REUSABLE TRUTHS

9 2 Y R E U S A B L E T R U T H S I R V I N G F E L D M A N V. defined seduction as ‘‘trying to turn a stranger into an intimate.’’ Just like V. not to add, ‘‘Without making him a friend.’’ S.’s first act in making himself a complete snob was to snub that pretentious, infinitely inferior being S. Her constant companion was the tinnitus of criticism – approval, disparagement – raging in her head. Everything had a voice, and the voices, pushing and pressing, told her who she was while their unfailing pressure kept her in the world. He brays outlandish, meaningless, irresponsible things, and they feel freed to riot in moral saturnalia; high on the aΔatus of empty words, they rejoice in their demagogue-hero whose license has empowered them to take leave of their senses. Dependency is intimacy, given by taking, taken by giving. What drew him to psychology was his wish to know what it is like to have a psyche. 9 3 R I walk down a city street, and things are fine, okay, pretty good, smiling their approval of my presence and passage. I return their salute. A woman walks down the street; the street is vivid, sly, out of kilter, imminent with dangers. ‘‘Good reasons make bad art’’ – not least because ‘‘good reasons’’ are pleased with themselves, and art is their bothersome intruder. Ironizing presumes the ironist knows more about his subjects than they know about themselves. It is rude. If he must ironize, let him engage his ironic ignorance of himself, though here, too, let him be kind. Potter grows more cool while the clay warms in his strong hands. ‘‘I don’t gossip,’’ he said, ‘‘I distribute information on a need-to-tell basis.’’ Envy is the empathy of weakness. Di≈cult for him to understand that because she hasn’t prepared herself to feel desirable she is nonplussed by his desire, then irritated , then o√ended, as by something intrusively alien, for surely he mistakes her for someone – anyone – else! Conscience claims authority over me while being itself, for all I can tell, conscienceless. Gods, too, have genealogies. And any current authority bears his predecessor’s doomed legitimacy. Set an obstacle before the devil, and I will root for him, though I be the obstacle. Number him among the benevolent rapists who screw you over for your own good. Priding himself on his honesty with others made him more ignorant about himself. 9 4 F E L D M A N Y Gofer, errand boy, messenger bearing a sheaf of dispatches or most urgent word whispered in the king’s ear: the person transfigured as value. Among the powerful there circulates a currency of blow jobs. My self-satisfaction is benign, is generous: it includes you. They have set their thieves to teach them value. Su√ering doesn’t relieve you of responsibility to others to treat their sympathy kindly. Let your sorrows be elegant. Learn to su√er beautifully, with dignity and grace. Having enjoyed the game so little, his only pleasure was gloating at its end, as if his rival had all along been death. Every bystanding thing abides in patient insignificance; then we act, and it rouses into sudden selfhood, cheers or jeers us on our way. Everywhere we look the world is potent with danger and blessing. It is happiness to be happy, but joy to make others happy. Winning, too, is good, but we are proud of the triumphs of those we love. Always appearing on the verge of engaging while in fact excluding his interlocutor – such is the bore’s cunning craft. No nakedness so naked it has nothing to hide. An idea isn’t its conclusion but its argumentation. Sympathy for the devil. Having no place in the cosmic community of goodness, the outlaw – vivid, naked, immediate – is at every moment exposed to danger and death. And we, though faithfully companioned by our disapproval, we can’t help it, we are there with him. She felt herself abstract, two-dimensional, potential without force, a statement without context...