FINTAN COMPARES THIS SQUAD TO GROUP THERAPY UNDER
NURSE RATCHED IN ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST.
BODVAR WROTE>
FINTAN, Remember the part in LILA where P. says that, like Biology,
Intellect also has an "immune system"; namely psychiatry whose job is to
rectify the heretics wrong ideas? If one person of the LS were to appreciate
Pirsig's ideas on this topic, I would bet on you. Not that I consider you
"mad" - you are the sanest around - but dynamic enough to see radical
departure from SOM's impossible "illness" model. So, I am very much looking
forward to opening a discussion on this most controversial topic ----some
day.
THEN THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY BODVAR, OR IS IT ?
NURSE RATCHED WAS THE SENIOR WARD SISTER IN THE MOVIE "ONE FLEW OVER THE
CUCKOO'S NEST" Starring: Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, and Christopher
Lloyd among others. The movie examined how Nurse Ratched- while masquerading
under the best practice psychiatric model, was actually a control freak for
whom the illness of patients was a lever of power over them. Her favourite
mechanism was having "democratic" votes by the
patients- the outcome being rigged because most of them were docile and
under her control. Jack Nicholson played McMurphy, an exuberant misfit who
paid for his attempts to motivate her victims out of their passivity, by
being given a frontal lobotomy.
A microcosm of western "democratic" society, in other words.
Recalling that Robert Pirsig himself ended up in a mental hospital and spoke
in ZAMM about the "lies" you had to tell to get out of there, it is well
worth continuing to examine this. I will continue to do so. I you don't want
to read this then simply go on to another message. But I warn you, I tell it
like it is.
Hi Nurse Ratched,
So, can we take a vote on the ward please Nurse Ratched. I vote the topic
should be that we watch we watch the world series on the TV. My name being
Randall P. McMurphy. The disruptive influence who has recently been admitted
to the group/hospital.
Now, Nurse, I know that many of the patients here are under your control.
What is the game you play in organising this discussion group? The closed
minds will happily play your little discussion/group therapy game Nurse,
FOREVER. 'Cos they don't have the balls to do otherwise. They settle for
intellectual masturbation and so play the role of PROPS in Nurses' little
game.
The open-minded MOQ thinkers are artists, explorers, originators.
Hat's off to them, I say. THE FREE.
Many of them have left.
Guess how I vote, for next month.
I vote to do what the Indian did in the film "One flew over the cuckoos
nest." After seeing McMurphy lobotomised, he tossed a huge water fountain
through a steel shuttered window and jumped through the resulting hole to
freedom. He left Nurse Ratched's domain forever.
As I an now leaving your domain forever too Nurse.
Here's why. The game is rigged. I don't like rigged games, Diana. There are
too many closed minds here for real discussion. There is a real life outside
this round and round discussion. There are even real ideas on the MOQ- but
they are not here. Gotta have the balls to walk away. Oh ! people get so so
so dependant on the Squad don't they, so dependant on some joker called
Pirsig.
Like patients in a mental institution who get so so so dependant on the
institutional lifestyle. It's routine and rhythm. It's monthly votes and
topics. And they are so afraid to walk away. I'm not. Maybe because I had
the originality to develop a new idea like the MoM concept. Y'see that's
what makes the difference in this life between those who run with the mob
and those who change things. Yes, truth is difficult in such a structure
where the ground-rules are being set by a clique.
The Squad has been haemorrhaging members for over 9 months. The number of
former contributors who are no longer heard from is vast. Like Robinson
Crusoe, the intellectuals actually FEAR socialisation. And the discussion
fails Pirsig's own test: there is no actual philosophy here. Only mime.
In the late fifties in the USA, in a society dedicated to consumption, a
pampered generation ended up totally rejecting the materialism of their
elders. This was the source of the Classic / Romantic split investigated by
Pirsig in ZAMM. The wheel turns and we are now back again at a similar
point in global society. Everywhere we see blind Scientific Materialism and
a production/consumption ethos.
The inner is about to meet the outer.
Those who have walled themselves into a moderated INNER discussion cannot
escape the Outer, for it will pursue them wherever they go. That is the
psychological reality of what is happening in each person's life at this
time.
So, to the open-minded, may I say thank you very much. I couldn't have done
it without you. Email me with your ideas. I love the way your brains work.
And can I say, as did Douglas Adams in his book title about
the words spoken by the dolphins as they left the planet earth:
"So long......and thanks for all the fish ! "
love
Fintan
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:52 BST