Lesson 1: Rock Superstars: What Do They Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society?How do you feel about all this adulation and hero worship? When Mick Jagger’s fans look at him as a high priest or a god, are you with them or against them? Do you share Chris Singer’s almost religious reverence for Bob Dylan? Do you think he – or Dylan – is misguided? Do you reject Alice Cooper as sick? Or are you drawn somehow to this strange clown, perhaps because he acts out your wildest fantasies?Lesson 2: Four Choices for Young PeopleThe trouble with this solution is that it no longer is practical on a large scale. Our planet, unfortunately, is running out of noble savages and unsullied landscaped; except for the polar regions, the frontiers are gone. A few gentleman farmers with plenty of money can still escape to the bucolic life – but in general the stream of migration is flowing the other way.Lesson 4: Die as You ChooseIn January the Journal of the American Medical Association published a bizarre letter, in which an anonymous doctor claimed to have killed a 20-year-old cancer patient at her own request. This started a debate that will rumble on into the autumn, when Californians may vote on a proposed law legalizing euthanasia. The letter was probably written for polemical impact. It is scarcely credible. It’s author claims that he met the cancer patient for the first time, heard five words from her – “Let’s get this over with” – then killer her. Even the most extreme proponents of euthanasia do not support such an action in those circumstances.Lesson 5: I’d Rather Be Black than FemaleIt is still women – about three million volunteers – who do most of this work in the American political world. The best any of them can hope for is the honor of being district or county vice-chairman, a kind of separate-but-equal position with which a woman is rewarded for years of faithful envelope stuffing and card-party organizing. I n such a job, she gets a number of free trips to state and sometimes national meetings and conventions, where her role is supposed to be to vote the way her male chairman votes.Lesson 6: A Good Chancethe back door which hung open, we saw people standing in the kitchen. I asked carefully, “What’s wrong?”Nobody spoke but Elgie came over, his bloodshot eyes filled with sorrow and misery. He stood in front of us for a moment and then gestured us to go into the living room. The room was filled with people sitting in silence, and finally Elgie said, quietly, “They shot him.”Lesson 7: Miss BrillAlthough it was so brilliantly fine – the blue sky powdered with gold and the great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques – Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting – from nowhere, from they sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! I t was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box tat afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown! …But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn’t at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind – a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came – when it was absolutely necessary. … Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms. But that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad – no, not sad, exactly – something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.Lesson 8: A Lesson in Living"It was the best of times and the worst of times. . ." Her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing. I wanted to look at the pages. Were they the same that I had read? Or were there notes, music, lined on the pages, as in a hymn book? Her sounds began cascading gently. I knew from listening; to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of her reading, and I hadn't really heard, heard to understand, a single word.I have tried often to search behind the sophistication of years for the enchantment I so easilyI said aloud, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…" tears of love filled my eyes at my selflessness.Lesson 9: The Trouble with TelevisionEverything about this nation—the structure of the society, its forms of family organization, its economy, its place in the world— has become more complex, not less. Yet its dominating communications instrument, its principal form of national linkage, is one that sells neat resolutions to human problems that usually have no neat resolutions. It is all symbolized in my mind by the hugely successful art form that television has made central to the culture, the 30-second commercial: the tiny drama of the earnest housewife who finds happiness in choosing the right toothpaste.When before in human history has so much humanity collectively surrendered so much of its leisure to one toy, one mass diversion? When before has virtually an entire nation surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling?Lesson 11: On Getting Off to SleepWhat a bundle of contradictions is a man! Surety, humour is the saving grace of us, for without it we should die of vexation. With me, nothing illustrates the contrariness of things better than the matter of sleep. If, for example, my intention is to write an essay, and 1 have before me ink and pens and several sheets of virgin paper, you may depend upon it that before I have gone very far I feel an overpowering desire for sleep, no matter what time of the day it is. I stare at the reproachfully blank paper until sights and sounds become dim and confused, and it is only by an effort of will that I can continue at all. Even then, I proceed half-heartedly, in a kind of dream. But let me be between the sheets at a late hour, and I can do anything but sleep. Between chime and chime of the clock I can write essays by the score. Fascinating subjects and noble ideas come pell-mell, each with its appropriate imagery and expression. Nothing stands between me and half-a-dozen imperishable masterpieces but pens, ink, and paper.Lesson 12: Why I Writeof good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience whichvaluable and ought not to be missed…Lesson 14: I Would Like to Tell You SomethingThe investigation was not staged so that veterans could spill out their hearts or purge their souls; it was done to prove that the policy of the United States in Indochina is tantamount to genocide, and that not only the soldiers are responsible for what is happening, but that everyone here in America who has allowed the brutalization and de-personalization to go on is responsible. It was done also to show that you don't start making things right by prosecuting William Galley, no matter how guilty he may be; you also prosecute the men who encouraged the situation. It was done to show that there is not just one Mylai but countless Mylais and they are continuing every single day. There was an almost total press blackout on the testimony of those veterans.Lesson 15: The Beauty IndustryWomen, it is obvious, are freer than in the past. Freer not only to perform the generally unenviable social functions hitherto reserved to the male, but also freer to exercise the more pleasing, feminine privilege of being attractive. They have the right, if not to be less virtuous than their grandmothers, at any rate to look less virtuous. The British Matron, not long since a creature of austere and even terrifying aspect, now does her best to achieve and perennially preserve the appearance of what her predecessor would have described as a Lost Woman. She often succeeds. But we are not shocked—at any rate, not morally shocked. Aesthetically shocked—yes; we may sometimes be that. But morally, no. We concede that the Matron is morally justified in being preoccupied with her personal appearance. This concession depends on another of a more general nature—a concession to the Body, with a large B, to the Manichaean principle of evil. For we have now come to admit that the body has its rights. And not only rights—duties, actually duties. It has, for example, a duty to do the best it can for itself in the way of strength and beauty. Christian-ascetic ideas no longer trouble us. We demand justice for the body as well as for the soul. Hence, among other things, the fortunes made by face-cream manufacturers and beauty-specialists, by the vendors of rubber reducing belts and massage machines, by the patentees of hair-lotions and the authors of books on the culture of the abdomen.下册Lesson One The Company in Which I workOn days when I ‘m especially melancholy , I began constructing tables of organization….classifying people in the company on the basis of envy , hope , fear , ambition , frustration, rivalry , hatred , or disappointment . I call these charts my Happiness Charts . These exercises in malice never fail to boost my spirits ----but only for a while . I rank pretty high when the company is analyzed this way , because I ‘m not envious or disappointed , and I have no expectations . At the very top , of course , are those people , mostly young and without dependents , to whom the company is not yet an institution of any sacred merit but still only a place to work , and who regard their present association with it as something temporary . I put these people at the top because if you asked any one of them if he would choose to spend the rest of his life working for the company , he would give you a resounding No ! , regardless of what inducements were offered . I was that high once . if you asked me that same question today, I would also give you a resounding No ! and add:Lesson Two EvelineBut in her new home , in a distant unknown country , it would not be like that . Then she would be married ---she , Eveline . People would treat her with respect then . She would not be treated as her mother had been . Even now , though she was over nineteen , she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father’s violence . She knew it was that that had given her the palpitations . When they were growing up he had never gone for her , like he used to go for Harry and Ernest , because she was a girl ; but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother’s sake . And now she had nobody to protect her , Ernest was dead and Harry ,who was in the church decorating business , was nearly always down somewhere in the country . Besides , the invariable squabble for money on Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably . She always gave her entire wages ----seven shillings ----and Harry always sent up what he could , but the trouble was to get any money from her father . He said she used to squander the money , that she had no head , that he wasn’t going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets ,elbowed her way through the crowds and returning home late under her load of provisions . She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had been left to her charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly . It was hard work ----a hard life ----but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life .She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall .He held her hand and she knew that he was speaking to her , saying something about the passage over and over again . The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages . Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat , lying in beside the quay wall , with illumined portholes . She answered nothing . She felt her cheek pale and cold and , out of a maze of distress , she prayed to God to direct her , to show her what was her duty . The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist . If she went , tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank , steaming towards Buenos Ayres . Their passage had been booked . Could she still draw back after all he had done for her ? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body and she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer .Lesson Three What’s Wrong With Our Press ?The fact is that although network television still allots too little time to the vital service of informing the public , it does a better job in that little time than the nation’s press as a whole . And when I speak of the nation’s press as a whole , I am not speaking of the five or six splendid newspapers ----and the one great newspaper -----which serve the world as models of responsible public information . I am speaking of the local press which in hundreds of American communities is the only news available , aside from those recitals of ticker tape that pass for radio news .Fortunately for the American public , television does not tolerate the kind of distortion of fact , the kind of partisan virulence and personal peeve , that many newspapers not only welcome but encourage . In its entertainment , television caters far too much to the lowest instincts of man , particularly the lust for violence . But there is one appetite it does not feed and which the partisan newspapers of the nation do : the appetite for hate ---hate of whatever is different . I do not find on televison the kind of editorials chronic in the New York tabloids as well as in many local papers across the country .that elevates news above dogfood . it is easier to write editorial copy that appeal to emotion rather than reason .Lesson Four The Tragedy of Old Age in AmericaWhat can we possibly conclude from these discrepant points of view ? Our popular attitudes could be summed up as a combination of wishful thinking and stark terror . We base our feelings on primitive fears , prejudice and stereotypes rather than on knowledge and insight . In reality , the way one experiences old age is contingent upon physical health , personality , earlier-life experiences , the actual circumstances of late –life events ( in what order they occur , how they occur , when they occur ) and the social supports one receives : adequate finances , shelter, medical care , social roles , religious support , recreation . All of these are crucial and interconnected elements which together determine the quality of late life .Lesson Seven Ace in the HoleNo sooner did his car touch the boulevard heading home than Ace flicked on the radio . He needed the radio , especially today . In the seconds before the tubes warmed up , he said aloud , doing it just to hear a human voice , “ Jesus . She ‘ll pop her lid . “ His voice , though familiar , irked him ; it sounded thin and scratchy . In a deeper register Ace added , “ She’ll murder me . “ Then the radio came on , warm and strong , so he stopped worrying . The five Kings were doing “ Blueberry Hill “ ; to hear them made Ace feel so sure inside that from the pack pinched between the car roof and the sun shield he plucked a cigarette , hung it on his lower lip , snapped a match across the rusty place on the dash . He rolled down the window and snapped the match so it spun end-over-end into the gutter . “ Two points , “ he said , and cocked the cigarette toward the roof of the car , sucked powerfully , and exhaled two plumes through his nostrils . He was beginning to feel like himself , Ace Anderson , for the first time that whole day , a bad day . He beat time on the accelerator . The car jerked crazily .The run must have tuned Bonnie up . When they got back home , as soon as he lowered her into the crib , she began to shout and wave her arms . He didn’t want to play with her . He tossed some blocks and rattle into the crib an walked into the bathroom , where he turned on the hot water andwent bald first . He remembered reading somewhere , though , that baldness shows virility .Lesson Eight Science Has Spoiled My SupperEconomics entered . It is possible to turn out in quantity a bland , impersonal , practically imperishable substance more or less resembling , say cheese ---at lower cost than cheese . Chain groceries shut out the independent stores and “ standardization “ became a principal means of cutting cost .Lesson Ten How Market Leaders Keep Their EdgeThe third value discipline we have named customer intimacy . Its adherents focus on delivering not what the market wants but what specific customers want . Customer-intimate companies do not pursue one-time transactions ; they cultivate relationships . They specialize in satisfying unique needs , which often only they recognize , through a close relationship with ---and intimate knowledge of ----the customer . Their proposition to the customer: We have the best solution for you , and we provide all the support you need to achieve optimum results , or value , or both , from whatever products you buy . Long distance telephone carrier Cable& Wireless , , for example , practices customer intimacy with a vengeance , achieving success in a highly competitive market by consistently going the extra mile for its selectively chosen , small-business customers .Lesson Eleven On Human Nature and PoliticsBut great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering , there is one which outweighs them all... Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the casual efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men. Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates. In the happy days before 1914,when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown inconsent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying "No" than from saying "Yes". It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive . But it has other sides which are more desirable . The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot . It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.Lesson Twelve The Everlasting WitnessThe three were eating breakfast on the terrace, a thousand and one felicitous birds in the garden trees. In unsullied damp brown circles of soft earth the roses bloomed serenely against the pink Mexican wall. Marian's brother-in-law read the English page, as dedicated as a nice little boy reading the funnies, and Theresa, Marian's sister, chatted softly and merrily about their next week-end holiday. Theresa's bright smile had always been her mark and now, childless and with a husband beyond war age, and a life both ordered and gay, it looked as if that smile had justified itself.Lesson Thirteen Selected SnobberiesAll men are snobs about something. One is almost tempted to add : There is nothing about which men cannot feel snobbish. But this would doubtless be an exaggeration. There are certain disfiguring and mortal diseases about which there has probably never been any snobbery. I cannot imagine, for exam4ple, that there are any leprosy-snobs. More picturesque diseases, even when they are dangerous, and less dangerous diseases, particularly when they are the diseases of the rich, can be and very frequently are a source of snobbish self-importance. I have met several adolescent consumption-snobs , who thought that it would be romantic to fade away in the flower of youth , like Keats or Marie Bashkirtseff. Alas, the final stages of the consumptive fading are generally a good deal less romantic than these ingenuous young tubercle-snobs seem to imagine . To anyone who has actually witnessed these final stages, the complacent poeticizings of these adolescents must seem as exasperating as they are profoundly pathetic. In the case ofexasperation is not tempered by very much sympathy. People who possesssufficient wealth, not to mention sufficient health, to go travelling from spa to spa. from doctor to fashionable doctor, in search of cures from problematical diseases (which, in so far as they exist at all. probably have their source in overeating) cannot expect us to be .very lavish in our solicitude and pity.lesson fourteen Saturday Night and Sunday MorningHe sat by the canal fishing on a Sunday morning in spring, at an elbow where alders dipped over the water like old men on their last legs, pushed by young sturdy oaks from behind. He straightened his back, his fingers freeing nylon line from a speedily revolving reel. Around him lay knapsack and jacket, an empty catch-net, his bicycle, and two tins of worms dug from the plot of garden at home before setting out. Sun was breaking through clouds, releasing a smell of earth to heaven. Birds sang. A soundless and minuscular explosion of water caught his eye. He moved nearer the edge, stood up, and with a vigorous sweep of his arm, cast out the line.Lesson Fifteen Is America Falling Apart?During my year's stay in New Jersey I let my appetite flower into full Americanism except for one thing. I did not possess an automobile. This self-elected deprivation was a way into the nastier side of the consumer society. Where private ownership prevails, public amenities decay or are prevented from coming into being. The rundown rail services of America are something I try, vainly, to forget. The nightmare of filth, outside and in, that enfolds the trip from Springfield, Mass., to Grand Central Station would not be accepted in backward Europe. But far worse is the nightmare of travel in and around Los Angeles, where public transport does not exist and people are literally choking to death in their exhaust fumes . This is part of the price of individual ownership.Lesson sixteen Through the TunnelAs for Jerry, once he saw that his mother had gained her beach , he began the steep descent to the bay . From where he was, high up among red-brown rocks, it was a scoop of moving bluish green fringed with white. As he went lower, he saw that it spread among small promontories and inlets of rough, sharp rock, and the crisping, lapping surface showed stains of purple and darkerblue.。
