(The salad plates were collected and immediately followed by soup. The soup was cream of walnut with a pear puree. You could hear the clink of the spoons against the glass and Dwight MacDonald had a slurping noise that would make a mild misophone lose his appetite.)
Dwight MacDonald: As I was starting to say, I'm reading this new anti-colonialist who's the rage among my students: an Arab Algerian named Fanon.
Daniel Bell: Ochen vey.
Lionel Trilling: He's not Algerian, he's Caribbean.
Dwight: You know him?
Jacques Barzun: Another fashionablist who thinks building a civilization will be as easy as destroying it.
Diana Trilling: He has some interesting things to say about Algeria.
Lionel: They all have interesting things to say!
Seymour Martin Lipset: All of them?
Lionel: Of course!
Danny: So you, Lionel Trilling, who made America think Princess Cassamassima is a readable book, think Peanuts has interesting things to say?
(This is simply the way they talk. They think Trilling writing about Princess Cassamassima will make America read it, but even if they try to read The Liberal Imagination they'll just drop it after page 30 and remember 'Trilling hates Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson'.)
Diana: Careful Danny, you'll have to explain to him what Peanuts comics are.
(Everyone laughed. I suppose it's relieving: any laugh at a dinner hosted by Jacques Barzun is as unlikely as a mention of The Rolling Stones. The food is inevitably delectable, but Allah forbid any of us use the wrong salad fork or Barzun may remind us of it in eighteen months. Lionel told me that my presence at this dinner would be much appreciated, Arendt would be there and wants to talk to me about my new Conrad book. Of course, this means 'your presence is mandatory.' It seemed fairly innocuous, Arendt wrote about Conrad in Origins of Totalitarianism, but I have a feeling of dread that something more purposeful is afoot.)
Lionel: I've read the Peanuts.
Marty: If Lionel's read them he probably has them memorized from the first column to last week.
(everyone laughed again)
Lionel: They're not without entertainment value either!
Jacques: I agree.
Danny: My god, the Columbia common core is praising Peanuts!
Dwight: Next Jacques will be telling us The Beatles are a cultural achievement to place next to Wagner.
Lionel: I've come to realize that there isn't a single cultural artifact from which one can't gain insight.
(And that's the most he'll think of us. Cultural artifacts to be discovered by an archeologist: an unevolved society no different in the present than it was ten thousand years ago.)
Jacques: I would not go so far Lionel.
Dwight: What sort of insight?
Lionel: Human, cultural...
Dwight: I hope you don't mean aesthetic.
Lionel: Of course there's aesthetic insight!
Danny: This is the most shocking historical moment since Molotov-Ribbentrop.
Diana: Then you don't know Lionel.
Lionel: Popular mediums are completely new mediums. We can't dismiss them simply because they have no precedent.
(We have precedents in the East. Many.)
Danny: No precedent? Newspaper cartoons have been around for three generations!
Lionel: All I'm saying is that there are all sorts of mediums our generation will never be able to understand and we'll have to leave them for new generations to sort out.
Marty: Suit yourself. But I'm twenty years younger than you and I don't understand them.
Diana: Edward, you're the strapping youngling here, what do you think of newspaper cartoons.
(all eyes turned towards me)
Edward Said: I never had much use for them.
Marty: You see?
Lionel: There are so many sources from which one can gain enlightenment, more and more I believe we vastly underestimate it.
(And this is what is supposed to satisfy the rest of us.)
Jacques: So what do we do about the transcendent sources? Do we just file them away under no better than Family Circus?
Lionel: Not at all, there is still aesthetic/intellectual hierarchy, but one should not dismiss the value of popular sources.
Dwight: Alright, well Lionel, since until Peanuts I was under the impression that you thought nothing transcendent's been done since 1930, whom do you think is writing actual transcendent work in our time?
Lionel: Isaiah Berlin?
Marty: Isaiah Berlin?
Lionel: You object?
Marty: Who would know?
Diana: Everyone knows about Isaiah!
Marty: He doesn't publish!
Dwight: He's published!
Marty: His whole reputation is based on how good he is at dinners like this!
Lionel: Nonsense! Have you read his Marx biography?
Marty: It's a small one volume thing from the thirties! What's he done since then?
Lionel: He wrote those briefs about America for the British foreign office during World War II. They amount to a new Federalist Papers!
Danny: Lionel I think Berlin's as good as it gets but that's pushing it...
Lionel: And he wrote that book on 18th century thinkers.
Marty: Come on, Lionel, those are obviously lecture transcriptions from some graduate student. And at the speed he talks who knows if that's actually what he said?
Diana: Then he must be even better than his lectures if not everything was taken down.
Marty: Who would know?
Danny: So you think Isaiah Berlin's overrated? The greatest liberal philosopher of our time save Hannah?
Hannah Arendt: I think he's the most overrated philosopher of our time.
Jacques Barzun: He thinks the same of you.
(again everyone laughed, including Arendt)
Marty: My point is just that his reputation is as much based on word of mouth and how well he talks, not on anything he's written. Who knows if we even remember correctly what he has to say?
Lionel: Fair. Well, whom do you all think is doing transcendent work today?
Dwight: Well I'd say Saul.
Danny: Let's put some guidelines here. I think he means who's doing intellectual work with political implications. Saul is not a political writer, and I think if you talked to Saul about politics these days you'd be appalled.
Marty: He's gone back to Trotsky?
Diana: Quite the opposite. He makes Irving Kristol sound like Stalin.
Marty: Oy...
Dwight: Alright, who's a transcendent figure who affects political discourse? Lionel says Isaiah Berlin, I'll say Marshall McLuhan.
Marty: Raymond Aron.
Danny: Can I say Orwell or Camus?
Diana: Unfortunately not, we're in a different era now.
Danny: Alright, I'll say Gershom Scholem.
Marty: Not political enough.
Lionel: I think we ought to allow it. Hannah?
Hannah: You know I'll say myself.
(again, everyone laughed)
Hannah: Very well. Karl Popper.
Marty: Diana?
Diana: ...I'm going to go with Arthur Koestler.
Danny: How unenlightened of you...
(everyone laughed again)
Marty: Jacques?
Jacques: No one.
Hannah: Quelle surprise...
(everyone laughed again)
Lionel: Please don't forget Edward. I'm sorry my boy...
Edward...: Frantz Fanon?
(everyone went quiet.)
Danny: Well that was a much bigger surprise than Jacques.
(everyone laughed again)
Diana: Well, it makes perfect sense that Edward would find resonance in him.
(Oh really? Of course it does. It doesn't matter that I think he's greatness, it matters that their little monkey from the east would respond to him... and pray tell... what do they think I respond to?)
Marty: I agree, but that doesn't make him the greatest thinker of our time.
Dwight: I was saying, his work has some fascinating insights. He says that racism forces the colonized and men of color to adapt the thoughts and manners of the colonizer.
Jacques: That's hardly an original insight. The idea that people rebel using the language of people against whom they rebel goes back through Nietzsche, goes back to Hegel and Marx in the dialectic,
Diana: It goes back to Shakespeare in Caliban.
Danny: It goes back to the Talmud!
Jacques: It goes back to Heraclitus.
(And I suppose an anti-Western thinker ought be satisfied by being subsumed by the Western tradition?)
Edward: But there is no guarantee that the oppressed can ever rebel.
Dwight: Can you elaborate Edward?
Edward: There is always a chance that the oppressed will remain oppressed in perpetuity.
(everyone froze in that moment)
Jacques: That's very bleak, and a little unfair I believe, but sound. There is not a single achievement in early man that could have been achieved without slave labor.
(Of course, all that matters is the achievements, not the people who make them possible.)
Edward: It's not just about achievements. The condition of mankind has doubtless been slave and master for literal thousands of years before there was any achievement of which to speak, and continued for thousands of years after there were.
Diana: Well if you're going to bring Hegel into this we should concede that he was a bit more optimistic than you're portraying him.
(I'm speaking of thousands of years of oppression and she thinks I talk of Hegel)
Edward: It's not necessarily Hegel that I mean.
Diana: Well Hannah is obviously the expert here but if I understand Hegel correctly, he believes that in spite of the master-slave dialectic, history is a means toward a well-defined end, and the end is self-understanding and freedom.
(Jacques's valet collected the soup bowls, they were followed by oysters and pearls and salmon tartare cornet. One would assume it unthinkable that Jacques Barzun would serve something so like a soup as oysters and pearls after a soup, but one can't complain about the dish's quality. The salmon was fascinating and must have taken hours: a small ice cream-like cone covered with sesame seeds and filled with sweet red onion creme fraiche. It was topped with salmon tartare, chives and a quenelle of caviar. Doubtless Jacques measured every roe to get a precise number on every plate.)
Edward: Well as I said, I mostly wasn't speaking of Hegel, but Hegel believes the Oriental is the primitive condition of man that only one master is free and everyone else is his slave.
Diana: Well Edward, surely you have to concede that with the exceptions of certain centuries conditions in the West were just a little bit freer than they were in the East.
Edward: Why should we generalize in that way?
Danny: Generalizing is all there is. You do the best you can to collect a sample set but the conditions are always incomplete.
Edward: I don't accept that.
Marty: Why not?
Edward: We can aspire to better.
Marty: Edward, please, show your work.
Edward: (I grew a bit flustered) I have no work of which to show on this matter, but it is only when people aspire to better that there is any chance for improvement of conditions.
(Why should I show my work when they don't?)
Jacques: I utterly disagree with that. Respectfully, of course.
(...of course)
Edward: Is it so objectionable to ask for higher ethical standards?
Jacques: I completely agree with you that generalizations are to be avoided in all situations and possibilities, but if one looks at the trajectory of history: to say there is paltry evidence that higher standards are effective would be an understatement.
(the paltry evidence sits right here)
Edward: What about the line from Martin Luther King? 'The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'
Marty: You don't really believe that, do you?
(not anymore...)
Edward: Why not?
Marty: You just said the oppressed remain oppressed in perpetuity! Why would you then think the moral arc bends toward justice?
Edward: It only bends when we choose to bend it.
Danny: Edward I think you're getting a bit sentimental about human capacities.
Edward: Why?
Danny: Because if people have been slaves for thousands of years without a change in their circumstances, why would the future be any different than the past?
(And they expect me to just sit here?...)
Edward: Because we can choose to create better circumstances.
Hannah: He's right.
(everyone froze for a split-second, much shorter than when they froze for me but still noticeable)
Hannah: The entire point of political life is to change circumstances.
Lionel: Elaborate Hannah please.
Hannah: One cannot change circumstances without political engagement, and it is in the interests of citizens to use politics to improve their circumstances.
Danny: But don't people disagree savagely on what the circumstances are?
Dwight: You're the one who wrote ideology was over Danny.
Marty: I'll agree with Danny here. Bad actors fight all the time to change circumstances for the worse.
Hannah: That is why change happens at such a slow pace.
Danny: I'm sorry, I can't accept those circumstances.
Marty: I agree.
Diana: I'm with Hannah and Edward.
Danny: Change does not happen because powerless actors insist on it, it happens when unpredictable circumstances allow for it.
Hannah: One more thought about Hegel. Yes, he specifies a master/slave dialectic, but (and she turned to me), it is the slave who comes to understanding first and thereby attains freedom. Not the master.
(there was another pause, I was shocked and for the first time that night, I breathed.)
Dwight: Can we get back to Fanon?
Danny: You were saying he's an Arab...
Marty: Seriously Dwight? All that stuff about the West being anti-Black didn't clue you in that he isn't Arab?
(I'm right here.)
Lionel: He's from Martinique.
Dwight: I'm sorry, I was too focused on the substance of his arguments.
Marty: What substance?
(I'm right here!)
Diana: I don't think there is anything served by continuing this Fanon discussion. Edward, we understand the delicate position you're in. Don't worry, we will support you, we will protect you, we will make sure you don't have to answer any awkward questions. We will make sure Palestine doesn't come up for you.
Edward Said: Well thank you so much Diana. I am moved by your solicitude. Let me assure you thus far Palestine has not come up for me, nor do I expect it to come up so often that it requires the protection of anyone.
Diana: These are wolves, Edward. You haven't seen how brutal they can be yet but at some point you will find them breathtaking.
(It can't get much worse, can it?)
Lionel: Now now, Diana, nobody here is a true Diogenes. Surely there are moments of discomfort, but
Danny: (interrupting) We're not a pack of boars looking for kosher meat.
(Everyone laughed of course. They always do at Jewish jokes...)
Edward: I should think you'd be searching for Hallal in my case but nevertheless I suppose some small pang of anxiety stands.
Lionel: We've invited you to this dinner to alleviate that anxiety. You're one of us now. (raises a glass) To Edward, the future of American letters!
Jacques: L'chaim I suppose.
(everyone laughed again)
Jacques: I suppose this would be the proper moment, though I had thought we agreed to make the announcement after dinner. One moment though, before we truly drink this toast I'd temporarily forgotten that I have a special Romanee-Conti '45 which I've saved for just such an occasion after Edward said that he was curious about it.
Edward: I can't even remember saying it but that's absolutely true.
Lionel: So you understand, Edward, the reason we wanted you here is to let you know that we're pre-empting your tenure track by two years. You will be a tenured professor in all but official title for the next three months, and will officially have tenure before the semester is complete.
Danny: MAZEL TOV!
(everyone applauded while Jacques's valet brought new glasses in, popped the cork and filled them)
Lionel: It's true, we have sped the process up so that there is no doubt about our position with regard to our Arab colleagues, but I want to impress how important it is that you understand this Edward, I should think this needs not even be mentioned, but in case there's any doubt at all, even without this war for which everyone in this room feels no little ambivalence except Seymour, no instructor in my nearly fifty years at Columbia has earned tenure more justly and more decisively: by the impactfulness of your teaching, the profundity of your insight, the nuance of your research, the eloquence of your oratory and the substance of your person. Bravo.
(everyone applauded again)
Jacques: Dinner is served!
Hannah Arendt: Nevertheless Edward, it would be edifying to get your sense of the Six Day War.
(Trilling and Barzun exchanged a look. One could feel a bit of a pause.)
Lionel: Hannah, the whole point of this dinner is to ensure he doesn't have to talk about it.
(I was grateful for the Romanee Conti but I'd already forgotten what it tasted like.)
Hannah: He is a man of deep substance like any of us, he deserves to have his views heard and respected. Doesn't he?
(If you only knew...)
Lionel: Well he certainly deserves our respect. Jacques, would you object?
Jacques: If this is the way we best pay tribute to Edward, please let him be heard.
Lionel: Edward? Would you object?
(I did my best and gave a long-winded cultural explanation that turned the subject back to literature: how Adonis portrays exile and Mahfouz internal exile, how the exciting young poet Darwish dramatizes war, it wasn't a very convincing explanation, and Arendt wasn't having it.)
Hannah: Dr. Said, if I wanted a lecture on literature, I would sit in your class, which I'm sure would be very compelling. Please answer the question: what do you think of the Six Day War?
(and there it came)
"That is an evasion, Doctor Said. You have still not given your opinion."
(My answers to her doctoral-like examination aren't important, but even without this record I remember every question which followed like a rubber bullet to the sternum.)
"You are not answering the question. You are speaking of the Suez Crisis which was eleven years ago. This Six Day War happened three months ago. Please tell me your opinion on that."
"Why do you think Israel should not answer the PLO activity with activity of its own? Please answer the question directly."
(I began sipping the Romanee-Conti just to interrupt my anxiety. The Romanee-Conti began to taste like a Ruffino-Chianti with the bottle straw-wrapped)
"But the reports from the Soviet Union to Nasser were false."
"Why would Nasser trust the Soviet Union's reports when Khrushchev lied to Nasser ten years before?"
"Khrushchev was repeatedly shown to be more trustworthy than Brezhnev. Why would Nasser trust Brezhnev who's already been shown to be unreliable with regard to Vietnam, China, Nigeria and Ghana?"
(The Romanee-Conti now tasted like a table wine)
"Even if he trusted the intelligence, Nasser did not have to close the straits. Israel made clear the consequences years ago."
"But Nasser knew that even if all six allies invaded simultaneously, they would be no match for the Israeli army. If the Israeli army could defeat these countries twenty years before when they were hardly a country, how much more easily could they now?"
(I'd finished my glass. I pretended to take Diana's next to me, everyone laughed and Jacques poured me whatever little was left of the bottle)
"The IDF's training is so much famously better than nearly any country on earth: surely the heads of state realized that even an army of a million could not overwhelm Israeli soldiery."
"Soviet weaponry is notoriously unreliable. Israel's weaponry was French, most of their weapons scientists trained in Germany, whose munitions are famously effective. And they surely realized Israel may drop a nuclear weapon."
(It now tasted like Carlo Rossi)
"Yes but if it's true that French munitions were unreliable you still have not accounted for the difference in training between Israeli soldier and Arab."
"The pre-emption of the Israeli army can be accounted for by the massive presence on all their borders. There is no justification for not acknowledging the unusualness of Arab activity."
(Hannah, please inform, what is 'usual Arab activity?')
"Egypt killed their own unarmed soldiers too rather than risk them telling Egyptians of the extent of their defeat."
"There is little means by which the West could assist when the Soviets were patrolling the entrances to Middle Eastern waters."
"So you are accusing Israel of destroying USS Liberty at the same time that you allege covert American support of Israel?"
(It now tasted like next year's Gallo)
"Many of the Palestinians could have gone to Jordan where they knew they would be better received, they chose to go to the refugee camps."
"Even if it's true about Jordanian mistreatment of Palestinians, many Jews were mistreated in Arab countries and had to immigrate to Israel rather than suffer at their hands."
"Why is the burden upon upon Israel when they are surrounded by 22 Arab countries?"
(Because I was thrown out of my house you hausdrachener bitch.)
"Israel was the victor and they sued for peace and the Arab countries refused: when else has that happened in human history."
(This is the last time I sue for peace...)
"Dr. Said, you are complaining about the unfairness of your treatment but you agreed to let us hear what you think. You complain of being singled out yet here you are, drinking wine with us and being toasted as America's intellectual future."
"You claim you are singled out and classified for being an Arab, yet this answer displays a profoundly monolithic view of Jews."
"This determination, as you say, to simplify Arabs to a monolithic force is reciprocated by a view of Jews that seems profoundly simplifying as well of Jewish opinions."
"Yes, we may be disproportionately powerful for the moment, but the power and privilege did not assist us when it was time to prevent Hitler's annihilation."
To which I replied, and I remember this very clearly:
"Perhaps it is that very power and privilege that invites revolt against Jews."
This was the moment Diana finally stepped in:
Hannah Arendt: You do realize that this might be construed as an a...
Diana Trilling: I don't think anything is served by this discussion. Edward, I'm sorry we let this go on as long as we have without stopping it.
(I had to fight back tears, which I'm sure they saw. The rubber bullet was my panic, not the questions themselves, but I spent a week reading periodicals in the Columbia library to answer them)
Lionel Trilling: We should have stepped in earlier.
Hannah Arendt: Not at all, he acquitted himself well. Most Jews would have retreated to victimhood five questions earlier.
Daniel Bell: Jacques, let's pour the boy a stronger drink.
Diana Trilling: That was nothing compared to how personal things can get from some of the others. I'll call off Irving and Philip and Nathan, but not even we can call off Edmund. Thank god Mary lives in Paris now...
(I have this transcript because I hid a tape recorder in my pocket square. I repeatedly asked Diana over the years and she vehemently denied that the Trillings set up this dinner to make me questioned by Arendt. I don't believe her.)
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