Uncle Sam as Zombie - a metaphor for the Republic's state of health

Dead? Catatonic? Just resting? Pining for the fjords, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch? I suggest the American Republic is zombified, in a metaphorical sense of the literal truth of the horror movie cliche. The superstition about zombies is that they are dead, and returned to a kind of life in death by magic. The truth (and I am relying on the accounts of Canadian ethnobotanist Wade Davis for this) is that they have been intentionally poisoned in such a way that they appear dead, and after the "corpse" is buried the folk psychopharmacologist (a.k.a. "witch doctor") revives and enslaves them. Their state of mind after zombification no doubt depends not only on the drug regimen they have received, but their pre-existing beliefs about what has happened to them. "The Republic", of course, is not a biopsychosocial system that can literally be given mind-altering drugs. It is a kind of abstraction for collective social behavior, and the art, science, and business of the manipulation of collective beliefs has many ardent practitioners these days (even, in a sense, those of us who blog). I ask you to join me in a thought experiment. Let's imagine that there might be some way for Uncle Sam, now lying in his grave, to return to life - not just a half-life of working for his (and our) oppressors, the military-industrial-congressional-financial-corporate media complex. How could that be done? What would it take for the Republic to become unzombified? What are the "antidotes" for the "brain poison"? If "ideas" and "feelings" are what have poisoned us, are there other "ideas" and "feelings" that can restore us to health? Some say there is hope - structures of oppression built by people can be dismantled by other people. Or maybe Kurt Vonnegut was right in the pessimism he expressed in his last years - there is no way in hell that the U.S. will EVER become a humane and reasonable nation. May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any. [first published October 22, 2007 at Salon.com] Posted by mistah charley, ph.d. at August 1, 2010 09:41 AM

It was a search for whether I'd told this story before that led me to dig up my previous comment in this thread, Zombie Uncle Sam.

Nozick as pure academic - a personal encounter

The scene: Buffalo, New York, late 1970s or early 1980s, the campus of Buffalo State College. The Philosophy Department sponsored a talk by Robert Nozick open to the general public and scheduled in the early evening. Three or four dozen people showed up, as I recall, including myself, a graduate student in a different discipline from a neighboring institution of higher learning. Nozick was wearing a blue wool blazer, a white turtleneck sweater, and blue jeans. During the question period, I asked, "You've mentioned two ways of examining the morality of an action - whether it corresponds to a received code of conduct, and what its effect will be on those who

are the object of the action. But what about its effect on the person who DOES the action?" Nozick thought for a minute before replying (an actual minute - I don't mean 10 seconds that felt like a minute), said, "I need to consider that more", and went on to another question. How did I feel? Triumphant, in having shut up the famous author? Amused? Heartbroken? As I recall, I was saddened. In my current view, the problem that Nozick had in answering my question comes from the fact that, in his tradition, all the heavy lifting is done by the intellect, and life's persistent questions are treated as academic exercises. The last two paragraphs of Erich Fromm's The Heart of Man are relevant here: Man's heart can harden; it can become inhuman, yet never nonhuman. It always remains man's heart. We are all determined by the fact that we have been born human, and hence by the neverending task of having to make choices. We must choose the means together with the aims. We must not rely on anyone's saving us, but be very aware of the fact that wrong choices make us incapable of saving ourselves. Indeed, we must become aware in order to choose the good -- but no awareness will help us if we have lost the capacity to be moved by the distress of another human being, by the friendly gaze of another person, by the song of a bird, by the greenness of grass. If man becomes indifferent to life there is no longer any hope that he can choose the good. Then, indeed, his heart will have so hardened that his "life" will be ended. If this should happen to the entire human race or to its most powerful members, the the life of mankind may be extinguished at the very moment of its greatest promise. Posted by mistah charley, ph.d. at August 1, 2010 10:39 AM

in his tradition, all the heavy lifting is done by the intellect, and life's persistent questions are treated as academic exercises. This keeps rattling around in my head in slightly disturbing way - and not because I disagree. Maybe I'm feeling some of the same tension Nozick felt back then. It's a deep problem.... btw, the conjunction of the two comments you just posted is very powerful. The force is strong in you, Mistah Charley. I need to consider this more....... Posted by scudbucket at August 1, 2010 12:30 PM