Playback from Eden to Watergate (Burroughs speaking)
In Encounter Magazine, admittedly once subsidized by
the CIA, there was an article called “Night Words” by
George Steiner. Talking about my writing and the writ-
ing of other writers in whose works sex scenes are frankly
and explicitly described, he says, “In the name of human
privacy, enough!”
In whose name is human privacy being evoked? In the
name of those who bugged Martin Luther King’s bed-
room and ransacked the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist?
And how many other bedrooms have they bugged? Does
anyone believe that these are isolated instances? That
they were caught on the first job? Who is casting the
first stone here?
It is precisely by breaking down the whole concept
of privacy that the monopoly the Nixon Administration
wishes to set up will be broken down. When nobody cares,
then shame ceases to exist and we can all return to the
Garden of Eden without any God prowling around like a
house dick with a tape recorder. Books and films in which
the sex act is explicitly represented are certainly a step
in the right direction. It is precisely this breakdown of
shame and fear with regard to sex that the Nixon Ad-
ministration is all out to stop so it can continue to use
shame and fear as weapons of political control.
It is generally assumed that the spoken word came be-
fore the written word. I suggest that the spoken word as
we know it came after the written word. In the begin-
ning was the Word, and the Word was God—and the
word was flesh .. . human flesh . . . in the beginning
of writing. Animals talk. They don’t write. Now, a wise
old rat may know a lot about traps and poison but he
cannot write “Death Traps in Your Warehouse” for the
Reader’s Digest, with tactics for ganging up on dogs and
ferrets and taking care of wise guys who stuff steel wool
up ratholes. It is doubtful that the spoken word would
ever have evolved beyond the animal stage without the
written word. The written word is inferential in human
speech.
My basic theory is that the written word was actually
a virus that made the spoken word possible. The word
has not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved
a state of stable symbiosis with the host, though this
symbiotic relationship is now breaking down, for reasons
I will suggest later.
https://archive.org/stream/the-job-interviews-with-william-s-burroughs-burroughs-william-s-1914-1997-odier-_202408/The%20job_%20interviews%20with%20William%20S_%20Burroughs%20--%20Burroughs%2C%20William%20S_%2C%201914-1997%3B%20Odier%2C%20Daniel%2C%201945-%20--%201989%20--%20New%20York%2C%20N_Y_%2C%20U_S_A__%20Penguin%20--%209780140118827%20--%20df6a723650b6bebb01b0bc2a4d28ec04%20--%20Anna%E2%80%99s%20Archive_djvu.txt
A man well respected, but little known. How most of us are!