510
PARTISAN REVIEW
of others that I was established. A scene in which I was the oldest
and therefore terribly isolated- out on a limb- woke in the morning
with the sense that at 42 I had no more time, no more time....
(1948)
Nowadays, we are all Aristotelian in our aesthetics
&
we are certain
that the theory of art that Plato proposes in
The Republic
is false
&
naive. Yet there is truth in the belief that we become assimilated to
the literal content of the arts we contemplate. And really Aristotle
did not do more in the correction of Plato than to enumerate the con–
ditions under which this did not need to happen; he seems to have
had a very clear sense that it could happen . -It is possible that the
contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the
reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us con–
sent to it.
(1948)
We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state
we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only
Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.
(1948)
Cowardice: let it be a lesson-
Attracted to the committee being formed to get in touch with Italian
radicals
&
intellectuals, I hesitated, feeling it was naive and sen–
timental etc. Asked Rahv what he was doing about it- he spoke with
contempt. -So also Barrett- So that I felt ashamed to join, al–
though exactly the naivety of the committee was what drew me- I at
last said no- saying I had no reasons but simply wasn't "drawn" to
it. Mary MeG tells me that the
PR
people are joining-
making a vir–
tue of it:
I then decided that I properly stood alone, acting on my own
impulses!
(1948)
The dissatisfaction of the parents of my generation with their
children- the children show no signs of intellectual addiction
&
even
are hostile to the intellect- is this the cultural tendency (for children,
I am sure, make cultural breaks
&
smell out the cultural scents
&
make large cultural decisions), or is it the contrast between two
generations of Jews? Or is it simply the response of the children to
the neurosis of their fathers?- the particular quality they give to
their intellectuality?
