14
PARTISAN REVIEW
I: "The argument was a bad one. But no opinion of mine would
matter now. You've heard all the reactions .... " Feeling of great
discomfort & I stop.
"It's the biggest show on earth," said Eliot Cohen. "" This state–
ment came out of the left corner of his mouth, as did all other such
pronunciamentos. It made me think, however, that when he was not
speaking in his official capacity, but just for himself, then, perhaps, he
spoke straight out of his mouth, and that when he was particularly
intimate with you, he might even speak out of the other corner.
The difference between the existentialists and Camus on the one
hand & Kafka on the other is that when the former reduce the self to
abso lute terms, it is bare, stripped clean, in a sort of sterile poverty. The
reduction in Kafka is a kind of enrichening; the liaison with God
commences when we are alone.
We are the abstract people, our essence is our God. The Christians
have Christ, we have dignity. For them there is man, for us there is
Holiness. A race of philosophers, obviously, for who else would prefer
truth to personality, abstract grandeur to simple emotion? We have had
to pay dearly for our better philosophical position. But give it up–
never! We have no need of Christ, for each of us is his own Christ. Our
suffering on behalf of our faith is the concrete stem, certainly strong
enough, that upholds our great abstract flower. Suffering, our own
suffering, not that of a half-god, is the personality of our faith.
Oh, the Jews who have to go elsewhere
to
acquire personality!
The Man who was Twice Arrested. E.V.D. Haag. Picked up on
charges of homosexual vagrancy-& on suspicion of murder. Patently
false, of course. But these are the "crimes" of which he is symbolically
guilty.
Perhaps the damned are the saved. Myself last night at Connie's,
ready to scream with self-consciousness. The misery of not being able
to approach people, girls, not being able to do anything but smirk. Or
""Editor of
Commentary, 1945-1959.
