o prin S Volume 2 GLIM 1996-97 Editor & Founder Catherine Rose Assistant Story Editor Jessica McFarland Layout Catherine Rose—Da Rest Nevin Katz—‘The Analysis of Catastrophe Causation Verbs” Laura Smid—‘‘The Evil of I and Thou” Thank yous to: Sam Schulhofer-Wohl for his help setting up the Master Page, Audree Penner for the use of her office after the huge scanning disaster, Jeff Lott for solutions to last minute problems, Adam Preset and Jonathan Seitz for their help lugging a monitor up to Parrish Sth. To all those friends who gave second opinions and edited— you know who all you tortured souls are. Thank you to all those who contributed their pho- tos and papers. Attributed material copyright ©1996 by the respective authors. Unattributed material copyright ©1996 GLIM. Swarthmore College Student Publications 500 College Avenue Dear Reader, Well, about Glim... actually in true Swattie character by telling you “about Glim” I also want to tell you a little about where my approach to Glim is coming from. Yeah, roundabout, philosophic... the turmoil that comes maybe from getting older, maybe from a humanities requirement. Recently, I’ve become increasingly absorbed by the concept of cca chai religion (err... the hesitancy to continue commences.) Though a large number of people no longer believe in religion, this does not mean religion’s role in society has been left unoccupied. Rather, it is possible that a more widespread belief has substituted the function of religion. For instance, in the past when something happened that a person couldn’t handle, s/he could put it in the context of religion until s/he was prepared to broach the events implications i.e. my friend died, s/he’s in heaven. Today, people often deal with difficult times through intellectualization. These are not necessarily negative methods of avoidance, there are times when people need a space they believe in to place issues until they’re strong enough to handle them. When religions of the past don’t serve as effective mechanisms, people are likely to find alternatives. This religious disbelief can occur for numerous reasons. Often though, conflict arises from a growing gulf between social norms and religious values. Among the difficulties aris- ing from the God we’ve created today is that no matter how often people say “he’s” gender neutral, as “God” he’s not. Words do not simply lose their connotations, and as the central religious figure, God’s gender cannot merely melt into the background. Furthermore, though religion says God is simultaneously within us and exterior to us, the image we have con- structed is almost always exterior— a power outside of life and ruling down over it. Perhaps we merely need to substitute the term “God” with “Life.” Imagine replacing all religious fig- ureheads with “Life.” “Go in the name of the Lord,” would become: “Go in the name of Life,” etc.. Life has not lost its definition of existence. It is within all of us and outside of us too, and “life” is gender neutral. Incidents like death, falling in love, forming friendships, instances of conflict— incidents of life— provide life’s teachings. Also, life alters as times change. Or maybe, we have always broached issues from the standpoint of “Life” only pos- sibly in the past reality was more tightly interwoven with religion, whereas now life has become more tied to academia. If academic institutions are capable of providing people with a believable structure in which to place events in their life (with subjects that are updated to accommodate changing times), it is important we carefully consider the approach of these institutions. Glim is a contribution towards what I see as important in an educational arena. This semester, one of my friends committed suicide. While grappling with his conscious choice, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my own decision to live. Among various incidents and reflections that helped me incorporate my friend’s death into my life, a small but significant one involved a Glim submission. The paper dealt with the limited nature of the mind, the conflict that stems from how the mind remains only part of the body, while the entirety of the body is involved in the act of living. The paper reminded me to take into consideration the bodily drive to eat, to sleep...to survive, something which I had been disregarding in a more wholly philosophi- cal approach to why one chooses to live. As I become more concerned about keeping events in perspective within a larger framework I am increasingly affected by the specialization that occurs in college. Yeah, there’s an element of truth in the idea that specialization eventually comes full circle to reveal the “larger picture,;’— after all everything occurs within the same universe of ques- tions. Nonetheless, contact with other subjects and their theories remains important. Each subject has its own flavor and such specifics remain important in relating to the specifics of the moment. Hopefully, Glim will act as one of many contributors to a more balanced learn- ing. Take care, Z Ly, a Catherine Rose CONTENTS Olfaction: from Odorant Molecule to Smell By Erte LCT ieee eee ie pases ictlencctncnenenenccetsetlrecsceccrsceseswssnsseoncronscercnenererere IBY 0) OPEN cccdacoccxscuonocodotcnc p.4 Cognitive Mechanisms & Evolutionary Psychology by Dan Gallant... ec ecscscscsssssesssesesenenencsenecensceesceresseesecesessesessvosescsenescccesasserenenegnansecereces PSY ChOlOS Yates cstcesee: p.12 The Analysis of Catastrophe Causation Verbs: Accounting for the “Scrod Phenomenon” By CCU aU SU ei ce a e ct le cee eter ener cases cate ctnsdtge wens ro ces sntasrersueczaeec deny reese! GIN CUISUICS ee p.14 The Great Fish Fiasco DY SOSH SIV CLs ears, cee cleric cstece grec daon seer re ctetes teseataate cates ors Ves situs erstaceelireceeseceres PhysicSie een. p.18 Anatomy of an Illness by Bun-Shil Abn ........c.-.eeececeseceseesetaccecserecnseseccororeneneseteetonoronersosasssensanevtoneasnssreneacucnereensecee®® Social Anthropology......p.21 Responding to Rupture: Isaac Luria, Emil Fackenheim and Tikkun Olam by Mike Bernstein <..c-.-.cccecccdsesecetevccsesesentsetoneneneveccngeactnceccscscsanstsrenenstbascorsssneqeneeanererengtecscess IRelicionemes eis. p.24 The Suburban Front Yard by Rob(@armichaeln, (672i. es terete sncres se eceseeetecnges senate: ip SEG ORES, «eee iat sch Englishes eres p.31 The Interaction Between the Physical Environments and Socioeconomic Systems in Post-Industrial Philadelphia by. Dam Clowes... ce sececsseeccrpetscecstoseteceeesceeecenecerent ioecsrersneaqirsrsssssusnencussnrersneseueasarsranterse=- Social Anthropology......p.34 Manet and the Intersection of the Impressionists by Laura Christian...........ccccssssscseseseseserenesessenencsenerensesesssessssssesesesensneereesseneseaceeatensacasacseseee® JTL TISTIOTA Yococcccococcoogocen: p.42 The Evil of I and Thou By, Stat GLGCeM ees. ieees ete cscscecsscspenencenaetarecycctescneceneteoeverestssseseocecnsncnnaecewsnenereqerezereiss 1G NERIO TT coccaacenoscanadeodaoce p.46 Natural Ingredients: Parody,Theory, and the Tension of the Referent Dy, dam La Sue eee cccscecctocnen eset erety gts secon sce icst natch secant ddcasesees Ae ee Ns Gis heer eee p.50 Memories by Noah Oliveira-Susswein ..........cccceceeeceececeseeeeeeesseeseeenssesesenesesesesesesescsesereneeeseeennenseenenees BSV.ChOlO py nese ese ss p.57 Thinking in 3D: Processing Communication and Creation of Spatial Ideas by Alyosha MoInar ........ccccssssessseseseeeseseneeseeceeeeeenererersnsssnsssesenenenenssensseseseneneneenereneecereceges RSV CHOLOSYa-ssseree sce p.59 American Defense Dy Jorge Ramirez ..........ccccceseecssesesesseeceecensterenenenenserececacesesecesnsesesceteceesserentanesaneserscanenencesascens Political Science............ p.64 Factual Fictions: Night and Fog, and the Artist as Historian by Jennifer Barager ..........cessssesssessseseeseseneneceeeeseeseensesesesessssnsnenenenenenesesenenescenseneacecscasssie! eitenatne wee p.68 Exact Modal Analysis and Optimization of NYY1 Cascaded Waveguide structures with Multimode Guiding Sections by Erik Thoen ..........cccccscscssssssesesesenenenenerecesecenncncecscsesenosssssosonsacseseacsenesssesnsareneranensocosococaeseees IENSINCELIN DE tee ees p./2 Play Analysis of Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro by Sabrina Moyle .........c.ccsescssesesseseseseeteeneseeeneseseeenssesesesessessenssseeeneneseeseneneeeesnsncnsenenanensess IDESTOM Zest eres nrcsene p.77 IMAGE CREDITS (in order of appearance) cover — Catherine Rose page 1—Marianne Yeung page 2—Jean-Philippe Chabot page 4—-Catherine Rose page 13—-Catherine Rose page 15—Starr Glidden page 18—Lloyd Walmsley page 20—Lloyd Walmsley page 21—Catherine Rose page 22—Starr Glidden page 25—Catherine Rose page 26—Kate Ellsworth page 29—Kate Ellsworth page 31—Sarah Jaquette page 32—Catherine Rose page 36—Jen Cox page 38—Jen Cox page 39—Jen Cox page 40—Jen Cox page 43—-Catherine Rose page 44—Catherine Rose page 46—Marianne Yeung page 47—Nicole Breazeale page 48—Deena Suh page 49—Deena Suh page 50—Catherine Rose page 51—-Catherine Rose page 54—-Starr Glidden page 57—Catherine Rose page 59—Catherine Rose page 60—Deena Suh page 63—Matthew Trebelhorn page 68—Starr Glidden page 69—Starr Glidden page 70—Starr Glidden page 72—Marianne Yeung OLFACTION: FROM ODORANT MOLECULE TO SMELL Ceocccececccccscococcccoccce COCCCOOOOOEEOOOOOEEOT OOOO OOOOH OSOS OHO HOSE O SE OOOO OOOO OSOOOLOOOHS HOLL EEOHHOSHOHLOSESOOOHOEOOOTOOOOOOOOOEOEOS he sense of smell is critical for many organisms’ survival and plays an important role in our daily lives. The process by which individ- ual odorant molecules give tise to the perception of a particular scent has been a topic of research by scien- tists for many years. New techniques in molecular biology and neurophysiolo- gy have given rise to many exciting discoveries in the field of olfaction. The process by which molecules bind to individual recep- tors, utilize second messen- gers which open ion chan- nels and eventually leads to desensitization has become much clearer in the last five years. Just as there are recep- tors for neurotransmitters and hormones, there are receptors on olfactory neu- rons which bind odorant molecules. The first evi- dence for olfactory recep- tors came from optical iso- mers of odorant molecules. For instance, L—carvone is perceived as smelling like carraway while D-carvone is perceived as smelling like spearmint (Dodd & Castellucci, 1991). The fact that optical isomers could produce different smells suggested that the separate isomers bound to different receptors. Prior to the cloning of the recep- tors, researchers noted a rise in cAMP levels in rat olfactory cilia in vitro (Breer et al., 1993B). A rise in cAMP upon exposure to a ligand suggested that the olfactory receptors proba- bly belonged to the super family of G linked recep- tors which span the mem- brane seven times. Indeed, by screening a cDNA library made from rat olfac- tory cells using other Ga subunits as probes, David T. Jones and Randall R. Reed were able to clone a unique G protein which they designat- ed Gig Vones & Reed, 1989). G., which is the G protein that activates adenylate cyclase in most systems, has 88 percent of its sequence in common with Goj¢ and therefore the two G pro- teins are very similar in structure and mechanism of action (Jones & Reed, 1989). By assuming that the receptors belonged to the G protein family, Linda Buck and Richard Axel, in what was one of the most important advances in the field of olfactory research, cloned and described the first receptors (Buck and Axel, 1991). Buck and Axel used PCR to amplify the conserved regions of G-protein coupled receptors and then used those fragments to screen a cDNA library made from rat olfactory epithelium cells. The cloned receptors shared many features in common with other members of the G protein linked receptor family including, the position of several cysteine residues, which form sulfide bonds in the first and second extracellular loops, a potential palmi- toylation site in the C terminal as well as other sequence similarities (Buck and Axel, 1991). Within the group of olfac- tory receptors, the largest differences in sequence occurred between the third, fourth, and fifth transmembrane span- ning regions. Thus, these parts of the receptors are probably involved in lig- and binding (see figure one, page 11) (Buck and Axel, 1991). Northern blot analysis in which RNA from all major organ systems of the body was examined revealed that the receptors were only found in olfactory epithelium (Buck and Axel, 1991). Nevertheless, just because these receptors were expressed exclusively in the olfactory system, it did not mean that the receptors Axel and Buck found were olfactory recep- tors. One could argue that what Axel and Buck found were some type of receptor that just happened to be in the olfactory epithelium, but which did not actually bind odor. In order to counter these possibili- ties, a team led by H. Breer and his col- leagues using the same methods as Buck and Axel cloned more putative olfacto- ry receptors and expressed these recep- tors in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) cells BY ERIC ELENKO @ PROF. SIWICKI @ NEUROBIOLOGY, Bio. 29 @ SPRING “95 SOOOCOOOL COE EO OOO OOOEOEOO SOOO OO OOASOO OOOOH OOOOH T OOS HHHHOOHOSOOOHH OHHH HOOOOOESEOH OO OOOOOOEE ESO SOLOS ESOOOEESHSOSOOHOOOSOOEOOSOS HOODOO using baculovirus as a vector (Raming et al., 1993). After exposing the trans- fected cells to oderants, the researchers found a large increase in the amount of inositol triphosphate. Since there was a change in a particular second messenger in response to being exposed to a lig- and, the cloned putative receptors had to be true odorant receptors (Raming et al., 1993). In addition, Breer found that the transfected receptor (odorant receptor five) was able to produce an increase in the amount of intracellular inositol triphosphate in response to several dif- ferent odors. Thus, one receptor appeared able to bind many different ligands (Ramming et al., 1993). Breer’s findings were significant, since a long simmering controversy in olfactory receptor research is how olfac- tory neurons are able to bind and process the millions of diverse ligands involved in olfaction. one side has argued that each olfactory neuron expresses many different types of recep- tors and each receptor has a narrow range of ligands that it can bind; the other side has argued that each neuron only expresses one type of receptor which is capable of binding many differ- ent ligands (Lance, 1994). Thus, Breer’s findings support the idea of one recep- tor type on one neuron. In addition, in situ hybridization of rat cells in the olfactory epithelium with probes specif- ic to odorant receptors found that there was only a minuscule number of cells which bound probe specific for two olfactory receptors (Lancet, 1994). A third line of evidence came from a series of elegant experiments performed by a team of scientists led by Richard Axel. The researchers showed that for recep- tor 17, only the maternal in a given paternal allele is expressed but not both (Chess et al., 1994). If there is inactiva- tion of one of the alleles, which is usu- ally accomplished by cis acting tran- scriptional factors, then the two alleles replicate at different times during the S phase of the cell cycle. In fact, Axel found that there was asynchronous reproduction of several receptors, indi- cating receptor 17 (Chess et al., 1994). If only one allele was expressed on one chromosome, then this suggests that only one receptor type would be expressed per neuron. Nevertheless, it is extremely hard to prove that each neuron only expresses one receptor type. Although in situ hybridization never revealed double labeling of any cell for probes with two different receptor types, it could be because the exper- imenters used the wrong two probes. The experimenters only tried using probes for a few of the thousands of differ- ent receptor types that exist. Perhaps, had they used probes for different receptors types, they would have observed double labeling. Just because the researchers failed to find something, it does not mean that the some- thing they were looking for does not exist. In addition, allelic inactivation, as shown by Axel, only provides a mechanism for how one receptor type might be expressed on one neuron, but it does not mean that only one recep- tor type is necessarily expressed on one neuron. While the one neuron, one receptor type theory has a lot of evidence to support it, the debate is still far from settled. Like other G—protein linked receptors, the olfactory receptors are capable of activating two pathways, the cAMP mediated pathway and the phosphatidylinositol inositol bisphosphate pathway. After an odorant mole- cule binds to the receptor, if the cAMP pathway is utilized by that ligand, then Goj¢ is activated (Anholt, 1993). Goj activates an adenylate cyclase specific to olfactory neurons known as adenylate cyclase type III, which utilizes ATP to make cAMP. In order to explain why the olfactory system uses a unique G protein and a unique adenylyl cyclase, some scientists olfactory system must be capable Oo ti detect- ing very weak signals against potentially very strong background noise and thus, the unique G proteins and adenylate cyclase help overcome these problems and are espe- cially good at amplifying very weak signals (Anholt, 1993). ; If the cAMP pathway is not utilized, an olfactory neuron might use the phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate pathway. No one has found a neuron that generates both cAMP and inositol trisphosphate in response to oderants, suggesting that these pathways are mutually exclusive in olfactory neurons (Breer, 1993A). Although one might expect that odorant molecules that elicit cAMP all are structurally related and the molecules that elicit inositol triphosphate are all structurally related, in fact there is nothing obvious that molecules that elicit a particular sec- ond messenger pathway have in common (Breer, 1993A). For the PIP7 pathway to be utilized, a G protein must be activated. At this point, it is unknown whether G5 j¢ acti- vates a phospholipase C or whether a G protein that has not been discovered is responsible for activating the enzyme. As in other cells, eventually calcium is released from the endoplasmic reticulum and a protein kinase C gets activated. Some have argued that the calcium actual- ly binds to calmodulin which then activates adenylate cyclase and thus the PIP7 pathway ultimately generates the same products as the cAMP pathway (Anholt, 1993). If both pathways generate cAMP, then why olfactory cells generate cAMP through a less direct method via the PIP pathway is unclear. Figure two summarizes these pathways. There is some evidence that nitric oxide acts a second messenger in olfactory cells. Nitric oxide is a gas that acti- vates the enzyme Guanylate cyclase which produces cGMP from GTP (Vincent & Hope, 1992). Nitric oxide is thought to act as a second messenger in a number of dif- ferent systems in the brain (Vincent & Hope, 1992). In situ hybridization of rat brain using a probe for mRNA of nitric oxide synthase, the enzyme that catalyzes the forma- tion of nitric oxide, showed that the greatest amount of nitric oxide synthase is located in the olfactory bulb and in the cerebellum (Breer & Shepherd, 1993C). In addition, other studies have indi- cated that there is a rise in CGMP in both purified olfactory cilia and olfac- tory neurons after exposing them to oder- ants (Breer (Breer & Sheperd, 1993C). However, this rise in CGMP was inhibited if nitric oxide synthase ¢ was inhibited, indicatin that nitric oxide wa probably responsible for the observed rise in cGMP (Breer & Sheperd, 1993C). . The reason that cGMP might be generated is because it effects the channel which operates in olfac- tory neurons. The channel was cloned by a team led by Randall R. Reed in 1990 (Dhallan et al., 199O). Since previously, scientists had gathered evidence indicating that cGMP was a second messenger involved in gating of the channel in olfaction, Reed’s team took advantage of the homology with other cGMP gated channels. The researchers used PCR to amplify part of the bovine rod channel, which is gated by cGMP, and subsequently used the PCR fragment vo screen a cDNA library made from rat olfactory cells (Dhallan et al., 1990). Northern blot analysis revealed that the channel was expressed in the olfactory epithelium and not in any other system and therefore the channel was probably the channel which opens and closes when oderants binding to receptors. (Dhallan et al., 199O). However, there is a small possibil- ity that the cloned channel is not the olfactory channel, but just a channel that by chance is found exclusively in olfactory neurons. After being cloned, the channel was transfected into human embryonic kidney cells and patch clamping was performed. Not only did the channel open in response to cGMP, it also opened in response to cAMP and cCMP (Dhallan et al., 199O) The biggest difference between the channel found in rods and in olfactory cells is that the rod channel is only gated by cGMP and the rod channel poses an affinity for cGMP that is about ten times that of the olfactory channel’s affinity for cGMP (Anholt, 1993). This difference in interactions with cyclic nucleotides is believed to be due to the existence of a threonine in the rod channel instead of an alanine which is present in the olfactory channel in the region of the channel that binds cyclic nucleotides (Anholt, 1993). Based on the reversal potential of the channel of 4.5 mV and data gathered from manipulations of extracellular ionic concentrations, Reed concluded that the channel is per- Ameable to sodium, potassium and cal- cium (Dhallan et alee 1990). Pou? tyhy eng research has indicated that ions probably do not just pas- sively pass through open channel to get from one side of the cell to the other. Rather, when the channel is open, the ions probably chemically interact with amino acids in the pore of the channel that allow the ions to pass through it (Anholkt, 1993). Even though an odorant mole- cule might bind to a receptor and open up a channel, if neu- rons are continually exposed to a particular smell, the perception of smell will decrease to the point where the smell is not detected. This decrease in response to continu- al exposure of an odor is generally referred to as desensitization. The process of desensitization appears to be due to intracellular enzymes and pro- teins which interact with the receptor so that it is no longer capable of binding oderants. The b—adrenergic receptor has been one of the most studied G protein linked receptors and knowledge about the b—adrener- gic receptor has been applied to homologous receptors. Inactivation of the Fadrenergic receptor occurs when it is phosphorylated by the enzyme b-adrenergic receptor kinase (bark) or when the protein b—arrestin binds to the receptor (Dawson et al., 1993). Further research has revealed that a homologous enzyme to bark, bark-2 exists and that there are two other arrestins, b-arrestin-1 and b- arrestin-2 which inactivate receptors (Dawson et al., 1993). A team led by Gabriele V. Ronnett demonstrated using immunohistochemistry that there is a large con- centration of b-arrestin-2 in bark-2 in the dendritic knobs of olfactory neurons in the cilia of the olfactory epithelium. Furthermore, incubation of olfactory cilia with antibodies to either bark-2 or b-arrestin-2 result- ed in continual increased levels of cAMP when the cilia were exposed to the odorant citralva and there- fore a loss of desensitization (Dawson et al., 1993). Likewise, when cilia were given antibodies against bark-2 and b-arrestin-2, there was an even higher level of cAMP that maintained when the cilia were exposed to oderants (Dawson et al., 1993). Thus, there is clear evidence for the importance of bark-2 and b-arrestin-2 in desensitization. Inhibition of protein kinase A resulted in continually high levels of cAMP in response to an odorant and therefore a loss of desensitiza- tion (Boekhoff & Breer, 1992). Likewise, inhibition of protein kinase C resulted in continually high levels of inositol triphosphate in response to oderants and therefore a loss of desensitization (Boekhoff & Breer, 1992). However, inhi of protein kinase C had no effects on cAMP levels and inhibition of protein kinase A had no effect on sustaining inositol triphosphate levels (Boekhoff & Breer, 1992). The target of the protein kinases is not clear. However, Axel and Buck noted when they first cloned the olfactory recep- tors that there were possible phosphorylation sites in the third cytoplasmic loop (Buck & Axel, 1991). However, one must take into account the potential role not only of protein kinase A and C, but also the role of bARK—2. Breer and his colleagues have proposed several possibil- ities. The protein kinases might phosphorylate the recep- tors themselves so that sites on the receptors are exposed to bARK—; the protein kinases might activate bARK— 2 by phosphorylation; the protein kinases might inactivate bARK—2 inhibitors by phosphorylating them (Schleicher et al., 1993). » The system of activation and © desensitization is able to remain in © balance because the more odorant => that bind to receptors, the greater the amount of cAMP or diacylglycerol and calcium that accumulates and therefore more protein kinases will be activated which will desensitize a greater number = of receptors. Thus, . the greater amount of the odorant, tah Siew greater 4 the number of receptors are phosphorylated and inactivated. Likewise, there is a negative feedback loop so that as more receptors get phosphorylated and inactivated, less protein kinases will get activated which will result in fewer recep- tors getting activated (see figure three) . (Boekhoff & Breer, 1992). In addition, inhibition of the yprotein phosphatases, which removes phosphate groups from pro- teins, results in low levels of cAMP in olfactory cells exposed to oderants (Boekhoff & Breer, 1992). If phos- phorylation of receptors inactivates those receptors, it is logical that removal of those phosphate groups results in reactivation of those receptors. For no receptor or situa- tion are the second messenger pathways that regulate phosphates known (Petty, 1993). Not only can modification of the receptors lead to desensitization, but changes to the channel also can result in desensitization. Yau and his colleagues, using a gel— shift assay demonstrated that a calcium binding calmod- ulin protein (Cat2—CaM) is capable of binding to the olfactory channel. In vitro mutagenesis revealed that the Ca*?—CaM binds to a stretch of amino acids in the N— terminus of the channel (Liu et al., 1994). Patch clamp recordings of the channels subjected to both cGMP and Cat2— CaM revealed that the calmodulin dramatically decreased current flow through the channel. The Ca" =2e1M appears to decrease the channel’s affinity for cyclic nucleotides; if cyclic nucleotides cannot bind, the channel cannot open and therefore there is a decrease in current through the channel (Liu et al., 1994). In addition, Zufall and Firestein have shown that in vitro, external divalent cations are capable of block- ing the channel. The exact physiological relevance of the channels being blocked is unclear, but might represent anoth- er way of controlling whether or not an olfac- tory neuron fires and therefore another mech- anism by which the olfac- a tory mechanism can be fine tuned (Zufall & Firestein, 1993). In fact, the purpose of the entire second messen- ger system which is activated is to excite neurons in the olfactory epithelium; the purpose of the enzymes and other proteins involved in desensitization is to prevent the olfactory neurons from firing. By doing in situ hybridiza- tion using probes for specific receptor types, Buck’s team iwas able to determine where the axons from neurons expressing one particular receptor type projected since the mRNA for the receptors is located along the axon. The researchers found that neurons expressing the same type of receptor in the olfactory epithelium all synapse onto the same glomeruli cell in the olfactory bulb (Ressler et al., 1994). Thus, Buck hypothesized that the reason that sev- eral different glomeruli cells fire in response to different oderants is that the different glomeruli cells are connected to olfactory neurons whose receptors are distinct, but which are capable of binding to the same oderants (Ressler et al., 1994). One possible objection to Buck’s model is that it fails to take into account odorant specificity. How could the incredible ability of the each odorant elicits a unique or semi—unique pattern of different glomeruli firing; one odor might cause some of the same glomeruli to fire as another odor, but the two different odors will never cause all of the same glomeruli to fire (Ressler et. al., 1994). Given that there are about 2OOO glomeruli in the mouse (Ressler et. al., 1994) and probably at least that number in the human, the number of possible different combinations of glomeruli that could fire is huge and therefore Buck’s model would account for the ability of our olfactory system to distin- guish many closely related odors. Clearly, Buck’s model is a good one. However, one must bear in mind that it is unproven. one problem is the limited number of probes that she tried out. Perhaps, had she tried probes for many more receptor types, she would have found two different receptor types that go to the same glomeruli. The fact that several differ- ent glomeruli are excited by any one odor could fit in either with Buck’s findings or the competing theory that each glomerulus receives input from neurons which have different receptor types. Glomeruli cells synapse onto mitral cells which form circuits which extend into the cortex (see figure four) (Meisami, 1991). Studies in rats as well as other animals indicate that mitral cells are either excited or inhibited by different odors. The excitation is probably due to signals from the glomeruli cells; the inhibition is caused by gran- ule cells which are another type of cell in the olfactory bulb. Thus, the final pattern of mitral cell firing is a result of both excitation of some mitral cells and inhibition of other mitral cells (Meisami, 1991). The perception of olfaction is probably due to process- ing that occurs higher up in the cortex. Exactly what hap- pens in the cortex is unknown. Gilles Laurent and his col- leagues studied the olfaction process in the locust Schistocerca americana. In the locust, the antenna lobe is the equivalent of the olfactory bulb in vertebrates and the mushroom body is equivalent to the part of the vertebrate cortex that receives olfactory information (Laurent & Davidowitz, 1994). The researchers found that different odors evoked different spatial—temporal patterns of firing in the mushroom body. Thus, perhaps in humans, different odors are distinguished by their ability to produce unique patterns of cellular firing in the cortex (Laurent & Davidowitz, 1994). Nevertheless one must be cautious since what applies to invertebrates does not necessarily apply to humans. There is a great deal unknown about olfaction. However, the following model of olfaction has emerged. An odorant binds to a receptor which leads to a second messenger cascade. This cascade results in excitation o the olfactory neuron. Several olfactory neurons expressing the same receptor type converge on a single glomeruli cell. Several glomeruli cells in turn excite a mitral cell. Mitral cells pass their information to the cortex where there is a unique firing pattern of cells for every odor. The olfactory system results in the incredible ability of humans to dis- tinguish thousands of closely related odors. FIGURE 1 A depiction of a typical olfactory receptor. Each dot represents an amno acid. The white dots repre- : sent aminao acids that all olfactory receptors share Le FiGuRE 2 P while the black dots represent aminao acids that the A partial outline of the second messenger sys- olfactory cessls do not share. (Buck, 1991) ) : witems employed in olfactory neurons (Breer, P1993A) BIBLIOGRAPHY Anholt, Robert R. 1993. Molecular Neurobiology of olfaction. Critical Reviews in Neurobiology. 7: 1—22. Boekhoff, Ingrid and Heinz Breer. 1992. Termination of second messenger signaling in olfaction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 89; 471—474. Buck, Linda and Richard Axel. 1991. A Novel Multigene Family May Encode odorant Receptors: A Molecular Basis for odor Recognition. Cell. 65: 175187 Breer, Heinz. 1993A. Second Messenger Signaling in olfaction. Ciba Foundation Symposium. 179: 68—72. Breer, H., Raming, K., Krieger, J., Boekhoff, [., Strotmann, J. 1993B. Towards an Identification of odorant Receptors. Journal of Receptor Research. 13: 527—540. Breer, Heinz and Gordon M. Shepard. 1993C. Implications of the No/eGMP System for olfaction. Trends in Neuroscience. 16: 5—9. Chess, Andrew, Simon, Itamar, Cedar, Howard and Richard Axel. 1994. Allelic Cett ? Inactivation Regulates olfactory Receptors Gene Expression 78: 823—834. Dawson, Ted M., Arriza, Jeffrey, L., Jaworsky, Donna E., Borisy, Felice E, Attramadal, Havard, Lefkowitz, Robert J. and Gabriele V. Ronnett. 1993. j»bAdrenergic Receptor Kinase—2 and bArrestin—2 as Mediators of odorant—Induced Desensitization. Science. 259: 825—829. Dhallan, Ravinder S., Yau, King—Wai, Shrader, Karen A. and Randall R. Reed. 1990. Primary structure and functional expression of a cyclic nucleotide—activated channel from olfactory neurons. Nature. 347: 186187. Dodd, Jane and Vincent F Castellucci. 1991. Smell and Taste: The Chemical Layers SPthe Activation of olfactory ee Protein Kinases b lb aes u y To lateral olfactory Granule tract cell layer Granule Tee Odorant binds to Receptor no longer itral/ binds odorants \ ed cell Mitral f cell layer! the receptor External Blexifaxm Pen ayer glomerular Gl tul Proten Kinases Le slaver 4 are no longer Olfactory +. active nerve layer | Cribrifprm ee plate; Olfactory ann epithelium! { f sensory neuron FIGURE 3 The negative feedback loop involving receptors and pro- tein kinases. Note that phospahtases are not included in FIGURE 4 theis loop, but are probably part of the process in a way that An outline of the basic anatomy of the olfac- "has not yet been elucidated. (Based on Boekhoff & Breer, tory system showing the major cess types. 91992). (Efstratiadis, 1995) Senses. In Principles of Neural Science. Kandel, Eric R., Schwartz, James H. and Thomas M. Jessell eds. Appleton GLange. Norwalk, Connecticut. Efstratiadis, Argivis. 1995. A new whiff of monoallelic expression. Current Biology. 5: 21—24. Jones, David T. and Randall R. Reed. 1989. Golt: An olfactory Neuron Specific G Protein Involved in odorant Signal Transduction. Science. 244: 790—795. Lancet, Doron. 1994. Exclusive Receptors. Nature. 372: 321—322. Laurent, Gilles and Hananel Davidowitz. 1994. Encoding of olfactory Information with oscillating Neural Assemblies. Science. 265: 1872—1875. Liu, Mingyao, Chen, Tsung—Yu, Ahamed, Basheer, Li, Jess and King—Wai Yau. 1994. Calcium—Calmodulin Modulation of the olfactory Cyclic Nucleotide—Gated Cation Channel. Science. 266: 1348—1354. Meisami, Esnail. Chemorepection. 1991. In Neural and Integrative Animal Phvsiologv. C. Ladd Prosser Ed. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York. Petty, Howard R. 1993. Molecular Biology of Membranes. Plenum Press. New York. Raming, K., Krieger, J., Strotmann J., Boekhoff, I., Kubick, S., Baumstark, C. and H. Breer. 1993. Cloning and Expression of odorant Receptors. Nature. 361: 353—356. Ressler, Kerry J., Sullivan Susan L. and Linda Buck. 1994. Information Coding in the olfactory System: Evidence for a Stereotyped and Highly organized Epitope Map in the olfactory Bulb. Cell. 79: 1245— 1255. Schleicher, Sabine, Boehoff, Ingrid, Arriza, Jeffrey, Lefkowitz, Robert J. and Heinz Breer. 1993. A Fadrenergic recep- tor kinase—like enzyme is involved in olfactory signal termination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 90: 1420—1424. Vincent, Steven R. and Bruce T. Hope. 1992. Neurons that Say NO. Trends in Neuroscience. 15: 1O8—113. Zufall, Frank and Stuart Firestein. 1993. Divalent Cations Block the Cyclic Nucleotide—Gated Channel of olfactory Receptor Neurons. Journal of Neurophysiology.69: 1758—1767. 12 volutionary —_ psychology focuses on biological results of the conditions and situa- tions that defined our ancestors’ existence. It is a discipline that seeks to explain how human psy- chology is influenced by mecha- nisms that evolved to deal with factors our ancestors faced, and many of which we have out- grown as human life has changed. Furthermore, evolu- tionary psychology is the study of how the brain turns informa- tion into adaptive behavior. The mind is the product of the brain’s information processing mechanisms, which in turn have been naturally selected over time because they made effective sorts of adaptive behavior possi- ble. Evolutionary psychology is the study of the connection between long-term adaptive changes and the psychological mechanisms that contribute to human behavior. Most present-day psychologi- cal mechanisms, according to the tenets of evolutionary psy- chology, began existence as ran- om variations in the psycholog- ical structure of some of our ancestors in the distant past. Natural selection made the mechanisms most beneficial to our ancestors a part of our own genetic makeup. Humans born with certain psychological mechanisms, like humans born with other random attributes, gained certain advantages; indi- viduals endowed with successful psychological mechanisms stood a greater chance of survival and of fruitful procreation than did individuals not so endowed. On average, those who possessed beneficial mechanisms procreat- ed more frequently, took better care of themselves and their kin, were attracted to more fertile mates, and generally behaved in ways that made their genes more likely to survive than did other humans. So the most successful randomly evolved mechanisms were passed on, through the process of natural selection. These cognitive psychological mechanisms have shaped the 2 pe ents J een, O Prof. : Durant o) ean 1995 ABSTRACT This paper is based on the definition and goals of Evolutionary Psychology. The assignment for this particular piece was as follows: How is the concept of nat- ural selection by adaption involved in the creation of cognitive psychological mechanisms? What is your opinion of this enterprise? Support your position with a brief “logical” explanation. ways that we respond to information—organisms that can use informative stimuli to further their own well being will live relatively long and pass their genes on to the next generation, while organisms who cannot will eventually die out and cease to have an impact on the gene pool. So the psychological mechanisms that have survived over time have been those that helped humans process information from their environment to accurately further their biological interests. Of course, the situations and conditions which many such mechanisms evolved to cope with have long ceased to be relevant to human life in general. Since we have developed artificial methods—med- icine, machinery, technology in general—to help us control many of the nat- ural urges and problems for which adaptive cognitive mechanisms were natur- al solutions, the original functions of many such mechanisms have become obsolete. Our artificial developments have also interrupted natural selec- tion—the overall human genetic structure does not change much from gener- ation to generation, since it is no longer true that humans more genetically “fit” tend to pass on their genes more successfully or often than do other humans. The present-day result of our cognitive mechanisms’ evolution is behavior. Evolutionary psychology dictates that human behavior is in fact the collective functioning of the psychological mechanisms that make up the human brain. A wide variety of specialized cognitive mechanisms guide and influence our behavior and response to stimuli from birth onward. The cognitive mecha- nisms with which we are inherently endowed allow us to process information and to extrapolate in certain ways without having to learn how—we have inherent knowledge and inherent common ways of using it to gain further knowledge. Each mechanism evolved in response to a different set of circum- stances, and so each is responsible for a different aspect of the human mind/behavior. Since these mechanisms are common to most modern humans, we have a baseline of common behavior and psychological structure that distinguishes us from other organisms. But the mechanisms manifest themselves differently in each individual—we are endowed with very different minds and personalities even though our brains have similar physical struc- ture. Psychological mechanisms are, theoretically, what give us distinct indi- vidual thought. However, in spite of what evolutionary psychology preaches, I think the concept of psychological mechanisms is unnecessary and perhaps misleading. To think of the brain as a machine composed of many parts that have been “market tested” for effectiveness through natural selection seems like the wrong approach to understanding the specific functions and potential of the human brain. By looking at the brain the way we look at machines, which are themselves man made attempts to duplicate or better what nature does on its own, we limit our view of the brain and the mind. We impose organizational structures we are familiar with, and which are in fact the products of the very organ we are studying rather than products created directly by the natural forces that shaped that organ, on our analysis of the brain. We think perhaps in doing so that we can understand the brain the way we understand a watch or a dishwasher—by dissecting its working parts and studying their individual structures, functions, and origins. But perhaps natural forces did not and do not build everything up from dis- creet, distinguishable parts. Perhaps what we see as “mechanisms” do not exist and do not operate in functional isolation from each other—perhaps the levels and layers of the human brain are connected in ways that the machine model cannot explain to us. We clearly do not understand or know how to use a large percentage of our brain mass; is it possible that a more open-ended model of the brain, one less focused on traditional conceptions of machinery, could help us expand our understanding of the human brain and perhaps even help us expand our mental capacity? I do not at all believe that the theories and concepts involved with evolutionary psychology and the study of cognitive psy- chological mechanisms are irrel- evant in any way to meaningful study of the brain. I simply wonder whether a less rigidly, artificially constrained frame- work in which to evaluate the brain and its evolution might not allow these theories and concepts to be of more use to us. 14 THE ANALYSIS OF CATASTROPHE CAUSATION AA eee Cecilia Tsu Linguistics 40——Semantics Professor Ted Fernald Spring 1995 ABSTRACT This paper examines the linguistic implications of verbs that can be deemed “catastrophe causation” verbs- to *mess up, screw up, and screw over* are such verbs which denote a pressing situation has occurred to the speaker or subject referred to. Through analysis of the lexical semantic vari- ances associated with these verbs, the author will account for the evolution of a newly-invented catastrophe causation verb, *to scrod* and explain why it has become permanent- ly adopted into individuals’ lexicons. he English language contains a multitude of verbs which can be deemed “catastrophe causation” verbs; they are used in expres- sions to connote some pressing predicament has come over the speaker or the subject he or she is referring to. Often these verbs employ a mandato- ty preposition in their usage. This paper will address how three such verbs serve the function of denoting catastrophe causation, primarily through analyzing their lexical semantic vari- ances, truth conditions, and argument structures. The analysis will serve as background for explain- ing what I have termed the “scrod phenomenon,” the prolific evolution of a newly invented, all- encompassing catastrophe causation verb amongst a group of individuals. Finally, a propos- al as to why this new verb has essentially been adopted permanently into the léxicons of the individuals introduced to it will be discussed. The three verbs selected for analysis are mess up, screw up, and screw over. All of these verbs are commonly used to express the causation of some sort of catastrophe or predicament. Each contains a preposition necessary to the respective syntax and semantics of the contextual usage of the verb; the verb taken without the indicated preposition either has a bizarre interpretation, or a mean- ing unrelated to the catastrophe causation function under examination. It should also be noted that these verbs are often interchangeable in everyday conversa- tion, though closer analysis will show that subtle vari- ances prevail, and it is these variances that could possi- bly account for the “scrod phenomenon” which will be later discussed. The verb “mess up” generally describes a state or process of disarray and turmoil occurring, usu- ally (but not necessarily) as the result of some agent. (1) a. Nixon messed up. b. Nixon messed up the country. c. The country was messed up. These example sentences suggest the following argument structures (active and passive construc- tions): mess up: A. Agent <(Theme)> B. As we can see, the truth conditions for “mess up” in active construction require an agent (“mess-upper”), while leaving theme (the “messed up”) syntactically optional. Though not always obvious, the theme is semantically obligatory and entailed in the universe of messing up. In La, for example, there must be something which Nixon exercised the act of messing up upon (the country, politics, his life), even though it does not exist syntactically. No matter how vague, a theme is mandated by semantics in this case, so that when someone speaks of messing up without specifying a theme, it is still understood that he or she is referring to some entity or event. In the passive construction, the theme becomes syntac- tically and semantically obligatory. Recall that according to the passive rule, lexical entries for a transitive verb’s passive counterpart are created by making an argument structure just like it except that the external argument is listed as optional inside the brackets. We know that all components within the brackets cannot be optional, and thus it follows that the theme is obligatory. Also notable is that two meanings can be inferred from the passive con- struction (1c): the speaker, using the adjectival passive, is making a descriptive observation about the state of the theme at a certain point in time, or he is employing the verbal passive and referring to some “messing up” event which took place, perhaps with an agent. The second verb under analysis, “screw up,” essentially follows the patterns of “mess up.” a. I screwed up. b. I screwed up the data. (I screwed the data up.) c. The data were screwed up. The argument structures for this verb coincide with “mess up.” screw up: A. Agent <(Theme)> B. < Theme, (Agent) > Again, in the active construction, a “screw upper” (agent) is required, though a theme is syntactically optional and semantically necessary. When some- one speaks of having “screwed up” without specifying a theme, it is nonetheless entailed; the per- son “screwed up” through __ per- forming an unwise action, saying some- thing carelessly, or generally causing some sort of eventual or perceived cat- astrophe. Such verbs are often used to size up cer- tain situations, sum- marizing them briefly without having to give a detailed account to the lis- tener. The verbs do not give much information as to exactly what catastrophe has occurred, but are functional in denoting that some catastrophe has occurred. In the passive construction, “screw up” only requires a theme, as “mess up” does. The adjectival and verbal pas- sives work as previously described as well. It seems that we could conclude that “mess up” and “screw up” are syntactically and generally semantically interchangeable. Examine the following: (3) a. The Sharks messed up. b. The Sharks screwed up. c. Rick messed up the cake. d. Rick screwed up the cake. e. She messed up the kids/ messed the kids up. f. She screwed up the kids/ screwed the kids up. Semantic variance may lie in the intuitive insight that “screw up” refers to a more specific, more purposive action. If there are variances in meaning between these two verbs, it might be that “mess up” is associated more with carelessness and being foolish than with malicious intent as “screw up” may be. It seems intuitive that Rick “messing up” the cake in 3c can be overlooked because he was just careless about it; perhaps it is his first birthday and he got a little “messy” with it. On the other hand, a verb like “screw up” might more often be used to denote intention or specific (med- itated?) action. Little Rick would normally not be said to have “screwed up” the cake by getting his fingers in it; he instead inno- cently “messed it up”. When the theme refers to people as in 3e and 3f, the same variance can be seen. By being generally negligent and ; careless, she “messed up the kids.” By being purposely sadistic and calculating — she “screwed up the kids.” Again, though the variance in mean- ing is extremely subtle and debat- able, it should be noted. Additionally, we shall observe that the latter verb may not always be an acceptable expression for some speakers of English, who would tend to see it as a more vulgar version of “mess up.” “Screw over,” the third verb in this analysis, follows slightly different patterns. . ...truth. conditions Koy mess up” in active construction require an agent (“mess-upper”), ott (cum (ochvabeleamaetonte (the “messed up”) syn- tactically optional. (4) a. The administration screwed 15 16 b. The administration screwed me over. c. Dad screwed the fresh peas over. d. The people were screwed over. e. The book was screwed over. These example sentences suggest the following argument struc- tures: screw over: A. Agent B. , where Theme is usually an animate human entity. This time we see that along with a required agent in the active construction is a syntactically required theme. We cannot speak of an agent “screwing over” without specifying the “screwed over”— a theme is not entailed in 4a, and the sentence is just not compre- hensible. Besides that, the theme must be of a specified set, the set of animate human entities, as it is often strange for inanimate objects to get “screwed over” by an agent. Although what is hap- pening in 3c might be understood, it is a bizarre reading; Dad could possi- bly have dropped or burned or smashed the “screwing them over.” Even saying he “messed up the fresh peas” (by adding too much salt) or “screwed up the fresh peas” (by leaving them out in the sun) makes mote sense. Similarly, in the passive construction, a theme is obligatory, and must usually be taken from the aforementioned set (3e is bizarre in the same way 3c is). While the people could have been “screwed over” by a bad president, the press, etc., the book could not be acted upon in the same way. This verb intrinsically suggests a manipulative action which can only be accomplished by a think- ing and reasoning individual upon another such individual who could presumably react to this action (a person will not usually put effort into maliciously manipulating fresh peas or books, which can have no observable reaction to being “screwed over”). Even if there is no agent involved, we do not usually describe inanimate objects as having been “screwed over,” in the verbal or adjectival passive. There are some exceptions; for example, “The country was screwed over (by Nixon)” is perfectly legitimate, even though “country” is not an animate individual. It is, however, presumably a collection of them, and therefore an entity which could react and be affected by the catastrophe of being “screwed over” in a way inanimate entities could not. We can now conclude that “mess up” and “screw up” differ from “screw over” in some cases of lexical analysis, argument structure, and truth conditions. Yet all three verbs are often used interchangeably, putting the more unusual circumstances discussed aside. (5) a. His teacher messed him up. (by giving him a bad grade) b. His teacher screwed him up. c. His teacher screwed him over. It seems intuitive that Rick “messing up” the cake in 3c can be overlooked because he was just careless about it; that doonit constnne Perhaps tt 1s has first birthday and he got a little “messy” The sentences above essentially connote the same cat- astrophe causation, with perhaps slight semantic variance. Each version is as likely to be uttered as the next under the same given context. Confusion in deciding which verb to employ may even arise due to this, since the verbs, as demonstrated, are really not identical. How, then, does a speaker choose between the verbs in this group when con- fronted with a situation calling for denotation of catastro- phe causation, given that such overlaps and confusion exist? Put another way, since the variances in meaning for these verbs are significant yet slight, would it thereby be advantageous to bypass this family in favor of some verb which does not produce such overlaps? This brings the discussion to the “scrod phenomenon,” the permanent adaptation of a newly invented catastrophe causation verb in the lexicon of many individuals intro- duced to it, something I have witnessed first-hand. The scientific extent of this phenomenon can- not be precisely tabu- lated, but I estimate that 10-12 students on campus __ (including myself), and an addi- tional 20 individuals associated with these students (family, § 2 friends, etc.) are part with tt. of it, meaning that they engage in proper everyday usage of the verb “scrod.” It all started with a paragraph I found highly fascinating in The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker: In Boston there is an old joke about a woman who landed at Logan Airport and asked the taxi driver, “Can you take me someplace where I can get scrod?” He replied, “Gee, that’s the first time I’ve heard it in the pluperfect subjunc- tive? I proceeded to share this linguistics joke with several of my friends early last year. Being from out west, they had initial difficulties deciphering why the joke was funny, though after I explained that “scrod” was a seafood spe- cialty in Boston, they decided it was at least somewhat amusing. Thereafter, we somehow discarded the lewd con- notation of the word (addressing that issue would likely result in another paper), and began using “scrod” almost purely as a catastrophe causation verb. Some versatile usages of “scrod”: (6) a. You scrod my shirt. (by spilling paint on it) b. The cops scrod me. (by giving me a speeding ticket) c. I was scrod (by the cops). d. That movie was scrod. (it was poorly. made) When I came to college in the fall, I told the joke again, and actually encountered individuals who comprehended it the first time around. The same phenomenon occurred, on an even larger scale: friends began to regularly use “sctod” to connote catastrophe causation; these individuals in turn told their family and friends, who also adopted the verb. As of now, people have repeatedly told me that they do not know what they would say in certain situa- tions without the verb “scrod.” I have even witnessed someone inadvertently use it with a salesclerk while purchasing shoes (“Um, I can’t take this pair; look, they're scrod.”). From a linguistic standpoint, | find this truly intriguing, a real “phenomenon,” because the permanent incorporation of a basi- cally made-up term into the lexicons of a diverse group of individ- uals is certainly not a common event. Nevertheless, it is something [have attempted to account for in analysis with the following pro- posal: The verb “scrod” essentially encompasses all aspects of cata- strophe causation, combining them into one verb which can be used with both versatility and ease. For this reason, it is quickly and smoothly incorporated into the lexicons of individuals soon after they are introduced to the term. First, “scrod” addresses the problem of the multiple overlaps in meaning among the three catastrophe causation verbs examined by integrating those meanings into one verb. The semantic vari- ances of “mess up,” “screw up,” and “screw over” are successfully combined by “scrod.” scrod: A. Agent B. It appears that “scrod” follows the same argument structure as “Screw over,” with one major difference: “scrod” does not require a specified theme. Something that is “scrod” does not need to be an animate human entity as necessitated by “screw over,” just as any- thing that is “messed up” or “screwed up” does not have that requirement. “Sctod” does not discriminate against themes, a def inite asset for many speakers, since it would not be necessary to go through one’s mental lexicon checking what verb could be used with what theme. In addition, no longer is a distinction made between what is entailed by “messing up” and “screwing up.” Recall that earlier I pointed out the former referred to a careless, unplanned action, while the latter denoted a more specified, inten- tional one. With “scrod,” this variance no longer exists, and in fact, both readings are entailed for 3c and 3d, and 3e and 3f. It may be a question for psycholinguistics, but for some reason, this reduction of “mess up” and “screw up” to “scrod,” which would presumably limit what can be connoted by language, does not seem to bother anyone | have encountered. No matter what the situation, a per- son introduced to “scrod” will use that verb and no other, and be satisfied with the reading produced. It can be concluded that “scrod” is an extremely flexible verb, which often makes it ideal in expressing catastrophe causation, more so than the three verbs pre- viously discussed. As mentioned, these catastrophe causation verbs are mostly functional in simply denoting that a predicament has materialized—speakers are not as interested in connoting exactly what happened or how. Versatility and the capability to denote a wide range of catastrophe causation is a true asset in this family of verbs. Another feature of “scrod” is its “user-friendliness’—the ease with which it can be learned and employed in everyday English. We already noted how its nondiscriminatory semantic nature makes for an ideal catastrophe causation verb. By not requiring a preposition as the three verbs examined do, “scrod” allows for more ease and simplicity in usage; an invented verb requiring some preposition may not be as readily incorporated by speakers. Perhaps it can even be said that “scrod” transmits the same amount of information as the other verbs, but with more efficiency due to the lack of preposition. Also, using “sctod” eliminates the problem of verb splitting to accommodate a direct object, which is only a problem in compound verbs containing prepositions. Because it bypasses some of the obstacles encountered in using catastrophe causation verbs, “scrod” has found a permanent place in the lexicons of individuals exposed to it. The verb is essentially a more versatile, more “user-friendly” version of “mess up,” “screw up,” and “screw over.” Our lives being what they are, there are many instances in which speakers would employ verbs of catastro- phe causation in a non-obscene manner (expletives-not the gram- matical structure kind-were purposely not included in this exer- cise), and an ideal such verb should definitely be generally incor- porating as well as simple to use. Thus, the “scrod phenomenon” can be accounted for through examining why it is advantageous to use this verb instead of the commonly employed ones already in the English language. Perhaps “scrod” is the epitome of a catastro- phe causation verb, one that encompasses all features which best depict catastrophe. Notes 'This is equivalent to “Nixon messed the country up.” The splitting of the verb in the presence of a direct object is often done in English. I am assuming this arises due to dialect differences and varying ideas of sentence fluency. 2Note that in this case, the verb must be split to accommodate the direct object. “The administration screwed over me” would be awkward in most dialects of English. 3Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. William Morrow and Co., Inc.: New York, 1994. p. 140. 17 18 Great - ) ABSTRACT The current king, Besalumuel, had caught The following paper was written for the % , lay a fish measured at 75 meters long. When he Character of Physical Law on the topic of 1S accomplished this feat, people were certain relativity. The author let his sordid imagi- that he could never be challenged until his nation go to work and came up with the death, for clearly no one could catch a fish following product. longer than 75 meters. And so Besalumuel nce upon a time, there existed the tuled his kingdom securely, confident that he thickest wood ever known to would do so for the rest of his life. He was a humankind. People believed that fair king, treating everyone justly. But many no human being could ever live in this people felt he was unexciting. His parties wood, as the trees let little light in, and never matched those of his predecessor, as Fiasco surly there were vicious beasts waiting Josh Silver he did not have much of a taste for music inside to attack. But if some one should Pe and dancing. His feasts also lacked, for he happen to try to penetrate this great wood, VS ASO es was a vegetarian, which was unheard of in and should do so successfully, they would The Fillovia. The Fillovians craved meat, but find, in the center of this dense forest, the Character of never received it at the royal banquets. So loveliest, most beautiful kingdom that ever heat the citizens were sorry that the mark of 75 existed. The name of this kingdom was Eee eee meters was impossible to pass, and knew Fillovia. Prof. Doc they would have to wait until Besalumuel’s Surrounded by the clearest, bluest river J Brown death before they could again have real fun. in the land, Fillovia was a town which eed One day a group of men were fishing in rarely saw conflict. Fillovians lived happy 7 the river. Amongst them was Gelahel, a and carefree lives, worrying not of politics or young man greatly respected by the citizens. the worlds affairs. Theirs was a simple king- All the kingdom knew him to be a good dom, full of simple pleasures: kids chasing man, honest and true, who also knew how to chickens in the dirt streets, dances every have a really good time. His parties were the night, grand feasts for all the kingdom. best in the kingdom, and no one served bet- Indeed, no Fillovian concerned himself with ter steak at their banquets. It also happened anything more than a good dinner or a cheer- that Gelahel was an excellent runner, able to ful tune. run near the speed of light. His physical skills Nonetheless Fillovia was ruled by a king. and amiable personality made him the most Like his subjects, this king dealt with only the popular Fillovian in the kingdom. simple joys of life. And so, unlike in other And so fortune must have been shining on kingdoms where a king’s claim to the throne Fillovia this day, because their favorite citizen might be determined by a family line or politi- was about to receive a stroke of luck. As Gelahel cal credentials, the Fillovians picked their king sat on the bank of his river with his line drifting in a much more unique fashion. You see, as a about the water, he suddenly received a jolt beautiful river filled with the biggest fish ever unlike any he’d felt before. He was pulled 5 meters recorded surrounded the kingdom, fishing was the towards the river, and surely would have been most popular Fillovian pastime. And so, ascent to dragged straight into the water had he not crashed the throne was decided based on fishing: whoever into a tree, which stopped him. Now Gelahel was caught the biggest fish recorded had claim to the never one to give up a fishing duel, though clearly Fillovian throne. this he’d never met a beast like this one. So, bracing against the tree, Gelahel regained his balance and began pulling with all his might. The monster began swimming away, and Gelahel let the reel go, until it reached the end. Gelahel held on tight, and began pulling on the rod. The fish yanked furiously, but was unable to gain any more ground. Slowly Gelahel began to win the struggle, tugging the beast towards him. However, he was using all his strength, and becoming increasingly tired. The fish began pulling him towards the water again. Coming closer to a watery grave, Gelahel had to act fast. Now remember, Gelahel was a champion runner, with the strongest legs in all the land. Turning around, Gelahel began running away from the shore. He used every inch of leg muscle he had to pull himself back to land and the fish out of water. Slowly he built up momentum and began to move. He pulled the fish backwards. For what seemed like forever, Gelahel pulled and tugged, until with one last step he pulled the mighty beast out of the river and onto dry land. However, the fish began to hop around furiously, des- perately trying to get into the water. Gelahel tied the wire to a tree, giving the beast no slack. The fish flopped until his last breath of air, and lay dead, having lost a mighty battle. Gelahel, exhausted from the struggle, looked at his prey from afar. Never before had he seen such a glorious fish. It lay on the shore a good 100 meters long. He had never seen a taller fish, this one being at least thrice Gelahel’s height. Gelahel walked around the fallen monster. Was it true? Had Gelahel really caught this fish? He pulled out his tape measure and found out, sure enough, that the fish was 100 meters long. That meant Gelahel was the new king!! All his friends verified that the fish was 100 meters long and bowed to him, saying, “Long live King Gelahel!” The custom was, that when the fish had been captured, the new king must then take the fish and run with it all over the kingdom to show that indeed he had the right to the throne. Running was Gelahel’s forte, and so he got beneath the beast, and with all his strength lifted it from the earth and over his head. Then he ran, starting slower than he was used to because of the increased weight. Slowly he accelerated, till he was traveling at about .8 of the speed of light. Thus he headed to the kingdom to dis- play his prize. All was normal in Fillovia. People were walking in the streets, tending their farms, washing their clothes, doing chores, and going about their lives. Then from the hills came a mighty sight, a blur of a figure (all knew it to be Gelahel, for only he could run so fast), carrying a huge load on his back. He whizzed through the streets, by every house and store. He ran past all the citizens who were out, and straight to the palace. the king stood out in the court- yard . He had seen Gelahel coming from far away and wanted to time just how he could run. He knew that Gelahel was the favorite of the town, and so wanted to find a way to disgrace the runner. He’d heard Gelahel brag that he could run from the borders of the kingdom to the palace in 3 Fillovian clicks. The king never believed it, and wanted to see for himself. So, when he saw Gelahel come from the border, he started his clock. 5 Fillovian clicks later the runner arrived at the palace, and ran by. As he ran the king saw that he was carrying a large fish, and heard people behind shout, “Hail, King Gelahel, defender of Fillovia!” “What?!” screamed Besalumuel. “Stop that! I am king, not him!” “Can't you see,” said one of Gelahel’s followers,” that he has caught the biggest fish ever? We saw it and mea- sured it. The fish is 100 meters long.” “No it’s not!” retorted Besalumuel. “I saw it go by, and it was clearly no bigger than 50 meters long. My fish was 75 meters, so I am still king.” At this point Gelahel came back, after leaving his prize in the royal fish vault, to assume the crown. “Besalumuel, 1 am king now. I caught a fish 100 meters long.” “T saw the fish,” replied the king,” and it was only 50 meters long. What’s more Gelahel, you have claimed that you can run from the outskirts of the kingdom to the palace in 3 clicks. I clocked you, and it took you 5 clicks, see,” and he showed him the timer. “Clearly your timer is broken, Besalumuel,’ responded the runner. “I always wear my timer, and I started it at the outskirts, and here, it shows 3 clicks.” “Gelahel, I am the king, I have caught a fish 75 meters long. Do you doubt my intellect? Clearly you are a liar. You are trying to usurp my throne, with lies about a 100 meter fish, and you question me saying you run at 3 clicks. Guards, take him away!” Some of the king’s guards began to move forward, but the citizens stepped in the way. “You shall not take him. He is the king. We measured the fish, and it was 100 meters long.” “Guards, take them all away!” shouted the king. It seemed as though a great battle was going to break out, and perhaps it would have been the downfall for blessed Fillovia. Now, fortunate for all, a young lad by the name of Dan stepped out from the crowd. He was known for being a very bright boy, having studied many things which most Fillovians did not understand. “If it please your majesty, I think I understand what is going on here,” said Dan. Besalumuel had always been very fond of Dan, as he was the only Fillovian who seemed to truly enjoy the king’s parties, and he was also a vegetarian. “What do you mean, Dan?” said the king. “What is there to explain?” “Well, your majesty,” began the boy, “It is actually very simple why this misunderstanding has occurred. If ] may be permitted, I would like to explain it to you.” “Okay, Dan, but then I will have these people dealt with,” Besalumuel answered. “After I have spoke, you do what you see fit, your Majesty.” With that, Dan walked to the center of the group and pulled out a small chalk board. “Now, it is well known,” began the boy, “ that Gelahel can run at .8 the speed of light. Do you agree with that your majesty?” “Yes, I do,” he said. “I have myself measured it as such.” “Very well,” continued Dan. “Here | will draw a space- time diagram,” and he started drawing on his chalk board. “Here is the light line, which has a slope of 1. Here is Gelahel’s world line, with a slope of .8, since his velocity is .8 the speed of light. Does everyone agree so far?” “T agree,” said the king. “As do I,” added Gelahel. “Okay. Now, your Majesty, this is your world line, as you are at rest. Your line moves straight up with time. Now, you clocked Gelahel at 5 clicks, so we will mark 5 on the time axis. Now, pay attention carefully. We will call the ratio of Gelahel’s speed to the speed of light B. So he got beneath the There is another beast, and with all his quantity, strength lifted it from which we will the earth call" ay, Now, y_ will show us two things. One, Y is the ratio at which your time, your Majesty, moves in relation to Gelahel’s. y also represents what we call the stretch factor. You see, your Majesty, you and Gelahel are in different frames when he is running. You do not see the fish at its normal length, but shorter than it actually is. You will see the fish at its length divided by y. At the same time, because Gelahel is moving so fast compared to you, time appears to move slower for him than for you . That explains why the clocks show dif- ferent times. Does everyone see that on the diagram?” “I can see what you have drawn, Dan,” said the king, “and I do not wish to doubt you, but I still don’t believe that this liar is telling the truth.” “Tam no liar!” shouted Gelahel. “Please, let me finish,” said Dan. “Your Majesty, I will show you through math why this diagram is true. We have yet to find y. Now, it is well known that ‘is equal to 1 divided by the square root of 1- (B’). In this case, B is 8, or 4/5. Therefore, 1-(B°) is 9/25, the square root of which is 3/5. 1 divided by 3/5 is 5/3. Therefore, your time, Besalumuel, moves at 5/3 Gelahel’s time. And so, when 1 click passes for him, 1.67 clicks has passed for you. When 2 clicks have passed for him, 3.33 clicks have passed for you. When 3 clicks have passed for Gelahel, 5 clicks have passed for you. Therefore your clock reads 5 clicks while his reads 3. Do you understand” “I do,” said Besalumuel reluctantly. “Now, remember that 7 is also the stretch factor, which means that you see the fish at its actual length divided by 1.66. Could we bring the fish and have it measured?” “Very well,” said Besalumuel, and he ordered the guards to fetch it. When they returned, Dan measured the fish with his tape mea- sure, “100 meters,” he reported. “Now, 100 meters divided by 1.66 is 60 meters. So, your majesty, you saw the fish at 60 meters, but it is indeed 100 meters long.” With that, Besalumuel said, “Dan, you have shown me that I was wrong. Gelahel, | am sorry that I questioned you. Indeed, you were right to state your time at 3 clicks, just as I was right. You also did catch a fish of 100 meters long. And so, I hand over the crown to you, King Gelahel.” Besalumuel crowned Gelahel to the cheers of all the citizens. Dan was named a Knight. Fillovia once again became a happen- ing place, with the best parties in all the world. And at the ban- quets, where meat was eaten again, Gelahel always made sure that there were vegetarian dishes for Besalumuel and Dan. e motivation behind Noman Cousins’ writing of Anatomy of an Illness was a desire to present a rare truth about out human condition, a truth that others might not receive considering the present- day attitude of the chemical and technology oriented medical sys- tem. Sickness taught him that the regenerative power of healing comes from within rather than from without. The capacity of the human mind and body is often limited by the boundaries set by modern science: only that which can be empirically proven is truth, mysticism is antediluvian quack- ery. Caught in the self-limiting circle of their own intellect, most lead narrow lives of quiet despera- tion, never knowing what won- ders lie within the confines of their skin. “It is possible that these limits will recede when we respect more fully the natural drive of the human mind and body toward perfectibility and regenera- tion”(48). This natural drive is one of the most elusive and mys- terious powers there are; no one can predict its outcome be it physician or plumber. This truth is the great equalizer between the doctor and the patient, something that the former is slow to admit, and the latter might benefit from. This book is a testimony of Cousins’ personal encounter with the natural drive, the contents of which will hopefully serve to expand the limits of our minds. Perhaps the single greatest point of this book is that the key to combating sickness and disease is found in the patient’s will to live and the effect this mental strength has on the physical. The concept ‘of the sick body as a human being afflicted by a disease rather than a disease housed in a random body is a renewal of an old concept shoved aside by the Age of Enlightenment. During this period of iconoclastic decon- struction and rebirth, changes in religious attitudes towards dissec- tion allowed doctors to physically probe into bodies. The critical gaze of the medical field narrowed in on the disease, away from its ‘Wie oe habitat, the body. Therefore,in the new order of the gaze, the many observations of a sick patient were marked as a series in a blueprint of a pathology that could be reproduced in any other patient suffering the same symptoms (Michel Foucault, Birth of the Clinic). This is exactly the opposite of Cousins’ argument. Disease does not float in the carbon cycle, waiting to pounce on any random individual(s). Everyone’s uniqueness causes him or her to experience sickness differently. Because of individuality, disease comes to us and leaves us in unique and different ways depending on our constitutions. Cousins uses his own illness with a breakdown of events that occurred before the actual succumbing to ankylosing spondylitis to prove this point. How many others would have experienced the plane exhaust, the fatigue of an inter- national conference, and the poorly venti- lated Russian accommodations in the same way as to contract the very same disease in a body similar to Cousins’? It is a general American trait to be egocentric and think of oneself as distinct and special in our composition. A group of sufferers from the same condition would probably comprise a motley crew of personalities and life styles; the wise doctor recognizes the importance of selfhood and helps the patient utilize it in beneficial therapy. Self definition leads 21 Ze to self-reliance which leads to self-respect which fosters a liking of oneself, hence a desire to live. “Recovery depends on the mobilization of the patient's mechanism of resistance”(16). Mobilization comes from three sources: the patient’s willingness to take an active rather than passive role in combating his malady, a doctor’s sensitivity to the patient's self—interest, and a trusting communication chan- nel between the two. All of the aforementioned items appear to incorporate and coddle the mind rather than the body. This is as it should be, for Cousins believes in an inevitable link between mind/emotions and body/health. If endorphins are released when hugging and cuddling (as I read in an article sev- eral months ago), and these hormones are supposed to have a soothing effect on our senses, then would it not be reasonable to suggest that an isolated and alienated patient’s anxiety over a negative condition would inhibit their endorphin release thereby increasing stress, pain, and a lowered immune system? This is the cost of negative emo- tions. “Creativity, the will to live, hope, faith, and love have biochemical significance and contribute strongly to healing and to well-being. The positive emotions are life-giving experi- ences”(86). The doctor can make or break a sick patient’s confidence, a scary thought in the present state of medicine. The book declares that the med- ical profession has become too authoritarian, the role of healer too mystified. Technological advances is the principle factor in the stratification of the doc- tor-patient relationship. Gadgets condense time, short- ening the interaction with the physician and increasing the laying on of machines; “technol- ogy pushes the patient away from the physician’(135). It decreases the attentiveness required of the healer and replaces it with impersonal mechanized devices that evaluate the value and worth of the subject. This is not a forum for positive emotional support. Patients need dialogue, human contact, and warmth. The wise doctor is not condescending but treats the patient as an equal partner in the fight against sickness. The wise doctor engages and directs the patient’s positive emotions rather than scroung- ing for empirical evidence. The healer’s greatest role is to encourage the body’s mental and physical natural resources to conquer disease. ‘The will to live is not a theoretical abstrac- tion, but a physiological reality with therapeutic characteris- tics’(44). Doctors do not have a monopoly in the life-giving and tak- ing process. Every decision one makes about the maintenance of one’s life is factored into the equation of one’s existence. This attitude requires a long term perspective rather than a short one, difficult to do in our instant-food, instant-gratification, existential culture. Speed and quantity is valued more than! quality and perfection. This results in both physical and psy- chological constipation: “our experiences come at us in such’ profusion and from so many different directions that they are never really sorted out, much less absorbed. The result is clutter and confusion. We gorge the senses and starve the sensibili- ties”(65). This described life is not so different from the ones that are often led here within the hallowed halls of our beloved institution. Some joke proudly about the caffeine consumption that will most probably take off five years from the end of their lives; the caffeine consump- tion is directly proportional to the amount of blood, sweat, and X tears shed for this paper, that exam. We succumb to viruses en masse, eat horrible food in vast quantities, have nervous breakdowns, conduct nasty, brutish, and short love affairs in search of our identities, break a few hearts to pad our battered egos, communicate via tiny messages through impersonal computers, and drug ourselves with numbing alcohol at social events so as to hide our insecurities and absolve ourselves of anything stupid we may doe When | posited this seeming mass suicide to another student, he replied, “Hey, we’re only human.” Could this be true? Was The Terminator correct when he said oh-so-adroitly, “Tt’s in your nature to destroy yourselves?” Doctors are members of the human race as well; do they deliberately go against human nature to save the anonymous victims? Do we unwitting trot, lem- ming-like, to them for a quicker, more sophisticated means of death (pills, diets, tests, drugs, etc.)? We would be the foolish ones, paying for our own executioner. overcoming my initial dismay, I found my notes from the section on Pablo Casals in which he says, “Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is, giv- ing a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not com- plicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a man to lis ten to his own goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be out- selves?”(79). If one understands the body’s natural tendency to heal itself without synthetic prodding, then one will also under- stand the importance of listening to the true human within, devoid of peer pressure, fear, panic, and stress. It is amazing how much people appreciate an opportunity to speak freely of how a it : Fs : : Os) oa} STM {7} eae at Sd A OO) ty} they truly feel about their lives. Without seeming too presumptuous, I’d like to say that I’ve taken to heart what Cousins says about the patient apprecia- tion for doctors who will carry on a dialogue with them. This therapeutic effect of speech I’ve applied to people I care about; I consciously try to set a tone to my voice that will encourage them to open themselves up, laugh, scream, and cry. I watch their physical movements as well as my own; | try to find their sphere of “personal space” and maintain it. My women friends and I have developed a habit of kissing and hugging each other hello and good-bye. We say “I love your in several dif- ferent languages during the course of a conversation. The result is a wonderful reciprocity that is a reaffirmation of our identities. I don’t believe I’ve ever sustained my independent self in an extended state of happiness before. Why should we have to suffer to get our just reward? The goal of becoming a good human being is a quest for perfection, the joy of which is found in the trials of questing, the testing of one’s moral forti- tude. Being kind to oneself and to others is not suffering. The more people I speak to about this, the better I understand it myself. The most monumental effect this text had on me occurred after I read the chapter on Casals. The conclusion | will presently explain came to me as I was lying on the floor two weeks ago, reading this book. one of the reasons | want to become a doctor is to gain a better knowledge of this body of mine that sees to give me such grief. It was my ambition to become a concert violinist since I was five years old. From then to age seventeen, my life was drenched music. Some of it was my own doing, some was my parents who dedicated most of their time driving me about, buying instruments paying for lessons, and scheduling concerts. They never let me forget how proud they were of me, how much they invested in me, and how it was my duty as a dutiful daughter to show my appreciation by winning many competitions. It was a real love-hate relationship that escalated into something of a war when I was sent to The Juilliard School for the duration of high school. Called The Jail Yard and other clever names, | was introduced into a fierce battle zone where I am convinced the strength of my ego and pride kept me from killing myself in shame. Maintaining a level of excellence was difficult; meet- ing the expectations of famous teachers and loving parents was even harder. Music became a chore and an obligation. | recall that for every single performance I gave between ages fourteen and seventeen I was physically ill. Two weeks before each con- cert I’d catch a cold; I always carried a bottle of Afrin Nasal Spray in my violin case. In the summers, the students of my teacher went to a sum- mer music festival in Aspen. The summer before my senior year I was scheduled to enter a competition for the Prokofiev Violin Concerto; my father said I must win, my teacher said I most likely wouldn’t win but it would be a good experience. Between the nervousness and the stress of practicing seven hours a day, I came down with a whopping case of tendinitis and couldn’t practice for half of the summer. The same thing happened the following spring when I had college auditions, recitals, and another competition that everyone expected me to win. I passed the auditions and lost the competition. I was so discouraged I quit playing for a month and then gave the performance of my life on the night I was asked to the senior prom. It is amusing to me that I didn’t make the connection of my own ebullience with the success of that night until years later. For the past four years I’ve just assumed that my muscles are weaker than most people’s and it was just never meant to be. But the interesting relationship of cause and effect that both Dr. Siegel and N. Cousins speak of caused me to question my judgment. With time and distance from those strange and wonderful years, I find it not entirely unreasonable to con- clude that I made myself get tendinitis. Can I say it again? I took refuge in sickness. With tendinitis I had the injury of the studious student: I practiced too much. I took being a good stu- dent a step further. I would not disappoint my teacher or my parents because the injury would be seen as beyond my con- trol. I avoided their expectations without losing their love or their respect. In the meantime I could get some stability into my life; practice time could be spent on other things like try- ing to graduate from high school. After making this recent connection, it is inexplicable how the role of music has changed for me, seemingly overnight. I am not as frustrated with myself for being so weak. Playing is less like fighting and (incredibly enough) more like breathing; I am almost in a different state when I play. It fills out my day and clears my mind, it makes me much happier rather than meaner. I believe discovering this in my past has set me on the path of curing myself, something that sports therapists, mas- sage therapists, and acupuncturists could not do. At times of stress when I try to force myself to play, just opening the case up is enough to make my arm twitch and ache! I’ve tried telling this to my music friends and they think it’s merde : the vitamins I’ve begun taking and this course, they are just a placebo they say. Maybe so, but people in this class take me seriously, and I believe it myself. So the internal doctor must be doing something right. 23 RESPONDING TO Re Oe Peres es ee (gore Reet ISAAC YUE ow D ABSTRACT Throughout history, theologians have struggled to understand why God permits widespread human suffering. The following investigation, written during the fall of 1995 as part of the Comprehensive Examination in Religion explores the work of two Jewish theologians: Emil Fackenheim and Isaac Luria, who dedicated themselves to this very issue. The author of the paper, a Religion major, offers his own perspective on this theological dilemma and reflects upon his identity as a modern Reform Jew. There is really only one question for the Jewish theologian to ponder when contemplating the relation- ship between God and the Jews: How are Jews to maintain faith in a God whose presence is so difficult to discern? Indeed, countless thinkers throughout history have contem- plated this very question, which I refer to as “the Jewish dilemma.” While no answer to the question has withstood the test of time, several answers have temporarily satisfied the Jews of particular generations. In this paper, I will compare two o these temporarily _ satisfactory answers and will conclude with my own response to the Jewish dilem- ma. TIKKUN AO NIY FACKENHEIM OLAM Let us begin by asking ourselves when the need for an answer to the Jewish dilemma is most urgent. I propose that during or after periods of widespread suffering Jews often begin to wonder why God does not or did not intervene in order to save them. Such periods confound Jews and force them to reevaluate their relationship with God. To use Emil Fackenheim’s language, we might say that these periods are “disorienting” and constitute a “rupture” in our ordinary way of thinking about God (Roth and Rubenstein, Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy, 319, 326). Typically, Jews reorient themselves by respond- ing to God’s failure to intervene, or what we might refer to as God's “silence,” in one of three ways. Many Jews, such as Richard Rubenstein, conclude that the personal God of the Hebrew bible is dead. Others insist that the God of the bible is still alive, and understand the silence as a test by which God gauges the faith o the Jews. There are still others who believe that through silence, God punishes Jewish transgressors who have been unfaithful. Isaac Luria, the leading Kabbalist of the sixteenth century, was an unusual Jewish thinker in that he responded to the “rupture” of his generation - the Exile of the Jews from Spain in 1492 - ina completely novel manner. He explained that the event repre- sented a rupture in the actual body of God and called upon Jews to attempt to heal that rupture in order to restore God’s unity. For Luria, the Exile represented a challenge to the Jews. Not only were they to retain faith in the historical God of the bible, but, as God’s chosen people, they were commanded to help restore God through the process which he referred to as Tikkun Olam - “mending the world.” With this brief overview in mind, let us attempt to place Luria’s response to the Jewish dilemma within its historical con- text. The exile of the Jews from Spain was a major catastrophe which, according to Gershom Scholem, affected “every sphere o Jewish life and feeling” (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 244). Rendered homeless after almost a hundred years of persecution, the Jews of Spain understandably began to question their rela- tionship with God. Some of those who maintained faith in God believed the Exile marked the beginning of the Messianic era. Subsequently, they began to prepare themselves for the upcoming final apocalyptic struggle (Scholem 247-8). Others were deeply discouraged by the Exile and began to doubt much of the rational, classical Jewish thought which attempted to make sense of prior Jewish suffering (Scholem 249). In short, the Exile constituted a major rupture within Spanish Jewish theology. More than ever, Jewish life in peer hete Diaspora seemed full of “para- (Scholem 249). Pious Jews, who faithfully obeyed the laws of the ortah. could not understand appeared “Self-contradictory,” “fragmentary” and “unredeemed” (Scholem 249). Of course, many Jews had felt this way for hundreds of years, but the Exile from Spain intensified these emotions and forced Jews to confront what has always been a painful dilemma, name- ly, “How are we to maintain faith in a God who could allow this to happen to us?” In a way, the Exile was a fortuitous event, for it inspired a tremendous amount of Jewish thought. In particu- lar, it caused Jewish Kabbalists, or mys- tics, to rethink their conception of the relationship between humans and God. This rethinking resulted in a vision which, unlike that of earlier Kabbalists, appealed to a large number of Jews. Prior to the expulsion, Jewish mystics were generally elites who were primarily concerned with cosmogony and theogony. According to Gershom Scholem, they were also less con- cerned with universal, or Messianic, redemption than with their own per- sonal salvations (245). By retracing the steps by which God created the uni- verse, these mystics believed they could commune with God and find individual redemption. After the Exile, many Kabbalists became increasingly concerned with the final stages of the cosmogonic process, for the Exile appeared to mark the beginning of the end of time. In this sense, the Exile was interpreted as a pre-Messianic event. Many Kabbalists for the first time began to ponder the notion of universal salva- tion and began to incorporate many of the popular Messianic beliefs of the era into their own religious visions. Scholem notes that the Exile prompt- ed a blending of “the apocalyptic and Messianic elements of Judaism with the traditional aspects of Judaism” (246). This blending resulted in a reli- gious world view which made sense to many Jews, Kabbalists and non- Kabbalists alike. Isaac Luria is today considered the “outstanding representative of later Kabbalism” (Scholem 253). While a detailed bibliographical sketch is beyond the confines of the current investigation, it will suffice to mention that Luria was born in Safed, a town in Upper Galilee, in 1534 and therefore did not experience the Expulsion from Spain himself. Nevertheless, the com- munity of which he was a part consist- ed primarily of Jewish Spanish immi- grants. Therefore, the Exile had to have been very much part of Luria’s historical context. By the time Luria died in 1572, Safed had become the center of the later Kabbalah move- _ ment, and , Luria was one of its undisput- ed leaders. Luria did not necessarily create these concepts himself, he developed them to such an extent that they were forev- er changed by him. Together, these three concepts renewed faith in God and chartered a new direction for Jews to pursue. By following this direction, Jews could actively help bring about the Messiah, thereby ending their peri- od of exile which, according to mystics, began not with the Expulsion from Spain, but with the mythical exile o Adam and Eve from the Garden o Eden. Thus, the new Kabbalism offered Jews an unprecedented oppor- tunity to enter into a state of commu- nion with God which had not been achieved since the beginning of time. Central to Luria’s vision was the notion of exile. To Luria, the exile from Spain was not only historically significant, but theosophically signifi- cant as well in that it symbolized exile 26 within the actual body of God. According to the Kabbalists, creation did not begin with revelation or the expansion of God. Rather, creation began when God withdrew, or contracted, within God’s self. This process of con- traction is what Luria referred to as Tsimtsum. Scholem comments that “the idea of Tsimtsum is the deepest symbol of Exile that could be thought of? (261). For Luria, Tsimtsum was a necessary cosmogonic event in that it initiated the process of creation, yet it was also cosmologically significant. Through the process of retraction, God imposed limits and set boundaries and in doing so established a natural order, which Scholem refers to as a “correct determination of things” (263). Following the contrac tion, God emitted a ray of light into the “primeval space of the Tsimtsum” which set the process of creation in motion (Scholem 263, 265). The specific details of this process are too complex to relate here, but it must be noted that this light was so intense that it shattered the bowls, or vessels, which were created by God for the purpose of sheltering that light (Scholem 266). The Breaking of the Vessels, according to Scholem, teleased “the whole com- plexity of the cosmologi- cal drama” and deter- mined “man’s [sic] place in it” (266). Furthermore, this cosmological rupture identified “the cause of that inner deficiency which is inherent in everything that exists and which persists as long as the damage is not mend- ed” (Scholem 268). Finally, the Breaking of the Vessels was a crucial soterio- logical development in that it established a goal for humans to pursue: restora- tion of the ideal, primordial order, or what we might refer to as “restitution, reintegra- tion of the original whole” (Scholem 268). For Kabbalists such as Luria, the restoration of ideal order was the secret purpose of life, the process by which Jews could achieve salvation and return from spiritual exile. I have been altogether too brief concerning Luria’s bril- liant and complex notions of Tsimtsum and the Breaking of the Vessels not because they are unimportant, but because I wish to focus pri- marily upon the notion of Tikkun, which I consider most relevant to the present discussion. — Luria’s_ basic premise was that Jews were to mend the rupture within God by gathering the frag- ments of the vessels which were shattered during the process of creation. This process of Tikkun would not only restore God’s original unity, but would return all things from a state of exile to their normal state of order (Scholem 280). Furthermore, a Jew who completed the process of Tikkun would restore the unity of his or her own “spir- itual structure” which had been fractured by the fall of Adam (Scholem 278-9). In this sense, the process of Tikkun was polyvalent, for it functioned on a number of different levels. With the notion of Tikkun, Luria emphasized that his was a practical theos- ophy, as opposed to a merely theoretical one. Scholem writes that for Luria the notion of exile was not mere- ly a metaphor, but “a genuine symbol of the ‘broken’ state of things in the realm of divine potentialities” (275). Exile as a type of mission (Scholem 284). Scholem notes that this notion of mission appealed not only to those Jews who had been exiled from Spain, but to all Jews who lived in the Diaspora. In short, Luria’ Tikkun-based mystical interpre- tation of Exile and Redemption “gave expression to a world of religious reality common to the whole people” (Scholem 286). Luria’s notion of Tikkun eventually failed to bring about universal, Messianic redemp- tion, yet it succeeded by serving Zh a more immediate need: healing the rupture of the Exile which threatened to forever sepatate Jews from God. Tikkun helped restore Jewish faith in God and inspired Jews to lead religious lives in the Diaspora. In this sense, it renewed the biblical relationship between God and the Jews. The effects of this renewal had such a dramatic impact upon Jewry that the notion of Tikkun was preserved long after the Exile from Spain had become a faint memory for most Jews. While the horror of the Spanish Exile cannot be mini- mized, the horror of the Holocaust in the twentieth cen- tury trivializes all prior Jewish suffering by comparison. By any account, the Holocaust is the watershed event in the history of post-biblical Jewry in that it poses the greatest threat ever to the classical Jewish conception of the relationship between Jews and God. Quite simply, the Holocaust “appears to call the very existence of God into seti- ous doubt, if it does not make God’s nonexistence perfectly clear” (Roth and Rubenstein 291). Any theologian who, in light of the Holocaust, wishes to defend the existence of the per- sonal God of the bible therefore faces an unprecedented chal- lenge, for as Roth and Rubenstein remind us, “The Holocaust was a boundary-cross- ing event, one of those moments in history which changes every- thing before and after” (292). Therefore, the process of Tikkun - mend- ing - was a very “teal” activity. According to Scholem, the purpose of Tikkun was “not merely to perform an act of confes- sion and acknowledgment of God’s Kingdom, it (was) more than that; it (was) an action. . .” (275). Luria instructed Jews who engaged in Tikkun to fulfill the 613 commandments of God, pray, and live a life “in close contact with the divine through Torah” (Scholem 274). Thus, it was through religious action that Jews were able to heal the rupture in God, thereby restoring all things to their proper place within the natural order (Scholem 276). Luria’s theology, and his notion of Tikkun in particular, is novel on a number of different levels, but it is perhaps most remarkable in that it suggests that God and humans are both responsible for com- pleting the process of creation, which to Scholem is equitable with the evolution of God Him or Herself. He writes, “The ptocess in which God conceives, brings forth and develops Himself does not reach its final conclusion in God. Certain parts of the process are allotted to man [sic]” (273). In a related passage he comments, “The process of restoring all things to their proper place demands not only an impulse from God, but also one from His creature, in its religious action“ (276). It is unclear whether Luria believed God’s evolution could be completed without human par- ticipation, but for our present purposes it is significant that Luria even suggested that humans, particularly Jews, play an active role to in the cosmic drama, for no Jewish thinker before Luria had allotted humans so much responsibility. As Scholem notes, “The doctrine of Tikkun raised every Jew to the rank of a protagonist in the great ptocess of restitution, in a manner never heard of before” (284). Luria’s notions of the Breaking of the Vessels and Tikkun redefined the popular conception of the relationship between Jews and God and also helped many Jews make sense of the Exile from Spain. He claimed that when the vessels broke, frag- ments were scattered throughout the world. Therefore, the Exile represented an unprecedented opportunity for Jews to mend the rupture within God by gather- ing those fragments from parts of the world never before inhabited by Jews. In effect, this concept transfigured popular understanding of the Exile. Instead of interpreting the event as a punishment for their sins, Jews began to understand the 28 In spite of these inherent difficulties, there have been several Jewish theolo- gians who have attempted to defend God’s existence in the twentieth centu- ty. Emil Fackenheim is one such thinker. Like Roth and Rubenstein, Fackenheim recognizes that the Holocaust was a unique and unprecedented epoch mak- ing event in the course of Jewish history (Fackenheim, The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader, 157). Never before had so many Jews, or even non-Jews, suffered so miserably. Therefore, Fackenheim considers all comparisons to the Holocaust either “odious or irrelevant” (164). The Holocaust, he claims, is an utterly par- ticular historical event which should never be universalized (157). He writes, “Auschwitz is a unique descent into hell. It is an unprecedented celebration of evil. It is evil for evil’s sake” (162). Unlike Luria, Fackenheim does not attempt to understand or find purpose in the Holocaust, the greatest rupture of all. “No purpose, religious or non-teli- gious, will ever be found in Auschwitz,” he writes. “The very attempt to find one is blasphemous” (163). Fackenheim cannot accept the belief that the Holocaust was a type of divine punish- ment. By the same token, he does not believe the Holocaust symbolized or sig- nified a rupture within the body of God. Quite simply, Fackenheim believes the Holocaust “resists both rational and reli- gious explanations” (114) and insists that it will be years before Jews can even begin to comprehend the “world-histor- ical significance” of the event (157). While he believes they cannot seek to understand the Holocaust, Fackenheim insists that Jews must respond to it if they are to remain Jews. This response, he claims, cannot be grounded in understanding. Rather, it must be based upon commitment, and perhaps even faith (Fackenheim 157). Furthermore, an authentic Jewish response to the Holocaust, according to Fackenheim, also must be characterized by extreme stubbornness (157). In light of a mountain of evidence denying the existence of God, how else can Jews maintain faith in God after the Holocaust? Fackenheim insists that this stub- born, authentic Jewish response to the Holocaust must be two-fold. First, it requires a commitment to Jewish sur- vival. Second, it requires a commitment to Jewish unity (Fackenheim 158). Fackenheim denies that this commit- ment to Jewish survival and unity is a form of Jewish biblical tribalism. To the contrary, he considers it the only viable contemporary response to a crisis which threatens to send Judaism into a state of total disarray or complete despair (Fackenheim 158-9). Those Jews who have made a commitment to respond to the Holocaust in this manner “have made the collective decision to endure the contradictions of present Jewish existence. .. [they] have collectively rejected the option, either of ‘checking out’ of Jewish existence altogether or of so avoiding the present contradictions as to shatter Jewish existence into frag- ments” (Fackenheim 159). Fackenheim is therefore quite similar to Luria in that he believes that responding to the rup- ture of his era necessarily entails con- fronting the fragmentary, contradictory nature of Jewish existence in the mod- ern world. Fackenheim believes it is indeed pos- sible for Jews to respond to the Holocaust with a stubborn commitment to Jewish survival and unity because even during the Holocaust Jews responded this way. Those Jews who, in the very midst of the Holocaust, main- tained a commitment to Jewish survival and unity are the ultimate source of inspiration for Fackenheim, for they demonstrated that it was possible, even then, to wrest hope from “the abyss of total despair” (Fackenheim 164). Not only are such Jews fascinating to Fackenheim, they are confounding as well in that they did not despair of God when it would have been natural to do so. This apparent irrationalism suggests to Fackenheim that such Jews must have been divinely inspired to act as they did. He therefore concludes that God must have been present in the death camps. In fact, he believes it was there that God issued his 614th commandment, which forbids Jews from granting posthumous victories to Hitler (Fackenheim 165). According to Roth and Rubenstein, Fackenheim’s elucidation of the 614th commandment “struck a deep chord in Jews of every social level and religious commitment” (319). One who reads the commandment cannot help but concur with Roth and Rubenstein that it is truly remarkable in its power and passion (320). It states: We are, first, commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish. We are commanded, second, to remem- ber in our very guts and bones the martyrs of the Holocaust, lest their memory perish. We are forbidden, thirdly, to deny or despair of God, however much we may have to contend with Him or with belief in Him, lest Judaism perish. We are forbidden, finally, to despair of the world as the place which is to become the kingdom of God lest we make it a meaningless place in which God is dead or irrelevant and everything is permitted. To abandon any of these imperatives, in response to Hitler’s vic- tory at Auschwitz, would be to hand him yet another: posthumous victory.(Roth and Rubenstein 319) The commandment, at root, is a call to endure and resist the cruelty of the Holocaust. However, it is also a call to maintain faith in God, no matter how difficult that may be. Finally, it is a call to preserve Judaism at all costs. In short, the 614th commandment, like Luria’s notion of Tikkun, strengthens a sense of Jewish solidarity and renews faith in God. The 614th commandment empowers Jews and guides them in the wake of the Holocaust, yet it does not specify how Jews are to respond to the rupture of the Holocaust. For Fackenheim, the Jewish response must be real, or practical, as opposed to merely cerebral or theoreti- cal (Roth and Rubenstein 322). Consequently, he believes Jews must actively affirm their commitment to Jewish survival by resisting the “Holocaust universe” (Roth and Rubenstein 324). In order to guide this Jewish resistance to the Holocaust, Fackenheim adopts Luria’s notion of Tikkun and uses it to encourage Jews of his own generation to mend the rupture of the Holocaust. He believes that, due to its size, the rupture of the Holocaust can never be fully mended. However, he insists that Jews must attempt to engage in Tikkun, if only because those few Jews in the death camps were brave enough to do so. Thus, post-Holocaust Tikkun is for Fackenheim the “impossible necessi- ty” (Fackenheim 188) since it is a never- ending task on the one hand, while on the other it is the only viable, authentic Jewish response to rupture. Fackenheim believes that creating and supporting the State of Israel is an authentic, albeit imperfect, form of Tikkun for the modern Jew. The State will never be “complete,” just as the rup- ture of the Holocaust will never be fully mended, yet Fackenheim insists that for now this is the best Jews can do. To those who question his desire to create a Jewish state in response to the Holocaust, Fackenheim responds that the Holocaust was such a radical event that it calls forth a radical Jewish response (Fackenheim 197). Therefore, he finds it perfectly just that Jews should be able to return en masse to Israel for call for endurance and resistance in light of the inherent contradictory nature of Jewish life. Neither Fackenheim nor Luria is willing to conclude that the per- sonal God of the bible is dead. However, both thinkers reject the traditional bib- lical notion that Jewish suffering is a form of divine punishment. In sum, rup- ture causes each thinker not to abandon faith in God, but to reformulate his con- ception of the relationship between Jews and God. I would now like to turn away from Luria and Fackenheim in order to dis- cuss my own conception of the relation- ship between God and the Jews. Just as | believe Luria’s and Fackenheim’s histor- ical contexts greatly influenced their conceptions of the relationship between God and the Jews, I believe my histori- cal context has had a great impact upon my own thinking. As a Jew born more than thirty years after the Holocaust, I have known many who experienced the horror of the Holocaust, yet I have never been fully capable of understanding the first time in over two thousand years. In many ways, Fackenheim’s response to rupture is completely unlike that of Luria. First, whereas Luria was primarily concerned with healing the rupture within God through religious acts of Tikkun, Fackenheim concentrates par- ticularly upon healing the rupture of the Holocaust through the creation of the State of Israel. Second, Luria was opti- mistic in that he believed the mending of God could be completed whereas Fackenheim insists that the mending of the Holocaust can never be finished due to the size of the rupture. Third, Luria saw the rupture of his generation - the Exile of the Jews from Spain- as a chal- lenge presented by God to the Jews, whom he believed were God’s chosen people. Thus, he believed in the biblical God as well as the Kabbalist notion that God selected the Jews to help collect all the scattered fragments of the bro- ken vessels. While Fackenheim believes Jews must retain faith in | the biblical God, he refuses to accept the Holocaust as God's chal- lenge to the Jews. Furthermore, he denies that the Holocaust proves that Jews enjoy a privileged posi- tion among the peoples of the earth or have been given a spe- cial task by God. Fackenheim does not believe we can make sense of the Holocaust and therefore is unwilling to attempt to find any pur- pose in it whatsoever. Despite these differ- ences, Luria’s response to rupture is in many ways simi- lar to that of Fackenheim. Both responses are, of course, centered around the notion of Tikkun. Furthermore, both responses gained widespread acceptance among the Jews of their particular generations. Finally, both are stubborn responses in that they 30 their pain. I have often wondered why | feel so distanced from the Holocaust, when at the same time I know that it occurred only a short while ago. Reading Fackenheim, I have come to believe that my feelings of separation from the Holocaust are directly related to the long period following World War II in which Jewish thought was for the most part “paralyzed” (Fackenheim 184). As Fackenheim notes, it is only now that Jewish thinkers are beginning to confront the terrifying implications of the Holocaust. It is my opinion that this long period of silence had a somewhat undesirable effect upon Jews of my own generation. More specifically, I believe that this silence has allowed many of us to become detached from the greatest, most terrifying event in the course of post-biblical Jewish history. It has allowed us to shrug off the event as a his- torical anomaly, a freak accident which could never happen again, especially in America. I am not trying to define the Jewish Generation-X here; I honestly believe that Jews my age are not fully aware of horror of the Holocaust. How does this influence our conception of the rela- tionship between God and the Jews? Speaking for myself, I believe it allows me to be more naive, more complacent with a classical biblical notion of God. It is somewhat embarrassing at this point for me to admit as much, but J still believe in a personal God who can and does intervene within history. I read Fackenheim and I wonder why I have not completely abandoned faith in such a God already. I conclude that it must be due in part to the long Jewish silence in regard to the Holocaust. In every respect, I am part of what Fackenheim refers to as an “accidental remnant” of Jews (Fackenheim 195). My ancestors were fortunate enough not to have lived in those countries occu- pied by Germany during the war, and I myself have enjoyed a life relatively free of anti-Semitism in America. I therefore consider myself incredibly fortunate. I am doubly fortunate in that I have not yet experienced the loss of a dearly loved one. For all these reasons, and more, I have never despaired of God. While this has allowed me to maintain faith in the God of the bible, it has also dulled my passion for God in some respects. Because I have never experienced true rupture in my thinking about God, I have never confronted the painful con- tradictions of Jewish life. Consequently, I have never had to overcome rupture through a firm commitment of faith. What I am suggesting here is a Kierkegaardian notion that true faith in God can only arise following rupture, for it is rupture which forces us to confront our relationship with God. Furthermore, I believe that the greater the rupture, the greater the potential faith. For obvious reasons, I am hesitant to develop a crite- tion by which we can measure rupture, yet I believe it is safe to say the Exile from Spain in 1492 and the Holocaust in the twentieth century constitute two of the greater ruptures Jews have experi- enced since the Dispersion from Palestine. Consequently, those Jews who, like Isaac Luria and Emil Fackenheim, confronted and responded to these ruptures without despairing of God often developed authentic faith in God. It is far less frequent that a Jew who has lived a life of relative complacency has developed a comparable sense of faith. Sadly enough, I am one such Jew who has not developed a strong sense of faith. I find my faith in God quite ordinary, even rote. Had it not been for my par- ents, I probably would not believe in God at all. While I am utterly thankful I never had to experience the horror of the Holocaust, I feel that I will never develop a true passion for God unless | am forced to confront rupture. Of course, I realize that at some point in my life this pain undoubtedly will come, but for now I feel as though my faith is grounded in little more than habit. Perhaps it would be possible for me to try to develop a stronger sense of faith by confronting the rupture experienced by others. Indeed, I believe that Emil Fackenheim wrote his book To Mend the World hoping that Jews of later gen- erations would be able to relate, even partially, to the horror and senselessness of the Holocaust. I would like to believe that this is possible, yet I am afraid it is perhaps too late, at least for Jews like myself. I am already too detached from the Holocaust to experience its horror vicariously through Fackenheim, or even Steven Spielberg. In fact, the only time I can recall feeling as though I, too, were part of the “Holocaust universe” was during my visit to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel. After staring at actual photographs and hearing the endless list of the dead recit- ed, I experienced, for the first and last time, the rupture of the Holocaust. And then I returned to America and again everything was fine. Painfully, I admit that I am insensi- tive, even to the suffering of my own people. Much of this insensitivity is due to my complacency, or decadence, as Nietzsche would say. However, I also believe that part of this insensitivity has developed during my experience at Swarthmore. I do not wish to implicate Swarthmore in particular here; I wish to implicate academia in general. It is my opinion that academia has rendered me insensitive to the suffering of my own people by introducing me to the suffer- ing of so many others. In short, it has allowed me to deny the particularity of the Holocaust. For me, the Holocaust has become just another example of incomprehensible brutality in the twen- tieth century. It is somewhat ironic that even though I am so jaded I continue to believe in God. Perhaps it would be more natural to abandon faith in God altogether, yet if I were to do so I would feel utterly defeated, for I believe part of being a Jew is to maintain faith in God, regardless of circumstances. Having studied biblical Jews such as Abraham and Job and more modern Jews such as Isaac Luria and Emil Fackenheim, I real- ize that any doubts I may have about my relationship with God are relatively triv- ial; Jews have withstood far greater trials and ruptures without despairing of God. Thus, it is in honor of all those Jews of ages past that I stubbornly maintain my faith in God and my belief that there exists a relationship between God and the Jews. While this sense of faith is per- haps not as strong as that which devel- ops after confronting true rupture, I believe that for the fortunate Jews of my particular generation it is the only authentic Jewish response to the age-old Jewish dilemma which asks how Jews are to maintain faith in a God whose pres- ence is so difficult to discern. BIBLIOGRAPHY Fackenheim, Emil. The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim: A Reader, Michael L. Morgan, ed. Wayne State University Press: Detroit. 1987. Roth, John K. and Richard L. Rubenstein. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy. John Knox Press: Atlanta. 1987. Rob Carmichael English 94 Critical and Cultural Theory Professor Patricia White Fall 1995 ABSTRACT The object of this assignment was to examine a cultural artifact and uncover whatever subtle social meanings might lie within. The author chooses to investigate the signification of one of the more banal aspects _ of suburban culture, the front yard. \uburban home- owners | spend a great deal of time concerned about the front yards of | their homes. Many spend several hours a week planti- ng, trimming and pruning to make their Ward.) jpree sentable.” Those with less time and more money often hire people to care for the yard in their absence. Strange decorations can be found in front yards as well: gnomes and porcelain animals abound and plastic flamingoes and sunflowers are placed in conspicuous spots. The front yard is as important an expression of middle class values as is one’s clothing or choice of car, if ~ not more of one. This semi-conscious expression of one’s personality and sense of taste through one’s front yard is universally, if tacitly, under- stood. Beyond that, however, the suburban front yard is a mythological object signifying two important con- cepts: those of control and morality. The front yard is, of course, the most immediately visible aspect of middle class life. Unlike the inside of the house itself, the yard is open to the gaze and subsequent judgement of any and all passersby with no more than a casual amount of effort. This is primarily due to the fact that front yards are traditionally unfenced. When barriers are found in the front yard, they do little to conceal the conditions therein and are, for all intents and purposes, simple terri- torial mark- ers. The tra- ditional white picket fveene eae springs to mind _ here: it clearly _ defines the width and breadth of the proper- ty, but the spacing between planks and the waist- or chest-level height allow a more than ample visual | access to the yard. The same may be said of other typical front yard fencing devices: chain link is used to keep animals either on or off of the property, but allows the outsiders to gladly gaze in, while low shrubs and/or hedges demarcate only physical, but not visual boundaries. In the rare cases that hedges do obscure visual access to the front yard (or, for that matter, if a gaze- restricting fence is put up), we as passersby are taken aback and deem the owners “weird,” “antisocial,” or “overly private.” A complex mythol- ogy might sprout up around such res- idences, especially among younger neighbors, about “Old Man/Lady So- and-so” who supposedly somehow deviated from social or sexual norms in the past (i.e. killed their child, had sex with young boys, etc.) and remain behind the barrier in order to shield themselves from the world ot 32 that they broke from so long ago. Beyond these horror stories cre- ated by children, a vais aa bly, him/her- self. A n unrestrict- ed front Vo at. d includes those resi- dents of closed off house elicits a reaction much the same as an unanswered let- ter. That is, an unfenced yard express- es very important information, that begs reciprocation. If a neighbor does not respond with a similar level of expression a tension develops once the more open homeowner senses the unbalanced nature of the expressive relationship. It might be illustrative to compare front yards to backyards from the standpoint of visibility. In almost every case, the backyard is hidden from sight. While the house itself is the reason for much of this (as it stands between the street, where the most potential viewers are, and the yard), it is quite common for suburban residents to erect a much more obscuring system of fencing than they would in the front yard. Presumably this process will shield the more pri- vate sphere of the backyard and restrict the gaze of those who live next door. Backyard barriers often take the form of plywood or a similar- ly opaque fencing structure that restricts all but the most determined voyeurs from looking in. In addition, this serves to seal off the backyard in those areas that the house does not block a view from the street. Whereas the front yard is public visual space, the backyard is private visual space. What, then, are we to make of this dichotomy between front and back yards? What does the visual freedom of the front yard accomplish? Why is there a negative association with obscuring the gaze of those who wish to assess the front yard? The simple answer is community, or rather com- munity opinion, of the homeowner the property within the neighborhood or community group. The front yard becomes a strange amalgamation of trophy and telephone. Conversations between homeowners often begin by a comment on the beauty or cleanliness of the yard. The conversation might then grow so as to include local gos- sip, news, and the like. The home- owner, by means of this process, is drawn further in to the network of the neighborhood and the societal struc- tures that rely on such a tightly knit community are retained. Clearly, one can also use the space of the backyard as a gathering place (i.e. barbecues, block parties, etc.), but it is in no way the same seemingly casual experience that a similar encounter in the front yard might be. On another level, the front yard is, in many ways, one of the few remain- ing outlets for a show of power that suburbanites have access to. A front yard pacifies the aggressions stemming from a lack of power in modern soci- ety by hearkening back to times when (some) individuals still retained some measure of control in their world. That is, the front yard is an expression of many of the fundamental feudalis- tic values. Land equals power. “A man’s home is his castle.” And the suburbanite becomes like the king, who exercises complete dominance OVER every t-aspect. 9 of) the kingdom/yard. The decision to mow ee i or rake or rototill is entirely up to this suburban monarch and there is no one who will question his/her deci- sions concerning the kingdom’s upkeep. When the yard meets com- munity standards, it is the ruler who gets the praise; the power is not shared by a democratic group (i.e. the family or political community) or even by a bureaucratic hierarchy. In a sense, the presence of a front yard pacifies many of the built-up aggres- sions present in the general populace of America today. And while this dominance can be and is frequently exerted within the space of the back- yard, such an action would have little or no effect within the community as a whole. By the sheer nature of the lack of visual obstructions around most front yards, yard work becomes an entirely conspicuous act. Working in the front yard means working in public. This type of public work satisfies the tradi- tional moral codes of both the United States (hard work leads to a better life) and of Calvinism (hard work leads to salvation). In satisfying these two codes, the homeowner is brought even further into the community as he/she is seen as hardworking and practical and therefore a benefit to the social group as a whole. It is not a coincidence that most yard work takes place on the week- ends. Such timing serves two distinct purposes. On one hand, the home- owner is saying “Hard work is so important to me that at the end of my traditional work week, I choose to continue to work, in the hopes of bet- tering myself and my property.” Without such a public display of work ethics, the community would be unable to judge the moral character of the homeowner in question. The sec- ond purpose of such a schedule is that it expresses this morality at a time when it will be received by a much greater audience. Presumably, others will be working in their respective yards, or at least will be within sight of the first homeowner, and will be able to understand the strong morality that is on display.Just from this very basic analysis, it is clear that the front yard is a very important aspect of social and psychological life of suburbanites. While on casual observation it seems that the front yard allows a means of personal expression not unlike choos- a ing socks to go with an outfit, a closer examination reveals that the yard is both a strategic tie to the community and an expression of power within it. The homeowner can express his/her mastery of their own situation at the same time they connect themselves to the neighborhood and community surrounding them. And this stems directly from the fact that the front yard is commonly left open to the out- side gaze. In many respects, the front yard is both the most tightly held aspect of personal autonomy and the greatest connection to the outside world. KKK KKK IKK 1 oot ©. @.@. 0.0 OO. 0.0.0.0. 2.0. OO. 0.0.0,0.8.4 KOO kk kK DAN CLOWES Soc. ANTH. 62 HUMAN DEVELOP- oo. STOAT MNVIRONMENT. | MENT & ECOLOGY ANT SACTAGCONOMIC &VeCTEVIC PROFESSOR LEGESSE an eee) : iN Oo INDUSTRIAL PHILADELPHIA a | ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt to understand the position of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, an organization of poor people which the author has become relat- ed to through work with Empty the Shelters. The paper attempts to link within a conceptual framework issues of poverty, post-industrial change, suburbanization, the condition of the physical environment, and the self empowerment of the poor. Tthe photos are all of people involved in Kensington Welfare Rights Union. processes of industrialization, immigration, and suburbanization. Today Philadelphia is in the midst of a conversion from an industrial economy to an information and service oriented economy. These shifts to a post industrial condition and the legacy of suburbanization have together caused the displacement and isolation of formerly working class neighborhoods in north Philadelphia. The economic and social developments have both affected people directly and shaped the environment in which they live. The condition of the built environment affects individuals who live in contact with it, as well as creating a context from which further economic and social trends emerge. Individuals involved with the built environment, themselves, affect both the economic and social systems and directly modify the built environment. I offer a triangular model for understanding these interrelationships. The points of Passes, is one of a number of north American cities which has undergone the triangle represent socioeconomic policies, human behavior, and the physical environment. The sides of the triangle represent the two direc- tional relationships between the points. Each of the three points is in relationship with the other two. be studied by environmental sociolo- gists: Not only must environmental soci- ologists recognize the complex man- ner in which environmental condi- tions influence human behavior and social organization, they must also recognize an even more fundamental O CzO) OM DLS Nn societal-Cnvi- Catton in their discussion of the ori- gins of environmental sociology: ...we can summarize the impact of these disciplinary traditions on sociol- ogy’s treatment of the physical envi- ronment as follows: The Durkheimian legacy suggested that the physical environment should be ignored, while the Weberian legacy suggested that it could be ignored. Should one violate these traditions and suggest that the physical environment might be rele- vant for understanding human behav- ior or social organization, one risked being labeled an “environmental determinist” (Dunlap and Catton 118). ronment relationships, they do so in the context of a discipline which already recognizes the individual <—> socioeconomic system relation- ship. Thus, Dunlap and Catton implicitly recognize the three points of the conceptual triangle and the relationships between the points. This triangular conceptual model DrO o7- remains today: many streets of two story row houses which feed conve- niently into larger avenues (see Figure 2). The avenues are wide, designed to accommodate large numbers of vehi- cles transporting labor and resources to the factories. American Street, with its six lanes and its boarder of deserted warehouses and loading docks, is a reminder of the industry that once supported the region. Many buildings are empty, some with gaping windows and doorways. Most street level surfaces are vandalized with ‘tags’ (street names spray painted onto the sides of buildings). The area has a scarred, weathered look. . jobs have been growing in number. The shift in the economy from an industrial to an information and ser- vice base has created a gap between the physical structure of the city and the current skills of it’s people and the structure and skills which are required in the new economy. Carolyn Teich Adams of Temple University explains Cd NOV“ Ne St) ND The €COnoim find) a place in the changing econo- my. The loss of jobs in the city of Philadelphia has created a poverty which has been made more intense by the process of suburbanization. As first trains, then automobiles increased mobility, the wealthy and middle class have sought housing in suburbs where they could own a home. The Mainline of Philadelphia, with it’s costly houses and large prop- erties, is an example of a wealthy sub- urb formed around the railway which connects it to center city (see Figure 3). More middle class suburbs may be found around Philadelphia. During the 1980's the city of Philadelphia’s transferred wealth from the city to the suburb and concentrated poverty in the inner cities. This geographic strati- fication of wealth is reflected in fig- ures comparing of wealth and poverty into distinct locations taxed by different local authorities has led to the flight of wealth from the city, The tax capacity of the City of Philadelphia’s residents, relative to that of the residents of suburban municipal- ities, decreased over the decade [1980's] while its need for social services, as rep- resented by the proportion of the met- ropolitan area’s poor who reside in the city, increased relative to suburban communities. More importantly, any attempts by the City to tax its residents who are better off to care for its resi- dents who are disadvantaged creates an incentive for the better off residents al, inner city neighborhoods such as Kensington. Fear plays a role in the perpetua- tion of suburbanization. Historically, fear of blacks has played a role in the process of suburbanization. After the Great Depression significant numbers of blacks escaped the poverty of the South and sought industrial jobs in northern cities. Widespread fear of African-Americans among whites made possible a practice called ‘block busting.’ By planting a few black fam- ilies in a white community near black ghettos, realtors could instill fear of falling property values and of urban blight (which included increased vio- _lence and theft along with degrada- loans or provide coverage to areas deemed in danger of urban blight. This ‘redlining’ made it impossible for the already financially overextended of mugging or personal harm. The self-fulfilling nature of this fear of crime is clearly described in Metropolitan Philadelphia: A Study of Conflicts and Social Cleavages: The fear of violence pervades the city... The streets become more and more deserted as increasingly higher proportions of their users travel in “automobile shelters,” reinforcing the existence of vacuous spaces at the expense of community life... In this way a vicious cycle is formed: with- drawal offers the opportunity for more crime, which then causes further lock-up, or, alternatively, more flight from the city. Because fear of crime north Philadelphia this fear has resulted in some astounding behavior: numerous cases of police brutality, some cases resulting in death; police routinely telling kids playing on side- walks in their own neighborhoods to get off the streets; and attack heli- copters being added to the police arse- nal. If the link between criminality and poverty is real, then the increas- one , in the 1950's. Over the same period the suburban population increased by 97% and the suburban housing stock increased by 161% (Madden and Stull 132). Unfortunately the figures relating the amount of housing to the numbers of people are deceiving. The contra- diction is that while there is plenty of unused housing in Philadelphia, the city has a large population of home- less. William Parshall, Philadelphia’s Deputy Managing Director for Special Needs Housing, has estimated that Philadelphia has 24,000 homeless (Janofsky 16). Carolyn Teich Adams, In The end eoHeal tae ances fully substituted for with new higher end apartments. The increase in small households may have to do with a decrease in the number of two parent families renting in cities, and a signif- icant increase in the number of single parent families fueled by rising divorce rates. Statistics describing the loss of cheap rental units during a housing markets of cities like Philadelphia may certainly describe some of the situation, especially the increase in small households and the replacement of low cost rental units, Adams’ factors do not adequately explain the fate of the housing units left behind by wealthy and middle class who move out of the city. These are the housing units which con- tribute to the surplus of housing that, because they are older, ought to have satisfied the needs of the poor who have been dislocated and isolated by economic and social trends, but which do not completely do so as the number of homeless indicate. These housing units ma be ‘maladjusted’ to Commission in a 1985 report identi- fied a “depreciation matrix” for arson: ...characterized by the long-term erosion of mortgage availability and the exodus of stable-income residents. This leads to a steady decline in prop- erty values and a sense of entrapment for the remaining residents...In these areas, arson is an easy solution to the Since the late 1960’s, the declining population in the city of Philadelphia has created a perennial oversupply of housing which cannot be rented or sold. Their owners, unwilling to con- tinue to pay taxes on and maintain property with no economic value, eventually abandon them. Ownership then passes to the city government which can do little except demolish the most dangerous structures and try to protect the oth- ers from vandalism. The rate of aban- donment seemed to slow in the 1980's, but ruined buildings and trash filled vacant lots continued to blight neighborhoods throughout the city Madden and Stull 134) live on the streets and make it diffi- cult for them to earn a liv- ing, for instance—and which under- mine the structure of suburban neighborhoods and found jobs in other sectors of the economy, leaving behind those too impover- ished to move out of the region. When driving down Lehigh Avenue one may notice how run down the buildings and streets are. The image is of abandoned, gutted factories and cleared lots, chaotically spray painted buildings, and trash strewn sidewalks. Human behavior in the area seems to parallel the regions physical environ- ment, most of it depressed and gloomy, some of it desperately defiant, and some of it defiant, but seeking a brighter future. As Edward Hall wrote, “...there is a close identifica- tion between the image that man has men selling the metal that they have salvaged to a scrap metal dealer who operates out of one of the otherwise unused warehouses that line the street. The men are as thin and hard as the pipes which extend awkwardly from their carts. When they are which traveled by protected in glass and steel. The man was so depressed that he was unconcerned about the danger of being hit by one of the mov- ing vehicles. With few opportunities to find good jobs the people of this area have had to support themselves in any way possible. In the afternoon near the corner of American Street and Girard Avenue one can find a collection of engers leave buildings gutted of t. hotest, plumbing and some- times even take the man- food and serious theft increase with hunger; serious theft and prostitution increase with problems of shelter; and prostitution increases with unemploy- ment (McCarthy and Hagan 623). While this study was of youth in Toronto, it establishes some basis for the implied connection between con- ditions of poverty and illegal activity among the people living in depressed urban locations in the United States. Stolen and illegal cars are perva- sive in north Philadelphia. A friend of mine—a man known as Chicago— has told me that the area is mostly supported by illegal activity. He says that probably ninety percent of the steal a car it can cost as little as fifty dollars because the addict is only concerned with getting the next high. The drug indus- try and prostitution complete the regular features of the illegal economy in north Philadelphia. Drug pushers work on the street in gangs transferring millions of dollars worth of drugs in_ the by socioeconomic systems. In The Hidden Dimension Edward Hall investigates the relationship between the physical environment and the human individual. Hall focuses significant attention on cities and some of the spatial problems found in cities. Central to his discus- sion is an emphasis on crowding and on the malicious effects of crowding. Hall describes experiments by John Calhoun which found. behavior ‘sinks’ associated with stress in rats. Calhoun had found that wild Norwegian rats living in a quarter acre pen with plenty of food would level off at a population of 150, but that if the cage size were reduced to of stress on the rats. He found a ‘behavioral sink’ that acts “to aggra- vate all forms of pathology that can be found within a group” (Hall 26). Hall links Calhoun’s ‘sink,’ found in rats, to humans by connecting the crowded conditions Calhoun placed his rats in with a sense of disorder experienced by both rats and humans: “It is clear from Calhoun’s experi- ments that even the rat, hardy as he describe is, cannot tolerate disorder and that, like man, he needs some time to be alone” (Hall 31). To prove that humans can, indeed, have a sense of disorder, Hall examines various sorts of human spatial perceptions and differences between cultures of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago, addresses Hall’s perspective on the problems of cities in a 1971 essay, Mental Health in the Slums. Bettelheim argues that there are serious difficulties with modeling the behavior of humans with the behavior of animals. Bettelheim uses the cognitive abilities of the through planning and design, can doa great deal to counteract the devastat- ing effects of overcrowding (Bettelheim 32, italics are mine). While both Hall and Bettelheim state that they are concerned with the negative effects of overcrowding in cities, they each take a particular per- spective on the problem. Hall places emphasis on problems related to the sensory involvement of individuals when overcrowded in discussing the structure of the ‘ghetto:’ The degree to which peoples are sensorially involved with each other, and how they use time, determine not __ focuses his examination on the effect of the built envi- ronment on the develop- ment in children of a ‘psy- chology of hope’ (Bettelheim 31). By focus- ing his discussion on the psychological conditions of those within the built envi- ronment Bettelheim ide tion of economic class as a factor in the ‘psychology of hope:’ ’ The dwellings are such an accumula- tion of poor, disturbed and utterly des- perate people that their attitude gives the children an indelible image of utter hopelessness (Bettelheim 43). Although he does not pursue the implications of the idea Hall hints that economic conditions could effect the problems he associates with crowding by identifying the variable of stress: ‘When. stress increases, sensitivity to crowding rises—people get more on edge—so that more and more space is uired | d less i ilable” ful outer world be safely at hone he will know he has a place in this world. While the safely middle-class family can manage successfully in apart- ments, because of its built-in sense of hope for the future, the ghetto dweller, more than anyone, needs a place of his very own to have and to hold, so that finally he comes into his own (Bettelheim 47). In addition to understanding the dynamic of class in the ‘sink’ behavior of poor urban neighborhoods, Bettelheim recognizes that the individ- ual living in a poor neighborhood has agency to directly affect the physical environment in which (s)he live tionship of our conceptual tri- angle, and by recognizing the agency of individuals, has opened the possibility of rec- ognizing the Individual Behavior —> Social and Economic Systems relation- ship. Individuals in poverty have 523). Adams presents the condition of squatting in Philadelphia during the 1980’s, where the rental stock was “nonexistent in most low-income sec- tions of the city” (Adams 542) and where public housing was inadequate for the number of people on waiting lists, and was falling into disrepair. Squatters were able to successfully force a political situation in which the city administrators were unwilling to perse- cute squatters who had occupied empty HUD housing. HUD was not happy about squatting but could not deny the benefit of squatters who would occupy housing units “...in the worst repair and the most blighted neighborhoods...” Adams 542) and would agree to about economic justice.” Take-over campaigns, using squat- ting tactics, were carried out by the KWRU in April 1992 for a community center, and in 1994 for 50 vacant HUD houses. The campaign for the commu- nity center failed and KWRU demon- strators were arrested, but the more recent housing take-overs have been a huge success. As well as getting housin: the social and economic conditions which have created their poverty. Organizations like the KWRU serve to channel the same defiance expressed in much of the illegal activity of north Philadelphia by poor people, toward the more positive activity of changing the economic and social systems which have limited the futures of those in poverty. The KWRU and organizations like it push the social and economic sys- tems to end the conditions of poverty which have impoverished people and decayed the physical environment of neighborhoods. Through protest and demonstrations, like the Tent City, members of the KW/RU demand a place in the system and draw sympathy for involvement with the drug trade had ended after he had been shot. He told me that he had grown up angry, power- less to stop his father from beating his mother. As we drove through his com- munity he said that he did not like the neighborhood; he said that he had caused the community a lot of harm. Khalif pointed out the house he had own up in. It was a unit in a series of some of the smartest students in the city. Inside the Supermarket, Khalif ereeted old acquaintances with a big smile and asked if things had changed since he had been there. He clearly wanted to recognize a connection between himself and them. Khalif told a friend that he was getting his life back together. I assumed this had to do with his recovery from the gun shot wound and his membership with KWRU in its occupation at St. Edward’s Church. The way Khalif spoke with such dis- like for the neighborhood in which he had grown up contrasted with the pride he had of his school and the enjoyment he showed at being able to speak with from the | ity indicating The rehabilitation of these communi- ties must include a rehabilitation of peoples lives. The message of the KWRU is that those whose lives are part of the communities in which they live must be included in the structuring of the communities. The physical envi- ronment must provide people with a place in the social and economic sys- ms of the worl readjustment _in Man and his extensions constitute one interrelated system. It is a mistake of the greatest magnitude to act as though man were one thing and his house or his cities, his technology or his language were something else (Hall 188). 42 LAURA CHRISTIAN @ MODERN ART anet and the lion of the Impressionists dGYyOAUHONNH WOSSHAOUd SEPTEMBER 24, 1995 ABSTRACT The following is a seminar paper that attempts to grapple with a series of readings on the 19th century French painter, Manet. The writer chose to engage a Marxist reading of Manet’s Canotiers d’Argententeuil by art histori- an T.J. Clark with a feminist reading of the same painting by Eunice Lipton. Her paper submits both approaches to a critique that points out the blind spots stemming from a failure to deal with codes of gender, on the one hand, and codes of class, on the other. The illustrations in this article are not representative of the works discussed. Unfortunately, the images could not be reproduced. riselda Pollock’s ambi- tious article, “Femininity and the Spaces of Modernity,” cuts across a vast range of critical issues. Though it deals primarily with the work of Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt and the con- ditions of female artistic pro- duction, it also includes a cri- tique of Clark’s arguments regarding representations of class in the Painting of Modern Life. Pollock cites the literal spaces of modernity mapped by Clark as the territory not only of class struggle, but of the commercialization of sex. Pointing out that the encounters pictured in much early modernist painting involve men endowed with economic power and the privilege of mobility and women who work in urban spaces selling their bodies, she asks questions about the extent to which women’s bodies constitute “the territo- ry across which men artists claim their modernity” (247). Part of her project is to attempt to identify sites of articula- tion between class and gender, and to insist on their inex- tricability as categories of representation: indeed, we cannot consider one without considering its intersections with the other, for they are “historical simultaneities and mutually inflecting” (Pollock, 247). From Pollock’s perspective, Clark’s arguments suffer fundamentally from his tendency to subordinate concerns of gender to those of class. Even where he attempts to deal with the problematic of sexuality in 19th-century bourgeois Paris, he frequently subsumes issues of gender asymmetry under those of class asymmetry. I tend to agree with Pollock on this point in most cases; nevertheless, I would like to give Clark some credit where he seems thoroughly attentive to problems of gender. He does manage, for instance, to locate the ‘shock’ and source of intelligibility of Olympia in its modes of address to the (male) viewer, its “disobedience to that ‘placing of the spec- tator in a position of imaginary knowledge’ which was the nude’s most delicate achievement” (Preliminaries..., 266). Clark makes it clear that he considers this disobedience, this refusal “to situate Woman in the space—the dominated and derealised space—of male fantasy” an “admirable” (ibid, 271) feat (apparently he really would like to establish his credentials as a male art historian sympathetic to feminist concerns). And yet for him, Olympia’s disobedience merely presents another problem, for it situates her, instead of in the realm of fantasy, in “a fully coded, public and familiar world” (ibid, 271) in which the positions of dominator and dominated—i.e., of the bourgeois male consumer and the courtesan—are all too reified. In other words, despite the acute though perhaps insecure sense of self-possession she projects—and despite the literalizing effect of her gaze, the manner in which it exposes the transaction at hand as pure- ly commercial—Olympia is still on display, an object to be consumed. To be truly “subversive”—at least in the Marxist sense of the word, the sense that Clark would most emphat- ically embrace—Olympia would have to assume “a place in the code of classes” (ibid, 271-2). This is Clark’s main point in the “Preliminaries”: that in order to be a truly disruptive presence Olympia would have to occupy an intelligible class position. As it is, the instability of her social identity ren- ders her susceptible to the myth of the courtesan, that dual- istic creature whose forms oscillated between the abject and the dominant, between the prototypes of the proletarian prostitute and the femme fatale. Clark’s conclusion would seem to be that the rupturing of gendered viewing codes cannot stand on its own as a destabilizing mode of represen- tation: without the attribution of a determinate class iden- tity, the nude female subject merely relapses into a state of immanent circulability. Given the substance of his argument, it seems only fair to acknowledge that Clark is quite capable of elaborating the complex interactions of class and gender when they are integral to his argument. For this reason | take issue with Pollock’s sweeping assessment of Clark: she notes, for instance, Clark’s token gesture of commitment to fem- inist concerns—his recognition of an implied masculine viewer in Olympia—but criticizes him for doing so in a manner that “ensures the nor- malcy of that position, leaving it below the threshold of historical investigation and theoretical analysis” (246). This does not strike me as Clark’s primary fault at all. Rather, it is the inconsistency with which he conducts his inquiries into issues of gender that proves the most occlusive in his argument and that ultimately undermines his credibility. The inconsistency, nevertheless, is symptomatic. For it is not simply that Clark fails to ‘incorporate’ a feminist perspective into his own Marxist viewpoint at each critical juncture: it is that he fails to grasp fully the ways in which the binary opposition under- pinning the — significations of “Woman” in the mid-19th century— that of the fille publique versus the femme honnete—represented a mys- tification of what Pollock refers to as “economic exchange...in the patriar- chal kinship system” (259)1. Clark recognizes the discursively produced polarity between the “prostitute” and the “lady” as a founding fiction in the ideological construction of Woman, but he does not fully recognize it as operating in certain spaces to facili- tate the commodification and exchange of the bodies of working class women and, concomitantly, to ensure the domestication of bourgeois women, their exclusion from (and “ienorance” of) such transactions. As Pollock points out, the spaces of cross- class sexual exchange are significantly the very spaces that provided the set- ting for early modernist painting. They are the spaces traversed by Baudelaire’s flaneur, the mythical rov- ing voyeur who remained both impas- sive and invisible while assimilating the fleeting spectacles of modern life—among them, of course, the many ‘types’ of women available to his gaze. These same spaces of moder- nity, however, largely represented a risk for the respectable bourgeois woman: as Pollock explains, entering them meant possibly subjecting one- self to the violating and compromis- ing gazes of men. Hence the line of demarcation in Pollock’s grids that divides the realm of the lady from the realm of the fallen woman “marks off a class boundary, but [more integrally] reveals where new class formations of the bourgeois world restructured gen- der relations not only between men and women, but between women of different classes” (259). I have suggested, in effect, that Clark leaves the traces of his own crit- ical ‘aporias’ when he fails to account for the interfacing of class and gender in a system of sexual-economic exchange. I find Eunice Lipton’s fem- inist evaluation of Manet’s oeuvre lacking for similar reasons,2 but in this case her privileging of gender over class produces the critical gap. In the remainder of my paper I’d like to examine both Clark’s and Lipton’s arguments—the limits of their per- spectives and the sources of their insights—with a focus on the inter- secting axes of class and gender, and with reference to a specific painting, Manet’s Canotiers d’Argenteuil, to which both critics give some atten- tion. Let me say to start out with that I find Lipton’s argument less sophisti- cated than Clark’s and thus difficult to compare in any kind of a nuanced way with the latter’s. Unlike Clark, however, she does manage to notice the female figure in the painting and furthermore to recognize her sexual specificity. By contrast, Clark in his analysis merely reproduces the ten- sion or discrepancy that emerges when one attempts a “neutral” description of the painting. As a crit- ic quoted by Clark remarks, “(Manet’s] Canotiers d’Argenteuil are two, one of them a lady...” (The Painting of Modern Life, quoted on 168). It struck me as I came across this rather jarring phrase that the way in which it renders the man a given and at the same time an almost invisible entity—the one ‘univer- sal’ figure in the paint- ing—is precisely sympto- matic of the problem: the woman does not quite attain the status of a generic being, and there- fore requires specific mentioning; she is one of a pair, and yet the critic can only define her in relation to her generic other, the man. Her dif- ference is a difference from, a derivative differ- ence; it is not a difference that endows her with specificity, per se. Nevertheless, as Lipton observes, there is something different or unusual about the way she appears in the painting, and furthermore about the way her relationship to the man comes across. Lipton explains it as fol- lows: “Romantic conven- tion has dictated that men and women in close proximity pay attention to each other and more specifically that the woman provide erotic possibilities....The real moment between men and women was frequent- ly an awkward one, which is exactly what Manet has captured in his painting” (52). Lipton’s simplistic ascription of realism to the painting is obviously ahistorical; it fails to address a single concrete aspect of the figures’ con- text or their class identi- ties. Nevertheless, Lipton picks up on one of the striking features of the painting, the source of its departure from pictorial convention: that is, that despite their proximity, the figures do not look at each other—in fact the woman looks out of the picture and meets the spec- tator’s gaze. Clark barely finds this noteworthy, whereas he found it a crucial element in Olympia: he per- ceives the woman’s face as “animate but opaque,” (168) and essentially impenetrable. Beyond this cursory description, Clark does not give the woman much attention; he explains the dynamics between the figures as follows, starting with the male figure: The man...is seemingly turned towards his inscrutable companion, no doubt in admiration; his body is swiveled in space, half leaning back from the picture’s surface. And that obliqueness is half offered to the view- er and half refused...(164). I agree with Clark that the man’s orientation towards the woman is ambiguous and somewhat confusing, but I’m not sure that he’s gazing at the woman “in admiration.” In fact, it’s unclear to me precisely what he’s looking at: his gaze could be unfo- cused, or it could project beyond the woman’s face; it does not seem pattic- ularly fixed on his companion, how- ever. Instead the man seems at once vaguely possessive of her and distract- ed: the walking stick he’s holding extends across his lap and in front of her waist, forming a kind of bar that blocks her from the viewer. His leg is also crossed towards hers and extends farther into the foreground, encircling her lap. At the same time his right arm and shoulder appear to box her in partially from behind (although the shoulder, as Clark observes, tends to flatten and to accede to the surface of the canvas). These things establish the man’s proprietorship of the woman while they give the impres- sion of being innocuous, merely habitual gestures. Certainly the man does not seem particularly concerned to intervene when it comes to his companion’s gazing out at the viewer. Lipton points out that the woman’s gaze is not one of sexual invitation; she also points out her seeming recal- citrance, the rigidity of her posture in relation to the man’s. How can we make sense of the tensions these con- tradictory gestures and expressions generate? On the one hand, the woman, by virtue of her awkwardness, resists enclosure by the man’s body. ‘To an extent she also renders herself open to the gaze of another—the artist, originally, and presumably a male viewer—and consequently risks being sexually compromised. At the same time, however, her expression offers itself as a kind of impervious- ness. She does not seem particularly bound to her companion, but neither does she open herself tacitly to the viewer. Lipton perceives the woman as maintaining an appearance of autonomy. Perhaps this is so; never- theless, I find myself less optimistic than Lipton about the significance of this aspect of her demeanor. It seems to me that the man’s habitual asser- tion of his ‘rights’ to her is still neces- sary to her containment, to the dis- tance she keeps from the viewer. Moreover, the opacity she exhibits in her looking outwards is primarily an index of her lower class status. Whereas Lipton fails to account for this aspect of the woman’s identity, class is Clark’s sole concern. In his interpretation of the painting he sug- gests that the two figures, because they did not offer the critics the signs of their social inferiority, left the lat- ter uncertain as to how to evaluate them. He points out that the figures are posing, “not as artists’ models do, but as people might for a photograph, as they might have done later in just such a place. Their faces go blank, their bodies turn awkward, they forget how to look happy or even serious” (168). The couple are members of the petit bourgeoisie, and they have come to Argenteuil to take their ease, but they are not quite sure of how to do so. What betrays their status is the residual ‘unnaturalness’ with which they claim their right to pleasure. Manet captures this air of unnatural- ness, but significantly, he does so without any distancing irony: there is no joke to be had at the expense of the couple, no opportunity for the bourgeois viewer to confirm his supe- riority. Although one critic calls the woman a “trollop...decked out in hor- rible finery, and looking horribly sullen” (168), Clark insists on the contrary that the woman “resists the critics’ descriptions: she is not quite vulgar, not quite ‘ennuyé,’ not even quite sullen” (168). Yet the derogato- ry word “trollop” ought to provide a clue as to what else is at stake in the representation of the couple—Clark fails to mention it at all. Surely the jab the critic wants to take at the woman has to do with both her class and her gender. As a petit bourgeois woman striving to present an appeat- ance of respectability, she is potential- ly a laughable figure, and vulnerable to ridicule. Perhaps the stalwartness of her presence prevents her from being complicitous with the critic’s joke. Still, questions remain: how are we to understand her relation to the man and her relation to the viewer, the way in which she is in a sense sus- pended between them? Does this sus- pension cast her sexual status into uncertainty, as the critic’s insult would imply? In there a sense in which this uncertainty is a function of her class identity? I don’t really have answers to these questions, but I believe an adequate interpretation of the painting would have to address them; neither Lipton nor Clark manages to do so. Significantly, Clark situates the cou- ple in the environs of Paris, a margin- al territory where changing configura- tions of class—and the changing bor- ders between city and country—were constantly negotiated. Like the urban sites that Pollock begins to trace, these represented another “space of modernity.” If we are to understand their historical significance, we must examine them in terms not only of the contestation of meanings sut- rounding class inscribed in their rep- resentation, but of their structuration by the codes of a heterosexual matrix. 1 Here Pollock is most likely refer- ring to Gayle Rubin’s “The Traffic in Women,” which offered a seminal feminist interpretation and critique of Claude Levi-Strauss’s analysis of the systems of exchange—of _ gifts, women, and signs or meanings—that support societal structures. 2 1 hope folks don’t mind my returning to this article; I felt like it deserved a revisiting. 45 46 iN Fall 1994 é _Starr Glidden i elationship is the nectar of Our existence. AS Buber says, the meaning of our lives is felt through relationship. Relationship is not a physical interaction between two wholly separate distinct beings but an intimate connection that brings together two whole beings in a paradox as two separate but also as one whole. We are communal, communicating animals meant to live together both giving and receiving. Our very ecology tells us to enter into relation. In a Kantian perspective he believes in seeing people as “HE WHO KNOWS GOD KNOWS ALSO VERY WELL THE REMOTE- NESS FROM GOD, AND THE ANGUISH OF BARRENNESS IN THE TORMENTED HEART; BUT HE DOES NOT KNOW THE ABSENCE OF GOD: IT IS WE ONLY WHO ARE NOT ALWAYS THERE.” Religion 1 it. We are, in essence, the subject, and the world around us is the predicate. “The I which stepped forth declares itself to be the bearer, and the world round about to be the object of the perceptions.” We need this world to live for without it we couldn’t function as organisms: I-it food, I-it work, I-it shelter. “without It man cannot live. But he who lives with It alone is not man.” The I— thou is the inti- mate spiritual relation we have within us that is real- ized only with other thous. The I-thou is an ends not means, but it is even more than that; it is to love another as yourself because s/he is yourself. Cruelty between people occurs when the relation is skewed and corrupted. As guity of AN | FOR A THOU.” 7GOOD PEOPLE AND EVIL, WISE AND FOOLISH, BEAUTIFUL AND UGLY, BECOME SUCCESSIVELY REAL TO HIM; THAT IS, SET FREE THEY STEP FORTH IN THEIR SINGLENESS, AND CONFRONT HIM AS THOU. IN A WONDERFUL WAY, FROM TIME TO TIME, EXCLU- SIVENESS ARISES— AND SO HE CAN BE EFFECTIVE, HELPING, HEALING, EDUCATING, RAISING UP, SAVING. LOVE IS RESPONSI- intimacy that knows no ivisions; it manifests itself in loving people as yourself because they are yourself. There is no longer the — relation between two beings as I-it where the I is the ego and Buber’s philosophy says, cruelty occurs when a per- son is overwhelmed into seeing everything, including all beings, as only its which only purpose is to fulfill his/her desire. According to Buber, we live a two-fold life; we live in the realm of both the [-it and the I-thou both of which are necessary to us. Living in the J-it is the world of empirical experience; it is the world in which we see ourselves as individual “I”s in relation to other beings and things as “It’s. After we are born, we live our lives “experiencing” the world by seeing the world as made up of completely separate entities. We do not live in relation with the world but in opposition to —Martin Buber, | and Thou, 1958 the it the object which the I is interacting with. The thou within is actualized in its relation with another thou; there is a “divine spark” within everything which is realized in the I-Thou relation. “The inborn thou is real- ized in the lived relations with that which meets it.” The thou cannot be experienced when it is solely within our- selves, never meeting another; we need people to help us realize who we are. Speaking of the I-thou is only an attempt at explaining the inexplicable phenomenon of living intimate relation, but when we do speak of it we speak of it with our whole selves for it encompasses every n knows, the’ universe, in “birt e,conceptien of I-It within aimot ipletely in the'1