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T h e GeographicaleviewVOLUME2 July 2002 NUMBER

COMMUNITY, SOCIETY, AND THE INDIVIDUALYI-FU TUAN

ABSTRACT. "Community"s agood warm wordfrequently nvokedby citizens,socialwork-ers, and politicians."Society;'by contrast,is more ambivalent,invoking something elitistand exclusive,as in the expression"high society."The word "individual," r "individual-ism,"often connoting selfishnessand bracketedwith society, is even more suspect in ourtime. I plead for a restorationof balance and esteem among the three terms as a necessarystep towardacquiringa fuller understandingof the human condition and potential.Key-words: ommunication,ommunity,ndividual, ociety.CC

Community" is a good warmwordfrequently nvokedby citizens,socialwork-ers, and politicians. There is hardly any shadow to it (Williams 1976).The word"society,"ycontrast, s moreambivalent.On the one hand,"society"nvokessome-thinglargeandimpersonal;on the other hand, something elitist and exclusive,asin the expression "high society"or, closer to home, the American GeographicalSociety.The word"individual"s often bracketedwith society,but even more thansociety,the individual cameundersuspicion in the last thirdof the twentieth cen-tury.Not too long ago the individual was the pride of Westerncivilization,andindividualism was a concept and a value that distinguishedthe West from othercivilizations. Now "individual"and "individualism" eem to connote largelysel-fishness.In this articleI plead for restoration of balance and esteem among thethreeterms,for it seems to me that,absentbalance and esteem,we have a stuntedanddistortedview of the possibilitiesof humanwelfare,happiness,andfulfillment.

Because I attempt to correct an imbalance,my treatment of the three termscannot be evenhanded.Rather han raising my voice to add more praisefor com-munity,I drawattention to some of its defects.As for societyand the individual,orindividualism,ratherthan noting once more their defects,I draw attentionto cer-tainvalues that have been put in the shadeby the glow of community'sreputation.COMMUNITY, COMMUNICATION, AND INDIVIDUAL UNIQUENESS

Community is considered good because its members cooperate; they help oneanother.Cooperation presupposes effective communication, which is said to be9G DR.TUANs the J.K.Wrightand VilasProfessoremeritusof geographyat the Universityof Wis-consin,Madison,Wisconsin,53706-1491.

The Geographical Review 92 (3): 307-318, July 2002Copyright ? 200oo3y the AmericanGeographicalSocietyof NewYork


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308 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

another characteristic of community, distinguishing it from society, whose members-often strangers to one another-either do not communicate or do so with lesssuccess. If successful communication is the ideal, however, the human world is notthe place to look for it, or even the world of plants and animals, but rather the worldof physical objects, says Alfred North Whitehead. Atoms and molecules, planetsand the sun, stars in star clusters understand one another, so to speak, perfectly. Noquestion there of messages sent, only to be misinterpreted or subverted (Lowe 1990o).The higher the level of complexity in organisms, the more difficult it is for them toachieve a community of perfect communication. In sending and receiving unam-biguous messages, plants are less successful than minerals, animals are less success-ful than plants, and human beings are the least successful of all.

The problem with human beings lies in their individuality. By individuality Ihave in mind both physical character and inner reality-the existence of a worldwithin each being. Inorganic objects may differ greatly in size, shape, and chemicalmakeup, but they have no inner worlds of consciousness to further differentiatethem. Do plants have inner worlds? Although scientists will surely say "No,"I canimagine the philosopher-scientist Whitehead averring that "No"is too absolute andthat the better answer is "Yes,"plants have inner worlds; they are, however, so faintas to approach asymptotically zero. What is not in doubt is that animals feel andhave inner worlds constituted by experience-and so, of course, do human beings.

A human individual is unique. Every time the senses of a human group aremeasured in regard to range and sensitivity they are found to differ. People deemednormally sighted may nevertheless differ significantly in spread of peripheral vi-sion, sharpness of focus, sensitivity to color and to type of color. In hearing, so-called normal people diverge notably from one another in appreciation of soundsof varying frequency, such that not only are certain musical notes accessible to oneperson and not to another but words and phrases in conversation are quickly graspedby one and not by another. And so it goes with the other senses, other vital physi-ological functions such as digestion, sex, and, above all, activities of the brain. Everyfeature of the brain that has been measured shows unexpected diversity (Williams1967, 1978). Differences in the brain mean that, despite culture's push toward com-monality, how human individuals organize experience and perceive the world ishighly distinctive.

Is uniqueness a problem? No, not if it is considered a source of pride. Even insmall hunting-gathering communities, where egalitarianism is the desired norm,one likes to boast a special quality or skill that enables one to stand out a little fromone's fellows and so gain their regard. But uniqueness also isolates, causing loneli-ness and, potentially, despair. It can therefore be undesirable from an individual'spoint of view. It can also be undesirable from the viewpoint of the group, for astrong awareness that members differ can make the foundation of cooperative en-terprises seem fragile; yet people must cooperate if they are to build a commonworld and survive the hostilities of nature and other human beings.


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COMMUNITY, SOCIETY, AND THE INDIVIDUAL 309

SUPPRESSION OF DIFFERENCE IN THE FAMILYThemostcommonresponseo individualitys to suppresst. Another esponse,armore difficultandrare, s to seeka sharedworldat some hithertounrecognizedlevelof emotion andunderstanding.n this search orcommonality eyondsu-perficial greements,oldand articulatendividual oicesemerge hat makepro-foundlyengaged ommunication ossible:betweenequals,as whentwo friendsconverseat lengthin front of a cracklingire;and betweenunequals,as whenBeethovenpeaks ndI (andmanyothers)isten.Communicationf bothkinds sa characteristicf society, specially f modernsociety,andby"society"mean alarger ndlooserassociation f humanbeings hanthatwhichpertainsn folkortraditional ommunities.

Butfirst,whatconstitutes community? t itssimplest ndmostbasic, t is thenuclearamilyof parents nd children.Yet reatinghenuclearamilyas the basicsocialunitis a commonpracticeonlyin modern imes.Inpremodernimes thefamilywasopen-ended nd extended arbeyondparents ndoffspringo includeallsortsof blood relativesnd evenneighbors, nrelated ybloodbut deemed a-milial hroughheconfermentf courtesyitles(Shorter977).Why he extension?One answers that n premodernimesthenuclearamily, scommunity,wastoosmallandvulnerableo fend or tself.Alliancewithneighbors,whetherkindred rnot,wasnecessaryoproduce unit arge nough o bean economicpower, ble owrest oodfromrecalcitrantature,and a politicalpower, trongenough o keepenemiesatbay.Both n thepastandin thepresent, trengthies notonly n num-bersbut alsoin cohesion.Numbersareuselessunless heunit'smembers ee andthink more or lessalikeandsharean overarchingurpose.Thistakesus to thesecond easonogo beyondhenuclearamily:tsmembers re elf-evidentlyiffer-ent. The self-evident ifference resents problemn communicationhat s hid-denbyallowing nevoice-traditionallyhe father'soice-to dominate.I say"self-evidently"ecause he father s indisputably nlikethe mother nbiological haracteristicsndfunction,not justin acquired ole.As forsiblings,exceptn the rarecasesof multiplebirths, hildren reranked yage,whichmeansthat heyareatdifferenttagesof maturation nd donot see the world nthe sameway.Eachagehas tsown needsanddesires,tsown "take"n reality; ndthis is allthemore ruewhen heagegap slarge, s,forexample, etweenagrowndaughterand ajuvenile, etweenajuvenileanda toddler, etweena toddleranda nursinginfant. ndeed, wouldsay,pickat random ixindividuals n thestreetor in themarketplace,ndit is entirely ossiblehattheyhavemore n common n thewaytheyperceive ndact thanhavea father, mother,andchildren oingabout heirbusinessn thefamilyhomestead.

Differentnesswithin the family is coveredup by including, as alreadynoted,otherkin and neighbors.In an extendedfamily, solatingand potentiallydemoral-izing individualdifferencesaresubmergedundergroupor generationaldifferences;moreover,eachgenerationcan be assigneda role,as can eachsex,and the different


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roles can then be arranged to serve the common good. Another advantage to exten-sion is the simple fact that the enlarged community has greater power. In moderntimes, however, Western society has become peaceful, orderly, and efficient enoughthat the families in it no longer have to be extended to survive or prosper. A familycan be just parents and offspring. At the same time, the individuality-the uniqueneeds and aspirations-of its members can be recognized, for cohesion no longermeans one collective body but a loosely structured web of assistance and apprecia-tion. Yet an uneasiness remains, as not only physical and material demands for co-hesion but also rituals that enforce it, including even the practice of regularly diningtogether, disappear. Society's elders have bemoaned this weakening of the familybond, forgetting that it is a consequence of strength and forgetting also that a newkind of bond may be forged on the basis of recognizing one another as special per-sons, who, like works of art, need their own space to be seen properly and who, asthinking beings, need sheltered places in which to grow.

SUPPRESSION OF DIFFERENCE IN THE COMMUNITYThe extended family is the prototype of all communities. In all communities, prac-tices used to maintain cohesion and identity are similar and are part of the need toconfront nature and cope with human competitors and enemies. Farming is thecommunal activity that confronts nature, forcing it to yield food. Side by side andwith the synchronicity of a machine, farmers prepare fields, build irrigation ditches,plant, weed, and harvest. The work is close to nature and can seem natural. Con-flicts that arise from personal differences are submerged in the demands of finelytuned physical coordination. Such, I surmise, is the farmers' experience. But howdo they and their laboring in the field look to an outsider? Let me answer with ananecdote that, in the 1970s, enjoyed a certain cachet among students of crowdingand overcrowding. When Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, Dutchmen, tired ofbusiness hassles and other daily irritations in their crowded country, sought reliefin a tour of duty, or just sightseeing, in Java,forgetting that its population densityactually exceeded that of the Netherlands. How was this possible? How could theDutch not see the numerous villages and the farmers working everywhere? Theycould see them, of course, but, for the Dutch, Javanesefarmers did not signify crowd-ing and conflict; rather, they signified nature-benign nature. Just as a forest full oftrees, one much like the other, soothes rather than frazzles the nerves of a city dweller,so an Indonesian countryside full of working peasants, one much like the other,soothed rather than frazzled the nerves of the Dutch cosmopolites (Esser 1971).

Politics divides people into "we" and "they, "us" and "them." Fundamental topolitical action is the strengthening of the "we" so that it can stand up to the "they,"to the Other. An all-important Other is nature. As important are the social Othersor groups. To position oneself advantageously with respect to the social Other, agroup needs strength not only in numbers but also in cohesion. Using the pro-nouns "we" and "us"frequently in verbal exchange is perhaps the most efficientway of ensuring cohesion. Another widely used technique is the drawing of bound-


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aries.Fencesandwalls,evenconceptual ines,havethe effectof promotingdifferencebetweengroupsand samenesswithin a group.A third,more specialized echnique,is the use of animal totems. In the GreatLakesregion of North America,for ex-ample,nativepeoples,much alike n appearance ndculture,have chosento sharpentheirdifferenceby seeingthemselvesasbelongingto eitherthe Fish Clanor the BearClan.There is no confusingthe Fishand the Bear:Membersof one clan aresaid togo baldearly;membersof the other are said to be unusuallyhirsute.

Groupdifference,nurturedthrough this and other culturalmeans, even as itstrengthenscommonality within the group, encouragescommunication and ex-changeamong groups,thanks to the perceptionthat otherpeople aredifferentandmay have things that areworth acquiring.Trade, or mutual benefit, is the result.However,communication and exchangecan also lead to feelingsof cultural rrita-tion and economic grievance, o open hostility and war (L&vi-Strauss966).In hostility and war,differences n food, ritual,and speechbetween groupsareexaggerated, o they are seen no longer as mere variations between species-Fishand Bear,Badgerand Gopher-that stand more or less on a par but, rather,as anunbridgeablechasm between humans and subhumans,the morally superiorandthe morally nferior.Ashostilitymounts againstoutsiders,whatever ncompatibili-ties andconflicts exist within the groupfade:Communalfeelingsrise;all areunitedagainstthe common enemy.The"I," s neverbefore,is absorbed nto the "we"andfeels wonderfullypowerfulin consequence.Soldiers,above all, are united as one;theybecome so by wearingthe uniform,marching n lockstep,and instantlyobey-ing an officer'scommands.In their oneness-in the subjugationof all inwardnessand individualitythat may bring about miscues and miscommunication-the lifeof soldiersapproximates he communal idealknown to lower social animals; and,in the rigid hierarchicalrelationshipof officers and men-force asserted and ac-ceptedwithout questioning-one might even say that it approximates he perfec-tion of atoms and molecules.

SOCIETY AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPSTo this point I have used the words "community"and "group" nterchangeably.The wordsdiffer,however, n emotional tone-the one warm andparticularistic,heother cool and abstract.Another difference s that,whereasa groupcan be anysize,a community usuallyevokes something small, made up of people living in closephysical proximity,as in a neighborhood, village, or town. Community becomessocietywhen it hasgrown largeandcomplex.The differencebetween the two is notjust size. Forexample,even though community deemphasizes he individual,per-sonalrelationshipsaresaidto be warm.Bycontrast,eventhough societypromotesindividualismand argues hateveryindividual is significantlydifferent rom otherindividuals and hence worth paying some attention to, personalrelationshipsaresaidto be cool and superficial.

Why?For an answer,we need to look more closelyat the nature of human rela-tionships.Warmth n a communitylies in sustained care and concern for one's fel-


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lows.A fellow is recognizedand attendedto, however,not for his or her unique selfin all its depth and mysterybut as someone in the community with a recognizedposition and role. Elaboratelydifferentiatedas these positions and roles can be-parent,headman, medicine woman, hunter, weaver,and so on-they do not re-motely define an individual'suniqueness.Understandably, ommunities considertheir membersreplaceable-a fact made evident with cruel bluntnessin the Book ofJob,whereinGod,havingcaused the death of Job'schildren,promisedhim anotherbatch,asthoughhumanbeingswere ustlivestock,no more individuated hansheepand cattle.

Now considersociety.It is deemed cool and impersonal.Butthese traitsdo notnecessarily mply indifference, orthey maywell be the most efficientmeans of ex-tendingcivilityandhelpfulness o largenumbersof people,most of whom arestrang-ers.Moreover,althoughcool relationshipsmay be the dominant mode in society,they do not displaceother modes. Society,for example, permits and even encour-ages friendship.By friendship,I do not mean camaraderie, he warm feeling onehas toward one's fellowworkers,but the exchangeandjoint construction of innerand outer worlds betweenequals.Such an undertaking,which presupposes he ex-istence of private space,is far more likelyto occur in what I have called"society"than in a "community."Let me enliven these abstractionswith a personalanecdote.I was in London'sUnderground,changingtrains to go to a friend'shome andstaywith him overnightbeforecatchinga plane back to the United States the next day.I carried two suit-casesup a steeply sloping escalator.A man accidentallygaveme a little push as hepassedby. I fellbackwardand knockedmy head againstthe sharpedge of a risingstep.The escalatorwas promptlystopped.Blood oozed from the back of my head.An Undergroundofficial rushedup with a first-aidkit. He put his arm aroundmyshoulder and said that an ambulance had been called and would be there in tenminutes. In what seemed to me less than that time, medical assistants arrived tohelp me into a waitingvehicle,which started ts sirens and racedthroughLondon'sstreets o the emergencyroom of a city hospital.There,doctors and nurses dancedto my attendance.Aftervariousprobingsand tests,they concluded that my injurywas minor and releasedme. Iwent into the waitingroom and tried to telephonemyfriend.Stillin a daze,I could not make the public telephonework.I neededhelpbutwas not able to catch anyone'sattention.A nurse came towardme. She who hadpersonified olicitousness nlyfiveminutesearlier ookedright hroughme asthoughIwere a ghost. Eventually succeeded n puttingthe callthrough. Myfriend came tothe hospital, pickedme up, and drove me to his home. That evening,we sat at hisdinnertable and talked.

This London incident is a small example of how civil society works, how hu-mane and efficient it can be. A foreigner-me-who had not contributed to it in anyway was given immediate help. But the help stopped the moment society discov-ered that I was in no mortal danger. That is why society can seem cool and imper-sonal. I may not have had a concussion, but I still needed assistance of a more


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mundane kind, and I would have appreciated okens of lingering sympathy.In asmalltraditionalcommunity, f I wereinjured he medicaltreatmentgivenme mightnot be the best, but someone I knew would be at my elbow muttering soothingwordsand,later,would offerme chickensoup.Thatis why a community can seempersonaland warm.But soothing words and chickensoup go only so far.Havingjust had an experiencethat showed my life hanging on a thread and concludingdarkly hateveryhuman life suffered he samedegreeof contingency,I wantedverymuch to talkwith someone. I needed a friend,not just efficientmedicalpersonnelor even a kindlyneighbor-and a friend London was also able to provide.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

I return now to the heart of the problem-my problem, true, but is it not alsoeverybody'sproblem?Here I am-Everyman-in all my uniqueness,with "takes"on the worldthat are not replicatedanywhere.A deepercut in my headwould haveended those takesfor alltime. How is it that,althoughI still walk the earth,Ihavesofewopportunitiesto tell anotherhumanbeingwhat I see andknow,whatmy deep-est sourceof anxietyand greatestmoments of happinessare?Is it just my lack ofwords, or is it, at a deeperlevel, the feebleness of human speech itself?Is it inat-tentiveness,the low capacityto listen?Both, it would seem, for the abilityto speakandthe abilityto listen arecloselyrelatedpartsof the samedevelopmentalbiologi-calprocess.Ifwe humanbeingsdo badlyatgivingarticulate orm to experienceandknowledge,otheranimalsdo worse-so muchworsethatthey can be said,properly,not to havetrue language.Animals utterrather han speak:One utteranceprovokesanother,or a physicalaction.Interveningsilence is minimal (Bronowskiand Bellugi1970).Whatneed istherefor a longerpausewhen the utterance s a command,a threat,awarning,or aplea and not a storywith a point, not a picture or a worldview,that takestime todigest,understand,and perhapseven check for truthfulness?However,more oftenthan we arewilling to admit,human speech,too, seldom goes much beyond reas-suringor threateningnoises. Evenreal sentences can be so routine ("Havea goodday")or directedto such narrowpracticalends ("Pass he salt,""Closethe door")that they,like animalnoises, serveonly to lodge or dislodge a relationshipand fa-cilitatethe dailytasksof life.As forthe stories we areso fond of telling,becausethese at leasttryto offernewangleson the world, they may show up differencesamong ourselvesthat can be athreat to our cohesion. In fact they seldom do, thanks to the conventionalityoflanguage,the small changes rung repeatedlyon just a few stale images and ideas.Even the frequentand assertiveuse of the pronoun "I" n modern social chitchatdoes not seriouslyundermine a sense of"we."Language does, of course, have the power to innovate; it can conjure up entire

worlds, some more, some less in conformity with the real;it can expose-and throughexposure fire up-emotions and feelings that are deeply disturbing. Is it any won-der, then, that linguistic creativity is more often discouraged than encouraged? Conm-


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munity has a clear stake in dampening it, and so does the individualwho feels aneed to belong.And who doesn't?Thedevelopmentof language n children s illus-trativeof this need to conform at the expense of playful inventiveness.Childrenbeginwith babbling.Bythe time they startto experimentwith real words andsen-tences, their parentsare amazed at their creativity:Wordsare used in surprisingways,sentences come loaded with unexpected metaphors,and fantastictales aretold. Children are self-absorbed,as creativepeople often are, and show off theirdistinctiveworldview, heiruniqueness,with hardlyanyconsiderationas to whethertheir fellows understand hem. Aroundage seven, however,flightsof linguistic in-novationcome to astop-or rather,movemuch closerto theground.Whatground?The socialground. Childrenwant to belong to their group, to speak the group'scommon language, and that means using fewer words and expressions,which,throughconstantuse, turn into the argotof the tribe.The imperativeto belong thus trumpsindividual fulfillment.That is the storyof community,one which is repeated again and again even in modern, well-runcountries.Althoughcommunityis no longeressential o the survivalof fragile ndi-viduals,it continues to exist,and where it does not, or is weak,socialworkersandpoliticalleadersurgethat it be formed or strengthened. ts advantagescontinue tobe obvious. One is political. Not only must low-level workers,ethnic minorities,andothermarginalizedpeople submerge heirindividuality n the groupforpoliti-caleffectiveness, heprivilegedof societymust,aswell:Theytoo seek thepower, headditionalpower, hatgoeswith belongingto anexclusiveclubor residentialneigh-borhood.Anotheradvantageof community is thateveryone,sociallyprivilegedornot,wantsthe reassurance f sustainedrelationships uch that one is not only caredfor in an emergencybut can count on receivingsolace and chickensoup from one'sfamiliarseven in unexceptionaltimes.

PERFECT ONE-TO-ONE EXCHANGEIn contrastto community,favored ndividuals n largeand flourishingsocieties arefreeto be themselvesand developtheir talentsto the fullest. Even when they speakfrom the depth of theirbeing, lacingwhat they saywith detailedand perhapsspe-cializedknowledge, they can expect to find a few sympatheticlisteners, if not intheirneighborhood,then in the largersociety.Nevertheless,how rarekindredspir-its are!ConsiderBertrandRussell.Helivedamong England'sntellectuals, orwhomprobingtalkis second nature;yet he achievedfull and intimateexchangewith an-other person-it would seem-only once. Thatperson was JosephConrad. Russellsaid,"Atour veryfirstmeeting,we talkedwith continuallyincreasing ntimacy.Weseemed to sink through layerafter ayerof what was superficial, ill graduallybothreached the central fire. It was an experience unlike any other that I have known. Welooked into each other'seyes half appalledand half intoxicatedto find ourselvestogether in such a region" (Russell 1967, 209).

Russell and Conrad were unified rather than separated as they dived beneathlayers of convention, thanks to their intellectual openness, their verbal expressive-


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ness,theirwillingnessto listen,theirpatiencewith each other that is a form of loveand generosity.Most of us lack one or more of these crucialqualities,makingtrueconversationdifficult f not impossible.Russell did not saywhat they talked about.Itcould not havebeen mathematicalogic, his specialty,or the artof writingnovels,Conrad's pecialty. t probablywas built on personalexperience.If so, the personalexperiencecould not be justbare-bone accounts of their aches andpains,joys andsorrows.These hadto be placedin the context of humanity,for only so, only whenspeechwedded the particularwith the universal,could it deepenthe bond betweenthe two friends and, at the same time, expand their respectivespheresof under-standing.I am led to ask:Can communication of this orderoccur between morethantwo persons?Is a couple a community?Will the community of ideal commu-nication be largeronly if the external world is consideredand if the language istechnical and precise-say, mathematics?

SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE AND COMMUNITYTheEnglishmanG.H. Hardyand the Hindu S.Ramanujanwere both shyand un-worldly.Otherwise,they had little in common except a passion for mathematics.Ramanujanwent to Cambridge,England,to study with Hardy.The two quicklybecameclose friends.The followingstory,told by C. P.Snowamongothers,is illus-trativeof theirfriendshipandof the sortof exchange heylikedto have.Ramanujanwas sick and hospitalized n Putney,London.Hardywent to visit him in a taxicab.Awkwardas alwaysat introducinga conversation,Hardy probablydispensedwithgreetingand went straightto the remark:"Thenumberof my taxicab was 1729. Itseemedto be rathera dull number."Towhich Ramanujanreplied:"No,Hardy!No,Hardy!It is a very interestingnumber.It is the smallestnumber expressibleas thesum of two cubes in two differentways" Snow 1967,44).Mathematiciansspeaka specialized anguageand constitute a community.Aswith all specialized anguages,mathematics unites and excludes.But mathemati-cians welcome new members.Inthis respect, heydifferfromquasi-secretgroups-pastandpresent,religiousand secular-that embracecertainmannerismsof speechandjargonto excludethe uninitiated and heighten the contrast between "us"and"them."Generally peaking, anguages,whether naturalor contrived, hathaveonlya small number of speakersarea conservativeforce.Mathematics s an exception,foralthoughit hasonly a smallnumber of speakers, t does changeand is a force forchange.Far from conserving, t opens up the world.

Scientists, ikemathematicians,have differentsortsof trainingandbackground,even differenttemperaments,yet they communicatewell with one another in themeasure that they focus on the externalworld and speak a languagewith math-ematicsat its core.Scientistsand mathematicians orm,as we say,communities.Butin view of the desireof scientist-mathematicians o constantly purify and expandtheir anguage; n view,furthermore,of theirreadiness o acceptnew memberswithonlytalent andcompetenceasqualifications; nd in view,ultimately,of their essen-tiallynoneconomic, nonpoliticalnature,it is more accurate o call them societies.


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COMMUNICATING INNER WORLDS: POETRY AND MUSICNow, what if the world explored were internal rather than external, the subjectiveworld of our experiencing rather than that which lies out there? Will the findings, intheir nature specific and perhaps idiosyncratic, be communicable? Artistic commu-nicability is not an issue in premodern communities. Their attention is given to grouprather than individual experience, and group experience finds group expression inchants, songs, marches, or dances. Society also encourages group expression. In addi-tion, it honors the individual voice. But who and how many will listen? One? A few?That may be enough: Important is the quality of the listening rather than the numberof listeners. Poets and musicians have been known to say that they labor with oneideal reader or listener in mind. That one person-or, more optimistically, handfulof persons-stands, however, for humankind. "From the heart-may it reach otherhearts" wrote Beethoven on the top of the page of the score for the Missa Solemnis.Even though he must have known that only the musically sophisticated could ap-preciate that complex work, his inspiration and drive to create required faith in thepotential ability of this and other compositions to reach every receptive humanbeing, if not now then later,a faith that is partially justified by Beethoven's immensepopularity, some 150years after his death, in all the major cities of North America,Europe, China, and Japan (Zuckerkandl 1976).

Beethoven's voice is distinctively his, yet universal, of its time and for all time.That is how great artworks impress us (De Bolla 2001). We also see them as perma-nent elevations of the human spirit, reminders of what humankind, through itsmost talented members, can achieve. But if so, I want to ask, Is the ability to expressone's unique self available only to the talented? What do most of us, who are notespecially talented, do with our uniqueness? What can we do besides daydreaming,soliloquy, and repression? And a final, related question is, What has happened tothe idea, so easily accepted in our egalitarian age, that the ideal communication isone that takes place between equals?

VOICE AND ITS LISTENERS: AN ASYMMETRICAL RELATIONSHIPSpeaking to each other as equals is actually a commonplace of life in all communi-ties and societies, and it is valued because it enacts the social ideal of reciprocity: mycup of sugar for your cup of vinegar, my facts for your facts, my idea for your idea.Communication of this kind does not plumb the depths, as Russell and Conradmanaged to do. Its satisfaction lies in sociability, in the opportunity to have one'ssay in the presence of others. But gifted individuals are not interested in just havingtheir say.They trulyhavesomething to offer,something worth saying.We the lessgifted are unable to reciprocate in kind. Our relationship with them is thus asym-metrical, unequal. But this does not mean we cannot reciprocate. We can, and in animportant way-by listening, by attending. For without an awareness (or just theblind faith) that someone out there does listen, does attend, the gifted will find itdifficult to sustain their creativity.


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MY UNIQUENESS AND YOURS-ARTICULATEDWecan be the heartsBeethovenwished to reach, he admirersof mathematicsthatothershave nvented.Inmakingan effortto understandandappreciate, urunique-ness is freed from being a brute fact, an innate qualitylittle capableof growth,tobecome a quality capableof evolving, capableof being made public and tangible,thanks to the achievementsof our fellows. So how am I unique?How am I an irre-placeable ndividual? can now answerwith some precision.I am a man who iden-tifieswithBeethoven'symphonies,Mozart'spianosonatas,certainarias romPekingopera,Tolstoy'sDeathoflvanIlych, heaphorismsof SimoneWeil,StevenUnderhill'sphotographs, he movie A.L:Artificial ntelligence,my Doty Schoolcondominium,kungbaochickenand pan-friedpot stickers.The desertlandscape,too, is me. Thedesert s naturerather hanculture,yet I can no longerseparateone fromthe other,my love of nature'sausteresimplicity from my admiration for the nomadic idealand Lawrenceof Arabia.

The uniquenessI claim for myself is no empty boast. It is difficult to imaginesomeone else with the same list of loves. What is true of me is also true of others.Everyonehas his or her list. When an individualdies, a whole way of feeling andthinking,a whole wayof appreciatingnatureand culture,a whole wayof worship-ing God is removed from the universe.Societyvaluesa human individualas it val-ues ananimalspecies, or itsunique, nonreplicablewayof being.Thelate-twentieth-centurynotion thatindividualism s selfishness s thus wide of the mark,promotedby society'sarchideologicalrival:community.I think to myself,What if I had been born in a traditionalChinesecommunityandneverleft it?Iwould not thenbeplaguedby a sense of separateness, or Iwouldhave sharedmy liking for kung bao chicken and pot stickers with my neighbors,and I would have participated n the new moon festival and other socioreligiouscelebrationswith them. WhateverdifferentnessI felt I would have suppressedforfear of ostracismand, more generally,of being isolated from others.In a modernsociety,by contrast,even as I continue to enjoy the food tastes and lores of mykinfolkandneighbors,Iwill also be me in my singular ist of affinities.Any particu-laraffinity hat I have-say, for Mozart'sB-flatsonata-will find me in communionwith many other lovers of the same music. But that combination of Mozart,potstickers,and desert is not likelyto be shared.It is an"I" hat standsalone-as we all,ultimately,stand alone. The existence of this isolated and thereforevulnerable"I"has alwaysbeen a source of anxietyto thoughtfulmen and women in the modernWest;hence theirperiodicembracementof Easternreligionsthat offeroblivion inoceanic oneness. But oceanic oneness is not the West'sJudeo-Christian radition,which pictures,to the contrary,God as creatingby differentiation,by sharpeningratherthan softening, making things that have become more and more individuated,moving through the eons of time from the uniformities and simplicities of mineralmatter to the complexities of the organic, from plants to animals, from animals tohuman beings who, as the story goes, are God's and our own unique works of art.


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REFERENCESBronowski, J.,and U. Bellugi. 1970. Language, Name, and Concept. Science 168 (3932): 669-673.De Bolla,P. 2001. Art Matters.Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress.Esser,A. H., ed. 1971.Behaviorand Environment:The Useof SpacebyAnimals and Men. New York:Plenum Press.Levi-Strauss,. 1966.TheSavageMind.Chicago: niversityf Chicago ress.Lowe,V. 1990o.Alfred orthWhitehead:heManandHisWork,ol.2.Baltimore,Md.:JohnsHopkinsUniversity ress.Russell, . 1967.Autobiography,ol. 1.NewYork: imonandSchuster.Shorter, . 1977.TheMaking ftheModern amily.NewYork: asicBooks.Snow,C. P. 1967.Variety fMen.NewYork:Charles cribner'sons.Williams, . 1976.Keywords:VocabularyfCulturendSociety. ewYork:OxfordUniversityress.Williams,R.J. 1967.YouAreExtraordinary.ewYork: andomHouse.. 1978.Nutritionalndividuality.umanNature (6): 46-53.Zuckerkandl,. 1976.Man heMusician:ound ndSymbol,ol.2.TranslatedyN. Guterman.rince-ton,N.J.:PrincetonUniversityress.

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