November 1983

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NOVEMBER1983 RUPEES FOUR

Women Playwrights Take Center Stage

by MEL GUSSOW

In Marsha Norman's 'Night, Mother, an aging woman lives with her adult daughter in an ordinary house on a lonely country road. Minutes after the play begins, the daughter announces that she is planning to kill herself. 'Night, Mother becomes the heart-rending battle for the daughter's life. The horrified mother tries every possible method of dissuasion while the daughte r calmly puts their house in order. By the end of the evening-90 minutes without intermission-the audience has shared a catharsis of grief and pain.

For Norman, a 35-year-old native of Louisville, Kentucky, 'Night, Mother, winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, represents a confirmation of a remarkable talent first encountered in her excoriating Getting Out, an Off Broadway success in 1979. This is the second time in three years that the Pulitzer has gone to a woman dramatist. Beth Henley won it in 1981 for Crimes of the Heart.

A spare but lyrical dialogue , 'Night, Mother probes deeply into the motherdaughter relationship while making a In the last three years two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama have gone to women-Marsha Norman (top) in /983, Beth Henley (far right) in 1981. Three of the five annual John Solomon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation playwriting awards went to women this year; among the winners was Mary Gallagher (right). Facing page: A scene from Gallagher's off-Broadway one-act play Chocolate Cake.

Copyriaht

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1983 by The New York TIDies Company.

Reprinted by pcnnission from Tht Ntw York Timtt Moga:lnt.

WOMEN PLA YWRJGHTS continued

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disturbing statement about responsibility and courage. It is as artfully designed as a sonata, rising in each dramatic movement until it arrives at its inevitable destination , a conclusion that asserts one's right to control one's life even to the point of suicide. In common with Getting Out, which dealt with a young woman on her release from prison, 'Night, Mother is as tough-minded as it is sensitive. The play stands out as one of the season's major dramatic events.

This dark view of life comes not from a Samuel Beckett but from an affable, determined and petite young woman who looks more like a graduate student than a serious playwright wrestling with profound emotions. Referring to Susan Kingsley, the Louisville actress who created one of the two leading roles in Getting Out, Norman says, "Susan told me I should shave my head and smoke a cigar, and then people would believe I had written Getting Out." A powerful dramatist, Marsha Norman is at the crest of a wave of adventurous young women playwrights-a proliferation that is the most encouraging and auspicious aspect of the current American theater.

It would be as difficult to chart a group profile of female playwrights as it would be of men. They are as unlike as Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson. In fact , the most dissimilar may b.... Marsha Norman and Beth Henley. While Henley finds humor even in violent acts (the woman who shoots her husband in Crimes of the Heart because she has had a "bad day"), Norman has a harsher response to emotional crises. Yet both women and their colleagues are optimistic about their characters' ability to pursue paths of self-determination. A primary theme of Norman's plays, as illustrated by the title of her first work, is "getting out"-a leave-taking, a woman forcibly severing ties of blood , marriage and past.

Characters in many of the plays written by women are learning to express themselves as individuals outside of marriage and family. In some of the plays, men are absent or unimportant, and children are unseen or unborn . Parenting is largely the purview of an older generation , although childbearing is an important issue in Kathleen Tolan 's A Weekend Near Madison, presented at this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theater in Louisville.

These plays are about daughters, if not sons, who remain offspring even into their 30s. The playwrights are more concerned with identity than with community. At the same time , they are not

speaking from a position of defensiveness about being women. Heroines are quite comfortable in their professions as artists, novelists and rock stars. They have moved past the need to blame men , even when it may be justified. For the most part, this theater is free of polemics.

A number of the writers have their roots in specific environments, often regional and nonurban. They are in their 30s, postwar babies who grew up in a world conditioned by television, easy travel, flights into space and the fragmentation of families. They are writing primarily about women of their generation, but the plays also deal with mothers, fathers and husbands who are resolving their own attitudes toward the newly liberated women in their lives. In some of the work-and this is also true of many of their male counterparts-there is a re-evaluation of tradition , an attempt to understand the effect of formative influences and to redirect one's place in a family of the future.

One harbinger of the movement was the success on Broadway in 1976 of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which asserted black women's independence from men and their interdependence on one another.

Since then , there has been an outpouring of plays by women-by Mary Gallagher, Tina Howe, Lavonne Mueller, Jane Martin and many others who, collectively, have become a new generation of dramatists.

In order to trace the reasons for the proliferation of plays by women, one must begin with the women's movement itself, which nurtured the belief that there is no profession or artistic disciplinefrom movie making to monumental sculptur.e-that should be exclusive to men.

Many of the new women playwrights have emerged from within the theater and combine writing with other dramatic talents. Emily Mann is both a fine director and a playwright. Elizabeth Swados is a composer and director. Shirley Kaplan's background is in painting and stage direction. JoAnne Akalaitis works as a director, writer and editor within the Mabou Mines ensemble. Beth Henley, Kathleen Tolan, Mary Gallagher, Lois Smith and others began as actresse¡ .

Some of them turned to playwriting because they felt there were not enough good dramatic roles for women.

Trying to "explain the increasing number of female playwrights, Marsha Norman says: " Plays require active central characters . Until women could see them-

selves as active , they could not really write for the theater. We are the central characters in our Jives. That awareness had to come to a whole group before women could write about it. " Looking at related arts, she adds, "Novels have a much broader canvas. Poetry is a kind of musing, open to everyone. To be active is a requirement of the theater."

A Jane Austen or an Emily Dickinson could write fiction or poetry in isolation and even in secrecy. The act of reading their work is equally private. But plays come alive only before an audience. It is difficult for playwrights not to be involved, at some point , in the theatrical process, and many insist on that involvement.

For centuries, theater was a male preserve, and women playwrights were almost as rare as women generals. One of

Kathy Bates as daughter and Anne Pitoniak as mother in Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Night, Mother. The play has won several other prizes-for the playwright and the actresses.

the first was Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, a lOth-century Benedictine nun whose plays about chastity were performed in private for the edification of her sequestered sisters. The spirit of Hrosvitha lingered long after her plays had been forgotten ; men believed there was something strange about a woman writing plays, and the few who did , such as Aphra Behn in the 17th century, became legendary. In America, women in numbers apparently did not have the emotional armor or ambition to engage themselves in theater, except in certain areas, such as acting and costume design. In

addition, the men in control were unwilling to give women playwrights the necessary opportunities anp financial backing.

There have been isolated individuals, such as Lillian Hellman, Carson McCullers and Lorraine Hansberry, but not until recently has there been anything approaching a movement.

The increase in the number of women playwrights is part of a larger pattern in which women are assuming roles of authority and creativity in all aspects of the theater. Today , there are important women producers (on Broadway: Elizabeth McCann, Nelle Nugent , Claire Nichtem and Francine Lefrak; Off Broadway: Lynne Meadow, Carole Rothman and Robyn Goodman); and directors (Zoe Caldwell, Elinor Renfield , Susan Einhorn and Tisa Chang); as well as set, costume and L;ghting designers.

There has also been increasing encouragement from playwrights' workshops, institutional theaters and foundations. This year, the John Solomon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation gave three of its five playwriting awards to women: Mary Gallagher, Emily Mann and Wendy Wasserstein. Many prominent companies have actively solicited and produced plays by women. Since 1978, for example , the American Place Theater has had an ongoing Women's Project under the direction of Julia Miles.

According to Miles, when the project began, only about 100 plays by women were submitted annually to the American Place. Now she receives 500 a year.

One organization, the Actors Theater of Louisville, has been pre-eminent in its encouragement and development of plays by women, including Marsha Norman,

WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS continued

the house. Billie Williams sold insurance

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Beth Henley, Jane Martin and Kathleen Tolan. Jon Jory , producing director of the Actors Theater, says with admiration: "With women today , there is a kind of directness and toughness, a lack of fragil· ity. The characters in their piays very often seem more emotionally affecting to the audience than characters men have been writing about. While men are dis· secting characters and detecting flaws, women are creating characters you can love. That says something about women's new , positive sense of self. They are finding a kind of support system for each other."

Another factor encouraging women as playwrights is the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an award of $2,000 that is given annually to a woman dramatist in the English-speaking theater. The Blackburn Prize was created in memory of Susan Smith Blackburn . an American actress and writer who died in 1977. The prize, established by her family in Houston, has helped motivate women to write plays and to put them on the line in competition. This year, the prestigious award was given to Marsha Norman for 'Night, Mother, with Caryl Churchill's Top Girls the runner-up. Churchill is one of a wave of Englishwomen who are also bringing new vitality as well as a flamboyant theatricality to playwriting.

Marsha Norman is extremely intelligent and self-assured, someone who regards herself, her work, the theater and the world around her with the utmost seriousness. In contrast to the image one

The heroines in plays by women playwrights are individuals trying to express themselves outside marriage and family. Tina Howe's Painting Churches (above) considers the responsibility a young artist owes to her parents and what they owe her.

receives from her plays, however, she treasures the objects of her family heri· tage. In her home life, she is very much a preserver, surrounding herself with lndi· an rugs, antique quilts and ceramics. She and her husband , Dann Byck Jr. , often play Schubert in their living room in private piano-clarinet duets.

At the same time, Norman is commit· ted to her personal computer. It is her companion in art and the keeper of her plays in perpetuity. Shortly before 'Night, Mother opened on Broadway, after spending a long evening making script revisions with her director, Tom Moore, she returned to her Manhattan apartment and typed the changes into her computer.

It was 2:30 in the morning by the time she was satisfied with the result, and as the printer clattered out a clean copy of the play, Norman sat back and took up her knitting, adding inches to her new red sweater. The juxtaposition of the technological and the homespun is a quintessential picture of this artist at work.

Her family is of rock-ribbed American stock. Growing up in Louisville, she was taught to believe in absolute good and absolute evil. Her parents, Billie and Bertha Williams, are fundamentalists and the Bible was the most important book in

and , later, real estate. The oldest of four children, Marsha remembers herself as a lonely child.

She escaped into a world of books, the Brontes' as well as Eudora Welty's. She had an imaginary friend, named Bettering, who has figuratively accompanied her into adulthood as she continues on a course of self-improvement. In her junior year at Durrett High School in Louisville, she won first prize in a writing contest with an essay entitled "Why Do Good Men Suffer?" "I'm still writing the same thing," she says. "What else is there to know in the world?"

Despite her interest in literature, she did not consider writing as a possible career, and blames it partly on the fact that she bad no artistic role model or encouragement. On scholarship, she went to Agnes Scott College, a small school in Decatur, Georgia, where she majored in philosophy, still one of her principal interests. For two years, she worked as a volunteer in the pediatric burn unit of Grady Memorial, Atlanta's largest hospital. It was the first of several efforts to confront life-and-death situations. After graduation , she married a teacher, Michael Norman (they were divorced in 1974 but she kept his name), returned to Louisville and found a job at Central State Hospital working with disturbed children. "It was a desperately unhappy situation, full of visible pain," she says.

Subsequently, Norman taught in a school for gifted children and wrote and edited a column for young people in The Louisville Times. Her first extended writ· ing was a book for a prospective musical about inventors. She sent it to Jon Jory at the Actors Theater. and sometime later he contacted her. With an intuitive feeling for incipient dramatic talent, he suggested that she write a play for his theater about busing, an inflammatory issue in Louisville. She was not interested , but at Jory's instigation, she sought another subject. She remembered a severely disturbed girl she had known at Central State. "This was a kid who was so violent and vicious that people would get bruises when she walked into a room.

They were thrilled when she ran away. I had kept up with her over the years-she was in federal prison for murder. " She told Jory that she wou1d like to write about that girl, and he proposed that she do 10 pages as a kind of tryout.

Reading those pages, Jory realized that "she was a full-fledged writer, with a great sense of dialogue. She knew what (Text continued on page 44)

November 1983

SPAN VOLUME XXIV NUMBER

11

1

Women Playwrights Take Center Stage

by Mel Gu.ssow

6

Partners in the World Community

by George Hush

8

Vast Riches on the Bottom of the World

by Stanley N . Wf'llbom

9

Erik Erikson: On Age, Wisdom & the Life Cycle An l nten:iew by Elizabeth !Ia//

14

Lewis Dine's Last Legacy

by Judith Mara Gwman

18

Americans Make Up Their Minds

by Everell Carll Loclcl

21 Hospitality A Shan Story by Tmman Capote

24 City Birds

by Bulbul Sharma

27

The Union of Genes and Genius

by Isaac Asimm

31 On the Lighter Side

32

'Suddenly a Phrase Begins to Sing'

by Chidananda Dcu Gupllr

36

The Legend of Bucky Fuller

by Robm Anton Wilson

42 Focus On ...

45

A Living Museum Needs to Grow

by Manini Cltanerjce

Publisher Michael Pistor Editor Mal Oettinger Managing Editor Chidananda Das Gupta Assistant Managing Editor Krishan Gabrani Senior Editor Aruna Dasgupta Copy Editor Murari Saha Editorial Assistant

Rocque Fernandes

Photo Editor Avinash Pasricha Art Director Nand Katyal Associate Art Director Kanti Roy Assistant Art Director Bimanesh Roy Choudhury Chief of Production

Awtar S. Marwaha

Circulation Manager P.N. Saigal Photographic Service

USIS Photographic Services Unit

Photographs: Front cover-Bonnie Schiffman. Inside front coverCarol Rosegg. 1 top-Bonnie Schiffman; bottom left-Carol Rosegg; 1 bottom right, 2- 3-© 1983 Martha Swope. 4-Stephanie Saia.

9-Bonnie Schiffman. 12-courtesy Columbia Pictures. 14-17-Lcwis Hine. 2 !-illustration by Pranab Chakravarty. 23-Richard Avedon.

26-Avinash Pasricha. 28-© James Sugar. Black Star; Chick Harrity, U.S. News & World Report. 32-34-Avinash Pasricha. 37-illustration

by Nand Katyal. 44- courtesy Hartford Stage Company. 45-48Avinash Pasricha. Inside back cover and back cover-R.K. Sharma.

Published by the United States Information Service, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg. New Delhi 110001. on behalf of the American Embassy, New Delhi. The opimons expressed tn this magazine do not necessanly reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government. Printed by H .K Mehta at Thomson Press (India) Ltmited.

Faridabad, Haryana.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For perm1SS10n write to rbe Editor Price of magazine, one year's sub><.ription (12 issues) 2.5 rupees; sinal• ropy,~- 4. For change of address send an old address from a recent SPAN envelope along wull new address to Circularion Manager. SPAN Magwnc, lA Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delbi 110001. See change of addres• form on paj!e 44b

Front cover: Erik Erikson-an interview with the 81-year-old psychoanalyst, ·'the closest thing to an intellectual hero in the United States." start~ on page 9.

Back cover: These two painting~ are part of an Indo-U.S. program to exchange children's paintings. Wildlife won the first prize in an art competilton organized by the National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi. See also inside back cover.

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A LEITER FROM THE PUBLISHER One of the enduring superstitions of the magazine world has been that people who are featured prominently in Time magazine would soon encounter disaster. Of course this was not inevitably true but it happened often enough to make the famous wince when they saw a Time reporter. We are pleased to observe that good things have been happening recently to people featured in SPAN. I

Take this very issue . The distinguished poet A.K. Ramanujanl who teaches at the University of Chicago was interviewed by SPAN's Managing Editor Chidananda Das Gupta during a visit to New Delhi last summer. Just a few weeks later the MacArthur Foundation announced that Ramanujan would receive one of its "genius" awards 1 a grant of a substantial sum over a period of years to free a person from the stresses of earning a living so that he or she could concentrate on creative work.

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We started the year with a cover story on American film director John Huston.

The issue was still on newsstands when the American Film Institute announced it had chosen Huston for its 1983 Life Achievement Award. Our February 1983 issue featured a story called "Insights into the Universe I" which described the career and work of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (who like Ramanujan teaches at the University of Chicago).

Chandrasekhar shares this year's Nobel Prize for physics.

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The distinguished physicist received the news of this signal honor on his 73rd birthday. He was born in Lahore on October 19 1910. He studied physics at Madras University then as a graduate student at Cambridge University in England he announced some of his theories when he was only 24 years old. He became an American citizen in 1953.

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Subrahmanyan Clrandrasekhar

The other winner of the Nobel Prize for physics is William A. Fowler of the California Institute of Technology an astrophysicist who worked separately on the same subject that Chandrasekhar has specialized in: the evolution of stars.

The chemistry prize was won by Henry Taube of Stanford University for inorganic work on metal systems that resulted in 18 major discoveries.

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Including the Nobel Prize for medicine which went to Barbara McClintock (as we report in Focus On page 42) Americans made a clean sweep of the awards for science. Gerard Debreu a mathematician won the Nobel Prize for the so-called dismal science of economics. In the history of the Nobel science prizes, 48 of the 123 physics winners and 2 6 of the 100 winners for chemistry have been U.S. scientists.

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Such statistics kindle an understandable pride in Americans 1 but they also reveal something fundamental about the United States as a country that encourages free scientific and academic inquiry. Three of this year's winners--Chan dra sekhar I Debreu and Taube--were born in other countries and became American citizens.

The work they have done is beneficial to all peoples; their contributions know no national boundaries. They have enriched America and the country has provided --M.P. fertile soil on which their ideas have sprouted and been harvested.

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Partners in the World Community

by GEORGE BUSH

Excerpts from Vice President George Bush's speech during his recent visit to Algeria highlight the U.S. commitment to close cooperation between the developing and developed countries and the need for a world of truly independent, prospering nations.

independence of others even when their ways are different.

Our own political and economic system stresses free competition, the clash of ideas, tolerance, and openness-in a word, freedom. It is sometimes chaotic, but it is a system that gives free rein to individual My country is 200 years old, but as we talent and initiative. Likewise in the internahave not forgotten the dreams of our own tional arena, we see pluralism and diversity beginning, we have not grown indifferent to as a source of creativity and dynamism. We the hopes and desires of the younger na- seek no artificial uniformity or regimentations. The United States had the first anti- tion. We are not afraid of spontaneity. We colonial revolution; and toward the end are prepared to compete on a fair basis in of World War I, when colonialism still the world of ideas as well as the world of shrouded the globe, we were instrumental in economics. This is our tradition and our beginning the modern process of decol- vision of a just international order. onization. After World War II, the United Therefore we accept, and respect, the States continued to champion decoloniza- practice of genuine nonalignment. As long tion, because we remembered our own as a country is making its own independent struggle for independence and the principles sovereign decisions and respects the on which our own nation was founded. sovereignty of other nations in the world Today, the end of the colonial system community. we respect its views, even when has transformed international politics and they differ from ours. And we are ready to international economics. The United States work constructively with those countries on is acutely aware that much of the world's issues on which we agree and in areas where future is being shaped by events in these our interests coincide- even though we may newly independent and developing re- not agree totally. gions which embrace the broad majority We welcome the diversity of points of of mankind. Out of enlightened self-in- view that exists among all countries, deterest and a consciousness of common veloped and developing, and we know their humanity. the American people share your interests and circumstances are not all idenaspirations for peace. freedom, security and tical. Every country has its unique potential progress. and its unique problems. Therefore we are We are now more than two decades into concerned when some developing countries the postcolonial era. The euphoria of the compromise their own individual principles early independence period has given way to to meekly follow a single voice or alien a sober appreciation of the long-term prob- ideology, or to pretend a false identity of lems of nation-building. New nations are views on major international issues. Such an confronted by serious challenges of regional artificial conformity obscures the real nature security and economic development. Both of problems and blocks realistic solutions. developed and developing nations have We reject the theory, offered by some learned that, politically and economically, nations, of a "natural alliance" between the our destinies are intertwined . Our well- nonaligned nations and the East bloc. If being and security are closely interrelated. anything, we believe the West has vastly We face many common challenges and more to offer the nations of the Third opportunities for the future.

World-in terms of freedom and economic It was President John F. Kennedy who opportunity. And what the West has to offer said that America's goal was to help ¡â&#x20AC;˘make does not require automatic conformity to the world safe for diversity." Of course, the preconceived social structures or political United States has its interests and objectives positions. True nonalignment means to seek in the world. But America sees a world of a position independent of East and West truly independent, prospering nations as and to apply equal objectivity in judging the totally compatible with its interests. We do actions and policies of both. not wish to make over the world in our If the nonaligned nations criticize the image. This is not our way. We respect the West, that is fine and healthy for aU of us.

We are always open to constructive criticism. Our system is built on debate and the free exchange of ideas and opinions.

But objectivity and balance require equal care in observing the faults of the East. Many governments that call themselves nonaligned are remarkably myopic recognizing what communism does to human rights wherever it takes hold. Religious beliefs and practices, for instance, are strictly controlled by the state, sometimes outJawed altogether, and the faithful are harassed, intimidated and thrown in jaiL It detracts from the credibility of the nonaligned movement when gross violations of international law are ignored or when human rights violations in the West are focused upon, while those of the Eastin Afghanistan, Poland-are overlooked.

Credibility is the movement's currency, and it should not be so debased.

Our desire, and our policy, is to view every country in the developing world in its own right. Contrary to some misconceptions, we do not seek to inject East-West controversies into Third World issues or to attempt to force the countries of the Third World to choose between affiliation with the West or the East. We not only respect nonalignment, we value it as a precious contribution to global security, peace and freedom.

Sadly, the world is much beset by regional conflicts which pose immediate dangers to the independence of developing countries and sometimes raise the grave danger of

outside involvement. The world community therefore has a vital stake in strengthemng the rule of law. It is the smaller countries of the world most of all whose well-being depends on the rule of law-on the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes, noninterference and respect for the sovereign mdependence of states.

Recently, the world was shocked by the tragic events over the Sea of Japan. The callous murder of 269 civilians aboard a commercial airliner was only compounded by the bald and careless lies of those responsible, and the absolute contempt they showed for the just inquiries of the international community. The Soviets even threatened that they would do it again. No remorse, no expression of regret or sorrow.

It is apparent that they don't place the same value on human life that we do. Imagine saying: "We'd do it again."

I ask you: Would your own country wantonly shoot down an unarmed commercial airliner filled with innocent men, women and cliildren for any reason at all?

Never. Nor would mine. When any nation shows such brazen disregard for the most basic rules of international behavior, and the most elementary humanitarian considerations, it weakens the security of all nations and undermines the prospects for peace.

When developing countries come into conflict with each other, we believe that the best safeguard against expansion of local conflict is the concerted action of regional countries themselves. Such efforts will always have the support of the United States.

On Lebanon, for instance, we are workmg with all concerned in an attempt to secure the peace and integrity of Lebanon. We are trying to help, not dictate.

Let me turn now to America's economic relations with the developing world. In the economic dimension, Algeria and America start from different ph1losophies. But we have learned that practical cooperation IS not only fruitful but essential, because philosophy alone doesn' t put a dollar or a dinar m your pocket or contribute to a nation's economic development. Business IS business. You need it and we need it.

The United States, too, was once a developing country, and our approach is very much colored by our historical experi-

ence . We have seen the free market system work-as a great liberator of talent, energy. initiative and creativity. In our expcnence, technological innovation and economic growth came from the dynamism of private enterprise, not from government. And we saw this process of development work most effectively for us, in a political context of pluralist, constitutional democracy Other nations, we recognize . having a different history and philosophy. have chosen different models. Some have chosen ours, and we sincerely believe our approach has proven the most effective for many countries in the developing world. But we believe more strongly that every people should be free to choose their own way We have no quarrel w1th those who chose a different economic system from ours- only with those who seek to impose their choice on others. or who claim to speak for workers without allowing workers to spe. ¡ for themselves.

There are no shortcuts to development.

In the long term, trade-not a1d- 1s the pnmary source of external resources to stimulate growth for all countries. In 1980, the developing countries had export earnings of about $580,000 million. This amounted to 17 times their net inflow of resources from foreign aid. Therefore, the openness of the world's trading system is of crucial importance. As the world economy now moves toward recovery, it is important for all of us to resist internal protectionist pressures-and indeed to move ahead on new measures of trade liberalization, such as we have undertaken with our Canbbean Basin Initiative, with special care for the opportunities and vulnerabilities of the developing countnes.

The United States has a strong tradition of support for development through bilateral and multilateral aid, through trade liberalization, through strengthening mternational institutions, and through technology transfer from the pnvate sector. In the decade of the 1970s, the United States Government provided $57,000 million to the developing world-$43,000 million in offic1al aid and $14,000 million in contributions to the multilateral development banks.

Our foreign aid program has increased each year of the Reagan Administration, even while domestic programs for our citiLens

have been cut. The United States continues to be the world's largest contributor of official development aid, and over twothirds of our aid goes to the poorest countries. We have played an active role in multilateral efforts to case debt problems, and we arc proud of it.

The bilateral economic relationship between the United States and Algeria IS proof that cooperation can be mutually beneficial for two very different economic systems.

You have welcomed modern technology from the West and yet preserved your values, your independence and nonalignment. The United States is happy to have cooperated in Algeria's technological progress. Experience shows that U .S private business and Algeria's Enterpnses Nationales can work as partners, to mutual benefit.

The American economy is now launched on a vigorous, sustained recovery. This is probably the single most Important thing we can do to help restore growth in the developing worW. In the United States, inflation and interest rates are way down from past years, and the key indicators of produc.t~ .l are up sharply. We are embarked on a broad program of regulatory relief. to get the Federal Government off people's backs and out of their pockets Growth with low inflation has also returned in Britain. Germany, Japan and other countries, which together with the United States account for about three-quarters of the production of the industrialized nations If we all maintam discipline in our policies and freedom in our trading system, the entire world may be headed into a new period of steady, longterm noninflatiOnary econom1c expansion.

We in the United States know that our own future is very much bound up with the future of the rest of the world. Political turmoil and regional conflict affect international security, which threatens us all. And our own economic health is very much enhanced by the economic \ttality of the world economy, of which the developing world is an increasingly important part.

To any country that seeks freedom. peace, and free and fair trade. the United States will be a reliable friend. We look upon the problems of peace and economic development as challenges facmg us. We are prepared to do our part to help. We hope others will meet us in the same spirit.

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Reprinted from US. N'"'-' & World Rtpofl, January 24, 1983. published at Wa<h•nston, 0 C.

McMURDO STATION. ANTARCI'ICA Here on some of the most hostile terrain on earth, an international struggle is mounting over whether the Antarctic continent will remain a laboratory for scientific research or be exploited by rivals for vast natural resources.

At stake are minerals, especially oil, believed to be 10 times more plentiful than in Alaska. artd marine life that could more than double the current annual harvest from the world's seas.

Within sight of this U.S. outpost of 130 squat buildings and 1,000 resident Americans are mountain ranges containing coal, iron and uranium, and ice-covered inlets teeming with life.

Philip Kyle, a young geologist from New Mexico who studies active volcanoes in Antarctica, stands looking across the barren icescape and remarks: "You can't help but feel the way the early explorers did about this place, that it will eventually benefit the entire world. The question ~s: How can we do it without ruining it?"

Today, that question haunts the Antarctic. The continent's mineral riches are locked in the earth under glaciers more than three kilometers thick at the South Pole. Mining and drilling operations are impeded by winds that sweep across the polar plateau at more than 300 kilometers per hour. Icebergs as large as Manhattan Island can crush boats like paper cups. Paralyzing cold drops temperatures to 127 degress below zero Fahrenheit-low enough to freeze carbon dioxide.

Despite such hostile conditions, potential Antarctic wealth excites major powers such as Japan and the Soviet Union, as well as many Third World leaders who contend that the world's last unexploited continent should be the "common heritage" of all people.

Such a prospect concerns American officials who see a free-for-all Antarctic policy as a threat to the ambitious scientific work being conducted by about 20 nations on this

vast Riches on the Botto• of the world

by STANLEY N. WELLBORN

immense ice sheet that is as large as the United States and Mexico combined. Scientists worry that the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which has served to protect the pristine environment from overuse by man, could unravel and open the continent to unchecked commercial development withln the next 15 years.

The scientists' fears were heightened by the Falkland Islands war-which focused new attention on the strategic Importance of the southern latitudes-and by the embattled Law of the Sea Treaty, in which the less powerful nations laid claim to the world's seabed resources.

"Suddenly, Antarctica has assumed a major new importance in world affairs," says Philip W. Quigg, former managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine and author of A Pole Apart, a new book about the continent. "There is absolutely no agreement about whether Antarctica belongs to everyone, or to no one.

But nobody wants to make the kind of mistake Russia did in selling Alaska to the U.S. in 1867, failing to realize the potential of that frozen wilderness."

President Reagan, in a policy paper last year, restated U.S. determination to maintain an "active and influential presence'· on the continent "to support the range of U.S. Antarctic interests," including scientific work and mineral-resource surveys. Previous U.S. surveys have estimated that as much as 45,000 million barrels of oil and 115 trillion cubic feet of gas may lie off Antarctica's coast. Geologists have confirmed findings of great quantities of iron, uranium and coal, including perhaps the world's largest coal field, running more than 2,400 kilometers along the Transantarctic Mountains.

There are now 38 stations manned year round in Antarctica, maintained by the 14 nations that are full parties to the Antarctic Treaty. [India is the newest signatory to the Treaty.

Since it was ratified by 12 nations and came into force in 1961, the document has been acceded to by 16 others.] The U.S. has three year-round locations, while the Soviet Union has seven .

In 1983, U.S. work in Antarctica will consume about $83 million in federal support. About one-eighth of that will be for research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, which since 1975 has operated the U.S. Antarctic Research Program.

The other $74 million will finance logistic support from the Navy and other agencies.

That budget pays for a U.S. support force-by far the largest of any nation on the continent-with headquarters at McMurdo Station, a permanent encampment on the Ross Ice Shelf. During the October-to-March austral, or southern, summer., ski-equipped planes haul three-ton loads of equipment, food and fuel from New Zealand to support a summer population of Americans that grows to 1,600. Two icebreakers carve a channel in frozen McMurdo Sound to allow in a freighter that carries everything from seawater-desalinization plants to sophisticated computers and radio gear.

"We have the capability of airlifting emergency supplies anywhere on the continent at any time of the year," says the commander of the U.S. Navy's Operation Deep Freeze, locally dubbed "the world's most expenenced Antarctic airline."

While the economic lures of Antarctica grow more exciting. it is science that attracts researchers from around the world to this ice-locked land. Last year, more than 300 U.S. scientists, many in cooperation with other nations, undertook projects in such fields as glaciology, geology, meteorology. atmospheric physics, botany and zoology.

The potential payoffs are enormous. Already. studies of (Text conrinr1ed on page 41)

n kso Eri k Eri On Age, Wisdom & the Life Cycle

by ELIZABETII HALL

As the rain drummed steadily down from the gray California skies, Erik Erikson, who has been called the "closest thing to an intellectual hero" in the United States, spoke quietly and reflectively about his view of human development.

Unlike most psychoanalytic theorists, Erikson went beyond evidence from disturbed people and drew on his studies of healthy adolescents and of the Sioux and Yurok Native American tribes when building his ideas. Always he has argued that society and history are potent forces in individual development, and he invented the field of psychobistory to demonstrate the point. His book Young Man Luther showed that the sympathetic application of psychoanalysis Reprinted from Psychology Tod4y magazine.

Copyright Š 1983 American Psychological Association.

could lead to an understanding of the way in an art teacher, but in Vienna he met Sigmund which "the historical moment" and a human Freud and other psychoanalysts and, while life might mesh to affect an entire society. in his 20s, began to study at the Vienna Gandhi's Truth, which won both the Pulitzer Psychoanalytic Institute, where he was trained Prize . and the National Book Award, gave by Anna Freud. In 1933, he was graduated similar insights into the development of mili- from the institute and came to the United States. Besides maintaining a private practice, tant nonviolence. in ain be bas taught at the Yale School of Medicine, Erikson was born in Frankfurt-am-M the University of California and at Harvard at mother his of home the in up grew 1902 and and stepfather, a German pediatrician. His University.

Now 81, Erikson says that he is "pretty father, a Dane, had abandoned his mother before Erik was born. Erik's close sympathy much retired." But he is still seeing a few with young people may be in part the result of patients, writing, making occasional appearhis own troubled youth. This man who coined ances, and conducting research into aging the phrase "identity crisis" went through his with Joan Erikson, his wife. The Eriksons own intense adolescent crisis, so severe, he have always worked closely together, espesays, that at times it brought him near the cially in the gradual formulation of the stages borderline between neurosis and adolescent Above: Erik Erikson with his wife, Joan, who is psychosis.

He had studied art and intended to become also his editor and collaborator.

ERIK ERIKSON continued

10

"Einstein used the word 'wonder' to describe his experience as a child .... He claimed hew: of life and of the life cycle as a whole. A dancer and craftswoman, author and educator, she has edited all of her husband's books.

On the second day of our conversation, the skies cleared and we walked down the steep hillside to a restaurant beside the bay for lunch. Over a ,glass of German beer, Erikson admitted that he had a large project in the back of his mind-a book about Jesus. It seemed onl}" fitting that the student of Luther and Gandhi should now be probing the words and life of the man who inspired them both.

think that the biggest change in the last stage of life would be that old people will be allowed to remain involved in matters that have always been considered too much for them. The stage of middle adulthood, of course, is the stage of generativity, and the question is, bow, and how long, can old people remain generative?

Generativity means a concern with the next generation. How can old people be generative?

I've described generativity as including Hall: Professor Erikson, over the past 30 procreativity, productivity and creativity. years your theory of human development Of course, old people can no longer has come to dominate our view of the life procreate, but they can be pr.oductive, cycle. Now that you've reached the eighth and they can be creative; the creative and final stage of the cycle, has your own potential of old people has probably been experience changed your view of human very much underestimated. Only a few elders have been presented as examples development?

Erikson: It undoubtedly has. But in The of special worth.

Life Cycle Completed I am offering a review of my views, and I emphasize People like Pablo Casals and Picasso and primarily their inner logic. Of course, 30 Georgia O'Keeffe. years ago I lacked the capacity for im- Exactly. But they may be special examagining myself as old, and the general ples of what more old people can repreimage of old age was different then . sent. This changing experience of old age Certainly, the theory has not yet taken doesn't call for a new stage, but perhaps into account all the recent changes in the transition leading to senescence will society. Consider the thousands and be longer. People will one day be exthousands of old people alive today who pected to work longer. And even after would not have been alive 30 years ago. they retire, old people can be useful to But I've always emphasized historical one another and to the younger generarelativity in the study of human beings. tions.

How does the increase in the number of old people affect the experience of old age?

Thirty years ago , we spoke of "elders," the handful of wise old women and men who faced death with dignity. But a society can have only relatively few elders. So our large group of wellpreserved old people leads us to speak now of "elderlies." The existence of this group means that we need to rethink the role of old age. Being old is of course a part of life , but-perhaps because we stress youthfulness in our culture-people keep talking about "later adulthood" as if being old were funny or bad .

Has the large group of elderlies made you consider inserting another slage into the life cycle between middle adulthood and old age?

The various life stages are not equal in length, so you can always make one stage longer and describe a transitional stage, although it gets a little odd to talk about a transitional stage at the end of life. I

Are you talking about volunteer work?

That depends. Many volunteer projects take on the same quality as the word "elderly." The work is not considered " real" work, and-even if working conditions are adjusted somewhat- it's very important to maintain the quality of real work.

the inexperienced eye of the child, as if you were seeing them for the first time?

Yes, something like that. You know, Einstein used the word "wonder" to describe his experience as a child, and he was considered childlike by many people.

And I think he claimed that he was able to formulate the theory of relativity because he kept asking the questions that children ask. So when I say old people think like children, I do not mean childishly, but with wonder, joy, playfulness-all those things that adults often have to sacrifice for a while.

Because they have duties.

Things to take care of. The Hindus call it the maintenance of the world. Technology has obviously interfered with this relationship between the old and the young, because it concentrates people in communities for economic reasons. That becomes obvious when old people move into a place that just takes care of old people. But technology has also made it possible for the old and young to get together over long distances-you can fly, drive.

In your new book you've moved beyond Freud by proposing a stage of generalized sensuality in old age. His psychosexual stages ended with mature genitality in early adulthood.

According to Freud, in the young stage sexuality culminated in genitality, which essentially means mutual genital enjoyment. We've proposed two additional psychosexual stages: procreativity in adulthood and generalized sensuality in old age. But please note that on my chart of the life cycle I put them both into parentheses, because they haven't been fully discussed in psychoanalytic theory.

You see, I believe that there is a procreative drive: There is an instinctual wish to have children, and it's important that we realize that.

You mean that if I were doing some volunteer job and I thought that people were just keeping me busy and out of the way, I wouldn't feel good about myself?

That's it, exactly. Old people can be What happens to someone who decides generative in another way, too. They can not to have children? be good grandparents, and not only to Since we're in a period of history when their own grandchildren . I'm convinced the number of births has to be reduced, that old people and children need one many people will be making that decianother and that there's an affinity be- sion. But it's important that people who tween old age and childhood that, in fact , decide to remain childless know what rounds out the life cycle. You know, old they are nor doing. The danger is that people often seem childlike, and it's they will repress the sense of frustration important that we be permitted to revive and loss that comes with the rejection of some qualities that we had as children. procreativity, so a new kind of unconscious repression develops in place of the Do you mean to look at things afresh with sexual repression of the Victorian age.

able to formulate the theory of relativity because he kept asking the questions that children ask."

By "repression," you mean to push it completely out of mind, so that if someone said, "Don't you sometimes regret having children?" a person could honestly reply, "No." Now what happens when someone who's chosen not to have children wakes up one morning at age 45 or 50 and says, "What have I done?"

Not done. Well, you don't keep prescriptions ready for such cases; you don't say, " It's easy to handle your problem, you simply have to sublimate." But "sublimate" is the right word; Freud made this very clear many years ago. The procreative urge does need to be directed into socially fruitful channels. Instead of having clear prescriptions, it's better to work out the social structure so that people who never have children of their own will, in the normal course of events, help to take care -of all the world's children.

You must have noticed how the changes in marriage patterns have led many people to care for children who are not theirs-and do it very well. This is a new trend. Only a few decades ago a child was considered more of a personal possession, and it was very important whose child it was_ Then the urge to care for future generations can be satisfied by helping to maintain a generative social system?

Exactly. That's again why I like so much that Hindu term "the maintenance of the world."

tive." Sometimes what we call the "dystonic tendency" can have positive aspectsFor example, during old age the life crisis involves the conflict between integrity and despair. How could anybody have integrity and not also despair about certain things in his own life, about the human condition? Even if your own life was absolutely beautiful and wonderful, the fact that so many people were exploited or ignored must make you feel some despair.

can one successfully handle the crisis of old age- the struggle between integrity and despair- without having resolved the previous stages favorably?

You couldn't possibly imagine a person who has resolved all seven previous crises equally well-in fact , I never hope to meet such a person_ At the end of life you attempt to consolidate an existential identity. That sounds stilted, but the existential identity bas to emerge from the psychosocial identity.

So people shouldn't expect that if their lives are lived according to Eriksonian theory, they will go through eight rosy stages. Can a person develop what you call the "syntonic" quality of each life stage without the accompanying dystonic quality? Can you develop generativity without stagnation? Or trust without distrust?

Let's take the last one, which describes the psychosocial crisis of infancy. A basic sense of trust means both that the child has learned to rely on his (or her) care-givers to be there when they are needed, and to consider himself trustworthy_ But just imagine what somebody would be like who had no mistrust at all.

I'd think that for people like you, who can carry on your profession as long as you like, there'd not be the same questioning of identity as there is in someone who works until 65 and then retires and loses part of his identity_ You're no longer a plumber. Or you're no longer a brain surgeon because you lack the coordination.

You notice that you're referring to men exclusively_ A woman can be a brain surgeon-or a plumber.

Yes, and that's certainly going to become more common. The reason that men die earlier than women may be purely biological, or it may have much to do with the fact that so far, man's psychosocial existence has depended so much on his occupation.

Gullible, to say the least- We'd probably think such a person wasn't very bright.

Out of the conflict between trust and mistrust, the infant develops hope , which is the earliest form of what gradually But let's look at the traditional woman. becomes faith in adults_ If you say that an When such a woman is widowed, she loses When you discuss generativity, you con- adult has hope, I'd say, "Well , I hope . the identity of "wife, " yet she continues to trast it with self-absorption or stagnation so," but if you said that a baby has faith, outlive the men around her. as opposing trends during adulthood. If I'd say, "That's quite a baby. " Real faith In many cultures, "widow" is also an identity. And the surviving wife also has a generativity triumphs, a person develops is a very mature attitude_ grand-maternal role, depending on the the basic strength of "Care." Generativity also has a regular "dystonic" counterpart: So the various strengths take different culture. In China, for example, the role forms in old age, because they're all of grandmother bas been deeply embedIt is "rejectivity. " I want to emphasize that those two things tempered by the strength of old age, which ded in tradition. belong together. Generativity shouldn't is "wisdom." be treated as an achievement that per- Yes, old age is when a certain wisdom is And the role of grandmother has tradimanently overcomes stagnation. You possible and even necessary, as long as tionally been stronger than the role of have both, mostly. If you study the lives you don't make it too darn wizardlike. grandfather, so it would provide a basis for identity. I guess we solved that of very creative people , you'll find that at problem.

Assisi of Francis Stof prayer the Perhaps times they have a terrible sense of stagnawith this extended life, it's still Even what changing mean: tion. And the interaction of such oppo- describes what you rare for a couple to grow old relatively what changing not sites is characteristic of every stage of the you can change and You know how many moJe together. enough wise but you can't hope to change, life cycle. widowers we have. than widows to know the difference_ to If the crisis of a stage is successfully Absolutely, although one hesitates Husbands are still generally older than resolved, the defeated quality doesn't dis- make it all too simple. ¡ wives. So if a woman expects to their appear,- instead, the balance changes so that there is a preponderance of the If you consider life as a tapestry, as Mrs. become a widow at 70 instead of at 60, it Erikson has done, woven with a different would mean that we're postponing that positive quality?

It's exactly a matter of balance, but we color for each strength, the final pattern experience of old a8e by expanding the avoid the terms "positive" and "nega- would be different for each person. But earlier period.

ERIK ERIKSON continued

"The movie about a great man's use of nonviolent resistance

That's right, which shows that you don't just prove or disprove a life-cycle theme,. but learn to observe the changes and then decide whether the terms you first chose to name the strengths or weaknesses are the right words. Incidentally, we once called the strengths of each stage "virtues"; then we realized that virtue comes from the Latin word virtus, which implies manliness. The linguistic implication could be that virtues are male qualities, so I had to change it to "strengths."

12

Speaking of women, how does the task of forming an identity differ for adolescent boys and adolescent girls?

The task itself doesn't differ; the main stages, strengths, and risks do not differ for men and for women. Rather, they help sexual differences to complement one another. Children do have to learn to become boys and girls, but unless there is very strong sex-typing going on, both sexes have a certain freedom. A little boy can behave a little like a girl, and it's considered charming, or a girl like a boy.

It all depends on what the culture makes of it. But essentially, whatever strength has to develop in a certain stage must appear in both boys and girls. Like

willpower, for example, or industry. Or identity.

You've pointed out that during identity formation, the adolescent can fall into "totalism," a rigid self-concept that can leave a person susceptible to totalitarian movements. How does the totalism of the 40-year-old member of the Ku Klux Klan differ from the totalism of the adolescent?

I don't believe I ever regarded totalism as only an aspect of adolescent thinking. It's an aspect of ideology, which finds easy access to young thinking, but that doesn't mean that there is no totalism after adolescence.

Would the totalism of a middle-aged Nazi or terrorist be likely to reflect an unsuccessfully resolved adolescent identity crisis?

If you study a case history, you may find that the person didn't resolve something earlier. But it can happen to a whole group, as it did to the young Germans after World War I. Because of historical and economic conditions, they could never settle down to adulthood, and so ideological totalism began to dominate them. The FUhrer is the one who stands

under a thousand banners and says "I" and everybody identifies with that; it gives them a sense of "I." Marching in unison becomes the act of being oneself.

Joseph Adelson's research showed that German children-not American or English youngsters-said that everybody needs a strong leader.

"Everybody needs it" means that everybody needs it for his or her sense of "I." But a historical period can also be host to a most genuine voice of faith. At the time of Jesus, Jewish history was particularly catastrophic for a national sense of "I." In spite of Jehovah's ("I AM") overlordship, the homeland had been in continuous danger of invasion, occupation and exile. This, I think , helped to open some ears to Jesus' great existential message.

Here I cannot help thinking of how nuclear weapons have done away with the boundaries of whole continents, and how, with their threat of global destruction, they call for the recognition of man's indivisible "specieshood."

Both in Young Man Luther and in Gandhi's Truth, you showed how the

reaches people. .. and it makes them thoughtful." attempts ofan exceptional man to solve his personal difficulties benefited the whole group. If Luther and Gandhi had each resolved the previous five stages of life in the best possible way, would they have been so content that they would have lacked the urge to make such great changes?

I couldn't say. What I tried to show in each book was not only that an exceptional man had the right conflicts, but that he lived in a period that needed just that man, while the historical period needed to resolve collectively what couldn't be resolved personally. As I said in one of the books, he solved for his period in history and for his own people what he could not resolve in his private life. And that makes a leader.

So it requires the right personal conflict in the right kind of person at the right moment among people who are ready for this conflict. Four elements, all of which are necessary.

Yes, it so happened that in each historical situation, the man and his time complemented each other.

Since the film Gandhi was released, there's been renewed interest both in the man and your book about him. Speaking of generativity, it seemed to me that Gandhi was more concerned with otherpeople than with his own family. .

He turned into the father of his nation, and he extended his paternal feelings to mankind. Obviously, he acted for the species. Incidentally, Gandhi had a strange and unique mixture of maternal and paternal traits.

But isn't that characteristic of most creative people?

Yes, because the emphasis is not on your personal procreativity, but on your creativity. People are always asking me how I liked the movie. The film is very different from my book, because I was writing a psychoanalytic book, in which I tried to show the relationship of the hero's personal conflicts to his historical deeds. My aim was to show how Gandhi fitted into that period, the historical moment, and what nonviolence-his truth-meant to him. I couldn't possibly expect to find in the movie a reflection of my developmental point of view.

Do you feel that anything important was left out?

Only one thing-the impression that

these nonviolent people made on some of the armed troops. I understood that in several places British soldiers found that they could not resist their nonviolent attackers, and so they threw their weapons away. Perhaps these are just stories, but I'd have liked to see some such reaction in some of the soldiers. For I don't think that all the British were as unfeeling and unresponsive as they were portrayed.

When Gandhi's followers were lined up five abreast and kept marching toward the clubs, I looked at the soldiers, and they were Indians. And I thought, "What must they be feeling?" How long can you hit somebody without feeling revulsion at what you're doing?

In order for nonviolent behavior to be effe.ctive it must be shocking-it has to shake up the violent opponent peacefully. In that situation, what is more important? That you are an Indian? That you are a soldier? That you are an officer?

That you are a human being? It has to come to the point where suddenly these other people become human to you.

Then you can no longer keep hitting them. Incidentally, it's amazing how American audiences are taking to the movie. Aren't you a little surprised?

If you consider that everybody is terribly concerned right now with the possibility of nuclear war, it's not so surprising. And people are impressed. During the intermission, instead of noise, talking and a great rush to the snack bar, there's quiet.

People are thinking about what they've seen.

And these are not intellectuals. The movie about a great man's use of nonviolent resistance reaches people who do not belong to special peace organizations, and it makes them thoughtful. That's why it's such an important film . I honestly believe that it focuses on something our Judea-Christian culture has not yet quite understood and has not used, and will probably have to face: the invention of nonviolent tactics to get out of the nuclear dilemma.

they don't care for-in the generative sense. The danger in rejectivity, that is, the rejecting of other people, other groups, or other nations, is that it leads to what I have called "pseudospeciation."

People lose the sense of being one species and try to make other kinds of people into a different and mortally dangerous species, one that doesn't count, one that isn't human.

To the Greeks, everybody else was a barbarian, and the Navajos call themselves "the people"-not "a" people.

Many other tribes do the same thing.

Other groups are considered to be a different species, and for the sake of decent humanity, you may have to subdue them or get rid of them. You can kill them without feeling that you have killed your own kind.

If "pseudo" has the connotation of "almost a lie," it indicates that you know what you're doing. But when people do this, they're not really conscious of it, are they?

That's exactly the point, and that's why it's so dangerous. The paradox is that pseudospecieshood as a sense of representing the best in mankind binds a group together and inspires loyalty, heroism and discipline.

So without pseudospeciation we wouldn't have loyalty and devotion and selfsacrifice. The problem is to keep the positive aspects while getting rid of the negative ones.

The very existence of humanity depends on the solution of that paradox.

If I read you right, this has to be done in a way that enables you to keep your own identity as a group so that there's a culture to hand down.

Yes, but what's important is a conviction that one's culture and "system" can go on Jiving in a world that includes one's former enemies.

Would you like to make odds on our chances of developing an identity that encompasses the whole species? Do you think the odds are better than they were 15 years ago?

Absolutely. After all, we are one species.

0

That dilemma gets us into rejectivity-the trend that opposes generativity in adulthood. How can it be dangerous?

In our scheme, rejectivity is an unwillingness to include certain persons or groups within your generative concern. Human About the Author: Elizabeth Hall, a former beings spend an awful lot of their im¡ managing editor of Psychology Today, is agination on defining just which others coauthor of the textbook Child Psychology.

I

Lewis Hine's Last Legacy

by JUDITH MA RA G UTMAN

Lewis Hine's Depression-era photographs are an eloquent tribute to an artist who consistently found that the human spirit imbued even the dreariest workaday existence with a simple, evocative beauty.

Copyright~

1983 by tbe New York Times Company. Abrid&ed by permission from TM

N~w

Yo,k Timn Magazm~.

A science teacher turned photographer, Lewis W. H ioe expected to see human will transcend and transform the industrial landscape of the early 20th century. Time and again , whether his subject was a group of grimy child laborers at a coal mine or a woman in a canning factory, plain insistent human strength and dignity were powerfully evident in the eyes and in the carriage of the shoulders.

Lewis H ine bas lo ng been considered a pre-eminent pio-

Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

bited and only a few of its photographs have been published. In this collection are the more than 700 photographspart of the holdings of the National Archives in Washington-that Hine took in the mid-1930s for the National Research Project (NRP) of the Work Projects Administration (WPA).

Hine had been commissioned by NRP, a precursor of today's think tanks, to provide a visual record as it grappled with the problem of unemployment, which , as the Great Depression lingered on, stood at almost 10 million. Between December 1936 and July 1937, he photographed the industries , workers and communities that the project was studying. These photographs are a departure from the mellow tones of his early work and its emphasis on the people being photographed rather than their background .

They are probing compositions with bold tonalities and provocative, often surprising, ways of relating various elements. Machines are integral to the imagery. So are people .

They share a picture plane.

Sometimes, ominously, the workplace overshadows workers. And some pictures hint at a growing disillusion with the workplace and with the notion of the machine as a savior of mankind. The artistry of these photographs stems from an intension- so necessary in ner .. . any work of art- that creates an intensity out of ordinary detail.

Hine's photographs are an eloquent tribute to a man who neer of American photography. consistently found that the huDuring the first few decades of man spirit imbued even the this century, while Alfred Stieg- dreariest workaday existence litz did more than any Amer- with a simple, evocative ican before him to turn pho- beauty.

When Hine took the NRP tography into an art form, and Edward Steichen put that job, he had been photographing art form to stunning commer- for a quarter of a century. An cial uses, Lewis Hine employed intensely private person drawn photography to chronicle, with to public issues, he.was born to extraordinary poignancy and to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1874 notable effect, the social condi- and came to New York in 1901 tions of his day . Yet his last when the optimism of a new body of work-a sampling of century centered on urban which is shown on these America. He taught at the pages-has never been exhi- Ethical Culture School and sub-

.

sequently earned a master's degree in so~iology at Columbia University.

To use photographs as an aid in his botany classes at the Ethical Culture School, he learned about the camera, then organized an after-school camera club that often went to Central Park to take pictures of specimens. The fi rst photographs of his to catch the attention of the public were made when Hine took his camera club to the Battery, at the southern tip of Manhattan , where immigrants landed after their examination at Ellis lsland. Hine also photographed urban slums and saw for himself the chaos of the new industrial society. But, swept up by the early century's faith in progressivism , he believed that all one needed to do was to "instruct" a society-expose its ills-and the ills would vanish. .¡ In 1908, he left his teaching post and became the staff photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), which lobbied for the abolition of child labor. Over the next eight years, he traveled throughout the country and took close to 5,000 photographs (mostly of children) , many of which appeared in NCLC pamphlets. The children in these pictures-shown in the streets or in mines, mills and factories-seemed to sparkle, Like so many diamonds in the rough.

Hine's photographs contributed to the passage of the National Child Labor Law in 1916.

Together with his photographs of immigrants, they had a profound effect on Paul Strand, an early photography student of his, and on the generation of documentary photographersincluding Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange-who came of age in the 1930s.

During the 1920s, the beauty and bounty of machinery captivated many Americans, including Hine. Machines , he hoped, could help create a society without ills , and he developed a romantic style that reflected this optimism. That changed in the 1930s as a mounting ecohaunted nomic depression his- and everyone's-conception of the machine's omnipotence. When the National Research Project asked Hine to become its photographer, he wrenched himself loose from his previous assumptions and photographic style.

Hine and the project proved to be a winning combination.

There was Hine , a romantic and purist, fired up by the possibility of depicting new facets of work; labor, he felt, was the soul of America. And there, not hidebound by economic theories or conventional research methods , was the project-a group of economists, engineers and sociologists brought together to explore the

Doll factory, Holyoke, Massachusetts

LEWlS HINE continued

causes of the country's persis- chines were no more the enemy tently high rate of unemploy- than labor. New technology ment. These intellectuals not could create jobs, but to do only steered the project's this, according to the project's course, they also provided the final report, production needed resonance for Hine's pictures. to expand enough "to serve a ¡ At the time, many people social goal. " When Hine started working believed that technological development was the cause of for the project in December unemployment. Machines were 1936, he took his cue from its the problem-they were dis- staff. Buoyed by the staff and their ideas, Hine often created placing the workers.

Studying 41 plants in 14 in- in his photographs an uncanny dustries in 14 communities, the and subtle aesthetic tension project found that machines that broke through the photowere not necessarily the culprit. graphs' blunt reality.

It happens, for instance, in a In some instances, the work withof the Lancaster Brick dismissed picture been had force new in Pennsylvania. The of Company introduction out the between men the , balance cases delicate some In machinery.

But the caught. is had machines machinery and of introduction workshadows, of jobs. composition actually created that taut so is rnasetting staff and ers For the project Textile mill, Paterson, New Jersey

such intangibles as the workers' a 70-year-old worker delicately ambivalence toward the work- threading a 100-year-old loom .

The worker commanded that place seem palpably real. workplace, his delicate control difHine's project pictures the threading operation held of fered from most machine imagworkplace in balance. the ery, which- reflecting the enpower to produce was, The chantment with the machine of the 1920s-depicted industrial and still is, often linked with a structures as great reservoirs of craftsman, not an industrial worker. Hine never quite lost strength , beauty and bounty.

Hine, too, had produced his his affinity for craftsmen who share of romanticized portraits produced with their hands. But of power. But when he worked as the project photographer, for the project, he rescaled his he saw factory workers who proportions. Control and pow- pushed, held, stretched and er still resided in the workplace, concentrated. He saw the skill but they were neither in the of factory workers and the powstructures nor in the gears. er that they could create right They were in the ways that a on the industrial line. He also worker and his work interacted. found mill hands, cement makTogether, they were¡ the pro- ers and others humanizing their ducers of plenty. In one of his workplace in various ways. He masterful portraits, be depicted saw a dollmaker hold a doll's

bead in the palm of his hand as though it were a baby. NRP utilized such information to understand bow workers used and viewed their workplace.

In other pictures, even though machines and people are still in scale with one another , Hine seems to be quietly asking: Have these workers been made faceless by the machine? Has an operatorstretching to tie together a single broken thread on ~ 1,000thread loom- been turned into a cipher? What about the press operator making plywood, or the hosiery "toppers" (those working on the knitting of the top part of women's stockings)?

Are they little more than industrial tools?

No passionately excessive statements come out of these photographs. There is no sentimental outrage about downtrodden workers. But in these pictures Hine comes close to the workers' daily existence.

Are they contained by their machines even as they are tuned to their machines' rhythms?

The project photographs were the last full body of work completed by Hine, who died in 1940. When the project's work was completed in 1944, Hine's photographs and the project's industry studies, reports and correspondence were shipped to the National Archives.

Today, these photographs attest to Hine's belief that work was the spirit of America.

It was the craftsman's Yankee ingenuity, the immigrant's round-the-clock hours and the industrial world's Herculean capacity. He found that spirit with a camera-a tool that most people, including Hine, associated with tangible reality.

In catching an intangible reality, however, Hine once more transcended the confines of both his camera and his photographic assignment .

0 About the Author: Judith Mara Gutman is a historian of art and photography. Her books include Through Indian Eyes (on vintage Indian photography-see SPAN, August 1982) and Lewis Hine and the American Social Conscience.

Doll factory, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Lancaster Brick Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Americans Make Up Their

Most Americans today reject traditional prescriptions of both the left and right. They judf(e eac The results of the 1982 midterm U.S. elections confirmed a profound change in public attitudes. This shift is as sweeping as those that have introduced new political eras in the United States in times past.

Unfortunately, a great many observers still cling to the old formulas as a comfortably familiar way of viewing political life and its conflicts. Let's take the case of a member of the U.S. Congress who views himself or herself strictly as a delegate of his or her constituents, obligated _to achieve exactly the policies they want. He or she sees their lively frustration with government. Large majorities from every social group subscribe to a sweeping attack on many more attributes of the contemporary state.

Again and again they say that their government has become too powerful, too intrusive, far too wasteful, and has become as well the main cause of inflation and numerous other plagues. Capping their critique is the view expressed by roughly three-quarters of the public in a recent CBS News/New York Times poll that the Fe&ra Government creates more problems than it solves.

But our politician soon encounters endorsements of government that are just as striking as the criticisms. At the very moment three-fourths of the people are saying tax money spent for human services is poorly used, three-fourths are arguing that the Federal Government should provide medical care and legal assistance for everyone who can't afford them . While seven Americans in ten think government has gone too far in regulating economic Life, the same proportion believes that government should make sure everyone has a good standard of living. Overwhelming majorities say federal spending is too high-but majorities just as big say even more should be spent for basic services like education and social security (pensions). The extent of the endorsement is capped by an NBC News/Associated Press poll showing that three-fifths of the U.S. public- including solid majorities in every educational, income and occupational group- don't believe that the "Federal Government over the last 20 years has gone too far in trying to help poor people. " Welfare programs are more deeply criticized than any other governmental service-but even here the people don't want to go back.

One member of Congress' polling adviser may report that the people are really not sending mixed messagesthat they mean only to protest the way government performs its functions , not to quarrel with the basic ends

18

SPAN NOVEMBE R 1983

to which it is committed. The member of Congress should not buy this argument.

The public's criticism of performance extends right to the heart of the enterprise, while at the same time its support of the basic ends is so broad that it must reflect on how government actually operates.

Our inquiring Congressman may learn that the tension is even more basic than it might appear because it is the very same people who offer the contrasting assessments.

Moreover, an examination ..of U.S. opinion trends shows that both the support and the criticism have intensified.

The proportions of the public believing that government is the main cause of inflation, has grown too powerful, is terribly wasteful, and so on , and those saying government is the right or necessary vehicle for providing a rich assortment of services and guarantees, are now both the highest they have ever been.

Americans have mixed minds about government, and say so to all who care to listen. One can selectively read only the conservative parts and proclaim a rightward swing, or the Liberal parts and assert that liberalism is alive and well-but there is absolutely no intellectual case for doing either. When it comes to government's role and responsibilities, Americans who are really comfortable with traditional liberal or conservative diets are rare. The populace does not accept either a coherently progovernment or antigovernment stand.

But why should it? And why should we throw our hands up in puzzlement when the populace finds government's role and performance a complex story that must be considered one episode at a time? What is strange and disturbing is the unwillingness of many U.S. political leaders and commentators to accept the public's "postideological" maturity, and their insistence that the public should either endorse the Eeft's traditional affirmation of the state or the right's rejection of it.

The full emergence in recent years of a dualism in public thinking about government follows naturally from a powerful juncture of legacies from America's ideological past with some contemporary experiences. It is one of the great political misassumptions that the American tradition is antistate. The founders of the American republic were an unusual breed philosophically. They were passionately committed to the state-as the architects of an effective new national union under the Constitution-but at the same time they were certain that a government unchecked

Minds

by EVERETI CARLL LADD

issue on its merits, says a public opinion analyst. would usurp and tyrannize. This mix of progovernment and antigovernment perspectives taught the public to revere coherent and active rational government, and to be vigilant against governmental abuse.

Recent experience has greatly enlarged the scope and meaning of this unique legacy. During the New Deal in the 1930s, the national government assumed a variety of new responsibilities and won general approbation for its performance in meeting them. When the American society got markedly richer in the post-World War II years, popular expectations of what should be achieved in both the private and the governmental sectors naturally rose. Without any profound bias either for or against the state, large majorities of the public saw the government's role in achieving a fuller life inextricably scrambled with the various private roles. For them. the proper questions were "Is it practicable?" and "Does it work?''

The other side of this nonideological posture toward the state has involved a readiness to criticize government whenever its actions seemed not to work or not to advance a better life.

More than a quarter century ago, some astute analysts saw glimmers of this new mix of public attitudes.

Foremost among them was sociologist Daniel Be ll , who described the condition as the "end of ideology." He posited that a more educated and informed public, living in advanced industrial societies with their unprecedented wealth, were becoming less and less receptive to the simplistic traditional formulations of the left and right-or to their less-developed and distinct counterparts in the United States, New Deal liberalism and conservatism.

Many of the "end of ideology" proponents were thinkers we now call "neoconservatives," like Bell himself, and they generally welcomed the weakening of the o ld ideological formulations that they considered inadequate to the program requirements of advanced Western democracies. But others were of the left who lamented what they saw as the decline of change-inducing conflict.

The late 1960s and early 1970s proved inhospitable to the "end of ideology" argument. Conflict was again on the rise, and political elites found all manners of new ideological playthings . But in its wiser formu lations, "end of ideology" never suggested that the intensity of conflict would not continue to rise and fall, or that all political elites would eschew ideological formulas. Rather, it held simply that mass publics, in those countries that conferred

"1 guess I'm a conservative, ifyou mean do I put up a lot of jams and jellies."

Drawing by Weber.\!:)Thc New Yorker Magazine. hie.

information and affluence in unprecedented amounts, were arriving at a point where they could not readily be mobilized by narrow ideological appeals. These publics were becoming ever more policy-eclectic, picking and choosing among various proposals those that seemed best to extend individual opportunity and material abundance.

Political conflict was hardly disappearing for those goals were often most elusive but for ever larger segments of the mass public the agonizing was over Max Weber's ''How is it to be accomplished?" not Lenin's "What is to be done?"

The ''end of ideology" argument was an impressive early effort to understand important new currents in Western public's thinking. It was especially applicable to the United States, where most people had been led by their practical experience to view government as a persisting mix of the helpful and the harmful.

In a national survey that the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research carried out for the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute in late 1981, the clearly pragmatic cast of the public's thinking about government was well documented. Most people, this study showed, had expansive lists of public or community goals to be

SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

AMERICANS MAKE UP THEIR MINDS continued

The American public's nonideological posture toward politics has meant a readiness to criticize the government whenever its actions seem at variance with popular expectations.

20

met- like strengthening the economy, providing more and better education, improving health and making the environment cleaner. They were not at all satisfied with government's record in advancing these ends, and they were highly receptive to the idea of institutions other than the central government playing more prominent roles.

Thus they favored strengthening the states' role in the federal system, believed that busin~s corporations and voluntary organizations should do more in meeting national problems, wanted more private philanthropy , and so on.

For all this, in late 1981 Americans still saw no alternative to a major governmental role in advancing the various public objectives to -.yhich they were committed.

Despite their vigorous criticisms of government, people looked to it because they doubted that practical alternatives could be found.

The American public's nonideological response to government would be striking enough by itself, but variants of this approach are evident across the entire spectrum of policy questions. lssues involving social change and cultural values are another case in print.

The classical liberal approach has held that an ever broader extension of individual rights and opportunities for choice provides the only tenable moral basis for a good society. On the other hand, conservative critiques have long emphasized the destructive potential of unrestricted individualism for such primary social institutions as the church and the family , and for social order and stability.

Today, most Americans are sensitive to both of these perspectives but unwilling to espouse either.

The changes that have occurred in the United States in the current mix of attitudes are quite as sweeping as those that have introduced new political eras in the past. That a mass public would be at once strongly committed to expansive government and deeply troubled by it is important and new. So is the public"s simultaneous

otherwise befuddling report card Americans have given President Ronald Reagan. As the polis have shown, the President's approval scores have never been notably high, and indeed have regularly lagged behind even those of President Jimmy Carter-not the standard for high presidential popularity. Still, politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties consider Reagan a most formidable political force. This seeming contradiction results from the extreme ambivalence of many Americans on so many basic policy questions. An administration committed to a scaling back of government and reasserting traditional values operates in a public opinion climate in many ways highly supportive-but also gripped by powerful opposing tendencies. The President 's appeals are not to be taken lightly, for they find acceptance across a very large slice of the population. But the President does not get decisive overall approval because so many people hold to opposing principles and commitments.

An electorate thus at odds with itself must inevitably send mixed signals to the political parties and draw back from embracing either of them. In its July 1982 poll, the Los Angeles Times asked: "Do you think the Democrats have effective proposals for dealing with the economy ... or do you think the Republicans have effective proposals ... or that neither do?" Just 18 percent of respondents nationally saw the Democrats' economic approach as effective, 20 percent the Republicans', while 62 percent didn't endorse either approach. Such responses have become the rule. It has become very hard to put together stable alignments behind the programs of any of the old philosophic positions .

Yet if this electorate is frustrating to deal with, because it now shares such diverse perspectives and won't commit itself for the long run to any ideologically coherent approach, it also offers some unique opportunities. Above all, today's American voters are prepared to

commitment ta extending rndividual choice and sensitivity

listen attentively to any ~eriaus political message, rather

to the negative consequences accruing from the exercise of this choice. Americans have indeed moved philosophically, but not to the right, and surely not to the left.

Rather, their movement has locked them firmly on the horns of great controlling dualisms involving the ro le of government, the rights of individuals and the needs of society.

The political task of responding to this historically unprecedented mix of public expectations is formidable indeed.

Contemporary political conflict in the United States is not so much between social groups where politicians must bring together enough groups to establish a majority, as it is within individuals, where they must appeal to contrasting predispositions in the very same people.

The tensions in public attitudes are reflected in the

than reject appeals out of hand on the grounds of their nonconformance to a prior ideological standard. If the problems of modern governance and social choice are in fact incredibly complex and resistant to all neat ideological formulationf -as many of the "end of ideology" proponents argued more than a quarter century ago-it should hardly be troublesome that most voters are just not in a mood to buy any of these formulas. The political marketplace in postideology America is well suited to arguments "on the merits" in virtually every area where policy choices must be made. Innovative politicians have an extraordinary opening, even if they are denied the possibility of victory through any single ideological thrust. 0

SPAN NOVEMIJER 19$3

About the Author: Eve ret/ Carll Ladd is one of the leading public opinion analysts in the United States.

HOSPITALITY A Short Story

by Truma~ Capote Once upon a time, in the rural South, there were farmhouses and farm wives ·who set tables where almost any passing stta11ger, a traveling preacher, a knifegrinder, an itinerant worker, was welcome to sit down to a hearty midday meal. Probably many such farm wives still exist. Certainly my aunt does, Mrs. Jennings Carter. Mary Ida Carter.

As a child I lived 'for long periods of time on the Carters' farm, small then, but today a considerable property. The house was lighted by oil lamps in those days; water · was pumped from a well and Copyright© tm by Truman Capote.

Printed by permission of Random House, Inc.

HOSPITALITY continued

carried, and the only warmth was provided by fireplaces and stoves, and the only entertainment was what we ourselves manufactured. In the evenings, after supper, likely as not my uncle Jennings, a handsome, virile man, would play the piano accompanied by his pretty wife, my mother's younger sister.

They were hardworking people, the Carters. Jennings, with the help of a few sharecropping field hands, cultivated his land with a horse-drawn plow. As for his wife, her chores were unlimited. I helped her with many of them: feeding the pigs, milking the cows, churning milk into butter, husking corn, shelling peas and pecans-it was fun, except for one assignment I sought to avoid, and when forced to perform, did so with my eyes shut: I just plain hated wringing the necks of chickens, though I certainly didn't object to eating them afterward.

T

his was during the Depression, but there was plenty to eat on Mary Ida's table for the principal meal of the day, which was served at noon and to which her sweating husband and his helpers were summoned by clanging a big bell. I loved to ring the bell; it made me feel powerful and beneficent.

It was to these midday meals, where the table was covered with hot biscuits and cornbread and honey-in-the-comb and chicken and catfish or fried squirrel and butter beans and black-eyed peas, that guests sometimes appeared, sometimes expected, sometimes not. "Well," Mary Ida would sigh, seeing a footsore Bible salesman approaching along the road, "we don't need another Bible. But I guess we'd better set another place."

Of all those we fed, there were three who will never slip my memory. First, the Presbyterian missionary , who was traveling around the countryside soliciting funds for his Christian duties in unholy lands. Mary Ida said she couldn't afford a cash contribution, but she would be pleased to have him take dinner with us.

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SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

Poor man, he definitely looked as though he needed one. Arrayed in a rusty, dusty, shiny black suit, creaky black undertaker shoes, and a black-greenish hat, he was thin as a stalk of sugar cane. He had a long red wrinkled neck with a bobbing Adam's apple the size of a goiter. 1 never saw a greedier fellow; he sucked up a quart of buttermilk in three swallows, devoured a whole platter of chicken single-handed (or rather, doublehandedly, for he was eating with both hands), and so many biscuits, drippin_g with butter and molasses, that I lost count. However, for all his gobbling, he managed to give us hair-raising accounts of his exploits in perilous territories. "I'll tell you somethin'. I've seen cannibals roast black men and white men on a spit-just like you'd roast a pig-and eat every morsel, toes, brains, ears, and all.

One of them cannibals told me the best eatin' is a roasted newborn baby; said it tasted just like lamb. I spec the reason they didn't eat me is cause I didn't have enough meat on my bones. I've seen men hung by their heels till blood gushed out their ears. Once I got bit by a green mamba, the deadliest snake in the world.

I was kinda nauseated there for a spell, but I didn't die, so the black men figured I was a god and they gave me a coat made of leopard skins."

After the gluttonous preacher had departed, Mary Ida felt dizzy; she was sure she would have bad dreams for a month.

But her husband, comforting her, said: "Oh, honey, you didn't believe any of that malarkey? That man's no more a missionary than I am. He's just a heathen liar."

Then there was the time we entertained a convict who had escaped from a chain gang at the Alabama State Prison in Atmore. Obviously, we didn't know he was a dangerous character serving a life sentence for umpteen armed robberies.

He simply appeared at our door and told Mary Ida he was hungry and could she give him something to eat. "Well, sir," she said, "you've come to the right place.

I'm just putting dinner on the table now."

Somehow, probably by raiding a washline, he had exchanged his convict stripes for overalls and a worn blue work shirt. I thought he was nice, we all did; he had a flower tattooed on his wrist, his eyes were gentle, he was gently ~poken. He said his name was Bancroft (which, as it turned out, was his true name). My uncle Jennings asked him: "What's your line of work, Mr. Bancroft?"

"Well," he drawled, "I'm just lookin' for some. Like most everybody else. I'm P!~-~~y handy. Can do most anythin'. You wouldn't have somethin' for me?"

Jennings said: "I sure could use a man.

But I can't afford him."

"I'd work for most nothin'."

"Yeah," said Jennings. "But nothing is what I've got."

Unpredictably, for it was a subject seldom alluded to in that household, crime came into the conversation. Mary Ida complained: "Pretty Boy Floyd. And that Dillinger man. Running around the country shooting people. Robbing banks."

"Oh' I don't know," said Mr. Bancroft.

"I got no sympathy with them banks.

And Dillinger, he's real smart, you got to hand him that. It kinda makes me laugh the way he knocks off them banks and gets clean away with it." Then he actually laughed, displaying tobacco-tinted teeth.

"Well," Mary Ida countered, "I'm slightly surprised to hear you say that, Mr. Bancroft."

T

wo days later Jennings drove his wagon into town and returned with a keg of nails, a sack of flour, and a copy of the Mobile Register. On the front page was a picture of Mr. Bancroft-"Two-Barrels" Bancroft, as he was colloquially known to the authorities.

He had been captured in Evergreen, thirty miles away. When Mary Ida saw his photo, she rapidly fanned her face with a paper fan, as though to prevent a fainting fit. "Heaven help me," she cried. "He could have killed us all."

"Then there was the time we entertained a convict who had escaped from a chain gang at the Alabama State Prison."

Jennings said sourly: "There was a reward. And we missed out on it. That's what gets my goat."

Next, there was a girl called Zilla Ryland. Mary Ida discovered her bathing a two-year-old baby, a red-haired boy, in a creek that ran through the woods back of the house. As Mary Ida described it: "I saw her before she saw me. She was standing naked in the water bathing this beautiful little boy. On the bank there was a calico dress and the child's clothes and an old suitcase tied together with a piece of rope. The boy was laughing, and so was she. Then she saw me , and she was startled. Scared. I said: 'Nice day. But hot. The water must feel good.' But she snatched up the baby and scampered out of the creek, and I said: 'You don't have to be frightened of me . I'm only Mrs. Carter that lives just over yonder. Come on up and rest a spell.' Then she commenced to cry; she was only a little thing, no more than a child herself. I asked what's the matter, honey? But she wouldn't answer. By now she had pulled on her dress and dressed the boy. I said maybe I could help you if you'd tell me what's wrong. But she shook her head, and said there was nothing wrong, and I said well, we don't cry over nothing, do we? Now you just follow me up to the house and we'll talk about it. And she did. , Indeed she did.

I was swinging in the porch swing reading an old Saturday Evening Post when I noticed them coming up the path, Mary Ida toting a broken-down suitcase and this barefooted girl carrying a child in her arms.

Mary Ida introduced me: "This is my nephew, Buddy. And-l'm sorry, honey, I didn't catch your name."

"Zilla," the girl whispered, eyes lowered.

"I'm sorry, honey. I can't hear you.''

"Zilla," she again whispered.

"Well," said Mary Ida cheerfully, "that sure is an unusual name."

Zilla shrugged. "My mama give it to me. Was her name, too."

Two weeks later Zilla was still with us; she proved to be as unusual as her name.

Her parents were dead, her husband had "run off with another woman. She was real fat, and he liked fat women, he said I was too skinny, so he run off with her and got a divorce and married her up in Athens, Georgia." Her only living kin was a brother: Jim James. "That's why I came down here to Alabama. The last I heard, he was located somewhere around here."

U

ncle Jennings did everything in his power to trace Jim James. He had good reason , for, although he liked Zilla's little boy, Jed, he'd come to feel quite hostile toward Zilla-her thin voice aggravated him, and her habit of humming mysterious tuneless melodies.

Jennings to Mary Ida: "Just the hell how much longer is our boarder going to hang around?" Mary Ida: "Oh , Jennings.

Shhh! Zilla might hear you . Poor soul.

She's got nowhere to go." So Jennings intensified his labors. He brought the sheriff into the case; he even paid to place an ad in the local paper-and that was really going far. But nobody hereabouts had ever heard of Jim James.

At last Mary Ida, clever woman, had an idea. The idea was to invite a neighbor, Eldridge Smith, to evening supper, usually a light meal served at six. I don't know why she hadn't thought of it before. Mr. Smith was not much to look at, but he was a recently widowed farmer of about forty with two school-aged children.

After that first supper Mr. Smith got to stopping by almost every twilight. After dark we all left Zilla and Mr. Smith alone, where they swung together on the creaking porch swing and laughed and talked and whispered. It was driving Jennings out of his mind because he didn't like Mr. Smith any better than he liked Zilla; his wife's repeated requests to "Hush, honey. Wait and see" did little to soothe him.

We waited a month. Until finally one night Jennings took Mr. Smith aside and said: "Now look here, Eldridge. Man to man, what are your intentions toward this fine young lady?" The way Jennings said it, it was more like a threat than anything else.

Mary Ida made the wedding dress on her foot-pedaled Singer sewing machine.

It was white cotton with puffed sleeves, and Zilla wore a white silk ribbon bow in her hair, especially curled for the occasion. She looked surprisingly pretty. The ceremony was held under the shade of a mulberry tree on a cool September afternoon, the Reverend Mr. L.B. Persons presiding. Afterward everybody was served cupcakes and fruit punch spiked with scuppemong wine. As the newlyweds rode away in Mr. Smith's muledrawn wagon, Mary Ida lifted the hem of her skirt to dab at her eyes, but Jennings, eyes dry as a snake's skin, declared: "Thank you, dear Lord. And while You're doing favors, my crops could use some rain. " 0

Truman Capote's books-he writes fiction, nonfiction, and a mix of the two-include Other Voices, Other Rooms, The Grass Harp, Breakfast at Tiffany's, In Cold Blood, A Christmas Memory, Music for Chameleons and Miriam.

SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

23

City Birds TEXT AND D..LUSTRAnONS BY BULBUL SHARMA

There wa.r 1111 Old M1111 with 11 burd, Who lllid, "It l.t just a.r I femediTwo owls ll1ld 11 hen, Four ltlrlcs ll1ld 11 wren, H11ve 1111 built their nests in my be11rdl" Though Edward Lear'.s fears have yet to be realized outside the limerick, the sad truth is that as forest and wild

covers shrink, birds are left with less and less room to survive. The changing environment is adversely affecting their habitats and threatening the bird population, as it is all wildlife.

However, the sorry state of our planet has finally jolted man out of his stupor, and in the last two decades there has been surging effort worldwide to put things right. The rapidly increasing public awareness about

SPAN NOVEJoDE1l IE

l5

CITY BIRDS continued

saving birds and other wildlife is evident even among the young. Students now march for animal rights. The pinup posters in a teenager's room will often have a tiger or a whooping crane along with singers and stars.

It would have been unthinkable in the early 1920s to suggest to hunters that they should ¡can off their duck shoot because it would endanger a rare species. For the hunters to accept such a suggestion would have been even more unthinkable. But now it's happening.

Things have changed for the better for the birds. There are laws protecting migratory birds. Bharatpur, Rajasthan, which was a popular duck-shooting spot, just 30 years ago, has become a secure water home for migratory birds. Earlier this year, experts from the International Crane Foundation (Wisconsin) and the Indian Department of Environment met at Bharatpur to find ways to save the dwindling number of Siberian cranes.

Some birds evidently thrive without special measures.

These farsighted birds have attached themselves to man and live happily in his cluttered environment. Hopping by his side as he breathes out nicotine smoke, pecking on the pavements among gasoline fumes , these birds are real city slickers and would be aghast at the thought of living in the wilderness. In spite of noise, pollution and confusion, every city has its bird population.

Crows and sparrows have been with us from the time the city foundations were laid; ceiling fans , it would seem, exist in India only so that the sparrows can nest in them.

And many more colorful birds are just as hardy .

Even a city like New York, unfairly known as the concrete jungle, has some delightful birds. The Red Cardinal, a common sight in the New York suburbs, is a bright red bird with a stocky body and a stout bill. In keeping with the image of fat people, it is a jolly bird and can be heard singing almost throughout the year.

Competing with the Red Cardinal for space in the city parks, especially in North American cities, is the Blue Jay. Though American birdwatchers take as little notice of this lovely bird as we do of o ur parakeets, the Blue Jay startles the newcomer as it lights up the drab suburban streets with flashes of brilliant blue. A medium-sized bird with a strong bill , the Blue Jay stands up well under the stress of city life and can live as long as 12 years. The male bird has been sharing incubation duties long before Women's Lib. Most American cities have birdwatching groups which include people of aJI ages and professions. In summer and spring the local parks and woods have little knots of them stalking a bird , totally oblivious to the city noises and sights whirling around them. In India there are also birdwatcher watchers. A group of birdwatchers invariably has a larger group of curious people watching them as birding has yet to become a popular pastime in this country, so full of beautiful birds. But it has caught the interest of several young people. At a lecture by the

26

SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

famous American ornithologist Dillon Ripley recently in Delhi, many students listened eagerly to every word he said. The rapt attention they paid seems to augur well for the future of birds in India .

On the other hand, had a farmer from the hills been there, he w~uld perhaps have asked Ripley how to get rid of the Red-billed Blue Magpie forever . This blue-andwhite bird, with a long tail that it carries folded at the end-like an Edwardian lady holding her train at a formal dance- has latched onto hill towns. Distantly related to the American Blue Jay, it is as wily and cheeky as its American cousin. It lurks around apple orchards, for it prefers to feed on apples and peaches rather than take the trouble of finding wild berries in the Himalayan forests.

Despite constant persecution by hill people the Red-billed Blue Magpie thrives well on this nourishing diet, and is found in pairs around all Indian hill towns.

The dapper Magpie-robin of the plains does not possess the boldness of its hilly namesake, but it shares with it the love for human habitations. Found in city gardens throughout India , the Magpie-robin will always perch on a garden cane chair rather than a branch. This small bird has a melodious call and its black-and-white coloring gives it the air of a city lawyer. Not at all shy, it will come quite close to you and fix you with a solemn stare .

While the Magpie-robin graces the garden with its dignified presence, another city bird, the Red-vented Bulbul is busy shattering the peace. This little bird defends its territory with the same fearless spirit as street children-every new face is a suspect and chased away with rude calls. A dark, smoky brown bird with a black crested head, the Red-vented Bulbul seldom strays away from city parks and gardens. Pecking at prize chr ysanthemum blooms, drinking from the garden hose, it is content to live with urban comforts.

These are just a few birds amongst the many who have learned to live compatibly with us. They flock to the cement blocks and adapt easily to the hazards of modern city life. If, sadly, the world does become nothing but a block of concrete towers, these plucky birds will still be there by our side to remind us of what we have lost. 0 About the Author/Illustrator: Bulbul Sharma, who played the heroine in Mrinal Sen's Interview while on a holiday in Calcutta during her college years, is an avid birdwatcher. A : free-lance writer and illustrator, she also does a regular column on nature for The Statesman Sunday Special.

sheep with thick fleece, strains of wheat rich with plump grain on each stalk. Now biotechnologists are daily performing the same sort of selection on a genetic level.

Instead of choosing among plants and animals, they choose among individual genes. A gene responsible for producing a given chemical-growth hormone is just one example-can now be chopped out of its normal environment and inserted into a foreign cell. There, in the alien setting, it produces its specialty.

The result: new methods of treating previously hard-to-control diseases, innovative techniques for producing energy and chemicals, new sources of nutritionally emiched food and more efficient ways co mine minerals and metals.

The biotechnology boom has come a long way since Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer, two California researchers, first perfected a new technique for manipulating DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in 1973. DNA , the molecule that contains instructions for the growth and development of life, exists in long chains or rings.

Each strand is divided into hundreds or ' Reprinted from Science Digu t. Copyright Corporation. All rights reserved .

The Union of Genes and Genius

by ISAAC ASIMOV

New wonder drugs to cure diseases like cancer, coronary thrombosis, the common cold and growth disorders in children. Customdesigned plants, animals and microbes to vastly expand the world's food and energy supplies.

These are some of the most exciting possibilities of the revolution now taking place in genetic engineering.

lLLUSTRATION BY B. ROY CHOUDHURY

Š

1983 the Hearst

THE UNION OF GENES AND GENIUS continued

thousands of genes, depending on the type of organism. Each gene plays a role in the production of a particular protein.

Cohen and Boyer's "breakthrough" came when they discovered that two classes of enzymes could allow them to alter the relationship between different genes: these were restriction enzymes, which cut DNA at specific predictable places, and DNA ligase, a genetic glue that can be used to bind fragments of previously unrelated DNA together. Once joined by the ligase, the genes are called "recombined."

Frequently, one of the DNA pieces is joined to a bacterial plasmid. These small rings of nonessential DNA ftoat freely inside most bacterial cells and are ideal carriers for foreign genes. Inserted into a plasmid, a new gene can transform a bacterium into a factory for producing whatever particular protein the new gene codes for. Bacteria will churn out a molecule-insulin, for example-for Left: This centrifuge apparatus at Schering-Plough Corporation in New Jersey can cull out tiny amounts of the antiviral agent interferon. Below: A research scientist at Bethesda Research Laboratories in Maryland uses a purification process for enzymes .

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..:.

which they have no possible use. Recently, more sophisticated methods have been tried to achieve the same end. New tools like spectroscopy are used to analyze the precise structure of a valuable human gene; scientists can then find a similar gene in a bacterium and try to modify it into a perfect copy. Alternatively, some researchers have used computers to build genes that can be inserted into a plasmid.

The tiny factories created by any of these methods reproduce. As the bacteria divide and multiply, so do their plasmids-including the foreign genes. The number of factories that could be built to churn out a certain drug is limitless.

Consider the case of insulin, a hormone that all diabetics must take. Until now, the only source of insulin for diabetics has been the pancreas glands of slaughtered cattle and swine. But the J number of diabetics is increasing faster than the population in general; the supply of insulin is severely limited by the number of animals available for slaughter. Furthermore, animal insulin is an imperfect substitute , close but not identical to the human variety. There is always the possibility that the patient will develop an allergic reaction to the alien molecules. Such reactions are extremely rare with highly purified porcine insulin, but occur commonly with insulin from cattle.

Experts hope that insulin created by recombinant DNA techniques, marketed as Humulin by Eli Lilly and Co. in the United States, will overcome these pitfalls. Produced in a bacterial cell by an inserted human insulin gene, Humulin is identical to insulin produced in the body.

Preliminary studies by Dr. Philip Fireman at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine suggest that human insulin may be less likely to provoke allergic reactions in diabetics than animal-derived insulin. And there may be an additional advantage: Dr. John Galloway, senior clinical pharmacologist at Lilly, believes that human insulin will be faster-acting than animal substitutes.

Ultimately, some scientists believe it may prove cheaper as well. Although recombinant insulin is currently more expensive than the barnyard variety, once the operation of the bacterial factories is perfected, they should provide a limitless and economical source of medication.

children have been on treatment for one year. "At the present time, they are all growing at rates two and a half times greater than their rates prior to treatment," says Dr. Kaplan. "It will probably Human insulin is merely the first of the be at least another six months before all the bacterially produced molecules to be- studies are completed, but it certainly come a commercial product. Others are seems at this point that in all its biological waiting in the wings. effects, recombinant human growth horOne particularly promising application mone is similar to pituitary growth horof the technology is the construction of mone. We just have to complete some of human interferons, a group of molecules the studies before all the conditions are met thought to be the body's initial defense with for FDA [Federal Drug Administraagainst viral infections. Natural inter- tion] approval."

Growth hormone is actually involved feron is difficult to isolate and cannot be obtained in large enough quantities for in a wide range of body functions. Aniwidespread patient use. But tests carried mal studies suggest that its ready availout using this precious natural supply ability might also benefit people with suggest that interferon may be of some osteoporosis (brittle bones) by stimulatuse in treating breast and kidney cancers, ing the production of bone. In addition, it hepatitis, brain tumors, chronic leuke- may increase retention of nitrogen and mia, multiple sclerosis, shingles and the help protein metabolism of tissue in common cold. Anything that a virus patients who are severely burned, almight cause, interferon might prevent though this was tested in only one very or cure. limited study. Both of these uses would Improvements in interferon production require extremely high doses, about 10 using recombinant DNA technology are times that used in growth-hormonehot topics of current investigation. deficient patients. Says Dr. Kaplan: Dr. Ronald Hitzeman of Genentech, a "Some have even proposed that human California-based firm famous for its growth hormone might be beneficial in pioneering work in biotechnology, has the elderly, but that proposition has not recently produced recombinant interfer- been tested at all and remains to be on by using yeast, instead of bacteria, to shown.'' carry the human gene. "The nice thing A host of enzymes that can be obtained about yeast," he explains, "is that it only in tiny quantities by traditional secretes what it produces outside of the methods may be obtained in far less time, cell wall into the [surrounding] media. E. in far greater amounts and very likely in coli [the bacteria normally used and still far purer forms through biotechnological preferred in recombinant experiments] techniques. Genentech has successfully doesn't secrete pharmaceutical products produced two such substances-Urokioutside of the cell very well, so you have nase and TPA-in the bacteria E. coli. to take off the cell wall of the bacteria to Both molecules dissolve the blood clots release the protein produced." Often, that can cause pulmonary embolism and cell wall removal results in cell lysis, or heart attack. Urokinase is already the breakup. The scientist is then left with a drug of choice in treating thrombophlebisoup of interferon and bacterial debris tis in the United States, but was previousfrom which he must purify the drug. ly scarce and expensive because it had to Another promising substance from the be obtained from human urine and from recombinant DNA laboratory is human cultured human kidney cells. growth hormone, produced in the pituVeterinary medicine has also profited itary gland. A lack of this hormone from recombinant DNA. Biotechnology results in severely undersized human has produced several new vaccines, inbeings. Researchers hol?e that by admin- cluding those against hoof-and-mouth istering the hormone early in life they disease and an often fatal and very might correct the defect. Dr. Selna Kap- infectious form of diarrhea in calves. This ,Ian, at the University of California, San area of research will ultimately improve Francisco, is heading a nationwide clini- our food supply, as will a flurry of related cal trial of recombinant human growth products. Recombinant bovine growth hormone in children with a deficiency of hormone, for example, increases the the natural hormone. All 22 of the amount of milk that cows give by as much

Human insuli.n is the first of the bacterially produced molecules to become a commercial product.

SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

29

THE UNION OF GENES AND GENIUS continued

as 12 percent, according to scientists at Scientists are trying to put new virus antigen, say, hepatitis B, is mixed Cornell University. The cows required genes into plants to increase the with blood from someone suspected of less food to produce the milk. Just as having the disease. If the¡ monoclonals food value of fruits and vegetables. importan!, the milk was equivalent in find virus proteins to react with, the quality to that given by cows without complexes precipitate out of the solution, "If we could understand and locate the indicating that the patient's blood conbenefit of the hormone. It remains to be seen whether the recombinant hormone gene that codes for the enzyme [hydro- tains the disease agent. And with the is safe for cows and people who drink genase] that catalyzes the production of development of human-human hybridomilk. hydrogen, we could develop genetically mas, treating disease with monoclonals It is also conceivable that we might engineered organisms that have en- has become a real and intriguing possibilendow our bacteria with the kind of genes hanced levels of hydrogen and oxygen ity. A person with a known viral infection that produce muscle proteins. We could production. This is work for the noHoo- could be given monoclonal antibodies then harvest not a particular molecule but distant future," Greenbaum predicts. specific to the virus. Alternatively, the With the lightning-fast development antibody could be used as a means of a bacterial mass that tastes and feels like meat. Bacteria will be able to produce and seemingly limitless potential of re- bringing a drug directly to a specific meat protein far more quickly than cattle combinant technology, it is easy to forget antigen. or swine can and, in the process, will that several other areas of molecular The power of biotechnology is enorconsume "food" that would be of far less biotechnology have also produced drama- mous. Leon Barstow, a noted scientist value to human beings. tic successes. in the field and founder of Vega BioBy putting new genes in plants instead One of the most potent weapons in the technologies, Inc. in Tucson, Arizona, of bacteria, scientists may increase the medical arsenal may someday be the believes that in the near future we will food value of fruits and vegetables. At monoclonal antibodies, highly specific dis- even see the creation of new microorganPhytogen, in Pasadena, California, scien- ease-fighting molecules now produced isms capable of solving environmental tists are working on the insertion of genes in artificially created hybrid cells. These problems like air and water pollution; that will improve the protein content of molecules, now in the early stages of de- perhaps microbes that could convert velopment, act by re-creating the body's nonbiodegradable pollutants into nonpolthe potato.

The market for genetically engineered antibody-antigen reaction, the corner- luting substances. products seems practically limitless. It is stone of the human immune system.

But the benefits of the future must be possible that researchers may design bacAn antigen is any substance that, when greeted with a note of caution, acknowlteria to produce large quantities of introduced into an individual , provokes edging the attendant problems. Fortumethane, the key component of natural specific antibody formation in a special- nately, researchers are now convinced gas. And there has been speculation that ized group of cells called lymphocytes. that the risks of accidents are much slimcustom-crafted bacteria could act to force The antibody attacks the antigen that mer than was once feared. The bacterial oil out of rock and thus bring a larger initiated its formation and nullifies its cells that contain recombinant DNA can percentage of the contents of an oil well action. If lymphocytes sensitized to cer- only be kept alive through painstaking to the surface. In Europe, Royal Dutch tain antigens are removed and fused with effort, and are thus easily controlled.

Shell pumps brine into wells to extract oil mouse¡cancer cells (a process which simpPerhaps the real dangers stem from that natural pressure has failed to ly involves mixing the two types of cells in intentional rather than accidental misuse squeeze out. The company is trying to polyethylene glycol), the new fused cells, of the techniques. Recently, a team of find a microorganism that will survive called hybridomas, will thrive and divide. researchers in the United States led a and breed when added to the brine , thus Each hybridoma produces large quanti- movement to have the National Institutes increasing the pressure on the rock even ties of a single antibody, precisely tar- of Health prohibit those who receive more. Recombinant DNA techniques geted for the original antigen. federal grants from applying the funds to Dr. Robert Lundak, president ofTech- the development of recombinant DNA may help produce bacteria with this niclone, Inc., has recently improved on biological weapons. The move was reability.

Dr. Elias Greenbaum, of the Oak the technique by developing an all- jected.

Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, human cell line for use in human-human Despite such dangers, the march of hopes to use recombinant techniques to hybridomas. "If you are going to make an biotechnology will, no doubt, press on. construct algae that efficiently split H2 0 antibody for therapeutic or diagnostic use New drugs and expanded profits aside, into hydrogen and oxygen. in the human, the problem with using these new techniques have enormous Hydrogen has the highest energy con- mouse cell lines is that they give you a value in the field of basic research. Puttent of any known fuel , and, since it is a partially mouse-type antibody that is ting a rat gene in a mouse probably won't gas, it can be piped around in our existing viewed as foreign by the human immune make anybody healthy or rich, but it natural-gas pipeline system. Another system. The advantage of the human- aLmost certainly will teach us more about great advantage of hydrogen is that it human hybridomas is that the antibodies the way genes function and interact. 0 produces only water when it is burned. they make are exactly like those found in The water can, in turn, be used for more units of human blood."

About the Author: Isaac; Asimov., best known photosynthetic water-splitting, "so you Monoclonal antibodies aerived from for: bis more than 250 books and thousands of have a nice complete closed system," says mice are already being used diagnostical- articles on various facets of science, specialized Dr. Greenbaum. ly. An antibody created to interact with a in biochemistry in college.

30

SPAN NOVEMBER 1983

·~ -·)·" ... ~· · -...· ......... . ' ..

"Whatever happened to the General Practitioner?"

Reprinted by permission of Martin Giuffre; originally appeared in Prevention magazine.

Reprinted with permission from The Saturday Evening Post Society, a division of BEL and MS Inc. © 1983.

_j~'---___,/j

0

0

"Wait, spare me! I've got a wife, a home, and over a thousand eggs laid in the jelly!"

Reprinted by permission of Ouonicle Features, San Francisco.

"Well, Mr. Corbett, we've been a very naughty space cadet, haven't we?"

Drawing by Ziegler;

© 1983 The

New Yorker Magazine, Inc.

12

~suddenly,

a phrase begins to sing'

by CHIDANANDA DAS GUPTA

WeU known to poetry lovers and academics for decades, a quiet Indian poet, teacher and translator living in Chicago attracted wide attention recently when he won a "genius award, " a handsome grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation designed to enable highly talented people to pursue their inclinations free from the pressures of breadwinning.

Kannada, translating T amil and traveling often in India? What has living abroad and hugging India inside him meant? How do poets fare in a superi ndustrial society supposedly bitten by the bug of success? How has his poetry done in the United States?

What is his view of poetry? Who reads it anyway? What good are academic poets - compared to those away from the cloister? What is it like to Live in Chicago as an Indian poet-profel>sor? How does a translator and an original poet live Poets are supposed to be anguished beings, people who feel within the same soul- in peace or in conflict? I fired a volley of even the joys of life too deeply for comfort ; they are sensitive , questions, the inevitable ones any Indian would ask. vulnerable, naked against the wind, torn by contrary pulls.

Ramanujan earned his B.A. and M.A. in English language Etcetera. This preferred popuJar picture of the poet ignores and literature from Mysore University and , as did most such the intellectual con men , or the tough old nuts who simply have people at that time, went on to teach in a college. But with the gift of feeling deeply and speaking powerfully and go on many a difference. First off, he was not content to live in one looking like bankers. The Byronic image dies hard. place. " I wanted to live in different parts of India-for one year So what happens to the one who has two mother tongues. in each , at least. I started in Kerala. then moved to Madras, to writes in three languages , teaches in four faculties , lives in Madurai-then I went to Belgaum for a few years and to Poona someone else's country and dreams much about his own? lf and Baroda." He felt he had to explain why he stayed longer poets were as weak as some cigar-chomping executives think, than usual in Belgaum. " My father died . For familial reasons, I A.K. Ramanujan would not have survived those stresses. Jn had to stay put. " But the stability was not without its benefit. point of fact , he is a man of natural strength , poise a nd His interest in Tamil and Kannada poetry took root here . Also humility , the most unpretentious you will ever meet. No chip on he became interested in the problem of literacy. H e wrote little his shoulder; no false modesty. The poet in him is not obvious books for the literacy program and articles for neo-literate but has to be gradually discovered. magazines. What is more, he became, in these seven years, dissatisfied with the teaching of English and felt that the right And that woman way to study it was from the point of view of a linguist. That's beside the wreckage van when the foundations of his fame in linguistics were laid. on Hyde Park street: she will not let me rest " I became disillusioned with my teaching of English, I felt I as I slowly cease to be the town's brown stranger and guest. was not doing it right- we were not doing it right-even That's from a Ramanujan poem called "Still Another for though many of us were very dedicated to English and to our Mother. " The old ragpicker in Chicago , where be has now lived students. I felt that even after five or six or a dozen years of 20 years, could have been in Mysore, where he studied , or learning English , many students did not know it well enough to Madras, from where his parents came. Ramanujan is a man of use it. Of course there were some extraordinary students, but many places, and tongues. ''By the time I was 17," he says , "I for most of them- in spite of their high esteem for Englishspoke Tamil downstairs, English upstairs and Kannada out- the results, after giving so many years of their lives to it , were side. " H e adds quickly: "But I am not unique in that. '' By the disappointing. I was in Baroda , for instance, teaching English in time he was 17, he had also been writing poetry for at least two the commerce section- but the students were my despair, eve n years-in Kannada. And now, several buses in Chicago display though they liked me very much , listened to the stories I told a poem of his, chosen by the Illinois Arts Council: them and so on. If I asked them to write something, they wouldn't get one sentence right. So I wondered if the re was any And search other way of doing this." for certain thinLinguistics, be decided , could point the way. Ramanujan stemmed, bubble-eyed water bugs. went to Deccan College in Poona to take a course in linguistics.

See them perch After that he got a Fulbright scholarship to study linguistics at on dry capillary legs Indiana University and off he went. And then? weightless "For nearly 10 years, I taught straight Linguistics at the on the ripple skin University of Chicago, morphology, syntax and so on, which I of a stream. enjoyed doing. But because I had always been interested in folklore , and in the anthropology of language- structuralism, No, not only prophets semiotics, connexions between linguistics and forms of comwalk on water. This bug sits munication in general- over the years I have become more and on a landslide of Lights more involved in South Asian languages. " H e is at present and drowns eyechairman of the D epartment of South Asian Languages and deep Civilization at the University of Chicago. "The department is into its tiny strip very dear to me, because it has taught me more about India of sky. living here in Chicago than I could have learned anywhere What made him end up in the United States, a professor else- even in India. In India I would have taken many things teaching in four departments, writing poetry in English and for granted and I would not have met so many kinds of

translators. There are such people in India of course, but I would not have met many of them. In Chicago they are bunched together in one place.

The University of Chicago is full of famous scholars who can't be pigeonholed into one discipline. So it has found a way to deal with these "miscellaneous people" as Ramanujan calls them. Paul Wickely, for instance, is a geographer and at the same time an expert on China. Ramanujan himself has a joint appointment in four departments: in the Department of South Asian Languages; in the Committee on Social Thought consisting of writers, philosophers and related disciplines, in the Department of Linguistics, plus he has an associate professorship in the Department of Anthropology. Chicago, he explains, has this penchant for interdisciplinary appointments and committees consisting of people of different specializations who come together on matters of common concern. "When I study classical Tamil, I am on the one hand interested in its poetics, on the other in the social arrangements or world view reflected in the literature .... I feel that none of these can be studied without the others. One of the fortunate things of my life is that I have been able to keep the miscellaneous interests of my youth alive-because I landed up in a place where this was formally recognized. It's good to feel that these interests are not hobbies I pursue 01.1tside my own field."

The legitimacy of his many interests was brought home to him one day by his secretary. Ramanujan had drafted some poems and was typing them in his office. His secretary watched him do this and said: "Raman, why don't you give this to me?"

When the poet protested that it was personal work, the secretary assured him that whatever work he did was official; there was no line drawn between the official and the personal. From that day she typed his poems, no matter how many times he revised them. And he found she liked typing poems. "It's a change from reports. Secretaries are refreshed by it. Sometimes I ask them-how does this sound? However well you may know English , there are always ambiguous elements which only a native speaker can spot. Some of the typists are politic with me, but others will say-no , no, that doesn't sound right. " One of my oldest concerns is the form of poetry-not just the rhymes or count of syllables but the way it begins and ends and gathers a certain clarity. Content does not come independently of form. The meaning goes on changing with the form. In fact there is a point where you begin to feel that the form itself is the meaning of the poem."

Was he saying that, reduced to pure content, there is no personal expression, that it will then be something said before, belonging to someone else? Isn't it in the way of saying that content acquires a personality and therefore a meaning?

"I would go further than that,'" says Ramanujan. "I would say that the meaning is in the form. The particular nuance is what you experience; you are not looking for some big thought.

Even the biggest thought must come to you in a particular form; it must be embodied. The how is as much the what as the what. " Does that mean that words have a nonverbal content, as it were? "Yes. Because we use words all the time, we think poetry is made up of words. Of course poetry is made of words, but here words are like paint or gestures or other nonverbal things you use in the plastic arts or the performing arts. Words are like objects; they have a sound, a look. There was this writer who said: ' Language is the universal whore we are constantly trying to convert into a virgin.' Everybody uses language , yet when I use it I must use it in such a way that it says something new, innocent. Language is full of stock phrases, cliches- you fall back on them whenever you are not really thinking. It is

exactly like perception. When I see that scene outside the window, it is what I have seen a hundred times, but one of these days I may suddenly see it as if I had never seen it before. It acquires a quality of experience, and, at that very moment, it also becomes aesthetic. The words, when they appear in a particular order, surprise you, as though you had never seen them before. That's when you know you can't change it any more. You are your first reader.

"The poet is a specialist in what everybody does every now and then . You are talking to me. You tum witty, you tell me a story, you make a new phrase. Suddenly a phrase begins to sing, and everybody notices it. And then you pass on to something more ordinary. Poets are more consistent about it.

They have to make every phrase sing. Poetry intensifies words: From one point of view, it is minimal utterance; from another, maximal. You can feel the temperature of the thing- if the word is right. So poetry is language that has not been used before-intense, creative , imaginative. And yet it is ordinary language, not a thing apart. It is this paradox that interests me. I want my poems ultimately to sound as though I spoke them."

As with so many Indian writers living abroad, it is the Indian experience-a whole storehouse of it that they carry inside, review, relive from time to time and bring into contact with present experience-that nourishes Ramanujan's poetry. Perhaps that is where the value of such writers lies for the host country as much as the country they departed. Obviously. Ramanujan had explored and clarified the problem of duality a long time ago , for when questioned, he does not have to ponder over it much; he comes out with a fully formulated answer, although fresh in the te lling. His thoughts on it illuminate the condition of any expatriate writer , not just his own.

"At first the dream was of being some kind of a citi"zen of the world, to be at home wherever I was; it takes time before you realize that there are limits your culture has placed on you.

Only they are not just limits. They are also resources. You respond to things differently from others. Even among small groups that share your interests, your sensitivities and so on, you have personal responses that are not the same as of Americans." Yet Ramanujan fits into the American scene sufficiently to be published there a good deal and to be listed in every Who's Who. With some 3,000 published poets around, making one;s mark in the United States is not easy. It seems to have come to Ramanujan in a natural, gradual way. Speaking of the 3,000-odd poets, Ramanujan does not find the number unduly large for a country of the size of the United States.

"Don't they say that if you threw a stone in Calcutta, chances were that it would hit a poet? Readership of poetry is bigger in India. My friend Karandikar had written a (Marathi) poem that angered some group or the other. He was asked to read poems at Sangli or some such place where one of the first people he met on arrival was a police inspector. Asked what he was doing there , the policeman said: 'Some Marathi poet is coming, so I am on duty here.' That sort of thing is unusual in the United States, although the Beat poets did .make a big thing of it for a while. " Is it embarrassing, as some people suggest, to be a poet in a superindustrial society where success in scientific, industrial and managerial areas counts for a lot? "No," Ramanujan replies

33

AMANUJAN continued

W

firmly, "it's not embarrassing in any company to say that you are a poet. Of course they wonder how you make a living, but that's natural anywhere." How do they make a living? "There are many little magazines and university magazines that publish poetry, then there is Poetry, which is a national publication.

Some big magazines like The New Yorker, Atlantic and Harper's publish poetry and pay very well-you can almost live on it. And poets are often made professors of creative writing in universities these days-even if they don't have a degree. You give workshops, talk to young students who are beginning to write poetry. You are a poet-in-residence. Of course, there is some criticism of this too, on the count that it makes poets write for academics. But a good poet is a good poet anywhere.

Robert Lowell taught at Harvard , Berryman at Minnesota.

Admittedly, the atJdicncc for the academic poet is slightly different, but then Ginsberg or Fcrlinghetti are discussed at the universities as much as any other poet. Wallace Stevens was an insurance man. William Carlos Williams was a pediatrician who wrote poetry between birth and birth, as it were."

How does he get on with his translations? Is there a conflict between them and his original work? "It looks as if I live between things all the time-two (or more) languages, two countries, two disciplines. It's always been that way for me. My translations are a way to keep them all together. There are no compartments between languages for me. If a poem comes to me in Kannada, I can't write it in English, I can't even translate it later into English. If I do, it ends up by being a completely different poem. If I translate someone else's poetry, I can't take liberties with it. Not that I am literally faithful to them-that's a way of being unfaithful in fact, because languages have systems of their own. They don't have the same grammatical patterns, idioms, not even the same consonants. Besides, the experience in each language is different. That's why many of our scholarly translations in India are so difficult to understand .

Some of them can, in fact, be understood only by those who know the original. So one has to find equivalents in the other language- faithfully. I believe that only poets can translate poetry. The fact that we can learn more than one language itself means that there are universals, transfers. Your first language does not debar you from another. Indeed linguistics show how we transfer e lements that we learn in one language into another. But the common factors between languages are not at the level of the literal. Also, I never translate a poem singly.

When you do a number of them , the reader begins to see certain regularities, structures, conventions. If the first poem seems a little strange, the second will be Jess so. You read 10 or 15 and sort of start thinking in a new language as it were."

Ramanujan must have kept some faith with his originals, for The Interior Landscape, a book of poems translated from Tamil, was honored by the Tamil Writers' Association in 1968.

The poems were able to touch the minds of those who did not know the originals. Speaking of Shiva, a volume of translations of Kannada lyrics, brought the National Book Award nomination as well as inspiring the British Broadcasting Corporation to produce an opera based on it. So he lives between translations and originals without conflict. When he was 35, Oxford University Press issued his first volume of original poems in English, The Striders. Relations followed five years later.

Selected Poems was published in 1976. His work at Chicago entails a lot of scholarly activity. ''There is a sort of competition between writing one's own poetry and scholarly work. Translations require both scholarly and poetic skills. It's a nice compromise."

SPAN NOVEMB ER 1%3

STILL ANOTHER FOR MOTHER And that woman beside the wreckage van on Hyde Park street: she will not let me rest as I slowly cease to be the town's brown stranger and guest.

She had thick glasses on. Was large, buxom, like some friend's mother. Wearing chintz like all of them who live there, eating mints on the day's verandahs.

And the handsome short-limbed man with a five-finger patch of gray laid on his widows' peak, turned and left her as I walked at them out of the afterglow of a whiskey sour. She stood there as if nothing had happened yet (perhaps nothing did) flickered at by the neons on the door, the edges of her dress a fuzz, lit red.

Fumbled at keys, wishbone shadows on the catwalk, as though they were not keys, but words after talk, or even beads.

He walked straight on, towards me, beyond me, didn't stop at the clicks of red on the signals.

And she just stood there, looking at his walking on, me looking at her looking on. She wanted then not to be absent perhaps on the scene if he once so much as even thought of looking back.

Perhaps they had fought.

Worse still, perhaps they had not fought.

I discovered that mere walking was polite and walked on, as if nothing had happened to her, or to me: something opened in the past and I heard something shut in the future, quietly, like the heavy door of my mother's black-pillared, nineteenth-century silent house, given on her marriage day to my father, for a dowry.

In his 20 years in Chicago, Ramanujan, born in 1929 and raised in Mysore by parents from Madras, has not ceased to be an Indian and yet has no sense of bei11g an alien. He writes in English, Kannada and translates Tamil, has a host of close friends in Chicago and the rest of the United States as well as in India. His wife, an Indian novelist. gives courses on creative writing in colleges ncar Chicago. One of these is a black college and represents an experience the husband does not really share; even though he has black students , he has never taught in a completely black college. Theirs was a Fulbright marriage , both having gone to the United States on Fulbright scholarships and met there . His daughter, 20, studies Sanskrit, besides being a Greek scholar. He himself continues with bis comhination of original and translations. Poems of Love and War, an anthology of translations from Tamil , will be published in 1984, and a work on South Indian Folk Tales will follow. The unexpected and large MacArthur Award has made little difference to the even tenor of his life. '' I will continue to do what I am doing."

DEATH AND THE GOOD CITIZEN I know, you told me, your mghtsoil and all your city's, goes still warm every morning 10 a government lorry, drippy (you said) but punctual, by special arrangement tO the municipal gardens to make the grass grow tall for the cows in the village, the rhino in the zoo: and the oranges plump and glow, till they are a preternatural orange.

Good animal yet perfect citizen, you, you are biodegradable, you do return to nature: you will your body to the nearest hospital, changing death into small change and spare parts; dismantling, not decomposing like the rest of us. Eyes in an eye-bank to blink some day for a stranger's brain, wait like mummy wheaL in the singular company

CHICAGO ZEN Now tidy your house, dust especially your living room and do not forget to name all your children.

2 Watch your step. Sight may strike you blind in unexpected places.

The traffic light turns orange on 57th and Dorchester, and you stumble, you fall into a vision of forest fires, enter a frothing Himalayan river, rapid, silent.

On the 14th floor, Lake Michigan crawls and crawls in the window. Your thumbnail cracks a lobster louse on the windowpane from you r daughter's hair and you drown, eyes open, towards the Indies, the antipodes.

And you, always so perfectly sane.

3 Now you know what you always knew: the country cannot be reached

absolute.

by jet. Nor by boat on jungle river, hashish behind the Monkey-temple,

Hearts,

nor moonshot to the cratered Sea ofTranquilliry, slim Elvira

of single eyes, pickled,

with your kind of temper, may even take, make connection with alien veins, and continue your struggle to be naturalized: beat, and learn to miss a beat, in a foreign body.

But you know my tribe, incarnate unbelievers in bodies, they'll speak proverbs, contest my will, against such degradation.

Hide-bound, even worms cannot have me: they'll cremate me in Sanskrit and sandalwood, have me sterilized to a scatter or ash.

Or abroad, they'Lllay me out in a funeral parlor, embalm me in pesticide, bury me in a steel trap, lock me so out of nature till I'rr. oxidized by leftover air, withered by tny own vapors into grin and bone.

My tissue will never graft, will never know newsprint, never grow in a culture, or be mold and compost for jasmine, eggplant and the unearthly perfection of municipal oranges.

on the tightrope between tree and tree with a white parasol, or the one and only blue guitar.

Nor by any other means of transport, migrating with a clean valid passport, no not even by transmigrating without any passport at all, but only by answering ordinary black telephones, questions walls and small children ask, and answering all calls of nature.

4 Watch your step, watch it I say especially at the first high threshold,

and the sudden low one near the end of the flight of stairs, and watch for the last step that's never there.

-Poetry, November 1981, Chicago, Illinois SPAN NOVEMBFR 1983

The Legend of

Bucky Fuller

by ROBERT ANTON WILSON

Written a year before Buckminster Fuller's death in July 1983, this article highlights the humanity of one of the most extraordinary innovators of this century.

One evening in September 1927, a young man who felt like a total failure stood on the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago, contemplating suicide. "1 said to myself, 'I've done the best I know how and it hasn't worked.' I really thought I was some kind of freak," he recalled later. The lake wind was freezing cold, but he stayed there many hours, arguing with God and the Universe and himself. He was 32, penniless and unemployed; he had just failed in business and was still grieving over the death of his daughter five years earlier. He did not think it likely that he would ever be competent enough to support his wife and newborn daughter.

That man was , of course, Richard Buckminster Fuller. and everybody knows the happy ending: He became as widely respected and loved internationally as Leonardo , Beethoven or Santa Claus. He has had so many prestigious positions that even a partial listing makes him sound like a science-fiction polymath: science and technology consultant at Fortune, chief mechanical engineer of the U .S. Board of Economic Warfare , Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard , assistant to the director at Phelps Dodge Corporation. dean at Black Mountain College ... the list goes on for pages.

Alden Hatch. one of Fuller's biographers. claims that no other living American is so

36

Reprinted from Scimce

well known in every nation on the planet.

The radomes (radar domes) of our Distant Early Warning system were designed

by Fuller; more than 300,000 of his large geodesic domes are standing on every continent, making him the most visible architect in history. Models of the domes are to be found in classrooms and museums, playgrounds and sundry shops. His Dymaxion map projection (which contains no distortion of land areas) is becoming almost as familiar as the Mercator projection and gives a more accurate view of our planet. In a recent issue of The Futurist, Barbara Marx Hubbard spoke for millions of his admirers when she wrote, " R. Buckminster Fuller is emerging as an archetype of the future: A new image of man . .. Fuller's very state of being is a historical event."

Yet for all that , Bucky Fuller (as he wants everybody to call him) is-like Einstein in the l930s-much more admired than he is understood. Many still regard him as a brilliant crank, tossing off marvelous inventions and incoherent philosophical notions like a Ben Franklin on dope. His most important scientific tenet-which is that he has discovered the coordinate system of nature- is regarded with skepticism by most mathematicians. His social philosophy, from which all his work actually grows. is often dismissed as utopian and "visionary. " The coordinate system of nature , according to Fuller, is synergetics, the synergetic-energetic geometry he has been developing since 1927. He argues that our world view has been hung up on the cube. but that Nature is more profitably looked at

Di_~w. Copyright Š The HcarSI Corporat ion . All right' reserved.

by means of a coordinate system based on triangles, rather than squares. This bold assertion, if it were accepted, could set Fuller high in the history of scientific dis-

covery, but it is rejected by most mathematicians. One of the new revelations and great shocks of 19th-century geometrythat Euclid's system was not the only possible one-was demonstrated when Gauss, Lobachevski and Riemann each produced a non-Euclidean geometry. Since then, there has been general agreement that the Universe does not use one geometry; we can invent many geometries depending on our purposes and the magnitude of the space being studied. Fuller sounds naive in claiming to have the "real" geometry. .

Nonetheless, Bucky will not back down.

His argument is that nature is always economical. His geometry is designed with this economy in mind; that is why his famous domes, based on nature's most stable shape, the triangle , deliver more stability per pound than similar structures enclosing the same space. Fuller also has a few vindicated prophecies to support him. He said that all chemical structures would turn out to be synergetic in his sense-that is, more stable than might be predicted from their individual structural parts-and all organic chemicals arc now recognized to be structured that way.

In the first volume of Synergetics, he has attempted to show that the DNA helix can be modeled by interlocked tetrahedra of the type he calls tetrahelixes and that

ILLUSTRAnON BY NAND K ATYAL

War is obsolete. Our only real problems are ignorance, fear and greed: The rulers and the ruled are both largely unaware of the actual facts of our resources and our options.

Korzybski was right, altering our perceptions.

One of Fuller's first experience-gained insights. he asserts. was that the Golden Rule was practical, after all. " I had been positively effective in producing lifeadvantage wealth-which realistically protected , nurtured and accommodated X numbers of human lives for Y numbers of forward days-only when I was doing so entirely for others and not for myself. . .. Thus it became obvious that if I worked always and only for all humanity. I would be optimally effective."

With such an attitude, Fuller quickly acquired a reputation as a brilliant crackpot.

Although he held various important jobs in government and industry and published a few books. and his designs were frequently hailed in "world of the future'' newspaper feature s, most of his inventions remained in the prototype stage for decades. Nobody would invest in his work. not because his designs were radical but because he had decided that his 1920s failures were due to his having compromised his principles. and he would not compromise again.

Then , in 1954, a study by the U.S .

locked into certain per-Bucky Fuller ceptual grids. Fuller tried to break those grids, to find out what a person "of average the intelligence" could accomplish if guided paradoxes only by personal observation and experiof quantum the- ment.

When Bucky started talking again. he ory will disappear if physicists will recast their had begun to develop that peculiar jargon models in synergetic geometry. that has continued to dazzle , enlighten and The scientific community is still skep- annoy various audiences. He refuses to say tical. But Bucky Fuller comes from an old ''up'' o r "down" because there is no up or New England family of rugged individualists down in the Universe; he insists that astroand heretics. His grandfather, an ardent nauts go ''out," ·'in'' and ..around." not abolitionist. insisted on enlisti ng in the "up.·· He always writes ··Universe·· instead Union Army even though he was over 40; of "the Universe" because Einstein's princihe was ki lled in battle. His great-aunt was ple of nonsimultaneity shows Universe is the transcendentalist philosopher-editor not a static thing but a process. His adjecMargaret Fuller, who was a close friend of tives often begin with "omni-" because in Emerson and Thoreau and first published this way he checks himself, as he goes along, Emerson in the Dial. It was from this to see if a statement is a general principle or stubborn Yankee background that Fuller only a special case. And of course, some ot developed the intransigent idealism that his coinages-censegrity , for tensional inmade him feel like a •·freak" in the materi- tegrity, and Spaceship Earth-have begun alistic 1920s. He still speaks with profound to creep into general speech, thereby, if respect of his gr~ndmother, who taught him to live always by the Golden Rule, no matter what other people did.

When Bucky first went into business BUCKY'S BRAINSTORMS (after two expulsions from Harvard-for unruly behavior- and then redeeming himBuckminster Fuller's designs, based on carried by helicopter and put together self by serving as a naval officer in World the conservation of energy and materials, quickly, hundreds saw service in World War I}, he found that nobody believed in are as ingenious as they are diverse. Tlus War II as radar shacks and dormitories. that Golden Rule stuff. Social Darwinismlist gives a cross section of his accomplish- Dymaxion World Map, 1936, is the only popularly known as "dog eat dog''- was the Oat map that shows Earth with negligible ments. dominant philosophy in corporate life, and Dymaxion House, patented in 1928 as the distortion of relative shapes and sizes. The Bucky was confused and pained by it.

4-D House, is a mass-producible, hex- map's coloring indicates climate (red for On the night in September 1927 when he agonal dwelling that hangs from a mast. hot, blue for cold), and dots show populacontemplated suicide at the age of 32, Fuller (The term dymaxion is derived from the tion distribution. decided to live the rest of his life as an words dynamism, maximum and ions and Geodesic Dome, which depends on the experiment. He wouldn't believe anything stability of the triangle for its great means " doing more with less.") anybody had told him-Golden Rule , dog was designed in 1948. strength, is 1933, in developed Car, Dymaxion eat dog or any of it- and would try to find is a structural frame deTruss Octet air ize minim to fish shaped like a plump out, by experience on ly, what could be that combines octa1953 in veloped stretching and wheels drag. Set on three physically demonstrated to work. (eight- and tetrahedrons and hedrons a into slip deftly 5.8 meters, the car can Jn the year following that decision , enorattain to polyhedrons) four-faced 6-meter 'parking space.

Bucky stopped talking entirely, like many Indeed, capabilities. load-bearing mous for 1927 in Dymaxion Bathroom, designed mystics in the East. He insists that he had mass production, is a luxury unit easily the strength-to-weight ratio increases as nothing " mystical'' in mind . "l was simply assembled from just four preformed the truss grows in size. trying to free myself of conditioned pieces. Originally stamped from sheet R owing Needle, patented in 1970, is an reflexes," he says. He had met pioneer metal, it was intended to be made from extremely fast and stable catamaran desemanticist Count Alfred Korzybski shortly signed for recreational use. inexpensive plastics. before and was convinced that Korzybski D ymaxion Deployment Unit, built in Floating Breakwater, 1. 975 patent, exwas correct in his claim that language 1940, is a lightweight shelter modeled tracts energy from ocean waves to generstructures cause conditioned associationsafter a grain bin. Because it can be ate electricity as it protects the shore. keep us mechanical reactions that

38

SPAN NOVLMBER 19~1

Marine Corps determined that Fuller's geodesic domes could be delive red by helicopte r anywhere, usually could be fully erected within hours and were superior in strength to conventional "box" housing. By the early 1960s, the domes were appearing everywhere and the intransigent idealist was suddenly famous. His prestige has been climbing ever since, and he has become an idol to millions everywhere on the planet.

Fuller (who, like that other notable generalist Thomas Jefferson, keeps records of everything) ca lculated in 1981 that he had traveled 5.6 millio n kilometers so far, to teach, to lecture, to advise or to supervise design projects. He has been around the world . he notes, 48 times-making it cheaper fo r him to rent cars than to own them.

T ypically. he has exact figures on that: H e owned 43 cars before discovering it was cheaper to rent and has rented 100 since then.

In person, Bucky Fuller is not impressive at first gla nce: He is shorter than average, a bit bowlegged and somewhat deaf, and , because of weak vision, he stares at you through glasses so thick that his eyes seem to bulge gigantically like those of a B-movie

object is a tetrahedron , which has six edges. Fuller calls objects "knots'' (a pattern integrity) to emphasize that they are plural and st ructured. Knots are made up of trajectories that cross and create stable patterns. Thus he says that "matter is knots in energy," crystallizing the basic discoveries of relativity (the equivalence of mass in energy) and quantum mechanics (the interaction between mass and energy) into one poetic image. ln addition to these local "knots ... Universe also contains generalized scientific principles. or laws. These are metaphysical, in Fuller's semantics, because they are eternal, weightless, massless, temperatureless and omni-interaccommodative-th c characteristics traditionally assigned to the me taphysical.

Since Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Th eory of Communication {1948), Fuller has seen a basic link between these synergetic general principles and Shannon's definition of information. Shannon showed that extraterrestrial. When he starts talking. all information is an ordering of energy and that changes immediately. You are either therefore the mathematical reciprocal of totally confused or enormously excited; entropy, which is the tendency of energy to most often, you are both confused and grow disorde red (chaotic). If you shuffle a excited. '' He puts you in a trance ," said one deck of cards, disorder will increase, beengineer after a Fuller seminar. "No." sa id cause that's the most probable outcome. If another, '' he wakes you out of your trance." you order the deck red-black-red-black or The problem with Fuller's talk, as well as king to ace or whatever, you are creating his books, is that he has always been a information, in Shannon's sense. Informacomprehensivist. "If nature wanted us to be tion is nowadays sometimes caiJed negenspecialists," he likes to say, "we'd be born tropy, or negative entropy. with one eye and a jeweler's lens attached."

According to Fuller. bringing order to He refuses to discuss any subject without natural systems-creating information-is a relating it to othe r subjects. When asked in synergetic process. Since we humans are an interview in 1980 if he had one most problem solvers, we serve a local function in important idea, he snapped , "Absolute ly opposing entropy by creating information or not. There is no 'one most important thing,' coherence. We can do this only by undersince every system in Universe is plural and standing the metaphysical {that is, omnipreat minimum six. No, I have never found one sent) generalized principles of Universe. most important thing. [ deal in Universe These generalized principles, when apalways and only." plied to specific local problems. become Universe. according to Fuller, is both technology. It therefore follows that the physical and metaphysical. This statement more generalized principles we understand, creates commul)ication problems at once, the more local problems we can solve. since most scientists a re inclined to follow According to Fuller, an artifact for solving a the logical positivists in classifying "meta- class of proble ms is wealth . physical" as "meaningless," but Fuller does IBM is rich, he would insist, not because have a meaning for it.

Universe it has money but because it has general is "at minimum six" relationships because principles encoded into problem-solving every seeming "object'' is actually a rela- artifacts that can cope with so many forward tionship; the minimal three-dimensional days of so many human lives. The Arabs

arc suddenly rich, not because they have money but because they have petroleum , an artifact that temporarily solves the proble m of mass transportation, and , even more important, they have acquired the knowhow needed for its production and distribution. Tn general, Fuller sees wealth as the product of energy times intelligence: energy turned into artifacts that "advantage¡¡ human life.

It follows that with eno ugh knowledge of generalized principles, the wealth of the human species can be expanded indefinitely . This is Fuller's explanation of the fact , well known to statistical economists , that real capital (plants in operation. known resources, etc.) has doubled every generation since records were first kept in the 18th century.

Fuller describes this process as ephem eralization-every scientific advance allows us to "do more with less." The auto mobile, for instance, is only 15 percent efficient-it wastes 85 percent of the energy it uses . The fue l cells invented by the U.S . National Aeronautics and Space Administration are 80 percent efficient. Fuller documents the idea that this kind of real capital does tend to turn into money capital with graphs showing the increase of afflue nce in industrial and postindustrial nations. T aking the average living standard of the top 1 percent of the U.S. population in 1900 as a standard of afflu ence, for instance. he has a graph s howing that 40 percent of the U.S. population had reached that level by 1920, 50 percent by 1950, 60 percent by 1970.

Fuller believes that we now have the "energy slaves" (technological artifacts) to make the whole human race the equivalent of billionaries. He also believes that most of these energy slaves are invisible-known o nly to specialists, such as mathematicians, metallurgists and physicists. Thus he gri mly predicts that the rulers of the major powers, not knowing of this potential abundance. are competing more fiercely for the resources they do know about and are leading us to the brink of "evolutionary

SPAN NO\ I Mill R I'IX.1

39

Fuller's geodesic dome, the lightest yet the strongest structure ever designed, has been put to myriad uses: The Botanical Park (above) in St. Louis, Missouri; the U.S. pavilion (left) at Expo '67 in Montreal, Canada; and the Hyatt Regency Hotel's revolving restaurant (right) in Dallas, Texas.

improvements in technology that his graphs led him to expect by around 1960. when emer- These improvements did arrive approx- Walter Reuther, gency." In fact, imately on schedule, in 1961, when 2,400- then president of the Fuller, picked the 1980s kilometer delivery reach was attained. Since United Auto Workers, as the decade of emergency then Fuller has been trying to sell the world- told them in 1953 that they over 30 years ago. With his grid idea to the governments of the United would make money if they granted typical faith in his own prognostica- States, Canada and the Soviet Union, be- their workers the highest salary increases tions and his total logic, he gave up smok- cause the first step toward such a grid would in American history. Reuther had this working in 1945 to increase the probability that be the linkup of the U.S., the Canadian and ed out on a computer and challenged the he would survive into the 1980s to work on the Russian electrical networks across the board to check it on their own computer. the problems of this oncoming emergency. Bering Strait, "advantaging all without dis- When they did, they found he was right and At 86, he said the evolutionary crises will advantaging any." granted the increases. The explanation : rich peak in the next eight years, by 1989.

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre workers buy more cars than poor workers.

Bucky's notorious "optimism" is re- Trudeau is in favor of the idea, and Russian Fuller similarly insists that any computer garded by many as naivete. Fuller insists scientists recently pronounced it "feasible" ¡ anywhere wilJ confirm what he and his that he is not an optimist but a realist. The and "desirable. " If it is achieved (and Fuller World Game team assert: International work of his World Game project, he says, believes it will be, within the next eight cooperation will make us all very rich very has demonstrated that we can increase real years), the odds shift in favor of survival and fast; international competition will very capital to the point where everybody will against nuclear war, since it will profit no likely blow us to hell. have the tools (energy slaves) to live like a nation to blow up the other end of its own The next eight years wilJ determine very Rockefeller. The World Game's inventory electrical system. clearly whether Bucky Fuller is the most of resources shows, he insists, that we can But until such synergetic opportunities scientifically precise social scientist in the achieve this only by international coopera- are recognized, Fuller says, power struc- history of this planet or just a starry-eyed tion. "War is obsolete," he says. "Our only tures will continue to plot against each visionary. He has no doubt of the outcome. real problems are ignorance. fear and greed: other, and a war of unprecedented horror "The human mind was designed for total The rulers and the ruled are both largely remains a real possibility. In short, he sees success in Universe," he tells every audiunaware of the actual facts of our resources the whole human species standing as he ence. When an interviewer challenged the and our options." stood on that memorable night in 1927, claim that he was a person of "average One of Fuller's key examples of the hovering between self-destruction and a intelligence" when he bega.n his life experidesirability of cooperation and the relative serious attempt to make the Golden Rule ment that night in 1927, Fuller said, "Repeat entropy involved in competition concerns work. my experiment. Try living by those rules. J am his proposed worldwide electrical grid. This "I am not deceiving humanity," Fuller no special child of God. Each of you is." 0 bas been one of his major preoccupations repeats again and again. "Everything I say for over 40 years, since he first decided that can be proven." He points to the incredulity About the Author: Robert A. Wilson is a director of such a grid would be possible given the of the board of directors of General Motors the Institute for the Study of the Human Future.

40

SPAN NOVEMBER 198.'

VAST RICHES contintJed from page 8

weather patterns have improved long-range global weather forecasting. Seismic surveys point the way to mineral deposits beneath the ice. Conclusive evidence of how earth's continental plates are drifting has been uncovered.

Other work explores how animal and plant life adapt to this extreme environment, while glaciologists seek clues to what causes the icecap to advance and retreat over the centuries. At the South Pole, where the summer sun circles constantly above the fiat horizon, astronomers can focus telescopes on the surface details of a sun that never sets.

"Scientists have a special regard for Antarctica," says Anna Palmisano, a microbiologist from the University of Southern California who studies tiny organisms that grow in sea ice. "It is clean and isolated and unspoiled-perfect for doing controlled, long-range research."

Despite Antarctica's barren landscape, where not a single shrub or green leaf appears, scientists are finding its coastal areas filled with life that thrives in the harshest conditions on earth.

The southern marine ecosystem-one of the world's richest-supports dozens of varieties of seals, whales, pengums, birds and fish along the continental shelf. Millions of tons of krill, a tiny protein-rich shrimp, are found in such huge swarms that they color Antarctic waters pink in the summer.

Krill already are being caught by vessels from several nations that use the shrimp for human food products and cattle feedstuff. However, environmentalists believe over-harvesting could deplete the krill supply, the mainstay of the food chain.

As a result, treaty nations in 1980 signed an agreement setting up an Australian-based bureaucracy with power to limit the krill catch.

Every year, Antarctic scientists add intriguing new clues to the origin of life on earth. In one glacier-free area known as the Dry Valleys, lying about 64 kilometers east of McMurdo Station, a primitive form of algae grows under the ice of lakes in near darkness, at subfreezing temperatures. without exposure to air.

George Simmons, an aquatic ecologist with Virginia Polytechnic Institute, believes that the lakes constitute an ..evolutionary backwater" that largely disappeared on earth 600 million years ago but survived in Antarctica. "We can decode our biological past with these organisms," asserts Simmons, who also believes the hardy species will outlive mankind. "I can guarantee you that when the human race is dead and gone, these little critters will be chugging along just like they have been for 3,500 million years."

Another project in the Dry Valleys area is examining lichens that grow just under the surface of sandstone. The lichens. a combination of algae and fungi, surv1ve in the bitter climate by occupying tiny spaces in the porous rock and absorbing whatever moisture and light are available.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is supporting the work, because many space scientists suspect that if life exists elsewhere in the solar system, it could well be similar to the simple organisms that survive in these austere valleys.

Another significant space-related finding is the discovery of thousands of meteorites on the icescape-including one rock that analysts are convinced came from the moon's surface, and

another that possibly is a chip off the planet Mars. Scientists have verified the moon fragment- the size of a golf ball and weighing a little more than an ounce-by comparing it with lunar rocks carried back to earth by the Apollo astronauts. ''These are gifts from outer space that we don't have to send a rocket up to find." says William A. Cassidy of the University of Pittsburgh, who recently discovered a new meteorite field about 480 kilometers from the South Pole toward McMurdo Station, in a locale that is almost as cold and barren as space itself.

Antarctica is the most fertile area in the world for extraterrestrial samples. More than 5,000 meteorites have been found so far, many of them surfacing on glaciers after being preserved uncontaminated under ice for a million years.

Antarctic ice-which contains 65 percent of the world's fresh water-is also giving up secrets of the past as glaciologists extract frozen cores built up through centuries of snowfalls.

These can be examined like tree rings to reconstruct history, including variations in sunshine and pollution levels , as well as tell how the earth's magnetic fields have changed.

A project at Siple Station in Ellsworth Land and at Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula is looking at how radio transmissions are amplified in the earth's upper atmosphere.

Sponsored by the U.S. Navy and conducted by Stanford University, the work could facilitate communication with submerged nuclear-armed submarines by means of very-lowfrequency signals.

A study of the "dive reflex·· of AntarctiC seals may provide clues about sudden crib death, which annually kills about 10,000 babies in the United States alone. Dr. Warren Zapol. the Boston physician who heads the project. believes that the pronounced slowdown in the metabolism of diving seals also occurs in humans when their faces arc splashed with water. He suspects that infants who spit up liquid at night experience a metabolic drop-off and die before their bodies can return to normal.

In 1989, the Antarctic Treaty will be reviewed and possibly renegotiated. Already, political skirmishing is under way to overhaul the document, which diplomatic experts say has worked remarkably well over the years.

The reformers range from Third World nations that feel they have been excluded from the continent to environmental groups that have pressed to make Antarctica an "international park" and thus impose a moratorium on mineral exploration.

The U.S. Congress already has passed the Antarctic Protection Act that protects wildlife on the continent from exploitation.

But the economic potential of the icy continent is growing constantly.

Thus. a battle over the coldest and most inhospitable place on earth is being joined, and will be fought over the diplomatic tables for the rest of the decade.

"The prospect of enormous commercJal payoffs in Antarctica is a genie that's out of the bottle," says a U.S. State Department official in charge of polar affairs. "If we can't agree on how to divide them up, Antarctica's peaceful experiment in scientific cooperation could become a battleground.·· 0 About the Author: Stanley N. Wellborn is associate editor for science with the U.S. News & World Report.

Copyright© 1983 U.S. News & World Report. In"

SPA'I !'0VIl!\111LR l'lhJ

41

WILD WEST REVISITED NOBEL RECOGNITION MS. MONITOR

One hundred years ago, in Omaha.

Nebraska, a company of cowboys and American Indians launched the very first Wild West show. starring William F. Cody, better known as "Buffalo Bill.路路 The show ran for 33 vears entertaining audiences at hom~ and abroad, making Cody an American legend. and giving much of the world its first glimpse of the American West.

Recently Cody's grandson, William Cody III. visited Omaha for the centennial celebration of the show.

Describing his grandfather's spectacle, young Cody said. "He had with the show all kinds of livestock .. even a herd of buffalo. At the height of its popularity, there were over 650 people who traveled with the show. including 250 American Indiansamong them some of the most famous chiefs. even Sitting Bull. He also signed up Annie Okaley in Iowa and made her famous .., She was the sharpshooter about whom the musical Annie Get Your Gun was written.

The Wild West show re-enacted famous coach robberies and the pony express mail system (mail carried by relays of mounted riders). It demonstrated bronco riding and roping. By the end of the 19th century. Buffalo Bill was one of the most photographed and best known Americans in the world. His earlier fame rested on his prowess as a pony express rider while a teenager. Buffalo Bill made the longest ride in the history of the pony express-a conrinuous gallop of 525 kilometers. "When he was only 21 years old," recalls grandson Cody, "he was awarded the contract for providing the buffalo meat to feed the crew that laid the first rails across the United States. It was here that he got the title of 'Buffalo Bill.' " Later. Cody helped preserve the buffalo. when hunting threatened the existence of the herds. He worked hard at conservmg the West and in getting the first American national forest set aside in Wyoming.

"He was an extremely courageous man, a hard worker." said his grandson.

It was that courage and the Wild West show that made Buffalo Bill a legend.

Among the Americans who have won 1983 Nobel Prizes are Dr. Barbara McClintock for medicine- for showing how genes behave unexpectedly inside cells and cause changes in heredity-and Professor Gerard Debreu for economics for his work on mathematical models that prove the classic theory of supply and demand.

McClintock. an 81-ycar-old geneticist who works at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. is the first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medtcine-as the category is officially known-and the third woman to win the award in that category.

Her discovery. made four decades ago, shows how genes can move from one spot to another on the chromosomes of a plant and change the future generations of plants it produces.

Nobel officials in Stockholm, announcing the award, which carries a prize of $190.000, called her work "the second great discovery of our time" in genetics, secondary only to the discovery that genes are made of strands of chemicals. strung together in a double helix that reflects the code, or set of instructions. that guides the development of every cell in the fulfillment of its genetic destiny.

The Nobel Committee, composed of members of the Karolinska Institute, credited her with "great ingenuity and intellectual stringency."

McClintock's discovery was made by raising crop after crop of Purple H Maize, or Indian com, and observing its changes. She studied the genetic mutations by examining the changes of color and texture of the pigment in corn kernels and of the leaves of the growing plants. She correlated areas of intense pigmentation of kernels of corn with abnormalities of the chromosomes. And. in the course of her research, she discovered what are technically called mobile genetic element-"jumping genes''-threadlike collections of genes inside cells.

After learning about the Nobel award from a radio broadcast, McClintock said, "The prize is such. an extraordinary honor. It might seem unfatr, however, to reward a person for having so much pleasure over the years. asking the maize plant to solve specific problems and then watching its responses.路路 McChntock's findings are now being used to help effect genetic changes in plants and fruit flies. Her discovery has shown how evolution can often suddenly change when genes unexpectedly wander. The knowledge, a member of the Nobel

Commiuee observed. helps explain how cancer cells may develop. how bactl!ria can become resistant to drugs and how viruses work .

A small woman - barely 1.5 meters tallMcCiintock has been described as a "shy. private person. who v.:orked by herself when ladies didn't do any science · She has never married and laves near the laboraror; building that nO\\ bears her name.

Born in 1902. McClintock enrolled in Cornell University's College of Agriculture in 1919. A new biography of the scientist-A Feeling for the Organism-by Evelyn Fox Keller reveals that McClintock wanted to ~tudy plant breeding, but that the department would not accept a woman.

She enrolled in the field of botany but soon made her way into the new science of gi!netics.

McClintock's early work on anomalies 111 corn genetics was qu1ckly recogmzed by her election an 1944 to the U S. National Academy of Sciences. only the third woman to be so honored at that time. She has since won <,evcral honors . In 1981. she was selected by the MacArthur Foundation to be its first prize fellow laureate .

Her biography notes that at a symposium in 1951 when McClintock first reported her discovery that genes jump around. she was met with stony silence . However. during the past 10 years, the revolution in molecular biology has confirmed her theories.

I

University of California Professor Gerard Debreu 1s the 12th American to have won or shared the economics award sincl! it was inaugu-

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rated in 1969 by the Bank of Sweden . The 62-year-old French-born professor will receive a gold medal and $200.()(Xl. ln its announcement of the award. the Ro) al Swedish Academy of Sc1ences cited Debreu for abstract mathcmattcal modeb that confirmed Adam Sm1th's "Theory of General Equilibrium" in wh1ch prices. supply and demand tend toward a balance \\ithin a free market econom) The theory has been a foundation for capitalism from early laissez-fain! systl!ms to mori! recent efforts seeking to reduce government influence in the marketplace.

The Academy said Dl!hreu's foremost contribution was for work that had a "profound and unsurpassed effect on the choice of methods and analytical techniqul!s in 1!conom1cs. ' The prize-winning work expanded on a mathematical model designl!d in thl! l!arly 1950s

by Debreu and Kennl!th Arrow of Harvard University. who won the Nobel Prize in JCJ72 .

Debreu, whose master work. 'fltcory of Value. was published 111 1959. told reporters that his research sought to set up a~~tract models to give an account of the way the many agents (consumers and producers) of which an economy is composed make decisions. how those decisions are consistent with each other and how they form an equilibrium for the economic system.

British economics Profl!ssor Stephen Littlechild said Debreu \\as a ptonl!cr in mathematical economics. Ever since the time of 18th-century economist Adam Smith, he said. "[t has been the theor; that if you leave the economy to 1tself and don't interfere. then 1t will come to an equilibrium between supply and demand and that this wiU be efficient-that government doesn't need to intervene. Debreu put that theory into a mathematical model and provl!d it formally."

The Royal Swedish Academy said Debreu has also studted the market's usc of rcsourcl!s, clarifying the influence of the market pricl! on the allocation of rcsourcl!s. and has made significant contributions to thl! theory of com.umcr behavior.

Nobel officials pointcd out that computer models based on Debreu's work arc used by the World Bank and similar agencies for analyzing trends in national economics and '"orld markets .

Born in 1921 in Calais. France. Gerard Debreu rece1ved his doctorate at the University of Paris in f956. He was appointed professor of economics at the Univcn.lt\ of California at Berkeley in 1962, and became an American citizen in 1975.

Millions of Americans arc donating a commodity that is urgently needed for all kinds of welfare work-time. More than 84 million Americans now volunteer for service in thousands of nonprofit tnstitutions all over the United States. Of these. seven million visit hospitals and health care institutions, contributing. on an average. three hours each week. Their activitil!s include escorting and visiting patients. assisting their families, staffing counters, providing health education. and helping in fund raising.

he Christian Science Monitor. the Boston-based "venT erable but stodgy daily" (in the words of Time magazine), gets a new look and a new editor.

What's more. the t:ditor i~ a woman-Katherine Fanning. Hers is the most prestigiou~ editorial post in newspapering to be held by a woman in the United States.

Magazmes have women editors: there are many women on newspaper editorial staffs: and many WO!lJen have been owners and pub· lishers of American newspapers.

But the JOb of top elhtor of a national newspaper had remained largely a male preserve Fanmng's career in newspapers started as a $2 an hour librarian at the Anchorage Daily News in 1965.

The next year she married Lawrence Fanning and together they bought the Anchorage paper. llcr husband\ death in 1971 left her as owner. editor and publisher of the 20-employee paper. Within five years. the paper had won its first Pulitzer Prize. She also successfully weathered th financial crises and sold it at a modest profit before leavmg Alaska in May for her new assignment.

In JUSt a few months. Fanning has already brought about remarkable changes tn the 75-vear·old Christian Science Monitor, which co:nmands an elite following for its international coverage, political analysis and reputatton for faarness. The once gray tabloid has been radically revamped wi!h new and bigger typefaces, changed layout and page planning and many more pages (from 28 to .!0) The paper's regional sections have been dropped in preference for a ~ingle national edition . "We are attempting to fit into the fast pace of life.

People cannot pore through a paper these day!>.·· says Fanntng. The new look-and new edttor-it b hoped. will arrest the dropping circulation (150.000 last year from 240,000 in the 1960s).

WOMEN PLA YWRJGHTS continued from page 4

A scene from The Wake of Jamey Foster, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Beth Henley.

44

the key moments were, when an important thing had to be said, or avoided."

Interviewing inmates and drawing upon her own exceptional memory-for dialogue as well as incidents-she completed Getting Out. The play was a hit in the new-play festival at the Actors Theater and repeated that success Off Broadway. It has subsequently been staged throughout the United States and Europe-in prisons as well as theaters. After Getting Out, Norman wrote two one-acts, produced in Louisville under the title, Third and Oak. Jory points to an image in one of the one-acts as matchless Marsha Norman. A woman in a law1dromat, washing the clothes of her deceased husband, says she has found a beach ball in a closet. She realizes that it contains her husband's breath. When the character spoke that line, recalls Jory, you could hear a sigh from the audience.

Next, she wrote a number of screenplays-most of them as yet unproduced-and two plays, Circus Valentine, about a small-town circus, and The Holdup, inspired by her grandfather's tales of outlaws in the new West. After several revisions, The Holdup recently opened at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

In 1978, Marsha Norman married Dann Byck, a successful Louisville retailer. One of the founders of the Actors Theater, he had a long-time interest in theater. With his new wife, he decided to leave Louisville and his family business in order ¡ to be a theatrical producer. The Bycks moved to New York, where, over a period of four months, Norman wrote 'Night, Mother. "I thought this was a play

that no one would ever want to see, so there were no compromises to be made.

Just write it for you, get it straight, get the score settled."

The play is based on events she is unwiJiing to reveal. "We all know people who have killed themselves," she explains, "and we are hurt and confused, and we would like to understand even if we can't accept what they did. But they didn't give us the opportunity. The play should not be seen as something from my life but as something from our lives. The best plays, the ones that last, are communal dreams."

Norman was adamant about not having stars in the play. "These are ordinary people. I felt that recognizable stars would be dangerous. The audience would tend to see the stars rather than the characters." For a similar reason-in contrast to other writers such as Beth Henley-Norman has been very careful about removing her play from a specific regional environment. "I wanted it to be happening at home, wherever home is," she '!xplained. She did not want people to say that was how a Kentucky family would handle that situation. "Then they would be off the hook emotionally," she added.

In the context of Broadway, which tends to specialize in musical revivals, comedies and plays that have been tested in London, 'Night, Mother is an anomaly.

Norman and her husband, the show's principal producer, are convinced, however, that there is an audience for her play and that there is a wide public for serious drama on Broadway. Byck also plans to produce works by other writers.

Norman does not believe that people go to the theater just to be entertained.

As she says, "There are a lot of other sources of entertainment-cheaper and quicker." Then she theorizes, "People come to the theater for confirmation of their view of the human condition. Are the problems that I know problems that other people are aware of? Is it as scary out there as I think it is? Who else has been brave today?"

'Night, Mother has been extolled by a number of critics, won the Pulitzer and is a front runner for other prizes at year's end-for the actresses as well as the playwright. By not using stars, 'Night, Mother created two new ones. The challenge of Broadway remains. Ticket sales are increasing, but it is still a question whether theatergoers will be eager to take part in Marsha Norman's communal. dream.

Sitting at her dining-room table surrounded by the objects of her life, the

playwright talked about herself, her play and her approach to theater.. A conversation with her roams freely from Kierkegaard to Aristotle, from Flaubert to Doris Lessing. She spoke about her fears.

"I have terrible emotional ups and downs," she said, "periods of depression.

But I don't sit in them and weep and wail-and woe to anyone who tries to cheer me up. What keeps me fighting is the conviction, a requirement of my life, that from that darkness comes an understanding. What is Roethke's quote? 'You learn by going where you have to go.'

More and more it seems like a journey with detours. I'm troubled by what people don't say, by what we never understand about each other. I am most in awe of our small victories when we manage to understand how someone else feels."

Speaking about her family, she said: "So much of what I do is an absolute violation of what my parents believe in.

They don't know where it came from.

Mother feels she'll have to answer for it.

St. Peter is going to say, 'Why is Getting Out so profane?' For a long time I struggled to get Mother to be more like me. There comes a moment when we have to release our parents from our expectations. One of the problems for daughters and sons is that you come into life with an unpayable debt, the mortgage of all time."

Turning to the subject of playwriting, Norman explained, "I start with moments of extraordinary courage by people who have few skills with which to handle the moment. I am not interested in writing about indulgence of any kind, and I'm not interested in anyone who feels he is a victim. There are things people drag around with them-wagons loaded with bricks."

For her next step, Norman is working with the composer Norman L. Berman on a musical about the Shakers, and she has an idea, unspoken, for a new play.

She says about herself and other contemporary playwrights, men as well as women: "I almost see us as this battalion, marching, valiant soldiers on the front lines, and we must not step on the mines.

We are trying as best we can to clear the path, to tell you what's out there." In the vanguard are Norman and her sister playwrights. "Now we can write plays and not have people put them in a little box labeled 'women's theater,'" she says.

"It's a time of great exploration of secret worlds, of worlds that have been kept very quiet."

0 About the Author: Mel Gussow is a drama critic for The New York Times.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NEXT ISSUE:

Louisiana, Land of Dreams Down the delta of the Mississippi River, the New South ofproductivity and industry and the fabled Old South converge. A portfolio of color photographs brings you the spectacular sights of old New Orleans and the bayous and mansions of Louisiana.

Sounds of Jazz Louisiana is also the home of jazz. The old jazz still Lives-at Preservation Hall which provides employment for the legendary jazz artists and marvelous entertainment for visitors.

Arui it livP-s in the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive, "the chief memory bank for the early history of America's richest native art form.,.

A Writer for All Seasons E. B. White has been a distinguished writer of essays, children's books and poems for more than 50 years. H is essays have been cited as models of lucid prose for generations of American college students; Ms observations of matters great and small have made the editorial an art form .

Jacquelin Singh evaluates White's work and SPAN p resents some examples of his ability to find the universal, in the particular.

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As you leave the mammal section of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in New Delhi your face stares back at you from a mirror placed at the exit. So does a poster: "YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE ONLY ANIMAL THAT CAN PROTECT THE NATURAL ENVIRON-

That's you.

Even without that reminder, the museum makes you reflect-on nature, on man, on the interrelationship between the two and on the callousness of one toward the other. Do we realize , the museum provokes us to ask, that in destroying nature we are slowly destroying ourselves?

It's a fascinating world-and as the story of its evolution, its present , its many hues, unfolds exhibit after exhibit, you are left marveling. Both at the world and at the museum.

"We didn't want to become another glorified warehouse of objects," says S.M. Nair, the director. "We wanted to use interesting, dramatic and communicative methods in the best possible way."

MENT."

Intelligently planned , the museum is spread across three floors of a multistoried edifice in the heart of the capital, on Barakhamba Road. Nair and his team have made imaginative use of dioramas, slides, photographs, real and simulated specimens, sound and light effects. Some of the most modern museum techniques have been used. A personnel exchange program between the United States and India under the auspices of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture is one of the avenues used for training technical staff.

Among the most impressive exhibits are the several mounted animals and birds. The museum's taxidermist, V. V. Gogate, was sent to the United States to learn the freeze-dry preservation technique , which the Smithsonian Institution had developed 20 years ago. He worked with Dr. Rolland Hower of the Smithsonian.

They designed a unit that would be appropriate for Indian conditions, and the museum im-

The Discovery Room of the National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi, offers children fascinating glimpses into the wonderland of birds.

ported the necessary equipment . Later Dr. Hower visited New Delhi to train other museum staffers.

Under this method a dead animal, posed in the desired manner, is placed in a freezing chamber and all its body fluids are frozen. The water is then sublimated in the freeze-dry process and the dried animal is used as an exhibit.

Animals mounted by this method are particularly lifelike.

Though the dinosaur that greets you at the entrance of the museum is a huge model, there are several tigers, leopards , deer, birds and fishes that are "real."

The real and the simulated merge well here. The text accompanying the exhibits is simple yet provocative, encouraging you to question, to take a closer look ("Would you like to touch me? I am a fossil. I lived in the tropical seas about

A LrVING MUSEUM continued

100 million years ago .... "), to move on to the next exhibit.

All this took a few years of expert planning. Though the museum itself is only five years old, the project was conceived in 1972 to commemorate the silver jubilee of India's independence. Dr. Nair's knowledge of museology (be has a doctorate in the subject) and natural history made him a logical choice for director.

While teaching museology at the University of Baroda, Nair gained exposure to natural history museums around the world. He was awarded the Rockefeller Third Fund Fellowship which gave him an opportunity to travel around the world and spend a few months in the United States.

He undertook internship training at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Before joining the NMNH in 1974, he was the Head of the Department ¡of Museum Studies at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, Rajasthan.

"What prompted me to take up this job was a desire to stop preaching and start practicing," Nair says with a laugh. This has meant more than simply switching from academia to museum management. He bas been successful in putting the whole concept of interaction between man and environment into practice. The museum, under his direction, does this through programs that engender a genuine interest in and understanding of the underlying mechanisms of nature. " Our policy is to supplement the exhibits on nature with educational programs for schoolchildren, teenagers and the handicapped; organize film shows for the general public; and have a continual series of public lectures on issues relating to ecology and environment. The emphasis is on an integrated approach in presenting nature."

His success in this endeavor is evident from the popularity the museum enjoys today as a

center of learning and recreaAdults-parents and tion. teachers-who accompany the children, soon become interested observers, not mere chaperons.

Starting off with a subtly lit display of the solar system and a detailed chart on the evolution of man and the stages in the birth of our earth, the museum takes you from simulated darkness to light. In the section on the first signs of life you peer into the darkness at exhibits in ultraviolet lighting.

From this cavelike section you move on to history in the rocks; dioramas on life in the mountains, deserts, ponds and the sea; the plant kingdom; the shell makers; the mysteries and marvels of the world of the birds (with a fascinating display on their framework for flying and another on the birth of a perched then bird) ... and log of thick above you on a are you wood is a leopard. And in the animal kingdom, a kingdom that man is fast depleting -as a colorful display shows you bags, shoes, clothes made of fur. Further on, a fur coat confiscated by the customs authorities is displayed and alongside it is the story of the birth of the fur coat and the death of the "over 30 innocent attractive fishing cats" killed to make it.

Next to the Ecology Gallery , on the second floor , is the section that is the most attractive to children-the Discovery Room. Here there is fun and learning, test-your-knowledge games, a "listen to bird calls" area, places to sit and draw the birds on display. Special thought bas been given to the needs and desires of blind visitors-they are allowed to touch the displays here. There are also several exhibits to "hear."

The endearing quality of vibrancy in the museum has much to do with the training of the staff and their constant exposure to new methods of display and communication. This enthusiasm to adapt innovations, enhance facilities and enlarge the field of operation has gained added impetus through

, LIVING MUSEUM continued

the exchange programs of the Joint Museums Committee of the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture.

The Museums Committee (which had its first meeting in 1976) has a dozen directors of museums from both countries.

NMNH, as the only museum of natural history in India, benefits greatly as the focal point of all projects. These include joint ventures with various American museums involving exchange of personnel, workshops, ecological research and exchange of exhibits.

Unlike most exchange programs, where only the top-level officials go on foreign jaunts, NMNH ··makes it a point to send middle-level technical personnel for they are the ones who actuaJly execute the work." "Moreover," continues Nair, "when we send an individual we usually link up the trip with a project so that he can develop one particular area on his return."

The workshops are held every year, alternately in India and the United States. Five have been held so far- in October 1979 at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, on '·Organizational Strategies for the Development of Natural

The museum's taxidermist V. V. Gogate demonstrates the use ofthe freeze-dry preservation equipment.

The dead animal is posed in the desired manner and placed in a freezing chamber till all its body fluids are frozen. The water is then sublimated by the freeze-dry process before using the animal as a mounted exhibit.

1:-Ustory Museums"; in November-December 1980 in New Delhi on "The Role of Natural History Museums in Environmental Studies and Conservation Education"; in September 1981 at the American Museum of Natural History. New York, en "Exhibition Techniques and Communication Strategies"; in October-November 1982 in N'!w Delhi on "Interactive Natural Science Exhibits for Children''; and in SeptemberOctober this year in the United States on ·'Outreach Programs-How To Reach Surrounding Communities." ''The workshops are not merely discussion groups," says Nair. "We have been evolving ever since the first one took place."

Participants in the workshop on environment discussed and prepared several educational models, exhibits and projects.

They sought ways to make

museums go beyond their immediate confines and offer programs that can create aware ness in nonliterate urban and rural areas.

During the 1982 workshop subgroups were given topicsthe banyan tree as a mini ecosystem, snakebite and associated folklore , variety and beauty of Indian birds, the energy game, for example-on which they were to design exhibits that would best illustrate the concepts for children. The new Ecology Gallery at the museum has used several of the ideas that evolved from the workshop.

One of the interesting bilateral programs involves the exchange of paintings by American and Indian children (see inside back cover and back cover). As part of its ongoing pmjects of creative activities for the young, NMNH asked a group of schoolchildren in Delhi to draw paintings on " nature." Fifty of these were sent to the Lawrence H all of Science, Berkeley ,California.

Delighted by this collection, Lawrence Hall has sent NMNH paintings by American children on an unusual theme-an imaginary being who lives on the ph10et Venus. NMNH hopes to exhibit these paintings sometime this month , according to Nair.

Future plans include a new site for the museum, possibly in the Delhi zoological gardens. regional centers, mobile museums, rural extension services , more projects involving schools.

"We are not fully established yet," insists Nair. "After all, the museum is only five years old. ln fact, no living museum can ever get fully established. It has to grow constantly."

And as it grows, so does environmental awareness and a love of nature-in the minds of the visitors who throng to see its fascinating story of our world .

0 About the Author: Manini Chatterjee is on the staffofthe Calcutta daily, The Telegraph.

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SWAP American schoolchildren saw the world of nature through the eyes of Indian children in SO paintings sent by the National Museum of Natural History in New Delhi to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, California. Indian children will soon get to see creatur es from Venus as envisioned

by American childrenLawrence Hall's return gift to India.

GLOf\-

-PLJ 5 1

1. Painting by Niladri Ball, digests and uses acid as a age 6. food source."

2. Painting by Sumeet 4 . My Venusian by Renee Harrold. "My Venusian," Naruta, age 12.

3. The Venusian, a Glorpus the caption states, "has an

by Peter Lorenstzen, age 9. air conditioner because it is "The picture has a color 900° there. It rains acid in key,'' explains the artist.

Venus so my Venusian has "The glorpus has six sil- to have protection against ver eyes. The eyes can see the acid and he has to drink and smell very well because water, so he has a built-in of the fog. On all of the water faucet. He has roleyes except one he has fur lerskate feet because the air on the back of them, where is 100 times heavier and it is 3 the eye isn't facing. The fur easier to move around with vented the round wheel a is for protection against rollerskate feet. It's foggy hundred years after his exacid and heat. on Venus so he has to be istence began. Brains are "He has many purple able to get around. He has pink purple. muscles in different places. antennas to see, and if his "Dark blue is bones. They His many muscles with- antennas stop working he protect his brains and nerve stand the enormous weight uses his eye to see. If his center and hold him up. of the air. eye stops working he uses "Light green is nerves.

"He has brown fat which his nose to smell everything, There is a nerve center helps protect him from the and if his nose stops work- which is like a backbone is extreme pressure. ing he uses his mouth to to people, except it is not a " He also has red anti- taste everything. bone. pressure fur. It keeps the "A light blue area is an "Red purple are veins. great weight of the air off of acid tube which soaks up The veins carry blood from his body, and protects his the acid which gets caught the pink hearts to the musfeet from the rough land, in his fur and is lying on the cles, brains and acid digestand protects him from the ground. ers. heat.

"He also bas a lot of "This picture is like the "He has four pink hearts. brains, and if he could live animal was cut in half, and "A yellow area is an in earth conditions he you are looking at the inacid-digesting stomach. He would probably have. in- side of one half."

4