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They dream of an unmediated relationship between experience and the word.
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They don't think so much of language
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as a mediating force as an expressive force.
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I argued in my second lecture on On the Road that,
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in the end, that dream looks quite deflated
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when Dean can't even speak in a coherent sentence,
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and he has to be rejected by Sal as Sal drives off
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to the jazz concert at Carnegie Hall.
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Nevertheless, that dream is spiritualized.
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It's a way of becoming not just close to the real,
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but also part of some mystical unity.
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That thread of the mystical quality of language