But of course it might be self-defeating to write too openly about such protection; this would be on a different level from that of telling a story. As with the old alchemists, to achieve what one wants there probably has to be some secrecy; but if there is a code, then still it might be recognised that there is a message!
Eleanor and Max saw quite a lot of each other during these years (the mid-1960s). Eleanor was setting herself up as a psychoanalyst in London: Max had been given a professorship at the university in the north of England where he and Eleanor had been before the war. He and she travelled to and fro; they went on holidays together; they spent some time trekking in the Himalayas. In later years they talked with great animation of this time: they were never quite at ease, it seemed, in justifying their many separations. Eleanor would say 'But think of the self-satisfaction in settling down!' Max would say 'But you sometimes get tired of being on a tightrope.'
They were both now becoming recognised names in the academic and scientific world: it was as a cyberneticist that Max had gained his professorship in the north of England. Cybernetics was a field coming into fashion at this time: it was defined as 'the study of systems of communication and control'. Max said 'I was a cyberneticist long before the word was invented.' Eleanor said 'No wonder no one knew what you were trying to say!'
Max's commitment to cybernetics arose from his interest in patterns of interaction and control. Living organisms regulate themselves by maintaining a steady state in the face of changes in the environment; they heal and restore themselves in response to pressures and damage; they ensure consistency of form even when they reproduce themselves. In this they resemble a thermostat, which performs a function of maintaining a temperature within limits. This mechanical function is on one level; on another is the business of setting the dial, which is performed by humans. It is on this human level of consciousness that oscillations are apt to get out of controclass="underline" there are dashings between extremes — wars, obsessions, self-destructions — a snowballing effect so that the human psyche, and thus human societies, are often like engines without a governor, so of course eventually they are likely to fuse or blow themselves up. At one time it had been felt that just as a human agency was responsible for the setting of a mechanical system, so a divine agency was responsible for the setting of a human system: but such a formulation (Max argued) was no longer necessary: humans themselves now had the ability to look down and see what was happening to them on the level of consciousness. This level might be seen as the one on which the requirements of morals and the terrible destructive demands of evolution met; from which the activities of the other levels could be surveyed and perhaps accepted if not controlled. There might always be, that is — for the continuance of life, of evolution — some forms of battle, of self-destruction; what mattered was that these should be contained by a way of looking at them, approaching them, being conscious of them — in a style which was to be learned; which might even result in control.
As a postcript to his papers on cybernetics Max published an article in a small religious magazine (Eleanor joked with him 'You and I are religious not because anyone would recognise us as religious, but because we have recognised all recognitions are of a code'). There were obvious parallels, Max argued, between the idea of cybernetic levels and the efforts that Christians had made in
trying to establish their doctrine of the Trinity. At the level of God the Father there was a simple cause-and-effect view of the world — God made his covenants with humans, which was a way of describing something like the mechanical functioning of a thermostat: if humans got too far above themselves then disasters knocked them down; if they got too far below themselves then they were ready to be boosted by the inspiration of a prophet: on this level humans did not have much say in the style of the to-and-fro. At the level of God the Son humans were given information about how to handle such a mechanism: life was indeed a matter of paradoxes — by dying you lived; fulfilment was achieved by sacrifice; you were to love your neighbour as yourself; and so on: but still, in this style humans seemed to experience a somewhat helpless oscillation between ecstasy and despair. But then there was, so it was said at least, the domain of the Holy Spirit, in which humans could be led into responsibility for themselves. This was not so much a level as an ability to move between levels, to see a pattern by means of an inbuilt knowledge of truth — such means, if observed and honoured, allowing ends to look after themselves. But about this style, this spirit, the so-called 'guide into truth', not much more was ever said. And of course this was perhaps necessary, because the point of this activity, this understanding, was that individuals, now being somewhat godlike, might find their own way. But with this spirit humans could keep an eye on (take a walk away from every now and then) the mechanisms that to some extent necessarily ran themselves on the other levels; the nature of the world seeming to be such that this watchfulness, alertness, gave a sense of the miracle of control.
Max ended this article by pointing out the bizarre juxtaposition that the explosion of the first practice Atomic Bomb in which he had been involved had been code-named 'Trinity'; what indeed could be said about this! This had been the beginning of a journey in the dark. But such was the nature of any journey to do with truth, or learning about control.
Max's essay sent Eleanor back to look at the first draft of her work on Judaism of years ago: but whereas news of the suffering of Jews had then discouraged her from publishing it, now news of nationalistic chauvinism had the same effect: she explained to Max 'Of course it is my belief that the true use of power is that seeds of the spirit should be scattered secretly; but then what is the point of saying this?' Max said — 'You mean, if your efforts at control are scattered openly, they fall on stony ground?'
At the end of the 1960s Max and Eleanor were living together again much of the time: Eleanor settled into her psychoanalytic work in London; Max took up a new appointment in Cambridge. Max's mother and father were dead; Max had sold the house with the green lawns and red-brick walls; he bought a cottage on the edge of the estate where he had worked in the early days of the war. Eleanor came here to stay: Max stayed with her when he went to London. They both were now well into middle age: they had been through hard times both together and apart; but still little of this was apparent when they were with their friends. They continued to give to people a sense of involvement and excitement: of life being a successfully going concern. They had each achieved positions of some influence in their professional fields if also a reputation for roguishness — Max still on the borders between physics and biology; Eleanor on the borders between anthropology and psychiatry and with her increasingly thriving analytic practice in London. In this she was noted for the unconventionality of her style: she refused for the most part to use technical jargon; she tried to teach her patients to listen to themselves — to hear, behind whatever screens of language they might use, what might be their fearful or fearsome messages. In their private lives both Eleanor and Max increasingly liked to spend time in the company of people younger than themselves: they each would say that they felt at home in a situation in which there was some transmission of learning. (Eleanor would say 'You like to show off!' Max would say — 'Then aren't I lucky'.) It often seemed, indeed, as if the people around them were their children. Eleanor occasionally regretted that she had not had children herself (she would add 'But the situation would not have been right if I had never been sad about it'). Max occasionally claimed that it had been a conscious and practical decision (then Eleanor would say 'But you can't say things like that!'). What they both did — sometimes together but then again increasingly separately because it seemed that the process worked better that way — was to do what from the beginning of their relationship they had hoped to do, which was to provide settings which they hoped would be nourishing for whatever children, as it were, turned up.