Adam Phillips on Walt Whitman, Self-Discovery, and American Rock n’ Roll

In part two of their conversation, Adam Phillips and Paul Holdengraber discuss American rock n’ roll, knowing (and not knowing) oneself, and whether or not Paul’s son should to go college. Listen to part one, here.

Adam Phillips on what he is writing today…
I can tell you what I’m writing but I can’t talk about it. Because talking about what I’m writing when I’m writing it interferes with it. But what I was writing today was the essay for a catalog of an exhibition my partner, Judith Clark and I are doing at the Barbican in October. The exhibition is called The Vulgar, so I’ve been writing an essay on the vulgar…

Adam Phillips on using quotations…
They’re also probes. It’s a bit like finding out whether you’re talking to kindred spirits, or wondering what somebody else will make of something you’re not sure of.

Adam Phillips on Walt Whitman…
There is something in Whitman that really feels unprecedented. There’s a real vision. There’s a real freewheelingness about the verse that is extraordinary. It has the quality of lots of very good poems. People either really love it or really hate it. They either really don’t get it or they really get it. Whitman is really part of an American tradition of writing, of which Emerson would be comparable, and in a different frame Melville wouldn’t be, that for me as an adolescent and ongoing as an adult were revelations of writing. 

Adam Phillips on whether or not Paul’s son should go to college…
It’s a good question. The only thing I would say is that he may be too young to be absolutely certain that he knows what he wants to do. So I suppose, as a parent I would encourage him to experiment with college. I would value the question. In many ways, I would back him. I would say, you may well be right. But I think you should go to college and just give it a try. Because there may be a risk to over-narrowing your mind when you’re too young. Or, this is your vocation and if it is, you’ll only do that, you’ll only do what you’re really engaged by.

Adam Phillips on the infinite lifespan of conversations…
Conversations are by definition uncompleted actions. And it’s because that’s true that one goes on having one. It’s a bit like to define is to distrust. The perfect conversation could be the end of conversations.

NEXT WEEK: ERIC JAROSINSKI, OF NEIN FAME