BB-10-k
Gene Chakin, Self Analysis and Self Criticism
It is hard to know where to start, but I guess it does start with the very obvious fact that I was born and raised in a Jewish middle class home, and I carry with me all of the middle class elitism that is inherent in that dubious estate. More than most, I expect, I carry that disease of elitism because part of my family was petty nobility in Russia and they never let me forget it when I was a small child growing up. There was no doubt about it – we were just better than other people. On to top of that I am inflicted with the twin intellectual diseases of so called intellectual independence and “cerebral sufficiency,” that is, all I have to do is get an idea and have no real responsibility of what that may produce, It is sort of like the U.S. Atomic Scientists who just made it and disclaimed the responsibility for the millions of Japanese it fried. Now in my middle years, I suppose I also suffer from a sort of despondency or permanent depression that follows the realization that one’s youth has passed, one is really a pissant that has done nothing meaningful with one’s life and is not likely to…. any motivation for personal achievement in life has long ago dissipated. Any motivation for fulfillment is long ago recognized for the lie that it is. So, essentially, I am an middle aged elitist intellectual without any personal motivations I have lived long enough to see history come and go – a bit of it – and what goes around comes around….McCarthy in the 50’s and who knows who in the 70’s….some sort of radical movement in the 30’s and again in the 60’s, two generations who worked (more or less seriously) see the total reversal of their work. T have never experienced anything but emotional pain with sex (even the highs are tainted by the lows which are bound to follow). I do not feel anyone is attracted to me, either male or female. The only continuously good sexual experiences are in fantasyland. My sexuality is repressed – that is its major characteristic especially my homo sexuality which is no weaker than the other in terms of drive but just a little more repressed. Above the limited physical gratification is the pain of trying to work through – ones own selfishness and indifference in order to attempt a genuine relationship with another human being … and the pain of facing its ultimate futility and failure. It just doesn’t seem worth it. The only relationship sexually I can visualise for myself at this time a one-night stand.
I am selfish, and tired, I have little concern for or patience with others. Living has never been easy nor pleasant for me. I can’t get out of my own bag. In my purview saving a life is a sort of crime – a condemnation to further suffering. I live with the constant feeling of the futility of all things. There is much truth in Dick’s [Richard Tropp] analysis of the role of the intellectual, but I hate the thought of a world where the right to life is predicated on the person’s (or animal’s) utility in the political, social or economic sphere.
I have little hope for the success of the community here. It is obvious to me that a lot of people here just do not want it. They drag the rest – the more concerned people down badly. What will happen to our children, brought up in such a specialized society, if they must ultimately adjust to the outer world? Their pain will surely be our responsibility if we do not keep this together.
If I functioned based upon love or concern for my fellow man I doubt if I would get out of bed in the morning, I function on duty. Though I would much prefer to die I have a duty to live, and that as creatively and constructively as I can. It is my duty to make the future as pain free as possible for the children – to work against oppression and exploitation. That is why I am a Socialist. That is why I am here. That is why I will stay, and work diligently to try to make Jonestown a viable community with same prospect of continuity.
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BB-10-s
SOME COMMENTS BY WAY OF PERSONAL ANALYSIS, GENE CHAIKIN
Since beginning a relationship I felt it a good time to look into my head – changes require analysis. First, it feels good to be “settling down” in a way that I guess I just can’t do in a barracks style life. The surroundings are too impermanent, I just couldn’t feel settled and belonging without a little private space, and a little privacy, As much as I might like to say I am “above” wanting a relationship it is obviously not true. At this point, beyond the obvious physical, there is a need I have that it seems to fulfill (at least now) but which I can’t really identify. I am certainly willing to assume the burden to get the benefit.
What I have already clearly experienced is the conflict between the one-to-one and the relationship to the group. I doubt if it is possible to harmonize the inevitable conflict, but they can be compartmentalized so as to create a minimum of interference. We intend to structure ourselves along that line. One interesting thing that I have experienced is that a lot of people have been very friendly with me since word got out that Inez and I are together – most of them black, it could be that I am more relaxed and friendly than before but I don’t believe it. What I think is that there is a black and a white society here as well as an integrated society, and that marriage to a black woman provided an entree into the black society, I guess you know all about this, but it was my first realization, and I thought of some interest.
August 9