A Soul Defying, Tacit Approval Of Torture: How Did We Come To This?
By Phil Rockstroh
Created Sep 28 2006 - 4:43am
"True sanity entails in one way or another the dissolution of the normal
ego, that False Self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality
... and through this death a rebirth, the ego now being the servant of the
divine, no longer its betrayer." -R. D. Laing

The pathology of American culture is as ubiquitous as its strip-mall
ugliness. It is abundantly evident, in almost every aspect of contemporary
life. From the predatory (to the point of psychopathic) practices of its
morally scurvy pirates at the helm of the corporate/governmental ship of
state, down to the pandemic enervation and proliferate anomie of its galley
slaves languishing in their soulless cubicles -- from the genitalia-devoid
mascots at Disney World to the genitalia-obsessed torturers of Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo -- the soul-sickness spreads before us like George W. Bush's
taunting, executioner's smirk.

Ronnie Laing's profound dictum leaves us confronting many poignant questions
regarding the true nature of the psychic lives of us so-called ordinary
citizens of The United States of America and our ability to function within
this corrupt and crumbling empire. In short, is it sane to be able to adapt
to an insane culture?

Moreover, it begs the following question. If an individual's conformity to
group, cultural, and national pathology is rewarded -- thereby encouraging
the formation of the "False Self" -- how might one, stranded within the
dysfunctional dynamic, resist it all and begin to work towards an awareness
of their own essential nature, then perhaps arriving at an individual
reckoning involving how to live, flourish, and subvert the life defying
demands of the present era.

First off, what engenders the formation of the False Self? Laing grasped:
When we were children, authority, in the form of parents, educators, clergy,
loomed before us. Alternatively menacing and comforting, these powerful
figures could just as easily have crushed us as comforted us.

Tragically, all too often, they perpetrated the primary. Hence, to
accommodate the overwhelming demands of authority, we learned how to curry
favor from these baffling, seemingly implacable forces by the creation of a
cipher persona, a False Self, a tricky and/or obsequious, tap-dancing,
little apple polisher, who strives to garner approval and acceptance,
thereby avoiding punishment, rejection and scorn, by means of the reflexive
subjugation of his true nature.

The victims of False Self adaptation are the quintessence of the
corporate/consumer citizen. Although, they're presence is far from benign:
While they are compelled to show an agreeable face towards unyielding
authority, this trope merely serves to mask a mind seething with misplaced
resentments and shallow subterfuge. Doesn't this read like a personality
profile of Condoleezza Rice or any other member of that present day
Executive Office cast of Lord of the Flies known as the Bush administration?

This process of metaphysical identity theft begins in childhood. Then, as
now, the presence of individuality-decimating authority can create
irreconcilable anxieties within us, because the actions and activities of
authority figures seem as overwhelming and unpredictable as nature itself.

Now add this to the already haunted landscape of childhood -- our present
day government's campaigns of perpetual fear mongering, plus the dominate
corporate culture's modus operandi of commercial exploitation -- and we're
left with one freaked out populace - one comprised of both children and
alleged adults.

Consequently, this fear-ridden existence has rendered us a society of
grotesques: In the present day United States, children have grown as fat as
steroid-fed, corporate-farmed livestock; this has transpired because we
overfeed them a diet consisting of steroid-fed, corporate-farmed
livestock -- as well as - myriad other variations of nutrient-devoid,
calorie-laden faux food dispensed at a mall's food court, through a
drive-thru window, or out of a cardboard box delivered by a franchised junk
food chain.

Our motives for doing this shouldn't be a mystery to us: We habitually
shovel high fat, high carbohydrate, high sugar-content junk into their
grousing gobs, in a desperate, futile attempt to stuff down the boredom, the
anxiety, the lassitude they suffer due to their confinement inside the
commercially branded, repressed, empty, holographic facsimile of childhood
we have created for them.

This is the reason why our children overeat like neurotic domestic pets. As
is the case with housebound, bored, anxious domestic animals, what do they
have to look forward to -- but dinner? Accordingly, the corporate food
industry provides plenty (at a bloated profit, of course) of junk food --
the table scraps fallen from the table of the ruling elite of our fat-ass
empire - in order to keep them (and all the rest of us) obese, obedient, and
anxiously waiting by our master's table for more.

And these proto-fascist, behavioral control tricks are not just for kids.
Corporate Capitalism has left us Americans psychologically arrested in a
pathetic simulacrum of childhood where our inchoate fears of being preyed
upon by our (so called) protectors (who we internally and accurately
recognize as monsters) are displaced into compulsive consumerism (including
overeating) and a reflexive fear of outsiders.

If we were to awaken to this subterfuge, we would apprehend: Our individual
uniqueness is being robbed from us on a daily basis due to our enslavement
to a mindless system that lives for no other reason than it lives -- a
system that eats its fatted young (giving new meaning to the term consumer
economy) -- and exists only to perpetuate itself -- a system that has become
a soul-devouring monster -- the embodiment of Alan Ginsburg's Moloch.

Why do we accept this soul defying situation? For most of us, the price we
would have to pay for confronting authority would be far too prohibitive;
hence, we learn it is acceptable (as well as politically useful to our power
mad leaders) to displace our anger and fear upon outsiders. Ergo, the
so-called Clash of Civilizations is unloosed and slouches, by way of the
Washington Beltway, to Iraq, Iran and beyond to be born.

This is the manner that we as a society came to believe we can "compromise"
on acts of torture committed in our name and not fear the loss of our souls
as a result of our complicity. Although, the loss of our national soul would
only prove redundant: Years ago, we decided our souls, both individual and
national, were somewhat less than useful to us - and not nearly as
compelling as a new widescreen, plasma TV and the like -- hence they were
discarded into the reeking landfills of this toxic country like an old
appliance.

These actions are what the corporate/military/consumer empire demands of us:
For it does not take long for us to learn which aspects of our personalities
are accepted and rewarded, and, conversely, which ones will be punished and
scorned. In essence, the roles we're expected to play in exchange for being
loved, fed, clothed, and sheltered.

This exchange insures us that we're given a "safe" place within the
community -- not cast out into the wilderness and fed to the wolves. This
fear is not an outrageous fantasy: It is, in fact, a primal memory. Due to
the fact, numerous forms of infanticide were once common practices in nearly
all cultures, including the act of abandoning outcast children to die in the
wilderness.

Moreover, this knowledge still lingers within our psyches, where the
memories of such terrors still howl just beyond the tree line of our waking
awareness, instilling within us the terror of ridicule, of failure, of being
ostracized. Far too many of us succumb to these fears and begin playing the
roles circumscribed by their families, communities, and cultures.
Tragically, their true selves, for all practical purposes, were smothered in
their cribs.

In itself, the False Self, as well as other varieties of habitual
self-centeredness, is a variety of imprisonment. The world is spread before
the cell of the self, yet we prisoners cannot leave the confines of our
small, self-involved anxieties; therein, mind, heart and imagination become
atrophied by a lack of experience, empathy and spontaneity. The bars of the
cage might be invisible, yet the sense of confinement is palpable across our
corporatized culture. Ergo, a collective numbness and apathy levels upon the
land - and ultimately our desensitization to genocide and torture.

To begin to free oneself from the bondage of the False Self, one must become
aware of one's own fraudulence. That being: the awareness of one's desperate
machinations before exploitive authority.

Self-knowledge can provide us with a point of entry to the act of empathy.
Yes, even extending it towards one as loathsome as George W. Bush. Years
ago, the sorry ass son of a bitch put on a mask (its contours, both menacing
and ridiculous) in a vain attempt to shield himself from being crushed by
power. Imagine having his parents: that soulless cipher of a father and
blood-freezing Medusa of a mother. Try to imagine the psychological carnage
involved. It's the same trauma we experience daily due to our own
powerlessness against the dictates of the corporate state and its threats,
both implied and overt, to cast us into the howling wilderness of financial
ruin, poverty, and homelessness.

(A caveat: The proffering empathy to Dick Cheney would be pushing the
parameters of empathy to the breaking point: Upon being subjected to
Cheney's glowering, reptilian aura, even Mahatma Ghandi would be reaching
for a pair of brass knuckles.)

Even in this fear-ridden era, there are some among us -- types such as
non-conformists, creative thinkers, and artists -- who welcome (rather than
cower before) the metaphorical wolves (that are recognized, each to each, as
fellow outcasts). Instead of being eaten by the wolves, they are suckled and
raised by them.

Nourished by their outsider status, the creative spirit thrives when freed
from the constraints of a mindless adherence to groupthink. The dark terrain
of societal abandonment becomes their natural habitat: they howl at the
moon; they reject the daylight world of bland consensus; they learn to see
in the dark, apprehending their own interior darkness and, as a result, gain
an understanding into the hearts of darkness beating within those in power.

The wilderness of political activism, of poetry, of art becomes their home:
they don't clean-up nicely for polite company; they don't let themselves be
bred down (as a few domesticated wolves did) to yapping Toy Poodles, in
exchange for a few food scraps.

Yes, when you're looking at a Toy Poodle -- you're looking at a former wolf,
as when your looking at the corporate press corps, you're looking at folks
whose ancestors long ago were journalists.

One moment, you're loping through the woods, snout held high, smelling the
scent of fresh game on the wind, then the next thing you know -- you're
being led around on a leash and collar, encrusted with tacky rhinestones and
you're salivating at the sound of an electric can-opener. One moment, you're
a child, entranced in play, hardwired to eternity -- the next thing you
know, you're sitting at work and your passions, hopes, and yearnings have
been shrunk down to Toy Poodle-sized agendas ... You're truckling for your
boss's approval; you're counting the minutes until break time, when you can
devour some junk food. Like a domesticated pet, or an unfortunate animal
incarcerated in a zoo, you are no longer a noble animal - you're a Thing
That Waits For Lunch.

To resist, we must cast off the fear of being an outcast. I remain hopeful:
There is yet a molecule or two of the wild wolf left within us cringing,
cloying Toy Poodles.

One must always remember this: We human beings are of nature too.
Accordingly, within us lies an indomitable self, encoded with the grace and
fury of the natural world, and, if acknowledged and respected, it will
awaken and arise. Then the real dogfight begins: The fur will fly, as we
fight, fang and claw, to retake our own essential natures, and, by
extension, begin the struggle to restore health, imagination and empathy to
a nation of cage-accepting, torture-countenancing sick puppies.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a
poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be
contacted at:

philangie2000@yahoo.com

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson