'm in advertising?
Is it written on my forehead or something?'
'No,' said the girl. 'It's written in the adverts that came out of your
forehead.'
Tatarsky was about to take offence at that, but after a moment's
consideration he realised that he actually felt flattered.
'I'll tell you what,' he said, 'if I need a consultation on spiritual
matters, I'll come to you. You don't mind, do you?'
'All things are in the hands of Allah,' the girl answered.
'I don't know about that,' said a young man with dilated pupils,
swinging round from the huge crystal ball into which he had been gazing to
face the girl. 'All things? What about Buddha-consciousness? The hands of
Allah only exist in Buddha-consciousness. You won't argue with that, will
you?'
The girl behind the counter smiled politely.
'Of course not,' she said. "The hands of Allah only exist in
Buddha-consciousness. The catch is that Buddha-consciousness still lies in
the hands of Allah.'
'As Isikawa Takuboku wrote,' interrupted a gloomy-looking customer of a
Mephistophelean appearance, who had approached the counter in the meantime,
'"leave off, leave off this vain dispute" ... I was told you had Swami
Zhigalkin's brochure "Summer Thoughts of a Samsaric Being". Do you think you
could have a look for it? It's probably up on that shelf, no, no, over
there, to the left, under the tibial flute ...'
CHAPTER 7. Homo Zapiens
On the table the ouija board looked like a tank on the central square
of a small European town. The bottle of Johnny Walker standing beside it
reminded Tatarsky of the town hall, and so in his mind the red wine he was
drinking was fitted into the same pattern. Its vessel, a long narrow bottle,
was like a Gothic cathedral occupied by the Communist Party committee, and
the void within the bottle was reminiscent of the ideological exhaustion of
communism, the senselessness of bloodshed and the general crisis of the
Russian idea. Setting the mouth of the bottle to his lips, Tatarsky finished
what was left of the wine and tossed the bottle into the waste-paper basket.
The velvet revolution,' he thought.
Sitting at the table in the tee shirt with the inscription: 'Rage
Against the Machine', he finished reading the manual for the ouija board.
The helium pen he'd bought in a kiosk by the metro fitted into the slot
without any effort and he secured it in place with the screw. It was
suspended on a small spring that was supposed to press it against the paper.
The paper -an entire pile of it - was already lying under the ouija board.
He could begin.
He glanced around the room and was just about to place his hands on the
board, when he rose nervously to his feet, walked across the room and back
again and drew the blinds over the windows. After another moment's thought,
he lit the candle standing on the table. Any further preparations would
simply have been laughable. In actual fact, even the ones he had made were
ridiculous.
He sat down at the table and set his hands on the ouija board. 'OK
then,' he thought, 'so now what? Should I say something out loud or not?'
'I summon the spirit of Che Guevara. I summon the spirit of Che
Guevara,' he said, and immediately thought that he ought not just to summon
the spirit; he ought to ask it a question. 'I'd like to know . .. mmm, let's
say, something new about advertising, something that wasn't in Al Rice or
comrade Ogiivy,' he said. 'I want to understand more than anybody else.'
At that very instant the ouija board began jerking epilepti-cally
beneath his spread palms and the pen set in the slot traced out a string of
large capital letters at the top of the sheet of paper:
IDENTIALISM AS THE HIGHEST STAGE OF DUALISM
Tatarsky jerked his hands away and stared in fright at the words for
several seconds. Then he put his hands back and the ouija board began moving
again, but this time the letters produced by the pen were small and neat:
These thoughts were originally intended for the journal of the Cuban
armed forces, Oliva Verde. But it would be foolish to insist on matters of
such petty detail now that we know for certain that the entire plan of
existence, in which journals are published and armed forces engage in
action, is simply a sequence of moments of awareness, united solely by the
fact that in each new moment the concept of the preceding moments is
present. Although from time without beginning this sequence remains
unbroken, awareness is never actually aware of itself. Therefore the
condition of man in this life is lamentable.
That great champion of the liberation of humanity, Siddhartha Gautama,
has indicated in many of his works that the principle reason for the
lamentable condition of man in this life is first and foremost the very
conception of man's existence, life and lamentable condition - that is to
say, the dualism that imposes the division into subject and object of
something that in actual fact has never existed and never will.
Tatarsky pulled out the sheet of paper covered in writing, set his
hands on the ouija board and it trembled into motion again:
Siddhartha Gautama was able to convey this simple truth to many people
because in his time their feelings were simple and strong, and their
internal world was clear and unclouded. Hearing a single word could
completely change a man's entire life and transport him instantly to the
other shore, to a freedom unconstrained in any way. But since that time many
centuries have passed. The words of the Buddha are now accessible to all,
yet salvation comes to but few. There can be no doubt that this is the
result of the cultural situation that the ancient texts of all religions
called the 'dark age' to come.
Comrades in the struggle! This dark age has already begun. And its
onset has been brought about primarily by the role that the so-called
visual-psychic generators or type-two objects have come to play in the life
of man.
In speaking of the fact that dualism lisas engendered by the arbitrary
division of the world into subject and object, the Buddha was concerned with
subject-object division of the first type. The major distinguishing feature
of the dark age lies in the decisive influence exerted on the life of man by
subject-object division of the second type, which in the time of the Buddha
simply did not exist.
In order to explain what is meant by objects of the first and second
types, let us take a simple example, a television set. This is simply a box
with a glass wall, which we are free to watch or not watch. When an
individual's gaze falls upon a dark screen, the movement of his or her eyes
is controlled exclusively by internal nerve impulses or the psychological
process taking place in his or her consciousness. For instance, an
individual might notice that the screen is fly-spotted. Or he or she might
decide that it would be a good idea to buy a television twice as big. Or
think that it would be a good idea to stand it in a different comer. Until a
television is switched on it is in no way different from the objects with
which people had to deal in the Buddha's time, be it a stone, the dew on a
blade of grass or an arrow with a divided head -- in short, everything that
the Buddha used to illustrate his talks.
But when a television is turned on, it is transformed from an object of
the first type into an object of the second type. It becomes a phenomenon of
an entirely different order. And although the person looking at the screen
does not notice this customary transformation, it is truly immense. For the
viewer the television disappears as a material object that possesses weight,
size and other physical properties. Instead of this the viewer has the
sensation of being present in a different space, a sensation familiar to all
who are assembled there.
Tatarsky glanced around, as though expecting to find himself surrounded
by this assembled company, but of course there was nothing to be seen. As he
removed another sheet of paper covered in writing from under the board, he
figured out roughly how long the paper would last, then set his palms back
against the wooden surface.
Comrades in the struggle! The question is - who is actually present?
Can we say that it is the viewer himself?
Let us repeat the question, since it is extremely important: is it
possible to say that the television is being watched by the individual who
is watching it?
We assert that it is not, for the/allowing reason. When the individual
viewed the television while it was switched off, the movement of his or her
eyes and the flow of his or her attention were controlled by his own
voluntary impulses, chaotic though they may have been. The dark screen with
no image of any kind did not exert any influence over them, or if it did, it
was only as a background.
When it is switched on, a television almost never transmits a static
view from a single motionless camera, and therefore the image on it is not a
background. Quite the contrary, this image changes at an extremely rapid
rate. Every few seconds there is either a change of camera angle or a fade
into close-up on some object, or a switch to a different camera - the image
is constantly being modified by the cameraman and the producer who stands
behind him. This changing of the image is known as technomodification.
We ask you to pay particularly close attention at this point, since our
next thesis is rather difficult to grasp, although in essence it is
extremely simple. In addition, the feeling might arise that we are dealing
with something that is insignificant. But we make bold to assert that we are
in fact dealing with the most real psychological phenomenon of the end of
the second millennium.
The changes in the image produced by various technomodifications can be
correlated with a virtual psychological process in which the observer is
forced to switch his attention from one event to another and select the most
interesting content from what is taking place - that is, to manage his own
attention as the makers of the programme manage it. This psychological
process creates its own virtual subject, which for the duration of the
television programme exists in place of the individual, fitting into his or
her consciousness like a hand into a rubber glove.
This is similar to the condition of possession by a spirit. The
difference lies in the fact that in this case the spirit does not exist; all
that does exist are the symptoms of possession. This is a virtual spirit,
but from the moment the viewer entrusts the programme-makers with redi-
reeling his or her attention at will from object to object, he or she
effectively becomes this spirit, and the spirit, which does not actually
exist, possesses this viewer and millions of others.
What is taking place could appropriately be called the experience of
collective non-existence, since the virtual subject that replaces the
viewer's actual consciousness is absolutely non-existent - it is merely an
effect created by the collective efforts of editors, cameramen and
producers. However, for the individual watching the television there is
nothing more real than this virtual subject.
Furthermore, Lapsang Suchong of the Pu Er monastery believes that if a
certain programme, for instance a football game, were to be watched
simultaneously by more than four-fifths of the population of Earth, this
virtual effect would become capable of displacing from the aggregate human
consciousness the collective karmic vision of the human plane of existence,
the consequences of which could be unpredictable (it is entirely possible
that to the hell of molten metal, the hell of knife trees etc. there would
be added a new hell, the hell of an eternal football championship). However,
his calculations have yet to be verified, and in any case this is a matter
for the future. Here we are interested not so much in the frightening
prospects for tomorrow as in the no less frightening reality of today.
Let us draw our first conclusion. Corresponding to the object of the
second type, that is, to a television that is switched on, we have a subject
of the second type - that is, a virtual viewer, who manages his or her
attention in exactly the same way as a programme production crew does.
Feelings and thoughts, as well as the secretion of adrenalin and other
hormones in the viewer's organism, are dictated by an external operator and
determined by the calculations of another individual. And of course, the
subject of the first type does not notice the moment when he is displaced by
the subject of the second type, since following this displacement there is
no longer anyone to notice it, as the subject of the second type is unreal.
But it is not merely unreal (this word is in effect applicable to
everything in the human world). There are no words to describe the degree of
its unreality. It is a heaping of one unreality upon another, a castle
constructed of air, the foundations of which stand upon a profound abyss.
The question might arise: why are we wallowing in these non-existences,
attempting to gauge the degree of their unreality? However, this difference
between subjects of the first and second types is of extreme importance.
Subject number one believes that reality is the material world. But
subject number two believes that reality is the material world as it is
shown on the television.
As a product of false subject-object division, subject number one is
illusory. But at least there is an observer of the chaotic movement of his
or her thoughts and moods - in metaphorical terms we can say that subject
number one is constantly watching a television programme about himself or
herself, gradually forgetting that he or she is an observer and identifying
with the programme.
From this point of view subject number two is something absolutely
improbable and indescribable. It is a television programme watching another
television programme. Emotions and thoughts participate in this process, but
the individual in whose consciousness they arise is entirely absent.
The rapid switching of a television from one channel to another, which
is used to avoid watching the advertisements, is known as zapping. Bourgeois
thought has investigated in considerable detail the psychological condition
of the individual who engages in zapping, and the corresponding thought
patterns, which are rapidly becoming the basic forms of the modem world. But
the type of zapping that is considered by the researchers of this phenomenon
corresponds only to switching between channels by the viewer.
The switching to and fro of the viewer that is controlled by the
producer and cameraman (that is, the forcible induction of subject number
two by means of technomodifications) is a different type of zapping, a
coercive form, study of which is effectively prohibited in every country of
the world except Bhutan, where television is forbidden. But coercive
zapping, whereby the television is converted into a remote control for the
viewer, is not simply one method among others of organising an image
sequence; it is the very foundation of television broadcasting, the major
means by which the advertising-informational field exerts its influence on
consciousness. From this point on, therefore, we shall refer to the type-two
subject as Homo Zapiens, or HZ.
Let us repeat this extremely important conclusion: in the same way as a
viewer who does not wish to watch the advertisements switches between
television channels, instantaneous and unpredictable technomodifications
switch the actual viewer to and fro. Assuming the condition of Homo Zapiens,
the viewer becomes a remotely controlled television programme. And he or she
spends a significant part of his life in this condition.
Comrades in the struggle! The position of modem man is not merely
lamentable; one might even say there is no condition, because man hardly
exists. Nothing exists to which one could point and say: 'There, that is
Homo Zapiens.' HZ is simply the residual luminescence of a soul fallen
asleep; it is a film about the shooting of another film, shown on a
television in an empty house.
At this point the question logically arises of why modem man has found
himself in such a situation. Who is trying to replace the already deluded
Homo Sapiens with a cubic metre of empty space in the condition of HZ?
The answer, of course, is clear: nobody. But let us not become fixated
on the bitter absurdity of the situation. In order to understand it in
greater depth, let us recall that the main reason for the existence of
television is its advertising function, which is indissolubly linked with
the circulation of money. We shall therefore have to turn our attention to
that area of human thought which is known as economics.
Economics is the name of a pseudo-science that deals with the illusory
relations between subjects of the first and second types as they are
involved in the hallucinatory process of their imaginary enrichment.
This discipline regards each individual as a cell of an organism that
the economists of the ancient world knew as Mammon. In the educational
materials of the Front for Full and Final Liberation it is called simply
ORANUS (which translates into Russian as 'moutharse'). This more accurately
reflects its real nature and leaves less scope for mystical speculation.
Each of these cells - that is, each individual, when regarded as an economic
entity -possesses a kind of social membrane that allows money (which plays
the role of blood and lymph in the organism of oranus) to pass into and out
of the cell. From the point of view of economics, the function of each of
these cells is to absorb as much money as possible through this membrane and
to release as little as possible back through it.
But the imperative oforanus's existence as a whole requires its
cellular structure to be bathed in a constantly increasing stream of money.
Therefore oranus, in the process of its evolution (and it is located at a
level of evolution close to that of a mollusc) develops a primitive nervous
system, the so-called 'media'. This nervous system transmits throughout its
virtual organism impulses that control the activity of the monadic cells.
These impulses are of three types, which are called oral, anal and
displacing wow-impulses (from the commercial ejaculation 'wow!').
The oral wow-impulse induces a cell to ingest money in order to
eliminate its suffering as a result of the conflict between its self-image
and the image of the ideal 'super-self created by advertising. Note that the
point does not lie in the things that can be bought for money in order to
embody this ideal 'self - the point lies in the money itself. Certainly,
many millionaires walk around in rags and drive cheap cars, but in order to
be able to do that one has to be a millionaire. A poor man in the same
circumstances would suffer inexpressible agonies as a result of cognitive
dissonance, which is why many poor people will spend their last penny in an
effort to dress well.
The anal wow-impulse induces the cell to eliminate money in order to
experience pleasure from the coincidence of the above-mentioned images.
Since the two actions described (the ingestion of money and its
elimination) contradict each other, the anal wow-impulse acts in a concealed
form, and the individual genuinely believes that the pleasure is derived not
from the act of spending money, but from the acquisition of a certain
object. But of course it is quite obvious that as a physical object a watch
that costs fifty thousand dollars cannot afford an individual any greater
pleasure than a watch that costs fifty dollars -- the •sshole point lies in
the amount of money involved.
The oral and anal wow-impulses are so called by analogy with
sphincteral functions, although it would be more accurate to compare them
with inhaling and exhaling; the sensation that they induce is akin to
psychological asphyxia, or, by contrast, hyperventilation. This oral-anal
irritation achieves its greatest intensity at the gaming table in the casino
or during speculation on the stock market, although the means of
wow-stimulation may take any form.
The displacing impulse suppresses and displaces from an individual's
consciousness all psychological processes that might hinder total
identification with a cell of oranus. It arises when a psychological
stimulus contains no oral-anal components. The displacing impulse is a
jamming signal that blocks the transmission from an undesirable
radio-station by generating intense interference. Its mode of action is
admirably expressed in the sayings: 'Money talks, bullshit walks' and, 'If
you 're so clever, show me your money.' Without this lever of influence
oranus would not be able to make individuals function as its cells. Under
the influence of the displacing impulse, which blocks out all subtle
psychological processes that are not directly related to the circulation
of money, the world comes to be seen exclusively as the embodiment of
oranus. This produces terrify ing results. For instance, one broker from the
London Stock Exchange has described his hallucinatory vision of the world,
induced by the displacing wow-impulse as follows: 'The world is a place
where business meets money.'
It is no exaggeration to say that this psychological condition is
widespread. All the questions dealt with in modem economics, sociology and
culturology are in effect the description of metabolic and somatic processes
occurring in the organism of oranus.
By its nature oranus is a primitive virtual organism of a parasitic
type. Its distinctive feature is that it does not attach itself to any
single donor organism, but makes other organisms into its own cells. Each of
its cells is a human being possessing unlimited potential and endowed by
nature with the right to freedom. The paradox lies in the fact that oranus
as an organism stands much lower on the evolutionary scale than any of its
cells. It is incapable of abstract thought, or even of self-awareness. One
might say that the famous eye in the triangle that is depicted on the
one-dollar note actually sees nothing. It was simply daubed on the surface
of the pyramid by some cartoonist and nothing more. Therefore, to avoid
confusing the theorists of conspiracy, with their inclination to
schizophrenia, it would be more correct to cover the said eye with a black
blindfold.
Oranus has neither ears, nor nose, nor eyes, nor mind. And of course,
it is far from being the embodiment of evil or the spawn of hell that many
representatives of the religious business would have it be. In itself it
wishes for nothing, since it is simply incapable of wishing in the abstract.
It is an inane polyp, devoid of emotion or intention, which ingests and
eliminates emptiness. Each of its cells is potentially capable of realising
that it is not one of oranus's cells at all, in fact just the opposite: that
oranus is merely one of the insignificant objects of its mind. It is in
order to block this possibility that oranus requires the displacing impulse.
Previously oranus possessed only a vegetative nervous system, but the
emergence of the mass media has allowed it to evolve, developing a central
nervous system. In our times oranus's most important nerve ending, which
reaches every individual, is the television. We have already mentioned that
the consciousness of the television viewer is displaced by the consciousness
of the virtual Homo Zapiens. Now let us consider the mode of action of the
three wow-impulses.
In his or her normal state the human individual is theoretically
capable of identifying the wow-impulses and resisting them. But Homo Zapiens
in unconscious fusion with a television broadcast is no longer a
personality, merely a condition. Subject number two is not capable of
analysing events, in exactly the same way as an electromagnetic recording of
a cock crowing is incapable of it. Even the illusion of critical assessment
of what takes place on the screen is itself part of the induced
psychological process.
After every few minutes of a television programme - that is, within the
consciousness of subject number two -- a sequence of advertising clips is
shown, each of which is a complex and carefully constructed combination of
anal, oral and displacing wow-impulses, which resonate in phase with various
cultural strata of the psyche.
To employ a crude analogy with physical processes, the patient is first
anaesthetised (subject number one is displaced by subject number two) and
then follows a rapid and intensive session of hypnosis, each stage of which
is fixed in the memory by means of a conditioned reflex mechanism. At some
stage subject number two switches off the television and once again becomes
subject number one - that is, an ordinary individual. After that he no
longer receives the three wow-impulses directly. But an effect is produced
similar in nature to residual magnetisation: the mind begins to produce the
same influences for Itself. They arise spontaneously and act as a background
against which all other thoughts appear. While the subject in the condition
of HZ is subject to the three wow-impulses, on returning to a normal
condition he or she is subjected to the action of the three -snow-factors
that are automatically generated by his or her mind.
The constant and regular assumption by an Individual of the condition
of HZ and exposure to the displacing wow-impulse lead to the development in
consciousness of a specific filter that allows the ingestion of only that
information which is saturated with oral-anal wow-content. The individual,
therefore, is not even afforded the capability of inquiring after his or her
own true nature.
But just what is this true nature?
By virtue of a number of circumstances that we have no space to deal
with here, each individual can only answer that question for himself or
herself. No matter how lamentable the condition of the ordinary individual
might be, he or she still has the opportunity to find an answer. But subject
number two has no such opportunity, since he or she
does not exist. Despite this (or possible, precisely because of it),
the media system of oranus, which transmits the three wow-impulses through
the informational field, confronts HZ with the question of
self-identification.
Now we come to our most interesting and paradoxical conclusion. Since
subject number two does not possess any inner nature, the only possible
answer for it is to define itself via a combination of the material objects
shown on the television, which are quite clearly neither it nor any part of
it. This is reminiscent of the method of apophatic theology, in which God is
defined through what He is not, only here we are dealing with apophatic
anthropology.
For subject number two the only possible answer to the question 'What
am I?' is: 7 am the individual who drives such-and-such a car, lives in
such-and-such a house, wears such-and-such a type of clothes.'
Identification of the self is only possible through the compilation of a
list of goods consumed, and transformation is only possible by means of a
change in the list. Therefore, most objects advertised are associated with a
specific personality type, character trait, propensity or quality. The
result is a completely convincing combination of these properties,
propensities and features, which is capable of producing the impression of a
real personality. The number of possible combinations is practically
unlimited, as is the scope for choice. Advertising formulates this as
follows: 7 am a calm and self-confident individual, therefore I buy red
slippers.' The type-two subject, wishing to add to its collection the
qualities of calmness and self-confidence, achieves this by remembering that
it must buy red slippers, which is accomplished under the influence of the
anal wow-factor. In the classic case the oral-anal stimulation forms a
closed loop, as in the famous instance of a snake biting its own tail: you
need a million dollars to buy a house in an expensive neighbourhood, you
need the house to have somewhere to wear your red slippers, and you need red
slippers to provide you with the calmness and self-confidence that will
allow you to earn a million dollars, in order to buy the house in which you
can wear the red slippers, thus acquiring the qualities of calmness and
confidence.
When oral-anal stimulation forms a closed loop, we can say that the
goal of advertising magic has been achieved: an illusory structure is
created that has no centre, although all objects and qualities are related
to each other via a fictional centre that is called 'identity'.
Identity is the type-two subject at the stage of development when it is
capable of existing independently without constant activation by the three
wow-impulses, under the influence only of the three residual wow-factors,
generated independently by its own mind.
Identity is a false ego, which says everything there is to be said
about it. In its analysis of the modern human situation, bourgeois thought
regards the violent escape from identity back to one's own ego as a
tremendous spiritual achievement. Perhaps that really is the case, since the
ego is non-existent in relative terms, while identity is absolutely
non-existent. The only difficulty with this is that it is impossible, since
there is nowhere to escape from or to and nobody to escape. Despite that,
however, we might allow that in this situation the slogans 'Back to the
ego!' or 'Forward to the ego!' do acquire, if not actual meaning, then at
least a certain aesthetic justification.
The superimposition of the three wow-impulses on the more subtle
processes taking place in the human psyche is the source of all of the
mediocre variety of modem culture. A special role is played in this by the
displacing impulse. It is like the rumbling of a pneumatic drill, which
drowns out all other sounds. Ml external stimuli apart from the wow-oral and
wow-anal impulses are filtered out, and the individual loses interest in
everything that has no oral or anal component. In this brief article we do
not consider the sexual aspect of advertising, but let us note in passing
that more and more frequently sex becomes attractive only because it
symbolises the vital energy of youth that can be transformed into money.
This can be confirmed by any competentpsychoan-alyst. In the final analysis
the modern individual experiences a profound distrust of practically
everything that is not connected with the ingestion or elimination of money.
Externally this is manifested in the fact that life becomes ever more
boring, and people become evermore cold and calculating. In bourgeois
science the new code of behaviour is usually explained by the attempt to
maintain and conserve emotional energy, which is a response to the demands
of the corporate economy and the modern lifestyle. In actual fact there is
no less emotional content in human life, but the unremitting influence of
the displacing wow-factor results in all of the individual's emotional
energy being shunted into psychological processes related to oral and anal
wow-content. Many bourgeois specialists instinctively sense the part played
by the mass media in the paradigm shift that is taking place, but as comrade
Allende junior used to say,'They are searching for a black cat which has
never existed in a dark room which will never exist.' Even when they go so
far as to call television a prosthetic support for the wrinkled and withered
'self, or say that the media inflate a personality that has become unreal,
they are still missing the point.
Only a personality that was real can become unreal. In order to become
wrinkled and withered, this 'self wouldhave had'to exist. In the preceding
argument, and also in our previous writings (see The Russian Question and
Cedera Luminosa) we have demonstrated the groundlessness of this approach.
Under the influence of the displacing wow-factor, the culture and art
of the dark age are reduced exclusively to oral-anal content. The
fundamental feature of this art may be succinctly defined as 'moutharsing'.
A black bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills has already become the
supremely Important cultural symbol and a central element of the majority of
films and books, for which the trajectory of its path through life provides
the mainspring of the plot. In more precise terms, it is the presence in the
work of art of this black bag that stimulates the audience's emotional
interest in what is taking place on the screen or in the text. Note that in
certain instances the bag of money is not directly present, in which case
its function is fulfilled either by the participation of so-called 'stars',
of whom it is known as a certain fact that they have such a bag at home, or
by persistently touted information about the budget of the film and its
takings at the box office. In the future, not a single work of art will be
created simply for its own sake; the time is approaching when books and
films will appear in which the dominant element of content will be a secret
hymn of praise to Coca-Cola and an attack on Pepsi-Cola - or vice-versa.
The effect of the impact of oral-anal impulses is to encourage the
development in the human individual of an internal auditor (a typical
market-economy variant of the 'internal party committee'). He constantly
assesses reality exclusively in terms of property and performs a punitive
function by forcing consciousness to suffer intolerably as a result of
cognitive dissonance. The oral wow-impulse corresponds to the internal
auditor holding up the flag 'loser . The anal wow-impulse corresponds to the
flag 'winner'. The displacing wow-impulse corresponds to a condition in
which the internal auditor simultaneously holds up the flags 'winner' and
'loser. It is possible to identify several stable types of identity. These
are:
a) the oral wow-type (the dominant pattern around which emotional and
psychological life is organised is an obsessive yearning for money)
b) the anal wow-type (the dominant pattern is the pleasurable
elimination of money or the manipulation of objects that are surrogates for
it, also known as anal wow-exhibitionism)
c) the displaced wow-type (possible in combination with either of the
first two types), in which the individual effectively becomes insensitive to
all stimuli apart from oral-anal impulses.
The relative nature of this classification can be seen from the fact
that one and the same identity may be anal in relation to those who stand
lower in the wow-hierarchy and oral in relation to those who stand higher
(of course, there is no 'identity in itself - we are concerned here with a
pure epiphenomenon). The linear wow-hierarchy that is formed by numerous
ranked identities is known as a corporate string. It is a kind of social
perpetuum mobile; ifs secret lies in the fact that any 'identity' is obliged
constantly to validate itself against another that is located one step
higher. In folklore this great principle is reflected in the colloquial
phrase: 'keeping up with the Joneses'.
Individuals organised according to the principle of the corporate
string are like fish threaded on a line. But in this case the fish are still
alive. More than that - under the influence of the oral and anal wow-factors
they crawl, as it were, along the corporate string in the direction that
they think of as up. They are driven to do this by instinct or, if you will,
by the urge to find the meaning of life. And from the point of view of
economic metaphysics the meaning of life is the transformation of the oral
identity into the anal.
The implications of the situation are not exhausted by the fact that
the subject who is overcome by the influence of the three residual
wow-factors is obliged to regard himself or herself as an identity. Coming
into contact with another human being, he or she sees him or her as an
identity too. The culture of the dark age has already correlated absolutely
everything that can characterise a human being with its oral-anal system of
coordinates and located it in a context of endless moutharsing.
The displaced wow-individual analyses everybody he or she meets as a
video clip saturated with commercial information. The external appearance of
the other person, his or her speech and behaviour, are immediately
interpreted as a set of wow-symbols. A very rapid and uncontrollable process
is initiated, consisting of a sequence of anal, oral and displacing impulses
that flare up and fade away in consciousness, determining the relations
people have vsith each other. Homo homini lupus est, as one inspired Latin
saying has it. But man has long ceased being a wolf to man. Man is not even
an image-maker to man, as some modern sociologists assume. It is all far
more terrifying and much simpler than that. Man is wow to man - or if not to
man, then to precisely another such wow, the result of which is that,
projected on to the modem system of cultural coordinates the Latin saying
becomes:
'Wow Wow Wow!'
This applies not only to people, but in general to everything that
falls within the range of our attention. In assessing what we are looking
at, we experience a weary sense of depression if we do not encounter the
familiar stimuli. Our perception is subjected to a specific form of
digitization - every phenomenon is disassociated into a linear combination
of anal and oral vectors. Every image can be precisely expressed in terms of
money. Even if it is emphatically non-commercial, the question immediately
arises of how commercially valuable that type of non-commercialism is. Hence
the feeling, familiar to us all, that in the end everything comes down to
money.
And indeed, everything does come down to money, because money has long
since been reduced to nothing but itself, and everything else proscribed.
Surges of oral-anal activity become the only permitted psychological
reaction. All other mental activity is blocked.
The type-two subject is absolutely mechanistic, because it is an echo
of electromagnetic processes in the cathode-ray tube of a television. The
only freedom that it possesses is the freedom to say 'Wow!' when it buys
another thing, which as likely as not is a new television. This is precisely
why oranus's controlling impulses are called wow-impulses, and the
subconscious ideology ofidentialism is called 'wowerism'. As for the
political regime corresponding to wowerism, it is sometimes known as
telecracy or m