Murti-Bingism

The Captive Mind - Czeslaw Milosz.
Translated from the polish by Jane Zielonko
Published in 1953
_____________________________________________

I've been attempting to read this book for a while now. I found it in the european literature section of the university library. It's a fascinating social commentary on the society and people of Warsaw, Praque, Bucharest and Budapest. It attempts to explore "how the human mind functions in the poeple's democracies." Anyway, here's a few extracts:

_____________________________________________

From "The Pill of Murti-Bing"

Let us admit that a man is no more than an instrument in an orchestra directed by the muse of History. It is only in this context taht the notes he prouces have any significance. Otherwise even his most brilliant solos become simply a highbrow's diversions.

We are not concered with the question of how one finds the courage to oppose the majority. Intsead we are concerted with a much more poignant question: can one write well outside that one real stream whose vitality springs from its harmony with historical laws and the dynamics of reality? Rilke's poems may be very good, but if they are, that means there must have been some reason for them in his day. Contemplative poems, such as his, could never appear in a people's democracy, not only because it would be difficult to publish them, but because this writer's impulse to write them would be destroyed at it's very root. The objective conditions for such poetry have disappeared, and the intellectual from whom I speak is not one who believes in writing for the burea drawer. he curses and despairs over the censorship and demands of the publishing trusts. Yet at the same time, he is profoundly suspicious of unlicensed literature. The publishing license he himself receives does not mean that the editor appreciates the artistic merics of his book, nor that he expects it to be polular with the public.

_____________________________________________

From "Looking to the West"

Men tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. he considers the work he does in his office or factory as essential to the harmouious functioning of the world. The clothes he wears are exactly what they should be, and he laughs at the idea that he might equally well be wearing a Roman toga or medievil armor. He respects and envies a minister of state or bank direct, and regards the possession of a considerable amount of money as the main guarantee of peace and security. He cannot believe that one day a rider may appear on the street he knows well, where cats sleep and children play, and start catching passer-by with his lasso. he is accustomed to satisfying those of his physiological needs which are considered private as discreetly as possible, without realising that such a pattern of behavior is not common to all human societies. In a word, he behaves a little like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, bustling about in a shack poised precariously on the edge of a cliff.

His first troll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the "naturalness" of his world...
...Farther down the street, he stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people's homes - the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatred - cut open to public view. The house itself, no longer a rock, but a scaffolding of plaster, concrete, and brick; and on the thrid floor, a solitary white bathtub, rain-rinsed of all recollection of those who once bathed in it. Its formerly inluential and respected owers, now destitute, walk the fields in search of stray potatoes. Thus overnight money loses its value and becomes a meaningless mass of printed paper.

He finds he acquires new habits quickly. Once, had he stumbled upon a corpse on the street, he would have called the police. A crowd would have gathered, and much talk and comment would have ensued. Now he knows he must avoid the dark body lying in the gutter, and refrain from asking unnecessary questions. The man who fired the gun must have had his reasons; he might well have been executing an Underground sentence.

"If somethign exists in one place, it will exist everywhere"

_____________________________________________

I find this book so amazingly dense. I've had it for a week now, and i'm only 20 pages in. But I find that I'm reading every paragraph twice, and picking up so many new things along the way.

When someone is hostely 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? whoever says he's 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal

- An Old jew of Galicia

_____________________________________________
I wish I was european, they're names are so beautiful.