Some Reflections on Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro”
ddl前赶粗来的小作业...
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In the beginning of Part III, Mailer gives his understanding of hipster as a philosophical psychopath: ”A man (philosophical psychopath) interested not only in the dangerous imperatives of his psychopathy but in codifying, at least for himself, the suppositions on which his inner universe is constructed. By this premise the hipster is a psychopath, and yet not a psychopath but the negation of the psychopath for he possesses the narcissistic detachment of the philosopher, that absorption in the recessive nuances of one’s own motive which is so alien to the unreasoning drive of the psychopath. ”
A conventional psychopath, who is dominated by his “unreasoning drive” and “dangerous imperatives”, cannot control his normal behaviors. We might quickly associate conventional psychopaths with those criminals or sociopaths who commit murders whenever they feel the urges of killing rather than personal hatred; it is only through this “immediate gratification” of their unreasoning desires that the conventional psychopaths can find a way to live on. Murderers might be the most extreme example of the conventional psychopath, but as Mailer points out, there are millions of new psychopaths developing each year. Such people are “ignorant, reactionary prejudiced, and self-doubted”. Moreover, they are of a “true psychotic state”: hallucinated, delusional, confused, disorientated, having manic flight of ideas…these are symptoms and signs of real psychosis.
Meanwhile, the philosophical psychopath—the American existentialist—the hipster is self-conscious and he won’t let the distorted reality to blind his eyes. On the contrary, “(he) must be able to feel oneself—one must know one’s desires, one’s rages, one’s anguish, one must be aware of the character of one’s frustration and know what would satisfy it. ” The hipster is fully aware of the world that he lives in, and he feels the need to rebel. The society is far from satisfactory ever since the two world wars, which makes his rebellion a just thing to do. Unlike the conventional psychopaths who are controlled by their violent nature, “ the hipster has shifted the focus of his desire from immediate gratification toward that wider passion for future power which is the mark of civilized man”. This “future power” means the hipster intend to bring changes to the society, rather than to fulfill their own infantile fantasies, and that’s the major difference from the conventional psychopath.
Although the hipster has the conscious knowledge of the real world and tries to change the society as a civilized man does, he still has the trait of a conventional psychopath—irrational, involved in action, driven by imperatives… and this is the paradox of the hipster. In Mailer’s words, hipster “is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle”. In the hipster’s mind, after the two world wars, after witnessing or learning about what the “civilized men” have done to the world (the concentration camp and the atom bomb), the white society has no future for human beings. Dated back from the Enlightenment, it took more than 250 years to build a world of science and rationality, but nearly all the material or spiritual achievements of the western society were destroyed by the war—the cutting-edge technology was used for mass massacre and the Germans who were proud of their sophisticated philosophy turned into killing machines. The society simply became a wild “jungle”.
The white people suddenly realized that their plight is simply becoming similar to the black—they should also worry about the safety of their lives and the shadow of war is always haunting them. Especially for the younger generation or the while adolescents, they were so disappointed about what their fathers had done that they had to seek a different way of living. That’s why they started to adopt Negro’s music, language and their way of showing existence—the seek of orgasm. This is the action of rebellion against the “civilized men” and the Square: the hipster does what the Square condemns, he seeks love, and he “searches for an orgasm more apocalyptic than the one which preceded it Orgasm is his therapy.” Because his life is being threatened all the time, how could it be possible to pursuit anything spiritual? For the hipster, the only way of feeling alive is to be physically stronger, to conduct physical intercourse, so as to feel his own existence. The seek of orgasm and sexual powers relates closely to the conventional psychopaths’ “dangerous imperatives”, which means the hipster is also part psychopathic.
In Part V of “the White Negro”, Mailer predicts that the psychopathic personality is to be the new expression of human nature in the future, and his reasons are quite convincing. As I have also mentioned before, the faith in men, especially in the white men, has been lost during the war, and most people are undergoing a status of mental lost in the mid-twentieth century. However, the Negro has been through this life-threatening terror for over 200 years, and they are more familiar with the darker side of the world. Their experience gives them a “potential superiority”, also their mentality is much tougher than the PTSD white. Thus, the hipster who adopts the Negro ’s psychopathic personality can better survive the worldwide mental crisis. In the end of Part V, Mailer even asserts that the society must “either vent itself nihilistically or become turned into the cold murderous liquidations of the totalitarian state.”
In my opinion, things have not gone so bad as Mailer predicted. The “psychopathic personality” is perhaps an inherent part of everyone’s mentality. When the outer world is undergoing drastic changes, as a defense mechanism, this psychopathic personality would grow to dominate people’s mind and protect people from mentally breakdown. But as time passes by, when the ghost of war has gradually gone away, the civilized or the Square has again become mainstream. In fact, the term “hipster” has gaining something new in it’s meaning from 1990s, which describes someone “who is pretentious, overly trendy or effete” . The psychopathic trait that overshadowed the term for half a century has gradually faded away, which Mailer must have not foreseen.
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In the beginning of Part III, Mailer gives his understanding of hipster as a philosophical psychopath: ”A man (philosophical psychopath) interested not only in the dangerous imperatives of his psychopathy but in codifying, at least for himself, the suppositions on which his inner universe is constructed. By this premise the hipster is a psychopath, and yet not a psychopath but the negation of the psychopath for he possesses the narcissistic detachment of the philosopher, that absorption in the recessive nuances of one’s own motive which is so alien to the unreasoning drive of the psychopath. ”
A conventional psychopath, who is dominated by his “unreasoning drive” and “dangerous imperatives”, cannot control his normal behaviors. We might quickly associate conventional psychopaths with those criminals or sociopaths who commit murders whenever they feel the urges of killing rather than personal hatred; it is only through this “immediate gratification” of their unreasoning desires that the conventional psychopaths can find a way to live on. Murderers might be the most extreme example of the conventional psychopath, but as Mailer points out, there are millions of new psychopaths developing each year. Such people are “ignorant, reactionary prejudiced, and self-doubted”. Moreover, they are of a “true psychotic state”: hallucinated, delusional, confused, disorientated, having manic flight of ideas…these are symptoms and signs of real psychosis.
Meanwhile, the philosophical psychopath—the American existentialist—the hipster is self-conscious and he won’t let the distorted reality to blind his eyes. On the contrary, “(he) must be able to feel oneself—one must know one’s desires, one’s rages, one’s anguish, one must be aware of the character of one’s frustration and know what would satisfy it. ” The hipster is fully aware of the world that he lives in, and he feels the need to rebel. The society is far from satisfactory ever since the two world wars, which makes his rebellion a just thing to do. Unlike the conventional psychopaths who are controlled by their violent nature, “ the hipster has shifted the focus of his desire from immediate gratification toward that wider passion for future power which is the mark of civilized man”. This “future power” means the hipster intend to bring changes to the society, rather than to fulfill their own infantile fantasies, and that’s the major difference from the conventional psychopath.
Although the hipster has the conscious knowledge of the real world and tries to change the society as a civilized man does, he still has the trait of a conventional psychopath—irrational, involved in action, driven by imperatives… and this is the paradox of the hipster. In Mailer’s words, hipster “is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle”. In the hipster’s mind, after the two world wars, after witnessing or learning about what the “civilized men” have done to the world (the concentration camp and the atom bomb), the white society has no future for human beings. Dated back from the Enlightenment, it took more than 250 years to build a world of science and rationality, but nearly all the material or spiritual achievements of the western society were destroyed by the war—the cutting-edge technology was used for mass massacre and the Germans who were proud of their sophisticated philosophy turned into killing machines. The society simply became a wild “jungle”.
The white people suddenly realized that their plight is simply becoming similar to the black—they should also worry about the safety of their lives and the shadow of war is always haunting them. Especially for the younger generation or the while adolescents, they were so disappointed about what their fathers had done that they had to seek a different way of living. That’s why they started to adopt Negro’s music, language and their way of showing existence—the seek of orgasm. This is the action of rebellion against the “civilized men” and the Square: the hipster does what the Square condemns, he seeks love, and he “searches for an orgasm more apocalyptic than the one which preceded it Orgasm is his therapy.” Because his life is being threatened all the time, how could it be possible to pursuit anything spiritual? For the hipster, the only way of feeling alive is to be physically stronger, to conduct physical intercourse, so as to feel his own existence. The seek of orgasm and sexual powers relates closely to the conventional psychopaths’ “dangerous imperatives”, which means the hipster is also part psychopathic.
In Part V of “the White Negro”, Mailer predicts that the psychopathic personality is to be the new expression of human nature in the future, and his reasons are quite convincing. As I have also mentioned before, the faith in men, especially in the white men, has been lost during the war, and most people are undergoing a status of mental lost in the mid-twentieth century. However, the Negro has been through this life-threatening terror for over 200 years, and they are more familiar with the darker side of the world. Their experience gives them a “potential superiority”, also their mentality is much tougher than the PTSD white. Thus, the hipster who adopts the Negro ’s psychopathic personality can better survive the worldwide mental crisis. In the end of Part V, Mailer even asserts that the society must “either vent itself nihilistically or become turned into the cold murderous liquidations of the totalitarian state.”
In my opinion, things have not gone so bad as Mailer predicted. The “psychopathic personality” is perhaps an inherent part of everyone’s mentality. When the outer world is undergoing drastic changes, as a defense mechanism, this psychopathic personality would grow to dominate people’s mind and protect people from mentally breakdown. But as time passes by, when the ghost of war has gradually gone away, the civilized or the Square has again become mainstream. In fact, the term “hipster” has gaining something new in it’s meaning from 1990s, which describes someone “who is pretentious, overly trendy or effete” . The psychopathic trait that overshadowed the term for half a century has gradually faded away, which Mailer must have not foreseen.
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Scarlett 赞了这篇日记 2021-07-13 09:07:48
