PARTISAN REVIEW
21
historical vicissitudes (dissident Japanese or American youth) is
also
seen simultaneously to
act upon
and affect history - by epitomizing,
exacerbating and suggesting something beyond, the immediate con–
flicts and visions of large numbers of contemporaries.
If
this kind
of explanation, strictly speaking, deals more with historical flow than
cause, it at least leaves open many possibilities for more subtle theo–
retical explorations that relate cause and effect to evolving patterns
and directions. Among these future possibilities are additional com–
binations of the shared-themes and great-man approach; and new
ways of conceptualizing radical historical shifts - the breakdown
and recreation of the forms of human culture (biological, experien–
tial, institutional, technological, aesthetic, and interpretative) - or
what I call a New History.
In both of the post-Freudian paradigms the social theory nec–
essary
to bridge the gap between individual and collectivity remains
fragmented, implicit, unclear or nonexistent. One solution would
be
to graft on to either of the two paradigms such relatively estab–
lished and comprehensive social theory as the neo-Marxist concepts
of alienation and overspecialization. Useful as that might be, my
own view is that much of the necessary theory shall have to be
constructed anew. When approaching intellectual traditions of all
kinds, we may do better to draw upon them partially and crit–
ically - sometimes even fragmentally - as we construct new com–
binations of ideas from our continuing investigation of shared psy–
chohistorical themes. Most of all we should avoid that fonn of
professional territoriality which insists that psychological, sociological,
and historical realms remain categorically discrete, with each hold–
ing fast to an explanatory principle claimed to subsume, or exist
independently of, all else.
VII
The concept of revolutionary immortality is part of a more
general theory of symbolic immortality I have been attempting to
develop, which concerns man's need, in the face of inevitable bio–
logical death, to maintain an inner sense of continuity with what
has
gone on before, and what
will
go on after,
his
own individual
existence. From
this
standpoint the
sense
of immortality is much
more than denial of death (though it can certainly be bound up
with denial). Rather, it is part of compelling, life-enhancing ima-
