Letter to the Editor

June 6, 1996

Dear Paul,

This note to you has been on my mind since returning from Italy last fall. Thanks for mentioning my excursion to Verdi’s home in Busseto in Clio’s. In addition to two weeks of spectacular weather, food, and scenery, it was extraordinary to finally see Verdi’s “home” territory. In such subtle ways even geographical features suddenly appear in his operas. What was most fascinating, however, were two central conflicts in his life and operas which live on in his hometown to this day.

You may recall that Verdi’s life and operas are full of conflict, frequently between fathers and sons. During his lifetime he fought with many people, including the residents of the town of Busseto. He stayed nearly all his life, yet cursed the townspeople frequently. Some 150 years later, the ambivalent relationship remains. The town doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with their famous “maestro.” A fine statue of him looks over the town square, yet behind him is the Verdi theater, which has been closed for repairs for ten years — a theater he fought against bitterly, and never attended! A small Verdi singing contest is held every year — outside! There are pictures of Verdi everywhere, most frequently used in the selling of “products,” but little of his music — and by Italian standards the town [, by and large,] seems “closed” — not too friendly. The Verdi museum seems neglected — and the whole town not especially set up for visitors: all traits which Verdi fumed about at various times.

Second, an important theme in Verdi’s life and opus was freedom, liberty — he wanted to be left alone above everything else. The battles with his parents and townspeople led him to move out of town when he built Sant’ Agata, his villa (with a moat around it), to which few were admitted. And, the same holds true today. The hours are quite limited, admittance is controlled by a militaristic woman barking orders at visitors, and no provision is made for tours in languages other than Italian. Also, Verdi’s family still lives in most of the property. Therefore, visitors get hustled through a very small portion of the property. Verdi’s personality seems alive everywhere, still begrudging people their admiration of his life’s work.

I am now taking Italian lessons in preparation for another trip [in the fall of next

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year], and this time will visit the home of Puccini, near Lucca. I’m looking forward to comparing and contrasting his home, life, and operas to those of Verdi’s and, after that, Rossini’s homes in Paesaro and Bologna.

Sometimes those craving their 15 minutes of media attention or fame turn to violence as the only way to be heard. But why are we so drawn to negative attention?

Death Wish or “Watch Function”?: Neither I nor my teachers in psychoanalytic training were ever fans of the idea of a universal death wish. When one turns to Freud’s writings you discover he overwhelmingly focused on death wishes against fathers, mothers, uncles, sisters, and other specific individuals. I long ago decided I would have to turn elsewhere to explain why suicide is so much more prevalent than homicide in our society and why we are obsessed with bad news and danger. Mass media news programs have 20 negative, violent items for every happy news item. And now there has been a proliferation of news sources on cable television with others rushing to emulate CNN’s great success with a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week news format.

News coverage of the TWA Flight 800 disaster serves as a good example of the focus on danger, tragedy, and bad news. Reputable news organizations, such as National Public Radio’s “Lehrer News Hour,” even abandoned their scheduled news and devoted their entire program to the tragedy. Radio coverage of the New York Yankees baseball game was interrupted by Curtis Sliwah and the ABC news staff who gave news coverage to speculations and the eye witness accounts by people who saw very little. (Curtis Sliwah is/was head of the Guardian Angels, a New York City subway vigilante group, and a talk radio personality who fabricated attacks on himself to increase his ratings.) The real issue is: Why do we — the listening, reading, and viewing public — focus so on these tragedies? Clearly, there are many reasons, but I will focus on one that helps to explain this behavior over time.

For tens of millions of years our human and primate ancestors needed to know about danger and to work together to survive. Food and shelter came after the needs of survival in the face of common dangers. To survive, our ancestors had to be vigilant, to keep watch. I call this the “watch function.” Despite our much-talked-about individualism, we still look to each other in times of crisis. Television and other means of mass communication have created what Marshall McLuhan called the “global village.” Crisis restores our sense of community in a world of anomie. As I learned 20 years ago from one of my teachers of psychoanalysis, disruptions always take precedent over the official program, because that is what our emotions are focused upon. Terrorists rely on this process to disrupt our peace of mind and no amount of security will stop their inroads into that peace.

My own “vision thing” began in a computer lab on March 14th as I worked hard to get a book proposal off to a literary agent. There was something floating around in my left eye which I was unable to blink out, but I was too busy to pay much attention to it. At home, flushing the eye did no good. When I closed the eye I realized I could still see the floaters. The next morning as we boarded the plane for Florida, my spots were still with me. One was large and circular, kind of like a tiny cloud constellation of stars around a planet. There was a small black spot which appeared to move in conjunction with it. While I could not see through the black spot, I could see through the misty cloud formation – however opaquely. My wife suggested it was a floater which often happens to people in their 60s or 70s, not usually in the 50s. But, in dealing with this medical surprise, denial was not my first line of defense. The ophthalmologist in Florida advised me that I would get used to and pay less attention to this cloudy vision and her prognostications are proving to be accurate. I will have to rely on psychohistory to see more clearly.

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