MAX BENSE
167
both these talents to a rigorous philosophical method, he has devel–
oped skills of exposition and demonstration which are as accurate as
they are, in the literary sense, brilliant. No contemporary student of
intellectual history, Russell alone excepted, writes with such cool,
authoritative ease, argues his topics over so wide a range, or con–
nects them as closely; and none, except Gilson, writes so lucidly and
altogether
well,
with that nice management of phrase and transitions,
that utter plausibility born of a single conviction. But far from being
fully embodied, Bense's central conviction is implicitly called into
question,
if
not downright controverted, in portion after portion of
his work. Above all, in the belletristic portions. For the authors whom
among contemporaries he considers most highly-Junger, Benn, Kafka
-are all striking examples of the writer who is unassimilated, and
radically unassimilable, to the technological process, notwithstanding
the early fierce advocacies of the first and the ambivalent recogni–
tions-shuttling between heady delight and abject despair-of the
second. Yet it is in these writers, and in writers like Sartre and Camus,
that Bense finds the scheme of the present confirmed, that of the
future foreshadowed. Such judgments, while they bespeak Mr. Bense's
sound taste in matters of literature, might strike one as hopelessly at
odds with the doctrine they are meant to support; and Bense is much
too intelligent not to be aware of that danger. Manipulation ensues–
subtle, discreet, exquisite manipulation, but manipulation neverthe–
less. Through a series of slight displacements, of special stresses and
eliminations, a trick of perspective is won which makes of these
writers what, in fact, they are not. The effect on the reader is curious.
Benn, Kafka and Junger still look credible on this view-almost the
men as we know them. Indeed,
if
these critiques and analyses stood
by themselves, we might simply admire their brilliance and give no
thought to the warp. But knowing the doctrine we realize what has
happened: in prescribing for future writers, Bense had first to
de–
scribe their putative models in a way that would suit his over-all
scheme. And we stare ,at the unbridged gap with awe-and a double
discomfort, for it suggests to us the gap between a man's will and his
vision; the gap into which Bense the writer has fallen.
At this point I can hear Mr. Bense (or one of his circle) reply,
and with some show of impatience. That supposed 'gap' is really a
trap into which I, the critic, have fallen. And quite unnecessarily too.
