“I remember my first break with rationalism. It was Bergson, 1934. His work had come at the turn of the century. And was startling to me on two counts. 1) He attacked the abstractions of Understanding, their mechanical categorization, etc., and opposed to this, Intuition. 2) Humor, he said, was the fulfillment of the desire to see the snob and aristocrat humbled. So that the well-dressed man slipping on a banana peel was his classic example of humor. It is still individualistic, as it would be in the philosopher, but I remember it broke me with morbid and melancholy philosophy speculation . . .”
C.L.R. James (from notes for an unpublished autobiography)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
That's a great quotation, but where can these "notes for an unpublished autobiography" be found? Are they online, or do you have them in a box in your attic, or what?
I wish! Actually, the reference was from the footnote supplied in the introduction to "State Capitalism and World Revolution," whence I lifted the quotation.
Thanks!
Post a Comment