Norman O. Brown

We approach the 5th anniversary of his death.

Brown's mind was extraordinary. He faced the Big Questions head on. He saw the repetition in human history that we all see, and he went out, through vast reading and unfettered thinking, to explain why this should be so. The result, a very provocative and "new" view of man, which immediately was misinterpreted and misused.

I'm overdue for a reading of LOVE'S BODY. I can count on one hand the books that were major influences on my own thinking about the Big Questions: Russell's MARRIAGE AND MORALS and WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN; de Rougemont's LOVE IN THE WESTERN WORLD; Brown's LOVE'S BODY; Camus' THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS.

Yes, time to look at Brown again, to be reminded of his grasp for it all.

clipped from archives.econ.utah.edu Norman Brown, Playful Philosopher, 89, Is Dead October 4, 2002 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Dr. Brown was a master of philosophical speculation, mixing Marx, Freud, Jesus and much else to raise and answer immense questions. Alan Watts, the popular philosopher, sang his praises. His works joined David Riesman's ``Lonely Crowd'' and J.R.R. Tolkien's ``Lord of the Rings'' on the reading lists of undergraduates aspiring to the counterculture. Scruffy pilgrims streamed to commune with him, only to discover a short-haired man who lived in a split-level house and avoided drugs. A meticulous student of ancient Greek who was given to long, meditative walks with his golden retriever, he was not a little perplexed when magazine and newspaper articles linked him to the new left, LSD and the sexual revolution. ``I have absolutely no use for the human-potential movement,'' he said in an interview with Human Behavior magazine in 1976.