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The Social Mind

2013; Penn State University Press; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/steinbeckreview.10.1.0031

1754-6087

Jeffrey Wayne Yeager,

American and British Literature Analysis

After the commercial failure of his historical romance Cup of Gold and his California novel To a God Unknown, John Steinbeck faced a critical juncture in his career before he found success with his labor trilogy. Then, in the early 1930s, he turned toward new material. Drawing on conversations with Ed Ricketts, Joseph Campbell, and Richard and George Albee, among others, Steinbeck developed his “Argument of Phalanx”—loosely based on the Greek military arrangement of a body of troops that stand or move in close formation—as a social philosophy concerning man's relations within groups. The problem of men uniting into hordes under a pseudo-Christian cause had previously manifested itself in American texts, ranging from the satire against lynching in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the mob attacking Wing Biddlebaum in Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. While Steinbeck sometimes advocated his phalanx argument for dire circumstances, he largely used the theory to suggest that the group is able to achieve momentous social change through sheer power. This concept, especially during the Great Depression, fueled some of Steinbeck's most powerful novels about workers struggling against the injustices of capitalism or refugees surviving military oppression.Much has been written on the influences behind Steinbeck's group-man theories, especially as they appear in The Grapes of Wrath.1 Missing from this discourse on the phalanx argument, however, has been the influence of UCLA philosopher John Elof Boodin. Jackson Benson left a trail on Boodin for scholars to follow in his comment that Richard Albee brought to Steinbeck an “enthusiasm for the philosophy of one of his professors, John Elof Boodin, a philosophy that would make a deep impression on Steinbeck and his work” (267). Except for a few references, however, Boodin has primarily been relegated to footnotes (see Astro 48–53, 66–67), although Steinbeck had certainly read Boodin. In a letter to Robert DeMott on July 27, 1979, Albee wrote, I first loaned John … some reprints of Boodin papers, and most importantly “The Existence of Social Minds.” He also read my own class notes and heard me zealously expound my brand-new knowledge. He read Boodin's Cosmic Evolution, and I rather think he never returned it to me. He also read, later on with Ed Ricketts, Boodin's biggest tome, A Realistic Universe. In another letter on October 19, Albee wrote that Steinbeck and Boodin shared correspondence and that Boodin called Steinbeck his “‘writer friend up north’ from whom he had just heard, who was so complimentary, and who was so ‘modest’ that he ‘asks my permission to use some of my philosophy in his writing.’” In Log from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck quotes Boodin's A Realistic Universe: “Boodin remarks the essential nobility of philosophy and how it has fallen into disrepute. ‘Somehow,’ he says, ‘the laws of thoughts must be the laws of things if we are going to attempt a science of reality’” (962).Although postmodernism has brought with it an emphasis on larger social forces that shape authorship, it may appear reductive to conduct an influence study on a writer such as Steinbeck, who drew inspiration from a myriad of sources. Nevertheless, scholarly attention has neglected Boodin's direct relevance to Steinbeck. When read through the lens of Boodin's ideal philosophical system in The Social Mind, Steinbeck's group-man theory, “The Argument of Phalanx,” forces us to reexamine Doc Burton's influence on the Party in In Dubious Battle, on the “questing mind and developed leadership” of Jim Casy, and on his disciple Tom Joad (Working Days 20). It also requires a reexamination of the people's resistance in The Moon Is Down, taking into account readings and discussions of Boodin's philosophical system.Unlike Josiah Royce, Emerson, and others, Boodin is now relatively obscure in philosophical circles. The dominant paradigm in early twentieth-century philosophy was not the idealistic, mind-driven systems of Kant and Hegel but rather pragmatism, the material philosophies of thinkers such as Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey that were unified under the natural sciences and psychology—without regard to traditional philosophy or metaphysics. Boodin, however, sought to synthesize these two opposing epistemological systems with a combination of pragmatism and idealism. In particular, Boodin was interested in Darwin, and his analysis of both evolution and idealism resulted in a metaphysics that he called cosmic evolution, outlined in his book of the same name. Despite Boodin's scientific influences, however, he rejected neurobiological readings of the body's influence on the mind's functions and romanticized the mind's power to resist evolution: From the point of view of cosmic evolution, it would be truer to say that the body is evolved for the mind or, in the language of Plotinus, that the soul makes the body, than to say that the mind is a mere function of the body, for a minded organism is the whole, the actuality, which creative adaptation has striven, at least in favoured instances, to accomplish. (Cosmic Evolution 185) Because he thus romanticized the mind's power in an age in which the mind had been devalued, Boodin lost status among contemporary philosophers such as John Searle, who accredits the mind to a system he calls biological naturalism, which “emphasizes the biological character of mental states, and avoids both materialism and dualism” (79). For Boodin, however, “mind” means more than brain functions. In Boodin's system, Andrew Reck argues, the mind's milieu is threefold: “(1) the individual capacity of mental states, (2) the social synthesis of individual minds, and (3) the cosmic milieu of mind with nature and society” (169). Of interest to Steinbeck's works especially is the second option, the synthesis of individual minds into a collective one—the social philosophy to which Cosmic Evolution alludes and the staple for Boodin's social philosophy expressed in The Social Mind.In The Social Mind, Boodin argues that man cannot exist without being part of a group. He is “part of a community of life which stretches backward and forward into the gestalt of life history as a whole” (5). Man thus belongs to a larger ecosystem, the deep nature of which fascinated scholars such as Ricketts, and Boodin categorizes civilization as part of the evolutionary process: “Society is as much part of the will to live as the more primitive functions which biology has chosen to investigate” (10). For humankind to evolve, Boodin believes, society must develop a deep respect for nature by uniting social, collective minds “that embrace increasingly large masses of individual minds.” Such “social groupings,” he states, should be employed “as instruments to higher ends without shattering or diminishing those personal values indispensable to morality” (Reck 170).The development of one social mind, however, is not enough to allow humankind to evolve into a greater being. The whole process of evolution, Boodin writes, is a “process of spiritualization” (Social Mind, 171). Arguing for God as a force that drives evolution, Boodin notes that God is felt as “a divine restlessness which spurs us on so long as we truly live. When it deserts us, we are already dead. Be productive and be productive for the common good—that is the eternal commandment” (qtd in Reck 171). God exists, Boodin says in Cosmic Evolution, as “the highest level to which we strive to adapt ourselves in our best” (129). In Boodin's philosophy, people see God in themselves, and all participate in a universal spiritual community. In an almost pantheistic way, God is “the Spirit of the Whole,” and, by feeling God's spirit in themselves, people gain the “inspiration to strive to bring more harmony into a chaotic world” (qtd in Reck 173). For Boodin, finding God within the self is akin to Emerson's experience of transcendentalism as described in “Nature”: “I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” (1112). This concept also resembles the philosophy of Boodin's mentor, Josiah Royce: “For Royce, reality is unified into an Absolute, and man, by his moral will, participates and unites to constitute the Whole” (Shively 29). Boodin redefines Royce's whole into a similar concept with his idea of the social, collectivized mind. Through unification into a social mind, humankind has the ability to ascend to a higher plane and come to terms with God. This idea is especially characterized by Steinbeck's Jim Casy's rebelling against classical religion while suggesting the holiness and oneness possible within the group.Although Boodin emphasizes the group, he also recognizes the importance of individuality in shaping man's evolutionary process. Boodin argues in an early article entitled “Individual and Social Minds” that “minds which can energize and transform mankind are not dead, though for a time they may be disconnected from history” (180). He cites ancient Greek examples to clarify his point: “The immortality of the Greek mind will survive while the minds of Homer and Plato survive. In them lives the genius of the Greeks, even as they live in its atmosphere and give articulate meaning to its tendencies” (Social Mind, 180). Whole eras, in fact, bear the “name of some great genius who thus focuses and in a measure directs the stream of history. And so we speak of a Christian era, a Copernican era, a Napoleonic era, a Darwininian era” (Social Mind 177). Boodin thus defends “the creative importance of the individual without deifying him” (Astro 67).Steinbeck's unpublished “Argument of Phalanx” has much in common with Boodin's theory of social minds. Steinbeck began to frame the idea of the social mind as early as 1933 during his conversations with Albee and Ricketts. In his letter to Carlton Sheffield of June 30, 1933, he mapped out his plans to include this concept in his next novel, Tortilla Flat, arguing that he needed a framework, a “basic integrity,” for his ideas. In his letter to Robert DeMott on August 10, 1979, Albee noted that as Steinbeck wrote about his “‘Argument of Phalanx’ … he conceded that it was not ‘his’ idea but drawn from many sources. It was, by the way, when I read that line that I really expected him to credit Boodin as his principal inspiration, as was the case.” In the document itself, Steinbeck defines the phalanx in terms of cell units, with each individual being one cell in the larger whole: Man is a unit of the great beast, the phalanx. The phalanx has pains, desires, hungers and strivings as different from those of the unit man's as man's are different from the unit-cells'. The nature of the phalanx is not the sum of the natures of unit-men, but a new individual having emotions and ends of its own, and these are foreign and comprehensible to unit-men. (qtd in Benson 268) Steinbeck continues his discussion by elaborating on the importance of the unit. Like the Roman Republic, which sometimes elected a dictator for a short time during a crisis, a group consensus sometimes needs to be embodied within an individual leader; however, when individuals have fulfilled their function, the phalanx eradicates the leader and again becomes one. The individual thus has little power compared to the group mind; nothing can stop a group from changing its course—whether it be crusaders charging toward Constantinople or migrant workers going to California. On the one hand, as part of a phalanx, a person can accomplish ends never thought possible for one individual to attain. On the other hand, a person would starve without the emotional well-being derived from a larger whole (“Argument of Phalanx”).The ideas expressed by Steinbeck and Boodin are uncannily similar. Boodin emphasizes the importance of groups in achieving large-scale change. When humans unite into a whole, they potentially can become a force that can change history. Like Boodin, Steinbeck encourages the collectivization of man into a new entity that possesses one unified social mind, which he labels the “phalanx.” Both men argue for the unification of human beings into one mind, or one organism, and they each acknowledge that man has achieved prominence by uniting into groups.Doc Burton's speeches in In Dubious Battle closely parallel passages from Boodin, and Jackson Benson argues that he is “modeled after Ricketts and in speech and behavior reflects Ricketts's philosophy” (244). While Ricketts undoubtedly had an influence on Steinbeck's intellectual life, a close examination of Boodin suggests that the latter is a likelier influence on the “Argument of Phalanx” that undergirds the themes of In Dubious Battle. Like Jim Casy, Doc Burton acts as a philosophical figure in this novel, and his philosophy, although derided by Mac, becomes the focal point for the novel's controversial ending, in which the ideas of Jim Nolan carry the strike forward after his death. Like Boodin's example of Homer's epics as representative of the Greek mind, Jim Casy becomes the striking men's social mind, living on in both the workers' and the readers' memories, suggesting a paradigm for unity against oppressive working conditions and a cause for which to fight.Doc Burton's speeches and his ideas about group men parallel Boodin's concept of social minds. However, Doc Burton takes a more pessimistic view of groups than does Boodin, adding a layer of unsettling dissatisfaction about the never-ending battle between classes and suggesting that, like the immortal fallen angels battling Christ and his legions, nothing will ever change. Although Boodin had an impact on Steinbeck's thinking, Steinbeck set forth the phalanx idea to illustrate an enduring class conflict. Of Doc Burton's place in the novel's structure, Thomas M. Tammaro asserts that had Steinbeck wanted the novel to embrace polemics, to be a Communist book, all he would have needed to do was bring Doc Burton back into the struggle to take his place among the rank and file. Instead, he makes him disappear, and Doc becomes a kind of working man's “lone ranger” who appears when needed and then conveniently moves on—most likely to the next struggle—leaving behind a trail of good deeds and high philosophical concerns that transcend party line and ideology. (101) This unification into group minds seems to be one of the high philosophical problems the novel interrogates. For In Dubious Battle Steinbeck seemed to have Boodin in mind in his creation of Doc, who articulates the idea of a group unifying under an enduring “cause.” Doc's speeches, therefore, build on the language of the “Argument of Phalanx,” and discussions among Mac, Jim, and Burton develop the concepts of the phalanx and the social mind in the novel. When the characters discuss the idea of revolution, Burton claims that he is not interested in grandiose ideas, but rather in how men unify into wholes: “A man in a group isn't himself at all; he's a cell in an organism that isn't like him anymore than the cells in your body are like you” (641). In response, when Mac asks Burton what this has to do with the labor strike, Burton claims: When group-man wants to move, he makes a standard. ‘God wills that we re-capture the Holy-Land’; or he says, ‘We fight to make the world safe for democracy’; or he says, ‘we will wipe out social injustice with communism.’ But the group doesn't care about the Holy Land, or Democracy, or Communism. Maybe the group simply wants to move, to fight, and uses these words simply to reassure the brains of individual men. I say it might be like that, Mac. (641–642) This passage parallels Boodin's thoughts on group behavior when he argues that men unite based on the social mind relative to the situation. Without the underlying ideal, revolution would not occur; yet, transforming a government or an economic system by replacing it with a new social mind is a difficult and uncertain task. Boodin remarks of revolution in The Social Mind: It may be the illusion of military power and glory in the Napoleonic age; it may be a religious passion as in the case of the Crusades; it may be a sense of outraged justice as in the case of the Declaration of Independence. But in any case the leader as well as the led are held in the dynamic circuit of one direction of interest. (161) Boodin argues that no matter the ideology or political affiliation, human beings will always unite into group-man to achieve the desired end. No matter what the issue may be, a cause will succeed or fail based on the common will of the individuals in the group. In Dubious Battle as a whole thus not only interrogates the manner by which groups are constructed but also the dubious way by which they are unified and collectivized—especially when used as a means for the solution of societal problems.Mac understands Burton's message and uses any advantage at his disposal to unify the men and keep the strike together, continually redefining the social mind to achieve his own purposes. While this ploy may resemble the social mind in theory, Boodin defines the term on a macro level as controlling large numbers of men for a positive purpose. Mac tries to stop the system from taking advantage of the men, but his means are unorthodox, and Steinbeck intends to make the reader feel uncomfortable with them. When Mac uses Joy's corpse to incite bloodlust among the men, Dakin asks, “Want to make a show of it, do you?” to which Mac replies, “This little guy was my friend. Y'can take it from me he'd want to get used any way we can use him. We got to use him” (659). The ethical premises behind the social mind fail in this situation; the motives of the group are not pure. Although Mac wants to use Joy as a martyr for the cause, his means of pursuing the chosen end violate the ethical framework of valuing the individual over the group, an ethics created by a shared resistance against unrestrained capitalism.Later, Mac struggles to keep the strike functioning because the “Cause” is subservient to individual and familial needs; therefore, he must use anything at his disposal to arouse the group-men. Just before Doc leaves the novel, in a dialogue with Jim, he asks, “Can't a group of men be God, Jim?” (725), thus emphasizing the holiness of the group as men strive to become part of the larger spiritual community. Unlike Boodin, who argues that the end result of group formation is spiritual harmony and collectivization as a whole, Mac and the Party struggle to keep the men together by violence. After London kills Burke, the crowd “moved together, looked alike. The roar was one voice, coming from many throats” (771). Mac, however, notes the problem with this approach: “They'll want to do something else before they cool off…. It is a big animal. It's different from the men in it. And it's stronger than all the men together. It doesn't want the same things men want” (772). What the cause needs is a social mind, pure in purpose, to guide it. It does not need a short fix with a violent spree, but an ideology that keeps the men focused and intent and stops them from deserting camp in the middle of the night. Although the group-man needs to be fed, its survival as a force for social change rests with a social mind to empower it and transcend ideological boundaries.The novel ends with Jim Nolan's violent death and the Cause using him as an example. Shortly after Nolan's death, Mac proclaims: “This guy didn't want nothing for himself…. Comrades! He didn't want nothing for himself” (793). Jim ceases to be a human being and becomes an idea, the social mind emerging from the violence to drive the cause forward and keep the men together. Unlike Joy, whom the men did not know, Jim is respected by the men as a hard worker and one of their own. Although the men do not see his leadership qualities while he is alive, Jim's death drives the group onward and continues the dubious battle that fizzles after the Farmers' Association all but crushes the strike. The ethics of using Jim as a martyr is also questionable and not pure of purpose; however, his corpse becomes the embodiment of the social mind and reawakens the strikers into a phalanx, allowing the stalemate between the rich and the disenfranchised workers to continue. Of the leader of the group-man, Boodin argues: “Whether he is a creative or merely explosive factor depends upon what he brings, in the way of fundamental insight, with his strength of affirmation” (162). Jim's strength of will and drive toward a better society during his life reinforce the group will; however, the group's effectiveness in transforming dire social conditions gives the novel a pessimistic view of the possibility of societal improvement.In The Grapes of Wrath, Jim Casy's spiritual struggle embodies an opposition between traditional Christian theology that emphasizes the individual and Steinbeck's group-man philosophy and Boodin's social mind theory. In his initial speech to Tom, Casy explains his beliefs: “Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe, I figgered, maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of” (24). This language highlights Casy's philosophy, which develops throughout the novel. In accord with Boodin's philosophical system, Steinbeck frames Casy's argument to center on the spirit of God living within everything, a view similar to that of Emerson and Royce. Casy's philosophy, however, is similar to Boodin's in that it rejects a literal interpretation of the Bible and embraces and celebrates the spirit of God within the human heart. Although his ethics appear relativistic, Casy argues that men should not live under a sense of statutory obligations to an angry God, but rather should base religion on a common love for humanity.The Joads, especially Granma, all espouse organized religion, and despite Casy's objections, they elect him as the spiritual leader of their reformed family unit. A great deal of scholarship has centered on how Steinbeck redefines the family unit in The Grapes of Wrath, especially in his portraying Ma Joad as the new leader of the Joad family. But Casy also leads the Joads through their hard spiritual journey toward California. Upon Casy's arrival at Uncle John's house, Granma, a devout Christian, demands that Casy say grace before breakfast. Rather than giving a simple prayer of thanks, Casy delivers a philosophical sermon, speaking of his apotheosis in the wilderness, and in the process, he wins the Joads' respect. His preaching encapsulates his evolving view of religion: An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin', it was deeper down than thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, an' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that's right, that's holy. An' then I got thinkin' I don't even know what I mean by holy. (81) After a pause, Casy finishes his prayer: “I'm glad of the holiness of breakfast. I'm glad there's love here. That's all” (81). This passage also echoes Boodin in that Casy suggests that true holiness exists when humankind unites under one social mind. Casy's “oneness” is not so much a metaphysical monism as it is a social ethic dedicated to achieving holiness. Humankind can thus regain what was once lost by uniting into collectivized, social minds.In California, Casy acts as a martyr in taking the fall for Tom after he knocks out a corrupt police officer; however, after Casy gets out of jail, he becomes a natural leader of the people and develops a system for disgruntled workers that resounds with the social mind. While telling Tom about his experience in prison, Casy explains the plight of the prisoners: “One day they give us some beans that was sour. One fella started yellin', an' nothin' happened. He yelled his head off. Trusty come along an' looked in an' went on. Then another fella yelled. Well, sir, then we all got yellin.' And we all got on the same tone, an' I tell ya, it jus' seemed like that tank bulged an' give and swelled up. By God! Then somepin happened! They come a-runnin', and they give us some other stuff to eat—give it to us. Ya see?” (382) This incident gives Casy the experience he needs in order to arrive at a conclusion similar to Boodin's—individuals cannot do anything to overcome the naturalistic, monstrous machine seeking to oppress them. Through unification and collectivization, however, people may have the force to change history. Although Casy emphasizes the importance and divinity of the individual, he concludes that uniting into social minds is the key to fixing the ills of capitalism's exploitation of the proletariat.After Casy's death, his message of collectivization is further emphasized by his disciple Tom Joad. Much has been said of Tom's gradual shift from ex-con to leader of the people, thanks to the teachings of Casy. Brian Railsback argues that “at the beginning of the novel, Tom—like Grampa, Ruthie, and Winfield—is preoccupied with his own needs,” citing several examples in which Tom appears either selfish or self-absorbed, including a moment in which he says to Casy, “I'm jus' puttin' one foot in front a the other. I done it at Mac for four years …. I thought it'd be somepin different when I come out! Couldn't think a nothin' in there, else you go stir happy, an' now can't think a nothing” (qtd in Railsback 137).Another dimension of Tom arises, however, when, like Casy, he must journey into the wilderness to let the wound on his face heal after he avenges Casy's death. Tom acknowledges that over time, he has finally realized the meaning of Casy's message about the one soul. In a speech reminiscent of Casy's final one, Tom reveals the conclusions he has reached: I been thinkin' a hell of a lot, thinkin' about our people livin' like pigs, an' the good rich lan' layin' fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hundred thousan' good farmers is starvin'. An' I been wonderin' if all our folks got together an' yelled, like them fellas yelled, only a few of ‘em at the Hooper ranch. (419) At this point, Tom thinks that the unification of the migrants as social minds will be the right philosophy of action in dealing with the injustices of California farmers. In one of the most memorable speeches of the book, he resolves to be present wherever people need him: Then it don' matter. Then I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where—wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'—I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build—why, I'll be there. See? God, I'm talkin' like Casy. (419) Tom provides a glimmer of hope for the rest of the novel. As the main protagonist, Tom lives on in the reader's memory even as Steinbeck leaves his fate ambiguous and unresolved.By having Tom reach a metaphysical apotheosis through Casy's philosophy near the book's conclusion, Steinbeck characterizes Tom as the individual mind so important in the development of social minds. As the representative mind of the displaced Okies in California, Tom assumes the stature that Boodin ascribes to Homer or Socrates as exemplifying the height of a civilization. Social minds or phalanxes come and go, but Tom's speech locates his identity in the struggles of his people, thus becoming a representative of all the disenfranchised.Steinbeck locates the social mind in Tom to place the novel in its time and place, for his struggle will always exist so long as he remains in the reader's mind. Rather than decrying the need for social reform with a rhetorical call to action, Steinbeck freezes one of the worst moments of the Joad family's experience in Tom's speech. His words loom omnipresent over the rest of the novel, creating a striking rhetorical effect just before the flood renders the family's situation entirely hopeless. In this manner, “The Ghost of Tom Joad” acts as the social mind that permeates the novel, a powerful reminder of Steinbeck's social critique.Much of the critical discussion of The Moon Is Down revolves around Ricketts's influence. Richard Astro, for example, draws on a passage from “About Ed Ricketts” to analyze The Moon Is Down's structure: We had a game which we playfully called speculative metaphysics. It was a sport consisting of lopping off a piece of observed reality and letting it move up through the speculative process like a tree growing tall and busy. We observed with pleasure how the branches of thought grew away from the trunk of external reality. We believed, as we must, that the laws of thought parallel the laws of things. (730) Astro maintains that Steinbeck applied this game to the writing of The Moon Is Down but failed because he could not project Ricketts's biological ideas outside the landscape of California. Astro claims, “Ricketts overwhelmed the novelist in The Moon Is Down, with fatal consequences to the quality of his art” (157). Astro studies the novel through the lens of Ricketts, but Steinbeck and Ricketts themselves frame their discussions through the lens of Boodin, as the last sentence in the quotation above alludes to Boodin's A Realistic Universe. The novella's themes take the idea of the group-man to its natural end: the near defeat of an occupying force at the hands of the inextinguishable phalanx. The social mind that permeates the work is one of self-