The Twelve (4 page)

“Understanding Understanding”

1968

M
AX ATTENDED PHILLIPS ANDOVER ACADEMY FOR HIS SENIOR
year, and he achieved but did not stand out—particularly in terms of his extracurricular activities. Instead he focused on his studies, college applications, and learning about sex and love.

He had little difficulty getting into any college he chose, and after receiving a number of acceptance letters, he decided to attend Yale.

Meanwhile, Max developed a sweet and wordless relationship with fifteen-year-old Lizzie, whom he met at a dance at an exclusive country club in Sleepy Hollow. Max danced with many of the vivacious and brightly dressed young girls that evening, but Lizzie was different. When he asked her what her favorite book was, she said Candy—a rather outrageous, almost pornographic novel that was on bestseller lists at the time.

Max was intrigued that such a young girl would be so bold with him and found himself attracted to her mystical eyes, gentle, feminine body, and alluring smile. Before the evening was done, he decided to pursue her.

She lived within walking distance of Max's home but since he was away at Andover most of the time, their meetings were restricted to school vacations. Nonetheless, the romance bloomed.

They would take long walks or go to Max's bedroom, which was above the garage, boasted a separate entrance, and offered complete privacy.

He considered their relationship “wordless,” because he and Lizzie rarely spoke when they were alone. They would kiss and stare into each other's eyes for up to five hours at a time. But they were both virgins and neither of them was quite ready to explore too quickly the next level of intimacy.

This long-distance courtship lasted Max's entire senior year at Andover. Then the summer before Max went to Yale, the two of them enjoyed a weekend visit to New York City, staying in his father's empty apartment on 18th Street and Irving Place across from Pete's Tavern. That was when Max and Lizzie mutually decided to explore the ultimate physical intimacy of what was already an intense and emotionally charged love.

Once they began making love, they never stopped. The Beatles' song of the day was “Why Don't We Do It in the Road
?
” and, of course, Lizzie and Max did so—there and almost everywhere else.

When Max entered Yale the following September, it became harder to arrange to see Lizzie, but he wrote to her regularly. She wasn't as diligent in her responses, so he was blissfully unaware when it became apparent that she was no longer interested in him.

She was still only sixteen and in high school, and having a college boyfriend made no sense to her. She wrote Max a goodbye letter, which he received on December 12, 1968, his nineteenth birthday.

Max was devastated when he received this letter. He fell into a state of utter despondency.

His depression was exacerbated by the fact that he hadn't taken well to Yale—hadn't enjoyed being in a dorm that bordered College Avenue, with trucks changing gears all night long, waking him up or keeping him from falling asleep altogether. He hadn't enjoyed having a girlfriend who was far away and unavailable. He hadn't enjoyed classes with as many as six hundred students and professors who didn't even know their names.

As a math major, he didn't appreciate going to math classes where his Australian math professor used mathematical notations that were different from the ones he had learned in high school. In a world that was turned upside down by the Vietnam War and the proliferation of recreational drugs among his fellow students and even the professors, he questioned the relevance of being a math major altogether.

His other studies offered little solace. He studied Piaget and learned that according to Piaget's stages of development it was impossible for a young child to hold and examine abstract concepts. This left him baffled, for he could not dismiss the reality of his own childhood visions and experiences.

Then there was the political unrest—the assassination of the Kennedys, Kent State, Abbie Hoffman, and finally the assassination of Martin Luther King. Amid such chaos, his one significant emotional anchor had been removed, and he had no way to cope.

***

That fall Herbert and Jane moved from Scarsdale, New York, to Greenwich, Connecticut, so they were actually closer to Max—only a forty-five-minute drive from Yale.

Consolidation was the buzz word of the day, and Herbert had been courted by Litton Industries, one of the large companies that had decided to incorporate publishing into a broader media business model. Litton began buying up smaller publishers, and Herbert received one offer . . . and then another.

Competing offers followed from other companies. The prices were high. Finally, one of the buyers found a way to break down Herbert's resistance. Perfect Film, an instant photo company, promised to appoint Herbert the head of the publishing division. He would be able to use Perfect Film money to buy other publishing companies.

Herbert had no desire to actually sell his own publishing company, but he very much liked the idea of running a larger organization, so he began to make preparations. These included moving out of New York State and into Connecticut where—in 1968—there was a much lower capital gains tax and no state income tax.

***

Consequently, Max no longer had his room above the garage, or any real base, emotional or otherwise, when he returned “home” for Christmas. Jane was often inebriated or asleep, and because of his focus on the possible sale of his company, Herbert was rarely available to Max either.

Max was forlorn.

It was an unsettling time, and many young men were afraid of being drafted and sent to the constantly deteriorating situation in Vietnam. Since Max's draft number was 321, he wasn't concerned with the military, but he also didn't see much reason to stay at Yale.

“Mom, I really don't see any point to it. The teachers aren't as good as those I studied with at Andover, School Year Abroad, or even Hackley,” he complained. “I mostly just go to three or four films a night at the film societies, and the rest of the time I'm pretty much bored with my classes.”

“Put a little more effort into connecting with your teachers and the other students, and I'm sure you'll have a better experience,” Jane advised. “The important thing is not to give up—your education is too important.”

“I'll stay if it makes you happy,” he conceded, “But it just seems like a waste of time and money.”

“Trust me on this,” she implored. “You'll have more power in your adult life if you see this through and graduate. And believe me, you will want that power.

“So promise me you'll stay and graduate. Please, Max.”

Not wanting to disappoint his mother, he promised.

***

Despite his sense of alienation, however, Max did have friends at school, including Archibald Benson—who had been part of the student group that went to Barcelona—Chris Garvey, and Carl Becker.

At the beginning of the ten-day spring break, Chris and Carl approached Max with the suggestion that he try some of their hash brownies, and he felt there was little to lose.

A huge proportion of students at Yale in 1968 dabbled with drugs. It was part of the college culture, which also embraced the radical changes in music and fashion.

Much to the delight of Chris and Carl, a hungry Max devoured the brownies, though unexpectedly, instead of getting high, he fell into a deep sleep that lasted a full forty-eight hours.

***

Max woke up filled with energy and alive with new ideas. Over the course of the ten-day break, he devoured all of the textbooks required for his five academic courses. He felt no need to sleep and would nap for twenty minutes or an hour at a time, but no more than that.

Max returned to the Yale campus, and the night before his philosophy exam he wrote the final draft of a paper that had been assigned by his professor Robert Fox, with whom he shared many physical characteristics. The instruction was, “According to Whitehead's Modes of Thought, Write a Critique of Yale's System of Education.”

Alfred North Whitehead was considered the world's leading systems thinker and had explained how all knowledge was contained within the limits and possibilities of the systems in which human beings interacted. Max saw in a flash that the ultimate limitation was being human.

He also realized that it was only by being fully human, and allowing feelings and emotions to enter into the analytical realm of scientific investigation that true understanding could be achieved. Clearly Yale was underperforming in this regard, he concluded. The university had compartmentalized every aspect of every subject, dividing them into specialties, with the instructors and lecturers talking with each other but not with anyone outside of the closed system. The students were learning more and more about less and less and were coming no closer to—and indeed farther and farther away from—Whitehead's goal of “understanding understanding.”

At the same time as he was preparing to write the paper, Max finished reading Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, the account of the Black Panther movement and the rage felt by blacks who had been oppressed under the restrictions and injustice of the legal system in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. Some of the language used by Cleaver was caustic, even violent.

Influenced by such language and finding it effective, Max wrote his eighteen-page philosophy essay in equally strong terms and incorporated elements of his own emotional state, including details of not sleeping, of his descent into despondency, and how those factors related to his breakthrough of “understanding understanding.”

The essay was carefully constructed. He reviewed Yale's purpose and practices. The university's motto—Lux et Veritas, light and truth—was in his estimation a good one, and in keeping with Whitehead's critique of education. If one could understand understanding, Whitehead proposed, then one could understand anything.

As a mathematician, Max believed that the only way this could be achieved would be by escaping the human system, and expressed that theory in his report.

Then he closed with the formulation that “A is and is not equal to A” as the ultimate equation in explaining how to penetrate the impenetrable intellectual domain of “understanding understanding.” It was like an alchemist's magical stone, the one that would turn lead to gold or turn any situation of ignorance into one of knowing.

Whitehead believed that in every educational moment students and teachers should focus on the highest possible learning experience. Thus it was clear to Max that the highest possible learning experience for his fellow students would be for him to read and then discuss his breakthrough paper.

First, however, he thought he should discuss this with Professor Fox, who also chaired the philosophy department, to see if perhaps he would choose this higher course of action and simply postpone the exam. With this in mind, Max arrived at the examination room early, and stepped on the wooden stage. He stood by the podium, facing the large lecture hall.

Because of his resemblance to their instructor—brown unkempt curly hair, glasses, and good casual, but carelessly assembled, jacket, preppy pants, and shirt with no tie—many of the students assumed Max was Professor Fox. One or two approached him with questions about the exam. Max calmly told them to just take their seats and not to worry.

“There might not even be a final exam,” he said cryptically.

As a result, a steady buzz had spring up throughout the room by the time Professor Fox showed up, a minute or two before the exam was to begin. While the puzzled students looked on, Max triumphantly handed him the “A is and is not A” essay.

“I've been up all night writing this essay,” Max explained in a matter-of-fact way, “and I think I've reached Whitehead's ultimate goal of ‘understanding understanding.'”

As the professor leafed through the paper, he continued, “The class will benefit more from the reading of this essay than from taking the exam,” he declared.

Professor Fox listened quietly and then replied.

“You may have, in fact, experienced this amazing breakthrough,” he said, “but I have not had an opportunity to read the paper yet, and so just as you are following Whitehead's dictate that each individual must in every moment follow what they believe the highest course of educational learning, I must continue with the exam.”

Though it wasn't what he had hoped, Max received this news calmly and replied.

“I understand. Perhaps there will be another time. I just wanted to offer you the opportunity.”

“Well, you needn't take the exam at this time, if you don't wish to do so. You've written a much longer essay than was required, and having been up all night—as you say—to complete it, might put you at a disadvantage.”

“No, I'll be fine,” Max responded. “I can sit for the exam now—I'm not really that tired.”

Yet as he went to take his seat, moving along the stage, he realized that in order to be true to Whitehead's modes of thought, he really should spend his time contemplating the insights of understanding understanding and not wasting his time just answering questions about Spinoza and Kant, just so he could get an A that would impress others.