In 1973, responding to a NYR essay/review about a posthumous prose work on addiction by the poet John Berryman, a notable suicide, Joyce Carol Oates picks up on the idea of Original Sin, on the “tragic view of life.” Here’s her response:

>>>In response to:
Last Testament from the August 9, 1973 issue

To the Editors:

In John Thompson’s excellent review-essay on Berryman [“Last Testament,” NYR, August 9] a number of important questions are brought up, at least one of which is quite explicit: “Do these artists [the “extremist” poets, like Berryman and Plath] bring absolution to us?”

Why do some people, and presumably very well-educated and intellectually superior people, imagine that they require “absolution”? What is “absolution”? From what must we be absolved? Were the writers and poets and psychologists of the nineteenth century—Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau among many others—deluded in thinking that the deathly and ignorant “Christianity” of the New England Puritans had about run its course?

For many years I have been baffled at the contradictory assumptions, most of them unconscious, that seem to be operating in the minds of many of my contemporaries, especially those who (like NYR people) would seem to be most “liberated” in every way from the burdensome and tedious and psychologically indefensible beliefs of one small, unrepresentative group of Christians. Though my contemporaries are generally not “religious” in any conventional sense of the word, they seem to equate the fact of human existence itself with something wrong, sinful, embarrassing, awkward—requiring absolution, from not “God,” but someone or something else. Also, there is a quite explicit assumption (I know all too well, from personal experience) that Art must be produced only at the cost of great Suffering; that it must never be enjoyable, natural, spontaneous; that the “tragic view of life” is incontestably the only view for intellectual” (to the extent to which one worried critic, whose name I won’t mention, wrote of the “strange” rejection by Indian literary scholars and critics of this “tragic view” as it was argued by Westerners at a scholarly convention in India some years ago—they strenuously resisted this missionary attempt, for some unknown reason); that Virginia Woolf’s statement concerning the artist’s necessary “anguish” is taken as a sane, reasonable remark, rather than the personal, limited, and in my opinion totally irrational remark that it is.

In a scolding review in the New York Times Book Review recently, the professor-critic spoke of his subject (John Gardner) as an “over-achiever.” Presumably, from the spiteful point of view of the “underachiever,” anyone who seems reasonably sane, reasonably happy, unburdened by a priori assumptions of Original Sin, and more or less happily involved in writing—in contrast to concocting imaginary “musts”—is an “over-achiever” and must be punished. When Virginia Woolf said she liked it that Tolstoy had to labor so much in the writing of War and Peace, she was speaking for all puritans—whether they imagine themselves completely secularized or not—and what she says is absurd. One may as well say that he “likes it that” Berryman did suffer, in order to have created some good poetry. The Puritan is a sadist.

Mr. Thompson might have suggested, in his sympathetic analysis of an evidently unsuccessful novel, Recovery, that neurosis is not the stimulus for art, but a handicap that prevents the gifted artist from creating the kind of art he knows himself capable of. The neurotic writes only about himself because he can think only about himself; once freed, he can write about anything. But if he is freed only into an intellectual atmosphere of Puritanism, itself neurotic, he will find it very difficult to escape the larger neuroses of the times.<<<

Joyce Carol Oates

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/10/04/smile/


The writer of the article, John Thompson, replies:

>>>Absolution is remission of sin. The notion was not invented by the Christians, nor is it maintained solely by them, though their myth of the origins of its necessity (borrowed from the Jews) and their ritual for obtaining it are particularly dramatic. This perhaps accounts for the irritating persistence of their sect. But others, including the Australian aborigines, feel the need too. I myself, for instance, am a devotee of St. Freud, and his gospel tells us that human society originated in an act of murder for which we still seek absolution by carrying on all those things we call “culture”—among them, so I believe in my own private heresy, our use of that most distinctive of human faculties, language. Miss Oates could find some of her questions considered in my article “The End of Culture,” Commentary, December, 1969. As for our “extreme” poets, there are recurrent outbreaks of such enthusiasts of suffering, like the penitentes. I don’t know why.<<<



Sin, guilt, absolution: many here believe this cycle was imposed upon them and is imposed upon society. Is it? Or, as even Joyce Carol Oates admits at the beginning of her thoughts, is this cycle part & parcel with our being, too deeply rooted in our unconscious?

Originally I sinned but since I absolutely forgave myself I am OK

> Sin, guilt, absolution: many here
> believe this cycle was imposed
> upon them and is imposed upon
> society. Is it? Or, as even Joyce
> Carol Oates admits at the beginning
> of her thoughts, is this cycle part
> & parcel with our being, too deeply
> rooted in our unconscious?

I was going to type from the frothy stuff that was bubbling in my brain as I was reading the very fine OP, but when I visited Google to do a bit of refining, I stumbled across the following, which pretty much says what I wanted to say, but likely in a much more ordered fashion.

But first... Nowhere in the OP does the word 'moral' appear, nor any words of which 'moral' is a root. But the grotesque view offered by Virginia Woolf, i.e., "artists must suffer in the production of their art" is referenced, and to me, that sentiment is based on feelings that connect with or may reflect back to 'morality'.


From an article on the Merriam-Webster website:

"'Moral' derives from the Latin word meaning 'custom' that also gave English 'mores', which refers to customs, values, and behaviors that are accepted by a particular group.

"As an adjective, moral describes people or things that follow accepted customs or behavior.  For example, a person's moral obligation is to do what is right, and a moral lesson is one that teaches what is right.  As a noun, moral refers to a lesson learned from a story or an experience ('the moral of the story is to be satisfied with what you have'); plural morals denotes the proper ideas and beliefs about how to act or behave, as in 'a person with no morals' or 'the company's actions demonstrate a lack of morals.'

"Common offshoots of righteous moral are unmoral, immoral, nonmoral, and amoral, and they are not innocent; in fact, they are mischievous.  A couple of them have specific meanings that not everyone is aware of, which cause misuse of the words, and a couple are sometimes confused with each other.

Consider this article a lesson on the meaning and usage of these four words that are similar but not the same.


  'Unmoral' Meaning:

"Unmoral is the first of the gang to be recorded in English writing, in the early 17th century. Having the prefix 'un'-, meaning 'not,' the word denotes 'having no moral perception or quality' (e.g., 'the unmoral, critter-killing feline) or 'not influenced or guided by moral considerations' ('unmoral, greedy corporations').

"Unmoral can also mean 'lying outside the bounds of morals or ethics,' and in this sense, it is synonymous with amoral.  All in all, the question of morality is irrelevant to that which is called 'unmoral,' so the adjective is the right choice when describing nonhuman or inanimate things incapable of understanding right and wrong.  But by extension, unmoral is also used for people who seem deprived of human moral perception.

"'Many young people today are unmoral rather than immoral,' Judge Leahy explained 72 years ago.  'Because they have been reared in homes with such low standards of marriage and family behavior, they actually don’t know right from wrong.'
— Gary Brown, The Repository (Canton, Ohio), 9 July 2018

  'Immoral' Meaning

"The negative prefix 'im'- connects with moral soon after the formation of unmoral.  Immoral describes a person or behavior that conscientiously goes against accepted morals—that is, the proper ideas and beliefs about how to behave in a way that is considered right and good by the majority of people.  Immoral connotes the intent of evilness or wrongdoing, and it is a true antonym of moral.

  'Nonmoral' Meaning

"Decades, centuries, go by before moral is linked to another negative prefix, non- (in the 19th century).  Nonmoral has the specific meaning of 'not falling into or existing in the sphere of morals or ethics.'  Thus, a nonmoral act or action is not subject to moral judgment because morality is not taken into consideration.  Spilling milk is a nonmoral act, and although you might be judged by the clothes you wear, your decision to wear them is nonmoral.

"So in another part of the survey, we asked about basic cognitive faculties, like executing voluntary movements and object recognition…; about nonmoral personality change, like extroversion, sense of humor, creativity, and intelligence….
— Nina Strohminger and Shaun Nichols, The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2015

"With recent changes in policy and changes about the way American adults are reporting how they think about marijuana—as less judgmental, as a nonmoral issue—we were curious about what's happening with youths," said Chris Salas-Wright, a UT social work professor and the report's lead author.
— The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, 25 Sep. 2018

  'Amoral' Meaning

"Amoral appears in the late 1800s. The prefix 'a'- means 'not' or 'without,' as in atypical or asymptomatic.  The dictionary definition of amoral is 'having or showing no concern about whether behavior is morally right or wrong'—compendiously, 'without morals.'

"For example, an infant, unlearned in what is right and wrong, is amoral; someone who lacks the mental ability to understand right or wrong due to illness might be described as amoral.  These are illustrative examples, however; amoral can be used to describe any person, or his or her actions, who is aware of what is right and wrong but does wrong anyway and responds indifferently about it.

… if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon, and one thing in the evening, all contradictory and he would pass the lie detector each time. Whatever lie he is telling at that minute, he believes it. But the man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him.
— Ted Cruz, quoted in The Examiner (Washington, DC), 3 May 2016

"As noted earlier, the spirit of modern capitalism shares with the historical forms of capitalism … an alternative conception that favors pursuit of as much wealth as can be attained.  Importantly, however, the spirit of modern capitalism differs from what we might call this "profiteering" ethos of amoral opportunism….
— Solomon Stein and Virgil Henry Storr, The Independent Review, Spring 2020

"Additionally, amoral means 'being neither moral nor immoral,' or specifically 'lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply.'

"It's almost a truism, art is amoral.  Art doesn't care about morality.  Art may have to deal with morality, but art in its own marshaling of the materials given to it is only looking for art.  It's looking how to make an effect, an impact."
— Henry Bean, NPR, 27 Sept. 2001


  Summarizing the Difference:

"The moral of this article is:

'unmoral' is reserved for things (and sometimes people) incapable of understanding right and wrong.

'Immoral' describes people who can differentiate between right and wrong but intentionally do wrong anyway.

'Nonmoral' is used when morality is clearly not an issue, and

'Amoral' implies acknowledgment of what is right and what is wrong but an unconcern for morality when carrying out an act."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/using-unmoral-immoral-nonmoral-amoral#:~:text=Unmoral%20refers%20to%20those%20having%20no%20moral%20perception.&text=Immoral%20refers%20to%20a%20conscientious,as%20which%20shirt%20to%20wear.



When I read the OP, I kept looking for one or more of the 'moral' words, but they never showed up. Instead, there were "guilt, sin, absolution", which I perceive to be components of the compost heap from which our views on morality grow, i.e., you have to have morality in order to point at guilt, sin & absolution.

Now, as an aside, an important structure within our humanness is our respect for outcomes.  At one end of the outcome spectrum, we have "touch a flame and get burnt".  As to what is at the other end of this spectrum, I'd love to hear nominations.

My point being that as Reasoning Beings, we always want to know the "If/then" consequences our actions:  If I tease Gladys Lot, then she will ______ ______ vs. If I tease The Cat, he will _____ _____. The blanks will be filled in with vastly different wordings/outcomes, and I know this.

People are discomfited when their "if/then" equations don't work out.  The consequences are all over the map: mundane, hilarious, deadly, etc.


So anyway, I don't believe in Original Sin.  I believe in sin, because there are often (but not always) consequences. People may point to Original Sin and connect it with consequences, but they are either blind and/or stupid.

Sin and Absolution . . .  The mind boggles at the consequences of these two words!  Pretty much inescapable consequences As the World Turns, and we live The Days of Our Lives, here on our General Hospital Earth.



                  <phew!> Thanks! I feel better!

> So anyway, I don't believe in Original Sin.  I
> believe in sin, because there are often (but not
> always) consequences. People may point to
> Original Sin and connect it with consequences, but
> they are either blind and/or stupid.



There’s no doubt that I am inconceivably blind, for my ignorance is boundless, and I’m fairly stupid to boot. I’ll prove it by venturing further.

As fond as I am of Rousseau, I’m no Rousseauian. I think original sin exists, by which I mean I think error is bred in the bone. What is this error that comes part & parcel with our being? Something like this:

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

—W.H. Auden—
—September 1st, 1939–

If that’s true, think of the consequences!


But Thompson, in his reply to Oates, appeals to the gospel of St. Freud rather than to poetry. Now, there’s a lot of poetry in the idea that the “superego” develops as a hedge against mother-incest, patricide, and the fear of castration, for that’s where he got the ideas from.

But Jung is better here, and not just because his term “moral complex” is better than “superego” for roughly the same thing. Jung describes our primal fear as a fear of being found unacceptable by our mothers. We fear that some part of our self will be found “bad” and consequently Mother will reject us, abandon us. This is the source of our guilty feelings and our desire to be absolved of them.

Anyway, blind and stupid as I undoubtably am, I find Joyce Carol Oates’s “Smile” too facile to be true, a product perhaps of a reasonably happy childhood. (I believe she is an atheist raised as a catholic, but I might easily be wrong.)

Thanks for the thoughts, EOD.



I’m gonna tag on a relevant bit from Jung, solely because I have it digitally. I use it to illustrate a subtle difference between Freud and Jung.


(An 11-year old girl’s wolf dream is the context below)

>>>The problem of sex, which nature connects with positive feelings of pleasure, appears in the wolf dream in the form of fear, apparently on account of the bad father, who stands for moral education. The dream was therefore the first impressive manifestation of the sexual problem, obviously stimulated by the recent birth of a younger brother, when as we know all these questions become aired. But because the sexual problem was connected at all points with the history of certain pleasurable physical sensations which education devalues as “bad habits,” it could apparently manifest itself only in the guise of moral guilt and fear.

This explanation, plausible though it is, seems to me superficial and inadequate. We then attribute the whole difficulty to moral education, on the unproven assumption that education can cause a neurosis. This is to disregard the fact that even people with no trace of moral education become neurotic and suffer from morbid fears. Furthermore, moral law is not just an evil that has to be resisted, but a necessity born from the innermost needs of man. Moral law is nothing other than an outward manifestation of man’s innate urge to dominate and control himself. This impulse to domestication and civilization is lost in the dim, unfathomable depths of man’s evolutionary history and can never be conceived as the consequence of laws imposed from without. Man himself, obeying his instincts, created his laws. We shall never understand the reasons for the fear and suppression of the sexual problem in a child if we take into account only the moral influences of education. The real reasons lie much deeper, in human nature itself, perhaps in that tragic conflict between nature and culture, or between individual consciousness and collective feeling.<<<

—C.G. Jung—
—Freud & Psychoanalysis—

I want to make clear, Sir Human, that I using "Original Sin" in its most basic form, the Fall from Grace of Adam & Eve for having partaken of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

I concede that there is a form of original sin that is brought forth by sentience wherein some people learn to feel guilt for putting themselves first. Yay! for society (parents) in being successful in that regard, because otherwise the boon of 'cooperation' might not have existed, possibly leaving 'man' bereft of fire and the wheel ... and BEER!!!

Growing up, during church meetings I always wondered what I had ever done to make God think I was Rebellious and Proud to the extent that he would need to have his son suffer and die for my moral failings. Yeah, I knew I made mistakes- but there is a vast gulf between that and being as unspeakably depraved as the church told me I was. I never figured it out. Now, of course, I see that is was all gaslighting and victim blaming.

...and convincing you you were “tainted” but that they had the cure, and were the only ones to possess it.

In Roman Catholicism, the religion in which I was raised, original sin was, as previously described, the eating of the apples from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament. In that same religion, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross absolved all future humans from that original sin but not from any sins that we do in our own lives.

For the record, I don't believe in either concept. Both presupposes the existance of an omnipotent Being who will judge all humans on their lifetime behaviors after they die. While this crudely helps to enforce group morality, it misses a very important point about human nature which, I think, that most anthropologists and social psychiatrists have come to appreciate; namely, that human beings, though we look pretty much the same to each other (ignoring skin pigmentation differences and disabilities for the moment), don't believe the same as each other. And it is those separatist beliefs, borne in the cradle of parenting, religion, and (sometimes) education and experiences, that determine how we view and interact with other members of our own species.