Confusion

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I will not really insist upon continuing this roster. I have not known many survivors. I know mainly about disaster, but then I want to remind you again of that man I mentioned in the begin ning, who haunts the imagination of this novelist. The imag ination of a novelist has everything to do with what happens to his material. Now, we're a little beyond the territory of Betty Smith and Carson McCullers, but we are not quite beyond the territory of James T. Farrell or Richard Wright. Let's go a little bit farther. By and by I left Ha rlem. I lef t all those deaconesses, all those sisters, and all those churches, and all those tambou rines, and I entered or anyway I encountered the white world. Now this white world which I was just encountering was, just the same, one of the forces that had been controlling me from the time I opened my eyes on the world. For it is important to ask, I think, where did these people I'm talking about come from and where did they get their peculia r school of ethics? What was its origin? What did it mean to them? What did it come out ot? What function did it serve and why was it hap pening here? And why were they living where they were and what was it doing to them? All these things which sociologists think they can find out and haven't managed to do, which no chart can tell us. People are not, though in our age we seem to think so, endlessly manipulable. We think that once one has discovered that thirty thousand, let us say, Negroes, Chi nese or Puerto Ricans or whatever have syphilis or don't, or arc unemployed or not, that we've discovered something about the Negroes, Chinese or Puerto Ricans. But in fact, this is not so. In fact, we've discovered nothing very useful because people cannot be handled in that way. Anyway, in the beginning I thought that the white world was very different from the world I was moving out of and I NO TES FOR A HYPO THETI CAL NO VEL 227 turned out to be entirely wrong. It seemed different. It seemed safer, at least the white people seemed safer. It seemed cleaner, it seemed more polite, and, of course, it seemed much richer from the material point of view. But I didn't meet any one in that world who didn't suffer from the very same afflic tion that all the people I had fled from suffered from and that was that they didn't know who they were. They wanted to be something that they were not. And very shortly I didn't know who I was, either.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  But it is very clear that this unreadincss troubles him greatly. "I don't know," he keeps saying, "I THEY CAN 'T TURN BACK don't know what's the right thing to do." But he is also ex tremely unh appy on the campus because he is part of that minority of students who actually study. "You know," he says, with that rather bewildering abruptness of a youngster who has decided to talk, "the dean called me in one day and asked me why I didn't have any friends. He said: 'I notice you don't go out much for athleti cs.' I told him I didn't come to college to be an athlete, and anyway I walk all the time and I've got all the friends I need, everybody respects me and they leave me alone . I don't want to hang out with those kids. They come over here"-the section of town in which we were sit ting-"every night. Well, I wasn't raised that way." And he looks defiant; he also looks bewildered. "I got the impression that he would like me better if I was more like all the other kids." And now he looks indignant. "Can you imagine that? " I do not tell him how easily I can imagine that, and he gets around to saying that he would rather be in some other col lege-"f arther north, in a bigger town. I don't like Tallahas see." But his parents want him to remain nearby. "But they're worried about my being here now, too, on account of the student sit-ins, so maybe-" He frowns. I get a glimpse of his parents, reading the newspapers, listening to the radio, burn ing up the long-distance wires each time Tallahassee is in the news. He tells me about the twelfth of March, 1960, when a thousand marching students were dispersed by tear gas bombs and thirty-five of them were arrested. "I was on the campus of course I knew about it, the march, I mean. A girl came running back to campus, she was crying. It seemed the longest time before I could make any sense out of what she was saying and, Lord, I thought there was murder in that town." But he is most impressed by this fact: "1 came over here that night and maybe you don't know it, but this part of town is always wide open but that night-" he gestures-"boy, nobody was in the streets. It was quiet. It was dark. It was like everybody'd died. I could n't believe it-nothin g!" He is silent. "I guess they were afraid." Then he looks at me quickly. "I don't blame them." I think that he means that he has no right to blame them.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Who, then, is to say with authority where the root of so much anguish and evil lies? Why, then, is it not possible that all things began with the black man and that he was perfect especially since this is precisely the claim that white people have put fi:>rward fo r themselves all these years? Furthermore, it is now absolutely clear that white people arc a minority in the world-so severe a minority that they now look rather more like an invention-and that they cannot possibly hope DOWN AT THE CROSS 3 2 7 to rule it any longer. If this is so, why is it not also possible that they achieved their original dominance by stealth and cunning and bloodshed and in opposition to the will of Heaven, and not, as they claim, by Heaven's will? And if this is so, then the sword they have used so long against others can now, without mercy, be used against them. Heavenly wit nesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are de signed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them fo r what they are. I said, at last, in answer to some other ricocheted questions, "I left the church twenty years ago and I haven't joined any thing since." It was my way of saying that I did not intend to join their movement, either. "And what are you now?" Elijah asked. I was in something of a bind, fo r I really could not say could not allow myself to be stampeded into saying-that I was a Christian. "I? Now? Nothing." This was not enough. "I'm a writer. I like doing things alone." I heard myself saying this. Elijah smiled at me. "I don't, anyway," I said, finally, "think about it a great deal." Elijah said, to his right, "I think he ought to think about it all the deal," and with this the table agreed. But there was nothing malicious or condemnatory in it. I had the stifling fe eling that they knew I belonged to them but knew that I did not know it yet, that I remained unready, and that they were simply waiting, patiently, and with assurance, fo r me to dis cover the truth fo r myself. For where else, after all, could I go? I was black, and therefore a part of Islam, and would be saved fr om the holocaust awaiting the white world whether I would or no. My weak, deluded scruples could avail nothing against the iron word of the prophet. I fe lt that I was back in my fa ther's house-as, indeed, in a way, I was-and I told Elijah that I did not care if white and black people married, and that I had many white friends.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  That experience is ·�cprivai:e;�arid a very IargCly speechless affair is the principal i:rutn-;-perhaps, to which the colony under discussion bears witness-though the aggressively unreadable face which they, collectively, present also suggests the more disturbing possi bility that experience may perfectly well be meaningless. This loaded speculation aside, it is certainly true that whatever this experience has done to them, or for them, whatever the effect has been, is, or will be, is a question to which no one has yet given any strikingly coherent answer. Military experience does not, furthermore, necessarily mean experience of battle, so that the student colony's common denominator reduces itself to nothing more than the fact that all of its members have spent some time in uniform. This is the common denominator of their entire generation, of which the majority is not to be fo und in Paris, or, for that matter, in Eur ope. One is at the outset, therefore, forbidden to assume that the fact of having surrendered to the necessary anonymity of uniform, or of hav ing undergone the shock of battle, was enough to occasion this flight from home. The best that one can do by way of uniting these so disparate identities is simply to accept, with out comment, the fact of their military experience, without questioning its extent; and, further, to suggest that they form, by virtue of their presence here, a somewhat unexpected mi- 91 92 NOTES OF A NATIVE SON nority. Unlike the majority of their fellows, who were simply glad to get back home, these have elected to tarry in the Old Wor ld, among scenes and people unimaginably removed from anything they have known. They arc willing, apparently, at least for a season, to endure the wretched Parisian plumbing, the public baths, the Paris age, and dirt-to pursue some end, mysterious and largely inarticulate, arbitrarily summed up in the verb to study. Arbitrarily, because, however hard the cx-GI is studying, it is very difficult to believe that it was only fi:>r this reason that he traveled so far. He is not, usually, studying .anything which he couldn't study at home, in far greater comfOrt. (We arc limiting ourselves� for the moment, to those people who arc more or less seriously-studying, as opposed to those, to be considered later, who arc merely gold-bricking.) The people, ti:>r example, who arc studying painting, which seems, until one looks around, the best possible subject to be studying here, arc not studying, after all, with Picasso, or Matisse they arc studying with teachers of the same caliber as those they would have fo und in the States. They arc treated by these teachers with the same highhandcdncss, and they accept their dicta with the very same measure of American salt.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I did not trust what I heard myself saying. In very little that I heard did I hear anything that reflected any thing which I knew, or had endured, of life. My mother and my father, my brothers and my sisters were not present at the tables at which I sat down, and no one in the company had ever heard of them. My own beginnings, or instincts, began to shift as nervously as the cigarette smoke that wavered around my head. I was not trying to hold on to my wretch edness. On the contrary, if my poverty was coming, at last, to an end, so much the better, and it wasn't happening a mo ment too soon-and yet, I felt an increasing chill, as though the rest of my life would have to be lived in silence. I think it may have been my own obsession with the Mc Carthy phenomenon which caused me to suspect the impo tence and narcissism of so many of the people whose names I had respected. I had never had any occasion to judge them, as it were, intimately. For me, simply, McCarthy was a coward and a bully, with no claim to honor, nor any claim to hon orable attention. For me, emphatically, there were not two sides to this dubious coin, and, as to his baleful and dangerous effect, there could be no question at all. Yet, they spent hours debating whether or not McCarthy was an enemy of domestic liberties. I couldn't but wonder what conceivable further proof they were awaiting: I thought of German Jews sitting around debating whether or not Hitler was a threat to their lives until the debate was summarily resolved for them by a knocking at the door. Nevertheless, this learned, civilized, in tellectual-liberal debate cheerfully raged in its vacuum, while every hour brought more distress and confusion-and dis honor-to the country they claimed to love. The pretext for all this, of course, was the necessity of "containing" Com munism, which, they unblushingly informed me, was a threat to the "free" world. I did not say to what extent this fr ee world menaced me, and millions like me. But I wondered how the justification of blatant and mindless tyranny, on any level, TAKE ME TO THE WATER 373 could operate in the interests of liberty, and I wondered what interior, unspoken urgencies of these people made necessary so thoroughly unattractive a delusion.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Both are quite willing, and indeed quite wise, to remark in stead the considerably overrated impressiveness of the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower has naturally long since ceased to dh·ert the French, who consider that all Negroes arri,·e from Amer ica, trumpet-laden and twinkle-toed, bearing scars so unut terably painful that all of the glories of the French Republic may not suffice to heal them. This indignant generosity poses problems of its own, which, language and custom being what they are, are not so easily a\'erted. The European tends to avoid the really monumental con fusion which might result from an attempt to apprehend the relationship of the forty-eight states to one another, clinging instead to such information as is afforded by radio, press, and film, to anecdotes considered to be illustrative of American life, and to the myth that we ha\'e ourselves perpetuated. The result, in conversation, is rather like seeing one's back yard reproduced with extreme fidelity, but in such a perspective that it becomes a place which one has never seen or visited, which never has existed, and which never can exist. The Negro is forced to say "Yes" to many a difficult question, and yet to deny the conclusion to which his answers seem to point. His past, he now realizes, has not been simply a series of ropes and bonfires and humiliations, but something vastly more 88 NOTES OF A NATIVE SON complex, which, as he thinks painfully, "It was much worse than that," was also, he irrationally feels, something much better. As it is useless to excoriate his countrymen, it is galling now to be pitied as a victim, to accept this ready sympathy which is limited only by its failure to accept him as an Amer ican. He finds himself involved, in another language, in the same old battle: the battle for his own identity. To accept the reality of his being an American becomes a matter involving his integrity and his greatest hopes, for only by accepting this reality can he hope to make articulate to himself or to others the uniqueness of his experience, and to set fr ee the spirit so long anonymous and caged. The ambivalence of his status is thrown into relief by his encounters with the Negro students fr om France's colonies who live in Paris. The French Afri can comes fr om a region and a way of life which-at least fr om the American point of view-is exceedingly primitive, and where exploitation takes more naked forms.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  They wanted to be something that they were not. And very shortly I didn't know who I was, either. I could not be certain whether I was really rich or really poor, really black or really white, really male or really female, really talented or a fraud, really strong or merely stubborn. In short, I had become an American. I had stepped into, I had walked right into, as I inevitably had to do, the bottomless confusion which is both public and private, of the American republic. Now we've brought this hypothetical hero to this place, now what are we going to do with him, what does all of this mean, what can we make it mean? What's the thread that unites all these peculiar and disparate lives, whether it's from Idaho to San Francisco, from Idaho to New York, fr om Bos ton to Birmingham? Because there is something that unites all of these people and places. What does it mean to be an American? What nerve is pressed in you or me when we hear this word? Earlier I spoke about the disparities and I said I was going to try and give an example of what I meant. Now the most obvious thing that would seem to divide me from the rest of my countrymen is the fact of color. The fact of color has a relevance objectively and some relevance in some other way, some emotional relevance and not only for the South. I mean that it persists as a problem in American life because it means something, it fulfills something in the American personality. It is here because the Americans in some peculiar way believe or think they need it. Maybe we can find out what it is that this problem fulfills in the American personality, what it cor roborates and in what way this peculiar thing, until today, helps Americans to tee) safe. When I spoke about incoherence I said I'd try to tell you what I meant by that word. It's a kind of incoherence that occurs, let us say, when I am frightened, I am absolutely 228 NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME frightened to death, and there's something which is happen ing or about to happen that I don't want to face, or, let us say, which is an even better example, that I have a friend who has just murdered his mother and put her in the closet and I know it, but we're not going to talk about it. Now this means very shortly since, after all, I know the corpse is in the closet, and he knows I know it, and we're sitting around having a few drinks and trying to be buddy-buddy together, that very shortly, we can't talk about anything because we can't talk about that. No matter what I say I may inadvertently stumble on this corpse.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The American Negro and white do not, therefore, discuss the past, except in considerately guarded snatches. Both are quite willing, and indeed quite wise, to remark in stead the considerably overrated impressiveness of the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower has naturally long since ceased to dh·ert the French, who consider that all Negroes arri,·e from Amer ica, trumpet-laden and twinkle-toed, bearing scars so unut terably painful that all of the glories of the French Republic may not suffice to heal them. This indignant generosity poses problems of its own, which, language and custom being what they are, are not so easily a\'erted. The European tends to avoid the really monumental con fusion which might result from an attempt to apprehend the relationship of the forty-eight states to one another, clinging instead to such information as is afforded by radio, press, and film, to anecdotes considered to be illus trative of American lif e, and to the myth that we ha\'e ourselves perpetuated. The result, in conversation, is rather like seeing one's back yard reproduced with extreme fidelity, but in such a perspective that it becomes a place which one has never seen or visited, which never has existed, and which never can exist. The Negro is forced to say "Yes" to many a difficult question, and yet to deny the conclusion to which his answers seem to point. His past, he now realizes, has not been simply a series of ropes and bonfires and hu miliations, but something vastly more 88 NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON complex, which, as he thinks painfully, "It was much worse than that," was also, he irrationally feels, something much better. As it is useless to excoriate his countrymen, it is galling now to be pitied as a victim, to accept this ready sympathy which is limited only by its failure to accept him as an Amer ican. He finds himself involved, in another language, in the same old battle: the battle for his own identity. To accept the reality of his being an American becomes a matter involving his integrity and his greatest hopes, for only by accepting this reality can he hope to make articulate to himself or to others the uniqueness of his experience, and to set free the spirit so long anonymous and caged. The ambivalence of his status is thrown into relief by his encounters with the Negro students from France's colonies who live in Paris.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  But he didn't look "mean" and he wasn't "mean": he was a thin, young man of about my age, bewildered and in trouble. I asked him how things were working out, what he thought about it, what he thought would happen-in the long run, or the short. "Well, I've got a job to do," he told me, "and I'm going to do it." He said that there hadn't been any trouble and that he didn't expect any. "Many students, after all, never sec G. at all." None of the children have harmed him and the teach ers are, apparently, carrying out their rather tall orders, which are to be kind to G. and, at the same time, to treat him like any other student. I asked him to describe to me the incident, on the second day of school, when G.'s entrance had been blocked by the 1 94- NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME students. He told me that it was nothing at all-"lt was a gesture more than anything else." He had simply walked out and spoken to the students and brought G. inside. "I've seen them do the same thing to other kids when they were kid ding," he said. I imagine that he would like to be able to place this incident in the same cheerful if rowdy category, de spite the shouts (which he does not mention) of "nigger lover!" Which epithet does not, in any case, describe him at all. "Why," I asked, "is G. the only Negro student here?" Ac cording to this city's pupil-assignment plan, a plan designed to allow the least possible integration over the longest possible period of time, G. was the only Negro student who qualified. "And, anyway," he said, "I don't think it's right for colored children to come to white schools just because they're white." "Well," I began, "even if you don't like it ... " "Oh," he said quickly, raising his head and looking at me sideways, "I never said I didn't like it." And then he explained to me, with difficulty, that it was simply contrary to everything he'd ever seen or believed. He'd never dreamed of a mingling of the races; had never lived that way himself and didn't suppose that he ever would; in the same way, he added, perhaps a trifle defensively, that he only associated with a certain stratum of white people. But, "I've never seen a colored person toward whom I had any hatred or ill-will."

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  As I walked round I saw that he had been looking through a pile of photographs on the floor. I shook his surprisingly large red hand, and he gave a privileged sort of smirk. ‘Aldo’s my bummaree,’ said Staines, ‘my John the Baptist.’ He had a nice, alert little body, and I realised he must be a part of the planned vulgarity. The martinis were extremely, almost disagreeably, strong on an empty stomach, and gave me a light head at once. We talked frothily for a while—Aldo, however, saying nothing at all, although Staines spoke for him in a supercilious way: ‘Oh Aldo doesn’t care for that, do you, Aldo?’ or, to suggest that under other circumstances the Italian might be a desirable conversationalist, ‘That’s what Aldo always says.’ Then Staines would touch some part of him and Bobby would nod and raise his eyebrows, as if to say there was no limit to what these queens would do. I was some way through my second drink when Staines asked us all to go through —not to the dining-room (‘We will have a special meal later’) but to the studio. I got an unpleasant feeling that we were all going to watch a sex film, and that with this company it would be most embarrassing and anaphrodisiac. Charles took my arm, more to connect me to himself than as a prop: he was clipping us together and hardly leant on me at all. There was an odd and rather revolting attitude of suppressed expectancy on everyone’s face, and I saw that I was the only one who did not know for sure what was going on. I was more confused in the studio, where there was a noise of other people, and we hovered for a while as our host rushed off with a great air of professionalism and urgency. The romantic Edwardian backdrop, with its balustrade and overhanging cloudy branches, was in position, and in front of it the fat-cushioned chaise-longue from the garden. A couple of blond teenagers in wing-collars and tight, striped pants were sitting there, passing what was left of a thick joint back and forth, cupped under the hand, as doormen keep their illicit fag from view or from the rain. Lights and reflectors in an arc defined a kind of acting area, divided from us by a clutter of chairs. ‘Everybody got a drink?’ said Bobby, very heartily. ‘For God’s sake sit down. This could take hours.’ Charles seated himself on a creaking old carver, and looked around a bit fussily for me to pull up a chair beside him. Aldo sat down neatly on my other side, and drew protectively on his long drink. Beyond him Bobby extended his legs from one chair to another. My ignorance and foreboding added to the social discomfort and I leant over to whisper to Charles: ‘Who are these boys?’ He looked startled. ‘What, these boys?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) Or, in seeking to put her away, he was just; in that he sought it privily, is shewn his mercy, defending her from disgrace; Being a just man, he was minded to put her away; and being unwilling to expose her in public, and so to disgrace her, he sought to do it privily. AMBROSE. (in Luc. ii. 1.) But as no one puts away what he has not received; in that he was minded to put her away, he admits to have received her. GLOSS. (part ap. Anselm. part in Ord.) Or, being unwilling to bring her home to his house to live with him for ever, he was minded to put her away privily; that is, to change the time of their marriage. For that is true virtue, when neither mercy is observed without justice, nor justice without mercy; both which vanish when severed one from the other. Or he was just because of his faith, in that he believed that Christ should be born of a virgin; wherefore he wished to humble himself before so great a favour. 1:2020. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. REMIGIUS. Because Joseph was minded, as has been said, to put Mary away privily, which if he had done, there would have been few who would not rather have thought her a harlot than a virgin, therefore this purpose of Joseph was changed by Divine revelation, whence it is said, While he thought on these things. GLOSS. (ap. Ans.) In this is to be noted the wise soul that desires to undertake nothing rashly. CHRYSOSTOM. Also observe the mercifulness of Joseph, that he imparted his suspicions to none, not even to her whom he suspected, but kept them within himself. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE. (Serm. in App. 195.) Yet though Joseph think on these things, let not Mary the daughter of David be troubled; as the word of the Prophet brought pardon to David, so the Angel of the Saviour delivers Mary. Behold, again appears Gabriel the bridesman of this Virgin; as it follows, Behold the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph. AMBROSE. In this word appeared is conveyed the power of Him that did appear, allowing Himself to be seen where and how He pleases. RABANUS. How the Angel appeared to Joseph is declared in the words, In his sleep; that is, as Jacob saw the ladder offered by a kind of imagining to the eyes of his heart.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  All the young people in the intact families described the relationship between their parents as if they had followed them around day and night. They described their parents’ laughter, their teasing, how they knew how to push each other’s buttons and how they comforted one another. They even speculated in detail about their parents’ sex life. They told me whether Dad kissed Mom when he returned home or whether he pinched her bottom or whether the parents were reserved. Others wondered what their parents had in common or why they stayed married. Along with these observations, they made moral judgments and they reached conclusions that had direct implications for their future lives. How is the inner template of the child of divorce different from that of the young adult in the intact family—especially if the child of divorce, in accord with the current advice of mediators and court personnel, has access to both parents and the parents refrain from fighting during the postdivorce years? As every child of divorce told me, no matter how often they see their parents, the image of them together as a loving couple is forever lost. A father in one home and a mother in another home does not represent a marriage, however well they communicate. Separate may be equal but it is not together. As children grow up and choose partners of their own, they lack this central image of the intact marriage. In its place they confront a void that threatens to swallow them whole. Unlike children from intact families, children of divorce in our study spoke very little about their parents’ interaction. They hardly ever referred to their parents’ behavior at the breakup. By and large their central complaint is that no one had explained the divorce to them and that the reasons were shrouded in mystery. When reasons were offered, they sounded to them like platitudes designed to avoid telling what really happened. Their parents said, we were different people, we had nothing in common. Children of divorce hardly mentioned their parents together except to express their disdain when the parents continued to fight or behave badly with each other at the birthdays of grandchildren and the like. Indeed, the parents’ interaction was a black hole—as if the couple had vanished from memory and the children’s conscious inner life.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  In order to have a real relationship with somebody you have got to take the risk of being thought, God forbid, "an oddball ." You know, you have to take a chance which in some peculiar way we don't seem willing to take. And this is very serious in that it is not so much a writer's problem, that is to say, I don't want to talk about it from the point of view of a writer's problem, because, after all, you didn't ask me to become a writer, but it seems to me that the situation of the writer in this country is symptomatic and reveals, says something, very terrifying about this country. If I were writing hypothetically about a Frenchman I would have in a way a frame of reference and a point of view and in tact it is easier to write about frenchmen, comparatively speaking, because they interest me so much less. But to try to deal with the American experience, that is to say to deal with this enormous incoherence, these enormous puddings, this shapeless thing, to try and make an American, well listen to them, and try to put that on a page. The truth about dialogue, for example, or the technical side of it, is that you try and make people say what they would say if they could and then you sort of dress it up to look like speech . That is to say that it's really an absolute height, people don't ever talk the way they talk in novels, but I've got to make you believe they do because I can't possibly do a tape recording. But to try and find out what Americans mean is almost impossible because there arc so many things they do not want to face. And not only the Negro thing which is simply the NOTES FOR A HYPO THETI CAL NOVEL 229 most obvious and perhaps the simplest example, but on the level of private lif e which is after all where we have to get to in order to write about anything and also the level we have to get to in order to live, it seems to me that the myth, the illusion, that this is a free country, for example, is disastrous. Let me point out to you that freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn't got to have an enormous military machine in order to be unfree when it's simpler to be asleep, when it's simpler to be apathetic, when it's simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that some thing else is more important. And I'm not using freedom now so much in a political sense as I'm using it in a personal sense.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  On the other hand, his position with regard to the things he knows by instinct is sometimes such that he is unable to distinguish fully whether his thoughts are conceived of Divine instinct or of his own spirit. And those things which we know by Divine instinct are not all manifested with prophetic certitude, for this instinct is something imperfect in the genus of prophecy. It is thus that we are to understand the saying of Gregory. Lest, however, this should lead to error, “they are very soon set aright by the Holy Ghost [*For instance, cf. 2 Kings 7:3 seqq.], and from Him they hear the truth, so that they reproach themselves for having said what was untrue,” as Gregory adds (Hom. i super Ezech.). The arguments set down in the first place consider the revelation that is made by the prophetic spirit; wherefore the answer to all the objections is clear. Whether things known or declared prophetically can be false?Objection 1: It would seem that things known or declared prophetically can be false. For prophecy is about future contingencies, as stated above (A[3] ). Now future contingencies may possibly not happen; else they would happen of necessity. Therefore the matter of prophecy can be false. Objection 2: Further, Isaias prophesied to Ezechias saying (Is. 38:1): “Take order with thy house, for thou shalt surely die, and shalt not live,” and yet fifteen years were added to his life (4 Kings 20:6). Again the Lord said (Jer. 18:7,8): “I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do them.” This is instanced in the example of the Ninevites, according to Jn. 3:10: “The Lord [Vulg.: ‘God’] had mercy with regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and He did it not.” Therefore the matter of prophecy can be false. Objection 3: Further, in a conditional proposition, whenever the antecedent is absolutely necessary, the consequent is absolutely necessary, because the consequent of a conditional proposition stands in the same relation to the antecedent, as the conclusion to the premises in a syllogism, and a syllogism whose premises are necessary always leads to a necessary conclusion, as we find proved in I Poster. 6. But if the matter of a prophecy cannot be false, the following conditional proposition must needs be true: “If a thing has been prophesied, it will be.” Now the antecedent of this conditional proposition is absolutely necessary, since it is about the past. Therefore the consequent is also necessary absolutely; yet this is unfitting, for then prophecy would not be about contingencies. Therefore it is untrue that the matter of prophecy cannot be false.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xc. 1) But He has just said, Because they know not Him that sent Me. How could they hate one whom they did not know? For if they hated God, believing Him to be something else, and not God, this was not hatred of God. In the case of men, it often happens that we hate or love persons whom we have never seen, simply in consequence of what we have heard of them. But if a man’s character is known to us, he cannot properly be said to be unknown. And a man’s character is not shewn by his face, but by his habits and way of life: else we should not be able to know ourselves, for we cannot see our own face. But history and fame sometimes lie; and our faith is imposed upon. We cannot penetrate into men’s hearts; we only know that such things are right, and others wrong; and if we escape error here, to be mistaken in men is a venial matter. A good man may hate a good man ignorantly, or rather love him ignorantly, for he loves the good man, though he hates the man whom he supposes him to be. A bad man may love a good man, supposing him to be a bad man like himself, and therefore not, properly speaking, loving him, but the person whom he takes him to be. And in the same way with respect to God. If the Jews were asked whether they loved God, they would reply that they did love Him, not intending to lie, but only being mistaken in so saying. For how could they who hated the Truth, love the Father of the Truth? They did not wish their actions to be judged, and this the Truth did. They hated the Truth then, because they hated the punishment which He would inflict upon such as they. But at the same time they did not know that He was the Truth, who came to condemn them. They did not know that the Truth was born of God the Father, and therefore they did not know God the Father Himself. Thus they both hated, and also knew not, the Father. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxvii. 2) Thus then they have no excuse, He says; I gave them doctrine, I added miracles, which, according to Moses’ law, should convince all if the doctrine itself is good also: If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  THEOPHYLACT. Our Lord having said above, It is expedient for you that I go away, He enlarges now upon it: I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xcvii) All heretics, when their fables are rejected for their extravagance by the common sense of mankind, try to defend themselves by this text; as if these were the things which the disciples could not at this time bear, or as if the Holy Spirit could teach things, which even the unclean spirit is ashamed openly to teach and preach. (Tr. xcvi. 5). But bad doctrines such as even natural shame cannot bear are one thing, good doctrines such as our poor natural understanding cannot bear are another. The one are allied to the shameless body, the other lie far beyond the body. (Tr. xcvi. 1). But what are these things which they could not bear? I cannot mention them for this very reason; for who of us dare call himself able to receive what they could not? Some one will say indeed that many, now that the Holy Ghost has been sent, can do what Peter could not then, as earn the crown of martyrdom. But do we therefore know what those things were, which He was unwilling to communicate? For it seems most absurd to suppose that the disciples were not able to bear then the great doctrines, that we find in the Apostolical Epistles, which were written afterwards, which our Lord is not said to have spoken to them. For why could they not bear then what every one now reads and bears in their writings, even though he may not understand? Men of perverse sects indeed cannot bear what is found in Holy Scripture concerning the Catholic faith, as we cannot bear their sacrilegious vanities; for not to bear means not to acquiesce in. But what believer or even catechumen before he has been baptized and received the Holy Ghost, does not acquiesce in and listen to, even if he does not understand, all that was written after our Lord’s ascension? (xcvii. 5). But some one will say, Do spiritual men never hold doctrines which they do not communicate to carnal men, but do to spiritual? (xcviii. 3). There is no necessity why any doctrines should be kept secret from the babes, and revealed to the grown up believersa. Spiritual men ought not altogether to withhold spiritual doctrines from the carnal, seeing the Catholic faith ought to be preached to all; nor at the same time should they lower them in order to accommodate them to the understanding of persons who cannot receive them, and so make their own preaching contemptible, rather than the truth intelligible. (xcvii. 1). So then we are not to understand these words of our Lord to refer to certain secret doctrines, which if the teacher revealed, the disciple would not be able to bear, but to those very things in religious doctrine which are within the comprehension of all of us. If Christ chose to communicate these to us, in the same way in which He does to the Angels, what men, yea what spiritual men, which the Apostles were not now, could bear them? For indeed every thing which can be known of the creature is inferior to the Creator; and yet who is silent about Him? (xcvi. 4). While in the body we cannot know all the truth, as the Apostle says, We know in part; (1 Cor. 13) but the Holy Spirit sanctifying us, fits us for enjoying that fulness of which the same Apostle says, Then face to face. Our Lord’s promise, But when He the Spirit of truth shall come, He shall teach you all truth, or shall lead you into all truth, does not refer to this life only, but to the life to come, for which this complete fulness is reserved. The Holy Spirit both teaches believers now all the spiritual things which they are capable of receiving, and also kindles in their hearts a desire to know more.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ARISTOTLE ’ S TEXT Chapter 1: 995a 24-995b 4176. With a view to the science under investigation we must attack first those subjects which must first be investigated. These are all the subjects about which some men have entertained different opinions, and any other besides these which has been omitted. 177. Now for those who wish to investigate the truth it is worth the while to ponder these difficulties well. For the subsequent study of truth is nothing else than the solution of earlier problems. For it is impossible to untie a knot without knowing it. But a perplexity on the part of the mind makes this evident in regard to the matter at hand; for insofar as the mind is perplexed, to that extent it experiences something similar to men who are bound; for in both cases it is impossible to move forward. For this reason, then, it is first necessary to consider all the difficulties and the reasons for them. 178. [This is also necessary] for another reason, namely, that those who make investigations without first recognizing the problem are like those who do not know where they ought to go. 179. Again, one would not even know when he finds the thing which he is seeking [and when not]; for the goal is not evident to such a man, but it is evident to one who previously discussed the difficulties. 180. Furthermore, one who has heard all the arguments of the litigants, as it were, and of those who argue the question, is necessarily in a better position to pass judgment. COMMENTARY338. Having indicated in Book II (331) the method of considering the truth, the Philosopher now proceeds with his study of the truth. First he proceeds disputatively, indicating those points which are open to question so far as the truth of things is concerned. Second (529), he begins to establish what is true, and he does this in Book IV, which begins: “ There is a certain science. ” The first part is divided into two sections. In the first, he states what he intends to do. In the second (346), he proceeds to do it ( “ The first problem ” ). In regard to the first he does two things. First, he states what he intends to do. Second (339), he gives the reasons for this ( “ Now for those ” ). He says first, then, that with a view to this science which we are seeking about first principles and what is universally true of things, we must attack, first of all, those subjects about which it is necessary to raise questions before the truth is established. Now there are disputed points of this kind for two reasons, either because the ancient philosophers entertained a different opinion about these things than is really true, or because they completely neglected to consider them. 339. Now for those (177). Here he gives four arguments in support of this thesis:

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The next morning, when I arrived at work in another jeans and sneakers ensemble, she seemed startled, as if some strange vagrant had made a wrong turn into the office. She took a beat to compose herself, then summoned me over to confide that she was leaving in a week to work at a “real law office.” I wished her luck. An hour later, she called my office to tell me that “Robert E. Lee” was on the phone. I smiled, pleased that I’d misjudged her; she clearly had a sense of humor. “That’s really funny.” “I’m not joking. That’s what he said,” she said, sounding bored, not playful. “Line two.” I picked up the line. “Hello, this is Bryan Stevenson. May I help you?” “Bryan, this is Robert E. Lee Key. Why in the hell would you want to represent someone like Walter McMillian? Do you know he’s reputed to be one of the biggest drug dealers in all of South Alabama? I got your notice entering an appearance, but you don’t want anything to do with this case.” “Sir?” “This is Judge Key, and you don’t want to have anything to do with this McMillian case. No one really understands how depraved this situation truly is, including me, but I know it’s ugly. These men might even be Dixie Mafia.” The lecturing tone and bewildering phrases from a judge I’d never met left me completely confused. “Dixie Mafia”? I’d met Walter McMillian two weeks earlier, after spending a day on death row to begin work on five capital cases. I hadn’t reviewed the trial transcript yet, but I did remember that the judge’s last name was Key. No one had told me the Robert E. Lee part. I struggled for an image of “Dixie Mafia” that would fit Walter McMillian. “ ‘Dixie Mafia’?” “Yes, and there’s no telling what else. Now, son, I’m just not going to appoint some out-of-state lawyer who’s not a member of the Alabama bar to take on one of these death penalty cases, so you just go ahead and withdraw.” “I’m a member of the Alabama bar.” I lived in Atlanta, Georgia, but I had been admitted to the Alabama bar a year earlier after working on some cases in Alabama concerning jail and prison conditions. “Well, I’m now sitting in Mobile. I’m not up in Monroeville anymore. If we have a hearing on your motion, you’re going to have to come all the way from Atlanta to Mobile. I’m not going to accommodate you no kind of way.” “I understand, sir. I can come to Mobile, if necessary.” “Well, I’m also not going to appoint you because I don’t think he’s indigent. He’s reported to have money buried all over Monroe County.” “Judge, I’m not seeking appointment.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  First, he says that for those who wish to investigate the truth it is “ worth the while, ” i.e., worth the effort, “ to ponder these difficulties well, ” i.e., to examine carefully those matters which are open to question. This is necessary because the subsequent study of truth is nothing else than the solution of earlier difficulties. Now in loosening a physical knot it is evident that one who is unacquainted with this knot cannot loosen it. But a difficulty about some subject is related to the mind as a physical knot is to the body, and manifests the same effect. For insofar as the mind is puzzled about some subject, it experiences something similar to those who are tightly bound. For just as one whose feet are tied cannot move forward on an earthly road, in a similar way one who is puzzled, and whose mind is bound, as it were, cannot move forward on the road of speculative knowledge. Therefore, just as one who wishes to loosen a physical knot must first of all inspect the knot and the way in which it is tied, in a similar way one who wants to solve a problem must first survey all the difficulties and the reasons for them. 340. [This is also necessary] (178). Here he gives the second argument. He says that those who wish to investigate the truth without first considering the problem are like those who do not know where they are going. This is true for this reason, that, just as the terminus of a journey is the goal intended by one who travels on foot, in a similar way the solution of a problem is the goal intended by one who is seeking the truth. But it is evident that one who does not know where he is going cannot go there directly, except perhaps by chance. Therefore, neither can one seek the truth directly unless he first sees the problem. 341. Again, one would (179). Here he gives the third argument. He says that, just as one who is ignorant of where he is going does not know whether he should stop or go further when he reaches his appointed goal, in a similar way one who does not know beforehand the problem whose solution marks the terminus of his search cannot know when he finds the truth which he is seeking and when not. For he does not know what the goal of his investigations is, but this is evident to one who knew the problem beforehand. 342. Furthermore (180).

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  When you start to talk, your voice is scraped out. I catch only parts of it. It’s not Mai’s house, you explain, fumbling with your keys. Or rather, Mai is no longer there. The boyfriend, Carl, who used to slam her head against the wall is no longer there. This is somebody else, white man with a shotgun and a bald head. It was a mistake, you’re saying to Lan. An accident. “But Mai has not lived here for five years,” Lan says with sudden tenderness. “Rose . . .” Although I don’t see it, I can tell she’s brushing your hair behind your ear. “Mai moved to Florida, remember? To open her own salon.” Lan is poised, her shoulders relaxed, someone else has stepped inside her and started moving her limbs, her lips. “We go home. You need sleep, Rose.” The engine starts, the car lurches into a U-turn. As we pull away, from the porch, a boy, no older than I am, points a toy pistol at us. The gun jumps and his mouth makes blasting noises. His father turns to yell at him. He shoots once, two more times. From the window of my helicopter, I look at him. I look him dead in the eyes and do what you do. I refuse to die. II Memory is a choice. You said that once, with your back to me, the way a god would say it. But if you were a god you would see them. You would look down at this grove of pines, the fresh tips flared lucent at each treetop, tender-damp in their late autumn flush. You would look past the branches, past the rusted light splintered through the brambles, the needles falling, one by one, as you lay your god eyes on them. You’d trace the needles as they hurled themselves past the lowest bow, toward the cooling forest floor, to land on the two boys lying side by side, the blood already dry on their cheeks.