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Monthly Archives

May 2009

MysteriesObsessions & Compulsions

The Meaning of a Starbucks Obsessive-Compulsion

by Dr. Mark Dillof May 26, 2009October 20, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Meaning of a Starbucks Obsessive-Compulsion
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“You do not understand. This is a clean and pleasant cafe. It is well lighted. The light is very good and also, now there are shadows of the leaves.”
— Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

There exists a 37 year old man who is obsessed with visiting every Starbucks coffee shop in the world. According to a feature story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal (May 23, 2009), he has already had coffee at over 9000 of them!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124301100481847767.html#video%3DB59372A9-D329-43A6-A575-852F969811CF%26articleTabs%3Darticle

The fellow, who calls himself “Winter,” earns enough money from doing freelance computer programming to engage in this expensive lifestyle. And being single allows him the independence to travel. It doesn’t appear, though, that Winter spends a lot of time taking in the sights and the sounds of the world’s many cities, for that would distract him from his quest, or compulsion, to visit all the world’s Starbucks, for there are still many that he has not visited. What, then, can we make of Winter’s odd behavior?

One would think that an adventurer, who also happened to be a coffee connoisseur, would seek out coffee shops that were unique to each city. The globetrotting coffee connoisseur might, for example, visit the Carriage House Café in Ithaca, New York or the Santa Fe Baking Company Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Starbucks, on the other hand, is a retail chain, which means consistency of experience. Consequently, one Starbucks is not all that different from another. Their interiors share a similar cheerful aesthetic. The employees are friendly and the coffee is, as Winter states in his interview with the WTJ, consistently good. Spending time in Starbucks is certainly pleasant, but other coffee shops also provide a pleasant experience. Why then has Winter focused on Starbucks? There are several related factors that might help to explain the appeal of Starbucks, not just for Winter, but for many people:

1. Orientation
First of all, modern life can, no doubt, be confusing and disorienting. After all, this is still the Age of Anxiety, as Auden called it. It can feel all the more that disorienting to the traveler far from home. And it can feel even more so to someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, which Winter seems to have. There is something comforting, indeed orienting, about sameness, consistency, and familiarity. Spending time in McDonalds restaurants, J.C. Penny’s stores, or any other chain store, that is a staple of every city, can have a similarly psychologically stabilizing effect. Furthermore, each Starbucks is, borrowing the title of a Hemingway story, “a clean, well-lighted place” — the ample outside lightening and general design makes it such — thus providing a haven from the vertigo-inducing existential anxieties that plague the day.

2. Eternality
While frequenting a multi-store establishment, like Starbucks, travelers are likely to forgets what city they are visiting. They are no longer in Rome, London, or Oklahoma City, but in the realm of Starbucks, or in the Starbucks Zone. In that sense, a store like Starbucks coffee shop inhabits a space outside of normal time and space. We might say that Starbucks is like a Platonic Form, and the many actual Starbucks merely participate in this eternal form. We can infer that for Winter, being in a Starbucks is, therefore, not just returning to the familiar, but returning to true reality.

3. Sacredness
Mircea Eliade contends that people in traditional societies distinguish the realm of the sacred from that of the profane. Although modern man has been steadily losing touch with the sacred, residues of “sacred space” still exit, although in degraded forms. Yes, there are still temples, churches, and mosques, and there are places like the battlefield at Gettysburg, but for many secular people today, establishments like Starbucks are as close as they get to evoking the noumenal feelings of a sacred space. Like a small church in a busy city, a Starbucks can be an oasis from the demands and hardships of modern life.

If a single Starbucks can confer, to varying degrees, these benefits, why, then, the need to travel to other ones? Apparently, there is something symbolic in visiting ALL of the Starbucks. What could it be?

The Emergence of Starbuckland

The analysis that follows is inferential. Although I never met Winter, he does reveal himself, to a good extent, on his website,
http://www.starbuckseverywhere.net — and of course in his interviews, not just for the WSJ, but also for the Financial Times and a number of other publications. So here goes…

Winter’s Starbuck travels are a symbolic way of being in many places, i.e., in many cities, and yet always being in the same place, namely Starbucks. He needs to prove to himself, and to other people, that the sacred space known as Starbucks is omnipresent. After all, his website is called starbuckseverywhere. Ideally, he would, if he could, transform the world into a giant Starbucks, for Starbucks is his image of a new Heaven and Earth.

Winter’s image of utopia would appear to be a land in where liberal-minded people sit around drinking coffee, perhaps playing chess or scrabble, maybe discussing big ideas, flirting with members of the opposite sex, etc. No one has any serious commitments. To insure that we remain uncommitted, we must be continually travelling from city to city.

Naturally, without a sense of direction, life would lose all focus, threatening the identity and integrity of the self. Consequently, like Kierkegaard’s aesthete, one chooses an arbitrary goal, such as collecting things or visiting every Starbucks. That is the constitution of Starbucksland, the brave new world that Winter wishes to create. Having assumed the position of Starbuckland’s pope, Winter must confer his blessings on each of Starbucks many temples (coffee shops) dedicated to his version of la dolce vita.

We learn, from the WSJ article, that there have been numerous Starbucks closing. When Winter that a store is closing, he is very anxious to visit it before it closes. If a store closed before he can get to it, he feels distraught. Partly, his sadness might derive from an aesthetic longing to taste all experience everything, and when he is not able to do so, there is a sense of a lost possibility. There may also be a sense that he was not able to bless the store by his presence before it faded into oblivion.

All this may seem strange, but since the advent of postmodernism, there has emerged multiple worlds. The emergence of multinational corporations has further dissolved the traditional sense of borders. Some of these new worlds are virtual, existing in cyberspace. And now some of them inhabit a quasi-virtual realm, as does Starbucksland.

The Transformation of Religious Belief into an Obsessive-Compulsion

We have suggested that Winter is pursuing what C.G. Jung called a modern, degraded form of religious belief. Starbucks has become his secular religion. Also apropos is the fact, as it states in the WSJ article, Winter has a collection of over 10,000 super-hero comic books. It has been noted by many scholars that super-heroes are a modern version of the ancient gods, like those on Mount Olympus.

Furthermore, the WSJ article states that Winter also competes in Scrabble tournaments. Odd though it may sound, Scrabble is akin to a religious rite. The unity of Heaven (the vertical lines of Scrabble) and Earth (the horizontal lines) can be seen in the Jewish star and in the Christian cross. As with crossword puzzles, Scrabble is an effort to unify these two fundamental dimensions of human existence.

Here is the irony of it all: On Winter’s website, there are articles that he wrote that are severely critical of organized religion. Along these lines, he strongly recommends a books by Sam Harris, “The End of Faith,” which connects religious belief to violence. My first thought, on visiting Winter’s website, was “what does this have to do with Starbucks?” But then it all made sense on a psychological level: Winter thinks that he has freed himself from religious beliefs, but he really hasn’t. He has merely converted religion into a relatively innocent and pleasant obsessive compulsion. As Jung noted, for modern man, the Gods have become neuroses.

On the other hand, Winter might be fine with this, for visiting Starbucks is a lot safer than declaring Jihad, or engaging in other forms of fanaticism. The drawback is that drinking coffee at Starbucks lacks the life transforming power of genuine religious experience.

May 26, 2009October 20, 2018 3 comments
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MysteriesPractices

When the Door to the Bus Opens, Get On

by Dr. Mark Dillof May 25, 2009October 12, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
When the Door to the Bus Opens, Get On
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“This door was intended for you.
Now I am going to shut it.”
— Kafka, “Before the Law”

We had previously explored Hamlet’s notion of readiness in relation to the Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared.” We shall now examine certain factors that undermine the ready state of mind. If there is a mystery here, it is how we can be oblivious to good fortune.

At every moment, there exists certain opportunities. As to whether we can peer through the fog of our life, so as to discern these opportunities, is another story. Is a lack of intelligence the cause of our benighted condition? Or is the real culprit, paradoxically, intelligence itself?!

Consider the conclusion to the comedy Dumber and Dumber (1994). [Warning: plot spoiler ahead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO42rxrXpAc] After a series of misadventures, Lloyd and Harry (played by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels) find themselves, once again, down on their luck — no jobs, no money, not even a car. Furthermore, Lloyd has discovered that the woman whom he has been pursuing romantically is married. As they walk along the barren highway together, Lloyd laments to Harry: “When are we ever going to catch a break?”

At that moment, a tour bus bearing the sign “Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Tour” pulls up along side of them. We hear the joyous “Hallelujah Chorus,” from Handel’s “Messiah.” It is apparent that a very lucky break has finally arrived for the boys, and that this will be their salvation. The door of the bus opens and out comes three beautiful, bikini-clad women. Here is what ensures:

Bikini-Clad Woman: “We’re going on a national bikini tour and we need two oil boys to grease us up before each competition.”

Harry: “You are in luck. There’s a town a few miles that way. I’m sure you’ll find a couple of guys there.”

Bikini-Clad Woman (puzzled and perplexed): OK. Thanks.

The bus pulls off

Lloyd to Harry: Do you realize what you’ve done?!

Lloyd runs frantically after the bus. The bus stops, and the door opens.

Lloyd (out of breath, to the women): You’ll have to excuse my friend. He’s a little slow… The Town is back that way. (Lloyd points to where the town is.)

The bus pulls off.

Lloyd: Wow, a couple of lucky guys are going to be driving around with those girls for the next couple of months.

Harry: Don’t worry. We’ll catch our break too. We just got to keep our eyes open.

Lloyd: Yep.

The idea here is that Lloyd and Harry were too dumb to take advantage of this golden opportunity. But, in truth, they made the kind of cognitive error for which intellectuals have a proclivity. I.E., when the bikini women asked them if they knew of anyone who could work as oil boys, Lloyd and Harry shifted into the mindset of distant observers. They became experts, commenting on where oil boys might be found.

As observers, they forgot that they are also existential beings, i.e., guys looking for a job, and for love. That is why the scene would have made more sense if Lloyd and Harry were college professors, for it is a certain abstract intellectuality that often gets in the way of our discerning and capitalizing on opportunities. Their mode of thinking and action contrasts with many of the other characters in the film, who are ruthless opportunists, incapable of adopting a disinterred, objective attitude.

Naturally, in real life, few people are as oblivious to opportunity as Lloyd and Harry. But the scene really registers with filmgoers, and has made the film a cult classic, for it symbolizes the obtuseness that most of us display, from time to time.

There was another, related factor that blinded Lloyd and Harry to the tour bus opportunity. Throughout the film, they display a certain good-natured selflessness, which is congruent with the conclusion of the film where they, in their concern for the women on the bus, neglect their own self-interest.

Thus, if Lloyd and Harry are idiots, they are akin to Prince Myshkin, the protagonist of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, who was highly intelligent. Myshkin’s selflessness blinded him to the machinations of other people. It’s that quixotic naïveté and obtuseness that makes Myshkin very admirable as a person, but, in Dostoevsky’s estimation, an idiot — thus the title of his novel.

To summarize, there were two factors that blinded Lloyd and Harry to the opportunity before them:

1. Their cognitive shift from existing beings to distant observers. Thus they forgot that they too are guys and, therefore, able to work as oil boys. That shift in itself is not a bad thing. Indeed, it is a sign of a morally evolved person. It’s just that this shift occurred, for Lloyd and Harry, at precisely the wrong moment. In comedy as in life, timing is everything.

2. Selflessness — here, again, at the wrong moment — also made Lloyd and Harry forget that they were existential beings, and capable of being oil boys. Some would say that Lloyd and Harry were not all there. But it would be more proper to say that they were not there at all, since “being there” means that one is an existential being, who is aware of oneself as such. (Jerzy Kosinski’s novel about an idiot, named Chauncey Gardner, is ironically entitled Being There.)

The ability to know when to get on the bus doesn’t only apply to success in business and love, but to all domains, from the mundane to the spiritual. In regard to the latter, the door that opens may be — as in Kafka’s parable, “Before the Law” — the doorway to spiritual salvation. Naturally, we must be sure to board the…

 

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

 
May 25, 2009October 12, 2018 0 comment
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Mysteries

Do You Love Your Fate?

by Dr. Mark Dillof May 21, 2009October 12, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
Do You Love Your Fate?
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“A man’s character is his fate.” — Heraclitus

“Amour fati” — Nietzsche

 

“A man has to be what he is, Joey. You can’t break the mold. I tried it and it didn’t work for me.” — Shane

shane.jpgThat which befalls us, the good things and the bad, is our fate. The fact that we are born at a certain time and place is our fate. That we happened to be in the same college class as our future spouse is also our fate. So is the fact that we’re driving to work when a drunken driver rams into our car. The key to fate, as Alfred North Whitehead points out, is not bad things happening. Rather, it is our lack of freedom. It is just that our inability to prevent bad things from happening highlights our lack of freedom. After all, if only good things happened, we would not notice how the world contradicts our desires and our will.

We usually think of fate as that which is external to us. There is, though, another aspect to fate, a deeper one. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that “A man’s character is his fate.” Thus fate is not just what happens to us, but who we are. We do not realize this when we are young, for we believe that we are the masters of our destiny. And we are, to a certain extent. But anyone who lives long enough realizes how very difficult it is to change anything about oneself. There is, indeed, a certain tragic dimension to human character.

Friedrich Nietzsche recommended “Amor fati!,” one should, in other words, love one’s fate. Some have compared Nietzsche’s advice to the biblical notion of everything that happens being for the best, and to the Stoical notion of calm acceptance of that which befalls us. As Emerson wrote: “Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age…” (Self-Reliance)

But, if Heraclitus is correct that our character is our fate, then to love our fate, as Nietzsche recommends, is to love our character. But, character is intrinsically limited. Can one really love a limit?

Often the flip side of a limit is a virtue. The Zen master D.T. Suzuki said that he had a Satori or, or awakening, when he realized that the elbow does not bend inward. I.E., the utility of the elbow is predicated on its mechanical limitations. Might not the same be said for character? Our strengths and our weaknesses are often flip sides of the same coin. Of course, appreciating the virtue of limits is not quite the same as loving limits.

Often, in life, we wander about for a time, in our salad years, finding out what we are most suited to do, both in terms of our natural abilities, sills, and temperament. We may find, for example, that we are far better suited to be an entrepreneur than working for a corporation or vice versa.

What, then, does it mean to know oneself? Does it mean to be familiar enough with our character such that we do not act in opposition to it? In the play, Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman’s son states that Willie never knew who he was. He thought that he was a salesman, but he would have been far more successful making things with his hands. Willie’s failure to come to terms with his character had tragic consequences. Thus it is that we cannot love our fate unless we first know ourselves and, to a certain degree, accept who we are.

When a person knows who he is, he can then choose to live his character at a higher level. Then, what had been his fate becomes transformed into his destiny. In the cowboy film Shane (1953), the protagonist explains that there is no escaping…

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

 
May 21, 2009October 12, 2018 0 comment
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MysteriesPractices

Hamlet and the Boy Scouts Discover the Secret of Readiness

by Dr. Mark Dillof May 19, 2009October 12, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
Hamlet and the Boy Scouts Discover the Secret of Readiness
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“Readiness is all.” — Hamlet
“Be Prepared.” — The Boy Scout motto
“Live like a warrior.” — Don Juan Matus

Something stinks, but not just in Denmark. Wherever one may roam, from Brooklyn to Tokyo, from London to Tehran, there exists suffering and evil. This leads us to an overwhelming question: Being that the world is in this sorry state — and has been this way since creation — how should one live? What actions, if any, should one take? There is no profounder exploration of this question than Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

One may, of course, try to defer decision, which is what Prince Hamlet became known for; many a reflective person is similarly tempted. But Hamlet finally does rise to the occasion. What insight transformed him into a man of action? There lies the mystery.

In Act Five of Shakespeare’s play, we learn that Hamlet has been challenged to a formal sword-fighting contest with Laertes, a match that has been arranged by Claudius, Hamlet’s murderous uncle and King of Denmark. Even though the contest is supposedly intended to be mere sport, Hamlet’s good friend Horatio is justifiably concerned that Hamlet is in danger and urges him not to participate. But Hamlet, rejects Horatio’s prudent advice, stating:

“There ’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’t is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is ’t to leave betimes?” (Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2)

Readiness for what? Readiness to die? What had engendered this new attitude — both religious and stoical — in Hamlet? Clues to these questions comes from an unlikely source, the Boy Scouts. Their famous motto, “Be Prepared,” is on the same wavelength as “readiness is all.” A very perceptive Wikipedia entry, under the heading “Scout Motto,” offers insight into what Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, meant by “Be Prepared”:

“…Baden-Powell wasn’t thinking just of being ready for emergencies. His idea was that all Scouts should prepare themselves to become productive citizens and to give happiness to other people. He wanted each Scout to be ready in mind and body for any struggles, and to meet with a strong heart whatever challenges might lie ahead. Be prepared for life — to live happily and without regret, knowing that you have done your best. That’s what the Scout motto means.”

“Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.”

“Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”

The author of the article then quotes Baden-Powell himself:

“BE PREPARED to die for your country if need be, so that when the moment arrives you may charge home with confidence, not caring whether you are going to be killed or not”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_Motto#cite_note-0)

The author states that a Boy Scout must think out beforehand “…any accident or situation that might occur…” Yes, one must prepare as much as possible, but ultimately one cannot foresee everything. Prepare though we may, human existence is infused with uncertainty. Life sometimes delivers terrible surprises, “sucker punches.” It is more essential that Boy Scouts (and Girl Scouts too) cultivate an attitude of mind that is flexible enough to immediately flow with the often unexpected contingencies of the moment. Those who adopt the Scout Motto must also, as the author of the Wikipedia entry states, meet life’s struggles with a strong heart, always doing one’s best.

Here, though, is where the awareness of death, paradoxically, enhances the quality of human existence. The scout must, as Baden-Powell states, be prepared to die, charging “home with confidence, not caring whether you are going to be killed or not.” This confidence is not the usual sort of confidence, which is predicated on knowing that one is safe. Baden-Powell’s notion of confidence is of a different order or reality, one akin to Hamlet’s notion of providence, for it requires casting one’s fate to the wind, the universe and God. Sometimes, in dire circumstances, people will rise to the occasion, as did the crew of United Airlines Flight 93, with the battle cry of “Let’s roll!” But the awareness of one’s mortality must inform not only extreme circumstances, but one’s day to day actions.

The books by the anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda, provide important clues to this attitude of mind. Castaneda’s teacher of shamanism, Don Juan Matus, tells Carlos that an ordinary man acts in the world unaware of his mortality. Indeed, most people act as if they were going to live forever. Consequently, there is a laxness, carelessness, moral and spiritual slackness, and often self-indulgent quality to their actions. By contrast, the person who lives like a warrior is continually aware of his mortality. He allows this sobriety of awareness to inform his every action, such that his spirit shines. Don Juan calls this mode of action “impeccability.” Living impeccably abolishes fears, regrets and doubts. It is the antidote to the omnipresent anxiety, discontent, and despair that pervades human existence.

We can conclude that Hamlet’s insight that “Readiness is all” derives from the same elevated level of awareness encapsulated in Baden-Powell’s advise to “Be Prepared.” It is also akin to Don Juan Matus’ advise to live like a warrior. This mode of living is simultaneously realistic, dutiful, joyful, and heroic.

We have not, though, answered the question as to what may have precipitated this new outlook on life in Hamlet. We may explore that mystery on another occasion.

May 19, 2009October 12, 2018 2 comments
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MysteriesThe Zeitgeist

The Deeper Meaning of Zombies

by Dr. Mark Dillof May 15, 2009October 12, 2018
written by Dr. Mark Dillof
The Deeper Meaning of Zombies
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Have you noticed all the books, films and articles about zombies? (If not, you might be a zombie yourself!) There are bestsellers, such as Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies — a fictional retelling of Jane Austen’s classic novel — by Seth Grahame-Smith. There are also pseudo-nonfiction works, such as The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. There are websites devoted to zombies, an increasing number of films about zombie invasions, and scholarly conferences devoted to zombies. Is this obsession with zombies the obsession of a relatively few weird individuals or does it reflect something important about the zeitgeist? I shall argue for the latter.

It’s true that the fascination with zombies is nothing new. But in regard to American culture and society, the key date is 1956. That’s when the cult classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was released. Another seminal film was Night of the Living Dead, which came out in 1968. Of course, today’s zombie literature is, to a large extent, tongue and cheek. But, it’s rightly been said that “Many a true word is said in jest.” Could it be that the recent spate of humorous zombie books and films is a defense mechanism against an underlying anxiety?

Zombies threaten to possess one’s body and one’s mind. In regard to the latter, they threaten to eat one’s flesh, at least according to popular films about zombies. Other zombies can make one a zombie oneself, one of the walking dead! (In that sense, they are akin to vampires, for a bite by a vampire can transform one into a vampire.) The anxiety in question is of a paranoiac quality, for paranoia is, essentially, a fear of being possessed and thus losing one’s autonomy. A related paranoid anxiety is that one’s borders will be violated, for if they are, one will lose the integrity of self, thus losing one’s autonomy.

There exists, in all human societies, many borders. One of the most fundamental is the border between the living and the dead. When that border is transgressed — whether it be by visitations from the spirit world or simply by memories of the deceased — we feel haunted. Thus religious rites and rituals are created to ensure that the dead do not intrude upon the realm of the living. In zombie books and films, that is exactly what happens. Paranoid narratives often take the form of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic fantasies. The zombie apocalypse involves the emergence of the dead, thus “the night of the living dead.”

If the fear of zombies is prevalent today, it is because this is an age in which borders are being transgressed, on many fronts. Sometimes, borders are being literally transgressed, as in the case of the border between Mexico and the United States. Borders are also being transgressed socially. Traditional marriages are predicated on there existing limits on what can be regarded as a marriage. A marriage cannot, for example, consist of three people. Nor can it, for example, consist of the union of a human and an animal. The advocates of homosexual marriages seek to violate traditional limits. An example, in the economic realm, is socialism and communism. They seek to dissolve, by fiat, economic distinctions. Finally, such movements as diversity, multiculturalism, globalization are threatening to dissolve the identity of various nations.

Most relevant here is how the borders between the human and the inhuman are being transgressed. There are animal rights activities who claim that humans are guilty of “speciesism,” which consists of placing a higher value on human beings than other beings, whether they be animals, plants, or bacteria. Philosophers, like Peter Sanger, view speciesism as morally equivalent to racism. Then there are the computer theorists who claim that humans are essentially no different than computers. They like to point to “Big Blue,” the IBM computer that defeated the Grand Master Gary Kasparov.

But that which makes human beings different from both other animals is not that humans can think, or it would appear that the computations of computers certainly resembles thinking and may indeed be thinking. Thinking is not essentially what distinguishes humans from both animals and computers. What distinguishes humans from everything else is self-consciousness. We have the amazing ability to reflect upon ourselves. The existence of consciousness is being denied, by these computer theorists, and by philosophers life Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. In so doing, the border between the human and the nonhuman is being dissolved.

It has been said that “sometimes paranoids are right.” There, indeed, exists…

 

Would you like to read the rest of this insightful

essay? Then download a copy of Mysteries in

Broad Daylight!

Broad Daylight!

 

Hot off the virtual presses, after four years of intense research and writing! Dr. Mark Dillof has essentially written a detective manual, for those seeking clues to the most perplexing enigmas of everyday life. He initially planned to sell it at seminars, for $75, but a friend recommended making it available to a much larger audience of readers, by offering it as an e-book, for only $9.95. Read more about this amazing new book, at:   www.deepestmysteries.com

Or you can…

Download for Amazon Kindle 

Download for Barnes & Noble Nook

Mysteries in Broad Daylight contains:

  • Powerful essays — like the one you’ve been reading, designed to help you decipher the meaning of everyday life, who you are and what it’s all about.
  • Exciting dialogues — they will entertain you, but also make you think deeply about life.
  • Exercises and questions designed to teach you the art of uncovering the deep meaning of everything — from the foods we eat to our conflicts at the workplace, from our problems on the golf course to life’s ultimate riddles.
  • And much, much more!

Mark Dillof’s new book will awaken you to the mysteries of everyday life. Indeed, it’s likely to expand your consciousness 100fold, illuminate your world and blow your mind!

How much is a life-changing insight worth to you? $1000? $10,000? Priceless? Mysteries in Broad Daylight is overflowing with life-changing insights and all for only $9.99!

 Read more about this amazing new book at www.deepestmysteries.com

 

Mysteries in Broad Daylight will soon be available in paperback, for $19.99. 

 
May 15, 2009October 12, 2018 4 comments
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About Me

About Me

Mark Dillof has been a philosophical counselor for over twenty years. You can learn more about his work, by going to his other website, www.deeperquestions.com.

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