Introduction
Del Grayson, Ph.D.
God is dead!
This is a cry we often hear today, and is the underlying theme of The Inner Depths, by Israel Krupp. But just what does it mean? The obvious reference, of course, is to the diminishing force of the religious ethic in our society. Certainly the image of God that the Pilgrims carried with them when they landed in Massachusetts almost 250 years ago is not the same that inspires people today to go around saving "Peace". How and where did this image begin to change?
Over the past 25 decades the American public has lived under a kind of superficial positive moderatism which has been characterized by many writers and philosophers as the Protestant Ethic. This was a concept of life that stressed somber virtues. Human beings enjoyed the quiet sense of a hard day's work well done, and were comfortable in the belief that a good man always earned more than his pay. Mixed in with this a kind of fierce pragmatism in which the hard and fast, here and now, seeable, touchable, aspects of reality were the only things given the name of reality.
Moderation seeped into almost every aspect of life. Even in religion, anything too mystical was suspect. The human being simply didn't stray too far from his somber dignity, and if he did he was immediately put down. Western man neglected what other times and places made a good deal of-the positive aspects which an exceptional person might contribute to society.
This adherence to moderation certainly permeated the realm of sexual behavior. The asexual teachings of the apostle Paul were deeply-ingrained in the Protestant Ethic, and sex was viewed from its procreative aspect only. The thought that a human being might receive pleasure from the sex act was in a way heretical. In a very real sense, sex was used as a means of barter, too. Young brides exchanged their romantic inclinations for husbands, and young men supported their wives in return for sex privileges and the bearing of children to continue their names and hence assure their immortality. There were exceptions, of course, but despite the hungry romanticism, characterized in early American literature and art, most of our marriages and sexual liaisons were made largely by arrangement.
Religion had lost ground, been ruled out of the state, but it still held a powerful grip on the mind of man. The earlier ethics, The Christian Ethic and The Catholic Ethic, had been all-powerful, ruling economies and political states with an iron fist. Those who believed, were in; those who did not, were out. And to be out under the Christian or
Catholic Ethics was to be virtually a dead man. Heretics were jailed or burned at the stake, so one had to believe to be comfortable in life.
As the industrial, technological twentieth century dawned, America began a gradual process of secularization which involved not only a diminishing of the force of religion, but also a dwindling of the force of the work ethic and the rather stiff personal code which surrounded it. Urbanization grew in our country, and with it came a new ethic which philosopher William F. Whyte called "the Social Ethic."
The shift from the Protestant to the Social Ethic was not as dramatic as some would like us to believe. It was rather a gradual erosion of values; both ethics had much in common, one spilling over into the other. The "organization" man was in; so were work and play, family and politics, each of these considered to be a good thing, a fun thing, a comfortable thing.
From the philosophical view, the Social Ethic was merely an extension of the Protestant Ethic combined with a certain feeling of comfort and good will which is easy to generate in an affluent society. There was, however-and this is important-a great deal more individual freedom. Under the Social Ethic, less was expected of people than under the stern Protestant Ethic, and people began acting and reacting more freely to the stimulants of life.
But now the Social Ethic is giving way as well. Dr. J.I. Simmons and Barry Winograd, in their excellent portrait of the modern scene, It's Happening, call the newly ascendant ethic the "Hang-Loose Ethic."
"The new ethic is hang-loose in a number of senses," they write, "but, its deep-running feature is that things once taken for granted as God-given or American Constitution-given-those basic premises about the world and the way it works-are no longer taken for granted or given automatic allegiance. In other words, many Americans are hanging a bit loose from traditional Americana."
This new ethic, whatever one chooses to call it, is irreverent. It challenges such cornerstones of conventional society as Christianity, "my country right or wrong," traditional moral codes, civil obedience, material wealth, the rights of society as a whole as characterized by parents, schools and governments to make decisions for everyone.
One of the strongest beliefs of this new ethic falls in the area of tolerance. This is a quality lacking in those who subscribe to traditionalism, but the modern generation is above all tolerant. "Do whatever you want," they say, "as long as you don't step on others while you're doing it." They believe in pursuing an experience both as a thing in itself and as a means of learning and growing, their idea being that a great variety and depth of experience is beneficial and not at all harmful as long as you can handle it. Some can, and some can't!
And the, "Some can, and some can't" realization is the source of conflict and action in . Within the book are three central characters, Peter Frenum, Wiffie, and Hamp. Each of the three has been brought up according to the harsh Protestant Ethic, believing in it thoroughly. However, they progress to the Social Ethic, and then rapidly to the Hang-Loose Ethic, each step of the way hastened by events that lead them to the, "You can't trust anyone over 30" belief.
In science there is a maxim that is commonly referred to as the Law of the Pendulum. This law simply means that anything suspended from a fixed point moves to and fro by the action of gravity and acquired momentum; thus, if an item suspended at center moves 90 degrees to the right, it will then swing 90 degrees to the left. If there is no increase in momentum, then each swing will reduce the degree of the arc until the swing covers less than I degree. A standstill will never be reached, but the swing can become infinitesimal. However, at any time that additional momentum is applied, the swing can increase.
Thus we have our characters on their swing of the pendulum of life. Considering the Social Ethic as the "norm" or center, they begin the book in the extremism of the Protestant Ethic and subsequently travel the pendulum's course to the opposite extreme, the Hang-Loose Ethic. pulls few punches as he exposes the hypocrisies of the Protestant extremists and shines the spotlight on some of the intolerances of the so-called tolerant generation. All in all, the author is quite fair, and is to be commended for maintaining an objective view of his characters and of society in general. is a highly erotic story, as it must be since so much of the philosophy of the Hang-Loose Ethic involves sex and sexual attitudes. However, the story is executed in the style of sharp parody or spoof; the sort of intellectual farce which guarantees every reader, regardless of taste, great fun.
Del Grayson, Ph.D.