508
PARTISAN REVIEW
people who are trying to
organize
him- take away his will and in–
dividuality. It was, however, full of brilliantly shrewd things- im–
possible to remember them except referring to the pointless discus–
sion of skepticism the evening before, he said: "'Skepticism,' is that
anything more than we used to mean when we said , 'Well, what
have we here?"' -But also the horror of the old man- fine looking
old man-having to dance and clown to escape (also for his supper)
-American, American in that deadly intimacy, that throwing away
of dignity- "Drop that dignity! Hands up" we say- in order to come
into anything like contact and to make anything like a point.
(1946)
Kafka: The Trial- what is the mystery here when we remember
that every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which
the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and ex–
ecutes the sentence:
all to the end that someone else should not perform the
same process.
In writing about Kafka- whenever- it is important to
remember the function of this sui-trial. (See Ancient Mariner at very
opening of our era)
This is very important in making a judgment of the tendencies
of modern culture . The masochistic character of the estimate of
survival- to adopt a form of being that will differentiate oneself from
the dominant father-culture- to take strength-weakness from that–
to indict the Philistine-father by strength-weakness-the str.-w. of
the legal process of the neurosis.
(1946-47)
Spirit.
The modern feeling that spirit should find its expression
im–
mediately
in the world of necessity and that all that falls short of the
full expression of spirit is repulsive. I see this often in gifted students
of a particular kind who when they find that, say, a graduate school
is not up to their standard and expectation, cannot endure staying
and abandon their projects. They have, one might say, no irony–
for irony, perhaps, is the awareness with acceptance of the breach
between spirit and the world of necessity- institutions etc. They in–
sist that spirit be wholly embodied in institutions.
If
what I have just
written were put to them, they would say, why of course, why not?
Yet the fact is that there is a weakness of spirit within that keeps them
from enduring- they do not believe that they really exist and can
exist if what they recognize as good within themselves is not matched
by external forms, received and established by something. This has ,
of course, its social source- for once, no doubt, apart from institu-
