Conversation w/Dooley: Part 3

From time to time Buddy Dooley tapes our rambling conversations and transcribes them.

Then he sends them my way as e-mails and I attempt to correct his many, many errors before posting the texts here. Buddy and I have had a recent civil period that I'd like to maintain. It is, however, Buddy's call.

(above: Attica cell block)

BD: When we left off you were talking about power. How does power work in your estimation?

TS: Power is often a subtle phenomenon. At other times it works quite openly. It works in various ways, but it always has similar results; the subjugation of a particular individual or group of individuals whom elites have determined are threatening to a long-standing imposed order. When talking about subjugation you are actually referencing control mechanisms that the stakeholders determine will best undermine rebellion, or the potential for rebellion, in all its manifestations. Order is of utmost importance to the stakeholders. Money is merely a symbol of power, then. Money hasn't any real purpose except to assist in the imposition of control. War is the most fundamental example of the imposition of order. Quite simply, the stakeholders will train their subjects to kill to maintain the control that has evolved from hierarchical systems over time. We refer to such a display as defensive. The point is to keep what's yours. But power is often not satisfied with simply maintaining the control--say of resources--it is also interested in obtaining more, a surplus of whatever it is--minerals, which is land, navigable waterways, airspace, etc. It is very easy for the defensive posture to mutate into an offensive quest. The shift can be subtle and is often explained away with organized propaganda, intimidation, fear mongering and a regeneration of newer and even more subtle symbols. If control is to be maintained it must be wrapped in this increasingly subtle and tentacled apparatus. Symbolic order is the highest manipulative form of regeneration. Power is dynastic and clannish. That's sort of basic, isn't it? Power isn't a very complicated process at all. The key lies in training and organizing killers.

BD: Well, war seems to be an open example, as you say. What about the individual. Those levels of power? Let's talk about relationships...I guess that is what I'm talking about.

TS: Power is weighed and measured in its most rudimentary personal formulations. I've been taking a long look lately at techniques of cognitive manipulation...

BD: As among prison populations...

TS: Yes, that, but not that alone. But since you brought it up. Prison is certainly the most obvious control mechanism when it comes to the individual. And the work that is usually done there is an important aspect of a trend that is seeping into other areas, too. The lessons of control have jumped the line, so to speak. There is a whole area of the sketchy use of cognitive manipulation that is bleeding into ordinary society. This has been going on for a long time; its impetus is obviously growing and the influence of the technique is skyrocketing. It's one thing to attempt to teach moral conation to a killer and quite another to use it while reflecting what I consider to be a very presumptive understanding of morality overall. I was talking with a gentleman just the other day, a very nice man, whose work is in this field.

BD: The field of...does he work with prisoners?

S: Moral Conation Therapy. He works with many ex-offenders, parolees, etc. Actually what he tries to do is make people employable, which is reasonable. This man is very concerned with moral judgements. He didn't really have much to say about markets and the constriction of the economy as such, situations that are making even non-offenders sweat out the job market. But that's another story. He's not an economist and neither am I. It was interesting in talking to him how he used as his primary example of immorality the recklessness of Bill Clinton's sex scandal. He was simply aghast at Bill's use of the Oval Office as a sex den, though I doubt Bill was the first to ever do that. I had just met this person, a very nice and earnest man, a man whom I believe is sincere and actually desirous of helping people find jobs. He's a strong mentor figure. His next example was Tiger Woods. Look, he said. Bill and Tiger are just terrible, terrible and so immoral in their actions.

BD: Whoa....I see what you're getting at.

TS: Yeah, imagine it. People are dying in two American wars and this guy is talking about the immorality of sex in the Oval Office, or on the putting green, or wherever Tiger gets it on. If you're going to express a moral tale about politicians you'd be better off going with something a little more pertinent to the job politicians are supposed to be doing. It is a very conservative ideal to pick up on sex scandals when you have real evil at hand, highly organized, deadly evil in the highest and most revered institutions in the land. I mean war is immoral, particularly the two I'm talking about. Collateral damage is immoral. The very notion of collateral damage as being acceptable is an awful immorality. Much worse than a blow job!

BD: Sinful...just awful. The BJ, I mean...

TS: Well now, let's not play down how hurtful Bill and Tiger were in their shenanigans. Their wives and other girlfriends were no doubt dismayed...Anyway, this is the point. My friend's concerns are an aspect of the illogical that is often tied in with judgments of moral reasoning. Logic and moral questions aren't necessarily inclusive of each other. To claim they are can become downright frightening if the evidence demonstrates they are not. Sure, get the killer or bank robber to rethink his actions, or think ahead, or consider others, or accept himself, or to achieve self-awareness or whatever it takes to quit crime. Protest sin if you like. But be very, very careful in your moral judgments.

BD: He's a Christian I take it?

TS: Of course, but this is where misappropriations of power in individual relationships may subtly go beyond the norm. Moral Conation Therapy was designed by a pair of psychologists working with prisoners in Memphis in the early or mid-80s. They've made studies that demonstrate successful cognitive regeneration at work in the field of prison science. The notion is to cut recidivism among offenders. It works, evidently.

BD: And where exactly do you see the quandary?

TS: In that we are all susceptible to cognitive control and the potential of the stakeholders to make prisoners of even the mildest rebel.

BD: Do you think that is happening?

TS: I know it is.

BD: I'm not as certain about this as you are. We'll pick it up next time with some examples if you have any, which I doubt. Also, I'd like to talk about poetics if we can.

TS: Whatever you say big shot.


TS