The Imperial Self in American LifeStephen J. Whitfield
From Columbia Journal of American Studies Vol. 4, No. 1 2000
Manifestations of the imperial self can be found virtually everywhere on the nation's landscape. In that sense the most authentically American composer was Charles Ives, who had planned a Universe Symphony, to be played by at least two different orchestras on adjoining mountaintops, with assorted choirs chiming in from around the countryside. When a pianist complained of the formidable technical difficulty of an Ives composition, he responded: "Is it the composer's fault that man has only ten fingers!" Ives was a multimillionaire who saw the insurance business in which he had so manifestly succeeded as encouraging self-reliance, enabling the wage-earner to protect one's family. But, with a few exceptions, Ives never lived to hear any of his major works performed. Such obscurity did not lower his own opinion of his pieces, did not deter him from telling his brother that his own music was greater than Mozart's or Wagner's. When chided for immodesty, Ives stubbornly assured his brother: "Ask any good musician--those who don't agree with me are not good musicians." [26] Such an argument is impossible to lose.
The most authentically American architect was Frank Lloyd Wright, who was once called to the witness stand during a court proceeding and asked, of course, to identify himself. He replied that he was the world's greatest architect. When chided afterwards for his immodesty, he replied: "Well, I was under oath, wasn't I?" [27] Three years before his death, Wright proposed an office building for the one hundred thousand officials working for the city of Chicago, for Cook County and for federal employees in Illinois. (Such bureaucrats this extreme individualist characteristically detested.) 528 stories high, with parking space for 15,000 cars as well as a landing pad for 75 helicopters, the edifice would be so grandiose that even the drawing that Wright unveiled was 22 feet high. When his last great work, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was denounced by prominent contemporary artists for its unsuitability in showcasing their canvases, the architect sniffed that, on the contrary, his new museum would inspire them to paint better pictures. [28]
The most authentically American novelist has been Norman Mailer, who wondered, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, "whether ... a great war novel would be written about Europe or the Pacific"; experiencing combat as a rifleman in the Philippines, he knew that such a book would come out of the Pacific. [29] In Sleeper (1973) the citizens of the future ask Myles Monroe (Woody Allen) to identify Mailer, and the reply is: "A famous writer. He donated his ego to the Harvard Medical School." When William F Buckley, Jr., sent Mailer a complimentary copy of one of his books, the conservative polemicist did not inscribe it on the title page or frontispiece, but instead wrote "Hi, there!" next to Mailer's name in the index. Buckley knew that he would look there first.
The most authentically American chess player was Bobby Fischer, who for much of his early life had no permanent address; he usually lived in cheap hotel rooms in which he specified that they should not have a view. His parents had been divorced, and he was not on good terms with his mother. He exhibited so domineering a personality while already in grade school that one school official recalled: "We were able to adjust to him." Dropping out of high school in his junior year, apparently without friends, on his own from the age of sixteen for the sake of his Ahab-like monomania, Fischer showed an intense competitiveness and drive-not merely to win, but to crush his opponents overwhelmingly ("I like to see 'em squirm"). He entered championship tournaments by himself, without seconds, leading a grandmaster to say of him: "Fischer wants to enter history alone." As with Henry Ford, the imperial self in Fischer was oversensitive to threats and alleged threats to his thirst for autonomy and domination. He refused to play in the Soviet Union because of a fear that the Russians were out to "get" him, and was animated by a visceral anti-Communism-undoubtedly related to his religious fundamentalism. But the most striking feature of Fischer's life was undoubtedly his icy and frightening isolation, his choice of solitary confinement. He was apparently hermetically sealed inside the world of his games, of which it was said at his prime that Fischer had not forgotten any of those he played. [30]
Stephen J. Whitfield holds the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization at Brandeis University. He is the author of eight books, including most recently A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (1988), The Culture of the Cold War (1996), and In Search of American Jewish Culture (1999). Professor Whitfield is also the editor of A Companion to 20th-Century America (2004).