and in so doing inevitably he has to serve mammon.. . .
Now serving god for a writer who is writing is writing
anything directly, it makes no difference what it is but
197
198
Woman Hating
it must be direct, the relation between the thing done
and the doer must be direct. In this way there is completion and the essence o f the completed thing is completion.
Gertrude Stein
in a letter to me, Grace Paley wrote, “once everyone
tells the truth artists will be unnecessary —meanwhile
there’s work for us. ”
telling the truth, we know what it is when we do it
and when we learn not to do it we forget what it is.
form, shape, structure, spatial relation, how the
printed word appears on the page, where to breathe,
where to rest, punctuation is marking time, indicating
rhythms, even in my original text I used too much of it
— I overorchestrated. I forced you to breathe where I
do, instead of letting you discover your own natural
breath.
I begin by presuming that I am free.
I begin with nothing, no form, no content, and I ask:
what do I want to do and how do I want to do it.
I begin by presuming that what I write belongs to
me.
I begin by presuming that I determine the form I
use —in all its particulars. I work at my craft —in all
its particulars.
in fact, everything is already determined,
in fact, all the particulars have been determined and
are enforced.
in fact, where I violate what has already been determined I will be stopped.
in fact, the enforcers will enforce.
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199
“Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the
Law; that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is set
beyond human judgment. In that case one dare not
believe that the doorkeeper is subordinate to the man.
Bound as he is by his service, even at the door of the
Law, he is incomparably freer than anyone at large in
the world. The man is only seeking the Law, the doorkeeper is already attached to it. It is the Law that has placed him at his post; to doubt his integrity is to doubt
the Law itself. ”
“I don't agree with that point of view, ” said K.,
shaking his head, “for if one accepts it, one must accept
as true everything the doorkeeper says. But you yourself have sufficiently proved how impossible it is to do that. ”
“No, ” said the priest, “it is not necessary to accept
everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary. ”
“A melancholy conclusion, ” said K. “It turns lying
into a universal principle. ”
Franz Kafka
I presume that I am free. I act. the enforcers enforce. I discover that I am not free, then: either I lie (it is necessary to lie) or I struggle (if I do not lie, I
must struggle), if I struggle, I ask, why am I not free
and what can I do to become free? I wrote this book to
find out why I am not free and what I can do to become
free.
Though the social structure begins by framing the
noblest laws and the loftiest ordinances that “the great
of the earth” have devised, in the end it comes to this:
breach that lofty law and they take you to a prison cell
and shut your human body off from human warmth.
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Woman Hating
Ultimately the law is enforced by the unfeeling guard
punching his fellow man hard in the belly.
Judith Malina
without the presum ption o f freedom , there is no
freedom . I am free, how, then, do I want to live my
life, do my work, use my body? how, then, do I want to
be, in all my particulars?
standard form s are imposed in dress, behavior,
sexual relation, punctuation. standard form s are imposed on consciousness and b eh avior— on know ing and exp ressin g— so that we will not presum e freedom , so
that freedom will appear — in all its particulars — impossible and unworkable, so that we will not know what telling the truth is, so that we will not feel com pelled
to tell it, so that we will spend ou r time and our holy
hum an energy telling the necessary lies.
standard form s are sometimes called conventions,
conventions are m ightier than armies, police, and prisons. each citizen becomes the enforcer, the doorkeeper, an instrum ent o f the Law, an u nfeeling guard pun ching his fellow man hard in the belly.
I am an anarchist. I dont sue, I dont get injunctions, I
advocate revolution, and when people ask me what
can we do that’s practical, I say, weakly, weaken the
fabric of the system wherever you can, make possible
the increase of freedom, all kinds. When I write I
try to extend the possibilities of expression.
. . . I had tried to speak to you honestly, in my own
way, undisguised, trying to get rid, it’s part o f my obligation to the muse, of the ancien regime o f grammar.
. . . the revisions in typography and punctuation
have taken from the voice the difference that distin
Afterword
201
guishes passion from affection and me speaking to
you from me writing an essay.
Julian Beck, 1965, in a foreword
to an edition of The Brig
BELIEVE THE PUNCTUATION.
Muriel Rukeyser
there is a great deal at stake here, many writers
fight this battle and most lose it. what is at stake for
the writer? freedom o f invention, freedom to tell the
truth, in all its particulars, freedom to imagine new
structures.
(the burden o f proof is not on those who presume
freedom, the burden o f p roof is on those who would
in any way diminish it. )
what is at stake for the enforcers, the doorkeepers,
the guardians o f the L aw —the publishing corporations,
the book reviewers who do not like lower case letters,
the librarians who will not stack books without standard
punctuation (that was the reason given Muriel Rukeyser
when her work was violated)—what is at stake for them?
why do they continue to enforce?
while this book may meet much resistance— anger,
fear, dislike—law? police? courts? —at this moment I
must write: Ive attacked the fundaments o f culture,
thats ok. Ive attacked male dominance, thats ok. Ive
attacked every heterosexual notion o f relation, thats
ok. Ive in effect advocated the use o f drugs, thats ok.
Ive in effect advocated fucking animals, thats ok. here
and now, New York City, spring 1974, among a handful
o f people, publisher and editor included, thats ok. lower
case letters are not. it does make one wonder.