LETTERS
so? It is not, however, that Brown
considers history illusory, but that
mea n i n g is located elsewhere.
Meaning, Brown suggests, lies not
in the traditional understanding of
history as past events, but in history
as the possibility of a transformed
consciousness that would free us of
idolatry, of the "grip of the dead
hand of the past on life in the pre–
sent." Perhaps Brown's presentation
of psychoanalysis as "a set of para–
doxical propositions about human
fate" truly illuminates the human
condition and is not the disservice
which Crews envisions.
Shirley Sugerman
Mr. Crews replies:
Someone who is serious about
revolution ought to demand an
analysis of present realities and a
believable program (not just ex–
hortations) for breaking out of
them. Brown sensed this when he
Wl'Ote
Life Against Death,
and la–
bored to convince himself that psy–
choanalysis independently corrobo–
rated his religious goals. Much of
what he turned up is impressive
and intellectually liberating. The
irony, however, is that in order to
make psychoanalysis ap.ocalyptic he
had to lyricize the most dubious of
Freud's hypotheses; some of his
"divine madness" is nineteenth–
century mechanistic biology dressed
in Dionysian garb. This may not
weaken Mrs. Sugerman's fervor
about transformed consciousness,
but it should matter t.o anyone who
wonders whether Brown's dramatic
predictions are likely to come true.
Is history having a nervous break–
down? Can repression be abolish–
ed? These questions are in the
realm of rational inquiry, but Mrs.
Sugerman and other adepts of
Films and Feelings
by Raymond Durgnal
649
In a critical style reminiscent of
Edmund Wilson, Raymond
Durgnat examines hare literally
hundreds of filmS-from BIrth of
a NatIon to those 01 the 1960's,
Irom Hollywood smashes to avant
garde obscurities, Irom all parts
01 the world-In an effort to Isolate
universals 01 the 111m language
and to lilt their poetics to an
articulate level. $6.95
On ModernIsm: The Prospects lor
Literature and Freedom
by Louis Kampf
In search 01 times past lor the
roots 01 "modern" culture, Louis
Kampl revisits eighteenth century
rationalist and empiriCist
thought and explores the possible
means 01 making connections
between Ille and living art-In
the process, challenging camp, the
absurd, other modish cliches and
happenstance lashlons.
$10.00
SIGHT
AND
SOUND
of Modern Culture
THE
MIT
PRESS
Massachusetts Institute 01 Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
