The Book_ On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Part 4

We have attained a view of the world and a type of sanity which is dried-out like a rusty beer-can on the beach. It is a world of objects, objects, of nothing-buts as ordinary as a formica table with chromium fittings. We find it immensely rea.s.suring-except that it won't stay put, and must therefore be defended even at the cost of scouring the whole planet back to a nice clean rock. For life is, after all, a rather messy and gooey accident in our basically geological universe. "If a man's son ask for bread, will he give him a stone?" The answer is probably, "Yes." of nothing-buts as ordinary as a formica table with chromium fittings. We find it immensely rea.s.suring-except that it won't stay put, and must therefore be defended even at the cost of scouring the whole planet back to a nice clean rock. For life is, after all, a rather messy and gooey accident in our basically geological universe. "If a man's son ask for bread, will he give him a stone?" The answer is probably, "Yes."

Yet this is no quarrel with scientific thinking, which, as of this date, has gone far, far beyond Newtonian billiards and the myth of the Fully Automatic, mechanical universe of mere objects. That was where science really got its start, but in accordance with William Blake's principle that "The fool who persists persists in his folly will become wise," the persistent scientist is the first to realize the obsolescence of old models of the world. Open a good, standard textbook on quantum theory: in his folly will become wise," the persistent scientist is the first to realize the obsolescence of old models of the world. Open a good, standard textbook on quantum theory: ... the world cannot be a.n.a.lyzed correctly into distinct parts; instead, it, must be regarded as an indivisible unit in which separate parts appear as valid approximations only in the cla.s.sical [i.e., Newtonian]

limit.... Thus, at the quantum level of accuracy, an object does not have any "intrinsic" properties (for instance, wave or particle) belonging to itself alone; instead, it shares all its properties mutually and indivisibly with the systems with which it interacts. Moreover, because a given object, such as an electron, interacts at different times with different systems that bring out different potentialities, it undergoes ... continual transformation between the various forms (for instance, wave or particle form) in which it can manifest itself.

Although such fluidity and dependence of form on the environment have not been found, before the advent of quantum theory, at the level of elementary particles in physics, they are not uncommon ... in fields, such as biology, which deal with complex systems. Thus, under suitable environmental conditions, a bacterium can develop into a spore stage, which is completely different in structure, and vice versa.(2) Then there is the other, complementary, side of the picture as presented by the eminent biophysicist Erwin Schrodinger: It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this this sense-that sense-that you you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza's pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it, as in Spinoza's pantheism. For we should have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? you? What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you-and all other conscious beings as such-are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the What, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you-and all other conscious beings as such-are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; whole; only this whole is not so const.i.tuted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.(3) The universe implies the organism, and each single organism implies the universe-only the "single glance" of our spotlight, narrowed attention, which has been taught to confuse its glimpses with separate only this whole is not so const.i.tuted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.(3) The universe implies the organism, and each single organism implies the universe-only the "single glance" of our spotlight, narrowed attention, which has been taught to confuse its glimpses with separate "things," must somehow be opened to the full vision, which Schrodinger goes on to suggest: Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you. You are as firmly established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering. And not merely 'some day': now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.(4) (1) For this ill.u.s.tration I am indebted to Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances. Saving the Appearances.

Faber & Faber, 1956.

(2) David Bohm, Quantum Theory. Quantum Theory. Prentice-Hall Inc., 1958. pp. 161-62. Prentice-Hall Inc., 1958. pp. 161-62.

(3) Erwin Schrodinger, My View of the World. My View of the World. Cambridge University Press, 1964. Cambridge University Press, 1964.

pp. 21-22.

(4) The same, p. 22.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SO WHAT?.

TO HAVE spoken of a new vision is to be asked, in the next breath, what good it will do. When you come to think of it, this is astonishing, but it is invariably true in speaking with people brought up in the environment of Protestantism. Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Moslems, and Taoists understand that vision, or contemplation, is good in itself, even the supreme good in the sense of the Beatific Vision where all beings are eternally absorbed in the knowledge and love of G.o.d. But this possibility makes Protestants nervous, and one of their official prayers asks that those in heaven may be granted "continual growth in thy love and service," because, after all, you can't stop Progress. Even heaven must be a growing community.

The reason is, I suppose, that modern Protestantism in particular, in its liberal and progressive forms, is the religion most strongly influenced by the mythology of the world of objects, and of man as the separate ego. Man so defined and so experienced is, of course, incapable of pleasure and contentment, let alone creative power. Hoaxed into the illusion of being an independent, responsible source of actions, he cannot understand why what he does never comes up to what he should should do, for a society which has defined him as separate cannot persuade him to behave as if he really belonged. Thus he feels chronic guilt and makes the most heroic efforts to placate his conscience. do, for a society which has defined him as separate cannot persuade him to behave as if he really belonged. Thus he feels chronic guilt and makes the most heroic efforts to placate his conscience.

From these efforts come social services, hospitals, peace movements, foreign-aid programs, free education, and the whole philosophy of the welfare state. Yet we are bedeviled by the fact that the more these heroic and admirable enterprises succeed, the more they provoke new and increasingly horrendous problems. For one thing, few of us have ever thought through the problem of what good such enterprises are ultimately supposed to achieve. When we have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and housed the homeless, what then? Is the object to enable unfortunate people to help those still more unfortunate? To convert Hindus and Africans into a huge bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, where every Bengali and every Zulu has the privilege of joining our special rat-race, buying appliances on time and a television set to keep him running? where every Bengali and every Zulu has the privilege of joining our special rat-race, buying appliances on time and a television set to keep him running?

Some years ago a friend of mine was walking through tea plantations near Darjeeling, and noticed one particular group of fields where the bushes were all shriveled. On asking why, it was explained that the owner had felt so sorry for his impoverished workers that he had paid them double. But as a result, they had turned up for work only half the time, which was disastrous in the critical season when the plants have to be tended every day. My friend put this problem to an Indian communist. His solution was to pay them double and compel them to work. He then put it to an American businessman. His solution was to pay them double-and put radios in their homes! No one seemed to understand that those workers valued time for goofing off more than money.

It is hard for compulsive activists to see that the vast social and economic problems of the world cannot be settled by mere effort and technique. The outsider cannot just barge in like Santa Claus and put things to right-especially our kind of outsider who, because he has no sense of belonging in the world, invariably smells like an interferer. He does not really know what he wants, and therefore everyone suspects that there are limitless strings attached to his gifts. For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment. I am not saying that American and European corporations are run by greedy villains who live off the fat of the land at everyone else's expense. The point becomes clear only as one realizes, with compa.s.sion and sorrow, that many of our most powerful and wealthy men are miserable dupes and captives in a treadmill, who-with the rarest exceptions-have not the ghost of a notion how to spend and enjoy money.

If I had been a Heathen, I'd have praised the purple vine,

My slaves would dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine; But Higgins is a Heathen, And his slaves grow lean and grey, That he may drink some tepid milk Exactly twice a day. (1) (1) The startling truth is that our best efforts for civil rights, international peace, population control, conservation of natural resources, and a.s.sistance to the starving of the earth-urgent as they are-will destroy rather than help if made in the present spirit. For, as things stand, we have nothing to give. If our own riches and our own way of life are not enjoyed here, they will not be enjoyed anywhere else. Certainly they will supply the immediate jolt of energy and hope that methedrine, and similar drugs, give in extreme fatigue. But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love.

No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

The separate person is without content, in both senses of the word.

He lives perpetually on hope, on looking forward to tomorrow, having been brought up this way from childhood, when his uncomprehending rage at double-binds was propitiated with toys. If you want to find a true folk-religion in our culture, look at the rites of Santa Claus. Even before the beginning of Advent, which was supposed to be a three-to-four-week fasting period in preparation for the feast, the streets are decorated for Christmas, the shops glitter with tinsel and festive display of gifts, and public-address systems warble electronic carols so that one is sick to death of Venite adoremus Venite adoremus long before Christmas Day. Trees are already baubled and illumined in most homes, and as the big buildup proceeds they are surrounded by those shiny packages with shimmering ribbons which look as if they held gifts for princes. By this time Christmas parties have already been held in schools and offices before closing for the actual holiday, so that by Christmas Eve the celebrations have just about blown their top. But there are still those packages under the tree and stockings by the fireplace. long before Christmas Day. Trees are already baubled and illumined in most homes, and as the big buildup proceeds they are surrounded by those shiny packages with shimmering ribbons which look as if they held gifts for princes. By this time Christmas parties have already been held in schools and offices before closing for the actual holiday, so that by Christmas Eve the celebrations have just about blown their top. But there are still those packages under the tree and stockings by the fireplace.

When at last the Day comes the children are frantic. Hardly able to wait for breakfast, and not having slept most of the night, they tear those gold and silver parcels to shreds as if they contained nothing less than the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher's Stone. By noon the living-room looks as if a wastepaper truck had crashed into a dimestore, leaving a wreck of mangled cartons, excelsior, wrapping-paper, and writhing ribbons; neckties, up-ended dolls, half-a.s.sembled model railroads, s.p.a.ce-suits, plastic atom-bombs, and scattered chocolate bars; hundreds of tinker-toy pieces, crushed tree ornaments, miniature sportscars, water-pistols, bottles of whisky, and balloons. An hour later the children are blubbering or screaming, and have to be shooed out-of-doors while the mess is shoved together to make room for Christmas dinner.

Thereafter, the Twelve Days of Christmas are spent with upset stomachs, colds, and influenza, and on New Year's Eve the adults get stoned to forget the whole thing.

Well, it was fun describing it, but the point is that intense expectation fizzled. The girl was gorgeous but the guy was impotent. But since there must be something somewhere, expectation is kindled again to keep us all going for that golden, galuptious goodie at the end of the line. What could it be? The children knew it well until they got caught in the rat-race. One of the best Christmas presents I ever had was a cheap ring with a gla.s.s diamond. It was quite incidental-something that came out of a snapper (or cracker) at a party. But I sat down in front of the fireplace with this enchanted object, and turned it to catch the different colors of light which blazed inside it. I knew that I had found the Ring of Solomon, with which he summoned djinns and afrits with wings of bra.s.s-and it wasn't that I wanted them to do anything for me, for it was just enough to be in that atmosphere, to watch these magical beings come to life in the flames of the fire, and to feel that I was in touch with the timeless paradise-world.

Now it is symptomatic of our rusty-beer-can type of sanity that our culture produces very few magical objects. Jewelry is slick and uninteresting. Architecture is almost totally bereft of exuberance, obsessed with erecting gla.s.s boxes. Children's books are written by serious ladies with three names and no imagination, and as for comics, have you ever looked at the furniture in Dagwood's home? The potentially magical ceremonies of the Catholic Church are either gabbled away at top speed, or rationalized with the aid of a commentator. Drama or ritual in everyday behavior is considered affectation and bad form, and manners have become indistinguishable from manerisms-where they exist at all. We produce nothing comparable to the great Oriental carpets, Persian gla.s.s, tiles, and illuminated books, Arabian leatherwork, Spanish marquetry, Hindu textiles, Chinese porcelain and embroidery, j.a.panese lacquer and brocade, French tapestries, or Inca jewelry. (Though, incidentally, there are certain rather small electronic devices that come unwittingly close to fine jewels.) The reason is not just that we are too much in a hurry and have no sense of the present; not just that we cannot afford the type of labor that such things would now involve, nor just that we prefer money to materials. The reason is that we have scrubbed the world clean of magic. We have lost even the vision of paradise, so that our artists and craftsmen can no longer discern its forms. This is the price that must be paid for attempting to control the world from the standpoint of an "I" for whom everything that can be experienced is a foreign object and a nothing-but.

It would be sentimental and impossible to go back. Children are in touch with paradise to the extent that they have not fully learned the ego-trick, and the same is true of cultures which, by our standards, are more "primitive" and-by a.n.a.logy-childlike. If, then, after understanding, at least in theory, that the ego-trick is a hoax and that, beneath everything, "I" and "universe" are one, you ask, "So what?

What is the next step, the practical application?"-I will answer that the absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline which this involves. Without this you have nothing to give-to the cause of peace or of racial integration, to starving Hindus and Chinese, or even to your closest friends. Without this, all social concern will be muddlesome meddling, and all work for the future will be planned disaster.

But the way is not back. Just as science overcame its purely atomistic and mechanical view of the world through more more science, the ego-trick must be overcome through intensified self-consciousness. For there is no way of getting rid of the feeling of separateness by a so-called "act of will," by trying to forget yourself, or by getting absorbed in some other interest. This is why moralistic preaching is such a failure: it breeds only cunning hypocrites-people sermonized into shame, guilt, or fear, who thereupon force themselves to behave as if they actually loved others, so that their "virtues" are often more destructive, and arouse more resentment, than their "vices." A British social service project, run by earnest and rather formidable ladies, called the Charity Organization Society-C.O.S. for short-used to be known among the poor as science, the ego-trick must be overcome through intensified self-consciousness. For there is no way of getting rid of the feeling of separateness by a so-called "act of will," by trying to forget yourself, or by getting absorbed in some other interest. This is why moralistic preaching is such a failure: it breeds only cunning hypocrites-people sermonized into shame, guilt, or fear, who thereupon force themselves to behave as if they actually loved others, so that their "virtues" are often more destructive, and arouse more resentment, than their "vices." A British social service project, run by earnest and rather formidable ladies, called the Charity Organization Society-C.O.S. for short-used to be known among the poor as "Cringe or Starve."

The Taoist philosopher Chuang-tzu described such efforts to be ego-less as "beating a drum in search of a fugitive," or, as we would put it, driving to a police raid with sirens on. Or, as the Hindus say, it is like trying not not to think of a monkey while taking medicine, on the basis of the popular superst.i.tion that thinking of a monkey will make the medicine ineffective. All that such efforts can teach us is that they do not work, for the more we try to behave without greed or fear, the more we realize that we are doing this for greedy or fearful reasons. Saints have always declared themselves as abject sinners-through recognition that their aspiration to be saintly is motivated by the worst of all sins, spiritual pride, the desire to admire oneself as a supreme success in the art of love and unselfishness. And beneath this lies a bottomless pit of vicious circles: the game, "I am more penitent than you" or "My pride in my humility is worse than yours." Is there any way to think of a monkey while taking medicine, on the basis of the popular superst.i.tion that thinking of a monkey will make the medicine ineffective. All that such efforts can teach us is that they do not work, for the more we try to behave without greed or fear, the more we realize that we are doing this for greedy or fearful reasons. Saints have always declared themselves as abject sinners-through recognition that their aspiration to be saintly is motivated by the worst of all sins, spiritual pride, the desire to admire oneself as a supreme success in the art of love and unselfishness. And beneath this lies a bottomless pit of vicious circles: the game, "I am more penitent than you" or "My pride in my humility is worse than yours." Is there any way not not to be involved in some kind of one-upmanship? "I am less of a one-upman than you." "I am a worse one-upman than you." "I realize more clearly than you that everything we do is one-upmanship." The ego-trick seems to reaffirm itself endlessly in posture after posture. to be involved in some kind of one-upmanship? "I am less of a one-upman than you." "I am a worse one-upman than you." "I realize more clearly than you that everything we do is one-upmanship." The ego-trick seems to reaffirm itself endlessly in posture after posture.

But as I pursue these games-as I become more conscious of being conscious, more aware that I am unable to define myself as being up up without you (or something other than myself) being without you (or something other than myself) being down down-I see vividly that I depend depend on your being down for my being up. I would never be able to know that I belong to the in-group of "nice" or "saved" people without the a.s.sistance of an out-group of "nasty" or "d.a.m.ned" people. on your being down for my being up. I would never be able to know that I belong to the in-group of "nice" or "saved" people without the a.s.sistance of an out-group of "nasty" or "d.a.m.ned" people.

How can any in-group maintain its collective ego without relishing dinnertable discussions about the ghastly conduct of outsiders? The very ident.i.ty of racist Southerners depends upon contrasting themselves with those dirty black "nigras." But, conversely, the out-groups feel that they are really and truly "in," and nourish their collective ego with relishingly indignant conversation about squares, Ofays, Wasps, Philistines, and the blasted bourgeoisie. bourgeoisie. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas let it out that part of the blessedness of the saints in Heaven was that they could look over the battlements and enjoy the "proper justice" of the sinners squirming in h.e.l.l. All winners need losers; all saints need sinners; all sages need fools-that is, so long as the major kick in life is to "amount to something" or to "be someone" as a particular and separate G.o.dlet. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas let it out that part of the blessedness of the saints in Heaven was that they could look over the battlements and enjoy the "proper justice" of the sinners squirming in h.e.l.l. All winners need losers; all saints need sinners; all sages need fools-that is, so long as the major kick in life is to "amount to something" or to "be someone" as a particular and separate G.o.dlet.

But I define myself in terms of you; I know myself only in terms of what is "other," no matter whether I see the "other" as below me or above me in any ladder of values. If above, I enjoy the kick of self-pity; if below, I enjoy the kick of pride. I being I goes with you being you.

Thus, as a great Ha.s.sidic rabbi put it, "If I am I because you are you, and if you are you because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you."

Instead we are both something in common between what Martin Buber has called I-and-Thou and I-and-It-the magnet itself which lies between the poles, between I myself and everything sensed as other.

There it is, a theoretically undeniable fact. But the question is how to get over the sensation sensation of being locked out from everything "other," of being only oneself-an organism flung into unavoidable compet.i.tion and conflict with almost every "object" in its experience. There are innumerable recipes for this project, almost all of which have something to recommend them. There are the practices of yoga meditation, dervish dancing, psychotherapy, Zen Buddhism, Ignatian, Salesian, and Hesychast methods of "prayer," the use of consciousness-changing chemicals such as LSD and mescaline, psychodrama, group dynamics, sensory-awareness techniques, Quakerism, Gurdjieff exercises, relaxation therapies,the Alexander method, autogenic training, and self-hypnosis. The difficulty with every one of these disciplines is that the moment you are seriously involved, you find yourself boxed in some special in-group which defines itself, often with the most elegant subtlety, by the exclusion of an out-group. In this way, every religion or cult is self-defeating, and this is equally true of projects which define themselves as non-religions or universally inclusive religions, playing the game of "I am less exclusive than you." of being locked out from everything "other," of being only oneself-an organism flung into unavoidable compet.i.tion and conflict with almost every "object" in its experience. There are innumerable recipes for this project, almost all of which have something to recommend them. There are the practices of yoga meditation, dervish dancing, psychotherapy, Zen Buddhism, Ignatian, Salesian, and Hesychast methods of "prayer," the use of consciousness-changing chemicals such as LSD and mescaline, psychodrama, group dynamics, sensory-awareness techniques, Quakerism, Gurdjieff exercises, relaxation therapies,the Alexander method, autogenic training, and self-hypnosis. The difficulty with every one of these disciplines is that the moment you are seriously involved, you find yourself boxed in some special in-group which defines itself, often with the most elegant subtlety, by the exclusion of an out-group. In this way, every religion or cult is self-defeating, and this is equally true of projects which define themselves as non-religions or universally inclusive religions, playing the game of "I am less exclusive than you."

It is thus that religions and non-religions-all established in the name of brotherhood and universal love-are invariably divisive and quarrelsome. What, for example, is more quarrelsome-in practical politics-than the project for a truly cla.s.sless and democratic society?

Yet the historical origin of this movement is mystical. It goes back to Jesus and Saint Paul, to Eckhart and Tauler, to the Anabaptists, Levelers, and Brothers of the Free Spirit, and their insistence that all men are equal in the sight of G.o.d. It seems almost as if to be is to quarrel, or at least to differ, to be in contrast with something else. If so, whoever does not put up a fight has no ident.i.ty; whoever is not selfish has no self. Nothing unites a community so much as common cause against an external enemy, yet, in the same moment, that enemy becomes the essential support of social unity. Therefore larger societies require larger enemies, bringing us in due course to the perilous point of our present situation, where the world is virtually divided into two huge camps. But if high officers on both sides have any intelligence at all, they make a secret agreement to contain the conflict: to call each other the worst names, but to refrain from dropping bombs. Or, if they insist that there must be some fighting to keep armies in trim, they restrict it to local conflicts in "unimportant" countries. Voltaire should have said that if the Devil did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Nevertheless, the more it becomes clear that to be is to quarrel and to pursue self-interest, the more you are compelled to recognize your need for enemies to support you. In the same way, the more resolutely you plumb the question "Who or what am I?"-the more unavoidable is the realization that you are nothing at all apart from everything else. else. Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery-in morals, in art or in spirituality-the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure. Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery-in morals, in art or in spirituality-the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure.

This understanding is at first paralyzing. You are in a trap-in the worst of all double-binds-seeing that any direction you may take will imply, and so evoke, its opposite. Decide to be a Christ, and there will be a Judas to betray you and a mob to crucify you. Decide to be a devil, and men will unite against you in the closest brotherly love. Your first reaction may be simply, "To h.e.l.l with it!" The only course may seem to be to forget the whole effort and become absorbed in trivialities, or to check out of the game by suicide or psychosis, and spend the rest of your days blabbering in an asylum.

But there is another possibility. Instead of checking out, let us ask what the trap means. What is implied in finding yourself paralyzed, unable to escape from a game in which all the rules are double-binds and all moves self-defeating? Surely this is a deep and intense experience of the same double-bind that was placed upon you in infancy, when the community told you that you must be free, responsible, and loving, and when you were helplessly defined as an independent agent. The sense of paralysis is therefore the dawning realization that this is nonsense and that your independent ego is a fiction. It simply isn't there, either to do anything or to be pushed around by external forces, to change things or to submit to change. The sense of "I," which should have been identified with the whole universe of your experience, was instead cut off and isolated as a detached observer of that universe. In the preceding chapter we saw that this unity of organism and environment is a physical fact. But when you know for sure that your separate ego is a fiction, you actually feel feel yourself yourself as as the whole process and pattern of life. Experience and experiencer become one experiencing, known and knower one knowing. the whole process and pattern of life. Experience and experiencer become one experiencing, known and knower one knowing.

Each organism experiences this from a different standpoint and in a different way, for each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety. One need not, then, fall into the trap which this experience holds for believers in an external, all-powerful G.o.d-the temptation to feel "I am G.o.d" in that sense, and to expect to be worshipped and obeyed by all other organisms.

Remember, above all, that an experience of this kind cannot be forced or made to happen by any act of your fict.i.tious "will," except insofar as repeated efforts to be one-up on the universe may eventually reveal their futility. Don't try to get rid of the ego-sensation. Take it, so long as it lasts, as a feature or play of the total process-like a cloud or wave, or like feeling warm or cold, or anything else that happens of itself. Getting rid of one's ego is the last resort of invincible egoism! It simply confirms and strengthens the reality of the feeling. But when this feeling of separateness is approached and accepted like any other sensation, it evaporates like the mirage that it is.

This is why I am not overly enthusiastic about the various "spiritual exercises" in meditation or yoga which some consider essential for release from the ego. For when practiced in order in order to "get" some kind of spiritual illumination or awakening, they strengthen the fallacy that the ego can toss itself away by a tug at its own bootstraps. But there is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost. to "get" some kind of spiritual illumination or awakening, they strengthen the fallacy that the ego can toss itself away by a tug at its own bootstraps. But there is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to "get culture" or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost.

If, then, you ask me how to get beyond the ego-feeling, I shall ask you why why you want to get there. If you give me the honest answer, which is that your ego will feel better in the "higher spiritual status" of self-transcendence, you will thus realize that you-as ego-are a fake. You will feel like an onion: skin after skin, subterfuge after subterfuge, is pulled off to find no kernel at the center. Which is the whole point: to find out that the ego is indeed a fake-a wall of defense around a wall of defense ... around nothing. You can't even want to get rid of it, nor yet want to want to. you want to get there. If you give me the honest answer, which is that your ego will feel better in the "higher spiritual status" of self-transcendence, you will thus realize that you-as ego-are a fake. You will feel like an onion: skin after skin, subterfuge after subterfuge, is pulled off to find no kernel at the center. Which is the whole point: to find out that the ego is indeed a fake-a wall of defense around a wall of defense ... around nothing. You can't even want to get rid of it, nor yet want to want to.

Understanding this, you will see that the ego is exactly what it pretends it isn't. Far from being the free center of personality, it is an automatic mechanism implanted since childhood by social authority, with-perhaps-a touch of heredity thrown in. This may give you the temporary feeling of being a zombie or a puppet dancing irresponsibly on strings that lead away to unknown forces. At this point, the ego may rea.s.sert itself with the insidious "I-can't-help-myself" play in which the ego splits itself in two and pretends that it is its own victim. "See, I'm only a bundle of conditioned reflexes, so you mustn't get angry with me for acting just as I feel." (To which the answer could be, "Well, we're just zombies too, so you shouldn't complain if we get angry.") But who is it that mustn't mustn't get angry or get angry or shouldn't shouldn't complain, as if there were still some choice in the matter? The ego is still surviving as the "I" complain, as if there were still some choice in the matter? The ego is still surviving as the "I"

which must pa.s.sively endure the automatic behavior of "myself" and others-again, as if there were some choice which the witnessing self can make between putting up with things and attacking them violently.

What has happened is that the frustrated ego has withdrawn into its last stronghold of independence, retaining its ident.i.ty as a mere watcher, or sufferer, of all that goes on. Here it pities itself or consoles itself as a puppet of fate.

But if this is seen as yet another subterfuge, we are close to the final showdown. A line of separation is now drawn between everything that happens to me, including my own feelings, on the one side, and on the other, I myself as the conscious witness. Isn't it easy to see that this line is imaginary, and that it, and the witness behind it, are the same old faking process automatically learned in childhood? The same old cleft between the knower and the known? The same old split between the organism/environment and the organism's feedback, or self-conscious mechanism? If, then, there is no choice in what happens to me, on one side of the line, there is equally no choice on the other, on the witnessing side, as to whether I should accept what happens or reject it.

I accept, I reject, I witness just as automatically as things happen or as my emotions reflect my physiological chemistry.

Yet in this moment when one seems about to become a really total zombie, the whole thing blows up. For there is not fate unless there is someone or something to be fated. There is no trap without someone to be caught. There is, indeed, no compulsion unless there is also freedom of choice, for the sensation of behaving involuntarily is known only by contrast with that of behaving voluntarily. Thus when the line between myself and what happens to me is dissolved and there is no stronghold left for an ego even as a pa.s.sive witness, I find myself not in in a world but a world but as as a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious. What happens is neither automatic nor arbitrary: it just happens, and all happenings are mutually interdependent in a way that seems unbelievably harmonious. a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious. What happens is neither automatic nor arbitrary: it just happens, and all happenings are mutually interdependent in a way that seems unbelievably harmonious.

Every this goes with every that. Without others there is no self, and without somewhere else there is no here, so that-in this sense-self is other and here is there.

When this new sensation of self arises, it is at once exhilarating and a little disconcerting. It is like the moment when you first got the knack of swimming or riding a bicycle. There is the feeling that you are not doing it yourself, but that it is somehow happening on its own, and you wonder whether you will lose it-as indeed you may if you try forcibly to hold on to it. In immediate contrast to the old feeling, there is indeed a certain pa.s.sivity to the sensation, as if you were a leaf blown along by the wind, until you realize that you are both the leaf and the wind. The world outside your skin is just as much you as the world inside: they move together inseparably, and at first you feel a little out of control because the world outside is so much vaster than the world inside. Yet you soon discover that you are able to go ahead with ordinary activities-to work and make decisions as ever, though somehow this is less of a drag. Your body is no longer a corpse which the ego has to animate and lug around. There is a feeling of the ground holding you up, and of hills lifting you when you climb them. Air breathes itself in and out of your lungs, and instead,of looking and listening, light and sound come to you on their own. Eyes see and ears hear as wind blows and water flows. All s.p.a.ce becomes your mind. Time carries you along like a river, but never flows out of the present: the more it goes, the more it stays, and you no longer have to fight or kill it.

You do not ask what is the value, or what is the use, of this feeling.

Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use-which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist, to be a person of culture, or to improve your mind, you are not really playing-for your mind is not on the music. You don't swing. When you come to think of it, playing or listening to music is a pure luxury, an addiction, a waste of valuable time and money for nothing more than making elaborate patterns of sound. Yet what would we think of a society which had no place for music, which did not allow for dancing, or for any activity not directly involved with the practical problems of survival? Obviously, such a society would be surviving to no purpose- unless it could somehow make a delight out of the "essential tasks" of farming, building, soldiering, manufacturing, or cooking. But in that moment the goal of survival is forgotten. The tasks are being done for their own sake, whereupon farms begin to look like gardens, sensible living-boxes sprout interesting roofs and mysterious ornaments, arms are engraved with curious patterns, carpenters take time to "finish" their work, and cooks become gourmets.

A Chinese philosophical work called The Secret of the Golden The Secret of the Golden Flower Flower says that "when purpose has been used to achieve purposelessness, the thing has been grasped." For a society surviving to no purpose is one that makes no provision for purposeless behavior- says that "when purpose has been used to achieve purposelessness, the thing has been grasped." For a society surviving to no purpose is one that makes no provision for purposeless behavior- that is, for actions not directly aimed at survival, which fulfill themselves in being done in the present and do not necessarily imply some future reward. But indirectly and unintentionally, such behavior is useful for survival because it gives a point to surviving-not, however, when pursued for that reason. To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.

To be released from the "You must must survive" double-bind is to see that life is at root playing. The difficulty in understanding this is that the idea of "play" has two distinct meanings which are often confused. On the one hand, to do something survive" double-bind is to see that life is at root playing. The difficulty in understanding this is that the idea of "play" has two distinct meanings which are often confused. On the one hand, to do something only only or or merely merely in play, is to be trivial and insincere, and here we should use the word "toying" instead of in play, is to be trivial and insincere, and here we should use the word "toying" instead of "playing." But if some woman should say to me, "I love you," would it be right to answer, "Are you serious, or are you just playing with me?"

After all, if this relationship is to flourish, I very much hope that she is not not serious and that she serious and that she will will play with me. No, the better question would be, "Are you sincere, or are you just toying with me?" Sincerity is better than seriousness, for who wants to be loved gravely? Thus, on the other hand, there is a form of playing which is not trivial at all, as when Segovia plays the guitar or Sir Laurence Olivier plays the part of Hamlet, or, obviously, when someone plays the organ in church. In this sense of the word Saint Gregory n.a.z.ianzen could say of the Logos, the creative wisdom of G.o.d: play with me. No, the better question would be, "Are you sincere, or are you just toying with me?" Sincerity is better than seriousness, for who wants to be loved gravely? Thus, on the other hand, there is a form of playing which is not trivial at all, as when Segovia plays the guitar or Sir Laurence Olivier plays the part of Hamlet, or, obviously, when someone plays the organ in church. In this sense of the word Saint Gregory n.a.z.ianzen could say of the Logos, the creative wisdom of G.o.d: For the Logos on high plays, stirring the whole cosmos back and forth, as he wills, into shapes of every kind. into shapes of every kind.

And, at the other end of the earth, the j.a.panese Zen master Hakuin: In singing and dancing is the voice of the Law. In singing and dancing is the voice of the Law.

So, too, in the Vedanta the whole world is seen as the lila lila and the and the maya maya of the Self, the first word meaning "play" and the second having the complex sense of illusion (from the Latin of the Self, the first word meaning "play" and the second having the complex sense of illusion (from the Latin ludere, ludere, to play), magic, creative power, art, and measuring-as when one dances or draws a design to a certain measure. From this point of view the universe in general and playing in particular are, in a special sense, "meaningless": that is, they do not-like words and symbols-signify or point to something beyond themselves, just as a Mozart sonata conveys no moral or social message and does not try to suggest the natural sounds of wind, thunder, or birdsong. When I make the sound "water," you know what I mean. But what does this whole situation mean-I making the sound and your understanding it? What is the meaning of a pelican, a sunflower, a seaurchin, a mottled stone, or a galaxy? Or of to play), magic, creative power, art, and measuring-as when one dances or draws a design to a certain measure. From this point of view the universe in general and playing in particular are, in a special sense, "meaningless": that is, they do not-like words and symbols-signify or point to something beyond themselves, just as a Mozart sonata conveys no moral or social message and does not try to suggest the natural sounds of wind, thunder, or birdsong. When I make the sound "water," you know what I mean. But what does this whole situation mean-I making the sound and your understanding it? What is the meaning of a pelican, a sunflower, a seaurchin, a mottled stone, or a galaxy? Or of a a + + b b = = b b + + a? They are all patterns, dancing patterns of light and sound, water and fire, rhythm and vibration, electricity and s.p.a.cetime, going like Thrummular, thrummular thrilp, Thrummular, thrummular thrilp, Hum lipsible, lipsible lilp; Dim thricken mithrummy, Lumgumptulous hummy, Stormgurgle umb.u.mdular bilp.

Or, in the famous words of Sir Arthur Eddington about the nature of electrons: We see the atoms with their girdles of circulating electrons darting hither and thither, colliding and rebounding. Free electrons torn from the girdles hurry away a hundred times faster, curving sharply round the atoms with side-slips and hairbreadth escapes.... The spectacle is so fascinating that we have perhaps forgotten that there was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered.... Something unknown is doing we don't know Something unknown is doing we don't know what what-that is what our theory amounts to. It does not sound a particularly illuminating theory. I have read something like it elsewhere: The slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

There is the same suggestion of activity. There is the same indefiniteness as to the nature of the activity and of what it is that is acting.(2) The point is that "the spectacle is so fascinating." For the world is a spell (in Latin, fascinum), fascinum), an enchantment (being thrilled by a chant), an amazement (being lost in a maze), an arabesque of such stunning rhythm and a plot so intriguing that we are drawn by its web into a state of involvement where we forget that it is a game. We become fascinated to the point where the cheering and the booing are transformed into intense love and hate, or delight and terror, ecstatic o.r.g.a.s.m or screaming meemies. All made out of on-and-off or black-and-white, pulsed, stuttered, diagrammed mosaiced, syncopated, shaded, jolted, tangoed, and lilted through all possible measures and dimensions. It is simultaneously the purest nonsense and the utmost artistry. an enchantment (being thrilled by a chant), an amazement (being lost in a maze), an arabesque of such stunning rhythm and a plot so intriguing that we are drawn by its web into a state of involvement where we forget that it is a game. We become fascinated to the point where the cheering and the booing are transformed into intense love and hate, or delight and terror, ecstatic o.r.g.a.s.m or screaming meemies. All made out of on-and-off or black-and-white, pulsed, stuttered, diagrammed mosaiced, syncopated, shaded, jolted, tangoed, and lilted through all possible measures and dimensions. It is simultaneously the purest nonsense and the utmost artistry.

Listen intently to a voice singing without words. It may charm you into crying, force you to dance, fill you with rage, or make you jump for joy. You can't tell where the music ends and the emotions begin, for the whole thing is a kind of music-the voice playing on your nerves as the breath plays on a flute. All experience is just that, except that its music has many more dimensions than sound. It vibrates in the dimensions of sight, touch, taste, and smell, and in the intellectual dimension of symbols and words-all evoking and playing upon each other. But at root-and this is a negative way of saying something highly positive-it is nothing more than the mysterious utterance of the old man of Spithead, who opened the window and said: Fill jomble, fill jumble, Fill rumble-come-tumble.

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Bach states it more elegantly, but with just as little external meaning: Once you have seen this you can return to the world of practical affairs with a new spirit. You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate "you" to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real "you" is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new. What we see as death, empty s.p.a.ce, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained-though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.

Anyone who brags about knowing this doesn't understand it, for he is only using the theory as a trick to maintain his illusion of separateness, a gimmick in a game of spiritual one-upmanship. Moreover, such bragging is deeply offensive to those who do not understand, and who honestly believe themselves to be lonely, individual spirits in a desperate and agonizing struggle for life. For all such there must be deep and unpatronizing compa.s.sion, even a special kind of reverence and respect, because, after all, in them the Self is playing its most far-out and daring game-the game of having lost Itself completely and of being in danger of some total and irremediable disaster. This is why Hindus do not shake hands on meeting, but put their palms together and bow in a gesture of reverence, honoring the G.o.dhead in the stranger.

And do not suppose that this understanding will transform you all at once into a model of virtue. I have never yet met a saint or sage who did not have some human frailties. For so long as you manifest yourself in human or animal form, you must eat at the expense of other life and accept the limitations of your particular organism, which fire will still burn and wherein danger will still secrete adrenalin. The morality that goes with this understanding is, above all, the frank recognition of your dependence upon enemies, underlings, out-groups, and, indeed, upon all other forms of life whatsoever. Involved as you may be in the conflicts and compet.i.tive games of practical life, you will never again be able to indulge in the illusion that the "offensive other" is all in the wrong, and could or should be wiped out. This will give you the priceless ability of being able to contain conflicts so that they do not get out-of-hand, of being willing to compromise and adapt, of playing, yes, but playing it cool. This is what is called "honor among thieves," for the really dangerous people are those who do not recognize that they are thieves- the unfortunates who play the role of the "good guys" with such blind zeal that they are unconscious of any indebtedness to the "bad guys"

who support their status. To paraphrase the Gospel, "Love your compet.i.tors, and pray for those who undercut your prices." You would be nowhere at all without them.

The political and personal morality of the West, especially in the United States, is-for lack of this sense-utterly schizophrenic. It is a monstrous combination of uncompromising idealism and unscrupulous gangsterism, and thus devoid of the humor and humaneness which enables confessed rascals to sit down together and work out reasonable deals. No one can be moral-that is, no one can harmonize contained conflicts-without coming to a working arrangement between the angel in himself and the devil in himself, between his rose above and his manure below. The two forces or tendencies are mutually interdependent, and the game is a working game just so long as the angel is winning, but does not win, and the devil is losing, but is never lost. (The game doesn't work in reverse, just as the ocean doesn't work with wave-crests down and troughs up.) It is most important that this be understood by those concerned with civil rights, international peace, and the restraint of nuclear weapons.

These are most undoubtedly causes to be backed with full vigor, but never in a spirit which fails to honor the opposition, or which regards it as entirely evil or insane. It is not without reason that the formal rules of boxing, judo, fencing, and even dueling require that the combatants salute each other before the engagement. In any foreseeable future there are going to be thousands and thousands of people who detest and abominate Negroes, communists, Russians, Chinese, Jews, Catholics, beatniks, h.o.m.os.e.xuals, and "dope-fiends." These hatreds are not going to be healed, but only inflamed, by insulting those who feel them, and the abusive labels with which we plaster them-squares, fascists, rightists, know-nothings-may well become the proud badges and symbols around which they will rally and consolidate themselves. Nor will it do to confront the opposition in public with polite and non-violent sit-ins and demonstrations, while boosting our collective ego by insulting them in private. If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or non-human, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the "external" world--especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside. For want of this awareness, no one can be more belligerent than a pacifist on the rampage, or more militantly nationalistic than an anti-imperialist.

You may, indeed, argue that this is asking too much. You may resort to the old alibi that the task of "changing human nature" is too arduous and too slow, and that what we need is immediate and ma.s.sive action.

Obviously, it takes discipline to make any radical change in one's own behavior patterns, and psychotherapy can drag on for years and years.

But this is not my suggestion. Does it really take any considerable time or effort just to understand understand that you depend on enemies and outsiders to define yourself, and that without some opposition you would be lost? To see this is to acquire, almost instantly, the virtue of humor, and humor and self-righteousness are mutually exclusive. Humor is the twinkle in the eye of a just judge, who knows that he is that you depend on enemies and outsiders to define yourself, and that without some opposition you would be lost? To see this is to acquire, almost instantly, the virtue of humor, and humor and self-righteousness are mutually exclusive. Humor is the twinkle in the eye of a just judge, who knows that he is also also the felon in the dock. the felon in the dock.

How could he be sitting there in stately judgment, being addressed as "Your Honor" or "Mi Lud," without those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds being dragged before him day after day? It does not undermine his work and his function to recognize this. He plays the role of judge all the better for realizing that on the next turn of the Wheel of Fortune he may be the accused, and that if all all the truth were known, he would be standing there now. the truth were known, he would be standing there now.

If this is cynicism, it is at least loving cynicism-an att.i.tude and an atmosphere that cools off human conflicts more effectively than any amount of physical or moral violence. For it recognizes that the real goodness of human nature is its peculiar balance of love and selfishness, reason and pa.s.sion, spirituality and sensuality, mysticism and materialism, in which the positive pole has always a slight edge over the negative. (Were it otherwise, and the two were equally balanced, life would come to a total stalemate and standstill.) Thus when the two poles, good and bad, forget their interdependence and try to obliterate each other, man becomes subhuman-the implacable crusader or the cold, s.a.d.i.s.tic thug. It is not for man to be either an angel or a devil, and the would-be angels should realize that, as their ambition succeeds, they evoke hordes of devils to keep the balance. This was the lesson of Prohibition, as of all other attempts to enforce purely angelic behavior, or to pluck out evil root and branch.

It comes, then, to this: that to be "viable," livable, or merely practical, life must be lived as a game-and the "must" here expresses a condition, not a commandment. It must be lived in the spirit of play rather than work, and the conflicts which it involves must be carried on in the realization that no species, or party to a game, can survive without its natural antagonists, its beloved enemies, its indispensable opponents.

For to "love your enemies" is to love them as as enemies; it is not necessarily a clever device for winning them over to your own side. The lion lies down with the lamb in paradise, but not on earth-"paradise" enemies; it is not necessarily a clever device for winning them over to your own side. The lion lies down with the lamb in paradise, but not on earth-"paradise"

being the tacit, off-stage level where, behind the scenes, all conflicting parties recognize their interdependence, and, through this recognition, are able to keep their conflicts within bounds. This recognition is the absolutely essential chivalry which must set the limits within all warfare, with human and non-human enemies alike, for chivalry is the debonair spirit of the knight who "plays with his life" in the knowledge that even mortal combat is a game.

No one who has been hoaxed into the belief that he is nothing but his ego, or nothing but his individual organism, can be chivalrous, let alone a civilized, sensitive, and intelligent member of the cosmos.

But to be lived this way, the life-game has to be purged of self-contradictory rules. This, and not some kind of moral effort, is the way out of the hoax of separateness. Thus when a game sets the players an impossible and not simply difficult task, it comes quickly to the point where it is no longer worth playing. There is no way of observing a rule set in the form of a double-bind-that is, a two-part rule whose parts are mutually exclusive. No one can be compelled to behave freely or forced to act independently. Yet whole cultures and civilizations have befuddled themselves with this kind of nonsense, and, through failing to spot the self-contradiction, their members have been haunted all through their lives by the sense that individual existence is a problem and a predicament-a form of nature doomed to perpetual frustration. The sense of ego is at root a discomfort and a bore, and nothing shows it more clearly than such everyday phrases as: "I need to get away from myself" or "You should find something to take you out of yourself" or "I read to forget myself." Get lost! Hence the fanaticisms and intoxications-religious, political, and s.e.xual, the n.a.z.is, the Klan, h.e.l.l's Angels, the Circus Maximus, the dreary fascination of the TV screen, witch-burnings, Mickey Spillane and James Bond, pac.h.i.n.ko parlors, alcoholic stupors, revivals, tabloid newspapers, and juvenile gangs-all of which, as things stand, are the necessary safety-valves and palliatives for human beings whose very existence is defined in self-contradictory and self-defeating terms.

Finally, the game of life as Western man has been "playing" it for the past century needs less emphasis on practicality, results, progress, and aggression. This is why I am discussing vision vision, and keeping off the subject of justifying the vision in terms of its practical applications and consequences. Whatever may be true for the Chinese and the Hindus, it is timely for us us to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle's logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation-knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming. to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle's logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation-knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives-gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in-because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, "It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what's happening now." How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a G.o.d? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment-from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies-how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?

(1) G. K. Chesterton, "The Song of the Strange Ascetic," Collected Poems. Collected Poems. Dodd, Mead, New York, 1932. p. 199; Methuen, 1950. Dodd, Mead, New York, 1932. p. 199; Methuen, 1950.

(2) The Nature of the Physical World. The Nature of the Physical World. J. M. Dent, 1935. pp. 280-81. J. M. Dent, 1935. pp. 280-81.