Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

aspire, failed artist but eventually fine homemaker. It’s loony,

yes, it’s got some hate in it somewhere, but it ain’t revolutionary like Sade who spilled blood with style; perhaps they think a girl can’t have style but since a girl can’t really have

anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;

there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y

friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black

Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing

the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me

poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f

encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I

wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the

problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the

press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to

see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the

revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place

in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and

old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and

women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.

H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for

the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it

helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can

see that, it makes his simple language look strong and

purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that

whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have

words. I can’t tell if raped is a word he knows or not; if he

thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;

because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each

other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is

taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great

thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy

and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f

revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for

m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance

and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past

sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this

apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write

without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so

and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it

happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough

confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or

maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to

us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it

happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We

w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the

blood that was spilled and smear it in public w ays so it’s art and

politics and science; the fisherman w o n ’t like the book so

w hat’s new; he’ll say it ain’t art or he’ll say it’s bullshit; but

here’s the startling part; the bait’s got a secret system o f

communication, not because it’s hidden but because the

fisherman’s fucking stupid; so arrogant; so sure o f forever and

a day; so sure he don’t listen and he don’t look and he says it

ain’t anything and he thinks that means it ain’t anything

whereas what it means is that we finally can invent: a new

alphabet first, big letters, proud, new letters from which will

come new words for old things, real things, and the bait says

what they are and what they mean, and then we get new

novels in which the goal is to tell the truth: deep truth. So

make it all up, the whole new thing, to be able to say w hat’s

there; because they are keeping it hidden now. Y o u ’re not

supposed to write something down that happened; yo u ’re

supposed to invent. W e’ll write down what happened and

invent the personhood o f who it happened to; w e’ll make a

language for her so we can tell a story for her in which she will

see what happened and know for sure it happened and it

mattered; and the boys will have to confront a new esthetic

that tells them to go suck eggs. I am for this idea; energized by

it. It’s clear that if you need the fisherman to read the book—

his critical appreciation as it were— this new art ain’t for you. If

he’s got what he did to you written on him or close enough to

him, rude enough near him, is he different, will he know? I say

he’ll have to know; it’s the brilliance o f the medium— he’s it,

the vehicle o f political and cultural transcendence as it were.

It’s a new, forthright communication— they took the words

but they left your arm, your hand, so far at least; it could

change, but for now; he’s the living canvas; he can refuse to

understand but he cannot avoid know ing; it’s your blood, he

spilled it, yo u ’ve used it: on him. It’s a simplicity Artaud

failed, frankly, to achieve. W e’ll make it new; epater the

fuckers. Then he can be human or not; he’s got a choice, which

is more than he ever gave; he can put on the uniform, honest,

literal Nazi, or not. The clue is to see what you don’t have as

the starting place and you look at it straight and you say what

does it give me, not what does it take; you say what do I have

and what don’t I have and am I making certain presumptions

about what I need that are in fact their presumptions, so much

garbage in my way, and if I got rid o f the garbage what then

would I see and could I use it and how; and when. I got hope. I

got faith. I see it falling. I see it ending. I see it bent over and

hitting the ground. And, what’s even better is that because the

fisherman ain’t going to listen as if his life depended on it we

got a system o f secret communication so foolproof no

scoundrel could imagine it, so perfect, so pure; the less we are,

the more we have; the less we matter, the more chance we get;

the less they care, the more freedom is ours; the less, the more,

you see, is the basic principle, it’s like psychological jujitsu

except applied to politics through a shocking esthetic; you use

their fucking ignorance against them; ignorance is a synonym

in such a situation for arrogance and arrogance is tonnage and

in jujitsu you use your opponent’s weight against him and you

do it if yo u ’re weak or poor too, because it’s all you have; and if