'I don't want it developed,' says Howard, 'I want development to occur in discussion.'
'I'm sorry, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'but I felt this was better. I mean, I felt I could sum this stuff up and get it out of the way so we didn't need to spend a lot of time going over and over it.'
'I want us to go over it,' said Howard, 'it's called discussion. Now put that script away, take it outside, and then tell us what impressions you've got from the reading I asked you to do.'
'You think I haven't done the reading, sir?' asks Carmody. 'I don't think that at all,' says Howard, 'I think you've made a heavy, anal job of this, because you're a heavy, anal type, and I want you to risk your mind in the insecurity of discussion.'
'Well, I'm sorry, sir, but I can't,' says Carmody. 'Of course you can,' says Howard. 'No,' says Carmody, 'I just don't think like that, work like that. I am an anal type, you're right. It's not all easy. If you like, I'll go over to Counselling Service and get them to write me a note to that effect. _They_ know I can't think like that. They know I have a linear mind, Dr Kirk, I'm afraid.'
'A linear mind,' says Howard, 'is that what they told you?'
'Yes, sir,' says Carmody, 'it's a mental condition.'
'I'm sure it is,' says Howard, 'I'm trying to cure it.'
'Oh, they wouldn't like that, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'I'm under treatment for it. Please let me read my paper.'
'Well,' says Howard, 'it's up to the rest of the class. I'm not going to accept anything like this from them. But it's a democratic class. We'll vote on it, and you'll have to accept their decision. Right, Mr Carmody wants to submit a written paper; those who are prepared to hear it?'
'How long is the paper?' asks Merion Scoule. 'No discussion, just vote,' says Howard. 'In favour?' Three hands go up. 'Against?' Two go up, one of them Howard's. 'Well,' says Howard, 'you've got the consent of these tolerant people. Go ahead and read your formal paper.' Carmody casts a fast, uneasy glance at Howard, as if mystified by his good luck. Then he coughs, ducks his head down, and begins to read again, in the same careful voice. It is dull, dogged stuff, an old scheme of words, a weak little plot, a culling of obvious quotations surrounded by obvious comments, untouched with sympathy or that note of radical fire that, in Howard's eyes, has so much to do with true intellectual awareness. Occasionally Carmody picks up the books from beside his chair, and reads from them; occasionally he tries a rhetorical flourish; occasionally he glances, uneasily, up and around. The clock, on the wall above the greenboard, ticks and turns; the circle of people is bored; Michael Bernard, that irritable Marxist, draws large black crosses on a notepad, and Merion Scoule is blank-eyed, withdrawn into thoughts that take her elsewhere. Felicity is looking expectantly at Howard, awaiting his anger, his interruption. But Howard does not interrupt. The paper is like an overripe plum, collapsing and softening from its own inner entropy, ready to fall. It is the epitome of false consciousness; its ideas are fictions or pretences, self-serving, without active awareness; it moves towards its inevitable fate. Now the class follows Carmody's eyes as he tracks through his writing, moves towards the bottom of a page. He knows this; he fumbles the turnover, lifting two pages instead of one. He sees this, pauses, turns back one sheet. Merion Scoule says, 'Can I ask a question?'
Carmody looks up, his neat cropped head staring at her. He says, in a precise, judicious manner: 'If it's a point of detail. I'd prefer general issues to wait to the end, when the argument is clear.'
'It is a general issue,' says Merion. Howard says, impersonally: 'I think a little discussion would clear the air.'
'Well,' says Merion, leaning forward, 'I just want George to explain the methodology of this paper. So that I can understand it.' Carmody says, 'Isn't it evident? It's an objective summary of my findings.'
'But it doesn't have any ideology, does it?' asks Merion. 'It's filled with it,' says Michael Bernard, 'The ideology of bourgeois self-justification.'
'I meant ideological self-awareness,' says Merion. 'Oh, I realize it doesn't agree with your politics,' says Carmody, 'but I think someone ought to stand back and look critically at these critics of society for a change.'
'It doesn't even agree with life,' says Michael Bennard. 'You're seeing a society as a consensus which bad people from outside set out to upset, by wanting change. But people desire and need change; it's their only hope, not some paranoid little deviance.'
'That's pure politics,' says Carmody, 'may I get on with my paper?'
'It won't do, George,' says Howard, intervening, 'I'm afraid this is an anal, repressed paper in every way. Your model of society is static, as Michael says. It's an entity with no internal momentum and no internal conflict. In short, it's not sociologically valid.' A redness comes up Carmody's neck, and reaches his lower face. He says, insistently, 'I think it's a possible point of view, sir.'
'It may be in conservative circles,' says Howard, 'it isn't in sociological ones.' Carmody stares at Howard; some of the polite finish begins to come off him. 'Isn't that debatable, Dr Kirk?' he asks, 'I mean, are you sociology?'
'Yes,' says Howard, 'for the present purpose, I am.' There is discomfort in the room; Merion Scoule, humanely trying to soften the atmosphere, says, 'I think you're just a little hung up, George. I mean, you're too much involved; you're not standing outside society and looking at it.' Carmody ignores her; he looks at Howard; he says, 'Nothing I say could ever please you, could it?'
'You'd certainly have to try harder than you do,' says Howard. 'I see,' says Carmody, 'Do I have to agree with you, Dr Kirk, do I have to vote the way you do, and march down the street with you, and sign your petitions, and hit policemen on your demos, before I can pass your course?'
There is a pause in the class, a tiny, uneasy movement of furniture. Then Howard says: 'It's not required, George. But it might help you see some of the problems inside this society you keep sentimentalizing about.'
'I think, George,' says Merion, 'the trouble is that you don't have a conflict model of society.'
'Don't let him off the hook,' says Howard, punitive. 'There's a lot more missing than that. All of sociology and all of humanity as well.' Carmody's entire face is red now; his eyes glare. He pushes his paper savagely back into his shiny briefcase, and says, 'Of course you all _do_ have a conflict model. Everyone's interest conflicts with everyone else's. But better not conflict with Dr Kirk. Oh, no, it's not a consensus model for his classes all right. I mean, we're democratic, and we vote, but no dirty old conservative standpoints here. Sociology's revolutionary, and we'd better agree.'
'I'm going to have to cool this down,' says Howard, 'I don't think you're in a state to understand anything that's being said to you. We'll forget the paper, and start in on this Mill, Marx, Weber topic from the beginning.'
'Do what you like,' says Carmody, 'I've had enough.' He gets off his chair and kneels on the floor, picking up his pile of books. His hurt, angry face looks up at Howard as he does this. Then he stands, captures his briefcase with his fingers, and walks out of the circle, towards the door. The door is difficult to open, with his burden of books, but he manages it; he hooks a foot round it to bring it slamming to as he leaves. The circle of people stare after him; but to these 'habitués of the seminar as an event, this is a fairly modest outrage, a simple pettish hysteria, not at all as fancy as many of the intense psychodramas that develop in class. The door bangs, and they turn inward again, and resume their eye-to-eye ecological huddle. Howard leads them through a discussion of the issues that, in Carmody's gloss of nineteenth-century thought and society, had not existed: the compelling machine of industrialism, the fetish of commodity, the protestant ethic, the repression of the worker, the revolutionary energies. Carmody wanders somewhere else, forgotten; the class generates its rightful work and then its excitement, for Howard is a busy, compelling teacher, a man of passion. The faces wake, the hour turns in no time at all.
And then the stable clock chimes; the class gets up, and carries the tables back from the corrido
r into the room again. It is Howard's custom to take his class for coffee afterwards, and now he leads them, a little group, down in the lift, across the foyer, through the Piazza. They go into the coffee bar in the Students' Union, overlooking the lake. The noise level is high; in a corner a pin-table pings on different notes, in serial composition; people sit at table arguing, or reading. They find a booth by the wall, littered with cups and cigarette packets, and sit down, squeezing into the circular bench; Merion and Michael go off to join the queue at the counter to bring back coffee. 'Wow,' says Felicity, pushing in next to Howard, and resting her knee against his leg, and looking up into his face, 'I hope you never decide to destroy me like that.'
'Like what?' asks Howard. 'The way you did George,' says Felicity, 'If he wasn't such a reactionary, I'd feel sorry for him.'
'It mystifies me,' says Howard. 'It's as if he invites it, as if he's set himself up as masochist to my sadist.'
'But you don't give him a chance,' says Felicity. 'No chances for people like that,' says Hashmi, 'he's an imperialist fascist.'
'But you are a sadist,' says Felicity 'The trouble with George,' says Howard, 'is that he's the perfect teaching aid. The enemy personified. He almost seems to have chosen the role. I don't even know whether he's serious.'
'H( is,' says Felicity. The others join them, with the coffee. 'Coffee, coffee, what they here call coffee,' says Hashmi. 'Oh, Hashmi,' says Howard, 'Roger Fundy tells me Mangel's coming here to lecture. The man who did that work on race.'
'But you can's have him,' says Hashmi, 'I shall tell this to the Afro-Asian Society. This is worse than Carmody.'
'It is,' says Howard. He drinks his coffee, quickly, and gets up to go. As he leaves the table, squeezing over Felicity, she says, 'What time shall I come tonight, Howard?'
'Where?' asks Howard. 'I'm babysitting for you,' says Felicity. 'Oh,' says Howard, 'can you get there just before seven-fifteen?'
'Fine,' says Felicity, 'I'll come straight there. You won't even have to pick me up.'
'Good,' says Howard.
He goes back to the Social Science Building; getting out of the lift, at the fifth floor, he can distantly see a figure waiting outside the door of his study. From this standpoint, Carmody looks like a creature at the end of a long historical corridor, back in dark time; Howard stands, in the brightness of the emancipating present, at the other. Carmody has shed his books; he carries only his shiny briefcase; he has a dejected, saddened look. As Howard gets nearer, he glances up, and sees him; his demeanour stiffens. 'I think I ought to have a talk with you, sir,' he says to Howard, 'can you give me some time?'
'A minute or two,' says Howard, unlocking his door. 'Come in.' Carmody follows Howard through the doorway and then, just inside the room, he stops, his big body ungainly, holding his briefcase. 'Sit down, George,' says Howard, placing himself in the red desk chair, 'What's this about?'
'I want to discuss my work,' _says_ Carmody, not moving from his position, 'I mean, a really frank discussion.'
'All right,' says Howard. 'I think I'm in trouble,' says Carmody, 'and I think you've got me into it.'
'What does that mean?' asks Howard. 'Well, this is my third year in your course,' says Carmody. 'I've written about twenty essays for you. They're here, in my bag. I wonder if you'd go over them with me.'
'We've been over them,' says Howard. 'I wonder if we could look at the marks,' says Carmody, 'it's a question of the marks.'
'What about them?' asks Howard. 'Well, sir, they're not very good marks,' says Carmody. 'No,' says Howard. 'They're mostly fails,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard. 'I mean, I could fail this course,' says Carmody. 'It rather looks as though you might,' says Howard. 'And that's all right with you?'
'It's the inevitable consequence of doing bad work.'
'And if I fail your course I fail my degree,' says Carmody, 'because if you don't pass in your subsidiary subject you can't get a degree.'
'That's right,' says Howard. 'You think that could happen?' asks Carmody. 'I do.'
'Well, in that case,' says Carmody, 'I have to ask you to look at these marks again, and see if you think they're fair.'
Howard examines Carmody's expression; it is civil, serious, rather nervous. 'Of course they're fair,' says Howard. 'Are you telling me I don't mark fairly?'
'Not exactly,' says Carmody, 'I don't think they're consistent.'
'Of course they are,' says Howard, 'Consistently bad. They're about the most consistent marks I've ever given.'
'Not consistent with my marks in other subjects,' says Carmody. 'My major's English; I get As and high Bs in that. I have to do Social History; I get mostly Bs there. And then there's Sociology, and that's all Ds and Fs.'
'Isn't the' obvious deduction that you're working seriously in English and History, and not in Sociology?'
'I admit I'm not attracted to Sociology,' says Carmody, 'especially the way it's taught here. But I do work. I work hard. You admit that in your comments on the essays. I mean, you say there's too much work and not enough analysis. But we know what that means, don't we?'
'Do we?' asks Howard. 'It means I don't see it your way,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard, 'you don't see it sociologically.'
'Not what you call sociologically,' says Carmody. 'You have a better sociology?' asks Howard, 'this Anglo-Catholic classicist-royalist stuff you import from English and want to call sociology?'
'It's an accepted form of cultural analysis,' says Carmody. 'I don't accept it,' says Howard. 'It's an arty-farty construct that isn't sociology, because it happens to exclude everything that makes up the real face of society. By which I mean poverty, racialism, inequality, sexism, imperialism, and repression, the things I expect you to consider and account for. But whatever I do, whatever topic I set you, I get this same old stuff rolled out.'
'In that case,' says Carmody, 'isn't it fairest to accept that we disagree? And perhaps move me to another sociology teacher, one who might accept that there is something in this approach?' There is sweat standing out on Carmody's brow. 'Ah, I see,' says Howard, 'you think you could get better marks from someone else. You can't con me, but you might swing it with someone else.'
'Look, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'I can't ever satisfy you, I can't ever be radical enough to suit you. I have beliefs and convictions, like you. Why can't you give me a chance?'
'And what are these beliefs and convictions?' asks Howard. 'I happen to believe in individualism, not collectivism. I hate this cost-accountancy, Marxist view of man as a unit in the chain of production. I believe the superstructure is a damned sight more important than the substructure. I think culture's a value, not an inert descriptive term.'
'Beliefs, in short, incompatible with sociological analysis,' says Howard. 'I'm not moving you. You either accept some sociological principles, or you fail, and that's your choice.' Carmody's head ducks; and in the light coming into the room from behind Howard it is suddenly apparent that there is a dangerous wetness in Carmody's eyes. He reaches his hand into the pocket of his pressed trousers, takes out a very neat handkerchief, unfolds it, shakes it, and blows his nose into it. When he has done this, he looks at Howard. He says, 'Dr Kirk, you're not being either frank or fair. You know you don't like me. I don't hold the right opinions, I don't come from the right background or the right school, I don't look right for you, so you persecute me. I'm your victim in that class. You've appointed me that. And you turn everyone there against me.' Howard swings in the red chair. He says: 'No, you're self-appointed, George. Look at the way you behave. You always come in late. You never do quite what you've been asked to do. You break up the spontaneity and style of the class. If I ask you to discuss, you read; if I ask you to read, you discuss. You bore people and offend them. There's a chill round you. Why do seminars with you in them grind away into the dust? Have you ever asked why?'
'Oh, you get me every way, don't you?' asks Carmody, leaning his back against the door, 'I fit in, or I fail. And if I try to fight back, and preserve mysel
f, well, you're my teacher, you can tear me to pieces in public, and mark my essays down in private. Can't I exist as well?'
'You can,' says Howard, 'if you're capable of changing. Of learning some human sympathy, some contact with others, some concern, some sociology.'
'You see,' says Carmody, 'it's not my work, it's me. You're marking _me._ F for fail. Why won't you say it? You just don't like me?'
'What I think of you isn't the issue,' says Howard, 'I can dislike' someone's work without disliking them.'
'But it's both with me,' says Carmody, 'so why won't you let me have someone else's judgment? Someone who doesn't dislike me like this? A different teacher?'
'For the obvious reason,' says Howard, 'because I don't admit your charge. That my marking of you is unfair. That is your charge, isn't it?'
Carmody puts his head down. He says, 'I didn't come for that. You're making me say what I don't want to.' Howard gets up and looks out of the window. He asks, 'What did you come for, George?'
'I came because I've got a new tutor in English, and she looked back over all my marks and saw I was failing. I didn't know. And she told me to come and talk to you about it.'
'I presume she didn't suggest you make these accusations?'
'No,' says Carmody, 'she thought you'd help me. She doesn't know you very well, does she?'
'I don't think you do, George,' says Howard. Carmody steps forward, and puts his hands on the back of the grey chair. 'I know more about you than you think,' he says. Howard turns and looks at Carmody. 'What does that mean?' he asks. 'All right,' says Carmody, 'you're making me say this. But what do you think people outside universities would say if they knew the kinds of things you do?'
'What things?'
'Teaching politics in your classes,' says Carmody. 'Getting all the radical students to your parties, and feeling them up, and getting them involved in causes and demos, and then giving them good grades. But the ones who won't play your game, the ones like me, you give them bad grades. I've got my essays here, in my bag. I've got the things you've scribbled all over them, "pure fascism", "reactionary crap". I want to know if it's right to treat me like that, treat anyone like that.'
Bradbury, Malcolm - The History Man.txt Page 17