 |
| Something from Nothing |
The 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke tells the story of a man sent to prison for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. The main character, played by Paul Newman, is a decorated military veteran who, much to the amazement of the prison Captain, came out of the army the same rank he went in as: buck private.
The governer, this man in authority and pillar of society, wonders what to make of this cheek to the natural order, this flagrant...
The natural order, like any information, can be connected to any number of ideas. If you have done well in one particular system it is only natural for your internal dialogue to result in the scaffolding of one's ego: I have earned my place rightfully and truly, I deserve my rewards. The uncomfortable nature of an alternative reality where men might follow other gods must be kept safely outside the walls of one's own mental Spandau.*
The prisons we choose to live inside, to use Doris Lessing's great phrase, are designed to keep other ideas and information out whilst the regimented inmates that are our own thoughts are fed and watered and kept just happy enough to stay in line.
Among the chickens of Luke's jail, The cock of the inmates is a big old rooster called, most suitably, Dragline; as his position within the system serves to keep that same system on a flat, nonthreatening plane:
Dragline: You don't listen much, do you boy?
Luke: Ain't heard much worth listening to, a lot of guys laying down a lot of rules and regulations.
The dumbfounded reaction of the other inmates to this bare-faced explanation of their reality expounded bare-faced to their immediate authority captures the ever-present fear of better communication that must be fostered to ensure that mental walls stay solid.
New Inmate: "How'd you get that scar?"
Veteran Inmate:"What scar?"
During the day the prisoners must work. Watching over them is the man with no eyes who can see everything. He has the power of life and death yet denies those under him the possibility of human communication. He is known as Boss Godfrey.
Inmate: "Don't he ever talk?"
(Boss Godfrey shoots down a bird.)
Luke: "I think he just did."
At the same time, there is the usual self-imposed hierarchy that people often feel is necessary to construct in an institution. When a new inmate is tricked into purchasing a better job for a dollar, a job which doesn't exist, complaining to a guard causes him to spend a night in the box; the tiny solitary confinement cell.
As usual, people taking advantage of an unjust hierarchy must talk themselves into accepting the status quo*:
Dragline: "They got their rules-ain't got nothing to do with that....he gotta learn the rules."
Luke: "Yeah, them poor old bosses need all the help they can get."
Another day on the job and the inmates are blessed with the visitation of an angel. A young woman washes her car, caressing hose and soaping the body in such a fashion as to pleasantly torture the men. Luke observes that, as she's fully aware of her effect, this angel is the Devil.
Dragline, obsessed with his fantasy of the girl is annoyed when Luke brings him out of it and back to the grab-ass reality of the prison. He can not allow another's reality to interfere with the carefully constructed walls of his own mental compound and so responds with the basic animal communication that all humans are programmed with:
Direct, easy to understand, communication.
Dragline gets his anger out. One punch and Luke is down. The other inmates are pleased and reassured to see the old order reassert itself. Luke, however, looks up at Dragline- all powerful with a sun-halo and sees his tormentor. He sees the shadow of the shackles. He refuses to stay down and keeps getting up and getting punished until even Dragline realises he shouldn't be punishing him anymore.
The Bosses are unnerved by this show of defiance. Boss Godfrey, cradling his cane like a shepherd's crook sees an awful vision of his charges losing their sense of place.
Game play has always provided freedom from the mundane, and the inmates turn to the poker table for some not-so-cheap thrills. Luke produces a rabbit from a hat and earns the respect of Dragline:
Whereas a man might have a cross around his neck, Luke wears a bottle opener. Not trusting in a man who was tortured to death long ago, Luke's charm is a symbol of practical, personal, salvation.
"Sometimes I wish people was like dogs, Luke. Comes a day...the bitch don't recognise the pups no more. She don't have no hopes or love to give her pain."
Here, Luke's mother expresses the human dilemma. Beyond the other animals, our imagination allows us to see the possibility of something different, of something better. Locked into this system, a certain amount of sadness and sorrow is inevitable. We are, of course, much better off not creating unnecessary sadness and sorrow, but as dogs in human bodies while largely being unaware of it we look for the safe kennel and the regard of our master; and calmly piss on the hopes of others; hardly noticing or caring.
It's no surprise that dogs*** have no gods, but we do. They are an inevitable, and necessary, part of the conversation:
"He wasn't much for stickin' around- but he made me laugh."
Humour, like anything, is most basically communication. A novel idea triggers something inside us, it stimulates our pleasure centres. A new idea born suddenly and without warning is its own reward.
Funny is both peculiar and ha-ha. It has to be.
One day, presented with the task of tarring a long stretch of road in baking heat, Luke produces the novel idea of completing the task as quickly as possible. "(The Boss) wants it-let's give it to him!"
This playful subversion gives the men a sense of triumph in adversity, the idea of personal power over the system. The inmates end the day laughing as the Bosses are forced to truck them early back to the prison.
Boss Godfrey is not laughing.
Luke's creativity provides the prisoners with more joy when he offers to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour. An impossible task it seems, so much so that Dragline can make a killing on bets as even the chef and the floor-walker are drawn into the magic. Everybody is convinced that nobody can eat 50 eggs. Luke does so and thereby provides the inmates with a miracle: the idea of magic.
This act of creativity, like any act of creativity, is a function of communication, and better communication gives better creativity. But the better communication Luke wishes for most is walled in by the resistance of Boss Godfrey to simple human interaction and the resistance of God to engage with an eager Luke. As Lightning threatens him in a storm, Luke implores:"Kill me, just let me know you're up there!" There is no answer from God, so Luke acknowledges that he is "Just standing in the rain, talking to myself."
The desire for better communication with God is paralleled by the worse communication that the humans are carrying out. When Luke's mother dies he is denied the chance to attend her funeral and, to make sure he doesn't think of escaping in order to say his last goodbyes, he is granted only a night in the box.
The boss who puts him in there whitewashes his own compound walls with: "Sorry Luke, Just doing my job." In answer to which Luke points out that abrogation of personal responsibility is no get out of jail free card: "Calling it your job don't make it right."
Pushed beyond what he is prepared to take, he runs. And the hounds are sent after him. In an interesting example of the gerrymandering of cause and effect that protects the boundaries of our ideas, the dog handler who is mourning his hound who has died of exhaustion exclaims: "Look what he done to Blue!"
When the escaped prisoner is returned, we are allowed to see the most basic blueprint of the prison. The shackles, indeed all punishment, is applied for own's own good. Humour, one of the most useful tools of those who wish to express different ideas, must also wear leg-irons:
Unjust power stuctures must necessarily inhibit communication to survive, even while they are expressing how important communication is. A feat of misdirection that relies on the audiences inability to understand how things really work.
When Luke runs again he is free for months and sends the inmates a magazine that shows a photo of himself and two showgirls. Eventually he is returned to jail badly beaten but, even before he has stopped bleeding, the men demand more details of the girls. Their fantasy comes crashing down when Luke tells them it was all a fake.
Fantasy can sustain a human being even as our lives are being hung drawn and quartered by those who are telling us we are suffering from an excess of innards. The prisoners hate the reality of Luke being battered into submission by the bosses. Instead of sympathy there is dismissal and anger, as a happy illusion is beaten into dust.
With Luke subservient, Boss Godfrey finally deigns to speak: "Go fetch it Luke." The man has been reduced to a dog.
It is only with one last human creative surge that Luke makes his final bid for freedom, inspiring Dragline to scale his own mental walls and come along.
Entering a church alone Luke attempts another dialogue with God:
"You made me like I am, where am I supposed to fit in?"
Once again there is no response, and Luke arrives at the most basic idea that comes from the silence of God: "I guess I gotta find my own way."
At which point, the tempter arrives in the shape of Dragline, who has negotiated with the bosses who are waiting outside the church. They have promised that Luke won't be hurt. Dragline offers the comfort that lies in denying ourselves and submitting to the will of others, available for the usual price:
"All you gotta do is give up."
To give up on better communication is, however to deny the way the universe works.
Ideas inevitably follow information. No information has only one idea.
A bullet to the head is both excellent communication and terrible communication.
It is up to us to decide which idea is better.
Finally. Dragline, once a man kept low by rules and regulations acknowledges the effect that Luke had upon him: "A real world-shaker."
Where once there was just the drag of the line, a whole lotta nothin', there is now the permanent smiling idea of something better.
And ideas are bullet proof.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The governer, this man in authority and pillar of society, wonders what to make of this cheek to the natural order, this flagrant...
The natural order, like any information, can be connected to any number of ideas. If you have done well in one particular system it is only natural for your internal dialogue to result in the scaffolding of one's ego: I have earned my place rightfully and truly, I deserve my rewards. The uncomfortable nature of an alternative reality where men might follow other gods must be kept safely outside the walls of one's own mental Spandau.*
The prisons we choose to live inside, to use Doris Lessing's great phrase, are designed to keep other ideas and information out whilst the regimented inmates that are our own thoughts are fed and watered and kept just happy enough to stay in line.
Among the chickens of Luke's jail, The cock of the inmates is a big old rooster called, most suitably, Dragline; as his position within the system serves to keep that same system on a flat, nonthreatening plane:
Dragline: You don't listen much, do you boy?
Luke: Ain't heard much worth listening to, a lot of guys laying down a lot of rules and regulations.
The dumbfounded reaction of the other inmates to this bare-faced explanation of their reality expounded bare-faced to their immediate authority captures the ever-present fear of better communication that must be fostered to ensure that mental walls stay solid.
New Inmate: "How'd you get that scar?"
Veteran Inmate:"What scar?"
During the day the prisoners must work. Watching over them is the man with no eyes who can see everything. He has the power of life and death yet denies those under him the possibility of human communication. He is known as Boss Godfrey.
Inmate: "Don't he ever talk?"
(Boss Godfrey shoots down a bird.)
Luke: "I think he just did."
At the same time, there is the usual self-imposed hierarchy that people often feel is necessary to construct in an institution. When a new inmate is tricked into purchasing a better job for a dollar, a job which doesn't exist, complaining to a guard causes him to spend a night in the box; the tiny solitary confinement cell.
As usual, people taking advantage of an unjust hierarchy must talk themselves into accepting the status quo*:
Dragline: "They got their rules-ain't got nothing to do with that....he gotta learn the rules."
Luke: "Yeah, them poor old bosses need all the help they can get."
Another day on the job and the inmates are blessed with the visitation of an angel. A young woman washes her car, caressing hose and soaping the body in such a fashion as to pleasantly torture the men. Luke observes that, as she's fully aware of her effect, this angel is the Devil.
Dragline, obsessed with his fantasy of the girl is annoyed when Luke brings him out of it and back to the grab-ass reality of the prison. He can not allow another's reality to interfere with the carefully constructed walls of his own mental compound and so responds with the basic animal communication that all humans are programmed with:
Dragline gets his anger out. One punch and Luke is down. The other inmates are pleased and reassured to see the old order reassert itself. Luke, however, looks up at Dragline- all powerful with a sun-halo and sees his tormentor. He sees the shadow of the shackles. He refuses to stay down and keeps getting up and getting punished until even Dragline realises he shouldn't be punishing him anymore.
The Bosses are unnerved by this show of defiance. Boss Godfrey, cradling his cane like a shepherd's crook sees an awful vision of his charges losing their sense of place.
Game play has always provided freedom from the mundane, and the inmates turn to the poker table for some not-so-cheap thrills. Luke produces a rabbit from a hat and earns the respect of Dragline:
Whereas a man might have a cross around his neck, Luke wears a bottle opener. Not trusting in a man who was tortured to death long ago, Luke's charm is a symbol of practical, personal, salvation.
"Sometimes I wish people was like dogs, Luke. Comes a day...the bitch don't recognise the pups no more. She don't have no hopes or love to give her pain."
Here, Luke's mother expresses the human dilemma. Beyond the other animals, our imagination allows us to see the possibility of something different, of something better. Locked into this system, a certain amount of sadness and sorrow is inevitable. We are, of course, much better off not creating unnecessary sadness and sorrow, but as dogs in human bodies while largely being unaware of it we look for the safe kennel and the regard of our master; and calmly piss on the hopes of others; hardly noticing or caring.
It's no surprise that dogs*** have no gods, but we do. They are an inevitable, and necessary, part of the conversation:
"He wasn't much for stickin' around- but he made me laugh."
Humour, like anything, is most basically communication. A novel idea triggers something inside us, it stimulates our pleasure centres. A new idea born suddenly and without warning is its own reward.
Funny is both peculiar and ha-ha. It has to be.
One day, presented with the task of tarring a long stretch of road in baking heat, Luke produces the novel idea of completing the task as quickly as possible. "(The Boss) wants it-let's give it to him!"
This playful subversion gives the men a sense of triumph in adversity, the idea of personal power over the system. The inmates end the day laughing as the Bosses are forced to truck them early back to the prison.
Boss Godfrey is not laughing.
This act of creativity, like any act of creativity, is a function of communication, and better communication gives better creativity. But the better communication Luke wishes for most is walled in by the resistance of Boss Godfrey to simple human interaction and the resistance of God to engage with an eager Luke. As Lightning threatens him in a storm, Luke implores:"Kill me, just let me know you're up there!" There is no answer from God, so Luke acknowledges that he is "Just standing in the rain, talking to myself."
The desire for better communication with God is paralleled by the worse communication that the humans are carrying out. When Luke's mother dies he is denied the chance to attend her funeral and, to make sure he doesn't think of escaping in order to say his last goodbyes, he is granted only a night in the box.
The boss who puts him in there whitewashes his own compound walls with: "Sorry Luke, Just doing my job." In answer to which Luke points out that abrogation of personal responsibility is no get out of jail free card: "Calling it your job don't make it right."
Pushed beyond what he is prepared to take, he runs. And the hounds are sent after him. In an interesting example of the gerrymandering of cause and effect that protects the boundaries of our ideas, the dog handler who is mourning his hound who has died of exhaustion exclaims: "Look what he done to Blue!"
When the escaped prisoner is returned, we are allowed to see the most basic blueprint of the prison. The shackles, indeed all punishment, is applied for own's own good. Humour, one of the most useful tools of those who wish to express different ideas, must also wear leg-irons:
Unjust power stuctures must necessarily inhibit communication to survive, even while they are expressing how important communication is. A feat of misdirection that relies on the audiences inability to understand how things really work.
When Luke runs again he is free for months and sends the inmates a magazine that shows a photo of himself and two showgirls. Eventually he is returned to jail badly beaten but, even before he has stopped bleeding, the men demand more details of the girls. Their fantasy comes crashing down when Luke tells them it was all a fake.
Fantasy can sustain a human being even as our lives are being hung drawn and quartered by those who are telling us we are suffering from an excess of innards. The prisoners hate the reality of Luke being battered into submission by the bosses. Instead of sympathy there is dismissal and anger, as a happy illusion is beaten into dust.
With Luke subservient, Boss Godfrey finally deigns to speak: "Go fetch it Luke." The man has been reduced to a dog.
It is only with one last human creative surge that Luke makes his final bid for freedom, inspiring Dragline to scale his own mental walls and come along.
Entering a church alone Luke attempts another dialogue with God:
"You made me like I am, where am I supposed to fit in?"
Once again there is no response, and Luke arrives at the most basic idea that comes from the silence of God: "I guess I gotta find my own way."
At which point, the tempter arrives in the shape of Dragline, who has negotiated with the bosses who are waiting outside the church. They have promised that Luke won't be hurt. Dragline offers the comfort that lies in denying ourselves and submitting to the will of others, available for the usual price:
"All you gotta do is give up."
To give up on better communication is, however to deny the way the universe works.
Ideas inevitably follow information. No information has only one idea.
A bullet to the head is both excellent communication and terrible communication.
It is up to us to decide which idea is better.
Finally. Dragline, once a man kept low by rules and regulations acknowledges the effect that Luke had upon him: "A real world-shaker."
Where once there was just the drag of the line, a whole lotta nothin', there is now the permanent smiling idea of something better.
And ideas are bullet proof.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Or, if you prefer, one's own mental Spandau Ballet.+
** Certainly, some find it more difficult than others.
*** I have sometimes been accused of putting dogs down (that is to say, criticising them, rather than euthanising them ) by making this kind of comparison. So, if you are a dog, and you're reading this thinking: "Rubbish! Dog-kind has a rich tapestry of religious cultures that are unknown to humans!" Then please write and let me know.++
+ Which, if true, could possibly be better expressed as: one's own mental mental Spandau Ballet.
++Or possibly you may wish to keep Dog culture a secret so you can continue to do this kind of thing when our backs are turned:
Comments
Post a Comment