Eric Bentley on Affective Memory

David Begelman 

Affective memory. Technique, advocated by STANISLAVSKY and much elaborated in the METHOD, of re-creating emotions on stage by mental reference to experiences in the actor’s own life (Taylor, 1966).

 

In an article published originally in the Tulane Drama Review and subsequently anthologized, Eric Bentley criticized acting theorists like Stanislavsky and Robert Lewis, as well as translators of Stanislavsky like Magarshack, for their views on affective memory, a.k.a. emotional memory (Bentley, 1962). Bentley felt a more searching examination of one of the cornerstones of so-called “Method acting” was long overdue.

Among several of the criticisms Bentley emphasized was that, contrary to Magarshack, the term “affective memory” did not originate with the French psychologist Theodule Ribot, nor did it appear first in this scientist’s Problemes de Psychologie Affective. Neither was it in use earlier than the term “emotional memory.” Bentley pointed out that allusions to affective memory could be found in later writings of the psychologist as well as in his earlier tomes, and in the works of his contemporaries. The thrust of Bentley’s article, however, was not, as he indicated, to dwell on minor terminological matters. His focus was a more significant one.

Bentley has contended that because Ribot raised questions about the actual availability of any such capacity as “affective memory,” there is a disconnect between theories about it propounded separately by Stanislavsky and the French psychologist. Bentley avers that Ribot, from what appeared to have been a skeptical standpoint, broached an issue over the universality of affective memories: whether people can harbor them spontaneously at all, not whether they can be “induced by exercises” (Bentley, 1962, p. 129). In this connection, Bentley says that Ribot finally concluded that some persons have affective memories, others not at all, prompting Bentley to argue that “… when Mr. Robert Lewis speaks of Emotional Memory as something that is ‘accomplished’ he is not talking about what Ribot was talking about” (Bentley, 1962, p. 129). Bentley’s conclusion is a non sequitur.

Even were we to grant Ribot’s assumption that affective memories do not as a rule occur frequently or spontaneously, or that his contemporaries even doubted their existence, it does not follow that they cannot denote precisely those psychological states Stanislavsky and Lewis insisted are developed through certain exercises. Doesn’t the very notion of an “exercise” imply a regimen necessary to install in order to accomplish something ordinarily harder to create without it? If so, there is no glaring inconsistency between holding that an ability is rare or nonexistent in many and believing it can be cultivated through a particular approach to actor training.

Even at that, there is some ambiguity in the language of discussion. Bentley never clarified whether Ribot’s contemporaries deemed affective memory nonexistent in the sense of “not ordinarily operating” or “incapable of being experienced” Understandably, the latter meaning of the term is quite an inferential stretch from observations of infrequent patterns solely.

Bentley goes on to fault Robert Lewis for “inverting the truth” by implying that “…though the name may vary, the process which both the psychologists and theatre people have been referring to is the same” (Bentley, 1962, p.129). Surprisingly, Bentley provides little in the way of evidence for his opinion that they are not the same. Were this not enough, Bentley goes on to personalize the issue by taking theatre people to task for:

"…invoking scientific terminology for the sake of its authoritative sound:

Anything with a scientific name must have a scientific basis. Once we see
through this fallacy, we realize that the “exercises given to actors may not
actually do the work they are supposed to do. But this is not to say they have no            
value. By way of analogy, take prayer. There may not be a God sitting Up There
listening to it, but that is not to say the person praying feels no better for it…
Likewise exercises in emotional memory" (Bentley, 1962, p. 129).

It seems presumptuous to characterize distinguished acting theorists as motivated principally by a wish to sound “scientific.” Cannot an honest mistake—if it were one at all—be committed without a covert attempt at scientific grandstanding? Bentley in effect is attributing base motives to theorists without grounds for so doing. Moreover, Bentley’s allegation is itself muddled; he has not shown that theatre people believe anything with a scientific name must have a scientific basis. On the contrary, the putative error Bentley presumed to expose was merely that Ribot and acting theorists harbor similar theories about affective memory, a far cry from the thesis that Stanislavsky’s views have no scientific basis. (As a sidebar, what is a “scientific basis” for a viewpoint anyhow? Is it an opinion harbored by a community of persons calling themselves “scientists”—a definition of the phrase that historically is not inconsistent with the sometime falsity of that opinion1—or, alternatively, a demonstrable reality that can be referenced by anyone, albeit honorifically characterized as “scientific” because of its epistemic surety? Or does Bentley suppose, erroneously, that the reality of any established truth is guaranteed only through the imprimatur of a scientist?)

 Bentley’s assertion that acting exercises, like religion, have a “comforting effect,” although hardly achieve what they were designed to accomplish is another non sequitur. How does he parlay the fact that Stanislavsky misconstrued Ribot into the insight that certain exercises cannot accomplish their aim—that Stanislavsky was, as it were, kidding himself? One might just as well contend that Method exercises, precisely because they are unrelated to the psychological state Ribot investigated, accomplish everything intended!

Stanislavsky, Bentley insists, misread Ribot. According to the French psychologist, “affective memory” is of dubious prevalence. Yet Ribot’s view itself clashed with those of many colleagues of his time: they thought the capacity didn’t exist at all! On any accounting, this is a telling disagreement if Bentley is intent on making invidious comparisons between the established views of psychological science and those of particular acting theorists. In line with this, Bentley draws upon the “scientific” viewpoint to suggest that any system of Method exercises recruited to train actors that is based upon affective memory must be of questionable value, although the “science” he references hardly represents a singular point of view.

Furthermore, we must keep in mind that Ribot’s opinions scarcely lay claim to having probative “scientific” value in the absence of a rigorous methodology in having investigated what seems to be a special cognitive state. Did Ribot carefully demarcate the experimental population in which affective memory did or did not exist, and to what degree? What was the precise methodology of his study? Was it predicated upon a flimsier dependent variable such as gleaning verbal reports from an undefined population of subjects? How many subjects actually comprised Ribot’s data base? Was the possibility of transnational differences in the incidence or prevalence of affective memory given consideration? Ribot’s conclusion was not only contrary to the theories of some of his scientific contemporaries, it was also partially based on his knowledge of “a contemporary man of letters…saying that women have them and are therefore polygamous, while men don’t have them and are polygamous” (Bentley, 1962, p. 129): as shoddy a data base—coupled with as zany an inference—as can be imagined. “Science,” indeed!

If, as Bentley opines, it is a mistake to invoke scientific terminology for its own sake, what about the spirit of his own argument intending to prove Stanislavsky wrong by invoking the viewpoint of a spokesperson who, from all appearances, represents an outdated French psychology?2 Actually, Bentley ignores several other alternatives that suggest themselves, to wit: (1) Stanislavsky and Ribot referenced the same psychological state, although Ribot was in error about its attainability, as Method exercises show; (2) Ribot was correct about the rarity of “affective memory,” but Stanislavsky developed a workable system of actor training, mistakenly believing it was predicated on the same psychological capacity referenced by Ribot; (3) Ribot was wrong about “affective memory,” which is attainable, and Stanislavsky right, although what the two theorists separately referenced as such are actually distinguishable capacities, like apples and oranges; (4) Ribot and Stanislavsky were both wrong about their distinguishable notions of “affective memory”: Ribot, because his concept pertained to an achievable state, and one not as rare as he had supposed; Stanislavsky, because Method exercises function more like consolations among a network of True Believers than they do effective instrumentalities.

And so on.

Bentley may have been correct in supposing that Method exercises can be likened to “prayers in the age of science,” but he has provided little evidence to back up his claim. And I assume that what he meant by “the age of science” celebrates minimally an allegiance to empirical grounds for a belief.

 

REFERENCES

 

Bentley, E. (1962).            Who was Ribot? Or: Did Stanislavsky know any psychology? Tulane Drama Review, 7, 127-129.

Crews, F. (1995).     The Memory Wars: Freud’s Legacy in Dispute. New York: New York Review of Books.

Crews, F. (1998)     Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront A Legend. New York: Viking Press.

Dineen, T. (1996).     Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing To People. Montreal, Canada: Robert Davies Multimedia Publishing.

Esterson, A. (1993).            Seductive Mirage: An Exploration of the Works of Sigmund Freud. Chicago, Illinois: Open Court.

Grünbaum, A. (1984).                The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Macmillan, M. (1997).     Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Nagel, E. (1959).     Methodological Issues in Psychoanalytic Theory. In Psychoanalysis, Scientific Method and Philosophy: A Symposium, edited by Sidney Hook, 38-56. New York: New York University Press.

Scharnberg, M. (1993).     The Non-Authentic Nature of Freud’s Observations (2 Volumes). Uppsala, Sweden.

Sulloway, F. (1992).     Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Little, Brown & Company.

Taylor, J. R. (1966).     The Penguin Dictionary of the Theatre. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd.

Zilbergeld, B. (1983).     The Shrinking of America: Myths of Psychological Change. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown & Company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

---

1 It was, I believe, Sir Karl Popper, who held that the notion of the falsity of a theory is what gives scientific theorizing not only its punch, but its virtual significance.

2 No reflection on the French, since outdating itself may be among the most dependable aspects of “scientific psychology,” American variants included. If the reader is skeptical, let him or her compare the discipline’s inconsistent pronouncements on such matters as varied as child rearing practices, somatotyping, phrenology, intelligence quotients, brain function, language acquisition, homosexuality, child abuse, repressed memories, ritual abuse, and—if only to pique the complacency of a certain professional constituency—the credibility of psychoanalytic theory (Nagel, 1959; Zilbergeld, 1983; Grünbaum, 1984; Macmillan, 1991; Sulloway, 1992; Esterson, 1993; Scharnberg, 1993; Crews, 1995, 1998; Dineen, 1998).