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

(...the series, "What Future for the Profession?" by Dr. Rosenstock-Huessy, January 26th, 1960, Aspen, Colorado.)

[tape interruption]

...take you far afield into the countries -- the underdeveloped countries who are deficient in the professions, and who look to us now to be supplied by them, either by having experts sent to them--to Afghanistan, or Pakistan in a hurry--or build their dams, and factories, and such things or by sending their students to our airfields, or our factories, or our medical schools.

What these people want, I have said yesterday, is not simply a special profession, but the spirit of the professional man. And on this I would like to enlarge, because my thesis has been yesterday that we are trinitarians. That in every one of us there is the weak man who gathers as a public, like these Algerian -- mutineers in the streets of Algier who are -- were shot dead, and leave 21 behind. They are excitable, inflammable, but they are not responsible. They goad up -- they are seductible, they are seducible, they are gullible. So man in his gullibility is public. And every speaker, and every singer, and every comedian, and every television man tries to play on this gullibility. And the public is a big beast. It has the merit of being plastic. It's like the skin of our body. It is exposed to the immediate stimuli of the weather, of cold and hot, and -- and rough and soft. And therefore it is of the moment.

Man in his passive exposure to stimuli, that's the public. Man in his own action--you may say man in his strength--that's the professional man. And we are only strong within a certain framework by which we have an office space, and a secretary, and a telephone. That is, by which we -- inside which we are recognized as who we are, inside which we appear in the yellow directory as the Rocky Mountain Medical Corporation, or whatever it is. That is, the action of any human being within society depends on recognition. Whereas the public is just what it is: unconscious and not known, and not be -- not seen from the outside, you see, but played on, so to speak, as a passive entity. Man in his strength, man in his Promethean inventiveness and activity, is always in need of -- of -- carrying a recognizing title, with a shingle or a firm, or the title "M.D." or "M-"-- you say "M.D.D." or "D.M.D."--I never know. What is it for dentists?

(For us?)

Wie?

(There's D.M.D. and also a D.D.S.)

D.D.S. So -- and since this -- in our democracy now, I have tried to say, has accepted the existence of professional people, but outside the framework of conscious theorizing. If you listen to a course in government on the Constitution of the United States, professional men will not be mentioned. There are voters, there are governors, there are states, you see, there is the Senate, and there are ambassadors, and all these things. But the place of a professional man in society is never mentioned. And I try to tell you that he is anticipating the day of days--as the Bible calls it--the destiny of man, the reconciliation of man, of moving in one spirit. You take a dentist and send him to Pakistan; he has to operate in the same spirit in which he operates here. He cannot make any concessions to the spirit of the locality.

And the second aspect of the profession is that it is able to regenerate itself. What we call a professional man is a man who is not expected to do his business tomorrow as he did it yesterday. That is, the idea of progress is lo- -- lodged in him and not in the public. The public is fickle, and fidgety, and stimula- -- you see, stimulated every day, and is completely forgetful. And the greatest experience I have had in the last ten years--as to this forgetfulness--is that you cannot talk to anybody now who is for the ending of the Cold War, for example, or -- and of -- remind him of what he thought 10 years ago, or five years ago. He gets very angry and doesn't want to be reminded of all the changes of his mind.

And it's -- it's incredible how people who have come out in one direction in 1940, and in one -- other direction in 1948, and the other direction in 1956, seems to have completely forgotten as members of the public, you see, how -- through how many stages they have gone. Just, so to speak, their honor that they are what they are today, and they really believe they are what they are today. Of course they aren't. It's just the skin that is scratched. And they'll be something quite different tomorrow. And -- so 1984 is all with us, with the public. The book of course was not written -- you know, 1984, this idea of the -- it is a -- the big beast, the public. That's just -- ever it is. It's not 1984, but it's just 1960, or 1940, or 1933.

But the professional men are quite different. I said to you, it's a lifetime proposition; it's a devotion to one's own action in a sequence of remodeling one's past; it's the ability to look back to one's predecessors, and to look forward to one's successors, and to transform in one's own lifetime the actions which one has inherited, so that one hands over a business in a different form to one's successors.

And I just heard a story in church the other day. We have a mission -- a

minute for missions now every Sunday. And -- there was a witch-doctor in Africa, who gave up his witchcraft by burning his stick and his instruments, you see, of his witchcraft, solemnly in front of the little church there. Well, ob- -- obviously this man and all such kind of traditional activities, are distinguished from our professional men by the simple fact: not that they are wrong, not that they are superstitious, but that they are unable to change. Because at one time, this wasn't superstitious. This was very wise what the witchcraft -- doctor did. He gathered the tribe, and he certainly cured the diseases. And he made for peace, you see. But he's unable to create a body of professional men who can be re-taught, and can go on, you see, and progress. And don't look down on these tribal chieftains, because we'll need them all--every one of them--to rearrange these Negroes. You cannot deal with the African people by destroying their { }. The witch doctor there, and the chieftain, you see, is the man who has to make the change.

I once met a -- the leader of the Stockbridge Indians--that's long ago. And -- we got talking. And he said, "You see, I had to become a Lutheran. The Luth- -- form of Lutheran Church is the best form for an Indian tribe. My father was a chieftain. I decided to lead on, in a new way, and I became a Lutheran minister. And in this form I'm now able to put through the changes of the tribe. And so, as a Lutheran minister, I'm in the tradition and I'm out of the tradition."

And that's the typical, you see, transformation of the minister of the word in all the professions, and--because they're all baptized and all Christianized--as compared to the { } into which these new experts have to be sent in the old countries of Asia and Africa.

So the -- two things: man in his strength is a professional man. But he is a titan, he is a fool, or { }, and he is dangerous if in his titanic effort to storm the sk- -- heavens, and to steal the thunder--as it is on Franklin's monument; you remember, "the man who took the -- the lightning from the sky and the -- broke the power of the tyrants"--if he is not in -- in brotherhood. It is the brotherhood of the professional man that makes him a human being. If he doesn't create a school, or if he isn't taught in a school, if he doesn't take an examination, you see, he cannot be proclaimed to be a professional. He has, in the one-hand side, to change, and modernize, and alter it; and on the other hand, he has to fit in. And it is this very strange problem, this paradoxical problem. You spoke of the -- {Charles Sweet} as a leader, you see. Well, he needs somebody to -- to be led. And he is only a leader -- you see, he is only a great man because he's a leader, and not just a -- an individual.

And the American scene is very much impoverished--even by the word "leader," I think, for a spiritual man--because everything having been based on the public, and the individual, and the atom, and statistics, and how many

people listen to a broadcast, and -- and all these non-entities, I think, and unimportant facts, that the mystery of the good man in a profession is that he's infectious. That as he can be infected by good teaching, and convince, you see, that he must follow in the footsteps of his elders, so if he is the right man, he's just infectious. You cannot -- you cannot explain why, inside a profession, the right word said -- you see, is {approved}. But it is. People are eager to learn. And without this eagerness, you see, you can describe -- describe the -- the man wrongly. You see the man working hard. -- He's a -- doctor in his office, or a lawyer. And they seem just to plow on, and to -- to have a 12-hour work a day, or a 14-hour day. They -- I mean, they never end. But without receptivity, without being at the same time being still open to the grandeur of the community, of the solidarity with the other people -- the man, you would not trust this man. This law- -- attorney must be able to look up precedents, and he must be able to learn, and he must be able to take counsel, and he must -- a doctor must be able to say, "This is a case for a consultant." And the more the man is -- is a great doctor, the more often he will say -- he will have no vanity. And the stamp of the ego will not, you see, override his -- his eagerness to hear from somebody else what he thinks about this case.

Now there is a very strange transcendence, or outgrowing--how would I say? an overcoming--of our own physical limitation as a member of the mere public, or the mass, or the carnal man. You all take this for granted. But I assure you, it has taken several thousand years to develop from a Greek sophist, or a Greek -- head of a school, like Pythagoras, into this co- -- fraternity of doctors who will think nothing of telephoning their confrere and saying, "What do you think about this?" That's a tremendous education, and it's a much bigger education than all your textbooks, and all the reforms you are thinking of. But this reform is not limited to the -- your profession. It's the professions that contain this element of fraternity and brotherhood, you see.

And therefore anybody who enters one profession in fact enters a wide area, what I call of this trinitarian process, in which the fact that man is allowed to act, to be a person, to hang out a shingle, to have a title, works in two ways. He's respected by the public, you see, but he's a member of a group. And this makes demands on his morality, you see. He can never say, "I" in the impure, unpurged sense.

I -- so let me say -- put it in a formula, perhaps. The "I" of the professional man to whom today the -- the -- the -- curious and the desirous people from the underdeveloped countries try to flock, this "I" is not the ego, and not the self. The "I" of the painter who writes under the picture, "Rembrandt," or "Raphael," is your model of the -- of the professional man. The artist who says, "I did this," you see, is not the mere self, the carnal man. It's an inspired man. It's a man who says

in this moment, "The spirit has come upon me, and I have spoken for the whole community. And that's why I've been able to paint the Sistine Madonna, because now every worshiper in the Sistine Madonna, you see, feel -- fi- -- finds himself fulfilled. I am the mouthpiece of the community."

I -- this is very important, I think, in a country that writes "I" with a capital letter--it's a very bad habit, I think--and has completely forgotten that self and "I" are at opposite ends. The self is our flesh and body. I mean, that's carnal man. That's not a good expression; I have no better. But that's what you usually -- we call, statistically, by the individual in the street, you see. But the "I" that I -- underwrites a recipe, my dear -- man, is a -- quite a different "I." If you underwrite "Dr. Wheeler" or "Dr. {Sweet}," you see, you say that you are a member of the profession. And your "I" at this moment is just the jelling point of the professional wisdom of the ages. And you say, "I," and that's why you can go -- be called -- called to responsibility. That's why the courts can say, "You did not act according to the status of the progress of science" at this moment, you see. You have to be informed, and you have to act within the framework of what is now thought to be right. Ta- -- of any treatment of a disease, you see.

The terrible case happened in a university in Europe--won't give the name; perhaps better--that one of the younger assistant doctors had been sent to India. And he came back with the bubonic Pest. And his -- however, this beginning of his career--it was in November--and he was slated to deliver his inaugural address which we have as a formality for the young teacher, you see, of -- in medicine--in any profession, in any faculty. He had to get up before the faculty, and invited guests, you see, and that starts his career. And now that's a solemn occasion, and for December 12th, this was slated. And this was November. And so he implored his boss, and he implored the nurses not to give him away. He wanted to go through with the proceedings. And so nine people died in the process.

That is, these -- this -- this -- these -- this -- this doctor, you see, and his own boss who knew it, then they have--the district attorney had to inter- -- intervene--from vanity, you see, and from the feeling, "It can't happen to us"--you know how a professional men think, that they never can catch the disease--they introduced into Heidelberg--oh, pardon me--the bubonic Pest. Fourteen people fell sick, and nine died. And of course, you can imagine the -- everything -- the destruction that wrought in the morality of the place. It's an incredible story. It happened two years ago.

And why? There is no ego. This man, this -- this professor of medicine, and his assistant there, you see, they thought they were -- above the rules of the game. They would have quarantined every layman immediately, you see, who

came home from India. But they said, "Well, we -- we are doctors."

And it's I think a very good argument, I mean, a very good story to prove, you see, that the "I" is inside an order, inside a code. It's not the self. And I cannot enjoin you severely enough--and I mean this very much--to distinguish very stubbornly between the self and the "I." The "I" is articulating truth. Any man who writes a recipe says something. Now you cannot say anything outside context, outside science, outside tradition, outside the law, you see, outside -- even in the English language, or whatever language it is that you say -- state something. The "I" is inside the community, playing a role, being the mouthpiece for this occasion.

And the sooner -- this country is sick. All the psychoanalysts, all the psychologists are suffering from this absolute disease of identifying the mere self that is speechless. Full of instincts, yes; and full of -- full of nerves. But these aren't mind, you see, and the "I." The "I" is always in office. A painter who -- underwrites "Michelangelo," you see, claims that this por- -- picture is the picture that now had to be painted, because the pope ordered it, or whatever his story is. A poet who writes a poem is not a self, a Caliban, you see, after his own instincts. And if he is, you get the poetry that they call "poetry" in this country at this moment, which is no poetry, which is farce. I mean, it is -- goes under- -- should go underground.

This country stands on its head at this moment, because it has a diseased conception of what "I" is. "I" is a person. And a person is always within context. You cannot be a person if you are not carrying on what has been known before, and if you are not preparing what has to be s- -- done tomorrow, and to be said tomorrow. A person is in history in the historical tradition. It's an heir and a founder, if you want to have the simple slogans. That's why, as an American citizen, you have to know the founding fathers, and have to listen to them. You aren't an American citizen if you deny that there has been Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. You just aren't an American. Nothing helps you. You can crush out "I," "I," "I." Who are you? An ant.

And the sooner you wake up to the fact that anybody who can say "I" is already within a story and within a community, and only says that at this moment it has come -- befallen on me the duty to lift my voice, you see, and to add something to the concert, the -- the more you will be haunted by all these crazes, and fads, and the 3,000 sects of Los Angeles, and -- and all these terrors of idiocy and insanity which at this moment makes America appear to be the most insane country in the world, to have the most schizophrenic and mental-diseased people there ever have been on -- in any one country. Because the -- why are these people sick? Because they all confuse the "I" and the self. The self is this

side of speech. The self is hungry, and cold, and--as I said, you see--and freezes, and is trembling. But anybody who can say "I," says this in -- within context.

That is -- as Jesus says in the New Testament, I mean, "And you have been told, but I tell you," you see. "I" is always in response and in answer of correcting something that has been believed before. So you must know what has been believed before.

-- Give you a very practical example. I am getting a little lost, but I hope you don't mind, because these are -- essential things also for your -- I think for your community life, that we allow these brats in school to do research. Yes -- we have to invent for the real research a new term. They -- these people just learn what their elders have known. That's all they do. And we allow this excellent word of "research"--looking for it a second time, means research. Search and research, you see. Know one thing and then criticize it, know another thing. We allow these brats of 10 -- I have -- grandchildren who come home and say they have to "do research." Well, I can't spank the teacher. I would like at least to -- to spank the child. I mean, they are ruined for life. They don't do research. They learn.

But if you al- -- abolish, you see, as we -- you have replaced the self by the "I," so you have -- we are now replacing knowledge, discipline, learning, tradition, by research. Now if you put the thing -- the second thing first, you'll never understand the process of learning. No research for a child. What is research? Know everything that can be known in -- in any on -- on any one question. And then discard it and start from scratch. That's research.

Well -- the greatest example in modern times of research is Planck's -- Max Planck's discovery of the quanta theory. The -- because for 300 years, the physicists had been sworn upon the truth that the -- nature made no jumps, and that everything was gradual. Now to think in the year of the Lord 1900 of the possibility that the -- reality consisted of breaks, of lumps, of jumps, you see, of quanta instead of infinite -- infinitesimal changes was a heresy. And it was enough to finish any man's career if he dared to say this. That's research, you see. He had to stick his neck out; he had to risk his own reputation, because he went against everything that 350 years had believed necessary as the basis of scientific thinking. You understand? And ple- -- there you have the exact parallel to the word "art."

In 1500, when people began to sign their pictures for the first time, and their sculptures, and underwrite, so to speak, what they did, they did it at the risk of their lives, so to speak, and knowing all the traditions, and having first been apprentice of course to a master, and having been fellows within a guild.

And then the word "artist"--we'll come back to this in a minute--developed out of the word "artisan." Originally the artist was simply an artisan, you see. And the artist in 1500, in the Renaissance, became somebody who would add his -- his own personal name, you see, to the traditional building, or picture, or whatever, because first it was within the arts and the crafts that he did it, you see. And now they gave honor to the individual because he added some- -- something special to it. Now in the same sense, the research man is singular. If you don't base him on learnedness, on degrees, on a professional training, there's no research.

And you will admit--I'm not exaggerating--that today the word "research" is -- is -- is just bandied around and -- and -- and you will have never science -- -tific progress in this country if you spoil the children with research, because they well have no respect for research. I mean, the terrible effect of this misuse of the term is that I cannot tell my 14-year-old granddaughter now that they should take -- they should curtsy to a scientist of -- in research, because why? She does it herself. She knows all about it. What's -- there's nothing -- no secret, you see. Now a society without secrets for children is lost. And that's why the -- our poor American child has no future, because all its imagination is destroyed and it's said, "You can do everything now," you see.

You see, that's -- the same with sexual enlightenment. A child cannot understand love before it is in love. And we try to tell the children all this before they ever have loved, it's nonsense. So love has no secret to them. They'll never discover -- discover how to love. If you tell them at six years how it all goes -- goes on, they'll not understand a thing.

But this country is full of this con- -- total confusion between person and self, between research and learning. And every phase of the adult life is anticipated and given to the baby. And in this sense, I think the professional group in this country bet- -- knows better, has a tremendous obligation to resist this -- this trend. You have not to fight for your M.D., or for your title, or for your privileges so much as this law of Arizona did, you see, by examination. I think you have to purify the terminology, the language, the lingo of the common man. You have to insist that they don't understand anything about research. That they have to learn something. You should go into the Parent-Teacher Association and say, "Do away with this { } book, that you -- you have a research project."

You have a daughter -- that goes to school already? Hasn't she a research project? How old is she?

(She's nine.)

Well, it will happen. Next year. All my -- my grandchildren had to do

research projects.

Now I'm quite serious. You cannot -- retain the authority and the respect, you see, for this regeneration of the actions which all professional pe- -- people have to perform, if the public says, "Oh, I can do this too -- myself."

In this sense then, may I remind you that the professions fortunately are worldwide? And that what Amer- -- America has in its Constitution as a democracy of the settlers, of the immigrants--"every man a vote"--has tolerated the professions, but has never given them a special berth. It didn't fit. As I said -- tell -- in a gov- -- course on government, the professions will not appear.

Give you another example in that they do not play a decided role in all European countries: we have a faculty of medicine, a faculty of law, a faculty of the- -- divinity, and a faculty of philosophy. We have in our college -- liberal arts college, we have one faculty. And the professions are in schools. Now that's a very strange disorder, because a faculty is a -- something higher in a uni- -- of a university than a school. A school of law doesn't appeal to the imagination of the -- people, the laity, you see, as something ranking above the college authority. It's just a school where you learn the techni- -- a technique, you see. So you learn to win cases, and to cheat -- to cheat. That's what most people think of a law school.

And with us in Europe, the tradition was, you see: you went to school. And then you entered a university, where there were faculties, and the profes- -- members of a faculty did not rate as schoolteachers. And a professor in -- Europe -- would be above the schools completely, because he was responsible for the change of content in -- in teaching. We would make this distinction very simple. A schoolteacher is a man who teaches what is known. And a teacher -- a man in the university changes the content of -- that what has to be taught. It's a -- very simple, you see. You have to renew the food all the time, you see. The schoolteacher does not change the food. There are the three R's; they have to be taught, you see. But in the higher institutions of learning, there is this change. And I may draw your attention to the fact that there is -- this is the strange use of the word "high" and "higher." "High" and "higher" means that the -- the good is not good enough. It has to become better. Wherever you have the word "high" in use--"high commissioner"--you have sovereignty. A high commissioner is not a commissioner. Your commissioner of taxes has to imply the law of taxation. And you can rely on the law against him. If you can write to the commissioner of taxes and say, "The -- this is the law," and he has to comply.

But the high commissioner, and that-- for example, the title of high commissioner in the Rhineland after the First World War meant that he was

sovereign. He could make new laws, you see. Wherever you have the word "high," you mean change, you mean decision, you see. DeGaulle and {Massue} are -- differ in this sense. {Massue} is simply a routine soldier, this general who was fired the other day, you see, yesterday. And -- but DeGaulle is in high office, and it's his responsibility to change the ways of the repub- -- the French republic, you see. And this is the difference between the G‚n‚ral DeGaulle, and the G‚n‚ral {Massue}. They may both be called generals, but they are -- move on completely different levels. And Monsieur {Massue}, mistaking this, you see, has to be fired. You understand?

And again, I offer you this word "high" to explain to you that all persons, all people who say "I" are on a higher plane, beyond their own selves. If you act as a doctor in your office, you are not yourself, you see. But you are Dr. Suchand-Such. And this is high. And I think the -- the American genius of course is absolutely against high-browness. And to be low-brow is -- is the ideal. But I'm sorry to say that the professions can't do without the distinction between low and high, you see.

A Charles {Sweet}, or -- or -- or Dr. {Angell}, you see, were riding high on their -- their profession, because they created a new profession, you see, that hadn't existed before. You understand? That this is not a wanton expression. Because they must override tradition. And therefore "high" is a necessary, you see, and perfectly spiritual and perfectly unnatural thing. Nothing in nature is high. You can turn everything around in nature. You can never prove that the sky is above the earth. The earth {revolves} around the sun. What is higher? The sun? The -- . How do you know, you see? But in your and my world of decision, you see, any decision that overrides a smaller decision, a routine decision, stands higher than the other.

And I don't think that I'll see the day where Americans will ever accept the -- the term of "high," but I -- at least I have to explain it to you. And what you can accept, I think, without defeating the genius of this country's traditions is the distinction between "I" and self. There is a fundamental distinction, you see. The "I" is always within a community.

When a man gets up --. A famous story of the South where a rabble-rouser arrived, Mr. {Caspar}--you may have heard his name--and tried to incite the people of this southern town against the Jews, and the Catholics, and the Negro, and there were several --. It was a big crowd, and it was very electric, and people thought it would -- a lynching would occur.

And just an old man got up and said simply--now listen to his vocabulary--"I have lived in this town for 50 -- for 70 years. We have -- always get

along beautifully all together. And I think our friend who has spoken tonight just doesn't understand the situation. So let's all accompany him to the railroad station."

Now what did -- had this man done? He had the guts against the majority, of -- of thousands milling -- you see, mass-men, sel- -- mere selves, tickled to death by this electricity, by this rabble-rouser, to say "I." They had -- said -- done it in a very humble way. He said, "I have lived here 70 years." But you know, 70 years are the greatest personal contribution any man can make to reality, to a society. If you think of yourself as having lived a ce- -- an amount of time, you are a different person from when you say that I -- you weigh 150 pounds, or 200, as I suppose you do.

The -- if we express ourselves in quest- -- in -- in terms of space, we are selves. But as soon as you say that you are somebody's son, or somebody's father, or that you have lived 70 years, or that you have been five years in -- in Grand Junction, you suddenly acquire authority. It is very strange that this poor, temporal being of man changes from a self into an "I," the more he expresses his thinking in terms of time. If you say you have gone to the University of Colorado and -- and acquired a doctor's degree, you acquire authority for these four years which you have spent there. Very strange.

But -- well, I -- this is my -- specialty, this transformation of time -- space into time. You see, the pagans worship the morning star, and the sun, and the -- and the moon. And the Christians worship their saints as stars in the sky, because they have lived. It's the lived life of Christ which makes Him into an authority. Not that He lived some place, you see, but that He lived some time. And how He lived, these 30 years of His life. And that's all He has to offer. He has no more authority than the 33 years of His suffering on this earth. And it -- the same with -- with this man in the South who said, "I have lived here all my life," you see, "And this man just doesn't understand," and out he goes.

And the -- that's why a professional man looks back to his upbringing, and to his teachers, and says, you see, "I have a -- hyperbole, a -- a kind of temporal form. I have gone through time." You see, a curve--how could you call it?--a curvature, you see, through his temporal, historical existence gives any man what we call "background." It's not a good term, "background," you see. You should really use a temporal term.

Everything in America which today needs mending is where you find that temporal expressions have been -- have, so to speak, been replaced by spatial expressions. Space is dead, and thingness, and -- and -- and mechanics. And time is movement, transformation, authority, experience. And unity through the

history of man -- claims that we move within destiny. This man who said, "I have lived here 70 years," there- -- from there got the authority to say something about the future of this town for the next 70 years. And he did, you see. The moment certainly was illuminated by the 70 years backward and what therefore had to be done for the future 70 years.

So I think that's a practical recipe which I -- which a professional man, I think, can spread in the community. Since you write receip- -- recipes--prescriptions, pardon me--and they all are "I's," and consultations, and so on and on, your "I" is -- is the right "I," is the honorable ego, you see, that word "I" which is meaningful. And a child can become an "I," but only when it says -- "I am" -- "I am the son of Such-and-Such," when he -- to look backward and to look forward makes a person, you see, out of a self. To be impression of the moment, to be intoxicated, to be nervous, to be frantic, to be hungry, makes a man into a self. The smaller the period which your instincts and your passions cover, the more you are self. The wider the -- the arc of time within which your utterance moves, you see, the more you are "I," the more you are the person of the moment, the mouthpiece of the truth. And "I" is therefore always within the truth. Self is this side of truth, is nothing but a descriptive fact of jitters, I mean. -- If you -- if you feel cold or -- that has nothing to do with truth. That's just a question of facts, you see. But a man who says, you see, "This is it," is immediately in the context of all of history.

Now our professional man, therefore--this is my, so to speak, my -- would be my contradiction to the -- to the divin- -- divines, and ministers of the Church--and that's why I probably got the degree of divinity, because they understood this, finally, after my -- a long life of mine--is that I have always held that the real mission of the last 2,000 years has not been limited to the pope, and the cardinals, and the bishops, and the ministers, and the -- the clergy, and the theologians, but that the Christian people have waged war against stagnation in the professions, and that the progress of the western man, you see, has been based on this strange combination of change and -- within tradition. That anybody who -- that -- who knew -- that the Greeks, for example, they had no progress is science. They had geniuses, everybody is starting from scratch there. And everybody forgetting what the -- previous man had known. You may know that Eratosthenes knew that the earth had rotated around the sun. That was forgotten again.

You can hardly imagine such a state of affairs in which a whole nation of geniuses, you see, knows the deepest, profoundest things, and the next generation begins from scratch again. But I warn you: without Europe and without Russia, this country is exactly in the same position. I cannot tell you what truths have been forgotten in the last hundred years in this country. The greatest, in

politics, in education. This country is full of this same Greek -- Greek mentality, you see. {Splash}. Make, you see. There is no social experiment that hasn't been tried in this country and completely buried, and has never been refuted. But you say something of this kind today, and say, "Let's do the thing."

"Oh, it has been done and tried." And they always think it has been -- it has been found wanting. It has been found wanting, but has only found impatient people who wanted the next thing, and another thing, and one more thing.

And so we are running, running, running, running, and forgetting. And this is what happened in pagan times. You must not think that paganism is anything lacking spirit. It has too much spirit. It has so much spirit that every ego, you see, says, "It's my spirit." "I have this idea." And if -- when I hear Mr. Mortimer Adler and all these { } Institute men -- praising ideas. I'm -- I'm very, very doubtful, because the loyalty to the true idea is what matters, and not to have ideas. I can have 50 ideas a day, and 49 of them must be discarded, because they are not timely, you see.

Everybody at this moment is worshiping in -- in this country ideas by -- per se. I -- these -- here -- these business seminars. I warn you. It's the right idea which counts. Not any idea. I mean, there are 50 ideas, 100 ideas, thousand ideas. I can tell you I have more ideas than any man in this { } Institute ever had. I cannot complain, I mean. But my whole problem all my life has -- not to been to have ideas, but to select them, and to be faithful to those who are important, and to insist, you see, that one true idea is better than 1400 half-truths.

And -- why is this so? Because we are relapsing into pre-Christian times. Paganism is upon this world today. I can't tell you this in sufficiently strong terms. You wouldn't believe me. I certainly am not a pessimist at all; I have been an optimist all my life. But I have to keep my eyes open. Certainly with all the fanfires, of churchgoing and charities, and church, and church fairs, and all this kind of stuff, and -- and church dinners, and you -- this has -- does -- nothing to do with the sol- -- solid balance between tradition and progress. Our Christian churches, consisting of any number of sects, you see, have of course forgotten most of the fundamental truth of Christianity, or otherwise there couldn't be a thousand sects. Because obviously any one sect expresses one truth, you see, a partial truth. Otherwise they couldn't split. If they had the whole truth, they would be together.

In Johannesburg, in -- South Africa -- a friend of mine who is the moderator of the Congregational Church came back; he has lived 40 years there as a missionary in Johannesburg. And he says, "You wouldn't believe me, but I -- I can only state that in this one city of Johannesburg, and for these poor Negroes, and the poor white, too, and the Hindus, there are 2,000 sects. And I mean 2,000."

Now that's hard -- hard to believe. That's more than we have ever heard of in these United States. In one city, 2,000. That's paganism, you see, because that is an appeal to the individual inspiration of the moment. It's just a nervous tickling, you see. It has nothing to do with invoking the Holy Spirit, as it moves from beginning to end, you see. These 2,000 sects just prove to you what -- how in the heart of the truth today, something terrible has happened. Absolutely terrible. So we have to stay away from any one of these 2,000 sects if you want to have anything to do with the truth, obviously. As soon as you give the little finger to one of these 2,000 sects, I think you are lost. That's very clear. Because today, the official function of the -- of the truth-seeking body--that's the Church--and the way of sa- -- of speaking the truth are separated. Within these 2,000 allegedly Christian bodies, the body politic cannot find its salvation.

So I think you and I, as professional men have to be lay -- as laymen -- I always tell my clergyman, "You are responsible for my salvation. Your squabbles in theology, that you are a Presbyterian, you are Congregationalist, have nothing to do with me, who's sitting -- sits down there. You are responsible that I am in the right church. I'm a layman. And I don't care what you think up there, you see. You squabble. You write books, and -- treatises and so on. I go to the una sancta. I go to the ecumenic church, as all good women and all good children have ever tried to go. And they are not responsible for the divisions of these people there -- up there.

But today the point is reached, I think, where the people down on the church benches have to find a way of living the good life, and the ecumenic life, without falling into the trap of any of these sects. And this is a very tragic situation, because in order to be the true Church, you can't go to church. That's very serious. And it is serious, you see. You just think of all the divorced couples, you see, who had to get divorced. The Church doesn't recognize it. It doesn't consecrate. It just consecrates their marriage, and it doesn't consecrate their divorce. Now how can you then have the second marriage? You see, these people are -- I know so many cases. These people got -- get consecration, and they never get a dissolution. This is of course minimizing the meaning of such a ceremony. There must be some solemn act by which they are absolved of the religious ceremony. But never done. The clergy says -- they are such cowards that they will marry a person four times in church, and they'll never divorce her in church. Well, that's -- this is all nonsense, you see, because if you have been a -- married in church, and not divorced in church, the second marriage in church is -- makes absolutely no sense. Can you see it?

But these churches in this country, they are all cowards. They have no social status, they have no courage, they have no convictions, and they do what -- I mean, what's pleasing, you see. And if you hear the word "pleasing," and to --

"You have to please the public," you know that you have nothing with truth, that the Devil, the father of lies, is work -- at work. And as long as the churches have not a ceremony on divorce, I can't take them seriously. They are just playthings for -- for children. And I have talked -- I have educated so many ministers, you can't -- I mean, I've worked every Monday for -- these ministers had -- the clergymen's Sunday, as you know, the Mon- -- . So they come to my house, and we read the Bible, and we study this, and as we always said, "As long as you do not introduce a form by which divorce is consecrated, and a man is -- and a woman are absolved of this burden, you see, that they have said something in church which no longer is true, you don't believe in the sacraments. All your Communion and baptism doesn't make sense to me. You have married these people with solemn words, and now they go on and have a second marriage. You have to say something about it! What you say, I don't care. That's up to you. But you have to face the fact that life is stronger than all your forms."

And in a country in which every fourth couple is divorced, the -- the whole Refo- -- chur- -- ecclesiastical revival doesn't make -- doesn't impress me at all, because they -- dodge the main issue, you see, that the real life and the real experience of most of the people in this country is not consecrated by the clergy. Can you see this? No? You don't?

(Well, I don't think that's true. You're speaking of -- not all the churches. I mean, in Catholic and Episcopal Church, they either are not recognized as divorced, or the bishop divorces them. He says, "This is true.")

In the Episcopal Church, it has to be recognized. Yes, but there is no ceremony. Yes, I know. Bishop Pike is a -- you see, is a man who is married in sec- -- the second time, here in California. { }. Big issue. But in -- with the Catholic Church, you see, it's the other way. The first marriage is annulled. That's a different thing, you see. That's no divorce. It's annulled.

(No, but then it's recognition of this.)

It's annulled, yes. But it simply -- in this sense, you may -- are -- you are right, that the first marriage is at least gotten out of the way. But I'm told--I have never been a -- found evidence, that in Athens and the Greek Church, there is a solemn church ceremony. It's not a legal court function, you see, in the -- ecclesiastical court, but that the -- the priest undertakes it to -- to -- to tell these people that they are free now, in a ceremony. I wish -- would like to find out about it.

Well, I only to go -- mean to show you that unfortunately the professions have to carry a burden -- an unexpected burden: to change with honor--which is also in marriage, I mean, your whole problem--is our task. What -- that's meant

by the word "research." You have -- we have learned by good authority something, and we have to go -- we have to respect this authority. We have to stand by this authority. We have to treat cancer according to the standards of medicine. Yet at the same time, you have to try a new approach to cancer, because the old hasn't worked, you see, and there is a gap in between. Until your new treatment on cancer is recognized, you see, you still have to abide by the old laws.

So the duplicity of our situation, between founder and heir, between successor and predecessor, you see, that is man's sublime, spiritual role as an "I," as a man who says something in -- in his own right, and who decides what is over with, you see, and what is beginning. We set ends and beginnings as "I's," you see. And a self has no such situation at all.

Twice -- three times the Christian era has lured the public, the masses to this professional leadership. And I'm afraid I have overstepped my time limit. How long am I allowed to speak on? When is your ski lesson?

(This afternoon.)

Wie? Well, really, I -- I'm sorry. This is -- I got lost. But I thought this was equally important as -- as the other thing. And it is nearer home.

(Why don't we just keep going?)

(The ladies have gone their { }.)

Well, how -- what is { }?

({ }.)

Wie?

(No, I'm -- I'm { }.)

The men and women are corollaries, you see. You set the fashions. That is, your innovation is in the moment, as of the moment. As of this moment, you change. A man who would have a different dress every day would be an ape. But we welcome it if a woman dresses differently every day.

And -- well, a small item. But I think it goes to show you that the relation between change and tradition, between faithfulness and change, is located in the opposite order in men and wo- -- women. You are responsible that Christmas is celebrated and -- and Thanksgiving every year the same way. But I hope that

you have different dress at every Thanksgiving dinner. We have the same tuxedo all the -- -ways, you see. But we will introduce new ritual, and new stories for the celebration. And we will be critical of religion, and we will change the forms. That is, on the higher entities, you see, on the long ends, man is responsible for the change, and you for the tradition. And in the short-range things--in kitchen, and fashion, and so--you are responsible for the change; and we must be satisfied with pea soup every day.

And that's a very -- if you follow it up, that's highly interesting. Man and women have to be -- have been created to save the continuity of the world. We would just be animals, you see, and there would be just a fleeting moment. And there would be no consciousness of continuity or unity; there would be no history; there would be no fulfillment; no vocations, no calling. And for this reason, men and women hold on in a different rhythm of what is, and what has to be. Man is for the changes in religion, for the changes, you see, in -- in the great things, as in -- in science, you see. And he is indifferent in his dress, I mean. And as soon as you would make a man into a rooster, who has to show new feathers every day, he would certainly be unproductive in the higher field of mental change, and -- and political change. And a woman, vice versa.

And this -- you see, this is the difference between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. In the animal kingdom, the woman is drab, and the male is colorful. And we have changed this around. And man who is -- would like to be a rooster, you see, and cock-eyed, is -- is a -- well, let me say indifferent or conservative in his dress, you see. And he should be. I -- I suspect any male who is not. He is -- usually is not a male. I mean, usually he's homosexual. And -- well, or he is impotent, you see. As soon as you get the vanity and dress in a man, it's -- it's dangerous. I mean, it doesn't limit -- I mean { }, all right. Wie?

({ } I'll put this sweater on tomorrow. { }.)

If you carry it long enough, it's all right. But you can't carry a different sweater every day.

(Yeah. { }.)

Wie?

({ }.)

(May I ask one quick question along this same line? I don't { } will have to take care--I don't want to be considered a feminist--but don't you think as the woman in society, and I have no statistics to back this, just a feeling on my own,

that the woman in society has actually been the impetus, the -- the force behind movements that man has carried on, that the male has carried on? In other words, they say for every great man, there's a woman behind him. Now don't you think that is true in many cases, that without this drive that's necessitated through having a spouse, that maybe these great forces wouldn't exist? Maybe a man like Gaugin wouldn't have existed except for the woman he had at home. And he had --.)

Whom he left in a hurry, yes.

(Yeah, in other words, not necessarily in the immediate association, but the force behind him.)

Well, obviously the charm of the woman makes a man {steal a car}, and -- so that he can { }. I mean, this is the simplest expression of our ambition, I mean. If you hadn't a woman to bring home the wherewithal, or the crown, or the ho- -- the deed for the -- your house, or buy the car, and buy a necklace, you wouldn't be -- you wouldn't do half as much. Obviously this is a tremendous incentive. But that's understood, I mean, this -- this tremendous -- this current of energy that is -- excited by the relation of the sexes. What is so terrible at this moment in this country is that people are no longer allowed to -- to be thought of as acting for the manifest destiny of the human race. It's very nice that Lincoln had this ambitious wife, Mary Todd. But this doesn't discard the question of emancipation of the slaves, Sir, that he did a better job because this -- woman wanted him to become president. That's one thing. But you have the office of the president, and you have the emancipation to do, just the same. It is more energy that he puts into it, you see. And perhaps Lincoln wouldn't have become the president without Mary Todd, which is my suspicion. That certainly { }.

So keep the hierarchy, Sir, of the religious issue, you see, the biographical issue, and what I would call the -- the chemical issue, the physical issue. You always have these three levels. Don't allow to explain the history of mankind simply by the relation between men and women. Obviously every one of us -- I've been married 45 years. It's my life. It's her -- how can I distinguish this? What I have done for my wife's sake, and what she has done for my sake, that's such a complete unit, I cannot dis- -- distinguish this. But still, what I am teaching you cannot be explained by the fact that I love my wife, Sir. It's -- still has something to do with the truth. And that she has enabled me to serve this truth so -- and we have made so many ill -- she has changed her -- her nationality twice for my sake--that's quite a great sacrifice--but there is -- this is within the framework of something that had to be done. Don't you understand? It's my wager -- my feeling on all these discussions is that you -- it's such a platitude to lower the level so completely that by your -- love to the woman, you want to explain what you are

doing. The content is not of it. The energy, and the successful way with which you are -- you see, applying -- to this, that comes from your -- from the good fortune that there is somebody whom you love, and whom you want to convince that you are the right man.

You see, but these are two things. There -- that's why -- forget the common denominator, Sir. That's why there is an order. When you speak, when you write, when you teach, when you make money, you do it within a framework of -- of purposes, of aims that go beyond yourself, you see. And you appeal to your fellow man to support you, because you say, "I do something which the community needs, which the society needs. You and I, you see, are not just good fellows, but I am serving you in a capacity which nobody else does as well."

This is, after all, an appeal to truth, you see, and to aims that are far beyond your two legs, and your two arms, and your -- the fact that you are a male, you see. And it is a fact that God created us in His great mercy in such a way that we cover the whole life from Adam to the youngest day by the fact that we are in love with a woman. She represents the whole history from Adam to the in- -- role of the spirit, to the moment where you say, "I however have to tell you now that things have to change." And you represent this whole way from this moment of the -- becoming an "I" to the end of time. Because when you say, "I," you mean to influence creation in such a way that to the end of days this direction is the right direction, you see, that you improve what this means, that you, you see, settle things in a way that they are better than before.

So every one of us is in this -- who has the -- the good fortune to be -- love a woman is by -- told by her everything that has gone on before. And he is -- the more he loves her, and the better the wi- -- woman is, the less she is a harlot, and an easy-going wife; and the more she is a mother and a -- real woman, and the real Eve, you see, the more he is inspired to -- because she's willing to go with him even into -- into captivity, so to speak, and into persecution, you see, the more she stands by him and believes in him, the more he is able to change the ways of mankind and to -- to begin new ways, you see. The cheap woman asks for immediate success, and therefore she only covers the last 30 years and the next 30 years, so to speak, in his -- her appeal to him. The good woman says, "You are all right, Sir. It will take generations before they understand you; but I'm with you, just the same."

But believe me, the -- the secret of our being representative of the whole history of the human race is a very simple situation which every couple does. You raise children. You have to bring them up. You have parents. You have to honor the old age. There is not one moment in our lives where we are not really deciding what to keep from the old times, and what to begin of the future.

And through this tension, that we are heirs and founders, you see, the -- the two sexes excel in their togetherness, because one stresses the -- the values that life has been good before. As I told you, I mean, a woman must insist that Thanksgiving is celebrated. A bachelor would go to the next restaurant, you see, and forget about it. But she insists that there is a celebration, and that you invite a stranger, you see, and that you make sure that the old spirit of Thanksgiving is repeated. And for a woman to repeat is as honorable as for a man to invent. Because it's as hard to convince her man that they should be conservative. As it is, you see, hard for a man to convince an old cook that she should use a new recipe.

[tape interruption; end]