93

Inside the Iron Cage

Edward Curtin

“No one knows who will live in this [iron] cage in the future….”
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

I would prefer not to relay the following very strange story given to me by a fellow sociologist, but he had done me a number of favors, and since he asked me to do him a favor in return, I feel obligated. I don’t know what to make of the whole thing. Following this brief introduction, you will find the manuscript he handed me. I realize you are getting this third hand, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I don’t know his friend. When he asked me to print it for him, I told him I would prefer not to, but then guilt got the best of me, so here it is….

This is one of those stories hard to believe. When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, some sort of parable, and my friend who was telling it to me had had too much to drink or was just pulling my leg. I’m not sure. Like so much in today’s world, the difference between fiction and fact has become very blurry.

Let me call him Sean, since these days holding a strong dissenting opinion can cost you your job. He is a professor who, like the character David in John Fowles’ story, The Ebony Tower, teaches art history. And like Fowles’ character he is a very frustrated academic.

In Sean’s case, he has had to contend with the transformation of his college from a place of learning to a place where “Woke” ideology stifles dissent. Perhaps more importantly, he has suffered from extreme writer’s block. He had just been telling me how, after years of writing copiously in his private journals, he had grown nauseated by it because it seemed so self-involved, concerning self and family stuff he was sick of. He wanted to write articles and books, yet when he tried, he couldn’t.

All his energy had been going into his futile daily journals, where he felt trapped by family matters. Until one recent day at the bar where we regularly meet, he heard this strange story. It jolted him.

Here is what he told me over beer at the tavern. I am paraphrasing, but because his tale was so startling, I know I have the essentials right. He said:

It was late in the afternoon last Wednesday when I came in here for a beer. I was feeling very tired that day, though depressed would be more accurate. The teaching routine seemed absurd to me. I wasn’t writing. I felt at a dead end. I guess I was.

Anyway, you know that guy Tom whom we’ve talked to here before? Well, he was here and we got talking. The place was empty. It turns out his last name is Finn – Tom Finn. His father was Russell Finn, the famous painter, you know, the one the mainstream media gush over. A realistic sentimentalist is the way I’ve heard him described, although I would say he was a sick fabulist trying to repaint history for Hallmark Cards.

Anyway, so this Tom Finn had had a few beers, and as he got talking, the both of us had a few more. It became obvious that he was obsessed with his father. He didn’t say that exactly, but I could guess it from the snide remarks about him he’d laugh out of the side of his mouth. I asked him about a big traveling exhibit of his father’s paintings which I had recently read about in the newspapers; had he seen it? ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t go to that kind of crap. That’s his bag of marbles.’ Things like that.

It turns out the son is also a painter, but he said nothing about his own work, just that he painted. He talked all about his father’s work, how his father stole ideas, wasn’t very good, etc. I told him I agreed that his father’s work was overhyped and mediocre, but that my experience studying art taught me that was true for every era. I was trying to be nice, something I tend to overdo.

I got the impression he turned to painting by default, it being some kind of knee-jerk reaction to his father, some kind of Oedipal contest.

It turns out his real obsession is toys, no shit, and he got very animated as he talked about them. He wanted me to come over to his house to see his vast toy collection. The invitation was so weird, and with the beer’s effects, I couldn’t refuse. It was nearly dinner time, so I called Sara and told her I’d be late. I was actually interested in what made him tick.

I mean, why would a grown man – I’d say he is in his mid-forties – collect fucking toys? And weirder still, he said his speciality was tiny plastic figures of all sorts. Of these he had more than 25,000 – for some reason he emphasized that number – that he’d periodically put on display at local libraries.

So I followed him over to his house which is on that street adjoining the university where a number of art history professors live. Oak Terrace, I think it is. I couldn’t help laughing when I saw all those abstract sculptures decorating their lawns. It was getting dark and they were spotlighted. What a juxtaposition – so perfect – so-called realism and cerebral abstraction side-by-side. And both utter bullshit. I was reminded of a description of Russell Finn’s paintings that I once read: Cute wallpaper for readers of Reader’s Digest.

Actually, Finn’s house is quite cute itself. When we were going in, I had to restrain myself from saying to him, ‘Life’s cute, isn’t it?’ I don’t think he would have appreciated that, although it’s very possible that he wouldn’t have known what the hell I was getting at. He’s a toy collector after all and what’s cuter than that.

I’ll tell you this. I wasn’t prepared for what he showed me.

He took me down to his finished basement, which he called ‘the laboratory.’ When he switched on the lights the room was empty except for the walls. They were covered with shelves about six inches apart that ran from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. It gave the large room this incredibly bizarre look as though it were a prison cell. There were even spotlights that illuminated the shelves, upon which, right along the outer edges looking out, he had lined up his collection of little figures.

As we stood in the middle of the room, it was as though thousands of little people were staring at us, the giants. I felt as though I was hallucinating. Finn just chuckled when I said, ‘Pretty fucking amazing!” Then he said, ‘I like the perspective, don’t you?’ I knew he didn’t expect an answer and I could only chuckle in response, even as I felt a chill on the back of my neck.

It was so eerie that I had to contain a shudder. For a brief moment I had the feeling that the door we had entered was going to shut and be bolted and that something terrifying was about to unfold.

But at that moment he gestured to me to follow him to another door, over which a sign read, “The Family Fun Room.” ‘This is my favorite,’ he said with a smile.

In the middle of this pink painted room there was a cage that extended from floor to ceiling, and in the cage, sitting on stools, were two life-sized and very realistic figures of a man and a woman. They were both dressed in those black and white stripped prison uniforms you’ve seen in old movies. The woman was facing away from the man. I couldn’t tell who the woman was, but I immediately recognized the man.

It was Finn’s father, down to the most realistic detail.

He was holding a small toy figurine and was looking into its face. The door to the cell was padlocked shut. ‘That’s to make sure they can’t escape,’ Finn said with a straight face. ‘Now that I got them where I want them, I can’t take any chances. They’re dangerous and can cause me a lot of grief.’

He then closed the door and we went upstairs. Neither of us said a word.

He offered me a beer, but I declined. I felt spooked, some dreadful feeling in my gut. I told him I had to be leaving, which I did.

On the way out I noticed a framed photograph in the foyer. It was a picture of Finn at about the age of nine or ten with his parents and sister. They are sitting together on a couch, the two kids caught between the parents. No one is smiling. Behind them on the wall is the father’s famous painting of a family of four sitting on a couch.

In that one, everyone is smiling and the father in the painting is Finn’s father.

As you probably know, that was one of his father’s favorite techniques – to put himself in his paintings. Such a cute double-message: I did it, of course, but how could I have done it when I’m in it. You’re left wondering: who really did it? Who executed the painting of these happy people. But since it’s all supposed to be so amusing, you’re left to chuckle, to think, how cute, how tricky.

You’re supposed to smile. But no one was smiling in the picture on the wall. It seemed like a house of smoke and mirrors and I was damn glad to leave.

As I drove home, I sure as hell wasn’t smiling. There was something terribly disturbing about it all. I felt nauseated, disgusted, really disturbed. Maybe it seems obvious, but I felt there was a connection between this weird experience and myself. A double connection, actually. I won’t go into all the details now, and you know about my writer’s block, but this bizarre experience has left me with a new sense of freedom, some kind of opening to a new way to write that at the time I couldn’t put my finger on. I’ve come to think of it as writing beyond a cage of categories.

I thought about all the stuff we talk about, the political propaganda about everything, the loss of a sense of reality, the illusions and delusions with the digital technology, the warmongering by the U.S against Russian, the covid bullshit, all of it, all the stuff we share over beers. Especially the disconnect between the private and the public and the two-faced nature of a way of living that is so fucking phony. I realized why I had been hiding in my notebooks, how they had become my cage.

To top it all off, when I got home and told Sara about my experiences with Tom Finn, the cage and all, she didn’t believe me. She accused me of having drunk too much, which I had to admit I did. She said I was scaring her with such a ridiculous tale and that I was sounding like a deluded conspiracy nut.

Anyway, I’ve told no one else about Finn. I’m afraid they wouldn’t believe me either. You’re a sociologist and know all about Max Weber’s prediction of a coming disenchanted world with its iron cage. Shit, I feel like I had a small glimpse of it. Do you think anyone would believe me if I told this story?

Do you?

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Hemlockfen
Hemlockfen
Feb 14, 2023 3:44 PM

No offense, but I have trouble using the adjective “cute”. Even with babies.

I am going to take a wild guess that you and Finn don’t have any more plans on meeting for a beer. You could end up stuffed and propped up in that cage. (As implied by another one’s comments about Norman Bates similarities.)

I would have found the story very weird except for the fact that I have watched many episodes of the TV show American Pickers. Kind of scary that so many people are like that. You sit back and say, “What…..the……fuck……..” The “Mole Man” episode was probably most bizarre. A skinny pale and frail looking man who was the spitting image of Marty Feldman who lived in a hand dug basement beneath a broken down home with his junk. The stuff was piled floor to ceiling (if you could call it floor to ceiling) with narrow passage ways zig zagging (up and down) it’s way through the junk. There were narrow thin boards crossing over dark chasms with who-knows-what below. It was Hellish.

A Daily Wire pod caster just did a monologue recently on adults that collect toys and what the Bible says about adults putting away childish things.

But yet, so many adults do it.

Our society is really fucked up and this story is a classic example of how fucked up.

If art is a reflection of the mind, you need to stay away from that one.

https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.LCnROY0abxTMReLz6SBSWAHaIC

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 15, 2023 1:48 AM
Reply to  Hemlockfen

I would amend one aspect of your comment:
Just to suggest that adult creativity can enter the world of childhood too.

One example: Robert Schumann’s lovely piano pieces, “Scenes from Childhood”, show how well the composer stayed in touch with his ‘inner child’, as did a fair number of other artists.

At any rate, I don’t think models – even life-sized ones – are essentially spooky or particularly childish. It’s only the intent behind them that can give one the heebie-jeebies sometimes . . .

A German
A German
Feb 14, 2023 3:19 PM

Maybe interesting especially for your country:

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/weaponizing-advertising

When I investgated the WEF landscape in 2021 I also found the British Center for Countering Digital Hate and their founder, a guy named Imran Ahmad. Before that he was strategic consultant for Meryll Lynch. He co-authored a book ‘The New Serfdom’ in 2018 and promoted there democratic socialism, what indeed do meet the images of Soros OS.
https://capx.co/the-new-serfdom-is-a-road-to-nowhere/

I found him to be a member of the Cumberland Lodge. Courious to find out, what this is, supposing some freemasonry, I found something more disturbing. The Cumberland Lodge was a gift from the Royal family to Amy Buller in 1947. Amy Buller had written a book ‘Darkness over Germany’, in which she reports about her discussions with german teachers, businessmen, priests and other people in Germany between 1933 and 1937, when she visited german Reich several times.

Her fear was, that nihilism as root for totaltarian regimes is not only in Germany, but also in other european countries virulent.

I don’t know how it worked to silence her with that gift, nor do I know what ghost lives in Mr. Ahmad, being part of the group and initiating a movement which lets Goebbels look like a beginner.

Why this? Maybe you are interested in reading one of the books. Maybe you understand the complete play with being inside-outside the cage a little bit better. The bars look from inside like from outside the same.

Jen
Jen
Feb 14, 2023 12:28 AM

Reading this story (which may or may not be true), I was reminded of the Norman Bates character (played by Anthony Perkins) in the famous Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho”.

Those who know the film recall that the Norman Bates character had a collection of stuffed and mounted birds in the hotel office. He also kept something quite bizarre and macabre in the basement. Something that (of course) catered to his need to control people and their behaviour – as indeed the room with the shelves of the tiny figures fulfilled the Tom Finn character’s need to feel powerful, God-like and in control of the fates of those toy figures.

Astute readers of Ed Curtin’s story will note that the narrator doesn’t say much about his friend’s house or its interiors above the basement apart from the house being “cute”. So what is it about the house that is “cute”?

sandy
sandy
Feb 13, 2023 5:45 PM

For m, it reflects the self-absorbed nature of a top 5% class of society that is drowning in a dying capitalist womb of insulation from any real struggle to survive. They’ve totally alienated themselves from Humanity and it’s struggles. From the sick capitalist captured art world to toying with WW3, they play the world like they would play with toys. They need to lose it all and get a clue before they do indeed kill us all. They act as if they have no skin-in-the-game of life.I have no sympathy for them. I just want them to be removed from all ability to decide, anything, for other people.

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
Feb 13, 2023 4:57 PM

An entirely morbid article. Apparently; we need more of that…

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Feb 13, 2023 4:44 PM

eemmm, a self revision expletive for those who think of IQ as approval from upticks? It’s difficult because I cannot imagine a visionary perspective, sorry.

Howard
Howard
Feb 13, 2023 3:54 PM

It’s somewhat unclear to me how the article relates to the quote by Max Weber. Except for the term “Iron Cage,” I fail to see much of a connection.

I suppose the relative condition of the two principals, Sean and Tom, somehow demonstrates the dark underside of both the Protestant Ethic and Capitalism. Both men appear to have sealed themselves in a kind of Iron Cage. But their entrapment seems more self-induced than resulting from the social paradigm they find themselves in.

“Success” is not only the God of Protestantism and Capitalism – it has been a feature of every human society labeling itself “civilized.” One either recognizes it for the absurd nonsense it is or pursues it as if it were the be all and end all. It is no less a poison than a dose of mRNA vaccine: it could be lethal or it could be well tolerated.

Hele
Hele
Feb 13, 2023 7:43 AM

This Toy person sounds very stuck.
His basement is very much like the writers journal in the story:self indulgent:
”…after years of writing copiously in his private journals, he had grown nauseated by it because it seemed so self-involved, concerning self and family stuff he was sick of. He wanted to write articles and books, yet when he tried, he couldn’t.
All his energy had been going into his futile daily journals, where he felt trapped by family matters.”
Or, the Dad paints pictures of the family smiling and the kid creates an installation of his parents contained in a cell in the basement.

Kurt
Kurt
Feb 13, 2023 7:25 AM

“We live in times when intelligent people are silenced, because stupid people might be offended”.

Disagree. Even though it would depend on how one defines intelligence. People who are considered intelligent by established standards are oftentimes the worst offenders.

I’d replace the intelligent in the above quote with “principled”, “self-reliant”, “non-conformist”, “fearless”, etc.

What we’re witnessing has been concocted with full knowledge that people today are better educated than ever before, and therefore “intelligent”. Unless you’re non-conformist, a rebel who always questions everything, and you more or less trust the premises they feed people, then you’re “intelligence” will lead you to the conclusions they want. They use all sorts of other forms of skullduggery too, but being “intelligent” alone won’t do.

SeamusPadraig
SeamusPadraig
Feb 13, 2023 1:26 PM
Reply to  Kurt

Yup. Most education nowadays is just indoctrination. Why do you think governments give it away for free? The obvious conclusion is because it serves the interests of those who control the system.

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 13, 2023 5:36 PM
Reply to  SeamusPadraig

Free education is ideal.
Indoctrination is a major culprit of education system failure.
Once any ideology or policy gets corrupted by someone’s self-importance and self-promotion, it all goes to shit.

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 13, 2023 3:40 AM

This story just looks to me like a self-Inflicted nightmare.

I’ve met strange people before, and some of them are strange because they are very lonely – so lonely, in fact, that they might even turn into mental stalkers, just for the sake of having a thin thread which links them to the rest of the world.

By “mental stalkers”, I mean people who grab your attention out of nowhere, then act as if they’ve been your best friend for many years, expecting to be welcomed into every corner of your private life and your thoughts.

I don’t find it at all spooky, although I can acknowledge that some of these mental stalkers might be potentially dangerous.
In my long life I have known perhaps three or four of them, and they have all been sad, introverted and lonely people, yet none of them dangerous.

What they have been is unreasonably demanding of my time, so that my contact with them has either ended in my ignoring them, or confronting them with a lecture on what friendship really is.
I reckon I have tried my best to bring out the best in them, but their intensity of character generally rules out the lighter side of life, with humour and wit appearing to mean little to them.
I have tried because I feel sorry for anybody who is so strange that they are pretty much destined to be lonely all their lives.

As for toys, my amazing and wonderful piano teacher had a train set which ran in his cellar – on steam!
It was ‘O’-guage, or maybe slightly larger, and I sometimes had to wait for my piano lesson while he ran a train from one city to another.
He ran the trains to an accurate railway timetable, with the times scaled down to manageable proportions for a pianist’s working day . . .

As far as I know, he kept this routine going until he was in his seventies, yet he always fulfilled his concert and teaching schedules like any other conscientious musician.

He was a family man and had a devoted following at his concerts, but I would say that he negotiated the fine line between being an autistic recluse and an extremely creative and sensitive musician very successfully, principally by never encroaching on anybody else’s time.

As a result, he was much loved by his students and friends, whereas the mental stalkers I mentioned above have not managed to reconcile their longing to be loved with the real world outside themselves, which sets its conditions for loving strange people.

It’s a sad existence for some, but my inclination is still to be good to them – within limits.

Michael
Michael
Feb 13, 2023 2:59 AM

Love will set us all free.

Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.

– Richard Lovelace, To Althea from Prison

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Feb 13, 2023 12:19 AM

There are some people in this world who paint pictures, play guitars etc..

There are some people who got first trained as a mechanic, a plumber and an electrician.

I am almost totally convinced, my son half the age of me, will get it working…

Our home – well our kitchen has looked and smelt like a lab, whilst his Mum has been at the pub.

It was totally wonderful working with my son on the very latest technology

Pretty much like I did with My Dad 60 years ago.

Its about testing and trying – even better than turning water into wine

Its about turning Sea Water into Fresh Water – almost completely Solar Powered

  • The sea water is sucked up by a feed pump.
  • The filter makes the first gross prefiltration of the water, removing the bigger dirts (like sand, sediments, micro-plastics etc.) which could damage the watermaker or its osmosis membranes.
  • The low-pressure pump, thanks to the help of the Energy Recovery System, pushes the sea water against the osmotic membranes at a pressure sufficient to produce the separation between fresh water and brine. The brine returns to the Energy Recovery System to transfer all the hydraulic energy to the device, and then is continuously discharged into the sea, while the fresh water is sent to the tank.
  • The osmotic membranes then cause reverse osmosis to take place, separating the salt from the water and generating drinking water.
  • The fresh water collected from the tank is then conveyed to the points of consumption through the on-board fresh water pump, where it can be drunk, used for the shower, for washing dishes and so on. It is always advisable to apply an additional filter on the kitchen faucet intended for the supply of drinking water.

Its very hot and sunny in the desert. Maybe potentially if this prototype works (on a small scale – which it will)…it could be enhanced further – given mining contraints,,,to irrigate for example the Sahara Desert to grow food.

Never give up if you have a good idea. It might work, if you try harder and keep going to make it working. Can’t beat bright Sparky Kids – Get Your Shoes On. Barefoot is potentially lethal if you make a mistake.

Paolo Nutini – Iron Sky [Abbey Road Live Session]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELKbtFljucQ

Tony

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Feb 13, 2023 6:19 AM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

Think on Tony. the Libyan irrigation project. There was some northern working lads and I am sure people from all over helping to bluid it. Food in the desert yea right war destroyed it.

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 13, 2023 5:38 PM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

Desalination plants have been operating for a long time.
Thanks for the tunes.

Roger
Roger
Feb 13, 2023 12:02 AM

I read this article in a shoe store on my phone. Looking up I saw a young couple with a stroller. They were unmasked but their toddler wasn’t. The poor thing was strapped into his stroller with a face diaper— restrained and smothered. The adults were shopping without scare in the world and their kid didn’t seem to mind being carted around like Hannibal Lecter. This was “normal.”

This scene felt like the follow up to the article, the part where the dreamer awakes, rolls over, and realized they weren’t dreaming.

I became very angry at those parents but I said nothing.

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 13, 2023 5:40 PM
Reply to  Roger

The first line… i glanced at it and this is what I comprehended and I’m laughing!

“I read this article on a shoe phone in a store…”

hotrod31
hotrod31
Feb 12, 2023 11:57 PM

There is so much symbolism in the article that one is hard-pressed to know where to even begin with constructive comment.
Albeit, the two neurons in my cranial cavity, still working … have trouble deliberating the subjectivity with the signs of madness … therefore, I would be conflicted adding my tuppence worth. After all, as an observer of an interestingly different article, how can one objectify who is the more insane? …
The collector of, essentially harmless toys, or governments and/or heads-of-state collecting billions-upon-billions of dollars of overpriced weapons, essentially destructive toys?

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 13, 2023 5:44 PM
Reply to  hotrod31

Collection is an expression of ego thing.
Creates false importance.
I have a good friend that is a stamp collector and he always has a cutting comment about my seeming lack of its importance.
I don’t collect anything, just unwanted hockey goalie gear that no one wants because it is too old (its not – 2007), even if it is free.

Suavek
Suavek
Feb 12, 2023 9:59 PM

Last addition (if it wasn’t saved earlier ?) :

Not being able to speak is also a form of the self-imposed cage. Yes, it drives everyone crazy. The cage in the head is actually very contagious. If they think you’re a conspiracy theorist, that probably makes you a lot less crazy.The truth has healing powers. I wish more people would realize that.The narrator is said to be a professor. So in this day and age, he risks his job if he doesn’t agree with the many official agendas. I’m starting to think that pretty much everything has meaning here. Anyone who wants to get to grips with this article and with all the details it contains will soon realize that without realizing, suddenly and unexpectedly, they are themselves in a cage. In a commentator cage. That’s why I say goodbye as soon as possible, adieu !

jubal hershaw
jubal hershaw
Feb 12, 2023 9:41 PM

Inside the total surveillance cage.

Everyone under constant surveillance just to catch a few criminals.

‘Under the guise of Smart City technology, authoritarian and democratic governments have rolled out huge networks of spy security cameras and used artificial intelligence to ensure that there is no place to hide.’

(In Putin’s Russia) ‘NTechLab employees had a major role in developing Moscow’s facial recognition system. ‘Last year a “name and shame” list of NTechLab employees was published (in Russian) with info collected from social media.”

‘Other employees left amid an exodus of IT talent from Russia. The war (against Ukraine) changed how they viewed their work.’
(With their limited skills set they’ll find work in The Free West that’ll help The Free West defeat Russia’s authoritarian government.)

https://www.wired.com/story/moscows-safe-city-ntechlab

(Stories about the same happening in The Free west are scurrilous disinformation).

jubal hershaw
jubal hershaw
Feb 12, 2023 9:51 PM
Reply to  jubal hershaw

Inside Safe City, Moscow’s Surveillance Dystopia (10 minute read).

https://www.wired.com/story/moscow-safe-city-ntechlab

Linda Ferland
Linda Ferland
Feb 12, 2023 8:58 PM

People can be obsessive about many things. This obsession is just eeerie, if it actually exists! In this day & age, people can lose sanity quite easily.

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 12, 2023 10:15 PM
Reply to  Linda Ferland

They have.
At the food store I shop at, I had a masked man who I didn’t recognize say “hi”.
I replied,
“I honestly don’t recognize you – could you drop your mask so i can see who you are…”
The the public freakout! He went postal, yelling how I am disregarding social distancing and wearing masks (still didn’t drop his), I am trying to kill people, to which I replied, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus, either…”
So he called the police, who obviously told him I was breaking no law, as his countenance went very solemn. Then he started crying, and left without shopping.

I started crying too, but I continued to shop.
The poor man.
I support him getting thrpough whatever he is going through, but I don’t support him staying there.

Hele
Hele
Feb 13, 2023 7:37 AM
Reply to  Mann Friedmann

How incredibly sad…and what about what you went through…what about what we/the “other” are going through?Compassion is needed -on both sides.

Linda Ferland
Linda Ferland
Feb 13, 2023 8:54 PM
Reply to  Mann Friedmann

Wow! That’s his choice. Not all of us agree with it; but, it’s his choice to make. At the grocery store last week, I counted 26 people wearing masks–all different ages. Some glared at me & some got upset! I carried on shopping.

Suavek
Suavek
Feb 12, 2023 8:55 PM

Last addition :

This is also a voluntary cage : not to be able to tell any more , not being able to share the story with anyone ). So the madness seems to be contagious ! It plays a certain role here that the narrator is a professor. Professors are particularly heavily censored these days, and they risk their jobs if they openly say they disagree with the official agendas that have been imposed. It seems to me that in this narrative nothing is accidental at all and that everything here has a meaning. You could dwell on it for so long that you don’t realize when you’re sitting in a comment cage yourself. So farewell and adieu !

Suavek
Suavek
Feb 12, 2023 8:15 PM

To prevent misunderstandings I would like to write something about it :
My last sentence refers to the author’s impossibility to continue telling this story. After his wife did not believe him, he decided not to tell anyone else about it. Such self-imposed barriers can drive someone crazy. In other words, he doesn’t want to embarrass himself / be considered crazy and therefore (precisely because of these self-imposed barriers) he becomes a little crazier. A typical double bind situation. Typical for the time of the false pandemic : you are declared crazy by friends when you tell the truth. The most important thing in a narrative is often at the end. Here too. The more you try not to be considered crazy and keep quiet, the crazier you will be. And if you tell the truth about the Covid scam, your friends would say you are crazy. And that makes you crazy too. Is there a solution here ?

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 12, 2023 10:19 PM
Reply to  Suavek

The only thing is to go hard on rhetorical truth on the Coronadoom.
Let them get agitated; if they do but call them out HARD when the ad hominems and disparagement .predictably come spewing out.
If not, tell them, “May you enjoy a fulfilling death”.

wardropper
wardropper
Feb 13, 2023 3:12 AM
Reply to  Suavek

I have in mind one of the memes I saw here a few weeks ago:
“We live in times when intelligent people are silenced, because stupid people might be offended”.

We must refuse to be silenced. Those memes also give us some of the ammo we need in order to survive the pressure.

Suavek
Suavek
Feb 12, 2023 7:49 PM

A very believable story. It shows how a craze works. How do you connect several problems and fears repressed from consciousness that do not fit together ? :
— fear of separation from parents,
— hatred towards the parents,
— power towards the parents who restricted you too much at that time,
— if you were for your parents only as a kind of toy without soul, what do you collect and play with ?
— if you were forced to play a game because otherwise your authenticity would be punished, wouldn’t you like to play and exaggerate the game to the point of madness to constantly refresh your life trauma ? When will you stop doing that ? When you become aware of what you are actually suffering ?
— Why did you choose the same profession as your father, to show that you are better than him?

You can drag this into infinity… The joke lies in the fact that human madness connects everything, which actually does not fit together, nevertheless somehow together. The man invites friends and at the same time scares them away by his craziness. He needs friends and is afraid of them. For similar reasons, a stutterer applies for the job in sales activity. And that’s also why I didn’t become a psychiatrist and you didn’t become a multimillionaire. We connect things together, one of which pulls us to the right, the other to the left, and then we complain to each other that we have not moved from the point for years. Everything is plausible and realistic in this story. Not to tell it further is also a kind of self-imposed limitation. One becomes crazy by not wanting to be seen as crazy ( incredible person ).

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Feb 12, 2023 9:49 PM
Reply to  Suavek

“Your authenticity would be punished” is the problem. The world’s a stage, etc.

This is a human problem. We are all a bunch of liars, deceivers, cheaters, holier than thous.

Why? – Because authenticity has always been punished by the old crusty traditions and, now, by the new normal wokeness.

I wonder how AI, once it has taken over the policing, the courts, the taxation and banking systems, etc., will handle our deceiving humanity. Probably depends on who is training AI right now to make decisions in the future. Already, AI says that a house burning down with people trapped inside is not as urgent to tend to as someone who has made a transphobic faux pas.

You asked for a solution in your post above this one. I can’t think of another one except to buy a camper van and escape to some remote place and start over.

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Feb 12, 2023 7:13 PM

“I mean, why would a grown man – I’d say he is in his mid-forties – collect fucking toys?”

I had a play room, when I was a child. When I left home, my Mum salvaged most of my toys, which my older brother’s children did their best to destroy. I was not impressed with what they did to my Hornby 00 train set though I have still got the Transformer – which still works 65 years later.

I have had toys all my life, and I have got two playrooms now – one for me. The Grandchildren are only allowed in to my playroom, if they are extremely polite and well behaved. Unfortunately I can’t play my musical instruments, nor paint pictures…I haven’t got the innate skills. I still try , but am useless.

The kids show me how to do it – Come on Grandad

Come out to play.

Sometimes these skills skip a generation.

Life is for Play not War.

Toys are Fun.

Tony

Mann Friedmann
Mann Friedmann
Feb 12, 2023 10:21 PM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

… but keep your ear to the ground!

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 12, 2023 6:38 PM

I do not find this story hard to believe in the least and wonder why others do. There are no limits to what many people will do to entertain their obsessions. David Icke, for example, has claimed that several of Princess Diana’s certified close friends told him after her death, at least one on the record, that Diana told them that she had seen the Royal family transform into Draco reptilians before her eyes and it kept her in terror. I can sympathize with why some would find that hard to believe :-), though Icke gives a credible explanation based on what he considers to be real information technology. But why the wife couldn’t believe this story as at least credible, if not definitely true, I find strange. 
__________________________________

dan
dan
Feb 13, 2023 3:13 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

it happens when you stare at your friends while you are high on LSD. and if you stare in the mirror

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 13, 2023 3:21 PM
Reply to  dan

Were Diana’s friends acidheads? I didn’t know that.

switchedON
switchedON
Feb 12, 2023 5:55 PM

Cute wallpaper for readers of Reader’s Digest.

Readers Digest, that’s a blast from the past.
They was the first scammers, I’ll never forget my Brit friends phone call to me decades ago convinced she’d been chosen to win a share of £250.000 and all she had to do was spend £14.99 on something from there catalogue to get put into the final draw.

Hele
Hele
Feb 13, 2023 7:46 AM
Reply to  switchedON

have you watched the film Nebraska-so good on this theme.

James R
James R
Feb 12, 2023 4:24 PM

I’m not sure what to make of this. If it’s a bit of ‘creative’ writing then I’m not sure it works.
For some reason it reminds me of a quirky documentary I saw years ago about Joseph Cornell. I ‘do’ collage with unusual juxtapositions, often under glass domes, sometimes involving whole rooms, and am happy to give them away (not the rooms though), being fully aware of their (and my) ephemerality. I hope their is nothing ‘pervy’ about my output – I’m sure my wife would tell me if there was. I admire JC’s work but pity him for his personal sadness. Mr. Larkin’s parental dictum also comes to mind apropos of this piece. And, perhaps mercifully finally, wasn’t the narrator guilty of drink driving?

Freecus
Freecus
Feb 12, 2023 2:31 PM

Inside the Iron Cage

This makes me think of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS).

Kurt
Kurt
Feb 12, 2023 2:00 PM

Do I get it right that Tom is so concerned about not being affected by what his father’s values and worldviews, or the lack thereof, represent that he is compelled to lock a figure of the man in a cage in the basement? That’s pretty extreme if not sick, me thinks! But hey, if it works for Tom, so much the better.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this technique would work to help people rid themselves of all the scum that’s infested their minds. The cage in their basement would have to be mighty fucking big so as to take in all the hierarchical structures that exploit human beings, including all the presidents, royals, ministers, and other assholes. Not feasible, even if somebody wanted to go that way.

Anyway, I would be much more worried about a different cage. A cage firmly implanted in peoples heads through lifelong brainwashing and conditioning. A cage that makes people go through the motions without giving an iota of thought about their usefulness or sense. Like going to school, getting a job, electing some political fuck, or doing any other of the things that are part of the script people follow to live their enslaved lives. In fact, most people are not even aware of having this cage in their head.

The good news is that there’s no padlock on the door, in fact, the door is wide open. Anybody can step right out into the open and fly away. You won’t get your daily portion of the shit fodder they feed you, but you’ll be free, no longer subject to all the skullduggery they’ve foisted on you since day one.

Howard
Howard
Feb 12, 2023 3:35 PM
Reply to  Kurt

You say “there’s no padlock on the door….” How about, the person himself is the padlock? At least, that’s undoubtedly the intent of the brainwashing. Which may explain why so many are unable to find their way out.

Kurt
Kurt
Feb 12, 2023 3:59 PM
Reply to  Howard

Frankly, I don’t think there’s even a door, let alone a padlock.

But you’re right, some people might proactively install one, bolt it down, and install all sorts of security features. They’re institutionalized ….

jubal hershaw
jubal hershaw
Feb 12, 2023 8:35 PM
Reply to  Kurt

Policeman: a person who gives up freedom for obedience; who’s motto is “Obedience is Freedom”.We all have an inner policeman. And we all secretly fantasize being a Rebel – the theme of many movies**, and the subject of most Meme Monday memes).
** Then there’s Dirty Harry, a rebel within the law, rebelling against bureaucratic constraints. In ‘Magnum Force’ rebel Dirty Harry takes down some young Punk cops who dish out The Law outside The Law. The rebel Dirty Harry gets all Righteous.(An Action Movie with A Moral, though i’ve never figured out what The Moral Was. Maybe it’s “You’re freee to be A Rebel so long as it’s within The Law”).

May Hem
May Hem
Feb 12, 2023 9:06 PM
Reply to  Howard

You make a good point Howard. We can ‘lock ourselves up’ with the belief system which we choose ourselves. Many are unaware that they hold the key and can choose a new or different belief system at any time.

The more you close your mind the greater your self-imposed imprisonment.

Howard
Howard
Feb 12, 2023 1:48 PM

In a bizarre sort of way this article “hit home.” As kids, my brother, cousin and I (around pre-pubescence) tried to hone our shoplifting skills. We especially liked taking the little plastic figures out of model car boxes.

I developed quite a liking for these figures; and ended up with a fair collection of them. I would paint them and “play” with them (i.e., create stories in which they were the actors). I’d be lying if I said I “outgrew” that pretty quickly. It was fascinating – especially for someone who hated sports and, therefore, seldom played with other kids.

Voz 0db
Voz 0db
Feb 12, 2023 12:43 PM

To the censors of the Guardian… You slaves are no better than the ones you complain about!

Will - Admin3
Admin
Will - Admin3
Feb 12, 2023 1:20 PM
Reply to  Voz 0db

Hello chum,

Will here, new admin (or slave, if you prefer). It is one of my first days in fact.

Usually it takes a few days or even weeks to start noticing patterns in behaviour. But here you are shouting ‘censorship’ time and time again.

I’m reminded of a time at school once when I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to play with this big oaf of a boy because he had no friends. Lord knows why.

Anyway, his idea of ‘playing’ was being a little delinquent, belittling me generally and then running to tell the teacher about how ‘mean’ I was being if I ever snapped. Always ready, like he was pushing me to snap JUST so he could be a little snitch. He never had any intention of playing nicely. The game to him was getting to the teacher before me.

I think your game is shouting ‘censorship’ everytime your comment goes into pending. Spamming endlessly until you get a reaction.

I hope I’m wrong.

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 12, 2023 1:56 PM
Reply to  Will - Admin3

All my comments go into pending. I assumed this was true for everyone here. I would welcome feedback on this. My wife had bought a USA get through airport security fast card. Is there one for sale at off-G.

Sal P
Sal P
Feb 12, 2023 6:28 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

One possible explanation for a comment being held in spam is that a user may be accessing the site using a VPN and/or Tor browser or even a shady ISP through an IP address that has been blacklisted as a kown source of spam or a known source of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. A DDoS attack, usually using a network of interconnected malware-infested computers, will flood a website with a huge amount of data packets to the point where the site will be impossible to access by normal traffic.

The sources of these attacks can range anywhere from government intelligence agencies to tech-savvy teenagers with nothing better to do. In any case, it’s essential that security software is employed to defend against this. Although this solution is not perfect (what is?) it’s far, far better than not using it at all.

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with Off-G in any way.

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 12, 2023 9:14 PM
Reply to  Sal P

Thanks Sal P. That clarifies things. I am guilty on both counts. I use Proton’s free VPN and I am off grid in Mexico. My internet access is via a local entrepreneur in a tiny village close by who broadcasts access via an antenna on his roof, so my computer would read as a counterfeit IP. The only count I am not guilty of is being a teenager – far from it.

Sal P
Sal P
Feb 12, 2023 11:22 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

If you’re using a VPN the IP from your ISP should be hidden. My suggestion (if you haven’t already tried this) is to try using different servers within your Proton VPN. Once you’ve found one that gives you consistently good results save that one to your profile and use it regularly – at least until that server becomes compromised by bad actors. If that happens, just rinse and repeat.

Free VPNs are usually more prone to these problems than paid ones. I think Proton is one of the better free VPNs.

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 12, 2023 11:25 PM
Reply to  Sal P

Thanks, I’ll do that.

mjh
mjh
Feb 12, 2023 7:06 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

I comment fairly frequently and, to my recollection, only had a comment go into pending once (and when it was lifted I got an email notice saying it was now posted). This just happened a day or two ago. I think the reason for that instance was because I mentioned the name of Hitler — in a totally relevant setting, because the commenter I was responding to was discussing some aspects of German history, and I was putting forward an alternative (and I believe more accurate) interpretation of the evidence about why Hitler rose and consolidated power in what seemed such a seamless way. I assumed my comment was read over to make sure I wasn’t some sort of nut proclaiming that the Third Reich was wonderful. Quite fine by me that I was “checked out” on this point.

Howard
Howard
Feb 13, 2023 3:17 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

The closest thing to a pattern I’ve been able to determine is whenever a comment of mine mentions a person by name, the comment goes into “Pending.” It doesn’t seem to matter what the context is; a proper name is very likely to result in a Pending.

It makes sense in a way. I’m sure there are those (like maybe the Guardian) who would love to bring a huge lawsuit against OffG for allowing a commenter to “slander” a famous person.

Just a guess.

User5
User5
Feb 13, 2023 9:20 AM
Reply to  Voz 0db

You are right. There is a heck of a lot of censorship going on. It seemed to have started about a year ago. I only come to this site about once a month now. They mostly only let positive comments through. Once in a while they will let a critical comment through just to pretend that there is no censorship. And the admins are all over the comments lecturing us.

Will - Admin3
Admin
Will - Admin3
Feb 13, 2023 10:03 AM
Reply to  User5

“Yes I agree, wholeheartedly! Well said Vod!” said Vod, now wearing a long duster and a fake moustache.

When I’m working I see all the pending comments, and I approve 99.9% of them. Do I agree with all of them? No. Far from it. But I do not discriminate, no matter how banal and petty the comment is.

If this censorship narrative is important to you, then squeal away. But it’s pointless lying about it, especially to me. Who is this performance for exactly?

Will

Edwige
Edwige
Feb 12, 2023 12:34 PM

Seymour Hersh on how the US blew up Nordstream 2:
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

Hersh’s expose of the My Lai massacre was on the front page of the NYT – now he has to publish this on Substack. Snopes already has a feeble attempt at a debunk up.

Does NATO have any rules about one member state attacking another?

Victor G,
Victor G,
Feb 12, 2023 1:30 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Ask the Italians …

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Feb 12, 2023 2:25 PM
Reply to  Edwige

While Hersh had done some really good work in the 60’s and 70’s dealing with Vietnam, his last major exposé was regarding the ObL hit a few years ago. Quite a bit of it was absurd, starting with the fact, obvious to many, that ObL had died late in 2001 from kidney failure in the Bora Bora mountains.

As to the current article, anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that the pipelines were blown up by either a UK or USA underwater demolition team. The absurdity that Russia blew it up when they could simply turn off the gas cock from their side show just how low quality USA disinfo has fallen, or perhaps the current level of stupidity of the American masses. As I recall though, Hersh did not deal with Truss’ famous three word text to Blinken which would indicate that a UK team had actually done the dirty deed. I regard the point as inconsequential.

What I do consider as perhaps consequential is Hersh’s statement that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had signed off on the OPS prior to it being actuated. It has been suggested that the Anglos decided to blow them up because Germany had been secretly involved in negotiations with Russia to reopen them, and the Anglos wanted to preclude that. Hersh’s piece may cause some political problems for Scholz and his party in the future, though maybe not, as the Germans appear to be even more brain dead than the Americans. Also iss curious why the Anglos chose to leave one of the Nordstream 2 pipelines unmolested.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
Feb 12, 2023 3:31 PM
Reply to  el Gallinazo

Dead right about Osama. The Abbottabad incident was pure, lying circus.

SeamusPadraig
SeamusPadraig
Feb 12, 2023 3:49 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Does NATO have any rules about one member state attacking another?

Probably not. Greece and Turkey went to war over Cyprus back in the 70s, but nothing happened involving NATO.

Hele
Hele
Feb 13, 2023 7:48 AM
Reply to  Edwige

And he is referred to a a “blogger” by msm-not a Pulitzer Prize winner.

User5
User5
Feb 12, 2023 12:04 PM

This hardly seems weird. A person (artist) harboring a lot of frustration and other emotions built an art installation in their home.

Johnny
Johnny
Feb 12, 2023 11:35 AM

Hoarding is far more common than we witness on reality TV shows.
Most of us hoard something. Whether it be money, sexual conquests, books, coins, stamps, photos, toys, memories, travel experiences, opinions or thoughts. It is an addiction.

We build our own cages, to contain our longing.

Willem
Willem
Feb 12, 2023 11:04 AM

Weber’s iron cage is an analogy to materialism, yet the irony is that the cage is not materialistic, ie it only exists if you believe in the cage. What Slaveholders do is to conceptualize that cage through materialistic rules, aka govern-ment.

An advantage of living in a cage is that it gives one support in the infinite universe. Many people like that support as Dostoyevsky explained in the grand inquisitor quote: ‘In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.’ Spiritualism or freedom terrifies people. Not all people, but many people. They prefer the iron cage, ie materialism over spiritualism.

The difference between materialism and spiritualism can be explained in many ways.

One way is that if you believe in materialism you cannot transcend yourself into someone else, similar as to a hairdryer can’t transcend itself into a comb. We are all individuals, we are all different. Yet if you believe in spiritualism, you can easily transcend yourself into someone else or (with a bit of imagination) even into something else. People who live without Weber’s iron cage can hold the universe in their hand (are transcendental), yet those who live in the cage are part of the starstuff (material) and are therefore trapped in their own mind. It’s a difference between narcissism and holism, it’s a difference between ‘I think therefore I exist’ (Descartes) and ‘I doubt therefore I exist’ (Augustinus). It’s a difference between feeling sorry for those who can only see as far as the cage goes, to those who cling to the cage and do everything to stay inside of it even though the door of the cage (that is in’t there) is wide open. It’s a difference between jabbed and unjabbed…

Another way to explain the difference between materialism and spiritualism is to run the following experiment:
1. Take a good look in the mirror and describe the difference between you to what you see in the mirror. The difference I see is that the picture in the mirror perfectly describes the materialistic part of what I am, yet misses the spirit. Narcissists don’t know anything about spirit and therefore love their image in the mirror.
2. Now run the same experiment but instead of looking at yourself describe the image of the comb, shampoo bottle, tooth brush that you put in front of the mirror. There I see no difference between the real image and the mirror image of the comb, shampoo bottle, tooth brush, for the simple reason that combs, shampoo bottles etc are purely made of material.

If you understand the meaning of the second experiment, you also understand why no televised or otherwise screened image can be spiritual. You also understand then that the medium lacks perspective of true life and therefore is utterly boring and fake.

George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 12:58 PM
Reply to  Willem

You could extend that to the act of recording music. A piece of music is supposed to be played in real time by actual performers before an audience. Therefore it is a creative act which interacts with the audience. A recording however is always a mechanical reproduction which is in a sense “dead”. It can be indefinitely repeated but that very act only goes to demonstrate its deadness. This is why the most seemingly revolutionary music in the world can – if recorded – totally negate all illusion of efficacy the moment you hit the “repeat” button. Indeed even in the initial hearing it is, as I noted, an illusion.

Admittedly it’s an arguable point since even a recording can inspire people. But so much of modern recorded music hovers around the ideology of “rebellion” which usually just inspires nothing more than a new fashion for a while. (And lots of dosh for the copyright owners who are not necessarily the perfomers.)

Howard
Howard
Feb 12, 2023 1:39 PM
Reply to  George Mc

The point you make holds for music and painting; but breaks down entirely for literature. A novel or a poem cannot be experienced as a real-time entity except by the artist who created it. Even the manuscript exists as real-time only as its being written; once committed to paper it ceases to exist as anything other than a copy.

In that regard I’m thankful I have no talent for painting or music because I could not bear to turn what I created over to others. It would be a little like selling one’s child.

George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 2:46 PM
Reply to  Howard

I don’t know about painting since once the painting has been done it exists “absolutely” as a thing. Music however, like drama, has a time element which involves reproduction as performance. Therefore you could argue that there is something almost oxymoronic about recorded music.

Howard
Howard
Feb 12, 2023 3:57 PM
Reply to  Willem

One has to ask what your understanding of “spiritual” is. A screened image (as in a film like “Inherit The Wind”) compresses true life – it doesn’t simply mirror it. You cannot watch something unfold in real life, over time, and glean every aspect of it the way you can in a (good) film.

Also, you underestimate the power of mirrors. The much maligned occult may be on to something in its equation of a mirror with a doorway to another realm. In presenting a backwards image of whatever faces it, a mirror becomes a mini-parallel universe.

My take on mirrors is that they’re too good to waste on narcissists who see them only as skewed “selfies.” They are better used – though of course insufficient – as an attempt to capture the essence of something.

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Feb 12, 2023 10:10 PM
Reply to  Willem

But can’t images evoke meaning? The minute we translate the material into some inner truth aren’t we operating within the spiritual realm? Like the wooden cross for Christians, or a lit candle for the meditator, or indeed a painting, the material image can transport us into an infinite dimension where we a free to create with our own minds.

binra
binra
Feb 12, 2023 11:00 AM

Psychic fragmentation reminds me in some senses, of shaped (explosive) charges.
A world of mind set normal, made within the result of a shattering of the Field of knowing to a broken constellation.
The lie and father of it masks the pieces of a false peace; of life as war by other means set under the iron law of sacrifice to a false father to a false son as a false inheritance stamped over true inherence running as archetypal dictate.

Loveless thinking must mask in and as the thing it denies, in order to seem to be what it never is or can be. Modern toys bring new metaphors; the VR helmet – Game On!
Watch out for that fruit because, if you partake, you will not know who you are under the backstory of a cage of fear set in pain of loss by which escaping resets the Game by which you are fed drama set in trauma that despite billions of years or triple masking – is here… again.

At the starting place is the call to remake all things but This Time…
Such is the signature of every moment within a past seeking resolution as You, set in shifting lights in a darkness where a true Father shall never get in!

I much prefer your writing when not indulging put-downs as an insinuation of insider dealing.
Walking away from Omelas finds companioning in the moment of a truly resonant exchange.
perhaps Father ‘Rushes to meet us’ in our welcome to knowing of life anew!

binra
binra
Feb 12, 2023 11:05 AM
Reply to  binra

( Corrected-edit not functioning)

Psychic fragmentation reminds me in some senses, of shaped (explosive) charges.
A world of mind set normal, made within the result of a shattering of the Field of knowing to a broken constellation.
The lie and father of the lie masks the pieces of a false peace; of life as war by other means set under the iron law of sacrifice that sets a false father in a false son as a false inheritance stamped over true inherence, to running as the archetypal dictate of ‘human’ conditioning.

Loveless thinking must mask in and as the thing it denies, in order to seem to be what it never is or can be.

Modern toys bring new metaphors; the VR helmet – Game On!
Watch out for that fruit because, if you partake, you will not know who you are under the backstory of a cage of fear set in pain of loss by which escaping resets the Game by which you are fed drama set in trauma that despite billions of years or triple masking – is here… again.

At the starting place is the call to remake all things but This Time…
Such is the signature of every moment within a past seeking resolution as You, set in shifting lights in a darkness where a true Father shall never get in!

I much prefer your writing when not indulging put-downs as an insinuation of insider dealing.
Walking away from Omelas finds companioning in the moment of a truly resonant exchange.
perhaps Father ‘Rushes to meet us’ in our welcome to knowing of life anew

George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 9:48 AM

Very creepy. It reminds me of Thomas Ligotti who likes to blur the boundary between people and puppets. And the bit where the narrator thinks he may have strayed into a trap reminds me of possibly the most terrifying film I ever saw.

It was only a short piece – about ten minutes long – and made, I think, in Italy. There was no dialogue. A man walks down a busy street in a city in broad daylight. He goes up to a phone booth, enters and tries to use the phone. But it’s disconnected. So he turns to leave but finds the door jammed. He pushes and pushes. Nothing happens. Then he tries to shout to people passing but the booth is sound proof. So he gestures to them but nobody seems to see him. He gestures more and more frantically as he starts to panic. But everyone keeps walking past. So then he’s pounding on the glass and shrieking and prancing around the cubicle. All to no effect. He eventually tires himself out and slumps to the bottom of the booth.

The day wears on until it’s early evening. The street is now deserted and the man is still slumped on the floor. At this point a truck drives up and two workmen get out and come to the booth. The man stirs and looks relieved. At last someone has come to save him. But the workmen pay no attention to him. They get down and start to remove bolts holding the booth to the pavement. The booth occupant shouts at them and gestures but they continue to ignore him.

They use a winch to lift the booth onto the truck and then drive away out of the city and into the mountains. They take a road that leads into a cavern and come to a vast chamber filled with phone booths each one having a corpse inside with the corpses in various states of decomposition. The trapped man realises what is happening and collapses into total terror, screaming and pounding. But the truck stops, the workmen remove the booth and leave it in the chamber before driving off. We are left to look at the prisoner slumping into despair as he stares at the sockets of the skeleton in the next booth.

THE END

The most terrifying aspect of this little vignette is the realisation that the moment the man steps into the booth and the door closes, he is doomed even though the surroundings appear reassuringly mundane. The whole thing could be taken as a metaphor for that “totalitarian tiptoe” where a number of apparently innocent little moves signal an inexorable descent into utter nightmare. It could also be taken as a comment on the compliance of those hatchet men simply “doing their job” as they contribute to the routine of an extermination camp.

George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 10:04 AM
Reply to  George Mc

I just found a couple of links which are relevant. There is a Spanish movie called “La Cabina” which seems to have the same plot though it is in fact 35 minutes long and it seems different from what I recall in that the crowd outside do see the booth occupant and jeer at him. Here are the links:

A documentary on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYPdrvfWdcI

And the thing itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYPdrvfWdcI

But I’m sure I saw a much shorter film that was more effective for being more understated.

Kent Brady
Kent Brady
Feb 12, 2023 1:02 PM
Reply to  George Mc

‘La cabina’ can be found on Pirate Bay.

binra
binra
Feb 12, 2023 11:37 AM
Reply to  George Mc

The question “do you believe it?” is to me ears revealing by our reaction that we are predicated on such fear in ways and at a level we do not want to know or lack the resources -as yet – to look at directly.

While exploitation of the sinister feeds an appetite to be frightened in a ‘model’ that we trust we CAN ‘walk out of’, there is a trap in thinking we are ‘walking out’ and not preparing a place or framing of our own subjection.

The engaging in self-illusion as a conscious choice set over real relationship MUST sacrifice awareness of true for the world we think to gain. As far as I use the word sin, this is the wish to subject or to ‘other’ the living to a private ‘takeaway’ set in a distanced and masked ‘reality’ running covert to its screen appearance. The split of victim and victimiser is not recognised in its shifting polarisations and mutations that run contagion as vengeance seeking self-vindication as justice, or the eradication of agencies or vectors of conflict.

What we see is through the learned world we have in a sense made, and adapted to through mutual reinforcements largely running covert – and false flagged or projected onto shifting targets.
While we want this as our life, our defences run to ‘make it so’.

You can read it other ways: The phone box is the symbol of calling to communicate with what is perceived remote or distant, but this violates the fundamental rules of the Game of Separation or ‘Distance, Mask and Attack to boost the mask of victim – that SEEMS normal and connecting to those who are identifying there. If you should dare to violate the ego-boundary – THIS is the fate that you believe awaits you– the line is cut – there is no connection – and now you have marked yourself for cancelling and cant rejoin ‘the Great Normal’.

Given such fear, is it any wonder that Normality is maintained as a iron mask of social compliance against total exclusion? If the LIFE is cast in the Lie – to reflect a reversal onto the truth?

Where – in any moment – are we taking identity – or where am I coming from as the conscious care for who and what I am accepting myself to be?
We teach, we learn, we can let what we learned teach us while running on auto.
“Not now love1” – just gotta make this call…

binra
binra
Feb 12, 2023 11:38 AM
Reply to  binra

love!

(edit not working)

A German
A German
Feb 12, 2023 12:45 PM
Reply to  George Mc
George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 1:06 PM
Reply to  A German

Looks interesting. I recall a TV movie from decades ago in which a rich gathering in a mansion find themselves trapped and where the windows look out only on absolute darkness. I remember that the ending features the police finding all the company dead of starvation although they were in a house filled with lavish food supplies.

A German
A German
Feb 13, 2023 8:44 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Those pittoresque ideas ground in Hegelian worldview

That the lord–bondsman dialectic can be interpreted as an internal process occurring in one person or as an external process between two or more people is a result, in part, of the fact that Hegel asserts an “end to the antithesis of subject and object”. What occurs in the human mind also occurs outside of it. The objective and subjective, according to Hegel, sublate one another until they are unified, and the “story” takes this process through its various “moments” when the lifting up of two contradictory moments results in a higher unity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%E2%80%93bondsman_dialectic

In Hegels thinking master an bondsman depends to each other – without the existence of the other, the one doesn’exist himself. His ideal is symbiotic, or to say: cannibalistc.

These films are ending in destroying the invisible master’s reason for existing. With killing the bondsmen, they kill themselves.

The guy in the article has good reason for the cage: as long as he guards the cage, he is sure to exist, but because of the necessary relation to prisoners, he never exists for himself.

That is the poison of Hegelian (collectivist) imagination: existence only through the control over prisoners. Some people call it ‘love’, others humanity. But meant is in any case the total control of bondsman.

But to make it more complicated, the real bondsman is no bondsman – true communication with him would only be possible, when the puppet is free. This is the greatest horror of the master: then he would not die, but lose his orientation, hin sense to be. That is more painful than dying with the bondman.

Oh, inadvertently I explained the New World Order ….

Howard
Howard
Feb 12, 2023 4:05 PM
Reply to  George Mc

Fantastic. I’d love to watch this film. And the sub-text (so to speak) is almost as eerie as the actual events of the film. After all, the man entered the phone booth entirely to communicate; but once inside he is incapable of communicating with anyone ever again.

George Mc
George Mc
Feb 12, 2023 7:08 PM
Reply to  Howard

Never thought of that. And perhaps he is being berated for relying on a machine rather than going directly face to face.

Andrew O'Gorman
Andrew O'Gorman
Feb 12, 2023 9:41 AM

Adults with toys is not that uncommon. I did pet sitting for a short while and got to see many different homes and the contents therein. I tried not to pry, but sometime it was in your face.

One couple I sat for had lovely, but very spoiled dogs.(as most of those I sat for), their houses were incidental.

This couple had a large house and every room was adorned with toys and figurines of every description. One room was huge which was their “play room” and had all the electronic games dotted round, plus a table tennis slap bang in the center and a well stocked bar.

I know a little about toy collections and went on the internet to get an idea of how much were the toys worth. I couldn’t be accurate, because much of the stuff was beyond my knowledge e.g. the Japanese book and comics. They traveled each year to this festival and spend huge amounts on procuring more toys and comics. Well the figure I came up with far exceeded their house value and i’m sure I was not even close to the real amount.

Weird, but nice people.

Dollyboy
Dollyboy
Feb 12, 2023 9:31 AM

Yeah sounds almost like a magic spell. Is it working?

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
Feb 12, 2023 8:46 AM

I believe the possibility of that story being true .Why? Because if you have narcissistic parent(s) yourself, you know what it’s like to be ‘the son of XXXX’ rather than ‘YYY, human being’.

It’s incredibly scarring to life to realise, young, as a child still in primary school, that your right to independent will isn’t something your parents consider to be your right, it’s something they think you only earn through war-like emotional combat.

You learn you have the right to free will, provided you treat your parents with absolute contempt. But if you respect them as children in normal families would, they will see you as their property, their plaything, their chance to relive their life again through someone else.

Obviously, if events like that just happened once, they wouldn’t endure in the psyche. But when it’s twenty, fifty, one hundred events over 17 years, your whole being is altered.

Now in my case, I became aware of what had happened to me by luck. Not via an analytical shrink, no, just by living a happy, free experiential existence away from the parents for 10 months.

It didn’t teach me how to fight them, but it did grow me beyond them. I knew that life didn’t have to be that way, I knew another way was possible and I knew that it all depended on how others treated you.

My response to my treatment growing up was, in effect, a way of saying: ‘Just leave me the f*** alone!’ Rejecting everything they had done, without belittling what they had achieved in that arena. Channeling all my energies into arenas not where I was necessarily the most skilled, but where they had no knowledge, no competence, no experience, no capability to influence or input.

I could easily have looked to lock up narcissists and a psychopath in dungeons, but for the freedom I had experienced aged 17/18. I couldn’t beat them in fist fights, so locking them away where they couldn’t do any more harm would have been logical, if not feasible.

That was how I was until my mid-to-late 30s. Then the psychopath sibling tried to destroy anything I tried to do outside her Overton Window of what sibling was granted by her Grace, Queen Bee Anaesthetist, member of the Security Services (how those who destroy the emotions of others can be allowed to be doctors is one of life’s enduring mysteries to me).

So I can relate to the difficult, uncomfortable situation that chap grew up with and can relate to the choices they made, even if I never made them myself.

I still can’t relate to the millions who are capable of visceral hatred of entire tribes of people just because newspapers, TV stations and media prostitutes and politicians tell them to. I do understand that they believe war-war is better than jaw-jaw, though.

And I can’t relate in any way to a psychopath for whom personal success means nothing but destroying a sibling means everything. That really is sick s**tf**kery and makes the whole ‘feminist’ claptrap a joke too.

Edwige
Edwige
Feb 12, 2023 8:36 AM

“He is a professor who, like the character David in John Fowles’ story, The Ebony Tower, teaches art history”.

The same Fowles who wrote ‘The Magus’, a thinly-disguised piece of hero worship of Aleister Crowley.

A German
A German
Feb 12, 2023 8:23 AM

Reminds me of Peeping Tom and Psycho ..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peeping_Tom_(1960_film)

Edwige
Edwige
Feb 12, 2023 8:34 AM
Reply to  A German

A film based on behaviourist John B. Watson and his ‘Little Albert’ experiment.

A German
A German
Feb 13, 2023 8:10 AM
Reply to  Edwige

You see the ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ functionig here? Nowadays people are used to set punishment and reward as ‘normal’ like Watson did imagine, without being aware they do. In my case here it is amusing: I did only mention two films, there is no opinion of mine to disgust. But maybe some forists disgust the posting here of ‘a german’. Nice experiment.

Who is in the cage?