The Schizo-Stroller

I’ve just been reading the section of Phenomenology of Spirit where Hegel talks about Socrates. Now whenever you get lists of famous people who hear voices Socrates is usually on it (charities often do this to normalise the experience). Here’s what Hegel writes about what is quite clearly Socrates’ method of dealing with his voices:

“Just as that wise man of old searched in his own thought for what was good and beautiful, but left it for his ‘daemon’ to know the petty contingent content of what he wanted to know – whether it would be good for him to keep company with this or that person, or good for one of his acquaintances to go on a journey, and similar unimportant things; in the same way the universal consciousness draws knowledge of the contingent from dirds, or trees, or the yeasty earth, the vapour from which deprives self-consciousness of it’s self-possession.” (Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977, p. 431)

Outside of bio-social models of schizophrenia, radical groups of psychologists and ex-patients have been looking at successful therapies for voice hearers. Two of the most successful models are Voice Dialogue and the Finnish Open Dialogue. Both rather than treating the experience as pathological encourage the voice hearer to engage with their voices. These voices often have personalities of their own. This method became popular after a Dutch voice hearer read Julian Jaynes’ Bicameral Mind and used it to recover, Jaynes’ Bicameral Mind is a controversial book that argues that until the time of Homer, the ancient Greeks literally heard and saw their Gods. Now whether they did or not or whether it is true in this literal sense, if one studies social theory we come across both Adorno and Horkheimer’s discussion of the creation of the subject in Ulysses as a distinct break in the history of the individual, and recently Sloterdijk in Bubbles argues that ancient people had a more ‘telepathic’ existence, their socius was less discriminating and they could more or less hear each others’ intentions if not thoughts.
Returning to the success of voice dialogue that treats these voices in schizophrenia as sub-personalities that have something to say, in the literature that surrounds this they are often referred to as Daemons. If we look at Greek mythology the Daemons, or daimons were often emotions or ideals, for example Aporia or Apechania (helplessness), or Penthos (grief), Aletheia (truthfulness). When voice hearers are helped to come to terms with their voices, empathic communication is often used as a tool or skill to help them hear their voices without upset, that leads to a change in the nature of the voices where they change from vengeful Furies to guides (more the Furies with whom Oedipus found peace and sanctuary) and this is often done by helping connect feelings and needs, a link that can be broken by trauma or poor communication, as argued by Bateson. This has a biological basis in the evidence base that has looked at links between the formation of the ordo-frontal cortex and attachment theory.

Overload. Screams. Cries. Ravaged hair pulling. Accelerator locked on. Chain stuck to rear axle. Wheel smoking. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

BOO HOO!

In comes the demolition ball of emotional cruelty. Compassion denied by the consumer mind. The emptiness bought into that entails the demand to embody the impossible rational economic subject. No feeling possible. To hear another’s cries brings out pangs of jealously. Smash the victim down!
I cannot feel so you may not.
I dare not feel so I will deny yours.
That which we refuse in ourselves we are least likely to allow in others.

The Tories are trying to eradicate the welfare state according to the Hayekian neo-liberal plan. And to do that they need people whose fore-fathers fought for it to hate it.
As Malcolm X said “If you believe the papers, you will soon start hating the oppressed and loving the oppressors”
And so the media onslaught began.

Love? Give it short shrift.
Compassion? Socialism!
Empathy? A code word for communism!
Someone suffering? let them know it’s all their own fault. It cannot be any other way.
The market dictates. There is no alternative. Put up or shut up!
Pay your rent! It’s the century of rentierism.
Stop complaining.
The exceptional complaint, the only complaint allowed, being the right to complain about others complaining.
It is the order. It is the state of exception.

All resistance is required to be channelled through conspiracy theory.
Resurrecting the old anti-semitic 1930′s Nazi propaganda of the New Order, rearing its ugly head again. The new illuminati, the new Elders of Zion.
Stick it up your 23. Push your skirt down. Girls in short skirts are asking to be raped. Blame the victim society.
Fuck Wilson give me Burroughs. Cut up, mash up, scars down my arm.
Watch me bleed.

It hurts. But you are not allowed to feel the pain. Cut yourself from feeling, for feeling, forbidden rights, forbidden expression. Forbidden truths. All pain must be visible and tangible. All scars in plain sight.
Disability only exists in the image of a wheelchair. Only immediately apparent impairments are acceptable.

It is necessary to collude in the destruction of the welfare state. In the destruction of our own job security. Our own living wage.

Only what is on TV truly exists. Only the simulacra counts.

If you’re not working you are subhuman. If you do anything other than watch TV at night, your too up yourself.

Daleks exterminated. We deny.

Deny it! Deny it! Deny it!

Others’ pain reminds us of our own. The pain we do not allow ourselves to feel.

Healing oneself is forbidden. It’s being too up yourself.

First Blood, the only decent Rambo film, a tale of how a community refused Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the inevitable consequences.

My mind is a machine gun. My pain the bullets.

Why shoot me? All I did was deny you.

Refused acknowledgment. Denial of recognition. Failure to provide solidarity. Isolation. Destruction.
Only negative solidarity remains. Banding together to fight those who resist our repression. Who bear their pain.

Demon! Out! I name thee Repression!

Same as dat, yesterday, today, tomorrow
There will be no reprint, repress, suppress, oppress, compress
Same as dat, today, tomorrow, yesterday
No compression, oppression, repression, suppression
This is no mp3
This is not a copy of a copy
There is no original,
An original implies a copy
this is unique.
Stinky, human shit.
Everyday shit
Revolution of everyday shit
This shit is only suitable fertiliser for growing vegetables for human consumption after 10-20 years
About the same time as an original thought takes to get into academic discourse
Or for that discourse to affect policy.
And, then, only after you take the heavy metal out.
Mash it up with hardcore
Then break the scene.
Create those vacuoles
Elude Control.

Bad boy bubba
Double trouble
Bubble Trouble
Momma Can I Go out And Kill tonight
I was a teenage werewolf
But I don’t wear shades, not even after dark
Look into my eyes… deep into my eyes
MOTHERFUCKER.
Shut the fuck up and listen
Cos I wanna tell to a story.
Of how I was mummy’s golden boy.
But that golden boy was’na me.
Was name,
Was good boy bubba
Toil and trouble
Protestant ethical fucker
Victim blaming cunt

Same as dat, tomorrow, yesterday, today.
No reprint, repress, suppress, oppress
Same as dat, today, tomorrow, yesterday
No compression, oppression, suppression, repression
My bonny lies over the ocean, my bonnie lies over the sea
My bonnie lies trapped in the Other, and no-one can fucking here him but me.
Mirror in the bathroom you and me, help me gain some sanity
Don’t look at me bruv
I’m just you looking at you looking at you looking at you looking at you…
You need a knot eye
Not who?
Not you, another mother’s fucker
Any old fucker, any old fucker, any old fucker will do.
Young or old
Beautiful or not
Girl or boy
Just not you, do you see?
I see you, looking at you, looking at you, looking at you…
But not me
That’s cos you’re looking at you, looking at you, looking at you.
A knot eye to see your knot.
Tell your not to get knotted.
De-not. A not knot.
Get your punk arse out of the subjective and get some bastard to prove you wrong
High noon, guns at dawn
Dusk till dawn,
Better argument after negation after better argument after negation after better argument after negation…
Better than you looking at you looking at you looking at you…
It’s the knot eye, bleary eye till dawn and the wine flows like sweet, sweet nectar.
No vampires here.
Unless it’s the night you can’t get a word in edgeways
Never mind, you’re no virgin
You’re doomed to die in the horror story of your mind
At least you might get a fuck out of it.
Living in the love of the common people
Smiles from the heart of the family man
Papa’s gonna buy you an ideology to cling to
And you’ll never have a proper conversation til the day that you die.

If you’re worried you might have depression
First check you’re not surrounded by wankers
If you’re worried you might have psychosis
First check you’re not surrounded by narcissists.
Hard to do in the consumer society
Zombie land of the living shopper
Braaaiiinnns
Think, think it ain’t illegal yet
The zombie sniffs the air.
Brraaainnns. Thinking braainns.
Whoop whoop it’s the sound of the police
Censor that thought
It’s not fit for human consumption
It has inherent value.
Same as dat.
Dat shit. Bat shit.
That’s not for reprint, reprocess, redistribution.
Same as dat
I’ve got nothing to say
Nothing of value
Other than my truth.
My inherent value.
Whether it has any objective value, objective truth, can only be decided by others.
That’s a you, another, not the mirror,
Lest we slide into mental illness.
It is you ooh hoo, oh yeh yeh yeh
It is you ooh hoo, oh yeh yeh yeh.
Pressure drop, oh pressure drop
Pressure’s gonna drop on you.
And it cuts both ways
Sunshine
Solar anus
Uranus
Not Janus with his two face
Scarface
Don’t get high on your own supply
That shit ain’t ever gonna be good enough
Bat shit, dat shit,
Guana, g’wan a
You wanna
Same as dat.

Now distribute quick
And fuck off.

Well, rather than taking a hiatus from blogging because I’m having some sort of breakdown now I am taking a hiatus because i am undertaking a far more productive venture.

However I shall not be linking to it from here. The psychotic rants, breakdowns and nonsense i write on here is hardly an advertisement for something else (plus others are involved – oh so ominous). Those who need to know already know what the new venture is. Although to be fair my internet imprint is large enough to find out A) who i am and b) what i’m doing now if you really need to.

But i want a clean break right now, so I’m shelving this until either I have to renew my web address and haven’t written anything more or I really do come back and write some clear, concise and lucid posts to kickstart it all again (although that is a rarity in blogging history).

In the meantime thanks to all those who’ve bothered to read it, i hope for the most part you’ve enjoyed it. I make no apologies for the content it was how i felt at the time. One always thinks differently later. Depending on your discourse it is the ways of the unconscious or the mammalian brain, or just human processes.

Some people seem to think that by reversing the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have done to yourself, they can do what they want.

That is they think by saying, ‘Go on, you can punch me if I punch you’ they can do what they want. Or ‘Well, I don’t mind’, the narcissist’s version unable to extricate themselves from the subjective.

How about this. “If I can rape you, then you can rape me”. “I can violate you if you can violate me”.

Actually, no. You’ve consented, therefore it’s not rape. You still can’t rape me.

There are good reasons people come up with forms of philosophical forms of argumentation. Dialectics, dialogics, logical propositions, scientific experimentation and observation etc. It allows one to see beyond subjective opinion.

Unfortunately, its not that good for consumerism.

The general intellect and the general bitch are opposed.

The general bitch has other names, the general carry-go-bring-come, the general gossip, general ignorance (if you like QI). It is fed by hearsay and is thus opposed to Law.

The general intellect and general bitch both work at the edge of chaos.

However the general intellect draws from below, from chaos and creates its own democratic order.

The general bitch fears chaos and polices it.

The general intellect tames the Beast, plays with it, converses with it freely; the general bitch fears the Beast and thus unconsciously works for it, the general bitch is the Beast’s slave. Its willing slave, due to its willing repression of its own desires and thus is unable to become fully conscious.

Working for the Beast the general bitch uses police tactics, censorship, negative solidarity to feed the Beast it fears.

The general bitch invokes fealty and obedience to the Law whilst simultaneously forecloses its own ability to create it and therefore is not the Law.

The general bitch tries to be a parent whilst failing to be an adult and so becomes a child.

This statement is a bitch. This is a general statement. It does not belong to the general bitch.

“It was not until the modern era that the hive was found to be a radical matriarchy and sisterhood (with only a smattering of male drones) and that the notion of the Queen Bee as supreme supervisor was discounted. When a swarm pours itself out the front slot of a hive, the queen bee can only follow.” (Borgo, 2007:142)

“Fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation; it leads the individual
upon the road which all travel, it furnishes a general condition, which resolves the conduct of every individual into a mere example. At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differentiation, the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for change and contrast, on the one hand by a constant change of contents, which gives to the fashion of to-day an individual stamp as opposed to that of yesterday and of to-morrow, on the other hand because fashions differ for different classes – the fashions of the upper stratum of society are never identical with those
of the lower; in fact, they are abandoned by the former as soon as the latter prepares to appropriate them. Thus fashion represents nothing more than one of the many forms of life by the aid of which we seek to combine in uniform spheres of activity the tendency towards social equalization with the desire for individual differentiation and change. Every phase of the conflicting pair strives visibly beyond the degree of satisfaction that any fashion offers to an absolute control of the sphere of life in question.” (Simmel, 1904)

“Fashion is merely a product of social demands, even though the individual object which it creates or recreates
may represent a more or less individual need.” (Simmel, 1904)

“The very character of fashion demands that it should be exercised at one time only by a portion of the given group, the great majority being merely on the road to adopting it. As soon as an example has been universally adopted, that is, as soon as anything that was originally done only by a few has really come to he practiced by all – as is the case in certain portions of our apparel and in various forms of social conduct-we no longer speak of fashion. As fashion spreads, it gradually goes to its doom. The distinctiveness which in tile early stages of a set fashion assures for it a
certain distribution is destroyed as the fashion spreads, and as this element wanes, the fashion also is bound to die. By reason of this peculiar play between the tendency towards universal acceptation and the destruction of its very purpose to which this general adoption leads, fashion includes a peculiar attraction of limitation, the attraction of a simultaneous beginning and end, the charm of novelty coupled to that of transitoriness. The attractions of both poles of the phenomena meet in fashion, and show also here that they belong together unconditionally, although, or rather because, they are contradictory in their very nature. Fashion always occupies the dividing-line between the past and the future, and consequently conveys a stronger feeling of the present, at least while it is at its height, than most other phenomena. What we call the present is usually nothing more than a combination of a fragment of the past with a fragment of the future. Attention is called to the present less often than colloquial usage, which is rather liberal
in its employment of the word, would lead us to believe.” (Simmel, 1904)

“From all this we see that fashion furnishes an ideal field for individuals with dependent natures, whose self-consciousness, however, requires a certain amount of prominence, attention, and singularity. Fashion raises even the unimportant individual by making him the representative of a class, the embodiment of a joint spirit. And here again we observe the curious intermixture of antagonistic values. Speaking broadly, it is characteristic of a standard set by a general body, that its acceptance by any one individual does not call attention to him; in other words, a positive adoption of a given norm signifies nothing. Whoever keeps the laws the breaking of which is punished by the penal code, whoever lives up to the social forms prescribed by his class, gains no conspicuousness or notoriety. The slightest infraction or opposition, however, is immediately noticed and places the individual in an exceptional position by calling the attention of the public to his action. All such norms do not assume positive importance for the individual until he begins to depart from them. It is peculiarly characteristic of fashion that it
renders possible a social obedience, which at the same time is a form of individual
differentiation. Fashion does this because in its very nature it represents a standard that can never be accepted by all. While fashion postulates a certain amount of general acceptance, it nevertheless is not without significance in the characterization of the individual, for it emphasizes his personality not only through omission but also through observance.” (Simmel, 1904)

“Representing as he does the most recently conquered heights of public taste, [the dude] seems to be marching at the head of the general procession. In reality, however, what is so frequently true of the relation between individuals and groups applies also to him: as a matter of fact, the leader allows himself to be led.” (Simmel, 1904)

I’m currently reading David Borgo’s ‘Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age’, in it he quotes George Lewis referencing John Cage’s musical and philosophical stance:

“After three hundred years of the very real silence of violence and terror, rather than a freely chosen conceptual silence of four minutes or so, one can well imagine the newly freed slaves developing a music in which each person is encouraged to speak, without conflict between individual expression and collective consciousness. in contrast to this notion of improvisation as a human birthright, a simple response to conditions, an embodied practice central to existence and being in the world, Cage’s Puritanical description of improvisation contrasted the image of a heroic, mystically ego-driven Romantic improviser, imprisoned by his own will, with the detached, disengaged, purely ego-transcending artist who simply lets sounds be themselves” (George Lewis, “The Secret Love between Interactivity and Improvisation, or – Missing in Interaction: A Prehistory of Computer Interactivity” 2003:3)

Borgo goes onto suggest that the disavowal of improvisation by pan-European composers such as Cage was due to the increasing awareness that jazz was starting to compete with high art on its own terms but that this philosophical terrain often downplayed issues of class and race in favour of the “more solipsistic and community-denying isolationism of Eurocentric discourse” (Cage quoted in Borgo 2007:88).

Borgo goes on to quote Lochead, quoting Cage’s oft quoted passage where he describes his desire to create music “free of individual taste and memory (psychology) and also of the literature and traditions of art” (Borgo 2007:88). Borgo then suggests that:

“although Cage could control the compositional process, he could not control listening. It is in listening that music is created and listening is never free of memory. Cage did arguably play an important role in urging listeners to hear more fully their natural environment, but he did so by attempting to displace the human from its integral role within that environment. Free improvisers advocate similar qualities of active and engaged listening, but they implicitly acknowledge that the infinite variety of sound around us requires a human social space for interaction and selection” (Borgo 2007: 88).

IF OOO, speculative materialism etc are having their 4″ 33′, where are the George Lewis’s of philosophy right now?

If you don’t want to be ruled by fear and aggression.

That’s the job of the mammalian brain. As that bit was trained by suckling, one needs to find the mother-lode.

If the mother-lode is lacking, and even if it isn’t, one needs to find the significant-other lode. Or more precisely the significant-others lodes. For they are multiple.

Then language can move from a command ethics to a knowledge ethics.

An idea of reference usually refers to the experience of a phenomena having personal significance. The mild version is when for example one finds oneself being embarrassed by a slightly narcissistic moment when we realise a celebration is not for us. However more psychotic versions are the classic TV or radio talking to us, or the paranoia that the people on the train are talking to us. Of course there are mythological versions, one could put augury in this realm – the geese are flying north when they should be flying south, therefore war is coming.

Now i do get the TV and paranoia in a public place thing regularly, but I am aware that this is me projecting how I’m feeling.

So when re-reading Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations, I came across the paper “On some motifs of Baudelaire”, Benjamin is talking about Proust’s understanding of aura. Benjamin has been using Proust to explore memoire involuntaire. “To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return”, “experience of the aura rests thus rests on the transposition of a response common in human relationships to the relationship between the inanimate or natural object and man”.

And with respect to a familiarity of the aura, Proust states “Some people who are fond of secrets flatter themselves that objects retain something of the gaze that has rested on them… they believe that monuments and pictures present themselves only beneath the delicate veil which centuries of love and reverence on the part of so many admirers have woven about them. this chimera… would change into truth if they related it to the only reality that is valid for the individual, namely, the world of his emotions.” (Benjamin, 1999, p.184)

The problem is that I do KNOW this truth. but that doesn’t stop these ideas of reference coming even at the slightest hint of stress.

It seems my ant has a raging bull elephant under its charge. I need to get it to fetch wood and water. to do that though it seems I need to soothe my reptile first.