Norman Mailer on Muhammad Ali

Boxing as Nonverbal Dialogue and the Discourse and Bantu Philosophy

Abstract

Norman Mailer sees the hidden depth of boxing as nonverbal dialogue, sees through it, and theoretically sees it through. His understanding of boxing is an unmediated act of seeing the twin verbal and nonverbal modes of language as coevolutionary. Together they constitute the basis of human mindbody ontology. As a man of the language arts, Mailer comprehends that each boxing event particularizes a nonverbal, all be it instinctual violent primal dialogue between two pugilists. Such an event inevitably produces a signifying nonverbal narrative discourse of its own.