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

(Philosophy 9, January 6th, 1954.)

...about this in two lectures at some length. The history of the economic -- as an attempt to increase in peacetime the economy, by intensification, not just to have no war, but to do something in peacetime about the economy. Well, that was the topic. And let me speak about this, first.

There has been made a very interesting mistake, which in -- is as important as the metabasis eis {allo genos}. You remember that this metabasis eis {allo genos} occurred again and again. Many of you have clearly seen that Mr. {Simon} was in the same quandary, that he treated his marriage as something -- belonging to his -- in him individually, not having -- being owned by his wife as well. That's the metabasis of -- metabasis of his personal pride into a union where it doesn't belong. You remember the -- the paper on the -- on Mr. {Simon's} strange unemployment, where he didn't tell his wife.

Now that's a typical metabasis eis {allo genos}. Some others saw that he lived still in the 19th century and hadn't maintained the step into the Union era. The metabasis eis {allo genos} is equaled by another logical mistake, gentlemen. When you treat your marriage as though it was your private affair, and not as much your wife's affair as yours, you commit a metabasis eis {allo genos}, because you put your -- one-equals-one ego in a situation where you have to have the humility to say, "It isn't mine." The truth between husband and wife is just not under your scrutiny, you see. It is a condition of your being married. Therefore you cannot prefigure what the reaction is. If you want to shelter your wife against the truth, you see, you break your marriage, because you have no right, you see, to be stronger than the two together. That's just your -- she -- she's your -- your metabasis eis {allo genos}. Many men try it, of course. We'll come to this in a moment later.

But in -- in this moment, let me talk to you about this most frequent abuse of words today in America. The two words are "economy" and "society." The word "society" is so frequently used that you are never sure whether it's used in the singular -- The Great Society; or whether it's used nationalistically, as in Walter Lippmann's book, The Good Society, just America; or whether it's used in the plural, "all the societies in the world." There are societies for the cruelty against animals, and there are societies against the -- cruelty for animals. But there are "societies" in the plural. However when -- when I speak of society, I write it with a capital S. And I stress the singular of this term, "Society."

Now you have to make up your mind: do you mean America as your society? Do you mean the little society of the small town? Do you mean the society, you see, the alumni society, or the Signet Society, or the Porcellan Club? Do you mean any one of these societies? Most of you are not clear at all. And therefore they always -- you always assign the quality of one society -- one concept of society to the other concept of society, which you cannot do without going utterly wrong. And that's the real division between the Communists and you, gentlemen. In Russia, at least one thing is clear, which "society" they mean. They mean the one spelled with a capital S. There are not societies for the Russian mi- -- for the Marxian mind. There's just society. But for you, it's occasionally this and occasionally the other, and that is called, gentlemen, a change of your universe of thought. Universe of thought.

That is, the inside of your society has different expanses, different length, width, and height, so to speak. It is a different area. This is a very interesting expression by a great English logician, Morgan -- Augustus Morgan of 1860. He says that most people move constantly in great confusion because they have overlapping various universes of discourse. "Universes of discourse" is his technical -- expression. I propose to you that you put these two great fallacies down, will you? -- because in -- in discussion of all political, and all social question -- all religious question, they are at the bottom of most fallacies, and most sterile and -- and -- disco- -- disagreeable conversation, because the speaker doesn't know that he's actually dealing with different universes of discourse. If you speak of "societies" in the plural, you move within the nation, or within the Church, or within -- but you do not move within society.

In Philosophy 10, I -- where I make -- much about this singular of "society," but we have, of course, dealt in this course with the individual in modern society, haven't we? Now if you analyze what we have done, gentlemen, we have been leading up to the unity of society, because we have discussed all the possible situations of any man on this globe. War -- men at play, men at work, men at war, men in love, men abnormally alone, you see -- these are all universal situations. And -- as we now shall see in the last month of this course, they are driving us towards a conscious life inside this unity of society. So if this course is called, "The Individual within Modern Society," it is saying that society demands from us that amount of consciousness by which we insure its oneness, its unity. It's a part of the social process that by knowing of its laws, it must become one. And by not knowing that it is one, we prevent it from becoming one.

For example, we then stay nationalists. If you do not study war and peace, as we have tried to do, if you only read the Constitution in political -- in Government 9 -- or how do you call this department here? -- you see -- then you

simply arm for the next war. Which all people in this college do. This is good nationalism, here. With all the talk about the League of Nations, na- -- here is nothing taught that is universal. The Church is national, and doesn't { } like nice charities in Japan and China. But that doesn't alter the fact that the Church in which you move is a -- a nationalistic church. It's inside America. Nothing else. And on it goes.

So all the thought on this campus denies the singular of society. It's all -- many societies. The whole -- all the social sciences therefore are also pluralistic, you see. There are any number of social sciences. Every day they add another one. Yes, because they get money for it in their research. Very tempting. The more social sciences you have, the more money you can spend. If there is only one social science, there is probably not very much money to be spent, but just decent behavior. And who wouldn't -- choose money if he -- the alternative is decent behavior?

Gentlemen, on this singular of "society" depends very much. The same is true of the word "economic." This -- these boys didn't write on society, but they wrote an -- economics and war.

Now there are -- when -- in the discussion we had here, there are three economics underlined, especially today. There is the planet, as a household of raw material. There is oil, there is coal, there is tin in Bolivia, et cetera. That's one economy in which you and I as Americans participate from one corner; and the Bolivians are in the other; and the Russians are in the third, and everybody on this globe has a little -- have something, and some -- are have-nots. And usually are treated rather badly like the poor Italians.

So -- but if we say "have-not nations" and "have nations," as it was usually done during the -- this last world war, then you already admit that they have not a share in the economy which is singular, gentlemen. Would you kindly see this? -- which is one economy, because the universe of discourse then is the planet. It's a planetary economy. And I insist that it is a planetary economy, and you cannot use here the word "world economy." That has profound reasons in which we -- with which we would -- will deal in 58, for anybody who takes that course.

The second thing. There is a second economy. There is an economy of the two possible belligerents. A and B, Russian economy and my economy. That would omit Paraguay, probably, and Fiji Islands, because they are not directly involved in the economy of the two. But this is then the belligerent economy. And then there is my economy -- the American economy.

Now most of the gentlemen who have written this paper have never

really decided of which economy they are talking. They have left it in the same dark as the Tuck School people do, who also are very careful never to say whether they are really national economists, or universal economists. Because if they would say this, then they would have to include war into their thinking. But in this nice way, you see -- I opened a book yesterday again, and it said, "The Americans" -- Mr. Wal- -- no, it was Walter Lippmann's editorial, his column. And he said, "The poor American people, they have gone through such an agony for the last 20 years. It all began with the Depression of '29, and on it goes."

There you have a wonderful nationalistic outlook. The Depression starts the whole thing. Not the First World War, you see, in which all the nations were participants, the whole world. It's called the "world war" for this reason, you see. But in 1929, the memory of America is good enough to remember. Everything before was just accidental. Poor Woodrow Wilson. He's forgotten. As though the world -- the Depression of '29 is not just simply the -- the penalty paid for the incredible behavior of this country after World War I. It's nothing else. It's the attempt to forget the First World War.

So -- but this is still -- see how the economists -- economists have created this source {fog} around their science by never telling us whether they mean the American economy, or the belligerents' economy of the two rivals. In every case, England-America, Germany-America, you see, or China-America -- or whatever it is -- Japan-America, you think -- you perhaps remember there was a scrap-iron issue between Japan and us. We forbade finally the trading of -- selling of scrap iron to Japan. But we didn't forb- -- forbid the trading of scrap iron to the Belgian Congo. That is, we had a belligerent's economy, hadn't we? And we have it now, when Mis- -- the Senators do not understand that you have to be glad that there is trade with China. And you cannot pooh-pooh it. They are waking up to this in -- at this moment, that it is a great privilege for us and a great benefit for our politics if we have trade -- relations with China, and not the opposite. Since they cannot include war and peace at the same time in their thinking, they have to say "either-or" and thereby destroy this country.

If a great nation as this cannot see -- has -- the same time have peace and war, it doesn't understand how we live today. We live in this twilight where peace and war are both present, you see. But you would like, like children, to have black or white. Virtues and vice. Virtue-vice. That's why you -- you -- we push the poor Chinese Communists into the Russian fold because we won't recognize them as even existing.

So what could they do? They love Moscow against their will, because nobody wants to think in terms of peace and war. Gentlemen, the nation -- like the Communists themselves, the Bolsheviks, who have learned that -- that war

and peace are only relatively different, you see, but not tota- -- totally. The -- that nation learned this first will have the political initiative. And we have lost it. We have no initiative. Absolutely none for the last five years in politics. That's a mistake of Mr. Dulles, who { } that he has it. By saying so, he doesn't get it.

He cannot have the initiative because the people in this country want to have either peace or war. You won't have it for the next hundred years, gentlemen. You have to live too gaily in peace only. You must be very glad if we have peace and war, and not just war only.

This is very serious, you see, for your thinking. If the economy is that which God has gi- -- given to this earth as a whole, the Lord's is the earth, and not yours -- who are you? Tenants, trustees. Who owns America? Do you think you own it? It's ridiculous. If you are underpopulated here, if -- nobody comes in, and if here only live 160 or 170 million people, do you think the rest of the world will say, "This is America, therefore we mustn't touch it"? The next thing will be that they'll come on boats, and ships, and airplanes and settle. You think you can hold an empty space like Canada with 8 million people for a long time? Or Australia for that matter? It's -- fantastic. You can only, when you start from the assumption that the Australians, you see, own Australia. Well, they were sent there, because otherwise they would have been sent to prison. That's why they are there. Do you think they own Australia, which is utterly ridiculous? They didn't discover it. You see, and they were sent there, shipped there. And then you say, "This is Australia." And that's how you think, "This is America."

Gentlemen, that's too cheap. You have to earn America, by open it wide enough, populating it sufficiently so that it can be held in comparison to other continents with the same density, and with the same sacrifice, and with the same seriousness, and at the same price. There is no -- no having anything in this world. It doesn't exist. This you would immediately see if you had the -- know -- knew what your universe of discourse is. Which economy do you mean? Do you mean the economy of the -- of the empty spaces and the dense spaces? If you think in economic terms really on this globe, you would know that this marketseeking society of America depends on world markets. Do you think the Canadians can produce 1 billion bushels of wheat every year without integrating themselves into the rest of the world to which they have to sell this wheat? This is { } just impossible. You can -- Canada is not a sovereign country in economic respects. It may be militarily, or politically. But obviously these -- wheat has to go somewhere. And these people must remain able to pay for this wheat. You know this, too. So what's the use of calling Canadian wheat "Canadian wheat"? It's wheat that happens to grow within the political confines of Canada, but economically speaking, it's wheat that has to be eaten, which is very different, because the mouths that can eat -- the wheat are not living in Canada, under no

circumstances, because, as you know, the Canad- -- Canada farmer lives in -- in Winnipeg in the winter, and has his machines running out there, in the country. He's not even a farmer who lives on the -- his land, you see. He is an absentee farmer. So who owns this?

Well, as long as you think in -- in the terms of a national economy, you have very easy going. It's all identical. "Canada," "economy," therefore you say, "Canadian economy."

I advise you to think twice before you say this, gentlemen. There is no American economy. The attempt of Mr. Eisenhower to make good weather, and to say, "I'm responsible for prosperity," that's witchcraft. That's nonsense. No political leader can make for good crops. That pharaoh of Egypt did, by -- by -- by cheating, by sorcery. But that's not the truth. The economy is not a business for government. It has never been. It cannot. In the -- in -- in the -- it's a question of your and my work, and our peaceful relations to the rest of the world. And these peaceful relations mean that the economy everywhere is either smaller than America or bigger than America. You can have a valley economy, you see. And you can have a city economy. And you can have a state economy. But why it should coincide with the frontiers of America, you see, that it only will with regard to -- to warships, and airplanes, and those things which the government orders, and which can only be used, you see, by the armed forces of the United States. In this respect, our economy is a national economy indeed, you see.

(Sir, you said it is not a business of government -- that is, economy is not a business. Do you feel then the government should keep out of the economy, let it run itself, and --)

No, Sir. If we see today that co- -- economy is prevalent, and with the shakiness of you and me with -- regard to unemployment, we obviously need government -- need social and economic order, this all points beyond the existing political boundaries. For example, you have to integrate with Africa, or India, or England, or France, or Germany in some form, simply because our economy, you see, cannot coincide with the constitutional boundaries of the 48 states. It cannot. You see, my reasoning is that the economy must look for its own boundaries.

During the last 30 years, as you know, we have something called fascism, which is an attempt to make economy coincide with the boundaries of the state, you see, with all the dire aspects of this confusion between politics and economics. Can you see this? And we are, at this moment, you see, hard-put -- the security of the country demands that -- large orders are given to the economy by the national leadership. And in -- so far, we get a national economy, understand? But in as far -- you see, there are many reasons why we shouldn't get more than one-

thirds, let me say, of a national economy, because the rest, you see, we must be able to sell to other people, and to receive from other people. Take all the inventions, for example. We still have a vital interest that there is a free flow of inventions. We have a vital interest that our capital is allowed to invest in Canada. We are not so much, as you know, interested at this moment in exports of commodities. But we are terribly interested in the flow of capital to other countries. Now that's the same thing as commodities, only from the money side, you see. If you could export money and other people can import their goods to this country, you no longer have a -- a national economy. Do you understand this?

To show you -- did I tell you the story of Mr. Andr‚ {Philippe} and -- and the -- and the neutrality legislation in this country? Did I? Well, I think this is to the point. Let me say -- put it very simply. Mr. Andr‚ {Philippe} was minister of -- of finance in the French government before the Second World War. And -- a leftist, who belonged to the -- I think to the socialist group, but moderate. And we had the legislation of Mr. -- Senator Borah of unglorious memory, in which he -- well, inglorious, but of course I think he -- the assumption being that he wasn't doing this without ulterior motive. This neutrality legislation said that in peacetime we could trade with everybody. But in wartime, we were not allowed to sell to the belligerents anything.

So Monsieur Andr‚ {Philippe} came in great confusion to this country. And he visited Dartmouth, and he visited me. And he said, "Now what shall we do? France must rely for airplanes, specially, but for other things, of war material -- on America in wartime. And we would buy constantly in peacetime in these lines, because we wouldn't build up old -- our own factories. Now you say, when the war breaks out, you -- we won't sell you one thing."

That was the ingenious idea of Mr. Borah, you see, like the good schoolteacher, the bad boy has to be punished. The people quarrel, and we are so good, you see, and we don't drink alcohol, and -- and therefore we won't commit crimes. That they -- that -- what's -- the idea here was. And all these old ladies applauded, and -- and castrated this country, because -- Mr. {Philippe} said, "This is castration. When a friend is in need, you stay -- say, `I won't give you anything.' But when we don't need it, you are willing to trade with us. This means in so many words that France has, against her will" -- that was in 1936 -- "to build up now immediately an aircraft industry, because in the time of need, we must have these factories running. Therefore you Americans destroy the division of labor between France and America, which is just in the process of developing. We have no mass production as you can afford. Therefore, it's very expensive, and very uneconomical to us, you see. It's waste, but you do it for all your prohibitionist ideas about life, you see. The American is such an ethicist that he thinks that he can stop living," you see. "And when a war breaks out, he just

says, `I don't live anymore. I am -- I have an ostrich head, you see, and put it in the sand. When the war is over, I come out again and look around, and hope that everything is to the best -- for the best.'"

Well, this is called a country, gentlemen. It is nothing but insanity. I mean, the people in -- in Concord wouldn't do any worse. It's schizophrenic, you see, to split the -- the existence of this mighty nation into two halves: in wartime, I'm somebody different from what I am in peacetime. And this is the true story of a minister of the -- of France, Andr‚ {Philippe}, in 1936 facing the -- you see, the old spinster attitude of America, which is constantly trying to get rid of its genitals.

Yes, because the genitals are this power in us which admits that life has to be regenerated every moment, and that you can't plan it as a blueprint. But you have to love people, and to hate them. But since you have always to be kind, and keep smiling, and have a mind to everything -- an open mind, even, you see -- so there is no decision in anything. There is no war and no peace. There is this terrible lukewarm situation in between.

This is very serious, because, gentlemen, this is daily your temptation. You have learned it in your little schoolhouse. You have been exposed 10 years too long to women s- -- teachers. And you can't shake this off. And now what do you do? You drink -- in your fraternities, you have all kind of -- ridiculous protests against this woman influence, but you are not men. So it is -- you are not na‹ve and simply virile. Because otherwise you would laugh all these ideas, which have dominated in this country for the last 40 years, you would li- -- laugh them out of court, this pacifism, and all this nonsense. But this deeply inward. You have a guilty complex. When you say, "War is necessary," you s- -- you look around and say, "I hope she doesn't hear it." You all have the -- the look for your -- for the --- for the kindness of the people who have sheltered you, and spoiled you, and ruined you. You are so nice, gentlemen, but you can't live anymore. You are nice, I assure you. But there is a limit to l- -- being nice.

This is -- I think the greatest nation in the world saying to a minister of a foreign country, "In peacetime, we will furnish you with the necessities, but not in wartime, because then you are wicked." Is this the behavior to friends? We have let down every friend in need.

Here, Syngman Rhee -- when the prisoners run away, and everybody should have applauded. And you remember, here in this town, I have had to see you, young people, say, "Oh, my -- might give a war. That's terrible." In every church, they pray -- for 2,000 years for the prisoners, as the boor- -- poorest of the poor. But when they hear 27,000 people were allowed to go free, then everybody

here was trembling in his shoes and said, "That's against our bargaining, our dollars-and-cents policy." Across the counter with the -- with these criminals -- these Communists we have traded the skin of these 28,000 prisoners.

(Do you think that Syngman Rhee let these men go free because of a religious belief, or any { }?)

No, because they were Koreans. This man has fought since 1904 for the freedom of Korea, my dear man. We sold Korea. He protested in 1904. We sold Korea in 1919. He protested. The Japanese took it over, you see. And he protested, and went -- was tortured for years every day. Do you think such a man -- makes a difference whether there is a 38th degree of latitude? That's another such school -- schoolboy arrangement, to cut a living body of a country, because you could afford this here, on the 54th degree of latitude, with nobody living there. You can cut a continent, which is pure space, into 54 degree latitude. But can you -- can you divide the Bronx in this manner? But that's ha- -- what we have done to Korea. We did it. We had this wonderful idea of the 38th degree. You see, this is the thing. We -- we -- it's the famous -- you know the story of King Solomon. Two women coming for him and quarreling, and saying -- and she's saying, "Divide the child."

And the real mother of the child said, "No, don't do it, then this -- the wrong mother may -- may have it, because I don't want to see this child killed."

Now what have we done? We were not King Solomon, you see. But we were the opposite king, who s- -- who really meant to have the child divided and thought that was an answer.

And a nation is a living thing. Wouldn't you feel like this if -- if the -- onehalf of -- of -- of the United States would be given to somebody else, that it was like cutting into the living flesh of a unit? Can you imagine this? Is Korea any worse than the United States? They have deserved well -- they haven't do -- any -- committed any crime. They weren't guilty of anything. The Japanese had mistreated them. The Russians had mistreated them. The Chinese, and we come and do worse. We say the child -- country has to be divided by the 38th degree of latitude.

So Mr. Syngman Rhee, with regard to these 27,000 people said, "I do not recognize the division," you see. "They are my people. You see, I can't have prisoners of war who are Koreans. Some are brother- -- brothers. I don't care what they think," you see. And he -- it paid. They all liked him. They liked the idea that they were treated as -- as -- as compatriots. And why shouldn't they?

Who is from west the Mississippi in this -- in this room? Only one? Two? Well, you -- how would you like the idea that these people would say, you see, "We can't help you, and you -- because you are prisoners from the other side of the river?"

({ }.)

Impossible idea.

Now we come to -- this is then my answer. The universe of discourse, of economy, and society, gentlemen, today is mixed up in your mind. It's partly American. Partly it's just a Boston milk shed. Or it's Long Island, plus New York, for the -- for butter, and milk, and eggs from New Jersey, perhaps. And partly it is the economy always of the rival, the belligerents -- of the two belligerents. And partly it's the real economy of the whole u- -- planet. The planetary economy. And I -- as I told you, in 58, I -- we'll talk more about this. I cannot expla- -- explain, the term should be "planetary." Or perhaps I should say this.

You see, world trade, world market is always only looked upon -- here is America, and this is the world trade going in all directions. Going -- China Clipper, and going to Hong Kong, and going to Asia here, and going to Africa. This would be the idea of a world that still could be faced -- looked at from America, egocentric, you see. World -- just the world around us. But it -- "planet" makes it quite sure that the viewpoint is taken from the whole of the planet, and we are inside this planet at some eccentric spot.

Therefore, the word "planetary" is the only sane word, if you want to know of which economy you're actually talking. Are you talking about the very simple question: how much tin does there exist in the world? -- or how much atomic energy? -- then you're beginning to talk "planetary." Mr. -- President Eisenhower did talk planetary economy" for the first time when he proposed this institute, you see, or atomic, civilian energy. That's planetary, because it is not looked up -- upon from one national economy. Can you see the difference? So throw out "world economy." There is no world economy. There is just world war.

But "planetary" is possible, because that begins with the great respect that there is only a limited supply of goods on the whole planet. It doesn't help you to grab all -- nine-tenths of the riches of the world. As you know, we have 48 percent of the products of every year in this country, for 7 percent of the people of the earth. Now, how long do you think we can afford this? How long do you think the rest of the na- -- of the peoples will -- will tolerate this -- this -- this distribution?

The second thing, gentlemen, is this business of Mr. {Simon} as a -- as a married man, as a -- as a person in business, as a -- unionized man. And I have to say only a few things, but they are quite important. Gentlemen, the equation, 1 is 1, can never be better illustrated than by this case of a man who wants to stick to a job and commit suicide when he can't find a job, because it does show you, gentlemen, that the soul has to do with the invisible, with the things that are not expressed either in dollars and cents, or in a locality. For the soul of man, if he is -- you are a free man, it doesn't matter that you have to pack up and leave New York. It didn't matter to my soul that I had to leave Germany and come to this country. It mattered very much to my mater- -- role, social role in society, you see; it -- mattered very much to my mind, because I had to think new things, you see; and it -- it mattered very much to my environment, to my natural fight for existence, to my bodily existence. It didn't matter at all to my soul. Quite the contrary. Only because I left this other space, you see, could I save my soul.

Now -- but the condition of Mr. {Simon} saving his soul and -- is that he doesn't confuse any physical part of his existence -- in this case, his wherewithal, his role as a breadwinner, you see -- with his soul, which you do all the time. Gentlemen, you have not learned to use the term "soul" right. In your paper, it was quite clear to me that you were groping for this. But the one condition -- please, take it -- put it down -- attached to the use of the word "soul" is that you ascribe to the soul the power to survive change of environment, change of body, and change of mind, and change of role. And this he didn't, you remember. He -- thought that his visible identity, of being a white-collar man, an employee in a decent firm, you see, was identical with his soul. Most of you do this. It is very difficult to understand that a dishonored person can have all the more soul, because society doesn't reclaim him and doesn't recognize him, you see. Your integrity as a soul has -- can only be tested if you can survive environmental change, mental change.

Well, some of you have expressed this very nicely in your paper. But none of you has seen clearly that Mr. {Simon} was challenged to find his soul, to develop his soul at the penalty of losing his job, that he had the occasion of turning this experience into an asset simply by discovering that he was not -- to be identified with any external position in society. You see, this is the -- the -- the challenge. The soul always comes to our rescue with a new pride, and say, "If I'm humiliated, if I'm humbled by my peers, by my environment, by the people who thought they were -- I was a member of their group," you see, "then I discover my real powers."

You see, the -- the -- the soul thrives on the invisible, which is nothing mystical. But it is the power -- Goethe has called it -- the German poet has said, "We have to place ourselves in times into nonexistence in order to come into

existence." And take this down, because it is your best weapon against these -- modern existentialism. All these existentialists in France, and Germany, and here -- as far as the -- the imitators and apes of this go in this country, these existentialists always say that we exist. But gentlemen, the greatness of man only -- is -- is found when he says, "It is better not to exist than to exist in this pig- -- in this manner." The nonexistence is the experience of the soul. Then he's -- the soul is still in being when the man doesn't seem to exist, because "exist" is materially visible in the senses. Every one of you has to -- be able to live through a cocoon stage in which, in the eyes of the world, he's somebody else. He isn't yet -- the one who -- one day will shake the foundations of the universe by his actions. In this moment, he seems to be nonexistent. He's out in pasture.

And -- this nonexistence, gentlemen, is the state of the soul. The withdrawal of Mr. {Simon} therefore is nothing unhealthy. And you -- some of your lamentations about the poor man and the poor state of society therefore I think is not quite in order, because any one of us at times at least has to be tested in this manner.

The second thing is that -- I won't go into this case too much. But if you have these -- these -- I have to put it in a brutal way -- these three laws: 1 equals 3, 1 equals 2, 1 equals 1, and 1 equals infinity -- I do think that the -- I gave you the example of Simon, of the longshoreman, and of the far- -- Dakota farmer. Now, except one, everyone missed the bus about the Dakota farmer. You did not see, gentlemen, that in Dakota on a farm, the couple is in business, not the man, and that there -- he didn't have to solve the problem whether he had to tell his wife or not. She knew. That is, when you are on a farm, the question isn't that you are in business at all. The family is in business. And from the very first moment, the drought, or whatever it is -- the sand bowl and -- that's all on the women and on the children just as heavily pressing as on the men. There is no office hour. And there is no commuting. And none of you has seen that therefore the Dakota farmer just hasn't -- to solve this problem, whether I tell my wife or not, you see. It is there. They are in business together. Can you see this? Isn't this clear?

Now therefore, we have really three different human beings. The starting point for the Dakota farmer, which makes him stronger and healthier, is that his wife knows as much about it as he himself. That is a great relief, you see. Mr. -- the union worker theoretically could treat his Irish girl as such an -- silly idiot that he won't tell her. But he has his union. So he has this here; he has his dream of solidarity, and it works. It costs some lives on the piers of New York, but Murder, Incorporated, is still union.

I've never understood how these -- these Mr. -- Mr. Bradley and Mr. -- Mr.

Rhine get away without ever mentioning the killing that have gone on, even as you know, during -- over the last month in -- on the piers. This is -- frightful to me. What it means is idolatry to the 1 equals infinity, you see, to the union principle. You can see this. I mean, everything goes if we are in the union. Then we can murder.

Now Mr. {Simon} has another ideal, the bourgeois ideal of 1 equals 1. But it is the business -- idea, of the independent man. And you have here a typical metabasis eis {allo genos}. The union man who doesn't tell his wife, and Mr. {Simon}, who doesn't tell his wife, may do it with different consequences. The union man may survive, although he doesn't tell it at home, you see. And the -- Mr. Simon cannot survive, because he's all by himself. And when he doesn't tell his wife, he doesn't open up any moral reserves, you -- you see. But both -- and this is important, gentlemen, socialism, or Communism on the one-hand side, and capitalism or individualism are both distortions of true humanity, just equally bad when they lead to an encroachment on the other forms. Here, on marriage.

If Mr. Simon doesn't tell his wife and perishes, and if the longshoreman doesn't tell his wife that he has murdered somebody in the interests of the union, you see, they are equally, you see, perverted. Equally -- equal perverts. The metabasis eis {allo genos} is happening. That is, they try to live all the four corners of their lives out of one source, and they don't give the 1 equals 2 its due.

The Dakota farmer, you see, may be -- only care for his own land. Farms -- farmers, as you know, are very greedy. Workers are not greedy, individually. They are very generous. And -- and city people. But farmers are not, as a rule. But this -- they live out of this. And they of course can then be sinful by carrying the -- the healthy egotism of the family, only caring for your own kin, you see, next of kin, into the other fields where they have no access to spiritual orders. Or very hardly -- very often not. It's much more difficult for a farmer to understand unions, and here, these movements, these spiritual movements, and it's very -- more difficult for him to understand the professional -- the risks a professional man has to take, his independence of judgment, his setting himself off against the family, you see, his rebellion about the traditions of the family, which any independent thinker must go through with.

You see that every one of them then commits easily a metabasis eis {allo genos} by exaggerating the environmental situation of his physical existence, of his where -- of his -- of his business activities, and applying this to the three other parts. Is this clear?

My question therefore about longshoreman and Dakota farmer with

regard to Mr. {Simon} wasn't quite arbitrary. It rounds out the picture that the incompleteness of our behavior, which tries to cover something that must remain foreign to my business life, you see -- to cover this with the principles that I've learned in business, that this goes on at every -- in every segment of our society, I'm -- I must -- you have made very much fodder about the fact that Mr. {Simon} is a -- is obsolete. That this -- he is in really -- he is in retrograde, I -- certainly he is diminishing in numbers. But -- so is the farmer. And -- but I wish you to understand that all these forms are purely secular forms, of passing importance: the worker, the businessman, the farmer. No one can save his soul by just being a worker, or by just being a farmer, or just being a businessman. Comes an emergency, you see, he must have another power. And the soul is not identical with Mr. {Simon's} 1 equals 1 in business. The liberal idea is that at work, I am 1 and 1. But the idea of my pamphlet, The Multiformity of Man, is that man is only in his -- course of his life one, when he can join together the various phases of his life into oneness, you see. That's something quite different. Mr. {Simon} wants to have a visible identity. Here, 1 equals 1 in his office. He wants to own this identity, so to speak, you see. This we cannot.

And therefore, please -- this is the gist of it, gentlemen. The -- any one of these groups, any one of these groups carries some eternal truth about you and me into the field of their purely social passing, business activity. Mis- -- the liberal says, "I have learned in church that I am an immortal soul. Therefore, I'm for free enterprise, because the free enterprise is the appropriate symbol of the freedom of my soul."

Do you understand? He identifies a reflection of this real quality of you and me, you see, in the course of our lives, from child to death, with any th- -- special situation on which you can put, you see, your finger and say, "This is it." The same is true of the worker. It is very good to strive for the progress of humanity, to belong to the one catholic church of the human race. But if you want to have it in a union, you see, and make this -- this actual unit sovereign, you get with the longshoreman Murder, Incorporated. And this is a very interesting case, but don't be too supercilious. You get all the sects. Any sect -- any sectarian movement, you see, identifies a partial solution of infinity with a total solution of infinity. That's why you shouldn't be sectarians, gentlemen. Don't be sectarians. A sect is always confusing infinity for which we -- into which we are moving, that all men in- -- in a certain extent belong to each other, with the some relative realization, like a union. A union is a secular sect.

If you see, gentlemen, that the farmer also, as you know, is now dying off, because the farm wives in Dakota won't stand for it. Farming is dying in this country not because it's uneconomical, but because there are no wives who want to marry these farmers. They want to go to the movies. But it isn't just a movie. It

is -- they don't want to put up with this kind of -- of life in which they have just been another draft animal on the farm. And that's even more true in Europe and Russia than it is here. The -- the collective farm idea in -- in Russia has this appeal not to the men, but to the women, because they are just -- they were just be- -- beasts of burden, you see. And you can't even -- can hardly here understand it because here, in this country, you know women have not worked in the fields. Now all over Europe, and all over Russia, the women do work in the fields.

And that's why the agrarian, you see, question is -- is there very clear. The 1-equals-2 economy of farming, you see, is breaking down today, before our eyes. We are partially resistant, because most of the ladies on our farms already just cultivate their kittens.

I once came here to a neighboring farmer. And there was a man, hardworking. And there was his wife. And she was just buying on July 1st apples from a city truck that had driven up. So she was not longer farming. They had an apple orchard. But that was no longer sprayed, and they didn't harvest any apples. They bought the apples from New York. And then she said, "Well, you see, it's rather boring here. I have absolutely nothing to do."

I was -- why, she had four children. And she had this big place of 200 acres. She had nothing to do. The man was allowed to do the work.

And "But," she said, "I have one great concern, you see. The kittens. The kittens. You don't know what it means to me to have to drown any one of these kittens. And I always place them. It takes me days and weeks before I find a person to put -- take -- the litter off my hands." Now that's, you see -- no Messalina, no Roman empress could have wasted her life more fruitfully.

So these -- these wives, of course, led their -- their man in the morass, because one farmer, no farmer. You have to tie up with somebody else. I mean, you fall sick, then the woman is just -- gets just a permanent.

Now, what I have tried to say, gentlemen, is that any one expression of one of these ways of life, be it business, be it professorship, be it a college education, your studying here and playing around, play, war, economics, they all obviously, and the family -- itself -- can go wrong. And the last part of this class, these meetings, gentlemen, we have five more I think to come -- when do we end? The 21st? When's the -- what's the last day of classes? 28th? Wie?

(24th. We have five more.)

We just barely will see what means do exist to correct a disequilibrium of

the forces we have so far analyzed. In play, we can get stuck. In war, we can get stuck. In economics, as we here -- as the case shows you, we can get stuck. And I have to show you now in -- in the family, of course, we can -- the -- the family cannot -- may not function or may break down. In the 19th century, we had spinsters -- too many, as you know, in New England, who couldn't marry. And just think of -- the great poetess in Amherst.

(Emily Dickinson.)

Emily Dickinson -- Dickinson, yes. And in this century, I don't know what we get. We probably get divorce, something similar -- an impotency of founding families. It seems to be more this way today that the women, when they get in -- their interest in { }, and run away from the home, and leave the husband. There hasn't to be a divorce, but they just up get other interests, and don't take their husbands with them into these interests. In any -- some form, there is a great desertion from the inner life of such a family group. The economics contribute to this. It isn't today, however, that it is that the girl is -- has to be terribly afraid not to marry so much. It's a more -- richer, or more complicated disease of the family.

So let me propose that we shall watch the great attempts of -- over the last thousands of years to find for every one of us a constant power, a constant reintegration, that whenever we go wrong in any one of these directions: war, economics, family, and luxury -- play, dissipation, that's all play, I mean, the -- the un- -- the nonreal, which power do we have to put us right again, to become the man who can enter all these forms and withdraw from them as a free agent, instead of committing suicide, like Mr. {Simon}?

And that's why this case, which I -- as you know, just found in the paper the day before -- the day before -- the day bef- -- on December 1st, leads up to the question: that man is that one animal that can commit suicide and does commit suicide. There is no animal in the world, it seems, that has this amount of freedom that a man, because he has missed his task of integ- -- of found- -- of forming the group to which he belongs, you see, commits suicide. He may be a group within himself, I mean, the 1 equals 1. But "man commits suicide" means that he says, "I cannot form those attachments which would make worth -- life worth living."

This should bear out my contention, gentlemen, that man's attachments rule his life, and not man's detachments. You remember, that was a -- we had a -- quite a long story about detachment and attachment. Suicide is the failure to attach significance to our attachments, to -- give significance to them. It is the judgment that either we -- judge attachments which we have built up are worth-

less, have miscarried, or we won't even enter them. If you commit suicide at 19, then you say, "It isn't worth it. I'm so detached that whatever attachment may -- could tempt me isn't worth the effort." Or you can blow out your brain at 45, and you say, "It has not paid. I made wrong attachments, and they are disappointing."

So you can be despondent and desperate before the attachment, by your philosophies gained in a liberal arts major in college, or you can do it afterwards, at 45. These are the two corners. In Europe, the corner for suicide is 20, in Am- -- this country the sui- -- corner for suicide is 45.

The Ame- -- the Europeans have introduced vaccination in this spiritual field, just as you are vaccinated, I hope, against smallpox. That is, the risk of a student committing suicide is infinitely -- has inf- -- been infinitely higher in Europe. The -- the critical -- mind has whetted himself, you see, against any possible attachment as worthless. The criticism has been so -- analysis has been so -- so steel-like, and has carved up all the seeds of the topsoil in which such attachments might grow. And so the number of suicides -- in my own class was -- one-third of my -- my classmates committed suicide, within the first six years after the -- we left school. That's quite terrible. But it was a very good school. And our teachers, they used to say, that is -- well, you always talk about the survival of the fittest. But you do not know what this means. That means real testing, and not what you call test in business, or so. That means the testing of the soul. And it is -- these are weaklings who cannot go through the necessary detachments and build up really creative, new attachments.

This is terrible, but there is no boy I know of my -- no man at my age in Europe who has not been tempted to commit suicide, hasn't bought a pistol to do it. It's quite something. Therefore very few people commit suicide in later years. That's all over with, when they have partaken -- are taking their degrees. Then they are men. They have once tried to take their life. If they are any -- healthy, they -- have learned that you cannot do it, you see. The detachment is just one phase of becoming better and more attached afterwards.

But gentlemen, don't escape from suicide. I mean, I have been a little scared by most of you saying that this couldn't happen to you. The more you postpone the serious contemplation of suicide, the more it will hit you, unprepared, and all of a sudden. Sweat it out. It doesn't mean that you -- you should be really tempted by it. But you ha- -- it has some form -- it has to enter your lives, or you can't become men. Because gentlemen, if you do not figure out suicide, you can't have civil courage. Any man who has fought off suicide is no longer afraid of other forms of death. It's a kind of immunity when you cannot inflict death to you, you know exactly when to stand up and fight for -- your life from the out-

side. It's strange, but -- you gain great courage, great independence. It's like cutting the umbilical cord with the social prejudices of your environment. The -- the -- the victory over your suicidal tendency, you see, is the point in which you emerge in -- into independence and freedom from -- because if your own judgment cannot reach you, this wish -- this suicidal wish, you see, and -- you are more than any one mood inside of yourself, even the blackest mood of suicide, you are much more fey than -- against other people's innuendoes or -- or hypnotism. That's a very strange connection.

You know that all psychoanalysis, Mr. Freud, et cetera, is full of the declaration that we are self-destructive, that there is a deep tendency in man towards death. You must have heard of these discussions. Well, unfortunately you people are too great cowards. It would be -- otherwise they would simply say that man's great freedom to form new attachments leads him to an intermediary stage in which, because the old attachments are no longer any obligation to him, are no longer binding, he feels tempted, you see, to remain free of all attachments. That is the temptation of suicide. Can you see this?

So would you -- took -- take down this rhythm? Attachment, detachment, new attachment. Any wrong philosophy at the moment of detachment will provoke suicidal tendencies. But these suicidal tendencies are not to be taken so seriously as the Freudians do, the psychoanalysts. They are the condition of creation, because you cannot get out of attachments your own family, or this college. And you cannot say, "No, I won't go to these silly reunions. I wish to found a new college. Or a better school, or go to -- abroad. Or -- I don't care for these alumni." You can't have any such -- such illusions of grand- -- grandeur that you are free, without having the power to turn them into any direction, suicide being one of them, you see.

The revolutionary in -- in Russia says, "I destroy society." But if you read The Brethren Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, you also read that the same group also can turn against themselves and say "We," you see, "will cease to live." It's absolutely ambivalent. And I'm afraid, gentlemen, that the girls in this country will make the race, because they do play with this now, too. It's terrible, but true. You might spare them this if you would be a little more serious.

Somebody has to go to the -- to the depths, the abyss of detachment. And that will always mean a hatred of any attachment, for a moment, you see. You will be tempted to say, "Well, since I can look through, that my family is no longer meaningful for me, I can't live with these folks," you see. "I have to do something else in the world," which is perfectly normal. But obviously he can project this into a general statement and say, "Therefore no attachment is worth the candle." You understand? This -- you cannot stop a -- a car that's withdraw-

ing from one direction, going backward, out of the attachments of your family, your country, as Abraham did when he left Haran and -- Babylonia, and went out into Palestine. The -- the Bible says very simply, "He left his kin and kindred," you see, "and his home country." Now anybody who comes to this country does the same. Anybody who has this power can of course just stay in this direction too long and say -- build on this, you see, a whole ideology.

So detachment, gentlemen, must lead to suicide, unless it is understood as an intermediary phase. If you base on the experience of your need for emancipation, for freedom, for independence, for your own decisions, if you base on this a socie- -- a philosophy which is meant to cover your whole existence, the logical outcome is that the universe is just not offering you enough, you see, satisfaction. If, however, you understand that this freedom is given you in between attachments, that all the means given to you to get free, you see, are only means so that the attachment which then comes is genuine -- pure, new, powerful -- you will see that the workings of your mind have only this limited meaning, that they are within the universe, and not -- you can't see the universe. You -- you are not outside. You can't criticize the world. We cannot judge the universe. This socalled detachment is always only detachment of certain attachments. Yes? Of certain attachments. It is never -- no one can say that he can detach himself from attachments. He can only attach himself from this peculiar form of attachment in which he finds himself.

This is therefore the reason why we have to think right, gentlemen. And certainly in this country, very few people do think right. Most people think, "Let independence with us be." And they shout all the time, "The British, the British, oh, they want to enslave us," you see. And -- something like that, I mean. You find here still these types who -- constantly shouting -- "independent." In England -- with the British it is in politics. But it is with everything else, authority of the parent, authority of the teacher: "Let us be objective."

Gentlemen, pure objectivity leads to suicide. And it lead -- therefore, when the people individually are such cowards that they won't commit suicide, then they construct hydrogen bombs, by which the whole universe commits suicide. It's exactly just a projection of your and my objectivity. Because that's what we can do. Man can destroy, by pure objectivity, by pure detachment. I mean, this is so terrible in this country. Everybody's so nice and sweet, but we are after all the only nation that has thrown the atomic bomb. No other nation has. And Mr. Lawrence thinks that we -- this country is a nation of slayers, because nobody individually wants to do anybody any harm. Oh, no. Nothing. So sweet, and so kind, you see. But then you go down to the basement of -- of Baker Library and look how we appear to the Mexicans.

It's very strange, gentlemen, that we -- any na- -- every nation, we all -- I too, I know this -- we appear to others always in the opposite manner as -- as we appear to ourselves, you see. Therefore, the only way out is to...

[tape interruption]

...but one day, you will have to be an uncle yourself, you see. Just can't be helped. Uncle you can become without any great effort.

So gentlemen, suicide is the challenge of these four founders of the religious regeneration of mankind, because Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Abraham, and Jesus -- they have in a strange manner put something in the place of suicide. You can say that the definition of a world religion is a medicine against suicide. It can be total suicide of a nation throwing the atomic bomb. But if you hope that the American people will not commit suicide by throwing the atomic bomb, and starting an atomic war, then you mean exactly the same that some religion in your heart may keep us from using our own cap- -- capacities, our own -- we can throw this, can't we? But we may not.

Religion, gentlemen, tries to identify the "can" and the "may." Very simple formula. Detached people can everything. Attached people may not do certain things. Attachment is the rule of the may, m-a-y. And detachment, natural science, objectivity, is the lesson of what we can do. We can throw all the bombs at once, you see, or we cannot throw the bomb, you see. All your objectivity only tells you what you can do. All your attachments -- teach you what you must do, what you may do.

Now -- there's absolute confusion in this country, you see. Individually, you have schoolteachers, she-teachers -- teacher is "she" in this country. Imagine! In no other country of the world does anybody who hears the word "teacher" connect with it the idea that this is "she." It's impossible, you see. It's "he," a teacher. But in this country, it's "she." Therefore you are all sweet, light and sweetness. But as a whole, this is an imperialistic, exploiting, slaying, very brutal group. And you won't -- don't -- like to hear that. That's how we appear in the world at large. But everyone says, "But I'm not." And he isn't.

The "may" and "can" words, gentlemen, they have to be reconciled with each other in the -- in these last lectures. What we have described is the world of the attachments. The family, the war, the economy, the play, they all contain rules of the game. And anything there is "may" and contained. We may play in a -- game only so far, you see. Nothing must become serious. You can't kill your -- the other athlete, you see, from vengeance in a game. The "mays" are all here in all the things we have dealt with, gentlemen.

But next time, I shall start with the disintegration of the family once more, and then we will see that man, who can found all these attachments, can destroy them. He can, but may he?