. It's just Orion. It's just the moon. And it's just the sun. If you could bring yourself to say with deep realization, "This is Milton," it's the best you can say of him. If you add that he's a great poet, that's also good. If you begin to compare, you see,

you're going wrong. There is no better. There is no best in something. This star -- one star isn't better than another star. This -- is a futile attempt, you see, to take people out of their constellation in time and space. You ruin their definiteness, their peculiarity. The name "Milton" must vouch for the fact that you are still willing to read his poetry. You either say, "I'm going to read him," or you'll not read him. But any man who reads a book is not helped by saying, "This is a better book" than another book, except if it is exactly on the same topic as a textbook. But then it would be that one crowds out the other. And then you forget the other. You understand?

But anything you don't wish to forget is not helped in the realm of the spirit by this kind of -- form -- forming of numbers, of rows, of sequences, you see, by -- of comparatives. Is the -- is the metabasis eis allo genos, which is only -- comes -- has only happened in the business society, where you just say, "This costs 98 cents; this costs 97 cents; and this costs 96 cents. Therefore the thing for 96 cents should be better." It usually isn't. But I mean, that's the fiction that you can attack -- tack, you see, a label -- a price label to everything and then have it nicely organized. If you want to have a genuine Persian rug, you pay $4,500 today, you see. If you want to have an imitation, you pay $500.

Well, Sir. This doesn't -- in the realm of the spirit, you see, there is no problem of space. -- The quantitative measure is only a -- available, so to speak, and serves any purpose in the -- the realm of space. If you have two mountains, it is meaningful to say one is higher than the other. But if you have two people, as father and mother, for example, it is not meaningful to say, "One is better than the other." You have sinned against your and their humanity when you say this.

This is -- you get into another frame of reference. Would you believe me this? It's very important. You cannot make quantitative statements in the realm of the spirit, because the spirit has no such measurements. Doesn't exist. The function of Plato, and the function of Aristotle, and the function of Paul, and the function of Socrates cannot be said to be better, one and the other -- than the other. They are all there. They explain each other. Gentlemen, in the spirit, we all are reciprocal. We all are reciprocal. That is, Jesus is only explained by Judas Iscariot. And Judas Iscariot is only explained by Jesus, to take the, so to speak -- that which covers everything in between. That's a whole abyss that opens there. And you are frightened to look into it.

But gentlemen, this is the real relation of life. In li- -- in the life of the spirit, there is room for infinite infinities. And therefore there is no measurement of "better," of "more," of -- of "higher," and so on, "greater," except when you -- when you know that all of them, you see, belong into oneness, whereas in the

catalog of things to be numbered, we -- the -- the better means, "I take this and not the other." This you cannot do in the creative world, of course.

(Well, then, if something is wrong, it has its place in the world. Is that right? If it's good or bad, it has -- everything has its place, serves some purpose. Is that right? Whether it's good or bad?)

If you would drop this phrase, "It serves a purpose," then I -- we can agree. Purposive thinking is very human thinking. I don't think that -- I do not serve any purpose. You do not serve any purpose. Once you ask just -- you see, this is very dangerous thinking. It's the same as "better," you see. If you say -- say -- if you say that human beings serve a purpose, you always must -- end up with labor camps, forced labor and -- you see?

(Yeah. But I mean, they --)

They are there. -- Margaret Fuller, you see, said the great sentence, "I accept the universe." And Emerson said, "She had better." You understand?

This acceptance of all that can be experienced and realized as a part of real- -- real- -- reality, you see, is the greatest growth into -- into li- -- living, which you can make, which you can experience. Since you are playing, now, you cannot accept the universe. Because of the things we play with, we cannot accept everything. We have to go from one -- leave one alone and here, "I forget this, I take up something else." When you fiddle, and when you play the piano, one day comes where you say, "I no longer play the piano -- fiddle, I play the piano," in all not-serious business, I am very much afraid all this talk is -- is in order. But when you think of the world as God wants them to exist, as it is necessary and indispensable, every part is as indispensable as any other part. The Connecticut River is not less indispensable than the White Mountains.

(Whether it's good or bad, it's indispensable, is that --?)

Good and bad. What's good and bad?

(You say that Shakespeare is good, and then you criticize Hemingway's being supposedly bad as a critic. You don't appreciate him as much --)

I say it's a metabasis eis allo genos. It isn't that which it pretends to be. It's something else. But what he is, he is.

(But it has its place for someone.)

Well, I -- I --.

(You may not appreciate him, but others do, isn't that right?)

No, well. Pardon me. If the arts give us a power to face the future in -- with hope, because they anticipate potential solutions, which have not yet -- do not yet exist in reality, you see, then the veil which the arts spread around our face enable us to live.

For example, why do we go and see Greek drama? {We have to look} forward to the year 2050, isn't it apish -- isn't it nonsense, that people in the old age have found solutions beyond their own age is an encouragement even for us today. It is not cowardice to see -- have Shakespeare played today. It's hopeful. And we need this hope. Now Mr. Hemingway. I won't say anything against Mr. -- Hemingway -- he is a brave man. But solutions are not offered there. {Deep} solutions. It's very much photography. It's very much description, you see. It's purely analytical. There is not this same tremendous conflict of two eras encroaching upon each other. There's not much faith in our time. And there's not much hope in our time. And certainly the -- I mentioned Hemingway because he comes of the -- out of a time when Communism was the latest cry. And there was nothing beyond it.

Now you and I, my dear fellows, we have to live down Communism. And you have to create a new hope in a world which has digested Communism, and hasn't gone Communist. There is nothing in this country that has gone that far. You see, I have lived with the Russian Revolution for 40 years now, confronted by it, since 1905. When I see the people here, the writers, or the intellectuals, they are like children. They are waking up now to something I had to live -- to digest 40 years ago. I know that I am not going to be a Communist now for a whole lifetime. They only learn it by now that it is very harmful and dangerous. And therefore they are children. Therefore their art is childish. That's what it is. Just childish. Plain childish. It may be -- be nice for you, because you are childish, too. But it doesn't offer to a great nation any prospect of the place of the United States in the future.

In this sense, this is very different from Elizabeth and Shakespearean drama, which has allowed the English to survive for 300 years, which is quite a -- or 400 years, which is quite a big order. You must just compare this -- the achievement of this art. This art has accompanied any commander in battle, Winston Churchill or Wellington, and his soldiers, and his navy men, and his people in India with the great mission that the poet already had seen that all England always had had these guts. Now I ask you what is there in Hemingway to convey to anybody such -- there's a little bit of it, but it is -- I won't go into it.

As I -- as I say, I have nothing against Mr. Hemingway, but I have very much against a country and a situation in which people do no longer know what great art is, and what great art does, because they have -- they think photography of reality is art. Or they think abstract painting is art. Or they think atonal music is art. Poor people. Poor people.

(And I'd say it would seem more just to me, as you mentioned a little earlier, to look at Shakespeare or any writer of anything that you say, you look at the stars, it's -- that's the sun, that's the moon, or at Milton: "That's Milton." Say Shakespeare is Shakespeare, why not { } in order to say that he's the greatest. Look at him as Shakespeare for being Shakespeare.)

Now, what -- what is your objection?

(Well, I -- I'd rather look at him that way, rather than saying he's the -- the greatest playwright in 2,000 years, or {something}.)

Well, I -- what are -- you can say is when you find promise and fulfillment, just as Jesus came as a fulfillment of the prophecy, and you don't -- do not say that He is the greatest messiah, but that He is the Messiah, because He was prophesied. So I would say that he -- Shakespeare is the poet of the Christian era, because Plato prophesied, and requ- -- so to speak -- how do you say? -- petitioned him, not only -- demanded him, and said, "This will be the fulfillment of the highest demand of the body politic when a poet will be able to write tragedy and comedy," you see.

So that has nothing to do with superlative. But it has to do with what we have been waiting for. That's something quite different, you see. Because it makes a man more necessary, more inevi- -- indispensable. You understand? So I'm -- I'm thinking -- I don't think that I'm sinning against my own -- my own principles, you see, when I say that much. I can after all try to express greatness without comparison. And I think in the case of Shakespeare, I have tried to do this. Yes? I mean, the greatness can be articulated. Don't you understand? You see, I don't -- this is -- it has to be.

(I believe that you made the statement some time ago that great art is only appreciated in the future. It looks toward the future, and therefore it's only appreciated after it is accomplished. Is that right?)

Well, I -- let me say a little more. Every art of a high order has to create its own public. Richard III created Shakespeare's public, quite obviously. It was the most printed quarto, as you may know, you see. He became Shakespeare's -- when the -- Richard III became known, and then Richard II and Hamlet estab-

lished him, and The Merry Wives of Windsor and others. But I mean, a poet is -- has his public only after he has created his public. Every poet creates a new public.

(Well the --)

So that takes time. But it can -- must already happen at once. The start must be made right away.

(In other words, they did not appreciate Shakespeare in Shakespeare's time. They did not realize that they -- he had spoken a great truth at that time?)

They did, but they -- they get -- so to speak, a part of it. As I said, Richard III -- Richard II was give 40 times in the first five years, which is unheard-of, a success on the Elizabethan stage. Richard II was acted between 1593 and 1599, when -- 40 times, because that's what Elizabeth -- the Queen Elizabeth herself said. And 40 times, it's quite enormous, you see, for the limited public of a city -- the city of London, who went to the theater.

So the -- the -- I think the story of great art is usually this: that one part of his work has an immediate success and begins to sift out the new public. And then other si- -- aspects of the same great art, you see, become known later. You would find this with Schubert. You would find this with Beethoven, you see, that certain things take immediately. And other works have to wait. But I don't think that you will find artists without impressing with part of the world -- a public right away.

I can't quite -- well, with Bach, you may say. Bach had -- Bach won his contemporaries only by his organ playing. As you know the Brandenburg Concertos never were -- were probably played at all in his lifetime. We think now that they are the greatest, you see, and the compositions are the greatest. His fame in his lifetime was his organ playing. There you have a very good example, you see. -- They thought that he had -- was the father of two real geniuses, you see, and an excellent organist -- organ player, you see. And we think that the sons were just the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach. So there is -- you have the case where the later public completely reversed the whole -- the whole estimate.

(Well, what I was leading up to was this: that if that is so in just, say, one case, why would it not be true that we might not be able to spot greatness in an artist now? In other words, take Hemingway. He is writing -- he is a chronicle of -- of the present. We might not be able to realize that in some future time, others may look upon that -- his works and gain something.)

Oh, yes. Everybody makes an ass of himself by just saying anything in this field. So I'm willing to make an ass of myself and -- and not calling him great, because I don't think so, and say 100 years from now I may be completely repudiated. I agree with you, you see. That's very true.

Well, this was all the finishing survey, so to speak, of what we have done. The whole world of illusions has passed before our eyes. The whole world of play, the whole world of second-grade reality, or what I call the first world of -- in which we reflect on reality, the prima philosophia, which we enact by ceremonies, art, studies, and sports. It's all the playground of humanity. And I think you will have shared with me two feelings: that this is a very great world, this world of illusion, because Paul and Plato belong to it; and that on the other hand, it is still not the best world. The whole problem of reality then hinges on this: that something may be excellent and -- and indispensable in play, and yet may have to bow to a greater authority.

The relation of -- of Paul to his Lo- -- master is a good example in point. Under students, under teachers, Paul is the greatest. And if Jesus were just a teacher, you see, we didn't need -- wouldn't need Paul. And you -- take this with you, because it's a great lesson. In the last century, when all this -- what I have tried to tell you -- has been forgotten, and has been denied, people said, "We can do without Paul, because Jesus was just a great teacher." That is, Jesus was degraded in being just a teacher of humanity, instead of being the savior. And therefore, He was taken out of reality into the classroom. If He is just the man who was the Sermon on the Mount, who makes speeches, then you can -- don't have a need for a mediator, Paul, who goes into the classroom and says, "Look to the man who really lived." Don't forget in your classroom that you're only dealing with ideas, with concepts, with words, you see, with reflection, with mirrors, of the age.

So that the -- take this then, gentlemen: the -- my whole deduction has tried to show you that the fight of the last hundred years of saying, "Paul has corrupted Chris, and we have enough with Jesus the teacher," is a complete metabasis eis allo genos, the liberal arts college, the college professors, the philosophers, all the people of reflective character, the bookish men, the second-rate people have tried to annex the real liver, Himself, the man who has really lived and suffered, and said, "He noth- -- was nothing but our colleague." The slogan which you have to -- we have to fight in the following -- the rest of the course is that Jesus was nothing but a teacher.

Thank you.

(Sir?)

[tape interruption]

...explain how it ever could happen, you see, that -- that Paul was crowded out. You see, the obliteration of course has deep reasons.

(But you see, Sir, I believe { } heritage, and I also think personally, that no one can save us unless we achieve perfection ourselves. In other words, we must work to perfection before the Messiah comes { }. In other words, I'm an anti-salvationist, in fact. I don't believe { } ourselves, and then only { }.)

Obviously, the second coming of Christ hasn't happened. So I mean --.

(I don't think the first one has happened.)

Well, that's just --.

[tape interruption]