CSE Complex Systems in Education ESSAYS Writing COURSE Complex Course on Writing English and American Essays for Advanced Students English Language Programs Division Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs United States Information Agency, Washington, D C 1999 How to Use this Complex Course Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays Preface Some years ago, a visitor to our office, a professor of English at a large foreign university, asked if the English Language Programs Division had published a book of American essays for foreign students – especially students at the advanced level Having to respond in the negative, I was, nonetheless, “intrigued” by the idea of a collection of essays that would form a source of stimulating ideas or thoughts that could be thoroughly examined in the EFL classroom, discussed and debated in free conversation, and perhaps, ultimately, lead to a significant growth in the exchange of information between cultures – via the printed page From this rationale, then, there issues an explanation for the title, Mind Speaks to Mind, which itself is an “exchange of information” between the editor and Edward Hoagland in his essay, “On Essays”! And, readers are encouraged to study this essay first as a type of guideline concerning the nature/purpose of the essay It is found on page 26 For ease of reference, the essays are presented in alphabetical order according to the last name of the author This does not mean, however, that teachers should adhere strictly to this order of presentation Given the varied scope and subject matter of the essays, teachers should feel free to establish their own order of presentation within the classroom in accord with the needs and interests of their students The reader who enjoys pursuing ideas into the realm of discussion and philosophical concert will find in this short collection ample proof that the liveliness of the essay is still an inspirational key to the unlocking of communication – that continually desired goal of every teacher of language the world around! Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays Contents Author Title of Essay Bettelheim, Bruno Buckley, William F Jr Calandra, Alexander Carnegie, Andrew Epstein, Joseph Hayakawa, S I Hoagland, Edward Jones, LeRoi (Amiri Baraka) Kingston, Maxine Hong Kuh, Katherine Lakoff, Robin Morrow, Lance Postman, Neil Rodriguez, Richard Ryan, William Seattle, Chief Thompson, W Furness THE ART OF MOTION PICTURES UP FROM MISERY ANGELS ON A PIN HOW I SERVED MY APPRENTICESHIP THE VIRTUES OF AMBITION OUR SON MARK ON ESSAYS CITY OF HARLEM THE MISERY OF SILENCE MODERN ART YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY THE VALUE OF WORKING SILENT QUESTIONS AN EDUCATION IN LANGUAGE MINE, ALL MINE MY PEOPLE WHY DO NOT SCIENTISTS ADMIT THEY ARE HUMAN? FRIENDS, GOOD FRIENDS AND SUCH GOOD FRIENDS Viorst, Judith Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays Page BRUNO BETTELHEIM Bruno Bettelheim was born in Vienna in 1903 and emigrated to the United States from Austria in 1939 A psychologist, Bettelheim, for thirty years, was on the faculty of the University of Chicago where he also was director of the Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children The latter experience helped to provide him with subject matter for a number of books concerning the inner lives of children, of which The Informed Heart, published in 1960, is one of the most well-known Bettelheim, however, has not limited his writings to the field of child psychology but has written on subjects ranging porn social change to fairy tales The Art of Motion Pictures Whether we like it or not – and many may disagree with my thesis because painting, or music, or some other art is more important to them – the art of the moving image is the only art truly of our time, whether it is in the form of the film or television The moving picture is our universal art, which comprises all others, literature and acting, stage design and music, dance and the beauty of nature, and, most of all, the use of light and of colour It is always about us, because the medium is truly part of the message and the medium of the moving image is uniquely modern Everybody can understand it, as everyone once understood religious art in church And as people used to go to church on Sundays (and still do), so the majority today go to the movies on weekends But while in the past most went to church only on some days, now everybody watches moving images every day All age groups watch moving pictures, and they watch them for many more hours than people have ever spent in churches Children and adults watch them separately or together; in many ways and for many people, it is the only experience common to parents and children It is the only art today that appeals to all social and economic classes, in short, that appeals to everybody, as did religious art in times past The moving picture is thus by far the most popular art of our time, and it is also the most authentically American of arts When I speak here of the moving picture as the authentic American art of our time, I not think of art with a capital A, nor of “high” art Putting art on a pedestal robs it of its vitality When the great medieval and Renaissance cathedrals were erected, and decorated outside and in with art, these were popular works, that meant something to everybody Some were great works of art, others not, but every piece was significant and all took pride in each of them Some gain their spiritual experience from the masterpiece, but many more gain it from the mediocre works that express the same vision as the masterpiece but in a more accessible form This is as true church music or the church itself as for paintings and sculptures This diversity of art objects achieves a unity, and Copyright © 1990 by Bruno Bettelheim From FREUD'S VIENNA AND OTHER ESSAYS by Bruno Bettelheim Reprinted by permission of Alfred A Knopf, Inc Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays differences in quality are important, prove e t ey a represent, each in its own way, the overarching vision and experience of a larger, important cosmos Such a vision confers meaning and dignity on our existence, and is what forms the essence of art So among the worst detriments to the health development of the art of the moving pictures are efforts by aesthetes and critics to isolate the art of m from popular movies and television Nothing could be more contra to the true spirit of art Whenever art was vital, it was always equally popular with the ordinary man an the most refined person Had Greek drama and comedy meant nothing to most citizens, the majority of the population would not have sat all day long entranced on hard stone slabs, watching the events on the stage; nor would the entire population have conferred prizes on the winning dramatist The medieval pageants and mystery plays out of which modern drama grew were popular entertainments, as were the plays of Shakespeare Michelangelo’s David stood at the most public place in Florence, embodying the people's vision that tyranny must be overthrown, while it also related to their religious vision, as it represented the myth of David and Goliath Everybody admired the statue; it was simultaneously popular and great art, but one did not think of it in such disparate terms Neither should we To live well we need both: visions that i t us up, and entertainment that is down to earth, provided both art and entertainment, each in its different form and way, are embodiments of the same visions of man If art does not speak to all of us, common men and elites alike, it fails to address itself to that true humanity that is common to all of us A different art for the elites and another one for average man tears society; it offends what we most need: visions that bind us together in common experiences that make life worth living When I speak of an affirmation of man, I not mean the presentation of fake images of life as wonderfully pleasant Life is best celebrated in the form of a battle against its inequities, of struggles, of dignity in defeat, of the greatness of discovering oneself and the other Quite a few moving pictures have conveyed such visions In Kagemusha, the great beauty of the historical costumes, the cloak-and-dagger story with its beguiling Oriental settings, the stately proceedings, the pageantry of marching and fighting armies, the magnificent rendering of nature, the consummate acting – all these entrance us and convince us of the correctness of the vision here: the greatness of the most ordinary of men The hero, a petty thief who turns impostor, grows before our eyes into greatness, although it costs him his life The story takes place in sixteenth-century Japan, but the hero is of all times and classes: he accepts a destiny into which he is projected by church and turns a false existence into a real one At the end, only because he wants to be true to his new self, he sacrifices his life and thus achieves the acme of suffering and human greatness Nobody wants him to so Nobody but he will ever know that he did it Nobody but the audience observes it He does it only for himself – it has no consequences whatsoever for anybody or anything else He does it out of convict; this is his greatness Life that permits the lowest of men to achieve such dignity is life worth living; even if in the end it defeats him, as it will defeat all who are mortal Two other films, very different, render parallel visions that celebrate life, a celebration in which we, as viewers, vicariously participate although we are saddened by the hero’s defeat The first was known in the United States by its English name, The Last Laugh, although its original title, The Last Man, was more appropriate It is the story of the doorman of a hotel who is demoted to cleaning washrooms Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays The other movie is Patton In one of these films the hero stands on the lowest rung of society and existence; in the other, he is on society's highest level In both pictures we are led to admire a man's struggle to discover who he really is, for, in doing so, he achieves tragic greatness These three films, as many others, affirm man and life, and so inspire in us visions that can sustain us My choice of these three films out of many is arbitrary What I want to illustrate is their celebration of life in forms appropriate to an age in which self-discovery may exact the highest possible price Only through incorporating such visions can we achieve satisfaction with our own life, defeat and transcend existential despair What our society suffers from most today is the absence of consensus about what it and life in it ought to be Such consensus cannot be gained from society’s present stage, or from fantasies about what it ought to be For that the present is too close and too diversified, and the future too uncertain, to make believable claims about it A consensus in the present hence can be achieved only through a shared understanding of the past, as Homer's epics informed those who lived centuries later what it meant to be Greek, and by what images and ideals they were to live their lives and organise their societies Most societies derive consensus from a long history, a language all their own, a common religion, common ancestry The myths by which they live are based on all of these But the United States is a country of immigrants, coming from a great variety of nations Lately, it has been emphasised that an asocial, narcissistic personality has become characteristic of Americans, and that it is this type of personality that makes for the malaise, because it prevents us from achieving a consensus that would counteract a tendency to withdraw into private worlds In his study of narcissism, Christopher Lasch says that modern man, "tortured by self-consciousness, turns to new cults and therapies not to free himself of his personal obsessions but to find meaning and purpose in life, to find something to live for." There is widespread distress because national morale has declined, and we have lost an earlier sense of national vision and purpose Contrary to rigid religions or political beliefs, as are found in totalitarian societies, our culture is one of great individual differences, at least in principle and in theory But this leads to disunity, even chaos Americans believe in the value of diversity, but just because ours is a society based on individual diversity, it needs consensus about some over-arching ideas more than societies based on the uniform origin of their citizens Hence, if we are to have consensus, it must be based on a myth – a vision – about a common experience, a conquest that made us Americans, as the myth about the conquest of Troy formed the Greeks Only a common myth can offer relief from the fear that life is without meaning or purpose Myths permit us to examine our place in the world by comparing it to a shared idea Myths are shared fantasies that form the tie that binds the individual to other members of his group Such myths help to ward off feelings of isolation, guilt, anxiety, and purposelessness in short, they combat isolation and anomie We used to have a myth that bound us together; in The American Adam, R.W.B Lewis summarises the myth by which Americans used to live: Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays God decided to give man another chance by opening up a new world across the sea Practically vacant, this glorious land had almost inexhaustible natural resources Many people came to this new world They were people of special energy, self-reliance, intuitive intelligence, and purity of heart… This nation’s special mission in the world would be to serve as the moral guide for all other nations The movies used to transmit this myth, particularly the westerns, which presented the challenge of bringing civilisation to places where before there was none The same movies also suggested the danger of that chaos; the wagon train symbolised the community men must form on such a perilous journey into the untamed wilderness, which in turn became a symbol for all that is untamed within ourselves Thus the western gave us a vision of the need for co-operation and civilisation, because without it man would perish Another symbol often used in these westerns was the railroad, which formed the link between wilderness and civilisation The railroad was the symbol of man’s role as civiliser Robert Warshow delineates in The Immediate Experience how the hero of the western – the gunfighter – symbolises man’s potential: to become either an outlaw or a sheriff In the latter role, the gunfighter was the hero of the past, and his opening of the West was our mythos, our equivalent of the Trojan War Like all such heroes, the sheriff experienced victories and defeats, but, through these experiences, he grew wiser and learned to accept the limitations that civilisation imposes This was a wonderful vision of man – or the United States – in the New World; it was a myth by which one could live and grow, and it served as a consensus about what it meant to be an American But although most of us continue to enjoy this myth, by now it has lost most of its vitality We have become too aware of the destruction of nature and of the American Indian part of the reality of opening the West – to be able to savour this myth fully; and, just as important, it is based on an open frontier that no longer exists But the nostalgic infatuation with the western suggests how much we are in need of a myth about the past that cannot be invalidated by the realities of today We want to share a vision, one that would enlighten us about what it means to be an American today, so that we can be proud not only of our heritage but also of the world we are building together Unfortunately, we have no such myth, nor, by extension, any that reflects what is involved in growing up The child, like the society, needs such myths to provide him with ideas of what difficulties are involved in maturation Fairy tales used to fill this need, and they would still so, if we would take them seriously But sugar-sweet movies of the Disney variety fail to take seriously the world of the child – the immense problems with which the child has to struggle as he grows up, to make himself free from the bonds that tie him to his parents, and to test his own strength Instead of helping the child, who wants to understand the difficulties ahead, these shows talk down to him, insult his intelligence, and lower his aspirations While most of the popular shows for children fall short of what the child needs most, others at least provide him with some of the fantasies that relieve pressing anxieties, and this is the reason for their popularity Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Bionic Woman stimulate the child's fantasies about being strong and invulnerable, and this offers some relief from being overwhelmed by the powerful adults who control his existence The Incredible Hulk affords a confrontation with destructive anger Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 10 Watching the Hulk on one of his rampages permits a vicarious experience of anger without having to feel guilty about it or anxious about the consequences, because the Hulk attacks only bad people As food for fantasies that offer temporary relief, such shows have a certain value, but they not provide material leading to higher integration, as myths Science-fiction movies can serve as myths about the future and thus give us some assurance about it Whether the film is 2001 or Star Wars, such movies tell about progress that will expand man's powers and his experiences beyond anything now believed possible, while they assure us that all these advances will not obliterate man or life as we now know it Thus one great anxiety about the future – that it will have no place for us as we now are – is allayed by such myths They also promise that even in the most distant future, and despite the progress that will have occurred in the material world, man’s basic concerns will be the same, and the struggle of good against evil – the central moral problem of our time will not have lost its importance Past and future are the lasting dimensions of our lives: the present is but a fleeting moment So these visions about the future also contain our past; in Star Wars, battles are fought around issues that also motivated man in the past There is good reason that Yoda appears in George Lucas’s film: he is but a reincarnation of the teddy bear of infancy, to which we turn for solace; and the Yedi Knight is the wise old man, or the helpful animal, of the fairy tale, the promise from our distant past that we shall be able to rise to meet the most difficult tasks life can present us with Thus, any vision about the future is really based on visions of the past, because that is all we can know for certain As our religious myths about the future never went beyond Judgement Day, so our modern myths about the future cannot go beyond the search for life's deeper meaning The reason is that only as long as the choice between good and evil remains man’s paramount moral problem does life retain that special dignity that derives from our ability to choose between the two A world in which this conflict has been permanently resolved eliminates man as we know him It might be a universe peopled by angels, but it has no place for man What Americans need most is a consensus that includes the idea of individual freedom, as well as acceptance of the plurality of ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs inherent in the population Such consensus must rest on convictions about moral values and the validity of overarching ideas Art can this because a basic ingredient of the aesthetic experience is that it binds together diverse elements But only the ruling art of a period is apt to provide such unity: for the Greeks, it was classical art; for the British, Elizabethan art; for the many petty German states, it was their classical art Today, for the United States, it has to be the moving picture, the central art of our time, because no other art experience is so o n and accessible to eve one The moving picture is a visual art, based on sight Speaking to our vision, it ought to provide us with the visions enabling us to live the good life; it ought to give us insight into ourselves About a hundred years ago, Tolstoy wrote, “Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen” Later, Robert Frost defined poetry as “beginning in delight and ending in wisdom” Thus it might be said that the state of the art of the moving image can be assessed by the degree to which it meets the mythopoetic task of giving us myths suitable to live by in our time – visions that transmit to us the highest and best feelings to which men have risen – and by how well the moving images give us that Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 75 How did ownership of land function during the agrarian feudal ages? What was the attitude of North American Indian tribes toward land ownership? How did Europeans circumvent the thinking of the Indians? How does the author differentiate between ownership of property and ownership of the “fruits of labour”? Ryan says in paragraph 12: “It must be clear that in modern society the social heritage of knowledge and technology and the social organisation of manufacture and exchange account for far more of the productivity of industry and the value of what is produced than can be accounted for by the labour of any number of individuals” Express Ryan’s thought in your own words to make the sentence easier to understand What is the main means by which modern society supports the concept of private ownership of property? Is it different from concepts in the past? Exploring Ideas How you react to author Ryan's explanations of the concept of ownership of property? What are your own beliefs in this regard? Discuss what the author says in paragraph 16 Is it a totally true statement? Optional Activity Imagine that you have been appointed to design a perfect or utopian society How would you deal with the matter of private ownership of property and of the “fruits of labour”? Write an essay of 300-500 words setting forth your plan or design Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 76 CHIEF SEATTLE Seattle was chief of the Suquamish Indians and leader of other tribes in the area around Puget Sound in Washington State From the beginning, he was a loyal friend of the white settlers who began coming to the region in the early 1800-ies in increasing numbers The area was organised as the Washington Territory in 1853, and the following year the governor of the territory, Isaac Stevens, bought two million acres of land from the Indians Although the city of Seattle was named for him, Chief Seattle did not agree wholeheartedly to the honour since he believed that after his death, his spirit would be disturbed every time his name was mentioned The following is Seattle’s reply to Governor Stevens’s offer to the purchase of the two million acres of Indian land Note the prophetic nature of Seattle’s words as he foresaw the eventual absorption of the entire continent by white settlers and the decline and disappearance of many Indian cultures My People Yonder sky that has wept tears upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change Today is fair Tomorrow may be overcast with clouds My words are like the stars that never change Whatever Seattle says the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons The White Chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill That is kind of him for we know he has little need of friendship in returr His people are many They are like the grass that covers vast prairies My people are few They resemble the scattering trees of a stormswept plain The great, and I presume good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our lands but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach our paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame Youth is impulsive When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and then they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them Thus it has ever been Thus it was when the white men first began to push our forefathers further westward But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 77 Our good father at Washington – for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north – our great good father, I say, sends us word that if we as he desires he will protect us His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbours so that our ancient enemies far to the northward – the Hydas and Tsimpsians – will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men Then in reality will he be our father and we his children But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine He folds his strong and protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads his infant son – but He has forsaken His red children – if they really are his Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us Your God makes your people wax strong every day Soon they will fill the land Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common heavenly father He must be partial – for He came to his paleface children We never saw Him He gave you laws but He had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies There is little in common between us To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret Your religion was written upon tables of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget The Red Man could never comprehend nor remember it Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit,- and the visions of our sachems,' and it is written in the hearts of our people Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander way beyond the stars They are soon forgotten and never return Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being Day and night cannot dwell together The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days They will not be many A few more moons; a few more winters and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea It is the order of nature, and regret is useless Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend with friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny We may be brothers after all We will see Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 78 We will ponder your proposition, and when we decide we will let you know But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends and children Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished The very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch Even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land The White Man will never be alone Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless Dead, did I say? There is not death, only a change of worlds Questions for Discussion What are the purposes of Chief Seattle’s speech? What conditions does Chief Seattle set forth before the Indians will relinquish their land? How does Chief Seattle show that he has an understanding of the ways of young men? Describe Seattle’s attitude toward the white men, the President of the United States, and the white man's god How is the white man's god different from the Indians' god? What significance is there in Chief Seattle's referring to the President as "father?" To what differences between the white man and the red man does Seattle refer? The speech is rich in figurative language: similes, metaphors, analogies Upon what areas of his knowledge does Chief Seattle draw to form these figures of speech Example: My words are like the stars that never change (simile) Find other examples of similes, metaphors, or analogies Exploring Ideas For you, what is the most powerful part of the speech? Why? What aspects of the speech seem to be prophetic as later historical events came to demonstrate? Cite examples of Chief Seattle’s wisdom How you react to the closing paragraph of the essay? Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 79 W FURNESS THOMPSON W Furness Thompson served for many years as director of research for Smith, Kline, and French Laboratories In his administrative position, Thompson gained invaluable insights into the nature of scientific work and of scientists themselves He was the author of numerous articles that appeared in leading American periodicals He died on April 29, 1979, in Villanova, Pennsylvania Why Do not the Scientists Admit They Are Human?12 Did you ever read a scientific paper that begins, “For no good reason at all I had a hunch that…” or “I was just fooling around one day when….”? No sir! Seldom does a trace of anything haphazard, anything human, appear in published reports of research experiments The scientific paper will more likely begin: "In view of recent evidence concerning the Glockenspiel theory, it seemed advisable to conduct " And the report will go on to describe a carefully thought-out experiment that followed not only a logical but also a chronological order This was done, this resulted, therefore these conclusions were suggested Scientific tradition demands that scientific papers follow that formal progression: method first, results second, conclusion third The rules permit no hint that, as often happens, the method was really made up as the scientist went along, or that accidental results determined the method, or that the scientist reached certain conclusions before the results were all in, or that he started out with certain conclusions, or that he started doing a different experiment Much scientific writing not only misrepresents the workings of science but also does a disservice to scientists themselves By writing reports that make scientific investigations sound as unvarying and predictable as a pavan, scientists tend to promulgate the curious notion that science is infallible That many of them are unconscious of the effect they create does not alter the image in the popular mind We hear time and again of the superiority of the “scientific method” In fact, the word "unscientific" has almost become a synonym for "untrue." Yet the final evaluation of any set of data is an individual, subjective judgement; and all human judgement is liable to error Thoughtful scientists realise all this; but you would not gather so from reading most scientific literature A pompous, stilted style too often seizes the pen of the experimenter the moment he starts putting words on paper Words direct our lives, after all And if the words in which we read the scientist’s own unfolding story of his science are all cold and calculated, empty of foible or failing, above even mention of mistake, how are we to divine that in the vast majority of moments when he is not writing, the scientist is a genial, sensible, rather humble man? By what occult power are we to recognise that his “objective evaluations” in the 12 From the Saturday Review, September 7, l 957 Copyright (C) 1957 by Saturday Review Magazine Reprinted by permission Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 80 scientific journals are actually not magnificent infallibilities but fortunate conclusions of persistently pursued hunches, exhaustively explored intuitions, and unexpected observations? Editors of scientific publications are not without their reasons for the current style of scientific writing Their journals aren't rich Paper and printing are expensive Therefore, it is expedient to condense articles as much as possible Under pressure of tradition, the condensation process removes the human elements first And few scientific writers rebel against the tradition Even courageous men not go out of their way to publicise their deviations from accepted procedures Then, too, there is an apparent objectivity and humility attached to the third person, passive voice writing technique adopted in the preparation of most scientific papers So, bit by bit, the true face of science becomes hidden behind what seems to the outsider to be a smug allknowing mask Is it any wonder that in the popular literature the scientist often appears as a hybrid superman-spoiled child? No small contribution to modern culture could be the simple introduction, into the earliest stage of our public-school science courses, of a natural style of writing about laboratory experiments as they really happen This is something that could be done immediately with the opening of classes this fall It requires no preparation except a psychological acknowledgement of the obvious fact that the present form of reporting experiments is a mental strait jacket whose very appearance is calculated to repel the imaginative young minds science so sorely needs Dare the local schoolteacher depart from the stereotype imposed by tradition? I think he should It would be foolish to expect every scientist to become a composite of, say, Pasteur and Hemingway But the teacher could point out that a writing tradition which removes a portion of humanity is also liable to remove a portion of truth He could encourage his students to report facts as they see them, including facts that convention might regard as "unscientific" and, therefore, out of place in a written report The giants of science could serve as guides Let me quote from the article in the June, 1929, issue of the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in which Sir Alexander Fleming, the English bacteriologist, announced the discovery of penicillin: While working with staphylococcus variants [types of bacteria] a number of culture plates were set aside on the laboratory bench and examined from time to time In the examination, these plates were necessarily exposed to the air and they became contaminated with various microorganisms It was noticed that around a large colony of the contaminated mold the staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were obviously undergoing lysis [dissolution] This paragraph is far from a literary masterpiece, but it does illustrate a straightforwardness which is infrequently present in scientific writing Did Fleming report anything that happened according to plan? Not unless necessary exposure to air is counted as planning The whole business was an accident, and Fleming said so Fleming did not discover penicillin because he was hunting for it He made the discovery because he was curious about something he saw He saw the germs on his plates being killed by an air-borne mold What was the mold and how did it kill? Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 81 This penicillin episode is an instructive example of how wrong the popular conception of "scientific method" can be Even after he isolated penicillin Fleming was unable to make more than a meager quantity of it that was useful Ten years were to pass before the antibiotic was mass-manufactured, and then the job could not be done in the discoverer's native England Penicillin did not become a practical reality until Dr Alfred Newton Richards, Chairman of the National Research Council's Committee on Medical Research in this country, persuaded United States manufacturers to go into speculative development of the drug Our firm - Smith, Kline, and French – was one of the companies Richards approached We were interested We thought a mushroom outfit might be a good place to grow the mold I was sent to talk to the mushroom man As I explained the process of growing molds and extracting penicil lin, he paled He got rid of me as fast as he could Much later, I found out that mushroom growers plan their science on the principle that all molds are evil and should be destroyed Only those mushroom men who ignored their own traditional "method" were able to benefit the world, and incidentally, become rich themselves, by growing penicillin Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and the planets What kept them in place? Why didn't they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those larger fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything He was just wondering His mind was ready for the unpredictable Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research If you not have unpredictable things, you not have research Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it In 1925 William Mason, a mechanical engineer, hit upon the idea of heating wood until it exploded and then using the fibers to make a good inexpensive paper He was in a factory drying some of the fibers when a friend asked him to lunch After turning off the steam valve that regulated the heat, Mason left the place He had a leisurely lunch followed by a few extra cups of coffee When he returned to the factory he discovered to his horror that the valve he thought he had closed was defective – the heat had remained on all the time he was away The wood fibers weren't merely dry; they were baked! Mason's first reaction was to throw the fibers away Before he did so, however, he took a long close look at them He found a smooth sheet not of paper but of a new very special kind of grainless wood Another man made a valuable discovery because he forgot to wash his hands He knocked off work in a laboratory to eat a roast beef sandwich, took one bite and Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 82 gagged The sandwich was sickeningly sweet! In reaching for a glass of water, he noticed his hands were dirty Could the dirt have anything to with the unexpected sweetness of that sandwich? He examined the stuff he had been handling in the laboratory before lunch and thereby discovered saccharin Serendipity is the highsounding name for this kind of happy accident In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the “scientific method” a substitute for imaginative thought I have attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said “the data are still inconclusive” “We know that”, the men from the budget office have said, “but what you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What you think we might expect?" The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own propaganda He has put up the infallible objective front so consistently that he not only believes it himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that it is true If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect, is management to be blamed for discriminating against the “odd balls” among researchers in favour of more conventional thinkers who “work well with the team” All of us who actually have to with research know that the “odd ball” often is a more valuable scientist than his well-adjusted colleague “Odd ball” may be too strong a phrase I am not talking about the man who is extremely unusual - who wears a Napoleon hat No, I mean the man who does not conform, who does not always think the way most of us are thinking, who doesn't always act the way most of us are acting I can remember an extremely valuable senior scientist of ours who made many important contributions to our research program but who apparently did very little work, and who took privileges which were quite conspicuous He was a flower fancier He spent so much time growing flowers in his laboratory that it began to look like the beginning of a small greenhouse We were worried about the effect of this man on the morale of those who worked with and for him But when we looked into the situation we found that our fears were groundless He was not resented The others around him realised that if they were contributing as much as he, they too could grow flowers in the lab or design Rube Goldberg apparatus At least a large part of the non-scientist’s hostility to or fear of the scientist rises from the stereotyped idea of the scientist as a man, the myth that the scientist himself perpetuates This imaginary person does not quite belong to the same species as other human beings; he lives in a different world; he thinks in a different way Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 83 Actually, the scientist thinks in much the same way that the rest of us The problems he encounters in his work are different from our problems, but his method of arriving at solutions is much the same as ours The scientist is not necessarily smarter or more creative than the non-scientist The psychological process of creativity – whether a man is creating a new vaccine, a novel, a painting, or a piece of sculpture – is much the same for everybody If the scientist, in writing about his work, will present himself as a fellow fallible human, he will lead us all to be receptive of his accomplishments, tolerant of his failures, and far less likely to demand of him more than he can possibly give Questions for Discussion In paragraph 6, the author states that “a writing tradition which removes a portion of humanity is also liable to remove a portion of truth” Is this statement giving the central idea of the essay? According to the author, how does scientific writing a disservice to scientists themselves? What does the author mean in paragraph when he observes: “Words direct our lives…?” “So, bit by bit, the true face of science becomes hidden behind what seems to the outsider to be a smug all-knowing mask” (Paragraph 4) How is this accomplished according to the author? What is the procedure for the preparation of scientific papers? What role does the preparedness of the minds of scientists play in making experiments? In what way has the scientist become a victim of his own propaganda? How does the author compare the scientist with the non-scientist regarding the process of creative thinking? Exploring Ideas Do you think that scientists should make a real effort to make their writings intelligible to all educated persons? To what extent have you felt that scientists “not quite belong to the same species as other human beings”? In paragraph 5, the author uses the expression, “mental strait jacket” How you interpret the expression? Do you think that it applies only to scientific thinking? Should all writing include the "human" quality? Explain your answer Basically, the author has not admitted the need for two kinds of writing – one done for science, the other for the general public Does this limit the effectiveness of the essay? Should he have recognised that the purposes and methods of scientific writing are different from those of a general nature? Why or why not? Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 84 JUDITH VIORST Judith Viorst was born in 1936 and has established herself as an accomplished writer who has covered a wide range of topics in her profession She is a regular contributing editor to Redbook magazine The essay that follows first, appeared in her regular column of that magazine The essay seems to enlarge upon an observation by the American philosopher, George Santayana, who once wrote: "Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another; people are friends in spots." Ms Viorst also writes humorous verse and books for children Friends, Good Friends – and Such Good Friends 13 Women are friends, I once would have said, when they totally love and support and trust each other, and bare to each other the secrets of their souls, and run – no questions asked – to help each other, and tell harsh truths to each other (no, you cannot wear that dress unless you lose ten pounds first) when harsh truths must be told Women are friends, I once would have said, when they share the same affection for Ingmar Bergman, plus train rides, cats, warm rain, charades, Camus, and hate with equal ardor Newark and Brussels sprouts and Lawrence Welk and camping In other words, I once would have said that a friend is a friend all the way, but now I believe that's a narrow point of view For the friendships I have and the friendships I see are conducted at many levels of intensity, serve many different functions, meet different needs and range from those as all-the-way as the friendship of the soul sisters mentioned above to that of the most nonchalant and casual playmates Consider these varieties of friendship: Convenience friends These are women with whom, if our paths were not crossing all the time, we'd have no particular reason to be friends: a next-door neighbour, a woman in our car pool, the mother of one of our children's closest friends or maybe some mommy with whom we serve juice and cookies each week at the Glenwood Co-op Nursery Convenience friends are convenient indeed They'll lend us their cups and silverware for a party They'll drive our kids to soccer when we're sick They'll take us to pick up our car when we need a lift to the garage They will even take our cats when we go on vacation As we will for them But we not, with convenience friends, ever come too close or tell too much; we maintain our public face and emotional distance “Which means”, says Elaine, “that I will talk about being overweight but not about being depressed Which means I will admit 13 Copyright O< 1977 by Judith Viorst Originally appeared in REDBOOK Reprinted by permission of Leacher @ L.escher I.td Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 85 being mad but not blind with rage Which means that I might say that we're pinched this month but never that I'm worried sick over money” But which doesn't mean that there isn't sufficient value to be found in these friendships of mutual aid, in convenience friends Special-interest friends These friendships are not intimate, and they need not involve kids or silverware or cats Their value lies in some interest jointly shared And so we may have an office friend or a yoga friend or a tennis friend or a friend from the Women's Democratic Club “I have got one woman friend”, says Joyce, - who likes, as I do, to take psychology courses Which makes it nice for me – and nice for her It is fun to go with someone you know and it is fun to discuss what you have learned, driving back from the classes” And for the most part, she says, that's all they discuss “I would say that what we were doing is doing together, not being together”, Suzanne says of her Tuesday-doubles friends “It is mainly a tennis relationship, but we play together well And I guess we all need to have a couple of playmates” I agree My playmate is a shopping friend, a woman of marvelous taste, a woman who knows exactly where to buy what, and furthermore is a woman who always knows beyond a doubt what one ought to be buying I not have the time to keep up with what's new in eyeshadow, hemlines and shoes and whether the smock look is in or finished already But since (oh, shame!) I care a lot about eyeshadows, hemlines and shoes, and since I not want to wear smocks if the smock look is finished, I am very glad to have a shopping friend Historical friends We all have a friend who knew us when … maybe way back in Miss Meltzer’s second grade, when our family lived in that three-room flat in Brooklyn, when our dad was out of work for seven months, when our brother Allie got in that fight where they had to call the police, when our sister married the endodontist from Yonkers and when, the morning after we lost our virginity, she was the first, the only, friend we told The years have gone by and we've gone separate ways and we have little in common now, but we're still an intimate part of each other's past And so whenever we go to Detroit we always go to visit this friend of our girlhood Who knows how we looked before our teeth were straightened Who knows how we talked before our voice got un Brooklyned Who knows what we ate before we learned about artichokes And who, by her presence, puts us in touch with an earlier part of ourself, a part of ourself it is important never to lose “What this friend means to me and what I mean to her”, says Grace, – is having a sister without sibling rivalry We know the texture of each other's lives She remembers my grandmother's cabbage soup I remember the way her uncle played the piano There is simply no other friend who remembers those things." Crossroads friends Like historical friends, our crossroads friends are important for what was – for the friendship we share at a crucial, now past, time of life A time, perhaps, when we roomed in college together; or worked as eager young singles in the Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 86 Big City together; or went together, as my friend Elizabeth and I did, through pregnancy, birth and that scary first year of new motherhood Crossroads friends forge powerful links, links strong enough to endure with not much more contact than once-a-year letters at Christmas And out of respect for those crossroads years, for those dramas and dreams we once shared, we will always be friends Cross-generational friends Historical friends and crossroads friends seem to maintain a special kind of intimacy – dormant but always ready to be revived – and though we may rarely meet, whenever we connect, it is personal and intense Another kind of intimacy exists in the friendships that form across generations in what one woman calls her daughter-mother and her mother-daughter relationships Evelyn’s friend is her mother's age – “but I share so much more than I ever could with mother” – a woman she talks to of music, of books and of life “What I get from her is the benefit of her experience What she gets – and enjoys – from me is a youthful perspective It is a pleasure for both of us” I have in my own life a precious friend, a woman of 65 who has lived very hard, who is wise, who listens well; who has been where I am and can help me understand it; and who represents not only an ultimate ideal mother to me but also the person I would like to be when I grow up In our daughter role we tend to more than our share of self-revelation; in our mother role we tend to receive what's revealed It is another kind of pleasure – playing wise mother to a questing younger person It is another very lovely kind of friendship Part-of-a-couple friends Some of the women we call our friends we never see alone – we see them as part of a couple at couples’ parties And though we share interests in many things and respect each other’s views, we aren't moved to deepen the relationship Whatever the reason, a lack of time or – and this is more likely – a lack of chemistry, our friendship remains in the context of a group But the fact that our feeling on seeing each other is always, “I am so glad she s here” and the fact that we spend half the evening talking together says that this too, in its own way, counts as a friendship (Other part-of-a-couple friends are the friends that came with the marriage, and some of these are friends we could live without But sometimes, alas, she married our husband’s best friend; and sometimes, alas, she is our husband's best friend And so we find ourselves dealing with her, somewhat against our will, in a spirit of what I will call reluctant friendship) Men who are friends I wanted to write just of women friends, but the women I have talked to will non let me – they say I must mention man-woman friendships too For these friendships can be just as close and as dear as those that we form with women Listen to Lucy’s description of one such friendship: “We have found we have things to talk about that are different from what he talks about with my husband and different from what I talk about with his wife So sometimes we call on the phone or meet for lunch There are similar intellectual interests – we always pass on to each other the book that we love – but there is also something tender and caring too” Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 87 In a couple of crises, Lucy says, “he offered himself for talking and for helping And when someone died in his family he wanted me there The sexual, flirty part of our friendship is very small – but some – just enough to make it fun and different” She thinks – and I agree – that the sexual part, though small, is always some, is always there when a man and a woman are friends It is only in the past few years that I've made friends with men, in the sense of a friendship that is mine, not just part of two couples And achieving with them the ease and the trust I have found with women friends has value indeed Under the dryer at home last week, putting on mascara and rouge, I comfortably sat and talked with a fellow named Peter Peter, I finally decided, could handle the shock of me minus mascara under the dryer Because we care for each other Because we are friends There are medium friends, and pretty good friends, and very good friends indeed, and these friendships are defined by their level of intimacy And what we'll reveal at each of these levels of intimacy is calibrated with care We might tell a medium friend, for example, that yesterday we had a fight with our husband And we might tell a pretty good friend that this fight with our husband made us so mad that we slept on the couch And we might tell a very good friend that the reason we got so mad in that fight that we slept on the couch had something to with that girl who works in his office But it is only to our very best friends that we are willing to tell all, to tell what's going on with that girl in his office The best of friends, I still believe, totally love and support and trust each other, and bare to each other the secrets of their souls, and run – no questions asked – to help each other, and tell harsh truths to each other when they must be told But we need not agree about everything (only 12-year-old girl friends agree about everything) to tolerate each other's point of view To accept without judgement To give and to take without ever keeping score And to be there, as I am for them and as they are for me, to comfort our sorrows, to celebrate our joys Questions for Discussion Does the author really define friendship? How has her definition changed over the years, if any? How does Viorst’s use of the word, we, contribute to the “intimacy” of the essay? What purpose did the author have in writing this essay? It is apparent that the essay is directed toward women (Redbook is a magazine aimed largely at women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.) How would Viorst have changed the categories of the essay if it was directed at young men in the same age category? Would her examples have been different? What effect does Viorst’s use of quotations have? How would you describe the tone of the essay? Exploring Ideas What is your own idea of friendship? Give examples from your own experience or from your reading Americans seem to value informality and "easy" friendship Are there disadvantages to such kinds of cultural mores? How does your own society view friendship? Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 88 Why you think some people establish friendships more easily than others? Discuss the quotation from George Santayana cited in the biographical sketch of Judith Viorst Do you agree or disagree or only agree in part? Give your reasons Make a list, as Viorst does in paragraph two, of some of your favourite and least favourite things How many of them would you share with friends or family? Do you have loves and hates that you share with someone? What kind of friendship relationship you have with that person or persons? Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 89 INSERT INSTRUCTIONS OF WRITING DIFFERENT TYPES OF ESSAYS, add RUSSIAN-ENGLISH INSTRUCTIONS and ORGANIZE AS a COMPLETE COURSE Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays