1984 Foreword (Whitman) Tom wanted to be a poet

[Terrance]

Terrance wrote:


> "Some, famously F Scott Fitzgerald, have considered it evidence of
> genius. For Walt Whitman ("Do I contradict myself? Very well, I
> contradict myself") it was being large and containing multitudes, for
> American aphorist Yogi Berra it was coming to a fork in the road and
> taking it, for Schrödinger's cat, it was the quantum paradox of being
> alive and dead at the same time."

"The idea seems to have presented Orwell with his own dilemma, a
kind of meta-doublethink - repelling him with its limitless potential
for
harm, while at the same time fascinating him with its promise of a way
to transcend opposites - as if some aberrant form of Zen Buddhism,
whose fundamental koans are the three party slogans, "War is
Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength", were
being applied to evil purposes." 

Dialectic. To transcend opposites.  Platonic, Marxist, Judeo-Christian
... so on ... & thus the most Dangerous Stuff to Tom's way of looking at
the world. An aberrant form of Zen surely because of what is united in
the koan (freedom is slavery and so on) but also because of both the
promise and realization of a transcendence of opposites and this goes
against the fundamental agonistics of Zen. 

Interesting that P mentions fundamentalism. He is not talking about
Christian fundamentalism.  Islam, like Zen is agonistic. The Koran's
Agonistic method accounts for the concept of holy war, which is
conspicuous feature of Islamic teaching. But like Christianity, Islam is
Ontologically transcendent (not by dialectic but by conflict). Zen, on
the other hand, is Ontologically Existential. 




The ideas of Whitman are clustered about an entity he calls the New
World. In "Passage to India" and other poems, W looks into the claims
which the old world, the world to the East, still has upon the New
World, but all in all he remains intoxicated with America. Kinda like
Wicks. 

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens, 
and it is an exhaustive record of how
My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole
earth. 

Fitz, Genius & Drunkenness next.