The Passionate Mind

Sources of Destruction and Creativity

Robin Fox

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351303347
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Consciousness, declares Robin Fox, is "out of context." Useful as an adaptation in the Stone Age, it brought humanity to the top of the food chain but has now created a world it cannot control. The Passionate Mind explores this paradox not through academic demonstration but through satiric dialogues, blank-verse ruminations, lyric, narrative and comic verse, and Aesopian fables. This mix of genres and styles forces us out of our usual linear modes of thinking to confront a harsh thesis. Because of consciousness we cannot operate without ideas, but once in thrall to ideas--whether of love, power, religion, or ideology--we cannot operate without destructiveness lest we become imprisoned by them.

The range of subjects and genres Fox covers includes a verse summary of the key points of human evolution, a conference of farm animals ruminating on their social problems, visions of a desperate future from a neolithic hunter and a shaman at Lascaux, Kafkaesque trial scenes, and a new version of "God is dead." George Washington, having lost at Yorktown is put on trial with Adams, Jefferson, and Benedict Arnold giving evidence. Through the persona of Humbert Humbert as decadent Europe, the new world of Lolita/America is faced with the consequences of its pursuit of happiness. Scandinavian utopianism and salvation through romantic eros get their turn, and the basic "design failure" of humanity is examined in a Platonic dialogue. A bullfight and the struggle for existence in New Jersey farming lead up to a monologue from a decidedly unlikely Jesus who turns out to be part of an alien plan to control an otherwise out of control human race. Through this kaleidoscopic mix, Fox mounts a case for a thorough revision of consciousness that breaks "realistic" boundaries between science, the humanities, religion, and myth.

Five

Daughters of Earth/Sons of Heaven

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget

that words are the daughters of earth, and that

things are the sons of heaven. Language is only

the instrument of science and words are but the

signs of ideas.

Samuel Johnson, Dictionary, 1775 (Preface)

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man -

There are only four things certain since Social Progress

began:-

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her

Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to

the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world

begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for

his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter

return!

Rudyard Kipling, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” 1919

And why is it, that still

Man with his lot thus fights?-

‘Tis that he makes his will

The measure of his rights,

And believes Nature outraged if his will’s gainsaid.

Matthew Arnold, “Empedocles on Etna,” 1852

General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.

Er kann fliegen, und er kann toten.

Aber er hat einen Fehler:

Er kann denken.

Bertolt Brecht, “General, dein Tank,” 1938

JUVENILIA

Schoolboy Poems

FROM CATULLUS: “TO LESBIA”

Let’s live my Lesbia and let’s play,

Despise what senile rumors say

(They count less than a servant’s pay)

Suns can rise and suns take flight,

But once we’ve burned our tiny light

We sleep through a perpetual night.

Give me a thousand kisses, then

A hundred, then a thousand more,

A second hundred, ceasing when

A hundred thousand are in store.

Then, with many thousands made,

We’ll mix the count, and stay confused,

To fool the envious, who’d invade

What our uncounted kisses fused.

FROM VERLAINE: “CLAIRE DE LUNE” (Fêtes Galantes)

Delightful dance and dancers range

The chosen landscape of your soul,

Yet they, beneath disguises strange,

Despite the lute, are sorrowful.

Singing of life and conquering love,

Their song takes on a minor flight;

Their aspect does not fortune prove;

The song melds with the pale moon’s light.

Moonlight, lovely, calm and sad,

That sets the tree-bound birds to dream,

And sobbing water jets seem glad

When marble guides their slender stream.

---

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,/Rumoresque senum seviorum/Omnes unius aestimemus assis./Soles occidere et redire possunt;/Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,/Nox est perpetua una dormienda./Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,/Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum./ Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum./Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,/Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,/Aut nequis malus invidere possit,/Cum tantum sciet esse basiorum.

Votre âme est un paysage choisi/Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques,/ Jouant du luth, et dansant, quasi/ Tristes sous leur déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur/ L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,/ Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire a leur bonheur,/ Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau/ Qui fair rever les oiseaux dans les arbres/ Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,/ Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Undergraduate Poems (1955–57)

NEW PHILOSOPHIES

The new philosophies call all in doubt.

John Donne

We, like all good sinners everywhere,

Had called upon the righteous to repent,

And so we had our contract with despair

Sealed, signed and witnessed by our discontent.

The righteous said that we would come to grief

And went about their business. We had taught

Belief in nothing but our unbelief,

So we surrendered long before we fought.

We called this absurd world a human hell.

The modern school looked sadly on and sighed.

“Although,” they said, “you seem to ring a bell,

Such propositions can’t be verified.”

Paralyzed, scarce daring now to think,

We stand bewildered, but not at a loss

For an escape; when one is on the brink

There always is the river, or the cross.

MAUVAISE FOI: Hommage à la Rive Gauche

The river rats have stripped our flesh

and left us here

a heap of whitened bones

to decorate the dragnet’s slimy mesh

All our fancies

mock us in the filthy water’s

obscene indifferent tones

Those that sought us

favor us with sympathetic glances

Spectators feigning horror

rush to cinemas and dances

And our lost chances?

Of what could we be sure

we who were...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Foreword: Origin of the Specious, Ashley Montag
• Introduction
• One: Diary of a Superfluous Race
• Two: The Trial of George Washington: Documents in the Case
• Three: Children of the Revolution
• Four: Toward a More Perfect Dissolution
• Five: Daughters of Earth/Sons of Heaven
• Six:   The Jesus Tapes: We Are Not Alone
• Seven: Epilogue: Fire of Sense/Smoke of Thought
• About the Author