40 / CHRONICLESnpeople. People are not for the rituals.n”People’s Day affirms there are othernpeople besides us. It falls Novembern1st. Children collect for Unicef. Thencongregation celebrates by singing secularnsongs, like ‘It’s a Small World.'”nI asked for a tour of the Temple.nSince that was the last question and Inwas the only one interested, Wine andnI soon stood in the service room.n”Notice our flat ceiling; the templenarchitecture is modern; it’s not designednto let heavenly light in,” hensaid.nHe ignored my criticism of the pulpitnskylight: White Bauhaus glass is notnlight-proof Maybe he was right to feelnprotected against angelic spirits. Onlyncivic spirits were immanent in thenservice room’s blond wood paneling,nstainless steel rails, wing-and-tail floorplan,nand textured black plastic chairs.nIt resembles a modern meeting room,ndesigned to accommodate the localnschool board.nAll icons had been removed. NonTorah because “We don’t believe innthe word.” But the pulpit was not bare.nUpon it stood a logo, a pop art renderingnof the Hebrew word for man,n”adam” (originally meaning clay), andnBOOKS IN BRIEF— CULTUREna Menorah. Not the symbolic Menorahnof rabbinical Judaism but one shiningnwith the secular Light of Life,nbrother to a Rolling Stones’ lightnshow.nI returned for a service called “Celebrationnof Academic Achievement” asnwell as to observe a pre-service low-calnchicken dinner, served in an oversizednDanish living room with sectionalnsofas and mini-trees in pots. Beforencalling tables to the buffet. Wine,nbeaming and waving a slice of eggnbread, said a blessing: “We praise thenpower of life within the world andnwithin each of us,” and began a people’sneating ritual with “share thenbread, pass it around. Behold howngood and pleasant it is to be with eachnother in peace.”nBlessing and handing out the breadnbaskets, the wandering guru seemedndifferent from the sitting missionary.nThe guru has the girlish amiability ofnold Yiddish comedians, like UnclenMiltie, who used to perform in drag.nConstantiy smiling, slightiy tilting, henseems ready to chuckle and do a backwardsnsomersault.nThe noshers were from Uncle Miltie’sngeneration. The women had neatnThe Normative Basis of Culture: A Philosophical Inquiry by Henry McDonald, BatonnRouge: Louisiana State University Press. The term “culture” underlies a great deal of ttienground covered by social scientists—anthropologists, sociologists, and historians of religion,nespecially. Henry McDonald offers a new approach, a “normative theory” which concentratesnon norms and values. Two enormous flaws in this approach will strike even the casualnreader; First, it is dependent on Wittgenstein’s interesting speculations on the nature ofnlanguage—how can a theory of even a social science be constructed on the basis of anotherntheory, especially one that is largely irrelevant to current research? Second, McDonaldncompletely ignores the one relevant school of thought: cognitive anthropology, a disciplinenthat has attempted, with some success, to do precisely what McDonald proposes. The realnmystery is why LSU Press—a very solid academic publisher—should have taken on sondilettantish a manuscript.nThe Culture of Criticism and the Criticism of Culture by Giles Gunn, New York: OxfordnUniversity Press; $24.95. Question: What could be sillier than “cultural criticism” asnpracticed by Alfred Kazin, Richard Rorty, and Paul de Man? Answer: the criticism of culturalncriticism as practiced by Giles Gunn, Gunn does have one virtue: He knows things. Fornexample, he knows that “the severity of the current intellectual crisis is not due to thenbreakdown of conventional moral prescriptions and interdictions, much less to the forgetfulnessnof the sacred.” That is, by the way, one of the few lucid sentences in the work. It isnpainful to note that the publisher is Oxford University and that portions of this embarrassingnbook were delivered as lectures at the College of William and Mary, the University of NorthnCarolina, and the University of Colorado.nPoems 1968-1972 by Denise Levertov, New York: New Directions. Here’s one of the betternparts: “OK! Let brutal/Amerikan polizei/and tightassed DAR’s be known forever/as pigs andnwasps, but let’s think up new names for those we ripped off”: Levertov, one of the gray oldnladies of the avant-garde, concludes her paean to revolutionism with a touching defense ofnporkers and vespids. Kinda makes one appreciate Allen Ginsberg. If there is a morenincompetent—or (what’s worse) more prolific—“poet of stature” in the U.S., we’d bendelighted to hear about her.nnnshort haircuts and wore sweaters ornknit dresses; though one, an academicnachiever, let her long curls fall innimprovised movements over a blackndress amply riveted with rhinestones.nThe men, who wore stodgy wools,nquietiy sliced their chicken into smallnpieces. I counted five kids and teenagers.nI could not tell if couples outnumberednsingles, but Secular HumanisticnJudaism’s future lies outside its reproductiventalents.nWith many humanists home watchingnDallas and Miami Vice, the spectatorsnsat few and far between. Winensaid, “We’re a family,” and called onneverybody to gather together near thenpulpit, where he began the servicenwith an explanation of why collegendegrees are superior to traditional ritesnof passage like Bar Mitzvahs or confirmations.nNext we heard 20 minutes ofnWine’s pop psychology tips alternatingnwith a soprano duet and piano performancenof his musical meditations,nlike: “In a place where there are nonreal people/Strive to be a person.”nThen came the unexpected. NewnAge Judaism had been so relentlesslynone-dimensional that it seemed powerlessnto astonish. But, astounded I wasnwhen Wine called upon three rationalnskeptics to answer a question—Howndoes one’s commitment to SecularnHumanistic Judaism contribute tonone’s career? — and each, alightednwith revival-tent fervor, witnessed thenpower of humanism to set you free.nThe first, a teased-platinum blondnpredator with a tube of foundationncream on her face, told how her faithnin Freudian psychotherapy and twoyearnsubmission to its methods unleashednhidden inner powers that enablednher to overcome her doctors’nobjective scientific prognoses aboutnher ectopic pregnancy and her infertility.n”With humanism, this was withinnmy grasp. My humanistic commitmentnbegan a two-year struggle aboutnmyself and my milieu. Psychoanalysisntaught me how to feel, who I am, thatnI am responsible for myself, and hownto help others.n”As a clinical social worker from anpsychoanalytical base, I help my casesnfind their humanness through theirntransfer to me. I remain a blank screennfor my patients to look deeply into andnsee their symptoms. I don’t offer an