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

Richard Feringer: (...that you would have a similar experience that I had had in the past, and still do, when I hear him speak: of not quite -- understanding some points, needing some other points filled out a bit. And I had hoped that this kind of a discussion might aid your understanding of some of his ideas a little bit more.

(And with this, Sir, I'd like to turn the discussion over to you, and have any of you who wish to speak up and ask questions, start off the discussion and we can kind of see where we go from there.)

Well, if I may open the discussion: close the door.

Is -- does this prevent people from coming in?

(I don't think so.)

(Professor {Miletich}?)

(Ah, would you give us your definition of language, then also a linguistic one? And try -- also linguistic definition of language, try to compare them to the merits of your definition and shortcomings of the linguistic one.)

Yes. The shortcoming of the linguistic is perhaps -- if I may begin this way--because that is known to you, what they are doing--is that they take the single sentence and analyze it, and tell us what the subject or the verb means in this. My contention is that all language is one great ocean in which we swim, and that you cannot at -- in any way, understand language if you take the single sentence. That does -- is -- absolutely meaningless for -- to me.

I mean, old Wundt, the famous Max Wundt, that was the great psychologist of the end of the 18th -- 19th century, reformed linguistic in a way because he made this progress that we shouldn't -- at least not analyze a single word, but the sentence. I still remember my surprise when I was a boy of perhaps 16 or 17, when I heard this miraculous story, that you had to have a whole sentence before you could understand what language was.

I am not satisfied with this. And I say that man is made a member of the human race by speech, that this is an ocean in which we swim. And as soon as we give up the feeling that this is an ocean, and one element, we leave the human race. You see that Mr. Hitler -- or the Chinese at this moment, or many

other groups at this moment, have given up all hope ever to be able to speak to others. If you go to Berlin, in eastern Germany, you will find that these people claim the right to lie to every western German, because they are not Communist. That all the ethics of speech are today in jeopardy, in all these class struggles. It's a very -- terrifying situation. For the first time in 900 years--that's about the time of the Crusades--man has in wide parts of the world declared openly that he's not going ever to be on speaking terms with the -- wickedness of bourgeoisie, or the wickedness of such-and-such a religious group. And for the first time, this ocean of speech in which every innocent man, except philologists, have always believed, that -- is now -- given up.

And in this sense, the wrong theory of language is victorious, as all these materialistic gods of the 19th century. They all dominate now the laity. First, only the scholars didn't believe in God. Now -- even the dic- -- the general dictionary doesn't believe in God. Yesterday I looked up in Collier's a definition of -- of "language." Sir, I don't know if you were present when we spoke of this, this morning. Wie?

(No. I was not present here today { }.)

Well, it may help us to advance--I do not wish to -- to dwell on this too long. But it helps. You must first know that we are in a very sticky moment of the human spirit. It just has left us. And it's very dif- -- difficult to recover. On a much more calamitous and serious situation, because talk, newspapers, and television--which to me all are not speech, but imitative speech, irresponsible speech, valueless speech, worthless speech--taking from great, great truths and great speech the veneer, being totally irresponsible. Because, as I gave you examples, even the commissioner of education in Washington can say to me, "This -- you are right, but if you quote me on this, I shall deny it."

Now nine-tenths of the American people consist of people who make sure that they will never be quoted on anything. And that's a very strange situation. It's of course a complete devaluation of language. If you can dabble -- babble politely in society, and say things and you don't mean them, where are we? And the more people get into this state, the more devaluated the whole me- -- the whole element in which we have to bask, after all, and on which we rely for our very existence --. I mean, any declaration of love of a boy, is it always a lie? Does he never mean business? Or the girl, when she says, "Yes"? Does she always have another -- thought in mind than what she says? This is all taken for granted. We have analysis which proves that when a man says, "I love my mother," he only wants to kill her, and vice versa. I mean, we are surrounded today by the pretense that nobody wants to speak the truth. That everybody has the power to lie. If successful, he gets rich; if not successful, he goes to jail.

Now -- but the two -- the two alternatives are not very interesting to me. I want to know how it is possible to speak the truth. This is very strange, because the truth is denied. Everything is pragmatic. You speak for your self-in- -- selfinterest. And therefore, as you know, a lie is forbidden, but it's a great help in the trouble of life.

This -- these all -- witty -- witticisms, which weren't very important as long as very few people read books, and wro- -- read newspapers and wrote newspapers, is now a tremendous calamity, because every one member of the 195 million Americans looks -- listens to television, and reads newspapers, and is exposed to these constant lies and constant pretenses.

So to give you my example, which frightened me. There is an encyclopedia by Collier's. It's one of the many -- encyclopedias -- is not worse than any other. I don't mean to slander it -- especially. It's any encyclopedia, defining speech.

And it says, under the heading "grammar," I found the sentence that speech is given us to speak to other people our feelings, our intentions, explanations. Now we live in such an atheistic era that it is taken for granted that prayer doesn't exist. Because obviously the most important use of speech is prayer -- the holiest, or the most central. Because -- to me prayer is the way in which I discover who I am. While I -- talking to you, I try to pose as a scholar, or as a speaker, or as a witty man, or as a learned man. So I'm always wrong -- or I'm not -- I'm posing. Because you came here under false pretenses. And I'm here under false pretenses. We all are, in this earthly world, in a way bewitched. We have only the hope that despite our masquerade here--we're all masked here--that the truth will come out, that through the medium of speech, we may break the barriers of our not understanding each other, our not knowing each other.

But the condition is that when I speak, I have not only you in mind, ladies and gentlemen, but that I know that I'm -- speak in the presence of Heaven. The -- the -- the encyclopedia laughs at this and says, "We speak to others." Well, then you cannot speak the truth, because others have always different interests from yourself. And only if there is some almighty ruler in the universe who watches you and me will we limit our lying, and our egotism, and our vanities, and our ridiculous way of thinking about the world at large from our own little viewpoint. We will not sit there in judgment over Herr -- Mr. Mao or Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and say we know it all.

This is only if -- if speech puts man under the life of our creator. And without this participation, I do not see why we should talk about language at all. It's an instrument like a pliers. And that's what the linguists say. The linguists

say that "language is under our rule, that I can say what I please. I can make languages." They invent artificial languages. And I say, "No. This is impossible." You can, of course, invent an artificial language for what it is worth. I have nothing against Volapk, or Esperanto. But the -- inventor of Esperanto and Volapk knew very well that they are far from creating a living language. That is an instrument, a language for special purposes, for ordering in Hong Kong cheap suits. As you know, the Chinese produce there very s- -- cheap dresses. And I recommend them to you. And order them in Esperanto.

Now I'm -- pardon me. I cannot speak on language without injecting this -- in the note forbidden in the Constitution of the United States, that we speak in the presence of God. And that's very serious. Any linguist denies the existence of God, in the -- in the way in which he talks now about --. We have no other access to our religion than through speech, Sir. This idea that you can have in your head some belief in God, and then speak as though He didn't infiltrate, didn't inspire you, or -- expire you, is to me absolutely -- ridiculous, silly. But this silliness governs our campuses. Forgive me. It is the proposition that you can talk about the human history, about the Constitution of the United States, about good and evil without ever knowing that you speak because you have--vis … vis of you--a -- a -- ma- -- a divin- -- -inity, a majesty which looks at you, and which controls you, and which directs you, and which tells you when you are lying. And here, the theory is: the bigger the lie, the leas- -- less you will be discovered.

This is quite serious, Sir. And for a man, you see, who has left his own country, because the big lie there dominated, and had come to this country, it is rather exasperating to find that the country which was built, and based, and founded by the belief in a just creator, is now out to create all kind of departments in which this is openly denied. It's very strange.

When I came to my college, the -- Dartmouth College in New England, I found that several -- colleagues in the English department said, "It's our task in the liberal arts college to wean all these poor boys from their benighted religion."

I looked at them in -- in dismay and said, "Well, then we are at odds, at loggerheads." And I have been at loggerheads at various universities in my life, and the situation is quite serious.

The linguist -- linguists today are the starting point of all denial of any meaning of life. And -- the simple quest, Sir -- it -- it's very simple. If you take this single sentence, then you do not understand this -- this ocean. One wave begets the other. If I say, "There is no God," then somebody else goes out and proves it by action. That is, we are infectious. The sentences which we speak are not repeated by somebody else. But if I say something, anything of the character of a

command, or a summons, an exhortation, a recommendation, then somebody goes--and that was my demonstration yesterday--to do it. He say -- you say -- I hate to give -- examples, because then I might then be arrested for summoning, you see, sedition. But anybody who says, "Let's -- keep America white," of course leads to the -- another man who says, "Well, we must do this now," and proposes how it is done. And then there will be surveys soon in the newspaper, a chronicle reporting that last night something happened by some rowdies, because they believed your sentence.

That -- it -- that is, what we say in the form of a summons enters another man in the form of a wish. What this other man wishes then enters fact in the order -- in the form of a report in the newspapers of a fact. And finally then comes a sociologist who says, "In America, race riots are quite ordinary and regular." And then the man who reports this -- the character of the Americans as loving race riots in Mississippi omits this -- the man who first wished this on the others, omits the seducer. And that's what we have today, these poor people in the street who do all the things. They are carrying out what our theories have insinuated.

And so I see a constant movement from wishful thinking in one man to -- to desire in the next, to action in the third, and to theory in the fourth. And everyone says, "I haven't said -- I have only said this little thing. And that -- am I not free to say what I think?"

The strange situation today that the most dangerous people rank as the most innocent people. The linguists have -- have told us that one can speak without regard to the divinity of man. If this is possible, Sir, if because there are -- there are 9,878 dialects and languages in Africa alone. There probably have been 100,000 languages in the world. The Bible has been translated into 1,028 languages as -- so far. And it's still proceeding.

(Let me ask you a question. Is Esperanto included among those { }?)

Pardon me?

(Is Esperanto included among those languages you mentioned? Is the Esperanto language included among those languages you mentioned?)

I hope not. I hope not. You see, no. Because this language is a means to an end, and language is not a means, Sir. We -- you know why it is not a means? Bec- -- I -- you -- didn't come to the lectures. My -- the discovery on which this whole hat is hung up is very simple. Because you are your mother's son, you know from the very first day and for the rest of your life--and you cannot change

it by learning another language--that you cannot marry her. You know that you cannot marry your daughter. You know that you cannot marry your sister. These so-called taboos, for which we don't even have a decent name, depend on the divinity of your names. You are a human being, Sir. And you have the great privilege as a man to know who you are. And you know therefore that the great qualities of the human soul, by which we become human, means that you must develop the qualities of the daughters of Zion, and the mother of God, and the son of man, and the father of mankind--all these great religious terms--they live in every human being's chest. Every one man, by learning to speak, is immediately endowed with -- exciting avenues of being.

You think that language are words. As long as you think this, I cannot convert you, Sir.

(I do not.)

I cannot, no.

(I do not.)

What?

(I do not think that language is a word. I can give my definition of language, but I'm interested in your definition of language. So what I'm { }.)

I don't under- -- quite understand.

(I would like to hear your definition of "language.")

It's the way by which man, in -- in difference to other -- all the rest of nature, is able to officiate in the changing offices of creation. We are the only people who, as we go on, and as people are born and die, you see, differ in our tasks. In every generation, something has to be buried, and something new has to be taken up. It's language which enables you to say, "I am my parents' son; but now I take a vow of chastity," or "I -- I become a professor, a scholar to scientific truth, and there has -- never anybody in my family done this before, but I begin it."

So man is this strange person who--for this reason, by the way--in -- in difference to the animals, buries his dead. There is no tribe who doesn't bury. You remember, we talked on this, this morning with Mr. {Butler}, the man from Australia. Burial is the greatest basis, so to speak, of the divinity of language. Because in -- in burying our dead, in becoming aware that death is real, we make

room for future -- the future. It's a tremendous challenge. The most primitive man buries his ancestors. And so he does two things at once. He keeps alive the memory of these people. And he admits that he now is in their place, because he must take care of them. That's what ancestor-worship means. This is a tremendous thing. No animal does anything but run away when it has to die. When my horses die, I have -- I raise horses, then they run away into the lates- -- last corner of the field and wish to hide. When a human being dies, it is buried.

This acknowledges two things, Sir, of great importance, which are beyond words, so to speak, you see. The name of a dead man formerly was broken over his head, so to speak, over his -- to make sure. And then the -- at the same time, he received a religious homage. I mean, every -- annual- -- annually, his memory would be repeated and celebrated.

So we have this strange power, as human beings, to overcome death, to en- -- enclose it; that is, to acknowledge it, and yet to say, to survive it. Man cannot be understood as a living animal. He can only understa- -- understood as a man who knows that he must die, and who triumphs over it. Without this triumph over death, no human civilization, no human history, and no language. And that's why the Greek Homer called us the "articulate mortals." We are the only being who on the one side die, like the animals, and on the other, like the gods, last. And we do it with the help of language. Your name lasts -- outlasts you.

This is then why I say words are not language. Your name is the most vital part, because I use it to call on you, and you use it, probably, my name, when you speak -- to me. And as long as we enhance our mutual names as titles--what they really are--. When I call somebody "Mr." or somebody called "my son," or somebody called "my sister," I bestow a title on them. I create a constitution. And we belittle this, now. We are all so slangy and all so shirt-sleeved, people are so informal that Mr. -- the president is "Teddy," or he is -- I don't know. And Mrs. Johnson is--how do you call her?--Lady Bird. And an American will not give in before he has not abolished all -- titles, and is -- he's happy if he can say he is informal. Now -- but don't be betrayed. The form of the American Constitution is the informality. So it is a form.

Without the -- knowing that the president really is Mr. President, it doesn't give you any satisfaction to call him "Teddy" -- Theodore Roosevelt, you see. The funny thing is that in America, the understanding of language is made a little difficult because we live on this witticism that nothing is quite serious, and that the man in shirt-sleeves, so to speak, pleases us better than in full costume. But we know that the full costume is needed. Woe to the judge who doesn't appear in his gown on his bench. We wouldn't like to be condemned to death by a judge who came there in his bathing suit.

Well, doesn't you think that's true? I mean, at least if I'm condemned to die, I want to be judged by a man in full dress. That dress is language. That a judge should wear a dress is the consequence of the fact that you call him "Judge."

You read Carlisle, Sartor Resartus, who -- has anybody read the book? Thomas Carlisle, as you know, was an English writer. And he's the only English writer I know, except Shakespeare, who knew what language was for. And in this book Sartor Resartus, the resown tailor--that's what it means, the s- -- tailor sewed up again--he -- he knew this secret of names. And I recommend it to you. It's the only book written on the topic which is still valid in all these last hundred years.

Language consists of naming each other, and therefore it is a process between you and me, Sir. And it is not something about things. The greatest -- great heresy of linguistics at this moment is that here you sit, and here you sit, and you say, "Oh, this is a glass; this is a cup; this is a bottle; this is a loudspeaker"; and then you say, "We know all about language." It's a way of -- of labeling things. The poor things don't know what we're doing to them. They don't listen in, you see. And so we can invent Esperanto. And as far as things are considered, Esperanto is a language. But as far as the inventor of Esperanto is considered, and his mother and his wife, if he -- you would call him by his Esperanto name, he wouldn't come. But he wants to come by the -- name given him in all seriousness by his parents when they loved him, and when they begot him, and when they recognized him as a -- as a citizen, and as a -- their son. And this is a -- a totally different world, the world of names, which Carlisle had in mind with his resown tailor.

And people whom I meet only talk about this perfectly indifferent thing, whether this should be called a bottle, or this should be called a bathtub. Or -- I prefer to call it a bottle. It's clearer. But it has something of a bathtub, too. If you get an -- a small animal, you can ask him -- to take a bath in it.

That's by and large how people consider language nowadays, as an instrument, you see, to express that there are certain things to be had in the next store. That's not language. For this, I would use sign lang- -- signs, tokens. I go there, and point it out -- hin; and the man says, "Suh, suh, suh," and there we go, and that's -- doesn't --. Sign language is not language. The animals have excellent sign language.

Everything between present company is not language, or wo- -- wouldn't make necessary language, Sir. I must use language to you, because what I say must be true for my grandfather and for my grandchildren. And for this reason,

because what we try to say here has to be settled for the future, when we are all dead --. There is such a thing as truth, which for the animal kingdom doesn't exist. And there is such a thing as revelation. There is such a thing as prayer. There is such a thing -- all the utterances that are meant to outlast you and my physical existence, that is the criterion: what's -- language is. The rest is -- I mean, I'm -- I'm perfectly willing to invent a token language here for our immediate use. And another group will invent another token language. That doesn't deserve any great consideration. Language begins where the name of a man who has died is still valid, because it -- you still say, "I have to admit, I am this dead man's son." Then it comes to be very powerful, because you don't get rid of this forever, ever, ever. He -- you remain his son.

I gave this example in the lecture that the sla- -- the former slaves from Africa, who were imported into the Windward Islands in 1680, and 1690, and 1700 -- to this day, every one of them on the little island of Carriacou know from which tribe they came in Africa. That's their nobility. That's their {pride}. Slaves, serfs. And they will never give it up, because that's the only endowment in this cruel world which these poor people have still as their orientation in life.

Names give orientation to me. Speech, words, dictionaries give or- -- not orientation, they confuse me. Pardon me. I have gone -- spoken too long.

(I think you inferred last night that you -- you might have perhaps gotten a little trouble because you said something that a person shouldn't be curious. So the scientists among us, they took -- took stock of this, and they disagreed with you. Now, what is your definition between being curious, and having an analytical mind? Actually I think we -- figure scientists should have an analytical mind; but still you say that a person shouldn't be curious.)

Well, we -- quibble over words. As I have heard it used, "curiosity" after all is treated as though anything I would like to know must be -- come within my reach. Now you know very well that isn't so. If you read the Bible, when -- when Noah was drunk, his daughter said to behave -- or is it Noah? Who is it? I don't know. Lot.

(Lot.)

The -- curiosity is a -- gives you a -- a privilege of piercing, and peeping, peering into other people's secrets. Sir, what has this to do with science, with scholarship, you see? It's -- the dif- -- when I say "curious," I mean living people, and also living animals, and living birds must be protected against the cruelty of the curious who can disturb the peace of the land, disturb the nest of a bird just because he's curious how he will behave when I kill him.

You know the {Loeb} case where they -- the two brothers in Chicago 30 years ago, or 40 years ago, killed their own friend, you see, because they would like to -- would -- wanted to see how he would behave in being choked. Well, am I not right that this is no criterion, Sir? We are in -- I mean -- and many sins in this country are committed, because people have said, "That's a virtue," curiosity. Intellectual curiosity, they call it, you see. It's neither intelligent, nor is it -- is it permissible. It's just dirt, infamy, impertinence.

I mean, it's like -- boring a hole in my neighbor's door and piercing without his knowing -- what's going on -- to see what he -- is going on there. It's -- that's curiosity to me. It's wanton. -- Why should I respect -- I have -- I know in this country, I don't know why, curiosity is consecrated as though it was -- would lead to the greatest heights of human intelligence.

Thomas Alva Edison is a great inventor, but he didn't act on this -- on -- on the basis of curiosity, Sir. This investigation is something much more serious, isn't it?

(You might say an analatical -- an analytical mind then was an investigating mind, rather than a curious mind. Is that -- would that be your definition?)

Well, our mind of course is a -- can be talked into anything, I mean. If you offer a man a million dollars, he will commit every crime under the sun. It is to be feared. We're all corruptible. And my -- my protest against curiosity is, you see -- comes from the fact that it is described as a quali- -- a virtue in itself. Curiosity does no harm when it is under the control of decency and reverence, I mean. And I would say the first condition between two human people is -- two human persons, that one has the other at much at heart as his own existence. And that's the frontier for curiosity, you see. You do not want to be known in every minute of your life by -- foreigners who have no regards for your weaknesses. And the same is true of others. Curiosity in itself sets no limitations to your greed, to your eagerness to -- to learn something. Question is, has the person, or the thing, or the situation, or the institution, which you are curious about -- has he agreed? And the agreement is more important to me, you see, than this -- this intrusion.

But -- it is a whole question, you see. The difference between anatomy and physiology in medicine, you see. The -- the anatomy presupposes that you have a right to produce a corpse. The physiology says that you try to keep the man going. I mean, you -- you want to study living processes, which means that he must not die while you are looking at him. But the curious says, "It doesn't matter if he dies. Even more interesting. I would like to see how he behaves in dying."

It's this -- you know how any child, how cruel they can be. They don't mind if they see a bird wince in pain. They just observe it. Well, spank him. The child, I mean.

(I wanted to ask you: what then do you think of behavioral science and the study of man? What did you think of behavioral science in the study of man, as a science?)

What? I have not understood it. -- Just hearing.

(Okay. What then do you think of behavioral science or the study of man as a science?)

Well, I pity them. I mean, if this is their relation to their fellow man, I'm very sorry for them. I mean, we -- we can only study man from affection and fear. You fear that if you don't study them, we will all run into trouble, you see, together. So it is always the same thing with -- as with Benjamin Franklin: we better hang together, or we'll hang singly. I mean, this is the only excuse for all interest in humanity, you see: the -- our identity, and our solidarity. And as soon as you break away from this and observe -- you are in great danger of treating the other part of -- which you observe as an anatomist treats a corpse. And this is forbidden.

I have a -- know a psychiatrist who -- says we are in such danger now of this anatomical approach that I must be very careful when I diagnose a case. He is a psychiatrist, so he has to do with the people off-balance. And they may be -- very diseased, indeed. But he has made it a rule that he turns to a reservoir of ordinary, regular people--laity--who will help him to see this person not on the ground of medicine -- medical encounters, but of human encounters. Because he says, "How can I know when I see this one person whether it is his mother-inlaw who has made him sick, or whether he is sick and has made -- endangers his mother-in-law?" Probably it's always both.

But -- "So," he says, "I postpone my diagnosis of the case." Here is the case, I have some symptoms. I'm -- the person obviously is in -- in dire straits. But I will not say what the diagnosis is, before I have not seen him cope with an ordinary encounter of a healthy person of the -- from the community. If I do not add this to my information, you see, my information is scanty."

Now that's by and large the opposite from your behaviorists' observations, you see. The behaviorist thinks he can observe --. My friend says "I must first allow myself this man to show love, affection, antagonism," what have you, you see, "in a new situation. Before, I do not even know that I can observe his

behavior, and interpret it rightly, because it's too limited. I must add to what I can observe, you see, in his behavior, new elements." And so he is surrounded by a stack of such high school girls, and trade union men, and ministers, and teachers, and all kind of people he has befriended who allow him to go to the telephone and say, "Wouldn't you come over -- and take a walk with this gentleman," or whoever that is, you see, with his patient. And then he can -- inquire how this -- how this worked.

This -- only one means to show you the reverence in which we must hold people. We must not even, as a doctor, pass judgment on them, before we have given them an opportunity to -- to show different features. Because man is free. And man in every minute can be -- show that he has been slandered. That he -- we are blind to his real problem, you see.

I have a student of 25 years back--pardon me, won't you take a seat? Please come around here. He'll find a chair.

So again, for those who were not at -- present in -- in -- in my -- in my -- listened to my speeches --. You see, this -- what this doctor, the psychiatrist, does is: he tries to open a way into the future, because speech is given us for creating the future. This is completely forgotten, because when you deal with -- with definitions and say, "This is a cup," there is no tense in this. This is abstract. Any time this will be a cup. But you do not speak to me when you say, "What a nice day!" except to create a situation in which we both feel at home, which hasn't existed before. We're all creative when we really speak to people, because we make people either feel bad, or feel ill, or feel -- feel good, sit down. We compliment them, and we agree on something--that the weather is very nice. And disagreements create a certain tie between us. You must think all the formulas which we use--"How do you do?" and "This is a fine day"--are great means of opening up avenues of common action, of common conviction, of common sentiment. Where we do not do this, you see, we are in great danger of treating the man as an object, as a thing, as an obstacle in our way, as somebody who has to be bribed, or has to be -- put out of the way.

Speech is always an invitation to the future, to the accomplishment which is our task, to lead things to their destination. That's what man's, obviously, destiny on this earth is. God needed an -- an -- an hench- -- a hand- --how would you call Him?--a servant who would lead the creatures to their destination. That's not my definition, but of Mr. {Scheeler}, a German philosopher. You know his man -- name. He said, "Man is on this earth to lead things to their destination." That's a very good definition. If you apply it, it means that the future is the master of the past, that you must never justify any action by precedent. That's no excuse for you.

Unfortunately, the -- parts of -- humanity live in the past, the criminals. They are just by precedent, because they are acts which we have eliminated from the future. We say, "Murder must not happen," "Theft must not happen," "Burglary must not happen," you see. And therefore, once you commit a crime, you are a throwback. You are -- suddenly belong to antiquity. You belong to an -- an order which we have superseded, of which we have decreed: it must not recur.

So the criminal is judged by a judge indeed on the basis of precedent, in a negative way. The precedent means that this has already been judged as not admissible in the future, which we try to create for our children and our grandchildren. And that is the essence of the law, that the law is -- draws the line between the things that may enter the future, and the things that must never enter the future. And that's why the expiation of the crime means that the culprit is thrown back into the past history, and must not appear as defiling our future steps. If we wouldn't punish the criminal--as these imbeciles, these pacifists, and so weit, always recommend, and treat them as sick--we would not clear -- clear the deck of our ship into the future.

This has to be eliminated as being superseded, as being -- belonging to a cursed past. And the blessing is only on a group of people who will severely keep the purity of the home, the purity of the government, the purity of the state--whatever it is--the purity of the school, in force. A scientist who lies, a -- a family who doesn't keep chastity -- chastity in its wards, has ceased to be a family, has ceased to be a scientist. So they have to stop calling themselves member of a scientific group, or of a -- they are eliminated. They are judged.

And this is very strange that people do not see that -- that mildness against crime leads to ruin. The society has to be severe, because it is -- because you and I, we are just as weak as the criminal. And if we do not strengthen our aversion against it, we will be tempted to do the same. The criminal law today is treated as a luxury. And why -- aren't you mild and re-educate this man? You know why I can't -- approve of this. Because we are so very weak ourselves. There is no -- no crime that is not also living in my chest, in my possibility. How can I say that I am not tempted one day? So I am -- build up walls myself against crime.

The -- the -- the -- the charity with the criminal always strikes me as coming from very haughty people--Quakers, probably--who say they can never be tempted themselves, so we can be mild against the criminal if somebody -- who is so unhappy that he is tempted, since we are never tempted, we can treat him just like a violet and -- and say, "Oh, dear murderer. Don't do it again. No -- won't you, yes?"

And the murderer will say, "No, I won't." And then we let him get scot --

go scot-free. I can't afford this, Sir. There is not a crime in my -- that I couldn't commit. I'm too weak for this. I have to show my aversion, my hatred of the crime, in order to strengthen my own {scent} against it, I do not understand the arrogance of all these mild-men, of all these -- these clubs for the abolition of capital punishment, and how they all say. They're all very proud people. They seem to be -- never to be tempted themselves. But I am. There is not an act, after all, in human history which you and I could not commit -- have committed. We are so divine that we are capable of anything, of the greatest san- -- sanctity, and the greatest criminality. And as long as we hoe this line, we will know what we have to do, and what we have to say to each other. As soon as you say you are special case, and you cannot be tempted, you cease to be a human being.

You see, the presupposition of speech is that all people are capable of everything. Everybody is a genius, and nobody is a genius. Everybody is a soldier, and nobody is a soldier. Everybody is a policeman, and nobody is a policeman. And the criminals know it. They all try to become prosecuting attorneys or policemen. That's very true, you see, it's -- it's -- because they know the changeability of man. And speech has something to do with this. In speech, we recognize our identity. When a man says to a woman, "I love you," he not only says that he loves her, but he also gives to understand that she loves him, that she's capable of responding, of reciprocating. And -- so, people by speaking develop in each other unknown qualities. Speech -- {love} makes rich, love creates an abundance of life. Without a family, where would the gifts of a child be? It -- a child becomes all the cleverer because there are five children in the family, and one elicits from the other all kind of talents. Retarded children are children who are deprived of this interplay of talents.

And we encourage each other and we discourage each other by just being together. I'm afraid you encourage me at this moment to speak too much.

(Jim, did you have--?)

(I -- I heard somebody say this, in a fair trial/free press conflict. He said that due process of law conserves an island of language in a sea of talk.)

And island of language in a --?

(In a sea of talk. His argument was that in the court, we swear "to tell the whole truth, so help me God," we preserve language, speech in the court in pursuit of truth and justice. Freedom of press is not bound by those rules may, by contrast, may be talk, may be rumor, may be allegation. But would you care to speak to that point, or --?)

Well, you are absolutely right. That's the most -- perhaps the beginning. but I made the beginning in my lecture. And I must repeat -- I'm very glad to repeat this. It's very important. Nine-tenths of modern -- what modern people take as matter for interpreting speech and language, is not speech in my eyes, but babble, it's garrulity, it's -- it's gossip, it's talk. Now talk and speech are very different. Speech is that what you can quote against me, and for which I will account. If I say, "This is my wife," I must be willing to be killed if somebody wants to -- to murder or rape her, or I'm not her husband. This is a condition of my saying that I'm her husband. She must be absolutely able to rely on my defense of her interest, at the danger of my life. If I run -- go -- am to run away from this, I have ceased to -- have a -- the -- the title of her husband. People don't care. They -- run away, and their forfeit this title, and they go to Las Vegas. And that's very serious.

Today, in Calif- -- when you live in California, as I did during the last half year, you have the impression that the people are there so -- well off that they can no longer distinguish between the day and a lifetime. It's a dream. They live from day to day -- they live very nicely. They are good people. But my problem in the -- in a less favorite zone--I live in New England--we know very well that the things which we me- -- where we mean business are quite different from the niceties of a summer day which is pleasant, and we play around, and we go swimming. And whether you have a bikini or not, it doesn't make any difference. It's not real, this one summer day. But marriage is real, vows are real, science is real, vocations are real, war is very real, you know, service in the army. If you come to California, there seems to be no difference between the things you do for 24 hours, and you do for a lifetime or for -- eternity.

And -- I don't take this too seriously, I mean. You know that there are very good people in California, too. But the whole country has this aspect of -- of the -- no distinction between the -- things of the moment and things of permanency.

And now all our speech, Sir, is this one worry: how do we distinguish seriousness and joke, and play? The -- nine-tenths of the -- today is playfulness, and people are delighted when people speak playfully, and you never know whether they are serious or not. Obviously that's not speech. Speech is given us to say something that is permanently effective and true. And talk is something of which you can say the next minute, "Oh, I didn't mean it. I of course meant something quite different. You mustn't misunderstand me." In -- other words, talk can be taken back. Speech cannot be taken back. Or, if taken back, it costs a tremendous price. You can get a divorce, but at what price? At what cost, I mean? Not in money only, but of your own soul.

So speech is this by which we hew avenues into the future, as the -- roads

into a -- in a big wood -- in a redwood park. It's as difficult to hew avenues into time. But man can do this. That's his divinity. And talk is -- nine-tenths of our -- of our words are used in vain. Fooling around, playing around, you talk. And it doesn't matter what you have said, and nobody will hold it against you, and you say, "Well, that was just talk." Does this satisfy you, Sir?

(Yes.)

And see -- my opposition against linguistics, Sir, comes from the very fact. It is not the question of -- of Esperanto. I think on this we could find an agreement with everybody. But the linguist will not make a distinction between the sentence, "La rose est une fleur," which I had to learn as my first sentence in French grammar, you see--the rose is a flower--and the sentence, "This is my father." Now if this sentence, "This is my father," is wrong, then I am a big liar, and a very dangerous person. I'd better be watched. But if I say, "This flower is a rose," you see, and it isn't a rose, I've just made a mistake. That is, that's -- quite a very different category. You understand.

If you mix these two sentences in your analysis of linguistics, you will never get any important results. Because the unimportant sentence then is clumped together, lumped together with the important sentence. The important sentence has consequences for my -- the father and for you. The error -- your error in judgment that this flower is not a rose, you see, but another flower, you see, has no consequences. The flower laughs it off, you see; the florist laughs it off; and your sweetheart may just -- be impressed by the rose, you see, under which name ever you -- you give it to her.

So there are always, in any language, in any speech, the serious application and the playful. The gardener, the botanist must not make this mistake. If he goes wrong, he is a useless person, because we -- we think that he should be serious about roses. He should not say, "This flower is a rose." We trust him that he will be serious. But for a man who goes into the store, just because he wants to bring a flower to his girl, much is forgiven. Whether he knows how the flower is called is a very secondary proposition.

And so in every moment in these waves of speech which flood -- I mean, mankind after all is zimming, zimming, zimming, zipping all the time with speech; millions of words are used, you see--we will only understand speech if we are ready at every one moment to ask: is the man serious? Analyze language only in the mouth of such whose future depends on the reality of their sentence. The botanist does. He cannot become a professor if he makes such mistakes, you see. And that's very disturbing. Then he can't marry, because he has no income.

Yes -- any untruthful sentence, where you are entitled to expect the truth, has terrific political -- consequences, you see. But every sentence which has no consequences is talk. And you must not use it for analy- -- analysis of the meaning of language. And this is done here constantly. The linguist simply takes any sentence, regardless of its political or -- existential meaning. And that's why existentialism today is a great philosophy. Even philosophers have discovered the meaning between playful talk and real talk. And they say, "The truth is only important if it is existential." I subscribe to this. They are approaching my own doctrine of -- of language on -- in this manner, because they say, "Existential thinking knows when people are serious or when they are just talking."

(I think that there exists a basic misunderstanding between {perhaps your relation} to our linguistics, because --)

Between --?

(I think --)

Between whom? Please, I -- I didn't --.

(You and your relation toward linguistics in general, because you're implying something to linguistics for -- what linguistics never try to do.)

Yes, they try nothing important to do. That's very true.

({ } area, { } object matter. And linguistics is interested in something what is not primarily meaning, and you are concerned with meaning. In this sense, simply, are you {speaking the} language --?)

But Sir, but Sir. Pardon me. Yes. I am a linguist by prefer- -- I mean, by origin, so to speak. Since my 12th year. I know that they deal with nothing important, but they don't know it. They think they know all about language. But they don't.

(No, they do not think that.)

No, Sir. You -- you -- I'm sorry.

({ } idea that they know all about language. What they doing, they're trying to analyze language. And different levels of language { } to -- to tell eventually how language works. Not as you stated in your opening statement two days ago, that a linguist tries to tell us how to talk, and to whom to talk. Not at all. We are not interested to tell you how to talk, and to whom to talk. Simply

to describe mechanisms, systems of different languages. Nothing else.)

Oh, Sir. I'm -- we are in total agreement. But they are so -- very obnoxious for this very reason, that they -- that they pull down--how shall I say?--discredit language. They have separated religion and language. That's impossible, Sir.

({ } quite a different problem. They are not concerned with your problem.)

Exactly. Well, atheism always says it can deal with the world without God. And I think they can't. This is exactly that. An athe- -- atheistic science of language is a contradiction in terms.

(Not at all.)

Well, you say. So I say anything that these linguistics have found out, I know all their -- about -- I own their works. I've been in correspondence with these people. I've been their disciple. I've been their -- their student. My dear man, don't think I'm talking as a blind of the color. But they have omitted--since my 12th year, I have felt this--they have -- I have dedicated my first books to the leading linguists of the ages, Sir. So don't think that I'm not acquainted with these people. More than acquainted. I have done all these sins -- committed these sins myself.

(Yes, but I understand you, that you are here implying something -- asking them to do what are they -- they are not doing. This is what matters. For instance, you could say, "I dislike { } semantics, because it doesn't tell anything about my love for flowers. You know, this is the same principle involved. You cannot ask a linguist something what a linguistic is not trying to do. This is what matters.)

Sir -- I just had -- forgive me, but I think I have made this very clear. I have called one-half of my -- of my poor enterprise, "The Lingo of Linguistics," and I have called the second, "We are Called into Life." So I said, the second half is not covered by the linguists. And I think that's simply--according to yourself, simply true. I have not accused them of anything, but I have narrowed the scope of what they're doing. I've said they describe things, and they cannot distinguish important and unimportant, which is always -- always -- exactly. And that is their haughtiness and their arrogance. And that's why they are -- do so much harm. Because people who do not -- do decline to -- discriminate between the important and the unimportant are exactly like the scholastics who discuss how many angels were dancing on the toe of God Almighty. That was sterile, and it had to be dismissed. And that's why we are no longer following the Scholastic philoso-

phy, because they got lost in their inability, their ineptitude to distinguish between the important and the unimportant. A science that cannot distinguish between important and unimportant is judged, it's fruitless.

And you -- in denying this, you give me absolutely your proof of me. You say yourself that they do not want to distinguish important and unimportant. That's what I say.

(Pardon me, but --.)

That's an accusation. The worst accusation you can have against a people. I mean, you can classify the history of art by the distinction: whether the -- things are painted on canvas, or on chalk. But do you think that this very important for a history of art? And if you limit your distinction in the history -- of the history of art to these two poor -- criteria, I would say this is not worth the candle. Abolish this field of teaching, you see. The same is with these linguists. You can do it. I have no objection. They count languages, and so on. Very useful. But in their very limited range. If I however have to educate a child in reverence to language, I must never give him a book of these people to read. I must -- yes, I'm must avoid in this deracination, in this -- showing these children that it is just -- just a game.

(You will be disappointed.)

Wie?

(They are not going to agree with you. They will not agree with you at all.)

No. But I have escaped their inferno. And I'm very proud of this.

(Professor { }.)

({ }. And you -- I think you mentioned Ernst Cassirer -- Ernst Cassirer?)

No, I never mentioned him.

(Oh, excuse me. { } I'm sorry. But you mentioned the -- this common -- the common sources of religion and language. And he does, also mention { }. { }.)

I'm hard -- could you speak a little louder? I have difficulty just in hearing.

(He proved it, his theory, with the help of the -- linguists, and the -- { }, and quite a few other scientists, which you seem to despise.)

Not "despise." That's the wrong term. Sir, if I -- if you are at war, you always love your enemy. I mean, if you take an American general, the highest praise he has for anybody is: they -- he does as well as the Germans. You see, so we always take our cue from our enemy. This is very strange, but it's true. So I don't despise these people. I'm despondent that they should dominate the globe. I want to conquer -- take the globe from them. I think their government is very -- very -- little beneficial. Because what we must learn to distinguish: between seriousness and play. And they decline to tell us this. This is the most serious thing today, in a world in which ninetenths of -- life is -- the advertiser tried to con- -- to make into play. Life is too serious to be left to the bikinis, the surfers, and the skiers. And it's all very nice that life seems to be a play. But if this young lady believes -- this, she will not be able to live well. We have to tell her what -- when something is serious and when something is play.

Play is that which is without consequences and without fruitfulness. When you play in love, you have no children. If you are serious in love, there are grandchildren. And that's quite a story.

(I said that play --)

Before there can be grandchildren, imagine what man has to go through! Children, that's nothing. That's easy. But grandchildren. Your own grandchildren. My dear man, first your child must remain undivorced, and the children must marry again. It is a terrible story. That's very serious.

(But play is a very important thing in art. In fact, the most important thing --)

What do I care for art? What do I care for art? This is Mr. Cassirer, my dear lady. I have nothing to do with the intellectuals who worship art, and { }.

(But you speak so much about love, and love is an art in this { }.)

Yes, but play is governed by decisive actions, vows, oaths, promises, whom you can trust. I feel very glad if a man is a man of honor, and he has promised me to furnish me with a horse. I will very well allow him to play with this horse to the last minute before he delivers it to me. But I expect him to deliver the goods. And his playfulness is an element of his -- civilized state. Of course, we can joke to -- with each other. That's all very nice, but it's subordinate to the great acts of life. But they are very few. There are engagements, there are mar-

riages, there are contracts, there are wars, there are peace -- treaties. Very few acts are decisive for men. And they are terribly serious. And you must know what you are doing. When you play, you don't have to know what you are doing. you are on safe ground, nothing can happen. Around every playground -- look at a golf clu- -- course, look at a tennis court, look at a baseball court. They are all cut out of reality. The playground is a thing by itself, and so it's perfectly safe. Nothing really -- real can penetrate. And the -- we men can produce by our reflection, by our thought, by our meditation a second world of what we call the world of reflection, in which Mr. Cassirer was at home. I knew him.

The reflective mind creates a second world inside the real world. And any playground gives testimony to this. If you play croquet, or if you play baseball or football, you see, you are very severe in following the rules. Nobody must cheat. But what does it matter? It's still a play. You can abolish football. You can invent a new game. That's all second-rate. In this country, however, playing of course--and Mr. Cl- -- Cassius Clay is more important than Mr. Rusk. This is very terrifying to me. But it is so, that our play champions play a greater role--Mr. Ar- -- Arnold Palmer or whatever -- whoever it is--than the serious people. Well, I try to avoid this. Playing is very nice in its place, but the nation must remain on its guard that the player -- a playing person is not to be taken too seriously. It's just a -- he plays.

The whole age, however, of our modern factory masses, is so hungry for real life, that these substitutes for life, like a baseball, or a golf player, gets all the honors and all the attention. People have lost the power to distinguish between serious living and jokes, and play. A sportsman is still -- only a sportsman. I'm also -- I have my sports, too. I am a horseman, I am -- have raised horses, I am a mountaineer, I have made first ascents. I have skied. All these things are wonderful, but they are not serious.

And if language loses the power to distinguish between these two things, that is real atheism. And we are in this stage in this country. I -- can't help feeling, all I have to do with my many grandchildren is to try to avoid their deception by the advertising of -- by the sportsman, or by the players that this is real life. This isn't real life. It's play. But you have to -- the same problem in this college, obviously, isn't that -- wouldn't you say? It's very important to -- to tell the students that art, too, is an accom- -- companion to life, you see. Goethe, the great poet, warned his own son in a famous poem, you see, "Please my dear son, never forget that the Muse can accompany life, but never may guide it." That's the first thing about art; it's a companion to life; it's an embellishment to life. But it's not the leader of life.

The prophet may be really, but not the artist. But we have come from a

century in which the drunkard -- if he was a drug addict--like van Gogh, or so--that he is made the leader of a nation, the -- the herald of the future. Well. Two world wars were the consequence. The divinity of art has led Europe astray. It has succumbed to this. Because the artists were the only gods believed in, in the 19th century. The -- the -- Europe lost its -- its smell for the future. You cannot follow artists into the future of mankind. They are -- out on a -- on a wing. They are extremists. The taste of an artist is too sensitive for normal human beings. But you are now -- I mean, I have -- I have young friends, innocents themselves, and the only thing they read is Proust. Why American pe- -- boys in their innocence have to be fed with the -- with the feces of Europe, I do not know. And that's what education is in this country. If it is -- if it is the most putrid thing of Europe, it is devoured here.

Wie? Well, I --.

(You don't convince me.)

You don't think so? Well, I'm sorry. Somebody has to be on his guard. And so -- since I am the lonely crier in the wilderness, I will.

(Well, I don't agree with that. Don't you think there's people here that have a -- little individuality themselves without looking to the past, and Europe to --?)

Well, I wish they had. Sure.

(Well, there is some individuality here. I don't think everybody looks to Europe to figure out what they're going to do in the future.)

But Sir, I taught at a -- on a campus of freshman this year. It's a new branch of the University of California. And I really went there without any prejudice. I didn't know what I would find. I had -- no intention there. I was invited. And -- very good people. And I -- we have become really good friends. But the first thing -- on the first day that happened was that they quoted Camus. And then they quoted Sartre. That was the second day. And I tell you, neither Mr. Sartre nor Mr. Camus have anything to offer to a healthy American in California. But that's their business. But then I was startled, because then they said, "Oh, yes, even Camus has mentioned an American writer, called Emerson."

So I was a little overcome, you see, by pity, that an American should come to know Ralph Waldo Emerson by the detour of Paris, Quartier Latin, { }. Is that necessary? You -- I mean, it's not me that wishes this on them, you see. It's my experience with Americans, that -- .

I had another friend, a young man, very gifted, who -- who said to me, "I have to -- to -- to look up the avant gardists in Paris."

I said, "Paris is a dead city. There are no avant-gardists in -- in Paris. The avant-garde is just somewhere else. And it isn't advertisable where the avantgarde is. You have to smell this out. But if you naively believe that because Paris once had them, a hundred years ago, that there is anything avant-gardist about Mrs. DeGaulle, you are quite mistaken."

But there are these superstitions. I mean, people -- you -- he -- he was despondent. He said, "But there has to be one place where I'm sure to find the avant-garde." Of course, there is no such place.

I mean -- so you see, we are -- I'm not in disagreement with you.

({ }.)

(We'll still have individuality here then, too.)

Of course you have.

So any more questions, please?

May I say one thing and apologize? The -- the topic is so gigantic. Speech is so hard to touch upon in -- with any sense of reality, that I must apologize. It's an endless task to make people aware of the closest before their eyes. You see, there is an old verse in German, which I allow you to -- please allow me to translate.

"Was ist das Schwerste von allem? was Dir das Leicht ist so scheinet, mit den Augen zu sehen was vor den Augen Dir liegt?"

What is the most difficult thing of all? To see with your eyes what is closest to your eyes? So speech coming out of our mouth is very hard to grasp. Most people never reach the point where they can see what they do when they speak. I assure you. And once you wake up to this fact, you will have -- every one of us is very wise about speech. But he must understand that it is so near to him, that he usually has quite wrong ideas about speech. He doesn't observe what he does when he speaks. So my task here was to make you aware of the real dangers of serious speech, and the valueless of babble.

Thank you very much.