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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

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  • From: "kathena1" <kathena1 AT aol.com>
  • To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2
  • Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2012 15:13:39 -0400

>From Flannery O'Connor's collection of essays: Mystery and Manners; in
particular, the essay "A Memoir for Mary Ann."

With the toppling of monarchies in latter part of the 18th century, the
sentimentalism that was permeating Western culture/European consciousness
entered a growing religious void and gave birth to the Romantic movement,
but also fostered a sentimental attachment and loyalty to, and
identification with, one's national identity, as the nation now was the
unifying structure for the people - no longer church and king. So
nationalism, a kind of religious manifestation of patriotism and country,
arose. Extreme nationalism rejected and demonized the "other" (in Germany's
case, you see it manifested in its extreme, of course).

So you can see Percy's point - this sentimental nationalism replaces true
religion, true God, and makes an idol of country, and leads to all kinds of
evils. But he sees that it is true of any sentimentalism (tenderness).
The sentimental emotional experience (not only of loyalty to nation, but any
sentimentalism attachment) is not an indicator of "good," god, or right.
Percy's reading of Gabriel Marcel, who was wary of mass movements and
causes, also informed him on this topic.

Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death" discusses the mistake of devotion to a
cause ("causa sui") further if you're interested in reading more about it -
Becker says any time one's cause is not transcendent, it is in danger of
demonizing the other, and in that attempt, it attempts to eradicate the
other, creating an even greater evil than they think they are fighting
(besides the fact that one's "god" is not really god - that one is mistaken
about god.) But don't know if Percy read Becker - but Percy was so
well-read that he must have.

Karey



Karey L. Perkins, M.A.T., Ph.D.
Lead Faculty, English, Westwood College
Writer and editor, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Master's candidate, Department of Philosophy
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303
kareyperkins AT gmail.com
404-513-1460


-----Original Message-----
From: percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:percy-l-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of marcus AT loyno.edu
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 1:31 PM
To: Percy list
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 94, Issue 2

Janet Cantor writes, "On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where
tenderness leads?" And he answers,..." to the gas chamber"."

I think Percy told somone he was paraphasing a remark by Flannery O'Connor.

I argued with Percy about this epigraph more than once. My reply was that
tenderness (romantic secular sentimentality, kitsch, etc.) may have been
involved in the cultural roots of the Holocaust, but plain old nasty
anti-semitism burrowing through centuries of the "Christian West" was the
primary agent driving the catastrophe. I don't recall that we ever
concluded our discussion.

By the way, the original title of Lady Chatterly's Lover was, of course,
"Tenderness."

Marcus Smith


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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts (janet cantor)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 19:22:20 -0700 (PDT)
> From: janet cantor <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: [percy-l] The Thanatos Syndrome - some thoughts
> To: percy lists <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID:
> <1341714140.22561.YahooMailClassic AT web125902.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> If you have not read this book, do not read this. If you have read it
> and preferably twice, see what you think of my musings so far.
>
> I am constructing my discussion of The Thanatos Syndrome for a
> discussion of it with my book group in September early.
>
> ?I am discovering new things as I prepare.
>
> The first time I read it I wanted to take a scalpel to it and knew
> just where. The second time, when I read it more carefully to take
> notes and construct what I will use, I found very little to edit out.
> The repetitions and over lengthy scenes this time, instead of being
> annoying, were funny, and okay with me. They were there for a reason.
> Or so it seemed to me.
>
> One example. I kept seeing similar lines interjected page after page
> about a shaft of sunlight going through the trees that dissolved into
> the dark underbrush and variations of that. On first reading I
> thought they were gratuitous and unoriginal and even annoying in their
> repetition.
> On second reading I came up with a perfect rationale for them. Light
> dissolving into or being swallowed up by darkness. White and black, as
> in whites and negroes in the south, Well, that's obvious. But that's not
all.
> On a fishing trip, when Van Dorn wants to catch a certain fish and
> asks why they don't trim some of the branches, Tom tells him then the
> sunfish would leave. "You don't dare mess with light and shade." Tom says.
> On page 128 Father Smith asks, "Do you know where tenderness leads?"
> And he answers,..." to the gas chamber".
> The do gooders of this book have the best of intentions but, as the
> line says, every pre conceived utopia needs a police state to keep it
running.
> So in my mind I took all of these shafts of light and reflections of
> silvery light fighting to get through and all those darknesses
> swallowing them up, to represent the forces of good and evil. Percy
> knew what he was doing. By inserting these phrases so often out of
> nowhere into his descriptive passages he was subliminally undergirding
> his main theme. People must not try to play G-d. They must respect
> free will of individuals because no matter what good intentions they
> have, in the end they interfere with people's personhood. No matter
> what mistakes people make while using free will, that is better than
> do gooders trying to manipulate the world to be a more perfect one.
> All tenderness leads to the gas chambers.
> And by having it all come from Father Smith, the moralist, to Tom, our
> everyman, the reader's surrogate, and thus from Percy, psychiatrist to
> the world, he is, not subtly this time, in his last novel, making his
case.
> At the end of the book is that wonderful paragraph where Percy lets us
> know that the? 20th century was the most murderous in history and
> where was G-d. All He had to do was stand back and not interfere and
> allow man to do what he did and the devil could laugh while it went
> on. Light fights the dark and the dark seems to be winning.
> I will play for my book group the last three minutes of Percy's talk
> to Notre Dame so they can hear him in person giving the warning.
>
> Another great joke is that in any mystery part of the tension comes
> from delaying the solution. So all through as Tom is constantly
> anxious to get going, Father Smith keeps saying "one more thing". The
> first time, I found it irritating. This time I found it very funny and
> it added to the tension as well. Or Dr. Comeaux grabs his arm as he's
> ready to bolt and keeps him back. Lucy, Van Dorn, so many others keep Tom
trapped for a time.
>
> I will read lots of things that I consider funny. And show them
> examples of Percy's vivid descriptive passages, his interest in
> language, Hudeen, a marvelous creation.
>
> My overall goal is not to discuss the story or the characters, but to
> talk about Percy, his writing, why it works on me, his themes. I
> intend to show how this book represents a recapitulation of the
> history of his whole thinking life. Scientist,? Psychiatrist,?
> philosopher, semioticist, drinker, Catholic, moralist, and finally
> story teller.
>
> Two things left to ponder over. I am not convinced that the book is
> improved by making the do gooders sex offenders. It would have been a
> more ambitious book if they were more ambiguously wrong instead of
> obviously evil. I did love the way they were all placed in their jobs
> at the end, especially the ape teaching the person how to communicate
again.
> And, speaking of the end, I have a theory of what that "Well, well, well"
> means, but I don't know yet if I'm correct.
>
> In September's discussion, I will tape it to hear how it sounds.
>
> Janet Cantor
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