Way back in the years I started studying literature,
everything was deconstructionism.
We even had one prof who made us a “tool box”
Only as a paper diagram, of course.
With bolt cutters, you cut the title off the article
to see what it is worth on its own.
And what the article is worth without it.
With a set of tin snips,
you take off everything that is purely ornamental.
So you can look at the article in its underdrawers.
Then you start taking x-rays.
Of its steel girders.
And at about this point,
most people,
lit students or not,
are either saying
this surely must be a very odd simplification
of what must surely have started out as a very serious subject.
Yup
Or you are saying
So what does this have to do with the modern world?
At which point I have to say….
Maybe a whole lot more than you think.
I hope so,
since I am writing an article on this.
As in,
Ever since the forties and fifties
we have been confronted with a continuously wider use of psychoanalysis
in the written and cinematic word-
remember Captain Newman MD,
and all those great scary Hitchcock films,
the day of the Gorgon,
with Richard Burton as a psychiatrist
trying to stop an evil-mind from wandering,
bodyless,
the Seven Percent Solution,
the meaning of Rosebud,
or even Fraser’s girlfriend Lilith-
Yup, more or less popular psych in popular lit.
But, unfortunately, it doesn’t stop in literature.
(Which, in my opinion,
should be at least moderately brushing the edges of some recognizable form of reality.)
Unfortunately,
in this age in which,
due to the sudden popular access to simplified versions of fields
experts take years and years to study,
and practice in correctly,
(a doctor friend once told me the worst enemy to recovery for a patient is the internet)
everyone suddenly is an expert in everything.
With the result that everyone,
make that “Anyone”
anonymous, of course,
is suddenly trying to get into the act.
Sorry, guys, but no one can really tell anything about a person
by insisting they strum a ukulele
or chant oms with you,
(as preparation for “bringing light to others”)
in the woods,
at night,
as part of an esoteric circle
often of other-interest-less bored housemen and housewives,
(how about Volleyball for the world?-
Or Wiffleball?)
who think that you should all sit around all night and discuss someone
(anyone who doesn’t take part in this seven year old “she said he said” level-
adult version-
gossip
is fair game-
see the fantastic film “the Circle”)
And most especially, of course,
those where the only information available
is stolen from a computer,
or medical records,
or financial records,
or a hate wall,
put up to see what other fantasizing wackos will write.
Or even based on how a person reacts
to pictures.
Or suggestions you poke them with.
Or cat pictures.
Which are then used fill public pages with this “analysis.”
Faked up amateur analysis.
Like the ever popular NLP
a valuable tool in hands of experts,
in the hands of idiots, you get
“if you look to the left, you are lying. ”
Or the much beloved amateur numerology, astrology, and,
my real favorite,
the absolute number one among amateurs,
especially those amateurs
who spend their time marking the insult filled “analysis” with
“see. I’m not as dumb as you think,”-
the enneagram.
People,
there simply are no schemes about what things stand for.
A psychologist or psychiatrist
knows
that the only reason to assess anything,
is to learn what it means to the other person.
They listen.
They don’t insult.
And the patient has to give that information freely.
And to a trustworthy professional.
Who doesn’t gab outside of hours.
Studying a person’s writing,
stealing their letters,
or noting their reactions to your pokes,
will give you nothing but fake means to prove what you want to see in that person.
(reputable lit people, for example, analyze by means of facts:
historical facts, signed letters, diaries, diaries of others from the time,
sociological elements,
cultural anthropology,
even mathematical
and linguistic,
structures in the written work.
In other words,
if you are doing this,
the stalking, I mean,
you are weak
And insecure
And feel helpless
and trying to control your world.
Since you are empty where it really counts-
faith.
In God and yourself.
So you want a strong person on your side.
Who,
(there ain’t no such animal, in my opinion)
drinks latte with no fat and two shots of caramel with you,
(yech)
and tells you you are right to be a “bitch.”
(Sorry, double yech.)
But first you have to make that person notice you.
By pulling them apart.
With a pair of bolt cutters
Or tin snips.
Unfortunately,
that isn’t what the world is about.
And psychology, for that matter.
has to be practiced by a professional.
Not a circle of stalkers.
Which brings us back to literature.
To which, I say ditto.
We used to have competent literature editors
who controlled the quality of the work.
Actually , we still do.
But, unfortunately, they are being swamped
by the editors of literature
for special interest groups.
Whose only job it is
to make the literature by a particular category of writer,
like recovering alcoholics
and drug users-
usually thinly overlaid hate expulsion therapy,
acceptable enough
to be mass marketed
to other recovering
alcoholics
and drug users.
Who, the recovering writer promises,
with the help of his outreach program,
will guarantee to take a large number of “books”
often just over a hundred pages,
off the hands of the publishing company.
Even though these books contain passage after passage
about tasering males
and male- bashing,
and girly unimportant nonsense,
like hair, nails, sticky-sweet latte,
or, even worse,
nearly illiterate females,
to judge from the writing,
who spend their time working undercover,
in strip bars,
having body part sex with no single reasonable thought or emotion,
or stabbing someone with a kitchen roasting fork.
(Is someone stuck in the early years of their teeny fantasies?)
Way back,
like about four to five years ago,
in the normal days,
where we weren’t linked in to constant exposure to such worthless garbage,
the intelligent members of society,
in all different kinds of jobs,
of all different thoughts and beliefs,
but tolerant,
would simply have avoided such worthless garbage,
or left it, wordlessly,
to those who wish to read it.
But today, we are supposed to be molded into mindless nonsensical borgs,
who are not to simply think that it is ok for others to live like this if they will,
but are expected to read this garbage,
and take part in esoteric gong-klanging
since it makes us part of one.
Sorry guys.
I am already part of ONE.
The only ONE, who comes just before my husband, family, and friends,
in the list of those who I listen to because I care about what they say.
Which definitely isn’t hairspray, and tasering people.
And if all the great people following my blog so far-
bless you,
and thanks for following,
would hang on to that thought,
which I often see expressed in YOUR blogs,
and find others in the world,
the real world,
who believe like you do,
maybe we all can finally get down to business,
and get some reconstruction going.
copyright Dunnasead.co 2017
Quahog on a Tightrope 