Dear Marion,

Not too much time should elapse before I correct my statements
that Mr. William Ciamartaro, the plumbing inspector is not a
licensed plumber, and that his brother Joe has not been licensed
since 1992. These "facts" are indeed properly inferred from a 
list published by the State Board of Examiners of Plumbers and Gas
Fitters, - but that list turns out to be in error. Another list
published by the Department of Consumer Affairs names no fewer
than 59 licensed plumbers on Nantucket, the Ciamantaros among them.
It's hard to know what to believe.  According to this other list,
most Nantucket plumbers have been promoted to master plumbers.
What that might mean is another question. I'm not sure it's made
them paragons of reason.

As for the desire and need to belong to a society, about which I
began to write, the imperative of association, it seems to me,
is an expression of a biological characteristic of the human species,
and similar imperatives, I suspect, control the behaviors of many other
animals. Consider schools of fish, flocks of birds, swarms of bees,
colonies of ants - your catalogue will be more comprehensive than
mine. I myself, if I were required to identify with a community,
might most easily fall into lockstep with Deutsche Kultur.

My device is action. What alienates me from the crowd, from the
society, is that they give me nothing to do, or that what they give
me to do is nothing more than a symbolic gesture such as casting a vote,
nothing more than destructive employment, such as serving in the military,
nothing more than a waste of resources such as taxation to battle the
fantasized enemies without - the Russians or the Moslems - or the
fantasized enemies within - illness and ultimately death. The society
has no use for my creativeness or my imagination, for my intelligence
or for my intuition. I don't complain that no one has ever sought my
opinion or my judgment on any facet of our common experience; that
I have never been, and could never be elected to public office.
Had I been asked, I would have served. However, I've never felt the
obligation to promote myself.

I very nuch agree that no one should be "homeless", that no one should
go hungry. However your description of shopping for snowshoes suggests
that the "bare" necessities are insufficient for happiness. At least
in contemporary America the essentials of life are not enough. No one
wants a life of poverty, even if no deprivation is entailed. One seeks
to be accepted into the Middle Class where one has disposable income
to purchase gifts for family and friends, to obtain entertainment,
to afford vacations. I begrudge happiness to no one. However the
socialization of life leads unavoidably to official kitchens, official
housing, official "medical care", official literature, official art,
official religion, and official thought. Where is the line to be drawn?

I'm made uncomfortable by the politics of envy.  The wealthy are not
disproportionately happy. Wealth is more often a burden than a blessing.
The confiscation of wealth provides the imagination with a satisfaction
comparable to that provided by capital punishment. In one instance as
in the other, the onlooker despises the victim and revels in his or
her destruction. I'm anything but a courtier. Yet I have some inkling
of the symbolic significance of kingship such as Shakespeare perceived.
The person of the king is a mirror in which the subject sees a bright and
compelling reflection of his or her own pale grandeur. That's why all
regicide is tainted with the despair of suicide. When wealth, when power
and glory are brought down, there's little difference between the victims.
I'm, perhaps inappropriately, reminded of John Donne: Ask not for whom the
bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

That's it for tonight. Good night.
Jochen