For each priest this title has a shared as well as a special meaning; in Father Luca's case, it
symbolizes
much of his character.
Lifton-Robert-Jay-Thought-Reform-and-the-Psychology-of-Totalism
"
An important feature of Dr. Vincent's pre-thought reform char- acter was his manner of combining extreme and potentially dis- ruptive emotional patterns from early childhood with techniques learned during young adult training to shape a highly personal and unusual style of life. It is true that a psychiatrist might well have noted prominent schizoid and paranoid character trends; to put it more simply, he was a man unable to love. Yet he had de- veloped a stable and workable identity as a mystical healer--a lonely adventurer, ever courting new dangers; an isolated seeker of high aesthetic values, ever replenishing his store of sensations; a magical manipulator who could master his environment only through maintaining his distance from other people.
Incorporated in this self-image were three convictions which he had been seeking to prove to himself almost from the day of his birth: I need no one. No one can have my insides. I transcend other mortals. To maintain these personal myths required ever-strenuous but ever-exhilarating efforts. He was always on guard against his own inner urges in the opposite direction: his tendencies to seek intimacy, work co-operatively, and rely upon other people. These social and co-operative urges were, ironically enough, his negative identity. He had to keep warding them off as dangers to his personal myths, and to his exaggerated sense of individual mastery which held together the entire configuration.
Like anyone who rebels strongly, he carried with him, through identification, much of those people from whom he sought to free himself. He had become, like his father, an artist and some- thing of a tyrant. (What he took from his mother is less clear. ) The powerful emotions he had expressed in his early defiance of authority also left him with strong feelings of guilt. His guilt feel-
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ings were not obvious, and he may even have appeared to some as a man without a conscience. Instead, he suffered from a more repressed and potentially malignant sense of evil and need for punishment, which revealed itself only in disguised form: in his self-injury at nineteen, his courting of danger, and his remaining in China long after he had been warned to leave. But the life pattern of the mystical healer could, under most circumstances, keep these emotions under control.
When Dr. Vincent was imprisoned, however, everything was sud- denly overturned: the manipulator was now being manipulated, the healer was considered "ill" and in need of "treatment," the aesthetic wanderer was thrown into a crowded dingy cell, the isolate was forced to lay himself bare before strangers. Nothing in his former identity seemed to fit the new circumstances.
In making his wild confession, he did attempt to maintain his emotional distance and call his manipulative powers into play. A man without binding group loyalties or devotion to any shared set of truths, he cared little for the pros and cons of Communist ideology; his concern was to survive. But thought reform assaults very quickly undermined his efforts to maintain control and stay uninvolved; he was drawn--as all had to be--into an intimate world of personal relationships and of ceaseless self-probing.
Under these circumstances, his personal myth of absolute in- dependence and superhuman self-mastery was exploded. He had no choice but to become emotionally engaged in a human society, perhaps for the first time in his life. This reversal of such a basic identity pattern was a mark of thought reform's power; but it was achieved only through the reformers' success in bringing out Vincent's long-buried strivings toward human involvement, strivings which he had until then successfully denied. They had also made contact with his concealed guilt susceptibilities: as he was made to feel more and more guilty, he could surrender his precious isola- tion (indeed, he had to, as his flight from people had been one of the original sources of his guilt), and become more and more what the environment wished him to be.
When this began to happen, he could call upon no broad beliefs and no social self to protect him. Dazzled by the sudden filling of a long-standing emotional void, he took on much of the coloring of his new milieu. He accepted, and by no means superficially, much
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of the ideology and many of the visions of Chinese Communism. For he was a man no less vulnerable to human influence than others; behind his lifelong avoidance of people was both a fear of and a desire for such influence.
In his process of rebirth, much of his old identity could be drawn upon. He was able to find a new focus for his mysticism in the Communist version of "the people"; he could resume his manipula- tive healing in "helping" his cellmates ("the Communists, too, bind body and spirit/7 he told me); and he could make use of a "scientific methodology" which appealed to the more concrete and logical side of his character. His rebirth culminated in his re- emergence at the end of his reform as the teaching physician. He gave the impression that during the last part of imprisonment he had brought his new identity configuration into good working order; at the moment of release, he was in a fairly integrated state.
When he was thrust into the Hong Kong environment, however, his new identity was in turn shattered. I have already described the identity crisis precipitated within him through his inability to trust himself in relationship to either the Communist or non-Com- munist world; this information about his background reveals why his crisis of trust was so extreme. What was most devastating to Vincent was his loss of the exaggerated sense of mastery, which he had always been able to call forth in a non-Communist environ- ment. Having functioned for so long on the assumption that he could trust nothing and no one outside of himself, the absence of this self-trust was crucial, and the paranoid psychosis which this personal faith had always warded off threatened to engulf him.
He was, in fact, closer to psychosis after release than he had been during the worst assaults of imprisonment. True, it was during thought reform itself that he had been deprived of his self-mastery; but then he had been offered a workable identity configuration in return, along with a strong sense of order and a series of pressures so involving that his emotions were absorbed by the constant struggle to keep in step. In Hong Kong he faced a milieu which offered neither controls nor support; instead it presented a peculiar combination of freedom, colonial flavor, inequalities, artificiality, and a certain tentativeness. To be deprived in such a place of his only dependable identity mechanism meant facing for the first time the full consequences of his loss--facing both outer chaos and
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inner confusion.
Consequently, Dr. Vincent showed a tendency to relapse into
the identity of the repentant criminal, as, for instance, when he reacted to the Chinese businessman as an accusing judge. He also had the--to him--novel experience of suffering from, rather than thriving upon, loneliness. In his encounters with friends, casual acquaintances, and with me as well, he sought help in the struggle to regain his lost sense of integration and mastery. But he was ill- equipped for close relationships, both because of his oldest life patterns and because of his newly-magnified suspiciousness. He quickly sensed that hope lay, not in the imposed emotional patterns of thought reform, but rather in a reversion to what he was best equipped to be--the mystical healer.
Once he was permanently removed from external thought reform pressures, this reversion was inevitable. The clearest evidence of his return to his old pattern of experiencing all of life through his own mind and body is expressed in the following extraordinary statement made during our final interview:
What happens is strange--this experience is useful to me--because I proved everything in China . . . to be in jail and to be accused is part of myself. . . . It is difficult to explain. . . . Now I have had the experience of the reality of that world. I know what they do. . . . My mind is more enlarged.
I know everything about them--how cruel they are--their different mind--their materialistic way to see things--their logic. . . . You cannot know--you cannot understand what the chains and the tou- cheng [struggle] mean--about the compulsion they use. . . . I know everything about the step-by-step method . . . it is the difference be- tween a man who studies anatomy in a book and a man who studies anatomy on the body.
I can see the situation through my experience, a personal experience-- physical and spiritual. Now if somebody said to go back to China, I would say no; without my experience, I would say I have to go back.
Here are echoes of the youth who put a bullet through his own shoulder to express his love for a young girl: the experience must be his, or it is no experience at all. This basic core of character had survived parental criticism, strict Catholic schools, medical study, twenty years of life in China, and even thought reform itself.
Dr. Vincent's confusion and search was, on the whole, non- ideological. Communist and non-Communist beliefs were, as always,
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important to him only as they affected his immediate life experi- ence. Even his confusion about ideas, manifested in the jump from one side to the other, was mainly an involuntary emotional experi- ment, a form of identity testing. His search led inevitably back to that part of him he knew best. But the effect of the Communist view of the world and the thought reform identities which he had absorbed during his imprisonment cannot be completely dismissed. These remained within him as an alternative self, ready again to emerge--as they did during our interviews together--should he feel wronged or neglected during his future life in the non-Communist world.
What about his statement that he had never "talked so frankly" as he had to me, and that this was an effect of his re-education? I think he answered this question in his last sentence: "I have a feeling I left part of myself in Hong Kong. " This remark can be interpreted in more than one way. It contains the suggestion that through thought reform, he had learned to surrender his "insides," and had therefore been able to reveal more of himself to me than he had to anyone before. But it implies also, and perhaps more im- portantly, that in leaving part of himself in Hong Kong, he was shedding one of his skins in order to free himself for what lay ahead. He was leaving behind the newest, least comfortable, and most expendable part of himself, the reformed man. He was aware that thought reform had taught him to "open" himself to others; but having done so, first in prison, and then with me in Hong Kong, he was bent upon unlearning his lesson.
Anthony Luca: Liberal Father Confessor
Father Luca's confusion and search took a very different form, influenced by his own special background and character. Born in East Africa, son of a prominent Italian colonial official, Anthony grew up with a dual allegiance. He was very much a European boy --living among "natives" he was made especially aware of this; but he was also a child of Africa. He spent nine of his first eleven years there; and when he was sent to live in Europe from the ages of seven to nine, he had longed for the freedom of "the land . . . the river . . . a whole little world of our own" in Africa. An excel- lent student during his early years, his work suffered in Europe. But
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more disturbing to him were his social difficulties there among the "rough and rather unpleasant" boys in his class, who spoke a kind of slang he could not understand. And when Anthony, without thinking, used the common language of Europeans in Africa-- African words mixed with-his own language--he was laughed at and teased. His companions, with the merciless psychological accuracy of schoolboys, summed up his conflict when they tauntingly dubbed him "the white Negro. "
His family relationships perpetuated this conflict, and also pre- sented him with an additional emotional duality. The family had in many ways a classical European constellation: a stern, strongly opinionated, "authoritarian" father; a less talked about, but more intimate mother; a "very reliable" older brother and a more erratic and attention-getting younger brother among Anthony's five siblings.
His feelings toward his father alternated between fear and love, meeting in a common denominator of respect. He happily recalled the long walks which they took together in the open African countryside, during which his father would tell him informative and interesting stories and teach him the alphabet to prepare him for school. But his father also had a more frightening side, so that Anthony had a "double idea about him"; he was demanding and critical, and would frequently beat the boy for misbehaving. An- thony resented his father's tendency to "say what was wrong but not use many words of explanation or justification. " Despite this conflict, he was deeply impressed with his father's "great sympathy for the black man," and his energetic defense of Africans in their conflict with Europeans.
He received affection and solace from his mother, but he was troubled by her "nervousness"--and he sometimes felt that both of his parents neglected him in favor of their own cultural and intel- lectual interests. Despite these problems he deeply missed his parents when, on medical advice, he was sent to live with relatives in Europe because of the discovery of what was then diagnosed as a kidney ailment. Put on a closely-supervised medical and dietary regime, and beset by emotional conflicts, he at first felt weak and worthless: "I was little, had no strength, and the other boys despised me. " But these feelings were soon overshadowed by a new pattern which quickly became a major concern--his "badness. "
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As a child in Africa, Anthony had an occasional show of temper and was considered to be a bit reckless, sometimes self-destructively so: he would experiment with his environment by putting dirt in his mouth "to see what it tasted like/' or by running across the street just in front of an automobile "to see if I could run quickly enough. " But later in Europe, feeling lonely and persecuted, he became more generally ill-tempered and disobedient; and a con- tinuing struggle with his aunt and uncle developed (or with his father during visits). The conflicts began with Anthony's mis- behavior, and ended either with his being sent to bed without din- ner, or, more frequently, with his being placed in the "black cellar/' despite all his infuriated cries and kicks.
This pattern diminished somewhat when he returned to Africa; but when he was in Europe during his teens--he had entered boarding school there at the age of eleven--his "badness" took another form, a disturbing new sexual awareness. He experienced anguished feelings of guilt and shame about his masturbation and his sexual interest in girls, and also in connection with a physical approach made to him by another young boy.
After a while, he did begin to earn some respect in school be- cause of his fine grades, his rapid body growth, and his developing ability in sports; he made more friends and felt more accepted by others. But he was aware of a "contradiction" in his character, one which always remained with him: in his relations with other people he alternated between shyness and fear on the one hand, and overly assertive and dogmatic attitudes on the other.
This "bad" (and sexually aware), "weak" (but athletically com- petent), able and intelligent, shy-domineering, "white Negro" adolescent sought some way to integrate these painfully unmeshed aspects of himself and become a person whom he and others could respect. He found it through religion, and specifically through the clerical ideology of the Catholic Church.
He was embracing a doctrine which had always been available to him. As a son of "good" (although not fervent) Catholics, he had begun to attend Mass in Africa when still an infant and had been instructed there by missionary fathers. He had not, however, demonstrated a particularly strong interest in religion until the time of his troubled adolescence, when he began to seek comfort through long periods of prayer in the chapel of the dormitory (run by
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Catholic fathers) where he was living. During the course of this inner search, he developed the conviction that his mother and father had not been sufficiently pious or serious in their lives. His resolve to follow a more purposeful existence carried him closer to an ideological solution of his identity crisis.
It was something of thinking that there must be some great interest in life to help others--to have a lasting aim--a broader point of view that embraced the whole of things which could help people who under- went unpleasantness.
At the age of fourteen he participated in a Catholic retreat supervised by one of the fathers--three-and-one-half days devoted to prayer and meditation, while completely withdrawn from worldly activities--which he considered a crucial interlude in his life. During the retreat, he thought a great deal about what he considered to be his two main faults--his sexual ideas (especially the guilt accompanying masturbation) and his bad temper; he sought ways to overcome these and to "correct myself. " His plans became more specific and affirmative: "I emerged with the resolve to be good, to be active in the world, to have an aim for religion. " He dates his urge to enter the priesthood from this retreat; but at the time he told himself it would not be possible because he was too unworthy. At the age of sixteen he made his definite decision, strongly influenced by a young priest whom he greatly admired and who planned to do missionary work in China.
Anthony was then certain that he too wished to become a mis- sionary, either in Africa or China. A schoolmate's interest in China and his friendship with Chinese Christian students played a part here. Like many European Christians of this period, he viewed China as the great missionary challenge: "I thought that what I could do best was to be a missionary in China . . . the biggest country . . . the most people . . . to be a parish priest was not so necessary. "
His family was not pleased with his decision. His father, whose aspirations for the boy included a brilliant and conventional career, particularly objected to his choosing a small, unknown missionary order rather than a famous society like the Jesuits. But Anthony succeeded in winning over his mother, who in turn combined forces with the seminary Superior to obtain reluctant agreement from her
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husband.
During his six years of seminary training and theological study,
the emphasis was upon "self-examination" and "internal dis- cipline/' Anthony found it quite demanding, particularly since "I always had difficulty in exactly stating my feeling/' but he felt that he profited from the training and had "good memories" of these years. He went on to take advanced theological studies, com- pleting a doctoral dissertation relating to the psychological aspects of faith; and he also did work in medicine and Buddhist philosophy to prepare him for his Asian missionary assignment.
His departure was delayed by the war, and he remained in Europe for three additional years. He became involved with anti-Fascist underground activities, and worked closely with guerrilla forces. During this time he demonstrated unusual bravery, volunteering for dangerous missions, and on one occasion approaching unarmed a group of enemy deserters to convince them to give up their weapons. He attributed his lack of fear to his firm conviction that what he was doing was right; and he was widely praised for his courage.
When he was finally sent to China, Father Luca was quickly enthusiastic and successful in his missionary work. He responded strongly to the country, the language, and the people. He developed particular affection for the young Chinese he guided and taught, and they in turn regarded him with great respect and affection. But he was still troubled by the emotional problems which had plagued him since early adolescence. His sexual conflicts emerged in his experiencing "great affection" and "intimate feelings," on two occasions, for young secondary school girls with whom he was working; and his difficulties with authority came out in his frequent resistance to those above him, and his fluctuation between over- bearing and self-effacing attitudes. He continued, as in the past, to overcome these problems through meditation, prayer, and especially religious confession.
But after the Communists took power, Father Luca found him- self in conflict with both the representatives of the new govern- ment and with many of his own colleagues. Much of his activity was devoted to organizing Chinese youth into the faith-propagat- ing Legion of Mary. The Legion, as well as all other religious organizations, was soon required to register with the new regime,
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and it was bitterly criticized and constantly harassed because of its opposition to the regime's triple autonomy movement. At Com- munist mass meetings, the Legion of Mary was denounced as a "reactionary" organization devoted to "espionage/' and Father Luca heard that on one such occasion he was publicly accused of incit- ing young boys in his youth groups to "sabotage" and to various forms of vandalism.
Father Luca favored moderate behavior on the part of the Church in meeting this crisis. He especially opposed arbitrary attitudes of individual Catholic officials and was critical of those who indulged in political--and in some cases military--action against the Com- munists. He argued against the thesis that all Communists were evil per se, expressing the Christian point of view that they were human beings after all, sometimes guilty of wrongs, but capable of redemption. Father Luca felt strongly about the Church's need to find a means of surviving in China, and about his own personal desire to remain there and continue his missionary work. He re- peatedly ignored his colleagues' advice to leave despite what they considered to be his precarious personal position.
The man who was imprisoned, then, was an effective and in- tegrated human being, one able to work and to love. Crucial to his identity was his sense of being a man of God, a representative of the Faith and of the Truth, a responsible official of the Catholic Church, a friend of the oppressed, a searching and open-minded scholar, a brother and father of Chinese youth, a lover of China and of the Chinese, and a foreign member of Chinese culture. But ever lurking in the background was another much more derogatory self-image, a view of himself as impure (sexually) and unhumble
(in his dealings with superiors). Also part of this negative identity, we suspect, were old feelings of weakness, as well as the fear of alienation from friends and colleagues. These negative and posi- tive elements were both included in his over-all identity of the liberal "Chinese" father confessor.
His liberalism was related to his past identity struggle: torn apart as a child by the conflict between his African and European selves, deeply attached and yet a bit unsteady in his family identifications, experimental and inquisitive since earliest childhood (even to the point of swallowing dirt), he had early learned to be receptive to
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the other person's convictions and way of life. With him, as with anyone truly receptive, this meant not just standing by with tol- erance, but actually becoming each of the things which challenged his sense of identity--whether African child, European schoolboy, or Catholic priest and missionary. Thus he became more "Chinese" than his colleagues, closer to and better loved by those whom he guided and instructed. At the same time, his capacity to under- stand and sympathetically enter into the other person's point of view made him more prone to moral conflict and indecisiveness. Such is likely to be the identity constellation and the dilemma of any "liberal," no matter what his cause.
Priests have been called "father-confessor" since the Church's early days.
For each priest this title has a shared as well as a special meaning; in Father Luca's case, it symbolizes much of his character. He was even more the "father" than the average priest, since almost all of his professional career had been devoted to work with young- sters, and he liked to do this work best. He was a "confessor"-- as a priest, novice, naughty child (and later as a prisoner)--in all three meanings of the term: he made confessions, he heard con- fessions, and he also "avowed and adhered to his faith under perse- cution and torture without suffering martyrdom. "
Confession, then, had long been for him a personal style, even a way of life. It was not without its difficulties: the small boy was not always clear about what wrong he was expected to "confess"; the novice could not easily express his exact feelings. Whatever in- articulate and repressive forces worked against it, however, con- fession had served him well. Through it he had been able to face, and share with sympathetic colleagues, the disturbing feelings which had fed his negative identity. It had been especially important in subduing (although never fully conquering) his sexual urges and aggressive tendencies.
Nonetheless, the sense of evil which accompanied these sexual and aggressive urges could not easily be stilled. Confession helped to keep these feelings conscious and manageable (rather than in- accessible and more dangerous, as with Dr. Vincent); but it also required him to search out his own evil, to look constantly upon himself as one who is guilty. His susceptibility to guilt, present from early life, was thus ever stimulated anew. Managed reasonably effectively by his tie to the Catholic Church, his guilt was a point
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of vulnerability for any new authority which might seek to manipu- late his loyalties; it was, in fact, the royal road to his negative identity.
Father Luca's complex adult configuration was largely the product of emotional compromise. In dealing with his father and all later authorities, he had alternated between submission and rebellion. He had, in a sense, defied his father in becoming a priest, and es- pecially in a small missionary order; but he was remaining within a Catholic ideology which his family held sacred. Moreover, he became, like his father, at the same time both a champion of the rights of "natives" and a loyal servant of a European institution. He also possessed a tenderness which--as his prison memories sug- gest--must have been derived from a relationship of love and in- timacy with his mother; a relationship which may have been responsible for much of his submissiveness, receptivity, and pen- chant for suffering.
In his ideological solution to his identity crisis, Father Luca (unlike Dr. Vincent) acquired a comprehensive if constricting view of the world, and a strict code of conduct for relations with other people; he took on a sense of loyalty and near-total submission to
an institution greater than himself. His concern was no longer simply, "Where do I stand? " and, "What can I do about my bad- ness? " Badness and commitment still had to be dealt with, but not on an individual basis. Instead, he asked himself, "How can I purify and humble myself in order to better serve the Church? How can I be more consistent in my life, and mean what I say and do? How can I, as a Catholic priest, be fully sincere? "
It is therefore not surprising that Father Luca objected strenuously to the judge's impugning his sincerity. He stated his position at the beginning--"a mistake or a matter of religion"--which made him, as he stood before the judge, both a man defending truth and a representative of a sacred institution. The fact that he had doubts about his own sincerity, at whatever level of consciousness, made him fight all the harder; one does not reveal inner weakness before the enemy. Moreover, by this same initial statement, he had de- clared his imprisonment a test of his sincerity; he assumed the posture of the confessor who is the defender of his faith against those who would persecute it.
The irony of his situation was that his reformers meant some-
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thing a little different by "sincerity": for Chinese Communist of- ficials, both in prison and out, to be sincere is to yield to them as representatives of the Way and the Truth, "Insincerity" or resist- ance is the one attitude which they will not tolerate, and they re- garded Luca's behavior as provocative. This, plus their prior identifi- cation of him as an enemy--he was not only a Catholic priest, but a leader of a militant Catholic organization--led to their use of force and brutality to a degree unusual even for a Chinese Communist prison. As on earlier occasions in his life, Luca could not grasp or articulate what he was expected to confess; and although the re- former's contradictory demands may have been mainly responsible for this, it is very likely that Luca's lifelong resistances to confes- sion also played a part, as he seemed to have much more difficulty than most other prisoners in reaching an understanding of the situa- tion. In any case, he experienced a more profound physical and psychological breakdown than did Dr. Vincent.
Father Luca's false confession reflected both a disintegration of his sense of reality and identity, and an outpouring of his sense of evil. His experience was like that of a man, who, troubled by feelings of guilt, dreams that he is a criminal being punished. Luca was a "criminal" being punished in jail, "dreaming" of having com- mitted the kind of crime of which he was accused--his dream work much assisted by his surroundings, and closely supervised by judge and cellmates. In a twilight state of fatigue, pain, and al- tered consciousness, he was both responding to the prison message and at the same time reverting to his own familiar confession idiom.
No other prisoner I encountered confessed more extensively than did Father Luca; nor did anyone else sustain for as long a period such a grossly false story. He could do this and even believe in his confession, not only because the environment encouraged this belief, but also because his confession had for him the ring of psychological truth. That is, it expressed "subversive" things about himself, albeit in the language of the Communist police system rather than that of the Catholic Church. It was an extreme version--a caricature--of his own negative identity. As an expe- rienced confessor (and a man who had done some writing) Father Luca could be creative, prolific, and convincing in using this carica- ture to develop his confession-novel.
The direct physical assault, coming at the height of the false con-
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fession, showed a loss of control on the part of the Communist of- ficials. They had begun to check Father Luca's false confession, ap- parently after having believed a good deal of it, and had found it to be "insincere" beyond words--in both the conventional and their own special meaning of the term.
Luca himself, once injured (and physically punished), rose to impressive heights of courage and strength. He had given indica- tions of his will to survive even before the injury. His delusions had included fantasies of self-affirmation--of recovery, rescue, and return to priestly activities--along with elements of guilt. At that time, too, he could summon faith in the religious purpose of his suffering ("penance for my sins"). Crippled and helpless, he was able to reach more profoundly into his emotional being and remind himself of the most basic forms of trust he had known in the past: religious comradeship, earthly places, both beautiful and permanent, and most of all, sad songs which took him back to maternal love and tenderness. His identity collapse had been temporary; now he sought always to reaffirm that in himself which he most valued and could depend upon. And at the same time, he kept his inner ex- perience within his own religious idiom. His imprisonment was a continuation of his lifelong self-purification. His faith was a power- ful ally, one he would under no condition surrender: hence his dra- matic assertion that "to take off my religion it is necessary to take out my heart and to kill me"--both a statement of creed and a quashing of self-doubt.
This very creed and his devotion to the Church behind it led to his greatest pain during reform. As a "liberal" he had already been in conflict with "illiberal" (and militaristic) colleagues, with whom he was now accused of conspiring. As a "liberal," he could also "feel" the validity of some Communist objections to official and nonofficial Church activity. He was especially vulnerable to accusations that the Church did such apparently "good" things as helping the sick and poor for its own selfish reasons: this would be "insincerity" at its worst. But he was susceptible not only be- cause he was liberal; it was precisely in this issue that he found his guilt, both personal and existential, most exploited. A negative image here--of self and Church--was both intolerable and unavoidable.
Luca's quest for "sincerity," as well as his "Chineseness," served, toward the end of his imprisonment, to bring him into a position
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of harmony with the officials: all became increasingly "frank" and "sincere. " But it was sincerity at a price, and led him to the in- congruous position of "helping" a fellow-priest make a criminal "confession"--his furthest venture into "betrayal. " He was, to be sure, still "hearing confessions"'; but now "sincerely" in harmony with the opposition.
Yet this too was only partial and transient. Immediately upon release, he was identified by his religious colleagues once more as the dedicated Catholic priest, which he had never really ceased to be. He also faced the delicate problem of restoring his identity as a liberal confessor, deeply committed to an authoritarian Church. His identity flexibility required that he scrutinize the Communists, the Church, and himself. In his profound sense of shame and guilt over having betrayed the Church (and himself), he felt the need to both relive and reformulate his relationship to it. Thus the story of the "naughty little girl" converted to active Catholicism despite parental opposition retells his own experience in enter- ing the priesthood. His "liberalism" had obliged him to give a hear- ing to some of the Communist message; but this involved him much less than his personal, credal, Catholic search. Now, as before, he could deal with his conflicts within his religious framework.
He conveyed the feeling that his imprisonment had made him more open to others' influence, more submissive; these could be important changes, but as heightening of traits already present, rather than as new characteristics. Perhaps an even more profound upheaval for Father Luca was the need to surrender much of his "Chinese" self, leaving him in a state of mourning which began not with imprisonment, but after release. He gave me the feeling, however, that from his careful, painful, and conscience-ridden weighing of ideas and emotions, a somewhat remodeled, but still liberal (and not entirely un-Chinese) father-confessor was re-emerg- ing.
Professor Hermann Castorp: The Submissive Scientist
Let us now examine the experience of another man who falls into this general category of the obviously confused, yet responded quite differently from either Dr. Vincent or Father Luca. A biologist from Central Europe in his mid-fifties, Professor Castorp was intro-
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duced to me by a member of his consulate in Hong Kong. Two or three of my other subjects who had met him in prison told me he had been "very progressive"; but when he came to see me just a few 'days after his release, he could best be described as "lost. " In addition to the typical post-imprisonment fear and suspiciousness, he was overcome by loneliness, and sought group protection when- ever he could: "Even when crossing the street, I waited for a few people and crossed with the group. " He welcomed the opportunity to talk things over with me, and so clearly enjoyed our three half- day sessions together that each time he was reluctant to leave. Yet despite his voluble answers to my questions, and his eagerness to prolong our talks, his manner was vague and distant, much like that of the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor. "
Both in his native Austria, and during his twenty-five years in China, Professor Castorp had lived the quiet and detached life of the scholar. A hard worker and a capable, well-liked teacher, he put a premium upon meeting--or even exceeding--the demands of others:
I have always had the tendency to satisfy people. . . . I have never wanted to displease anyone. If I am given work, I try to do better than what is expected. . . , If you give me a salary that is satisfactory, my entire energy is yours.
He attributed these traits to his "strongly Catholic" and "very conservative" Teutonic upbringing; to his stem and "sober" govern- ment-official father who, although he remained in the background in most family matters, had opinions which counted ("What will he think of me if I do something wrong? "); and even more to his "dictatorial" mother ("The kind of person other people submit to--even dogs listen to her") who directed everyone in the house- hold, bought all of Hermann's socks and underwear until he was twenty-two years old, and created an atmosphere within the home which ensured "that things must be done in a way that mother is pleased. "
In his schooling he worked actively to please his teacher; and dur- ing the years afterward, he continued to seek to please others, and avoid contention.
I didn't like to have the teacher angry at me. A driving force was to keep my teacher satisfied. This makes it happier for everyone, for him
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and for me. . . . I always try to find out what in the other person I could agree with. . . . I don't like people who conjure up big conflicts.
Similarly, he accepted without question the Catholic religion in which he was brought up. He was concerned much less with its dogma than with the loyalties which he felt to its moral principles, and to the family and Church organization around it: "I am the kind of man who must live in some kind of organization or society where I feel the need to do good. "
He thrived on the "simple cultured form of life" of the Youth Movement in which he participated, especially by its "clean," Puri- tanical emphasis, and its single-mindedness; "I like people with strong convictions who stick to them. "
But the one area in which he found active self-expression and which became his true "holy of holies," was science:
I am a scientist by conviction. I have been since very early in life. It is as an artist uses his art. I like to use my hands, my equipment, to ex- periment and to teach others.
He even defied his parents in embarking on this career, as they had a different profession in mind for him; but at the same time, he believed his scientific interests to be an inheritance from his maternal grandfather. He also felt that in his work--in his passion for research, his abilities as a teacher, his originality in construct- ing apparatus--he was, like his mother, a "leading spirit" whom others sought to follow.
He avoided considerations of philosophy and metaphysics ("The more you think about them, the more confused you are"), and had no concern with politics or with abstract ideological principles of any kind; what mattered to him was the operation of a system:
I am not interested in names--monarchy, democracy, dictatorship. 1 am interested in how things are actualized--how they work. I do feel there must be a factor of stability.
Coming to China at the invitation of a missionary university, he found conditions very agreeable to him in both his personal and professional lives. He was devoted enough to his strong-minded wife; but he readily tolerated long separations brought about by European medical treatments which her ailments were said to require, as
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long as another equally forceful woman could be found to run his household. Never too drawn to the sensual side of life, he was passionately involved in his teaching and his research. He thrived upon the difficult working conditions, and especially enjoyed the feeling that his professional skills were indispensable. Moreover, he delighted in the slow pace of Chinese life, and in what he called the "spirit of compromise" of the Chinese people. He found himself readily blending with his environment:
It is very interesting how surroundings influence you. . . . The stu- dents had a certain way of eating. I began automatically to eat just like them. . . . I even began to call a dog in the Chinese way.
His evaluation of the political regimes under which he lived depended largely upon those around him. Thus he at first was im- pressed with the Nationalist Government "because I saw the en- thusiasm of the students"; later he shared with them a strong resent- ment of the Japanese invaders, but then he found "a few Japanese who were not bad people," explaining that "in everyone I can see something good. " Mostly, however, he was disinterested in the world about him except as it pertained to his work. He did not care for psychological probing, but "if someone told me something about myself, I always thought, probably he is right--there must be something in it. "
He continued his work after the Communists came to power; but when the new regime took over the running of his university, he decided to leave because "I thought I would not fit. " Several delays occurred in his getting an exit permit, followed by his unex- pected arrest.
His response in prison from the beginning was to confess every- thing he could about his own past actions, and avoid antagoniz- ing his captors. Compared to Father Luca and Dr. Vincent, the pressures applied to him were relatively mild; no chains, no hand- cuffs, and none of the persistently extreme accusation which leads to falsification. On his part, he made a consistent effort to adapt himself as well as he could to this difficult environment, rather than concern himself with moral or ideological issues. "It is hard to say how I felt. I cannot judge these things, although I can easily find a concrete course to take. "
His personal confession was not too greatly emphasized, and he
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was quickly exposed to re-education. To the hsiieh hsi sessions he brought the approach of a scientist:
I paid close attention. I wanted to find what it was about. Mine was the attitude of research.
His approach was made feasible by his captors' failure to make him, as they did most other Europeans, a special target. "They saw at once that I was harmless. If I talked a little, they didn't expect too much. " Moreover, he was ingenious in his ingenuousness.
From the very beginning I said what I thought and this made it easier for me. . . . By nature I am anti-revolutionary. I don't like everything turned upside down. So when the Communists said, "You are anti- revolutionary/' they were right and I admitted it. I said, "I am. " If you admit things openly, they do not make so much fuss about it, they simply preach to you. But the moment you tell them stories, they get mad.
But his "research" (he was, after all, a participant-observer) led him to accept as valid much of the "data. "
I began to understand many things that I did not understand before. . . . It was a logical system in itself--talking about land distribution, why the tenants were poor--about China's losses from the international imperialists--things I've never been interested in before. I saw for the first time how the Chinese themselves felt about these matters. My whole thinking about these problems was enlarged.
Nor could he disentangle himself from the bias of his teachers' jar- gon, although he recognized it for what it was: "Old China was bad, new China good, and America bad--it is an official kind of language. "
He could even begin to accept the Communist point of view about his own criminal guilt, although it was based only upon anti-Communist statements he had previously made: "From the way I talked before, I influenced others against the Communists --so from their point of view I am guilty. " But he was never able to develop a strong inner sense of sinfulness, and his cellmates fre- quently criticized him because he had no "feeling of guilt/' He thought that such a feeling was "too much to expect from a man, because the world is not a religious order, and their requirements
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were too high. "
He viewed Communism as a religion, a point he made frequently
during our interviews, yet at the same time he managed to hold on to the general principles of his own Catholic faith. Here he once more made use of the scientist's approach.
I would emphasize the scientific explanation of the world, saying that there must have been a beginning, and therefore religion has a place. They would say, "This is a scientific religion, and it is all right. " Offi- cially, they were just supposed to be against superstition and not against religion.
At the same time, his sense of involvement in the Catholic re- ligion was of profound importance in his holding on to his sense of identity.
I would always figure out whether it was Easter or some other Catholic holy day so that I could stick to their custom. . . . If I had no reli- gious background, it is possible that I would have committed suicide.
He was pleased by the more favorable treatment accorded him as he became increasingly viewed as a "progressive"; but he was disturbed by the moves from one cell to another which this shift in status brought about, "I disliked changing groups. I felt I be- longed to a group like a chicken belongs to its flock. " Moreover, after a period of time, he found his "research" less and less reward- ing:
After I understood the fundamentals, I began to get bored by it all-- then the main thing became avoiding trouble. . . . Ten hours a day is too much, you get overfed, and this kills off deeper interests.
An important feature of Dr. Vincent's pre-thought reform char- acter was his manner of combining extreme and potentially dis- ruptive emotional patterns from early childhood with techniques learned during young adult training to shape a highly personal and unusual style of life. It is true that a psychiatrist might well have noted prominent schizoid and paranoid character trends; to put it more simply, he was a man unable to love. Yet he had de- veloped a stable and workable identity as a mystical healer--a lonely adventurer, ever courting new dangers; an isolated seeker of high aesthetic values, ever replenishing his store of sensations; a magical manipulator who could master his environment only through maintaining his distance from other people.
Incorporated in this self-image were three convictions which he had been seeking to prove to himself almost from the day of his birth: I need no one. No one can have my insides. I transcend other mortals. To maintain these personal myths required ever-strenuous but ever-exhilarating efforts. He was always on guard against his own inner urges in the opposite direction: his tendencies to seek intimacy, work co-operatively, and rely upon other people. These social and co-operative urges were, ironically enough, his negative identity. He had to keep warding them off as dangers to his personal myths, and to his exaggerated sense of individual mastery which held together the entire configuration.
Like anyone who rebels strongly, he carried with him, through identification, much of those people from whom he sought to free himself. He had become, like his father, an artist and some- thing of a tyrant. (What he took from his mother is less clear. ) The powerful emotions he had expressed in his early defiance of authority also left him with strong feelings of guilt. His guilt feel-
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ings were not obvious, and he may even have appeared to some as a man without a conscience. Instead, he suffered from a more repressed and potentially malignant sense of evil and need for punishment, which revealed itself only in disguised form: in his self-injury at nineteen, his courting of danger, and his remaining in China long after he had been warned to leave. But the life pattern of the mystical healer could, under most circumstances, keep these emotions under control.
When Dr. Vincent was imprisoned, however, everything was sud- denly overturned: the manipulator was now being manipulated, the healer was considered "ill" and in need of "treatment," the aesthetic wanderer was thrown into a crowded dingy cell, the isolate was forced to lay himself bare before strangers. Nothing in his former identity seemed to fit the new circumstances.
In making his wild confession, he did attempt to maintain his emotional distance and call his manipulative powers into play. A man without binding group loyalties or devotion to any shared set of truths, he cared little for the pros and cons of Communist ideology; his concern was to survive. But thought reform assaults very quickly undermined his efforts to maintain control and stay uninvolved; he was drawn--as all had to be--into an intimate world of personal relationships and of ceaseless self-probing.
Under these circumstances, his personal myth of absolute in- dependence and superhuman self-mastery was exploded. He had no choice but to become emotionally engaged in a human society, perhaps for the first time in his life. This reversal of such a basic identity pattern was a mark of thought reform's power; but it was achieved only through the reformers' success in bringing out Vincent's long-buried strivings toward human involvement, strivings which he had until then successfully denied. They had also made contact with his concealed guilt susceptibilities: as he was made to feel more and more guilty, he could surrender his precious isola- tion (indeed, he had to, as his flight from people had been one of the original sources of his guilt), and become more and more what the environment wished him to be.
When this began to happen, he could call upon no broad beliefs and no social self to protect him. Dazzled by the sudden filling of a long-standing emotional void, he took on much of the coloring of his new milieu. He accepted, and by no means superficially, much
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of the ideology and many of the visions of Chinese Communism. For he was a man no less vulnerable to human influence than others; behind his lifelong avoidance of people was both a fear of and a desire for such influence.
In his process of rebirth, much of his old identity could be drawn upon. He was able to find a new focus for his mysticism in the Communist version of "the people"; he could resume his manipula- tive healing in "helping" his cellmates ("the Communists, too, bind body and spirit/7 he told me); and he could make use of a "scientific methodology" which appealed to the more concrete and logical side of his character. His rebirth culminated in his re- emergence at the end of his reform as the teaching physician. He gave the impression that during the last part of imprisonment he had brought his new identity configuration into good working order; at the moment of release, he was in a fairly integrated state.
When he was thrust into the Hong Kong environment, however, his new identity was in turn shattered. I have already described the identity crisis precipitated within him through his inability to trust himself in relationship to either the Communist or non-Com- munist world; this information about his background reveals why his crisis of trust was so extreme. What was most devastating to Vincent was his loss of the exaggerated sense of mastery, which he had always been able to call forth in a non-Communist environ- ment. Having functioned for so long on the assumption that he could trust nothing and no one outside of himself, the absence of this self-trust was crucial, and the paranoid psychosis which this personal faith had always warded off threatened to engulf him.
He was, in fact, closer to psychosis after release than he had been during the worst assaults of imprisonment. True, it was during thought reform itself that he had been deprived of his self-mastery; but then he had been offered a workable identity configuration in return, along with a strong sense of order and a series of pressures so involving that his emotions were absorbed by the constant struggle to keep in step. In Hong Kong he faced a milieu which offered neither controls nor support; instead it presented a peculiar combination of freedom, colonial flavor, inequalities, artificiality, and a certain tentativeness. To be deprived in such a place of his only dependable identity mechanism meant facing for the first time the full consequences of his loss--facing both outer chaos and
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inner confusion.
Consequently, Dr. Vincent showed a tendency to relapse into
the identity of the repentant criminal, as, for instance, when he reacted to the Chinese businessman as an accusing judge. He also had the--to him--novel experience of suffering from, rather than thriving upon, loneliness. In his encounters with friends, casual acquaintances, and with me as well, he sought help in the struggle to regain his lost sense of integration and mastery. But he was ill- equipped for close relationships, both because of his oldest life patterns and because of his newly-magnified suspiciousness. He quickly sensed that hope lay, not in the imposed emotional patterns of thought reform, but rather in a reversion to what he was best equipped to be--the mystical healer.
Once he was permanently removed from external thought reform pressures, this reversion was inevitable. The clearest evidence of his return to his old pattern of experiencing all of life through his own mind and body is expressed in the following extraordinary statement made during our final interview:
What happens is strange--this experience is useful to me--because I proved everything in China . . . to be in jail and to be accused is part of myself. . . . It is difficult to explain. . . . Now I have had the experience of the reality of that world. I know what they do. . . . My mind is more enlarged.
I know everything about them--how cruel they are--their different mind--their materialistic way to see things--their logic. . . . You cannot know--you cannot understand what the chains and the tou- cheng [struggle] mean--about the compulsion they use. . . . I know everything about the step-by-step method . . . it is the difference be- tween a man who studies anatomy in a book and a man who studies anatomy on the body.
I can see the situation through my experience, a personal experience-- physical and spiritual. Now if somebody said to go back to China, I would say no; without my experience, I would say I have to go back.
Here are echoes of the youth who put a bullet through his own shoulder to express his love for a young girl: the experience must be his, or it is no experience at all. This basic core of character had survived parental criticism, strict Catholic schools, medical study, twenty years of life in China, and even thought reform itself.
Dr. Vincent's confusion and search was, on the whole, non- ideological. Communist and non-Communist beliefs were, as always,
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important to him only as they affected his immediate life experi- ence. Even his confusion about ideas, manifested in the jump from one side to the other, was mainly an involuntary emotional experi- ment, a form of identity testing. His search led inevitably back to that part of him he knew best. But the effect of the Communist view of the world and the thought reform identities which he had absorbed during his imprisonment cannot be completely dismissed. These remained within him as an alternative self, ready again to emerge--as they did during our interviews together--should he feel wronged or neglected during his future life in the non-Communist world.
What about his statement that he had never "talked so frankly" as he had to me, and that this was an effect of his re-education? I think he answered this question in his last sentence: "I have a feeling I left part of myself in Hong Kong. " This remark can be interpreted in more than one way. It contains the suggestion that through thought reform, he had learned to surrender his "insides," and had therefore been able to reveal more of himself to me than he had to anyone before. But it implies also, and perhaps more im- portantly, that in leaving part of himself in Hong Kong, he was shedding one of his skins in order to free himself for what lay ahead. He was leaving behind the newest, least comfortable, and most expendable part of himself, the reformed man. He was aware that thought reform had taught him to "open" himself to others; but having done so, first in prison, and then with me in Hong Kong, he was bent upon unlearning his lesson.
Anthony Luca: Liberal Father Confessor
Father Luca's confusion and search took a very different form, influenced by his own special background and character. Born in East Africa, son of a prominent Italian colonial official, Anthony grew up with a dual allegiance. He was very much a European boy --living among "natives" he was made especially aware of this; but he was also a child of Africa. He spent nine of his first eleven years there; and when he was sent to live in Europe from the ages of seven to nine, he had longed for the freedom of "the land . . . the river . . . a whole little world of our own" in Africa. An excel- lent student during his early years, his work suffered in Europe. But
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more disturbing to him were his social difficulties there among the "rough and rather unpleasant" boys in his class, who spoke a kind of slang he could not understand. And when Anthony, without thinking, used the common language of Europeans in Africa-- African words mixed with-his own language--he was laughed at and teased. His companions, with the merciless psychological accuracy of schoolboys, summed up his conflict when they tauntingly dubbed him "the white Negro. "
His family relationships perpetuated this conflict, and also pre- sented him with an additional emotional duality. The family had in many ways a classical European constellation: a stern, strongly opinionated, "authoritarian" father; a less talked about, but more intimate mother; a "very reliable" older brother and a more erratic and attention-getting younger brother among Anthony's five siblings.
His feelings toward his father alternated between fear and love, meeting in a common denominator of respect. He happily recalled the long walks which they took together in the open African countryside, during which his father would tell him informative and interesting stories and teach him the alphabet to prepare him for school. But his father also had a more frightening side, so that Anthony had a "double idea about him"; he was demanding and critical, and would frequently beat the boy for misbehaving. An- thony resented his father's tendency to "say what was wrong but not use many words of explanation or justification. " Despite this conflict, he was deeply impressed with his father's "great sympathy for the black man," and his energetic defense of Africans in their conflict with Europeans.
He received affection and solace from his mother, but he was troubled by her "nervousness"--and he sometimes felt that both of his parents neglected him in favor of their own cultural and intel- lectual interests. Despite these problems he deeply missed his parents when, on medical advice, he was sent to live with relatives in Europe because of the discovery of what was then diagnosed as a kidney ailment. Put on a closely-supervised medical and dietary regime, and beset by emotional conflicts, he at first felt weak and worthless: "I was little, had no strength, and the other boys despised me. " But these feelings were soon overshadowed by a new pattern which quickly became a major concern--his "badness. "
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As a child in Africa, Anthony had an occasional show of temper and was considered to be a bit reckless, sometimes self-destructively so: he would experiment with his environment by putting dirt in his mouth "to see what it tasted like/' or by running across the street just in front of an automobile "to see if I could run quickly enough. " But later in Europe, feeling lonely and persecuted, he became more generally ill-tempered and disobedient; and a con- tinuing struggle with his aunt and uncle developed (or with his father during visits). The conflicts began with Anthony's mis- behavior, and ended either with his being sent to bed without din- ner, or, more frequently, with his being placed in the "black cellar/' despite all his infuriated cries and kicks.
This pattern diminished somewhat when he returned to Africa; but when he was in Europe during his teens--he had entered boarding school there at the age of eleven--his "badness" took another form, a disturbing new sexual awareness. He experienced anguished feelings of guilt and shame about his masturbation and his sexual interest in girls, and also in connection with a physical approach made to him by another young boy.
After a while, he did begin to earn some respect in school be- cause of his fine grades, his rapid body growth, and his developing ability in sports; he made more friends and felt more accepted by others. But he was aware of a "contradiction" in his character, one which always remained with him: in his relations with other people he alternated between shyness and fear on the one hand, and overly assertive and dogmatic attitudes on the other.
This "bad" (and sexually aware), "weak" (but athletically com- petent), able and intelligent, shy-domineering, "white Negro" adolescent sought some way to integrate these painfully unmeshed aspects of himself and become a person whom he and others could respect. He found it through religion, and specifically through the clerical ideology of the Catholic Church.
He was embracing a doctrine which had always been available to him. As a son of "good" (although not fervent) Catholics, he had begun to attend Mass in Africa when still an infant and had been instructed there by missionary fathers. He had not, however, demonstrated a particularly strong interest in religion until the time of his troubled adolescence, when he began to seek comfort through long periods of prayer in the chapel of the dormitory (run by
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Catholic fathers) where he was living. During the course of this inner search, he developed the conviction that his mother and father had not been sufficiently pious or serious in their lives. His resolve to follow a more purposeful existence carried him closer to an ideological solution of his identity crisis.
It was something of thinking that there must be some great interest in life to help others--to have a lasting aim--a broader point of view that embraced the whole of things which could help people who under- went unpleasantness.
At the age of fourteen he participated in a Catholic retreat supervised by one of the fathers--three-and-one-half days devoted to prayer and meditation, while completely withdrawn from worldly activities--which he considered a crucial interlude in his life. During the retreat, he thought a great deal about what he considered to be his two main faults--his sexual ideas (especially the guilt accompanying masturbation) and his bad temper; he sought ways to overcome these and to "correct myself. " His plans became more specific and affirmative: "I emerged with the resolve to be good, to be active in the world, to have an aim for religion. " He dates his urge to enter the priesthood from this retreat; but at the time he told himself it would not be possible because he was too unworthy. At the age of sixteen he made his definite decision, strongly influenced by a young priest whom he greatly admired and who planned to do missionary work in China.
Anthony was then certain that he too wished to become a mis- sionary, either in Africa or China. A schoolmate's interest in China and his friendship with Chinese Christian students played a part here. Like many European Christians of this period, he viewed China as the great missionary challenge: "I thought that what I could do best was to be a missionary in China . . . the biggest country . . . the most people . . . to be a parish priest was not so necessary. "
His family was not pleased with his decision. His father, whose aspirations for the boy included a brilliant and conventional career, particularly objected to his choosing a small, unknown missionary order rather than a famous society like the Jesuits. But Anthony succeeded in winning over his mother, who in turn combined forces with the seminary Superior to obtain reluctant agreement from her
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husband.
During his six years of seminary training and theological study,
the emphasis was upon "self-examination" and "internal dis- cipline/' Anthony found it quite demanding, particularly since "I always had difficulty in exactly stating my feeling/' but he felt that he profited from the training and had "good memories" of these years. He went on to take advanced theological studies, com- pleting a doctoral dissertation relating to the psychological aspects of faith; and he also did work in medicine and Buddhist philosophy to prepare him for his Asian missionary assignment.
His departure was delayed by the war, and he remained in Europe for three additional years. He became involved with anti-Fascist underground activities, and worked closely with guerrilla forces. During this time he demonstrated unusual bravery, volunteering for dangerous missions, and on one occasion approaching unarmed a group of enemy deserters to convince them to give up their weapons. He attributed his lack of fear to his firm conviction that what he was doing was right; and he was widely praised for his courage.
When he was finally sent to China, Father Luca was quickly enthusiastic and successful in his missionary work. He responded strongly to the country, the language, and the people. He developed particular affection for the young Chinese he guided and taught, and they in turn regarded him with great respect and affection. But he was still troubled by the emotional problems which had plagued him since early adolescence. His sexual conflicts emerged in his experiencing "great affection" and "intimate feelings," on two occasions, for young secondary school girls with whom he was working; and his difficulties with authority came out in his frequent resistance to those above him, and his fluctuation between over- bearing and self-effacing attitudes. He continued, as in the past, to overcome these problems through meditation, prayer, and especially religious confession.
But after the Communists took power, Father Luca found him- self in conflict with both the representatives of the new govern- ment and with many of his own colleagues. Much of his activity was devoted to organizing Chinese youth into the faith-propagat- ing Legion of Mary. The Legion, as well as all other religious organizations, was soon required to register with the new regime,
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and it was bitterly criticized and constantly harassed because of its opposition to the regime's triple autonomy movement. At Com- munist mass meetings, the Legion of Mary was denounced as a "reactionary" organization devoted to "espionage/' and Father Luca heard that on one such occasion he was publicly accused of incit- ing young boys in his youth groups to "sabotage" and to various forms of vandalism.
Father Luca favored moderate behavior on the part of the Church in meeting this crisis. He especially opposed arbitrary attitudes of individual Catholic officials and was critical of those who indulged in political--and in some cases military--action against the Com- munists. He argued against the thesis that all Communists were evil per se, expressing the Christian point of view that they were human beings after all, sometimes guilty of wrongs, but capable of redemption. Father Luca felt strongly about the Church's need to find a means of surviving in China, and about his own personal desire to remain there and continue his missionary work. He re- peatedly ignored his colleagues' advice to leave despite what they considered to be his precarious personal position.
The man who was imprisoned, then, was an effective and in- tegrated human being, one able to work and to love. Crucial to his identity was his sense of being a man of God, a representative of the Faith and of the Truth, a responsible official of the Catholic Church, a friend of the oppressed, a searching and open-minded scholar, a brother and father of Chinese youth, a lover of China and of the Chinese, and a foreign member of Chinese culture. But ever lurking in the background was another much more derogatory self-image, a view of himself as impure (sexually) and unhumble
(in his dealings with superiors). Also part of this negative identity, we suspect, were old feelings of weakness, as well as the fear of alienation from friends and colleagues. These negative and posi- tive elements were both included in his over-all identity of the liberal "Chinese" father confessor.
His liberalism was related to his past identity struggle: torn apart as a child by the conflict between his African and European selves, deeply attached and yet a bit unsteady in his family identifications, experimental and inquisitive since earliest childhood (even to the point of swallowing dirt), he had early learned to be receptive to
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the other person's convictions and way of life. With him, as with anyone truly receptive, this meant not just standing by with tol- erance, but actually becoming each of the things which challenged his sense of identity--whether African child, European schoolboy, or Catholic priest and missionary. Thus he became more "Chinese" than his colleagues, closer to and better loved by those whom he guided and instructed. At the same time, his capacity to under- stand and sympathetically enter into the other person's point of view made him more prone to moral conflict and indecisiveness. Such is likely to be the identity constellation and the dilemma of any "liberal," no matter what his cause.
Priests have been called "father-confessor" since the Church's early days.
For each priest this title has a shared as well as a special meaning; in Father Luca's case, it symbolizes much of his character. He was even more the "father" than the average priest, since almost all of his professional career had been devoted to work with young- sters, and he liked to do this work best. He was a "confessor"-- as a priest, novice, naughty child (and later as a prisoner)--in all three meanings of the term: he made confessions, he heard con- fessions, and he also "avowed and adhered to his faith under perse- cution and torture without suffering martyrdom. "
Confession, then, had long been for him a personal style, even a way of life. It was not without its difficulties: the small boy was not always clear about what wrong he was expected to "confess"; the novice could not easily express his exact feelings. Whatever in- articulate and repressive forces worked against it, however, con- fession had served him well. Through it he had been able to face, and share with sympathetic colleagues, the disturbing feelings which had fed his negative identity. It had been especially important in subduing (although never fully conquering) his sexual urges and aggressive tendencies.
Nonetheless, the sense of evil which accompanied these sexual and aggressive urges could not easily be stilled. Confession helped to keep these feelings conscious and manageable (rather than in- accessible and more dangerous, as with Dr. Vincent); but it also required him to search out his own evil, to look constantly upon himself as one who is guilty. His susceptibility to guilt, present from early life, was thus ever stimulated anew. Managed reasonably effectively by his tie to the Catholic Church, his guilt was a point
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of vulnerability for any new authority which might seek to manipu- late his loyalties; it was, in fact, the royal road to his negative identity.
Father Luca's complex adult configuration was largely the product of emotional compromise. In dealing with his father and all later authorities, he had alternated between submission and rebellion. He had, in a sense, defied his father in becoming a priest, and es- pecially in a small missionary order; but he was remaining within a Catholic ideology which his family held sacred. Moreover, he became, like his father, at the same time both a champion of the rights of "natives" and a loyal servant of a European institution. He also possessed a tenderness which--as his prison memories sug- gest--must have been derived from a relationship of love and in- timacy with his mother; a relationship which may have been responsible for much of his submissiveness, receptivity, and pen- chant for suffering.
In his ideological solution to his identity crisis, Father Luca (unlike Dr. Vincent) acquired a comprehensive if constricting view of the world, and a strict code of conduct for relations with other people; he took on a sense of loyalty and near-total submission to
an institution greater than himself. His concern was no longer simply, "Where do I stand? " and, "What can I do about my bad- ness? " Badness and commitment still had to be dealt with, but not on an individual basis. Instead, he asked himself, "How can I purify and humble myself in order to better serve the Church? How can I be more consistent in my life, and mean what I say and do? How can I, as a Catholic priest, be fully sincere? "
It is therefore not surprising that Father Luca objected strenuously to the judge's impugning his sincerity. He stated his position at the beginning--"a mistake or a matter of religion"--which made him, as he stood before the judge, both a man defending truth and a representative of a sacred institution. The fact that he had doubts about his own sincerity, at whatever level of consciousness, made him fight all the harder; one does not reveal inner weakness before the enemy. Moreover, by this same initial statement, he had de- clared his imprisonment a test of his sincerity; he assumed the posture of the confessor who is the defender of his faith against those who would persecute it.
The irony of his situation was that his reformers meant some-
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thing a little different by "sincerity": for Chinese Communist of- ficials, both in prison and out, to be sincere is to yield to them as representatives of the Way and the Truth, "Insincerity" or resist- ance is the one attitude which they will not tolerate, and they re- garded Luca's behavior as provocative. This, plus their prior identifi- cation of him as an enemy--he was not only a Catholic priest, but a leader of a militant Catholic organization--led to their use of force and brutality to a degree unusual even for a Chinese Communist prison. As on earlier occasions in his life, Luca could not grasp or articulate what he was expected to confess; and although the re- former's contradictory demands may have been mainly responsible for this, it is very likely that Luca's lifelong resistances to confes- sion also played a part, as he seemed to have much more difficulty than most other prisoners in reaching an understanding of the situa- tion. In any case, he experienced a more profound physical and psychological breakdown than did Dr. Vincent.
Father Luca's false confession reflected both a disintegration of his sense of reality and identity, and an outpouring of his sense of evil. His experience was like that of a man, who, troubled by feelings of guilt, dreams that he is a criminal being punished. Luca was a "criminal" being punished in jail, "dreaming" of having com- mitted the kind of crime of which he was accused--his dream work much assisted by his surroundings, and closely supervised by judge and cellmates. In a twilight state of fatigue, pain, and al- tered consciousness, he was both responding to the prison message and at the same time reverting to his own familiar confession idiom.
No other prisoner I encountered confessed more extensively than did Father Luca; nor did anyone else sustain for as long a period such a grossly false story. He could do this and even believe in his confession, not only because the environment encouraged this belief, but also because his confession had for him the ring of psychological truth. That is, it expressed "subversive" things about himself, albeit in the language of the Communist police system rather than that of the Catholic Church. It was an extreme version--a caricature--of his own negative identity. As an expe- rienced confessor (and a man who had done some writing) Father Luca could be creative, prolific, and convincing in using this carica- ture to develop his confession-novel.
The direct physical assault, coming at the height of the false con-
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fession, showed a loss of control on the part of the Communist of- ficials. They had begun to check Father Luca's false confession, ap- parently after having believed a good deal of it, and had found it to be "insincere" beyond words--in both the conventional and their own special meaning of the term.
Luca himself, once injured (and physically punished), rose to impressive heights of courage and strength. He had given indica- tions of his will to survive even before the injury. His delusions had included fantasies of self-affirmation--of recovery, rescue, and return to priestly activities--along with elements of guilt. At that time, too, he could summon faith in the religious purpose of his suffering ("penance for my sins"). Crippled and helpless, he was able to reach more profoundly into his emotional being and remind himself of the most basic forms of trust he had known in the past: religious comradeship, earthly places, both beautiful and permanent, and most of all, sad songs which took him back to maternal love and tenderness. His identity collapse had been temporary; now he sought always to reaffirm that in himself which he most valued and could depend upon. And at the same time, he kept his inner ex- perience within his own religious idiom. His imprisonment was a continuation of his lifelong self-purification. His faith was a power- ful ally, one he would under no condition surrender: hence his dra- matic assertion that "to take off my religion it is necessary to take out my heart and to kill me"--both a statement of creed and a quashing of self-doubt.
This very creed and his devotion to the Church behind it led to his greatest pain during reform. As a "liberal" he had already been in conflict with "illiberal" (and militaristic) colleagues, with whom he was now accused of conspiring. As a "liberal," he could also "feel" the validity of some Communist objections to official and nonofficial Church activity. He was especially vulnerable to accusations that the Church did such apparently "good" things as helping the sick and poor for its own selfish reasons: this would be "insincerity" at its worst. But he was susceptible not only be- cause he was liberal; it was precisely in this issue that he found his guilt, both personal and existential, most exploited. A negative image here--of self and Church--was both intolerable and unavoidable.
Luca's quest for "sincerity," as well as his "Chineseness," served, toward the end of his imprisonment, to bring him into a position
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of harmony with the officials: all became increasingly "frank" and "sincere. " But it was sincerity at a price, and led him to the in- congruous position of "helping" a fellow-priest make a criminal "confession"--his furthest venture into "betrayal. " He was, to be sure, still "hearing confessions"'; but now "sincerely" in harmony with the opposition.
Yet this too was only partial and transient. Immediately upon release, he was identified by his religious colleagues once more as the dedicated Catholic priest, which he had never really ceased to be. He also faced the delicate problem of restoring his identity as a liberal confessor, deeply committed to an authoritarian Church. His identity flexibility required that he scrutinize the Communists, the Church, and himself. In his profound sense of shame and guilt over having betrayed the Church (and himself), he felt the need to both relive and reformulate his relationship to it. Thus the story of the "naughty little girl" converted to active Catholicism despite parental opposition retells his own experience in enter- ing the priesthood. His "liberalism" had obliged him to give a hear- ing to some of the Communist message; but this involved him much less than his personal, credal, Catholic search. Now, as before, he could deal with his conflicts within his religious framework.
He conveyed the feeling that his imprisonment had made him more open to others' influence, more submissive; these could be important changes, but as heightening of traits already present, rather than as new characteristics. Perhaps an even more profound upheaval for Father Luca was the need to surrender much of his "Chinese" self, leaving him in a state of mourning which began not with imprisonment, but after release. He gave me the feeling, however, that from his careful, painful, and conscience-ridden weighing of ideas and emotions, a somewhat remodeled, but still liberal (and not entirely un-Chinese) father-confessor was re-emerg- ing.
Professor Hermann Castorp: The Submissive Scientist
Let us now examine the experience of another man who falls into this general category of the obviously confused, yet responded quite differently from either Dr. Vincent or Father Luca. A biologist from Central Europe in his mid-fifties, Professor Castorp was intro-
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duced to me by a member of his consulate in Hong Kong. Two or three of my other subjects who had met him in prison told me he had been "very progressive"; but when he came to see me just a few 'days after his release, he could best be described as "lost. " In addition to the typical post-imprisonment fear and suspiciousness, he was overcome by loneliness, and sought group protection when- ever he could: "Even when crossing the street, I waited for a few people and crossed with the group. " He welcomed the opportunity to talk things over with me, and so clearly enjoyed our three half- day sessions together that each time he was reluctant to leave. Yet despite his voluble answers to my questions, and his eagerness to prolong our talks, his manner was vague and distant, much like that of the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor. "
Both in his native Austria, and during his twenty-five years in China, Professor Castorp had lived the quiet and detached life of the scholar. A hard worker and a capable, well-liked teacher, he put a premium upon meeting--or even exceeding--the demands of others:
I have always had the tendency to satisfy people. . . . I have never wanted to displease anyone. If I am given work, I try to do better than what is expected. . . , If you give me a salary that is satisfactory, my entire energy is yours.
He attributed these traits to his "strongly Catholic" and "very conservative" Teutonic upbringing; to his stem and "sober" govern- ment-official father who, although he remained in the background in most family matters, had opinions which counted ("What will he think of me if I do something wrong? "); and even more to his "dictatorial" mother ("The kind of person other people submit to--even dogs listen to her") who directed everyone in the house- hold, bought all of Hermann's socks and underwear until he was twenty-two years old, and created an atmosphere within the home which ensured "that things must be done in a way that mother is pleased. "
In his schooling he worked actively to please his teacher; and dur- ing the years afterward, he continued to seek to please others, and avoid contention.
I didn't like to have the teacher angry at me. A driving force was to keep my teacher satisfied. This makes it happier for everyone, for him
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and for me. . . . I always try to find out what in the other person I could agree with. . . . I don't like people who conjure up big conflicts.
Similarly, he accepted without question the Catholic religion in which he was brought up. He was concerned much less with its dogma than with the loyalties which he felt to its moral principles, and to the family and Church organization around it: "I am the kind of man who must live in some kind of organization or society where I feel the need to do good. "
He thrived on the "simple cultured form of life" of the Youth Movement in which he participated, especially by its "clean," Puri- tanical emphasis, and its single-mindedness; "I like people with strong convictions who stick to them. "
But the one area in which he found active self-expression and which became his true "holy of holies," was science:
I am a scientist by conviction. I have been since very early in life. It is as an artist uses his art. I like to use my hands, my equipment, to ex- periment and to teach others.
He even defied his parents in embarking on this career, as they had a different profession in mind for him; but at the same time, he believed his scientific interests to be an inheritance from his maternal grandfather. He also felt that in his work--in his passion for research, his abilities as a teacher, his originality in construct- ing apparatus--he was, like his mother, a "leading spirit" whom others sought to follow.
He avoided considerations of philosophy and metaphysics ("The more you think about them, the more confused you are"), and had no concern with politics or with abstract ideological principles of any kind; what mattered to him was the operation of a system:
I am not interested in names--monarchy, democracy, dictatorship. 1 am interested in how things are actualized--how they work. I do feel there must be a factor of stability.
Coming to China at the invitation of a missionary university, he found conditions very agreeable to him in both his personal and professional lives. He was devoted enough to his strong-minded wife; but he readily tolerated long separations brought about by European medical treatments which her ailments were said to require, as
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long as another equally forceful woman could be found to run his household. Never too drawn to the sensual side of life, he was passionately involved in his teaching and his research. He thrived upon the difficult working conditions, and especially enjoyed the feeling that his professional skills were indispensable. Moreover, he delighted in the slow pace of Chinese life, and in what he called the "spirit of compromise" of the Chinese people. He found himself readily blending with his environment:
It is very interesting how surroundings influence you. . . . The stu- dents had a certain way of eating. I began automatically to eat just like them. . . . I even began to call a dog in the Chinese way.
His evaluation of the political regimes under which he lived depended largely upon those around him. Thus he at first was im- pressed with the Nationalist Government "because I saw the en- thusiasm of the students"; later he shared with them a strong resent- ment of the Japanese invaders, but then he found "a few Japanese who were not bad people," explaining that "in everyone I can see something good. " Mostly, however, he was disinterested in the world about him except as it pertained to his work. He did not care for psychological probing, but "if someone told me something about myself, I always thought, probably he is right--there must be something in it. "
He continued his work after the Communists came to power; but when the new regime took over the running of his university, he decided to leave because "I thought I would not fit. " Several delays occurred in his getting an exit permit, followed by his unex- pected arrest.
His response in prison from the beginning was to confess every- thing he could about his own past actions, and avoid antagoniz- ing his captors. Compared to Father Luca and Dr. Vincent, the pressures applied to him were relatively mild; no chains, no hand- cuffs, and none of the persistently extreme accusation which leads to falsification. On his part, he made a consistent effort to adapt himself as well as he could to this difficult environment, rather than concern himself with moral or ideological issues. "It is hard to say how I felt. I cannot judge these things, although I can easily find a concrete course to take. "
His personal confession was not too greatly emphasized, and he
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was quickly exposed to re-education. To the hsiieh hsi sessions he brought the approach of a scientist:
I paid close attention. I wanted to find what it was about. Mine was the attitude of research.
His approach was made feasible by his captors' failure to make him, as they did most other Europeans, a special target. "They saw at once that I was harmless. If I talked a little, they didn't expect too much. " Moreover, he was ingenious in his ingenuousness.
From the very beginning I said what I thought and this made it easier for me. . . . By nature I am anti-revolutionary. I don't like everything turned upside down. So when the Communists said, "You are anti- revolutionary/' they were right and I admitted it. I said, "I am. " If you admit things openly, they do not make so much fuss about it, they simply preach to you. But the moment you tell them stories, they get mad.
But his "research" (he was, after all, a participant-observer) led him to accept as valid much of the "data. "
I began to understand many things that I did not understand before. . . . It was a logical system in itself--talking about land distribution, why the tenants were poor--about China's losses from the international imperialists--things I've never been interested in before. I saw for the first time how the Chinese themselves felt about these matters. My whole thinking about these problems was enlarged.
Nor could he disentangle himself from the bias of his teachers' jar- gon, although he recognized it for what it was: "Old China was bad, new China good, and America bad--it is an official kind of language. "
He could even begin to accept the Communist point of view about his own criminal guilt, although it was based only upon anti-Communist statements he had previously made: "From the way I talked before, I influenced others against the Communists --so from their point of view I am guilty. " But he was never able to develop a strong inner sense of sinfulness, and his cellmates fre- quently criticized him because he had no "feeling of guilt/' He thought that such a feeling was "too much to expect from a man, because the world is not a religious order, and their requirements
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were too high. "
He viewed Communism as a religion, a point he made frequently
during our interviews, yet at the same time he managed to hold on to the general principles of his own Catholic faith. Here he once more made use of the scientist's approach.
I would emphasize the scientific explanation of the world, saying that there must have been a beginning, and therefore religion has a place. They would say, "This is a scientific religion, and it is all right. " Offi- cially, they were just supposed to be against superstition and not against religion.
At the same time, his sense of involvement in the Catholic re- ligion was of profound importance in his holding on to his sense of identity.
I would always figure out whether it was Easter or some other Catholic holy day so that I could stick to their custom. . . . If I had no reli- gious background, it is possible that I would have committed suicide.
He was pleased by the more favorable treatment accorded him as he became increasingly viewed as a "progressive"; but he was disturbed by the moves from one cell to another which this shift in status brought about, "I disliked changing groups. I felt I be- longed to a group like a chicken belongs to its flock. " Moreover, after a period of time, he found his "research" less and less reward- ing:
After I understood the fundamentals, I began to get bored by it all-- then the main thing became avoiding trouble. . . . Ten hours a day is too much, you get overfed, and this kills off deeper interests.
