Philip
L.
Greene
THE DICHOTOMY
They were discussing the dichotomy between the essential–
ists
and the existentialists just after the two o'clock class. Sucking
on a cigarette Rollie turned in his swivel chair and searched for the
right phrase. "What the Platonic world ignores is the . . . human
condition. Rudebager in Wisconsin, when 1 was out there, held that
angst-less
belief
is
basically a failure of moral nerve. The dicho–
tomy ..."
"Yes," Malcolm cut in softly, "I see what you mean. 1 have
a very nice student, doing
A-
work actually, who is very excited
about the dichotomy. But the boys in my classes don't seem to be
interested in that sort of thing. All they want to do is play."
RolIie snickered and swiveled back to
his
tea. He had to be
cautious not to injure Malcolm. RolIie's favorite students confided
that Malcolm was a very sweet man, well-prepared and all, but he
was
so square, he would never talk about sex or anything. They
complained that Mr. Duckworth was always talking about image
patterns, word clusters and syntactical strategies.
"In my eleven o'clock," Rollie said, "we were discussing the
on-going dialogue between Nietzschean
Gott ist todt
and Buber's
I-Thou relationship."
"What were you applying it to?"
"We're doing
Catcher
in
the Rye.
I was comparing Holden's
journey with Odysseus's quest. They lit up when 1 mentioned
alienated man. Holden
is
very Buberesque. But most of the
class
think
he's sick. We got on to psychic disorder. They like Holden,
but they want him to cool it. They're all involved in cool form.
Anybody who plays it straight is a 'cop-out.' So 1 said 'I dig' and
they all laughed at me. Anyway, one girl, maybe you know her,
