Transcript

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...here last year. And last year, I tried to speak orally to you. And I didn't have anything recorded. And I thought it -- all that mattered was that you would carry away something which you would know couldn't be found in books. This time I have reversed the process. Universal history is something that can be not treated as a personal property of you and me, in familiarity or intimacy. It is for all people. And therefore I have asked my friend even to record it. Universal history is either true for all, or it is not universal history. So we are in a different situation.

Those of you who have listened to me last time will remember that I did not offer you any perfection, but I wanted to invite you to learn what it is to speak, yourself. In universal history, we, the audience, are not the eloquent people. History is eloquent itself. And we can only try to listen to it.

So -- only for those of you who know me already, I had to -- have to say this would be opposite from last time. It will even be recorded, I understand. Let's hope that the machine works.

The -- when I came to this country, I made a friend in Harvard, a Professor Abbott, who has written a very interesting book, Conflicts with Oblivion. And he has given a good topic for our course, "conflict with oblivion." You and I, we are threatened with oblivion. First of all, you forget of course the best things in life yourself; and also you will be paid with oblivion. Very rare cases excepted.

I once visited -- an ecclesiastical establishment; very famous in Europe, the Bodelschwingh institutions, very Christian, and very pious. And I -- went to the cemetery there, and there was a machine just digging up the old graves of 1860 and 1870, when the old -- this institutional life began there. And I was amazed, what they were doing.

They said, "Well, now the time has come. More than two generations preceding the living cannot be kept in awareness. They must go."

And so I learned that even cemeteries, you see, have their time. And we think that the dead are there forever, but they are only there, you see, as long as real estate can afford it. And that cemeteries themselves are abandoned I think is a tremendous lesson for us: how oblivion strikes. And perhaps much has to be forgotten. I mean, all your marks and your examinations, they should be forgotten, I suppose.

And so we have to decide in this course, if we talk so big about universal history, what is really worth remembering; what has to be remembered; what's the minimum without which man is an animal, or not a human being. Obviously the elections of last year must be forgotten. So that's a very clear issue.

When I was a -- a boy, we said at home in Germany that there are three occasions at which lying is enormous: people lie before an election; they lie after a cha- -- after a hunt; and they lie at the funeral. These are three occasions for big lying. And I think universal history is established against our temptation, or our practice, to lie. I don't think that the historians nowadays pay any attention to this fact that people do lie. And the more they speak in public, they more have to lie. If you become governor von California you have to die -- by -- die -- lie quite a lot. But to be president of the United States, you have to lie even more.

At a funeral, the -- the dead -- was just the most wonderful archangel, you see, with the fiery sword. And before an election, of course, he is the archangel with which -- will rescue mankind from the next budget deficit. And -- and after a hunt, you see, the boar -- wild boar was of course so enormous that it is a miracle that the cha- -- the hunter ever killed him, with -- with his wonderful rifle, of course.

So I don't think that universal history can be treated rightly if you do not take into consideration the zest for lying. It is not true that man wants the truth. You are told this. Don't believe it. Most people need a good dose of hypocrisy, a good dose of self-aggrandizement. And very few groups in the world are out for -- for truth. The Jews are. They say that they are no good, and the others are no good. But they are paid very -- have to pay very dearly for this assumption, that they tell the rest of the world that -- that people of -- of God just are not as good as their creator. That's why they are hated. Anti-Semitism is -- is the result of this, that if people -- the ordinary man in this country has to say that the Americans are the best people in the world. They aren't. But he has to think so, and to say so, to keep him going.

The amount of lying leads -- has led from the very beginning to an attempt for a universal history, in which of course this fact, that every group lies, is a main point. The Bible begins, as you know, with the first lie. And the tempter is always around and says, "Don't tell the truth. Don't admit it."

So Adam didn't, and out they went, out of Paradise. It's the lie that condemns him, you see, not the facts of life, but that he didn't admit it. "The -- serpent of course was at fault." Adam wasn't. He always had A's.

So I think my proposition is that we have to cope with the question of

untruth before history makes sense and can -- may perhaps discover partially, at least, that amount of truth without which man leaves the society of human beings. In any society, its people begin to lie, the -- danger is that they leave the society, because too much of your and my lying, you see, would estrange us completely. We wouldn't recognize each other any longer. If you have built up your archangelical face, you see, too much so, then I think it's a devilish face; we'll fall out and come to blows, which most pe- -- national groups do, you see. You just have to look at the papers and you see that lying has reached in- -- incredible proportions.

I think I have -- . You could read in the -- in a newspaper of California the last days--yes, here it is--it's a good example of incredible lying. And universal history will have to eliminate a certain maximum or a minimum of lies. Here writes a man in the San -- San Jose Mercury, Friday, December 20 -- 30th, {1967}:

"All in all, the loss of 100 or 150 American lives a week in a foreign country seems a small price indeed to pay for the support of a healthy and burgeoning economy at home, the like of which the world has never before known."

This can be printed in this country. If this is all that is printed in this country, the country is doomed. Such an -- infamy I have rarely read in print, you see, to say that "All in all, the loss of 100 to 150 American lives a week in a foreign country seems a small price indeed to pay for the support of a healthy and burgeoning economy at home, the like of which the world has never before known." Jack {Slade}, Cupertino.

Well, this man should be tarred and feathered. But he will not. They even print what he said. Why is this -- so -- such an exciting thing, you see? This is the anti-universal history, for the simple reason that only the Americans who are killed weekly are counted. Now in a universal history, the other people who die--Viet Cong, and Vietnam, and what-not--would count, too. That would be universal. But you are so hardened, that I think very few of you, when they read this, get beyond the things that they say it's -- impertinent, it's a bad writer; but they never see the point that this history is not history in our sense of the word, because the other party, the people who are killed on the other side, are not included. You understand? That a universal history must be able to see what happens for all the parti- -- {sides} of all the participants; otherwise it wouldn't be -- universal.

Now you today know nothing of universal history, because otherwise this could be printed. This man would have been -- after publishing this should be stoned, and burned, and put in jail, or beheaded, or what have you. Certainly any torture is legitimate for a man who can write this. But the publisher who can

print this should of course be killed twice.

Now I'm quite serious. You can't have a more -- a greater insanity than that this can happen. Ten days ago it was -- five days ago it was -- this was printed. And of course, you pay these -- these people for printing it. I did: 10 cents.

So we keep these big lies going, because that's not the story. The meaning of this battle in Vietnam is not at all that the economy is kept burgeoning. If it is, we certainly all have to leave these United States, or we have to -- we have to bring down the house for this incredible cynicism, because death and prospering, burgeoning economy have nothing to do with each other. The -- death for your country, patriotism, has nothing to do with the burgeoning economy.

This is not the only article of this type. I have read more, only I was -- here, this -- I was lucky that I had a scissors and could cut it out.

So the lies today of daily, local history stink. The stench goes up to Heaven, and you can be sure that our maker is ready for the -- vengeance. This is not said without im- -- with impunity. It isn't written in -- with impunity. And I find this all over California, this cynicism: God-willing, the war will still go on next year.

That's -- this is big business, or small business, whatever -- {have you}. And people don't think that they are bringing down the wrath of their creator. God does not allow a history which is partisan. History begins where you can defend the interests of your enemy as much as your own. Otherwise it's legend; it's fairy tale; it's a -- it's a novel; it's fiction.

Now the word "fiction" of course in this country at this moment stands very high. To be a fiction writer means that you are prosperous. And to be against the war in Vietnam seems to mean that you are not prosperous. But if their fiction prospers, anything can happen. Because the big lie of which I spoke before an election, at a funeral, and after a hunt is {on}. You are chasing the -- the big lie in all three -- directions: before the event, after the event, and during the event.

This difficulty, of course, of history has existed; and it has plagued people all the time. And now we come -- take a step which I think is of more lasting significance than these horrible lies of the daily papers. You and I, we are such fugitives in law, and history, and time, that no one individual can experience history. You can't and I can't. That's the -- nonsense. Because the same event--as this moment, you see--I deliver the goods, allegedly, here now, you see. So I am in a way -- before the -- this lesson, I must have made up my mind what to say.

You know nothing--I am sure you don't--and you come here to be filled with something. So with relation to the content of the lecture, you are after the event. And we may unite, and some of you who are -- have already experienced may be able to do this right away. During the lecture, we have to unite on some common interest. After the lecture, you will be in the saddle; and I go home, and I'm -- counted out. Before the lecture, I'm the only expert; you know nothing. So you don't count in history. And then there is this short time, while you are studying, perhaps while you take this course or writing a paper for me--that we are in agreement; we try to get together.

In other words, gentlemen--ladies, pardon me--history demands three people before it can be taught, three generations. A grandfather, a father, and a son; or a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother, must be united within you or in reality in three people before it makes sense to deal with any event -- last- -- of lasting significance. If it is only of the moment, then it's all over. Don't record it. It makes no sense. It only makes sense if there will be people before you, and people after you, and now people with you.

The ancient Spar- -- Spartans, who were absolutely unacademic, and never founded a university--with -- in contrast to the Athenians--but these Spartans were very clever. They said, "All history has -- all battles, all campaigns, all legislation has to be celebrated by three generations, by three choruses: the young; the grownups; and the hoary heads, the old. That's why you have a Senate in these United States, you see. And you have the electorate, and you have the House of Representatives. These are three generations. Don't be betrayed. This is simply true, that they represent three different ways of looking at things. The Senator is elected because he cannot be taken by surprise. He knows how horrible the world always has been, and is going to be; and he's not frightened by this. The Representatives are full of ideas, you see, and think they can make better laws than ever have existed. And the newcomers, the voters, these 18-year-old, they look around and say, "What's this man saying? I don't know, I don't understand. I would do it differently, but I have not yet the vote."

It's very strange that you are from -- from a so-called scientific age in which every idiot who can say, "2 and 2 is 4" is allowed to know things. How can a man who only knows that 2 and 2 is 4 understand history? He cannot. He has no suffering, he has no -- pity, he has no charity. He can read this article without bombing the newspaper office. Nothing has happened to these people who -- printed this infamy. You didn't go there and smash it. And I can only denounce it now in hoping that next time you will stone these people. But you won't. "Ten cents, that isn't worth it," I mean. {Swallow any lie}.

I propose then: that's -- the first thesis I want you to consider seriously is

that history is not for individuals. History is not here to be known by people--be they 18 or be they 80--who live alone in their minds, who make -- reach conclusions of their own. History only makes sense if three generations can judge a -- men so that they understand each other's judgment. If you cannot come to an agreement with your grandfather, and of course you can't, there is no history for you. You live just at the moment. You have whims, and appetites, and lusts, and hatreds, and aversions; and most people live this way. You -- I don't like Mr. Reagan; I like Mr. Reagan. No criterion for an election.

Likes and dislikes have nothing to do with history. If they interfere with history, they are dead. And that is the limit of the -- of the universal {suffrage}. If liking rules the world, gentlemen, then we'll {perish}. Because history only becomes interesting where and when three generations act together, where you obey the laws of the land, because they are old, and where the lawgivers obey the demand of youth, because you -- they must find a -- they must make a place for you, as now with this problem of -- of Watts, or anti-poverty, or what have you. Younger generations want a place in the sun.

It happens, of course -- and everybody knows all the time this fact that three generations only can make history. But it isn't said. And I am -- just want to understand that a universal history can only be based on the perceived -- perceptions of three generations acting in unison, acting in concord. And most of our modern world is so sterile -- as Mrs. Clare Luce. You live -- you live in a world today in which the greatest newspaper -- success of the era, of the last 30 years, is in a tri- -- a triangle of Life, Time, and Fortune. In Life, Time, and Fortune, the three generations are excluded by establishment. The -- the great inventiveness and the genius of Henry Luce is in knowing this. And his mother was -- and his father were saints. They were missionaries, and they were real saints. And he has inherited a good constitution. And you can squander this in a lifetime.

And so he has -- translated the Bible into these three forms: life, time, fortune. All these three titles are addressed to the one-generation person in you: to you, as of this age, of today. Because it's sensationalism. A time without eternity, a life without death, and a fortune without calamity is not real. It's a dream. And so Americans live in this dream world of Life, Time, and Fortune, which do not contain the first experience of history: that things will be different tomorrow, and have been different yesterday. If you do not admit this, you see, you live a dream life. But for the staff of Time, Life, and Fortune, it doesn't matter what happens. They sell always. And since they sell always, they can write down anything. They can down -- the end of the United States, and the beginning of the United States, and so on and so forth. And they do. It's astonishing what you -- you can find in Fortune, you see. All the misfortunes of mankind, they still sell, you see.

But we live in an interesting age where most of you do not even realize that you are sold down the river, that any -- any narrative of history, of happenings, of events which calls itself Life, Time, and Fortune, and in many ways I mean all the other publishers of course imitate this great success story --. They are all envious, you see, whether it's Look, or Hook, or Book.

We live today -- Americans live in a dream world, without three generations, without calamity and misery, without death, and without anything permanent. Everything is different tomorrow. That's why it's called Time, you see. Everything is interesting, and so that's why it's called Fortune.

I -- I know a number of a -- of fascinating stories in which Americans ber -- overkilled their own sense of tragedy, their own bereavement, their own complaint and weeping, {worth} in admiration that they were witnesses of the next event. That's more important than what character the event is -- has, you see. It may be tragedy, but we have the latest news. The scoop is more important than the content of the scoop.

So a universal history then must try to appeal to you as members of a chain of generations. It must appeal to you by including the tragedies, the ends, the destruction, the starvation, and the fact that you and I are very mortal, and that we have to be cleansed from our prejudices, from our vanity, from our ambition by death. We are, I mean. Even -- even -- I don't wish to give names, but I could of course. In politics there would be {unsafe}, because we are just the same like these ambitious politicians. But -- let's take an old man. Daniel Webster of course wanted to president all his life, and never did, you see. And you could see it already in 1830, that he would not reach his goal. But he persevered in his vanity, and even -- as secretary of state, he still had hopes. I think it was 1850, with the--wasn't it?--that he still tried once more to be the candidate for the presidency.

For history--except for the general statement that most people are stupid--it doesn't in- -- interest me that the man wanted to be president. May be interesting for his life, and for his biography. But there must always be people who -- who dream this. For the history of United States, it's -- it's insignificant, this fact that he failed after 25 years of trying to become president.

In other words, the aspirations of the individual, not matched with the agreement of other generations, cannot enter history. History is very severe in its selective process. Only those things enter history in which the grandfathers and the grandchildren can agree. the First World War in this country had to be repeated, bewa- -- it was only a one-man war, and a one-generation idea. So now, we are in for good, because it took 30 more years before every American knows

that he may have to die in Vietnam. That's -- that's the World War I, not World War II, even, you see. It takes three generations before a country that is so obstructive to history as America, who doesn't want to be in history, who says, "It's only me, my generation," before they have to pay the penalty.

In 1929, the Frenchmen were very much in your quandary as of today, I mean. There appeared a -- a bestseller in France, and it was called La Guerre, C'est Sont Nos PŠres, the war, this is what our parents did, our fathers did. And the whole of World War had happened in 1914 to '17, and it brought France to the -- nearly to the end of its tether. There were mutinies. The army dissolved in 1917, practically. And it was only one man, Clemenceau, who saved France. Or held it together. Don't know if he saved it, but he -- it was still there, you see, when the Americans arrived. Otherwise it wouldn't have been. You don't know how terrible the crisis in France was in '17. From April -- to October, nobody knew if the army wouldn't just go home.

And -- . Therefore you can understand that the people who had seen these terrors, and these losses, and this bloodbath--especially around Verdun, where 450,000 Frenchmen were -- were killed around the stones of this one fortress--that, as a generation like yours--with -- LSD, or what is it called? Ja? { }--said, "That's not for us; I mean, we are for LSD, and we are not for Vietnam."

That is, you want to -- every gen- -- young generation tries, or attempts to throw off the yoke, the harness of this many-generations chariot, in which every generation is only one team. They all have to be in harness together.

So this book in 1929 was a terrific success. Everybody in France who was young said, "Yes. La Guerre, c'est sont nos pŠres." "The war, that's our parents, or fathers, { }, you see. We won't do such a stupidity." So for this very reason, 10 years later, the full generation of '29 was in prison camps in Germany for two years, couldn't marry, couldn't propagate the race. And France has a hard time to get over this, even today. Because these people did not ask: "What -- how do we remedy they original sin of our fathers?" but "La guerre, c'est sont nos pŠres. We have nothing to do with it."

Don't think that you can run away from the -- this perplexity, that what your grandfathers did is your doing. That's -- you buy it, because -- your grandparents didn't st- -- finish the Civil War, you have to solve the problem of the South now.

In 19- -- there are, of course, good people in the South who know this. In 1954, a young friend of mine was a speaker at the -- what is it? Any message?

(No.)

No. In -- he spoke in Charleston, South Carolina, of all places, at commencement. And the older people came, of course, and listened. And he said, "I give you the liquid South. We have nothing to do with your solid South." And he was made -- ready to pay the penalty for the hundred years of omissions of the South. And I thought it was a great speech.

You don't hear of these heroes, unfortunately. What you hear is -- it's very un- -- poor, I mean. Here is a white South Carolinian who formulated his duty, you see. He didn't say, "La guerre, c'est sont nos pŠres." But he said, "I have to make sure that this -- solid South now becomes liquid South."

I haven't even heard this slogan repeated. But I think it's a good slogan -- it's a better slogan than all the slogans of Mr. Martin Luther King.

The admission of the chain of events, through three generations at least, is the condition for your understanding history. You cannot look at history and see, "Oh, how interesting. There was a battle. There was a revolution. There was a genius born. There was an invention made." That's not history. History is only coming to you as real, when you -- feel, as the readers and speakers of the days of {Tertaius}, the -- the Athenian poet, did. When the Athenians sent this lame man, {Tertaius}, to the Spartans, when they were at war with the Athenians. And {Tertaius} won the wa- -- the war, they say. He was lame. He couldn't fight. But he could sing. And he did sing in such a manner that the old people in Sparta, the men--the mature men and the young--sang in three choruses. And alternated, and responded to each other. And every one of the three generations added what they had to do, or could do in their place and at their time, you see, in weaving together the strands of { }.

So this is all I at first had to say to you. If -- if we speak, please allow me to think that you are standing at the threshold of history, and you have to know that much so that you can be able -- become -- be able to act. I cannot teach you history. Teaching -- history is nothing to be taught. That's an error. Even if your { }. History must be told. And if -- if you are alive, and if you are any good, you will run away with the goods, till we get excited, and you will say, "I have to do something about this.I have to say now 'the liquid South,' you see, because I can no longer stand this slogan of the -- of the solid South."

So only after you have spoken shall I know that you have heard. Your response in your life is the only way in which you can receive history into yourself. Not by dates, and not by facts. But only when you know that what I try to say is incomplete, is waiting for you to be accomplished, to be finished. All life is

unfinished business. And the honor which you have is that I take for granted that you will be willing to come in and help us to finish it, because we are -- haven't -- we haven't done it. Life is continuation, or it isn't life in any transHenry-Luce sense. And this country is very sick, because life is meant to be abrupt, atomized. And as long as Life, Fortune, and Time are not bankrupt, my course in history will not be any success.

These powers that blind you to eternity, to death, to destruction, and to the end of time, they are today the -- the ba- -- bane of this country. They are dangerous. They are much worse than all the automobile accidents taken together, because they blind your finest sense, your responsibility.

If you read the list of accidents on the highway--29,000 this year, or 56,000; I have forgotten--and this is half as true, half as raw, half as cruel as reading the facts of -- on Vietnam, and on -- on -- on the Negroes in the South in the reporting of Henry Luce. Because they try to allow you to sit back and just to know, just to read. "Reading matter: 5 minutes, 7 seconds."

There was a -- here a paper. And remember Liberty, by Mr. {McFadden}, who invented this, it's a great story, you see. He said that under every article in this -- in this strange magazine, Liberty--it no longer exists, does it?--he was a nudist, and -- therefore he had to understand something about advertising. And he made a lot of money, and you could go to him either to read his paper, or to get a massage. And -- and Mr. {McFadden} invented this great technique of writing -- printing under every article how many minutes it would take you to read. Three minutes and 4 seconds; and five minutes and 20 seconds. And it was always shorter than you thought possible.

Gentlemen, of course all history balks at this idea that reading time is {such-and-such}. If this article, of this scoundrel, Jack {Slade} in Cupertino--"All in all the loss of 100 to 150 American lives a week in a foreign country seems a small price indeed to pay for the support of a healthy and burgeoning economy at home"--if this is all that you can say, "I read this in 2 minutes and 20 seconds," you see, you haven't read it, obviously.

And of course the whole technique of modern business is to make you think you have understood, come to know something, but you haven't. Because obviously this must make you sleepless. You must say, "Which party do I have to join to frustrate this scoundrel?" If you don't do anything about it, you haven't heard it. You have not read it. You only seem to have read it. But we live in this make-believe world today, that people are dismissed: if they have heard something, that's all you can demand. Of course, there's -- it's just nothing. It would be much better that I hadn't read this to you, and you wouldn't know it at all, than

if you go home now and say, "Oh, I read it. Yes. That was yesterday. Today, the next atrocity."

We are therefore today in this unfortunate position that historical facts, historical events, historical complications are treated as though they were facts not of life or of death, but facts of the machine age. Politics is treated here in this country not as an appeal to your imagination, but as an appeal to your memory, which is not the same.

At this point, let me shift. This I wanted to say you: that I must treat you in this moment as a generation within a chain of generations, or I can't teach you history. It is impossible to say, "I teach A and I teach B." I teach 20-year-old people who live inside the western world. That may be very unfortunate that we live in the western world; perhaps you should live in the eastern world. But we don't. And we live inside {all} obligations, and we live inside of challenges. And when I now -- shall try to ask: what is this universal history in which Americans, and Europeans, and Asiatics try to participate now?--it is obviously not without obligations, not without terror, not without death and -- and warning, not without tears.

There is a book, as you know, Greek without Tears. A very good book, how to learn Greek, you see. But history is not without tears. If there is not one event in the history books which makes you cry, you have not read history. And most of you haven't read history. You decline.

I once met a boy who -- who said that he would prefer to die to -- ever to cry about anything. There are so many things which make you cry -- over which you have to cry, before you can find the answer so that this { }. So don't be ashamed to cry; or be ashamed not to cry.

But this of course can only happen after--and now I make my second point: why a universal history? A friend -- this friend of mine, Wilbur Abbott -- Wilbur {Lopez} Abbott in Harvard, long dead now, wrote this book, Conflicts in -- and Living. And -- in it, he says, something which I like to quote literally, and perhaps you take it down literally; it's an important sentence: "Universal history is the most ancient, if not the most honorable form of historical activity."

In the age of Time, Life, and Fortune, universal history has nearly gone out of business. Every history today is { } history, provincial history, territorial history, literary history, astronomical history, or what have you. It is all di- -- subdivided. And universal history is left to the Bible. Of course, the first universal history is the Bible. It's nothing but this. It's not an attempt to be religious. It's just an affect -- attempt to be true. And it is astonishing how true it is. We'll have

to say something about this, when we approach this. We will speak today differently from the Bible, but we'll treat exactly the same problem.

Universal history today is on the way out, but it is the first beginning of all history. History begins as universal history, because it's an attempt to ask the simple question: Now here is your generation; here is my generation; there was a previous generation preceding even me, and there will be -- we think a generation after you; and what do they have in common that they must achieve together? So universal history is an appeal to distinguish the lasting achievements of your generation and the childish ones, the -- the -- the play forms, I mean.

The -- the ski record in Kitzbhel belongs to the passing thing of the age, you see. But that you take on winter, that may belong -- may be- -- belong into a universal history, because it has nothing to do with the skiing alone, you see. It has to do with the changed attitude of man to his environment.

So universal history is that which in any generation, you see, chains her to something that could -- can only be achieved by all together, by all generations together. The question of course: is such a thing? Mr. Luce would deny it. And Mrs. Luce would even deny it more violently, you see.

It's always in this country the same thing. Think of this man {Slade}, in Cupertino, who says "only 150 people dead on the American side," of course, and not mentioning any of the Vietnamese, you see. That's a small price to pay for hope, for prosperity.

In 1947 or '48, Mrs. Luce was made ambassador to Italy. And she was very -- she is a very fervent Catholic. And she knew that the American Catholic bishops had told the president that they had no objections against throwing the bomb, without a declaration of war, on Moscow. You see, now it's always the same. Now it's not Moscow; now it is Hanoi. And so she went from Engla- -- on the way to Italy, she invited the two most famous Catholic writers in Paris, and -- Mr. Mauriac and Mr. Gabriel Marcel. And they told -- said -- she told them that she wanted to -- to prevail, so that the bomb would be thrown over Moscow. And they were so flabbergasted, these two gentlemen--they had been enemies all their lives--and now they became fast friends.

This poison, gentlemen, of the short-cut solution poisons your life, and will poison the life of your children. You are not sure that you will not be drawn into this -- into this dirt, and into this -- into this terrible -- terrorism of this shortcut solution which abolishes history. This is what this boy -- done, what Mrs. Henry Luce tries to do. Fortunately, they haven't succeeded of course, so far.

But it -- the danger is not over. When I talk here to the California businessmen, I always shudder. They are out of history. They don't know what universal history is. They don't know that every mistake in history, as -- with regard to humanity, has to be paid in cash. And that a nation in which the majority of people say that for 150 lives, they can -- they can have boom and prosperity, that this is counted out. There will be no trace of the -- United States left if this policy will prevail. Because God is not interested in having created you and me. He is only created -- interested in the fact that He has created us as members of the tree of humanity. We are all in His creative hands as part of a story. And we are not created -- you are not created as an American, and I am not created as an immigrant. But we are created as making -- fulfilling one great story: the history of man on this planet. And therefore the people whom we kill in the process have just as much right to be considered as you and I.

Don't forget that the one great man of this moment in this -- in -- on the -- on the earth is Ho Chi Minh. That's a very great man, who has conquered the freedom of his nation from Mr. DeGaulle. That's all forgotten today. And he's the George Washington of Vietnam. And why do you -- are you so squeamish, and not give his honorary title to such a man? You have celebrated all the liberators of all nations. Why not him? It's very unjust, and very unfair. I have no private correspondence with Mr. Ho Chi Minh; I don't know him. But he's a very great man. And he hasn't done any harm to us. He hasn't. We ha- -- have done much harm to him. We are the people who do the harm.

Well, that's neither here nor there, you may say. Still, I must say, universal history is an attempt to see things in such a way that all the dead get their proper funeral. And a man who falls on the other side has just as much honor in my heart -- or must have as much honor, as the people who fall on my side. And you know that this is possible from the South. Just look at -- how the gray is -- traditions, you see, is kept, I mean. They are still there, the people who fought the North. And that's very honorable.

So hist- -- universal history is indifferent to the parties of any cause. It tries to understand why there have to be parties; why there has to be opposition { }; why there has to be this resistance to every next, next, next measure. We need the minority for understanding history. Majorities are no test of truth, or importance, or fruitfulness, or veracity, or anything.

However, let me now turn to the other side of the coin. We are very poorly equipped for having any universal history. You don't know anything, except the birth of Christ, and perhaps the fact that Adam and Eve didn't behave well. That's very little of universal history. What do you know of universal history? What would you say? Can anybody give me an example: what is universal,

really, in history in your mind, and what do you know of what all men share?

It's very little. And yet, I assume that it will fill this whole course if we really cope with the individual achievements of every generation, or every century, or every faith in -- in -- on this {globe} has contributed something lasting, something universal.

First of all, all men speak. So the first chapter of universal history is speech, and how it came about, and how it is still in existence. This has nothing to do with linguistics. That's swindle. Speech is the fact that you can call me "Mr. Huessy," and I have to say, "Here I am." That's speech. But that you and I speak about somebody third, that's slander. That is, speech is a way in which we confess our status. Everybody who has to admit that he is Mr. Smith, you see, by this admission enters an open arena of confession.

You know there -- again, the Jews have set the example. To admit in Germany that you are Jewish meant certain death. Therefore, the saying, "I am Jewish," you see, or "I am a Jew" was a tremendous sentence. He couldn't say more -- a more terrible thing. All the other philosophies which he could use--that he was a pessimist, or an optimist, or a materialist, or an idealist--that ranks nothing, compared to this one sentence. We have in the acts of the martyrs, the story of the saint, Cyprian, who died in Africa -- North Africa in 258 of our era. And we'll come to this later in greater expanse. The -- greatness of this man's acts, who had escaped martyrdom for 10 years, because he thought he had to stand by his church in North Africa, consists in this simple fact that the -- the consul -- the proconsul in -- of the province digs him out of his -- from his hiding place and -- and says, "What's your name?"

And he says, "I'm Cyprian."

And the {praetor} says -- or the consul says, "Lead him to death."

This -- the admission, you see, that he was the man who had saved the Church in North Africa for 10 years was his death warrant. It was identity. To say who he was meant certain execution. This is speech. Speech is when you stand by a name given to you, and say, "Yes, it is better that I am executed and remain Cyprian, than that I am not executed and remain Mr. Smith, or Mr. Incognito." The admission, to say who you are, that doesn't mean just a name. It means also your rank; it means your nationality; it means your religion; it means your race, you see. These are the real confessions of any human being. More, you cannot ask to do, when you stand by for the what the world declares you to be.

This is -- is unknown in modern linguistics in this country. Linguistics are

just a big swindle, because speech begins where you have to admit who you are. And speech ends where people only talk about other things than themselves. And they do. Look at all the newspaper -- rascals. They report about Vietnam, and about Ho Chi Minh, but they never talk about their own divorce. And that's -- are taken for granted in this country, that you speak absolutely absent-minded. I mean, you speak, but you are excluded. "Present company excluded." So you can be the greatest scoundrel, but they listen to you, you see, for your sensations, and for your reports as though you had a right to open your mouth. You scoundrel, you liar, you hypocrite.

And so this is a very funny ballet dance at this moment in this country. The greatest scoundrels are the most eloquent people. And they have the greatest sel- -- sales. What's interesting about them? They are scoundrels. Do you listen to scoundrels? They will not admit how in- -- indecent they themselves are. Don't listen to them.

But this is unheard-of. When you say -- if I say this, I have said it many times, then they say I'm indecent, because I won't treat this man with humanity. I don't. That's my humanity to all other people, that I free the world from the scoundrels. His lying, his -- impetuosity, his arrogance, that he sits in judgment over all the other people you see, without ever allowing anybody to quote him. You see, there is -- are countries in which your -- the prosecuting attorney and the judges are the criminals. And it helps a lot, you see. As -- if you are the judge, you are pretty safe that at least in this session, you will not be accused. So it is a very safe thing for criminals to become judges and attorney -- district attorneys, you see. It is a great protection.

And all democracies have this terrible danger, you see, that the parties are reversed, and that a clever man gets himself into a position in which he can accuse others, so nobody can dig up his skullduggery.

You would be surprised how often this happens, how often the people in -- in -- in high office run -- run to a success in order to hide their -- their skeleton in the closet.

Therefore the first -- achievement of speech has been to make these -- this skullduggery impossible. Speech is a way of identifying people. And where it isn't this, it is gossip, it is talk, it is nar- -- {reporting}. {It may be} very entertaining, and so. But to entertain is not to retain the progress of the race, you see. It's just entertain. Between serious things, we are entertained. And since this country is out for entertainment, it of course gets very little fruit. Entertainment doesn't have to be true; it's just entertaining. But truth is very disagreeable, because it sorts out. It puts people in their place. It says "yes" and "no" to people.

And therefore speech is dangerous. It's the greatest explosive mankind has every -- ever invented. It's much more explosive than the atom bomb.

People don't know this. Today people think that the atom bomb is dangerous, and speech is innocuous. And they make you even read { }. How many thousands -- words you have to learn, you see, because if you learn so rapid --. Fast reader, what's the ideal? How fast do you have to learn to read? The faster you read, the less you understand. And that's the great hope for these journalists, of course, of today. Madison Avenue lives by the fact that you pretend that you have read, and haven't understood anything. That's what they try to -- to -- to sell -- to sell you. And fast reading. Why not slow reading, gentlemen? I don't understand. I've always read too fast. And I had to learn to read things three times, four times, five times, and then I began to understand that slow reading is delightful, and fast reading is a big { }. It's still in discussion here { }, isn't it? Slow readers are -- are despised. { } slow reader.

So this first chapter of universal history is the dynamite of speech, that it draws lines. He who belongs, because he speaks the truth; and he who doesn't belong, because he lies: that's the old division of mankind, and always will be. And it's very nice in the Bible, you see, that the serpent is a liar, so that we can love all our neighbors, despite the fact that they, under the inspiration of the serpent, do lie. But Eve says, "We lie, too, you see. We have found a way out, and think it's the serpent that makes us lie; not we. You and I, we are very noble souls."

So we have created in universal history a strange escape from the prison of our own life. All speech cures otherwise incurable lies. And that's a whole chapter. And we will see that -- that, for example, the Negro question in the South has very much to do with this {pure and simple} ignorance about speech. The Negroes in the South have no ancestors. They have no grandfathers. They have -- don't know where they come from. So you cannot emancipate them. They have no family. And that's the real question of the Negro, you see, not -- that they are black. That's perfectly uninteresting. For a black man in Africa, that doesn't exist, this problem. They have nothing in common. But a Negro in the South, you see, has been deprived of his pride to say, "This -- he's my grandfather." And -- why nobody in this country ever treats the Negro question as a question of linguistics, I do not understand. This is the real question, that they cannot point out with pride to somebody from whom they come.

We will have to say more of this, but this is Chapter 1, then. The first history -- historical chapter of the universe is that all men must be quotable for what they have said, and how they are called. Their own name must mean something to them. Before, you cannot deal with them. You cannot rely on them.

You cannot use them, you see. They cannot grow. It's part of the story that from the moment you -- became conscious, you see, till today, you know who you are. That's much more than all the facts of life outside { }.

So the first chapter of universal history is: how it came about that the whole globe is peopled with people who can speak, and who can speak to others, and who do speak to others. And war and peace depends on this question. War is a state in which you are not on speaking terms. And peace is a -- is the state in which you are on speaking terms with other people. And where there is no speech, there must be war. Speech is the condition for peace. That's why in the South there is constant civil war, because there is no speech on the important things, between black and white.

I have a friend, it's my own student from Dartmouth. And he went down for the lawyers' committee in Washington, six weeks ago, to live there, and to fight the legal causes of these -- of the black man of Mississippi. And the first letter I -- we received said, "Well, if I am going -- going to be murdered, please watch out for my wife."

That's how this white boy feels about the Civil War in -- in Mississippi. That he thinks his life is in danger -- permanent danger, because he speaks up for the black man. I think it's quite interesting, because it identifies what I've tried to say once more, you see: where there is no speech, there is war. And murder is just a sub-case of war. In war, we kill.

The thing is much more serious than you care to admit. You would go home from Vietnam and invade Mississippi, if you had your five senses. He has nothing to do there, but we have very much to do in Vietnam. I don't -- I hate to see this very good boy murdered. And I -- I just don't know what to do. I mean, because I feel now that I know this danger, I of course should do something. But what can I do?

So war and speech go together. And when you have eternal war, you have boundaries for speech. Speech cannot penetrate where there is war. Is there a glass of water to be had? Is there?

Oh no, just water. Problem.

So you will be surprised to find how conscious primitive man always has been, that speech means peace, and no speech means annihilation, murder, what-have-you. War. War is already a very specific form of destruction, of course. You can have revolutions -- you make this distinction, but the Revolutionary War of course is a revolution as much as it is a war. Where people's lives

can be taken wantonly, as -- a speech frontier has been reached, where we don't speak, we will kill. Where we speak, we don't have to kill the -- even when the -- there comes the moment where we can't kill. Because if you have spoken to a man, he is safe.

Now what is unknown? And why the universal history of the last hundred years to me are so very limited is: they begin after this chapter. They have left it to these linguistic monkeys, and they don't know what speech is. They think it's really communication, a means of -- of -- of talking to each other. But to speak is not to talk. So the second chapter in this universal history will be to show you a world in which there is -- every speech is speech, and none is talk. You don't know the difference. Most Americans do not know the difference between speech and talk. Except the woman who says at the altar, you see, "I -- he does." He makes -- she makes him speak, because he's as a playboy, who confused what it is to marry and to go to bed with somebody.

To speak is really today not rated as a real act, { }. That is -- I have found not one speech-book--I have reads hundreds and thousands of them, without exaggeration, that is not an exaggeration--in which the distinction between speech and talk isn't even mentioned. Now to say, "My name is Smith," or "Huessy," and to say, "You have a very nice blouse," you see, is not the same thing, you see. I have to say that this blouse is nice, even if I think it is very ugly. And that's not lying, either. That's just being polite. And -- but if you give a wrong name, you see, the -- the immigration authorities will throw you out, and turn you back, if they find out that you came into this country under a foreign name -- false name. Isn't it obvious?

So it matters very much if you tell the truth {in this affair}. And it doesn't matter at all if you tell the truth -- talk a little better about the dress of the lady whom you want to please.

One item of this universal history--the first chapter, the spread of speech over the whole globe--it has not found any human group that does not speak, will lead us to contemplate: what is the condition for making people more than talk? You can make any parrot talk, but he cannot speak. Most people today are parrots -- aren't they? But there is one moment in their lives where -- where they -- I think they speak -- want to speak, when the death warrant is brought over them, and they appeal for mercy, they usually do speak, and claim that their life, you see, is irreplaceable. And at that moment, he does not make words, he does not talk. He tries to speak. Because he has to try to impress the governor. And in doing so, he rises to great heights, far beyond your stomach, and your belly, and your little physical existence. You rise to -- the tremendous height of an historical person.

And the -- the man who is pardoned as a criminal, in this act of being pardoned, enters history. Everything before may have been play, and may have been just confusion, and he may not know what he has done. But when the governor feels that this man should be pardoned, you see, he lifts this man up to a place in lasting history. And the most primitive man knows this -- has ever -- always known it. Only the city people in San Francisco know it. I hope the -- in Santa Cruz know it, what speech is: that speech is the greatest distinction. The divinity of man is in the fact that he can be spoken to, and can speak--and not talk.

We will see that the institutions of primitive or ancient history--and today the history of the -- New Guinea, and Africa, and -- and Brazil, what the anthropologists tell us about them--reflect this fact that men have entered history via speech. And speech and history at one time is identical. Those who can speak are historical beings. Those who can't speak are unhistorical beings. Your -- your baby, your own child, as long as it only babbles "Daddy" and "Mama," is not an historical being, but as long as it says, "But I am the son of John Smith," it enters -- he enters history as an annex to somebody who is historical. That's how children become historical, that they know whose son they are, or whose children they are.

This is quite important, because -- some 90 years ago, a man my own age then--very old, I'm afraid--sat down and wrote a world history. His name was Leopold von Ranke. And he wrote this history to the amazement and to the fright of his publisher, who hadn't expected this conversation at all. When the publisher came, he was told, "For the next -- for the rest of my life, I'm going to write a world history." Leopold von Ranke did this. And he began history after speech, so to speak, with the Greeks, with the -- the Homeric age. And if you open the -- Ranke's -- book on world history, you find nothing that I would think matters. Because too late he begins where the Trojan -- after the Trojan War. And I think this is un- -- impermissible advantage he took. It's so short. It's just a history of the last 3,000 years. Well, I have to teach you the history of more. Because history begins where people speak. And that is what they call today "prehistorical."

So it is my task to transform the part of so-called prehistory into history. And I'm going to try it. I think it's all wrong to say that there is prehistory. There is all -- just history. Wherever we find -- excavate bones of human beings, we also find proof that they spoke. And that is that they were ready to be quoted for something they had said or they had been told. Wherever you have this, you have history. It doesn't depend on written documents at all. But it depends only on the fact that if you call "John," then John comes and says, "I am John." The rest -- then it is -- may be different in every case. But you become a histor- -- -rical person when you admit that

the name given you is the right name, that you have to be quoted under this name, that everything that you do now goes under the name of "John," you see, in the computer.

This is so simple that Madison Avenue doesn't know this. And I don't know where Life -- Time, Life, and Fortune is located. Is it on Madison Avenue, or is it Fifth Avenue? Does anybody know? Well, I -- because I want to include it into my condemnation.

They don't know what history is, and therefore they say, "Oh, these -- these Sioux and Apaches," and so on, "they are prehistorical. They are anthropol- -- they -- that's good for the anthropologists." Do you really think the natives of this continent are good for -- food for anthropology? They are our historical brothers. They are just as much human beings as you and I. And this whole idea of civilized and uncivilized, well. Of course, they are civilized, and we are not civilized. That's true. Do you think that the use of toilet paper makes you into a civilized person?

It's very strange. We have driven a wedge that becomes intolerable, as any anthropologist will tell you. He's much more at home, of course, with -- with the subjects of his study in anthropology than he is at home with you. And they are much nicer people; they're much more interesting. We are not so interesting. Most of us are terribly boring, and that's why we smoke all the time.

Well, half of you are bored. LSC would be not a temptation if you would lead an exciting life. But since you are bored stiff, I don't blame you, I mean. There's nothing else but artificial respiration.

I still think I have 10 minutes. Is that right?

Page Smith: (No.)

Wie? No?

Page Smith: (No.)

What did you say?

Page Smith: (Time's up.)

What did you say? I can't hear you.

Page Smith: (Time's up.)

What?

Page Smith: (The -- the hour -- it's -- it's an hour and 15 minutes. The class is technically over at 12:15. But --.)

Well, what's your pleasure?

Page Smith: (I'm not going to make you stop.)

What's the time now?

Page Smith: (12:15.)

Wie?

Page Smith: (12:15.)

Is it? I shall become an historical person by { }. Thank you.