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The Edge Media Pty Ltd |
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with a bizarre series of conception images, some immaculate and others the antithesis of immaculate. We all think in pictures. Whether someone is telling us a story or we are reading words to ourselves as you are now, we take the words and scan for matches in the magical, labyrinthine library that is our memory. Then we project the most appropriate images, based on our emotional experience, to ourselves inside our heads. If I again write "butterfly", you, know doubt, project images of a butterfly from your memory and I do the same. But our butterflies will always be different, because even if we both choose the same species of butterfly as the basis of our projections, we are not going to project them from the same angle, distance or in the same context. Your image of a butterfly and my image of a butterfly will always be different. Let me run a little picture show for you using images from your unique memory. I’ll start with a car. It’s a red car. It’s a red car with green doors. A red sportscar with green doors. As it rushes past the driver recognises someone standing on the corner and waves. But the person on the corner is looking the other way and fails to notice. Now a small boy. He is holding a lemon. He takes a huge bite out of the lemon, chews it with a grimace and then swallows it. This boy, his race, skin colour, hair colour, the clothes he’s wearing, whether he is happy, sad, mischievous, will all say something about who you are, your circumstances, where you are from and your journey from there to here. Likewise the driver of the car and the person on the corner. Whether they are a man, woman, girl, boy, or maybe even a transvestite, their mood, age, looks, every minute detail will be determined by your life, your narrative. In the same way if I was to just use the word “home”, it will mean very different things to different people. For most it would project pleasant images, but for some the images would be sad, even traumatic. I can be sure of giving you pleasant images by mentioning your first passionate kiss. Or the best sex you’ve ever had. Think for a minute about the best sex you have ever had and what it was that made it so good. Take your time, we are not in a hurry. Now I want you to do something for me. If you follow my instructions I will reveal to you something quite amazing. I want you to close your eyes and try to touch the tip of your nose with the longest finger on your left hand. If you are left-handed, use your right hand. Right now I am sitting in my untidy office next to the window in Kyneton, Victoria, Australia. It’s exactly 10pm on August 6, 2004. By merely hitting a few buttons on a $15 keyboard I have been able to remotely operate your mind. There is really little you could have done about it. When I wrote butterfly, that’s the image you projected to yourself. I painted a picture of a car using images drawn from your memory, your personal picture collection. I had a go at manipulating your emotions – happiness, or sadness with “home”, salivating with the lemon boy, perhaps even arousal with the sex thing. I could even remotely control your limbs – the hand-nose movement – as I sit here and bang a few buttons on a keyboard. This keyboard is a remote control. Every minute of every day people are remotely operating our minds in this way. Keep left. Wear that. Turn here. Buy this. Holiday with us. Get a job. Do your homework. Eat less fat. Vote for me. Get this car. See that movie. Be home before 12. Fix bayonets and charge. Don’t worry, be happy. Bombs away. Look both ways before crossing the road. Make love, not war. Round up the Jews. Eat your greens. Much of this control is positive, some even crucial to our existence. Like the big, red “Wrong Way Go Back” sign you see if you are heading into on-coming traffic on the freeway. However, a rapidly increasing proportion of it is bullshit. It’s the bullshit that I’ll be concentrating on. Bullshit – also known as bullocks, bulldust, baloney and a host of other names too numerous to recall – comes in many forms, some constructive, benign and destructive. The aim here is not to eradicate the phenomenon, nor to judge it. As a professional bullshit artist who has done very well and grown many chins peddling the stuff, I have great affection for it. Bullshit can be wonderful. It is how we humans communicate. We constantly bullshit ourselves as well as each other. It’s what makes us human. If we spoke without bullshit we would all sound like the robot on Lost in Space. As I set out to write these words for you to read, I feel that for both of us it’s a journey. A journey in search of understanding and awareness. You see, in many ways bullshit has gotten out of control. It has broken its tether and it’s charging around the community hurting people and I would like to know why. If we better understand the nature of the beast, I feel we will be in a position to bring it back under our control. To domesticate it. Because here’s the thing – bullshit can have a long shelf life. It has had a profound effect on the intellectual development of the human race. Remember between you and me there is cyberspace. People have called up thousands of copies of these words. They are all over the place. As a result thousands of people have touched their nose just as you have. And long after I’m gone, copies will still be popping up in on the internet. One hundred years from now some people will find these copies, think of butterflies and touch their noses. It’s not inconceivable that my keystrokes here in Kyneton will echo around the world in some obscure way forever. There is really only one thing that could have prevented me controlling your mind in this way – awareness. If you were aware of what I was doing you wouldn’t have bothered with the nose thing. The most effective way of bringing bullshit back to its rightful role in our lives is by increasing our awareness.
Chapter 3Defining bullshit
Back at Immaculate Conception we are trying to reach the roof up the red brick wall. The boys’ toilet is separated from the girls’ by the lunchtime shelter shed. What the girls are doing in their toilet at the other end of the lunch shed I don't know. But I can say with confidence they weren't pissing up the walls. I can say this because I know girls don't have a penis, and without one, pissing up the wall would not only be saturatingly difficult, it would be futile. What we could never have realized back then, was that the dripping worm we were holding between our chubby little fingers probably had more to do with derailing the destiny of the human species than anything else. I’ll talk more about this in Chapter 5. If there was ever to be a monument erected to bullshit it would have to be a phallus. Because there are few objects on the face of the earth that have featured in, or influenced, more bullshit than the penis. It starts, of course, with the obvious lines surrounding the pursuit of coitus. I did not have sexual relations with that woman – Monica Lewinski. Bullshit.
O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
Also bullshit.
This is better bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless. It’s bullshit because when Robert Burns wrote it he would have no way of truly knowing whether or not he was going to exist when all the seas go dry, or in fact if the seas would ever run dry.
The RuseIn order to keep you with me on this journey we need to understand and trust each other. It is important to ensure you don’t think that these words are just another bit of clever bullshit from a professional bullshit artist designed merely to make money or further my career. So I think it is important that you realise that I have become one of the richest people in the world. And I don’t mean richest as in “asking nothing, nothing need”. I mean richest as in capital, real estate, shares, money. I haven’t appeared on the Fortune Magazine Rich List or any rich list. In fact my business deals have never really come to the attention of the media anywhere. Now while the above paragraphs is all absolutely true, it is nevertheless bullshit. It’s a form of bullshit I call the “The Ruse”. I’ll now do an autopsy on this particular example of the Ruse. The first part of the statement said: In order to keep you with me on this journey we need to understand and trust each other. This is stating the obvious. The reason I say this is to help set you up so you won’t recognize the Ruse. I say something – anything – that you will agree with. If it’s personal it’s always going to be far more effective. We need to understand and trust each other… who could disagree with that? Particularly if we are going to complete a task together, in this case the journey. Whenever you hear a set-up statement, brace yourself for a Ruse. Here are a few over-used examples: You’re obviously an intelligent person … this is a very common opening for a sales pitch. You’re obviously an intelligent person, what do you think of my idea? These statements are the bread and butter of all soothsaying -- astrology, tarot, crystal balls whatever. You're a determined person. When you start something, you like to see it through to the end. You don't like conflict. You’re misunderstood. You’re a sensitive person. Even You like nice things. Politicians also make great use of the set-up statement. The voters aren’t stupid …for example. The voters aren’t stupid, therefore they will see the benefits of my tax reforms. The voters aren’t stupid, so they’ll see right through my opponent’s ridiculous suggestion. After the set-up line to get you on side, I used a twister to throw you a little off balance. It’s important to ensure you don’t think that these words are just another bit of clever bullshit from a professional bullshit artist designed to make money or further my career … By suggesting ulterior motives that probably never occurred to you, I’m winning your trust. I confess that I’m a bullshit artist and I point out that I could have selfish motives for taking your time and money. The idea is that your translation would be along the lines of : “He’s being refreshingly frank and honest with me, so he must be genuine.” But am I being frank? The word just is key in this statement. It has the effect of opening up the sentence to a smorgasbord of interpretations. For example, the sentence could mean that these words are basically a bit of clever bullshit from a professional bullshit artist designed to make money or further my career, which I also happen to hope does a bit of good for someone, somewhere. Or, it could mean that my motive for writing this is primarily altruistic, but I have to make a living so I also hope it makes money and furthers my career. Now by adding your opinion to the equation through the opening phrase – It’s important to ensure you don’t think that these words are just a bit of clever bullshit – I have added an extra layer of confusion. These twister statements are also used liberally in politics and in marketing. Just quietly, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the vendors are desperate for a sale … My boss would kill me if he knew I was making you this offer ... An excellent example of a twister was used to great effect during the campaign for the “No” vote in the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic. The Constitutional Monarchists – guess which |
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