nyuuzyou/wikis huggingface dataset:
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/544

Man and society. Man says there is a God, or maybe there is God and the Devil. Then the historical social reductions start. We have progressively God and Devil, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, until in Victorian high society there was only left Nice and Not-Nice. The concentration camps have given us a bit of a stir. Today we have normal and neurotic with an occasional suggestion of evil in the word psychopath.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/545

I just realized that the reason I never could accept the Soviet Union even in the height of my Wallace days is that I could never believe instinctively that a good society could have sex repression. There was a time when I could have explained away 25,000,000 slave laborers I had such contempt for people, but I could never explain away difficult divorce laws. And in a way I was right. Today I would say that the slave laborers while more monstrous are less basic than the bad sex laws.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/547

I have to explore the idea of what it means to different people to go to Heaven and Hell. Probably one of the really good projective tests would be to have people outline for you what they believed Heaven was like, and what Hell was like. And I suspect that underneath the surface construction, once you could draw them out, would be projected a great deal of -desire masquerading as and vice versa. This is one of those common-places which ought to be explored more. The trouble with most projective techniques is that they work better for people on the college-to-expert express than they do for weird-os. Most projective techniques are quite inept I believe when it comes to doing more than recognizing that a particular person is very unusual.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/548

Hemingway’s peculiar weakness is that he’s a taker, his heroes are all Takers. His idea of courage is that you can take it. It never seems to have occurred to him once that courage might also consist of giving. Which is why he probably lives in a cloudy mystical state and reads universes into every cliché and half parable he writes.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/549

Depressants and stimulants: What I’ve noticed—who could miss it?—is that Lipton’s affects me differently from everybody else. It is nominally a depressant but I become more stimulated than anyone else. (Everybody passes through a brief period of stimulation on Lipton’s before relapsing into passivity, but my stimulation lasts much longer and my passivity sometimes never comes). 
Nearly all of my friends are Takers—the power of American conformity today tends to make sensitive people develop the secretive Taking powers rather than the more dangerous—if radical—giving powers. So, there are probably more Takers around than Givers these days. But more than that, I as a Giver surround myself with Takers. What Giver doesn’t? And only a few friendships have been with Givers—First Devlin, the peculiarly intense restricted giver, then Malaquais (who conceals the Old Lady Taker in him), and Bob who is the easiest Giver-Taker I know. Plus Adele who gives sexually and emotionally.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/550

The above was hardly more than gossip. What I started to say was that Lipton’s by slowing Givers up allows their Taking capacity to increase—the result if they are highly verbal like me is to talk talk talk. But Takers who take Lipton’s are pushed deeper into passivity, so deep that words just about disappear. Takers need alcohol which emphasizes for a time anyway the giving powers.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/551

So, to begin with, stimulants and depressants affect people according to their capacities to give and to take which is why people react so differently to them. But more than that is something else which is rarely considered. A stimulant so-called is not simply a stimulant, a one, a giver, it is a two—it stimulates certain parts of one and depresses others. Depressants by depressing certain parts of the personality stimulate others. Passing across the infinite five-take spectrum, the nature of give and take is altered.
Category:February 7, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/198

The poor drawing (the drawing faulty in perspective or execution) actually shows one of the many ways in which we see things. Thus, the hotel drawing shown here is nominally bad because the hotel seems to float in the air, but I wonder if a part of ourselves does not look at buildings built on street islands and see them as literally floating in air, and if indeed islands in general, do not have this quality of appearing suspended.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/199

Looking at myself in the mirror, high on Lipton’s, I saw myself as follows: The left side of my face is comparatively heavy, sensual, possessor of hard masculine knowledge, strong, proud, and vain. Seen front-face I appear nervous, irresolute, tender, anxious, vulnerable, earnest, and Jewish middle-class. The right side of my face is boyish, saintly, bisexual, psychopathic, and suggests the victim.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/200

This is the age of the war of the sensitivities. As a seemingly superficial level it is the battle of Dissent vs. Partisan Review vs. Commentary; or Carson McCullers and Paul Bowles and Truman Capote vs. Jones and Early Mailer. On a larger scale it is the deep and furious warfare between first Freud, Adler, and Jung now between Freudians, Reichians, Horneyans, etc. On an historical scale it was the conflict of sensitivities (the deep conviction of each that he alone saw the nature of reality) which set off the individual and collective murders in the contest of Lenin vs. Trotsky; Trotsky vs. Stalin; Stalin vs. Hitler—and now with the Cold War—the war of sensitivities becomes keyed to its full.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/201

When we run across something we don’t understand, and casually throw it out or ignore it, it is because we understand it much too well. This is true of all rejection.
As a corollary: What we erase is what we wish to emphasize. So the good writer crosses out the bad writing (the clichés) with which the ambitious part of his being had hoped to attract the public. Literary style is always the record of the war within a man.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/202

The tragic air of Mexico about which everyone can agree comes from the great need of the Mexicans to have heroes—for without heroes a culture and a civilization it will perish. But to use Trotsky’s style—Mexico arrives late on the stage of history in its attempt to found a civilization. So its heroes can never satisfy the Mexicans, for their cynicism is the cynicism of the world, and backward countries are equal to civilized countries in their cynicism, despair sets in, and sentimentality must follow to give the false rescue to despair. So the vicious circle revolves while the country slowly starves in its economic and political irreconcilables.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/203

Rich boys are proud of being without money, middle class boys are not. The middle class boy who acts the poor life (such as bohemians) really wants to think of himself as aristocratic. Only working class is proud of wealth and power. Which is why the aristocrats admire artists, the middle class successful business men, and the working class admires politicians, racketeers, big trade union leaders and money-making athletes. But here again is the dichotomy of mind vs. body, spirit vs. flesh. There is the deepest significance in whether we make our living with our hands or our minds, and through history moves the myth and probably the actuality of the swarthy stocky sexy proletariat, and the languid slender tall neurotic mind-ness of the aristocracy and the part of the bourgeoisie which aspires to it.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/205

John Walsh is a homosexual who genuinely is happy with “masculine warmth”—simply, the companionship of men. Thus, latent homosexuals of the order of Slim and Glenn and Clem who are masculine hard-swearing adventurers on the surface and who masquerade behind the joy of “masculine company” are drawn to the genuine desire in John.
A note on this is the type of the phallic narcissist who so very often has a name or nickname which ends in “n” or “m” or one syllable with a vowel in the middle. Thus, the company of Slim, Glenn, and Clem who look up John—all of whom (except John) call me Norm. Other examples are Jim Jones. I wonder if the general “m” sound at the end of the name is not an echo of Male and Nail. (Echo: Spike and Prick).
It seems reasonable that people in coteries are drawn together by the sound of their names—that is, people tend to like people with certain kinds of names. If the coterie aspect of the personality is strong enough, the coterie is joined which most satisfies the type of personality. But what I wonder is whether such coteries are not worth studying to see if there is a common denominator or several to the kinds and styles of names. Carried to its ultimate the attraction that’s felt for the name becomes genuine love and we have The Snob.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/206

If I have qualities of genius, it is because in my case I have never found a home. I straddle many coteries and can never truly join any, yet I have a sensitivity and knowledge for each in myself. But that is why so many people see me as being tortured and nervous and obviously anxious. I have no home, no roots—I am indeed the orphan hero of Barbary Shore and The Deer Park—and so all my anxiety is evident whereas it is buried in other people. And that is why Adele and I were drawn together—for she is an orphan as much as I am.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/207

The Perfect Secretary is never the wife even though we call her an office wife. Rather, she is the Confidante, and what men seek in a secretary is the woman to who all can be told. In proportion as the secretary is the perfect confidante so she is the perfect secretary.
As a corollary, I think it’s probably true that the sort of high-minded marriage where the mates hope to be able to confide (word echo: confine) everything to each other usually ends in a sexual bust, for part of the nature of marriage, part of the excitement of marriage rests exactly in the fugue of mutual deceptions and mutual revelations which are constantly altering. We fuck to uncover a mystery—in extension it is truly the mystery of life—but in its immediate sense it is the mystery of personality, and there is something tasteless in fucking someone we know too well, which is why marriages which retain their sexual excitement create new elements of deception even as old ones are revealed, and that is also why a man and a woman who have been good close friends for years can rarely strike up a good fuck—they have become instead mutual boss and secretary.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/208

The night Bob spoke about Styron being through as a writer, I have the suspicion he was unconsciously talking to me directly, for I know he was deeply worried about me. Juan Bilbao talking to Bette Ford about Pat McCormick being through was actually warning Bette, and gloating over her future downfall with the part of him that hates Bette for all the abuse she gives him. As a general clue it might be worth noting when we hear a person talking over and over about how someone is through which of the people in the room (including the speaker) is really meant.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/209

The affected person invariably says exactly what he feels, but he says it in a debased way. His thrust into life with all his actions and all his speech is actually a cry of pain (Affected people are always people in pain.) The cry of pain is put in a degraded form because the Affected Person knows (homeostatically) that this is less dangerous than the naked expression. But affected people are very close to being naked; they mock a mystic experience, but by implication what they have also said is that the mystic experience was there. 
Affected people know that so long as they are laughed at, scorned, and ridiculed, they are still safe. No one will take them seriously, and so no one will destroy them. Which is one reason why so many homosexuals, both homo-erotic and pure, but especially homo-erotic (the homo-erotic as masked bi-sexual orgiast being in the more dangerous position) are so affected, and even often label themselves homosexual despite the social disadvantages by wearing a particular form of dress, adopting a particular form of lisp or swish (word echo). 
Ergo: The Fop. The fop mocks himself, and yet by implication he is saying, “Whether you like it or not, I really am a gentleman. I am one of the privileged of sensibility.”
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/212

Homeostasis may be true of speech. It is possible that we say the best thing we are capable of saying at the moment given divergent desires. It is probable that we always do the best thing we are capable of doing at the moment, kill in order not to commit suicide, commit suicide in order not to kill—the best thing we are capable of doing involves the true and false judgment of the psyche, the judgment of the soul and the judgment of society, so that in a curious way the murderer is closer to his soul than the suicide, for what the soul must always say is “Do the thing which will enable you to continue living.”
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 20, 1955/213

Our perception of others is never anything other than an exploration of ourselves. Those parts of society we know least about are indeed the parts to which we are drawn least—at any moment of development—and so we see them from the outside, we see objectively, evaluatively. The objective sense of society is dependent upon a lack of genuine attraction to the subject . 
Somewhere along the way a curious game is played with the self—certain kinds of people take on work which is so alien to them, and yet so necessary in the defenses it provides, that they can be safe for their entire lives, if albeit a bit dead. Which is why academicians are dull—they have given themselves to a subject they are not close to spiritually—usually to hide some other deeper drive of their nature. They conceal the rampant murderer, lover, adventurer, etc. within themselves from themselves. Which would account for why so few editors know anything about books, why so few analysts know anything about human nature, so few sociologists anything about society, why so few anthropologists have a real feeling for primitive peoples, why so few historians have a poetic intuitive sense of history. But one could extend the list forever. 
The most obviously painful and pressing is the lack of real political understanding among diplomats and bureaucrats, the ignorance of war which characterizes most generals. Indeed, one of the great battles of the twentieth century is that more and more people are attuned to their occupations. People with a real feeling for law enter the law, analysts with real sensitivity become analysts, and there is a war mounting between the academicians and the ones with true vocation. The nineteenth century was built upon the solid obtuse blocks of the academicians—the twentieth century is torn by the desire to blast the bricks into dust and the anxiety to retain them.
Category:January 20, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/216

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all big days (Jan 21 to 23) and I had so many thoughts, feelings, etc. that I was almost flooded by them. Today, after a ball last night, and too much fucking and Lipton’s I am still not depressed which is a good sign. Perhaps the Seconal I took with the Lipton’s has a good effect. Anyway, let me see how much of it I can remember, recast, and state for the first time.
Category:January 24, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/217

To begin with, one of the great divisions of personality occurred to me last night, and that is, one can divide people generally into takers and givers. Naturally there is an infinity of variations in the duality, and the giver always has his counterpart within himself of the taker, but it is best described by mentioning people. I am essentially a giver and not a taker which is why so many people see me as a bully. Adele is on the surface a taker rather than a giver—except in sex—but that is truly a defense against her great desires to give which would flood her away. Danny is a taker not a giver, so is Malaquais. Devlin a giver. My mother is a giver—like me she cannot take, neither advice, nor presents, nor even in a funny way, love—she must give, give, give. Bob is one of those rare people who is both a giver and a taker—primarily a giver, but he can also take which accounts for his healthiness. Larry [Alson] and Barbara [Alson] are takers, my father is a taker. 
Generally, givers are “generous,” bullying, dominating, somewhat overbearing, anxious, guilty, lively, and apparently open. Takers are secretive, private, often sensitive—especially on what they receive—sly, greedy, subtle, envious, passive, and just as the giver feels anxiety when it is a question of receiving, so the taker has great anxiety about giving. 
All performing artists are almost pure givers. People with a relaxed tweedy wit are takers. Givers tend to be sloppy or loud in their dress (the sloppy dresser and the loud dresser are the same thing)—takers are invariably neat. Givers express the masculine creative-destroying principle, takers the feminine conserving-principle. The irony is that givers open other people to their souls but takers are essentially closer to their souls. (Dave Kessler is a giver, Anne Kessler is a taker.) Susy worries me because while she is both a giver and a taker both are generally suppressed, and people who suppress both are in for a rocky road. Givers and takers always reveal themselves over things like picking up a check. Whenever I am threatened or have suffered some disaster I pick up every check in sight.
Category:January 24, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/221

When Elena is first introduced and makes her silly boner bout melted ice cream, Eitel could give a little protective speech about how right Elena is essentially—for commodities are altered today by warming them up or cooling them down. And Sergius could wonder if Elena was one of those sensitive ones for whom life was so painful that she could speak her wisdom only in the words if a fool.
Category:January 24, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/222

Wrestlers and boxers. Another great dichotomy in people. Givers are wrestlers—takers are boxers. It even carries over into love. Boxers are unisexuals, wrestlers bisexuals. The taker likes hard sharp fucking unless they are being done to—like the boxer’s rub-down after a fight. The wrestler has his rubdown in the fight. I am a wrestler, and my idea of love is more the embrace, the love-play, the lingering and swelling, rather than the rat-tat-tat of hard fast fucking. And what I remember is that the first orgasm of my life (which was the best) came when I was thirteen and wrestling with a boy.
Category:January 24, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/223

Homeostasis and sociostasis. I am going to postulate that here is not only homeostasis (which is the most healthy act possible at any moment for the soul), but there is sociostasis which is the health of society so that like people, but acting in the reverse direction, there is a sociostatic element in man placed there by society which resists and wars and retreats against the inroads of homeostasis which is the personal healthy rebellious and soulful expression of man. 
In the course of a human’s life the child is born all homeostatic (unless the mother has communicated sociostatic components to the embryo) but generally the years of childhood are years in which the homeostatic principle or life-force is blocked, contained, damned, and even destroyed by the creation of sociostatic elements—the child is partially turned into someone who will serve the purposes of society. The essential animal-soul life is contained, forced underground, denied. But as people get older, there is this great tendency for the homeostatic principle to assert itself—middle-aged people kicking over the traces.
Depression is the symptom of trench warfare between homeostasis and sociostasis. War in that sense is not the health of the state (Randolph Bourne) but rather is the desperate expression of sociostasis. Society chooses a terrible alternative, but it is the best alternative open to it, given the worse alternative of society disappearing. (From its point of view of course, not mine.)
Category:January 24, 1955
Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/224

What I have noticed is that over the years although I have spoken of society as nominally no more than a concept, the fact is that I believe there is such a tangible physical reality as society. As there is material man, there is material society. And I have even been one of the few to attempt to locate society—I have called it over and over the sum of man’s actions. But as a wild speculation, I wonder if society does not actually have its material physical presence in life, in the very structure of atoms or molecules or even intra-atom structures. 
As a crude example, the total presence of building and structures in the world is an expression of society—it is part of the physical principles of society. In other words buildings do have a kind of life (and there is a basis, although of course inaccurate, in feeling ghosts in old houses). What I try to say is that a building is alive but it is not alive like animals or humans or even plants (I’m not at all sure of the last). 
In other words there are two kinds of life-forms in the universe. Animal forms and socio-structural forms of life, and they war upon one another. As a more stimulating example, I would say that the laws of physics for example are not something static and to be discovered for all time piece by little piece, but that just as man and animals, both homeostatic, evolve, so too does physics evolve. The physical laws of today are not the same as the physical laws of five thousand years ago, for example, and certainly not the same as the physical laws of five million years ago. I will put it crudely. Five million years ago one plus one might have been equal to one. Five thousand years ago one plus one were equal to two. Today one plus one is equal to 4? But the answer is certainly not two, thanks to Einstein. 
What is present in this, and intellectually enthralling is that man, Life, wars against the sociostatic principles of society (Other-Life) and of physics too. Said otherwise, man is not merely a creature of the universe—his concerted creative expression of the life-force alters the universe even as the universe alters him. So that, philosophically, we may be coming upon a time when the circle will be closed, or rather the spiral rounded and man will again see himself as the center of the universe, rather than as the victim of the universe. Put as the Grand Theory of Relativity it comes out thus: As man discovers the universe, so he changes the very laws of its being. I suspect Planck’s Quantum theory would throw interesting lights on this if I knew anything about it. Also what Bob said about the nearness of the instruments to the experiment.
Category:January 24, 1955