In 1946, the newly American W.H. Auden urged the academics of a victorious nation to choose “Under Which Lyre” they would ply their trade — would they sing the song of Apollo, god of order, or Hermes, god of freedom? (Hear Auden read the poem here.)
Auden urged on his listeners “the Hermetic decalogue,” which I’m quoting in a syllabus, and about which I have something of substance to say — but just for the moment, I’m puzzling over the narrow matter of how to number his ten commandments. I propose the following but remain open to alternate theories.
It’s an important question, because depending how you do this, committing a social science is analogous either to adultery or murder. (Or possibly failing to honor your father and mother — but I don’t think so; whatever Auden was, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t Jewish.)
[1]Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
[2]Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis
On education,
[3]Thou shalt not worship projects [4]nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.[5]Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. [6]Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science.[7]Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
With guys in advertising firms,
Nor speak with such
As read the Bible for its prose,
Nor, above all, make love to those
Who wash too much.[8]Thou shalt not live within thy means
Nor on plain water and raw greens.
[9]If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
[10]Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
The Edge of the American West 
3 comments
December 22, 2007 at 8:24 am
Vance Maverick
I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about this. The problem, I think, is that despite Auden’s (really astonishing) cleverness, the poem is impossible to take seriously. The capper is the last line. I read the New Yorker myself, and would doubtless have done so if transported back to the forties. But to make it a shibboleth suggests one’s reading it the wrong way…and to pretend to make it a shibboleth suggests condescension to one’s audience. This fakery/mockery/condescension can (I think) be traced in the rest of the poem, and indeed in much of even his best work.
I’d be interested to see what you draw from this!
December 22, 2007 at 8:35 am
eric
I think there’s plenty of tongue-in-cheekery here, I grant. (Although I gather Auden was serious about not liking the overly washed.) And note that earlier in the poem Auden concedes the world could not be run by the Hermetic; he’s simply making a case that academics belong among the Hermetic and not the Apollonian.
I don’t think “read The New Yorker” was obviously terrible advice. I confess, I’m more familiar with the New Yorker of the 1920s, and then of the 1980s onward, than of the 1940s, so maybe there’s something there I’m missing.
Although, if you aspire to write well in English, it’s still pretty good advice.
December 23, 2007 at 7:57 am
Vance Maverick
It was a good magazine, of course, famously well-edited, etc. But as a commandment for how to live under the “god of freedom”? What weekly magazine could live up to that?