I woke up one morning last week, thinking about Bartleby the Scrivener. It was a few days after my last posting, which had related to Bartleby via two Welsh Academics and one Slavic Lacanian, which is an oblique route to Herman Melville, and Bartelby— who worked, as it happens, in an establishment very close to Wall Street.

I realized that the whole “Bartleby” perspective was simply posturing: a cute, literary reference which really goes nowhere. Negation does not lead to reflective space. It leads (after destruction) to avoidance. In fact, Melville’s Bartleby character is a poster child for one of Karen Horney’s three central characterological types: the avoidant personality.

Among its distinguishing traits are: detachment, emotional distance, and aloofness. “Don’t bother me”, like Bartleby’s “I prefer not to” is his mantra, while maintaining a defended sense of superiority. Occasionally, there are moments of ease from what HS Sullivan calls this “distance machinery”. Indeed, the Bartleby type is capable of intense short term relationships (as well as spontaneous moments of creativity) as long as they do not unduly interfere with his life.

As far as reflection goes, Horney comments upon his swings between appreciation for such human traits as goodness, sympathy and generosity while operating with cunning self-interest. Rather than wrestle with this contradiction, the Barleby character prefers rationalization.

No, Bartleby is not the model for reflection and reassessment of societal dysfunction. His viewpoint only contributes to the distortion of clear vision.

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