Film Culture (Winter 1955)

products of a deceitful nomenclature and adopt as the touchstone of reality ‘pure sensory experience.” It is the premises of this view of the world that are at the root of the great confidence in linguistic analysis, one branch of which, semantics, has grown popular in contemporary. America, pushing other philosophical. pursuits into the shade. What for philosophers in the accepted sense of the word is but a means to an end becomes tor the analyst the prime object of inquiry. This substitution of means for ends, of semantics for philosophy has had, as might be expected, multiple consequences on the level of educational theory. For one thing, the rejection of both conflict and synthesis between man and the world and the consequent postulation of “basic experience” as sole criterion has one great disadvantage: this basic experience is itself uncertain. (By what criterion will the analyst define what is basic in human experience, how does he know it is not the very evaluation, in the form of verbal expression, from which he shies away?) Being uncertain, it is incapable of leading to any certainties beyond itself, and thus a short circuit is established, within which all ethical and esthetic judgment, all knowledge of the relations between people —as well as between people and things—is impossible. The same absence of the spirit of synthesis and integration has led to a number of false dualisms, such as the ingenuous opposition of “doing” (in class) to ‘“thinking,” “‘fact” to “theory,” “experience” to “‘verbalism,” with the implication in each case that one is endowed with a natural superiority over the other. And, finally, the preoccupation with “basic sensory experience’’ results, not only in a loss of certainty as to ethical and esthetic values, but, more seriously, in a lack of concern with them: philosophical inquiry thus loses its aim, art becomes an object of clinical investigation, criteria of judgment are not subjected to historical re-valuation but dissolved in relativistic anarchy. Viewed in the light of the prevalent temper of American philosophical thought, the bogey of ‘“‘verbalism’’ is seen to imply much more than a mere revulsion against the misuse or overuse of words, which would, of course, have been welcome. Instead of salutary anti-verbosity, we find in anti-verbalism the key to a deep-seated distrust of words themselves, spoken or written—a distrust engendered by the suspicion of all objective standards in ethics and esthetics. Obviously, where there is no community of communicable certainties, there can be no confidence in the verbal symbols representing them. And since basic experience is equated by the anti-verbalist with “pure” experience, that is, experience divorced from all evaluation by the perceiving subject within his context, communicable reality, in effect, disappears, for the transmission of pure objects from consciousness to consciousness is an epistemological impossibility. Apparently unaware of this, the semanticists in educational theory hail the development of audio-visual media as a redeeming force which will improve the quality of our educational system by counteracting its past errors and helping to recapture the basic “‘changeless’” meaning of Life, Beauty, Truth, Love, Good—concepts about which many seem uncertain nowadavs. Paradoxically. the very educators most intent on raising the cultural level in our schools 8 take as their point of departure a primitivistic distortion of semantic analysis which leads them directly to a naive anti-intellectualism. Listening to “basic” idiomatic phrases on Linguaphone records comes to be preferred to the assiduous study of the grammar and vocabulary of a foreign language, and “something you can sink your teeth into” comes to be considered a more reliable source of experience than the reading of classics and the recitaticn of poetry. BASIC SHAKESPEARE This tendency towards placing a disproportionate confidence in the effectiveness of teaching through (thus conceived) basic experience, being cognate in spirit to the familiar theories of permissiveness” and ‘‘selfguidance,” could not fail to lend a novel prestige to the “progressive” methods in education. Neverthelesss it is encouraging to see that many educators are troubled by the consequent symptoms as is, for instance, Harold Spears,” when he writes: Although at least 19 out of 20 high schools require the study of such classics as Silas Marner, the Odyssey, and some plays by Shakespeare, not one out of 20 students really enjoy them ... and not more than one of 20 graduates will turn to such literature when picking up something to read in leisure time. And Douglas Kirk, President of Columbia University, is alarmed because “. . . students . . . even from the better colleges . . . are unable to use the English language with that precision and accuracy which ought to be taken for granted.” But while these facts are a matter of common knowledge and widespread concern, it is curious to observe how deeply anti-verbalism has affected the thinking even of those who attempt to create remedies. Thus Desmond P. Wedburg, a high school English teacher, writes :® The groans and grimaces of high school students across the nation at the mere mention of William Shakespeare’s name are concrete evidence that our traditional methods of teaching the great bard’s writings need revision. Mr. Wedburg adds that there is justification for this impatience. Julius Caesar, he comments, is “‘five acts long on talk,” short on action and devoid of romance.’ How then does Mr. Wedburg conceive this “revision of traditional methods?” Obviously Shakespeare has to be deverbalized. Under his personal direction “two journalism students boiled down (the play),” and ‘‘Shakespeare’s poetry was twisted into modern slang.” “The student body was delighted,” adds Mr. Wedburg, and as a consequence, “Shakespeare-in-capsule scripts popped up in English drama and radio speech classes.” The “great, bard’s” unreadable writings were thus transmuted into basic experience, for, although language was still used, it was basic slang and not the ‘‘long-on-talk” iambic pentameters. Such experiments are doubtless honest attempts to “provide motivation” for acquaintance with the classics. But unfortunately they suffer from one serious drawback: the basic experience which -they provide us is falsified at its very basis. 5 The High School for Today, New York; Ametican Book Co. 6 In Teaching Tools, a new audio-visual magazine for educators. 7 Author’s italics.