what they want, much less to figure out ways of getting it!”
“It doesn’t take chance, it takes thought.”
“It takes room! The room to choose, the room to entertain possibilities. Some Indian woman in a sleepy Guatemalan town can’t see beyond her own dusty village, can’t see any future for herself beyond the one her mother, her aunts, her sisters, her friends must live.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with it is that she may be miserable!”
“Nonsense. Her expectations aren’t great, so she’s probably less unhappy than a middle-class woman with pretensions. And when your woman’s sleepy Guatemalan town is ready for progress, it will find it.”
Dolores clenched her hands so tightly her nails dug her palms.
“Apathy,” Victor continued. “Most people live in apathy. I can’t spare a sigh for them.”
Nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.
She spoke calmly, sadly. “You sound as if you believed that all people need is ambition and will. But there are millions of people whose ambition and will have been sapped before they’re five years old. Who will never have room enough to choose because they can’t see enough, who don’t have energy because they weren’t fed enough. People are slotted into their positions in life.”
“We’re doing what we can about that.” Coldly. “There are social programs….”
He fished for a cigarette. She did not offer to help him. He found one, found his lighter, and tried to light it, but the wind blew out the flame.
“There are social programs,” she repeated, cold too, as he waited for the car lighter to pop out. “Most of them are useless. Band-Aids. You can’t cure a disease by cutting off the symptoms, you have to get at the root. And the root is our system of values.”
“Capitalism, I suppose,” he drawled nastily.
“No. Socialism is bad too. Better in some ways, worse in others. I see little difference between them. Both see people as means to ends. If the end is called by different names, that doesn’t make it necessarily a different thing. Production is the great aim, production and power. Not felicitous life.”
“What the hell do you think the production and power are supposed to do but help people live more pleasantly?”
“Supposed! Supposed! In fact, the end of power is power and more power!”
“That’s the thinking of a person who doesn’t know anything about power! Goddamned ivory-tower academics! I’m sorry, Lorie, I don’t mean to be unkind, but the people you work with have infected your thinking.”
“Maybe I’ve infected theirs,” she shot in angrily.
He ignored her. “Winning is wonderful! Success is wonderful! There’s nothing like it! That’s felicitous life!”
She rubbed her forehead. “Victor, this is hopeless. Winning is wonderful, yes—if you don’t have to pay too much for it. To win money and lose your emotional life is not to win. Success too—it isn’t success after all, is it, if it isn’t an expression of your deepest energies? You know that old Greek recipe for happiness? Happiness is the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.”
“Okay, okay.” He nodded agreement, nodded eagerly. He wanted them to find some common language, wanted to agree. She watched him carefully. “I’ll buy that,” he nodded.
“But my point is that few people are permitted the scope even to discover what their vital powers might be. Scope is given to very few, and most of them are men.”
“Now that’s not true! It’s just that most women don’t want what men want! Look at you: you’ve had success, you’ve had books published.”
“I haven’t had success in your terms.”
“My terms?”
“My books have earned me about five thousand dollars—if that—in the last five years. The best thing they did was get me out of The Swamp.”
He looked at her puzzled.
“Place I used to teach. Our Lady of The
“It doesn’t take chance, it takes thought.”
“It takes room! The room to choose, the room to entertain possibilities. Some Indian woman in a sleepy Guatemalan town can’t see beyond her own dusty village, can’t see any future for herself beyond the one her mother, her aunts, her sisters, her friends must live.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with it is that she may be miserable!”
“Nonsense. Her expectations aren’t great, so she’s probably less unhappy than a middle-class woman with pretensions. And when your woman’s sleepy Guatemalan town is ready for progress, it will find it.”
Dolores clenched her hands so tightly her nails dug her palms.
“Apathy,” Victor continued. “Most people live in apathy. I can’t spare a sigh for them.”
Nor spare a sigh/Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.
She spoke calmly, sadly. “You sound as if you believed that all people need is ambition and will. But there are millions of people whose ambition and will have been sapped before they’re five years old. Who will never have room enough to choose because they can’t see enough, who don’t have energy because they weren’t fed enough. People are slotted into their positions in life.”
“We’re doing what we can about that.” Coldly. “There are social programs….”
He fished for a cigarette. She did not offer to help him. He found one, found his lighter, and tried to light it, but the wind blew out the flame.
“There are social programs,” she repeated, cold too, as he waited for the car lighter to pop out. “Most of them are useless. Band-Aids. You can’t cure a disease by cutting off the symptoms, you have to get at the root. And the root is our system of values.”
“Capitalism, I suppose,” he drawled nastily.
“No. Socialism is bad too. Better in some ways, worse in others. I see little difference between them. Both see people as means to ends. If the end is called by different names, that doesn’t make it necessarily a different thing. Production is the great aim, production and power. Not felicitous life.”
“What the hell do you think the production and power are supposed to do but help people live more pleasantly?”
“Supposed! Supposed! In fact, the end of power is power and more power!”
“That’s the thinking of a person who doesn’t know anything about power! Goddamned ivory-tower academics! I’m sorry, Lorie, I don’t mean to be unkind, but the people you work with have infected your thinking.”
“Maybe I’ve infected theirs,” she shot in angrily.
He ignored her. “Winning is wonderful! Success is wonderful! There’s nothing like it! That’s felicitous life!”
She rubbed her forehead. “Victor, this is hopeless. Winning is wonderful, yes—if you don’t have to pay too much for it. To win money and lose your emotional life is not to win. Success too—it isn’t success after all, is it, if it isn’t an expression of your deepest energies? You know that old Greek recipe for happiness? Happiness is the exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.”
“Okay, okay.” He nodded agreement, nodded eagerly. He wanted them to find some common language, wanted to agree. She watched him carefully. “I’ll buy that,” he nodded.
“But my point is that few people are permitted the scope even to discover what their vital powers might be. Scope is given to very few, and most of them are men.”
“Now that’s not true! It’s just that most women don’t want what men want! Look at you: you’ve had success, you’ve had books published.”
“I haven’t had success in your terms.”
“My terms?”
“My books have earned me about five thousand dollars—if that—in the last five years. The best thing they did was get me out of The Swamp.”
He looked at her puzzled.
“Place I used to teach. Our Lady of The
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