From the short story “Good Old Neon” by David Foster Wallace, collected in Oblivion. Narrator posthumously (sadly, foretellingly) recounts his meetings with his psychotherapist:
“For instance, it turned out that one of his basic operating premises was the claim that there were really only two basic, fundamental orientations a person could have toward the world, (1) love and (2) fear, and that they couldn’t coexist (or, in logical terms, that their domains were exhaustive and mutually exclusive, or that their two sets had no intersection but their union comprised all possible elements, or that
(ψx)((Fx – ~(Lx)) & (Lx – ~ (Fx))) & ~ ((эx) (~(Fx) & ~(Lx)),
meaning in other words that each day of your life was spent in service to one of these masters or the other, and ‘One cannot serve two masters’ – the Bible again – and that one of the worst things about the conception of competitive, achievement-oriented masculinity that America supposedly hardwired into its males was that it caused a more or less constant state of fear that made genuine love next to impossible. That is, that what passed for love in American men was usually just the need to be regarded in a certain way, meaning that today’s males were so constantly afraid of ‘not measuring up’ (Dr. G’s phrase, with evidently no pun intended) that they had to spend all their time convincing others of their masculine ‘validity’ (which happens to also be a term from formal logic) in order to ease their own insecurity, making genuine love next to impossible.
Although it seemed a little bit simplistic to see this fear as just a male problem (try watching a girl stand on a scale sometime), it turns out that Dr. Gustafson was very nearly right in his concept of the two masters – though not in the way that he, when alive and confused about his own real identity believed – and even while I played along by pretending to argue or not quite understand what he was driving at, the idea struck me that maybe the real root of my problem was not fraudulence but a basic inability to really love . . . .”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb7iH5ZdLlA&w=600]
1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
COMMENTS
10 responses to “David Foster Wallace on Fear, Love and American Males”
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This seems dead on, to me. Dead on. And the narrator is correct in suggesting that it's not just American men who are "hardwired" this way… There is definitely a female version of that hardwiring…
Wow. Thanks Ron. Amazing find! Oblivion is tough, but if you can handle the density, there are some incredible moments. I'll have to re-read Good Old Neon – Is that the one that ends with a five-page long sentence?
Hey Ron, Dave. Is this what DFW's fiction is mostly like? I'll admit that it's not encouraging me read anything else by him. To me it seems like a lot of clunky big words and abstractions (not to mention a badly written string of 1st-order predicate logic).
Writers like Orwell and EB White are more my speed (White's prose in Charlotte's Web is about as simple and beautiful as anything out there).
But maybe DFW writes other kinds of stuff?
I wouldn't want to call it totally representative, but it sounds like his style may not be up your alley. his short stories do tend to play around quite a bit with form and structure, but rarely at the cost of the humor and heart. i would suggest that you simply read some of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and make up your mind that way.
Stampdawg, I've only read a few stories and articles by DWF. Never tried Infinite Jest… But I became intrigued after he died, by two things: The poignant graduation speech he gave at Kenyon (see below), and the fact that he listed "The Screwtape Letters" as his favorite novel of all time (a fact which is still driving the intelligentsia crazy!).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html
Sorry! That graduation speech link got chopped off… Here it is:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html
Thanks guys! Just so you know that there are some modernists playing with form and structure that I am crazy about…. 🙂
Donald Barthelme is one. ("Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby" might be up MB's alley.)
Italo Calvino is another. (A lot of stuff from his collection COSMICOMICS you all might like.)
This is just to say that I do like things besides Charlotte's Web (though surely that's one of the great novels of the last century!).
SD – Inspired by Dave's DFW posts, I picked up Oblivion, which was my first taste of his fiction. Although a couple parts were difficult and it was a different writing style than I'm used to, I found it very worthwhile. Powerful descriptions, especially of the characters' underlying thoughts, abound, and that is what I was most drawn to. I can't speak to the 1st order predicate logic, but the error could easily be in transcription. Definitely rely on Dave's recommendations for reading though.
Margaret – thanks for the link.
StampDawg, you know I share your love for Charlotte's Web! I re-read it with my daughter (she had it in school last year) and was just floored by its beauty and insight. Anybody who hasn't read it as an adult is seriously missing out.
Guess I’m commenting on an old post. Just not sure I can buy the premise though that you can only fear or only love and not both. I was brought up on Luther’s Small Catechism, in which confirmands are taught that we should both fear and love God. Every explanation of all Ten Commandments stars out that way. “What does this mean? We should fear and love God…” And I guess growing up, I both feared and loved my parents. Perhaps I don’t fear them anymore. And yet I’m not sure that is entirely true either. I certainly don’t fear punishment from them, and yet I hate to disappoint them, so there is a fear that works even alongside love.
I do think though that the fear is more a product of the fall, and sin then anything else. And finally to let fear be a dominant factor in your life and relationships is really to miss the point of life as a gift from God who expects us to enjoy it. But still it is there, and as far as our old adam is still alive, probably a necessary counterweight to love.