Walker Percy - Lost in the Cosmos

The spirit of violence vented in spectatorship sport, either through mass TV viewership or surrogate participation, e.g., 100 million people watching the Super-Bowl; Little League moms screaming curses at umpires, and dads punching out other dads and later beating up their own kids; the ultimate inadequacy of the spectatorship safety valve: thirty-eight dead in a riot at a Buenos Aires soccer game; war.

World War III: The year 2000 +, the demoniac spirit of the erotic no longer posited by Christianity but triumphant in its own right, perfected as genital technique but deprived of the charm of the forbidden, the secret, the “dirty,” “sinful,” “extramarital,” “fornication,” “adultery”—even the word fuck has by now lost its homonymous semantic charge and is neutered as fish, fowl, fix; the perfection of contraceptive technique; the conquest of Herpes II virus and all homosexual AIDS diseases; the perfection of visual and tactile aids (no longer called pornography, from porne, harlot) as sexual stimuli; erotica elevated to a major literary and art form. War without passion: one billion dead.

The spirit of violence in the coming technological sexually liberated age? Here is the great problematic.

Question (The Great Problematic): Will the ultimate liberation of the erotic from its dialectical relationship with Christianity result in

(a) The freeing of the erotic spirit so that man and womankind will make love and not war?

or (b) The trivialization of the erotic by its demotion to yet another technique and need-satisfaction of the organism, toward the end that the demoniac spirit of the autonomous self, disappointed in all other sectors of life and in ordinary intercourse with others, is now disappointed even in the erotic, its last and best hope, and so erupts in violence — and in that very violence which is commensurate with the orgiastic violence in the best days of the old erotic age — i.e., war?

(CHECK ONE)

Question II:

(a) Will World War III happen absurdly, by an accident in a purely technological, sexually liberated age, e.g., by computer malfunction, misinformation, misbehavior by a small-time Qaddafi madman?

or (b) Will World War III erupt because of the suppressed fury of the autonomous self, disappointed now even in the erotic, that very demoniac spirit which is overtly committed to peace and love but secretly desires war and apocalypse and nourishes hatred of all other selves and perhaps of its own self most of all?

(CHECK ONE)

THE BESTIAL-SEXUAL

Thought Experiment: The Confrontation of the Autonomous Scientific Self with the Eruption of the Spirit of the Erotic, Issuing in Two Kinds of Violence, one the Bestial-Sexual, the other the Banal-Lethal

SCENE I: Open house at the Maison Burgundy, a French Quarter hotel in New Orleans, celebrating Mental Health Week, open to the public and hosted by mental-health workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, et al.

The most popular hostess is “Dr. Betty,” a visiting radio “personality,” a nationally known talk-show psychotherapist (known in the business as a “psych jock”), a pleasant, fortyish blonde just this side of the overblown and overweight, but in an attractive, even voluptuous, way. A small crowd has gathered around her. She fields questions in her best low-keyed, cheerful radio style.

Someone, a thin intense young woman, has just asked a question about how to overcome sexual inhibitions: “I like men, they like me, I want a rewarding sexual relationship, but I turn myself off,” etc.

One of the listeners in the small crowd is a young street person known hereabouts as a “chicken,” that is, a teenage male prostitute available to either sex. Streetwise, somehow managing to swagger standing still, in his short leather jacket he looks like a muscular, coarse, slightly out-of-focus John Travolta. While the others smile and nod, he stands, thumbs hooked through his belt loops, and watches Dr. Betty through hooded eyes.

DR. BETTY: Give yourself permission! Speak to yourself, you’re an adult — not some other adult — speak to the child in you: Kid, I give you permission. None of us likes to be stroke-deficient. We live by strokes. That means taking care of the child in us. My child, your child, likes to play. And sex, of course, is our primary stroke-field. Sex is the best play of all. And the best sex is when two mature adults, who are both nurturing and caring of each other, are also nurturing and caring of their own child-selves, their own kid — and who regard each other as their primary stroke-field. There you have the ultimate recipe for happiness, growth, and creativity. It’s in my book, Dr. Betty’s Favorite Recipe.

Laughter and nods all around — except from the street chicken, who waits until the others leave. He approaches Dr. Betty, motions her to a corner of the lobby. “Yes?” says Dr. Betty brightly.

CHICKEN: Look, Doc. I’m a big fan of yours. I think you’re great. You know your business and you’re good. But I know my business just as well. I can size people up. I know what people want. And believe me, Doc, everybody wants something. I know what you want. You’re a nice person and you deserve it.

DR. BETTY (bantering) : And what do I want?

CHICKEN: You want exactly what I’m offering. I know the clerk here. I got a key and the use of a room. Look. Four thirty-seven. It won’t cost either of us a dime. I’m going up now. You wait five minutes and come up the back elevator.

DR. BETTY: This is something else. Talk about acting out! Talk about acting out aggressions to mask little-kid insecurity. Okay, then what happens?

CHICKEN: What happens then, Doc, is that I am going to fuck you as you have never been fucked before. I don’t want to nurture you. I want to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you till your eyeteeth rattle. This is an invitation, Doc. All you got to do now before I leave is say okay, so I don’t waste my time.

DR. BETTY (consulting her wristwatch) : Okay.

THE BANAL–LETHAL

SCENE II: A Washington hotel room. It is wartime. Enter Dr. F__, a Nobel Laureate scientist. Taking off his jacket, he sits on the bed wearily, rubs his temples, lies down, and closes his eyes. After a while, he turns on television. The show is a closed-circuit screening of Behind the Green Door, a pornographic film. Presently he masturbates, almost casually, but not before taking the trouble to fetch a special container from his suitcase to catch the ejaculate.

He switches off the television, lies down, closes his eyes.

The telephone rings. With a frown and a curious groan — is it weariness? irritation? anger? — he picks up the receiver. After a moment he hooks up a device, a scrambler, to the phone. We hear only his side of the conversation.

Yes.

Yes, General.

Yes, it was a very long meeting.

I realize that a decision wasn’t reached.

I know it’s important, General.

True, there was no closure in the decision-making process.

Yes, I realize it was a tie vote.

That’s correct — I didn’t express an opinion to the Chiefs.

Yes, that’s true. I have some standing in the scientific community.

Well, thank you, General. It’s nice to know you people respect one scientist.

That’s right, General. It’s no breach of security to call it by name. The eyes-only folder you have — and the only secret is its composition and mode of delivery. It’s a neurotoxin, airborne and water soluble. They’re working on it, too.

For one weapon? Ten million more or less, depending on population density.

Right. It violates no first-strike agreement or Salt III. It’s a weapon, but not an explosive device.