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diff --git a/timeforms.otx b/timeforms.otx index 5a1d0b8..7d6fd70 100644 --- a/timeforms.otx +++ b/timeforms.otx @@ -513,646 +513,129 @@ It is clear that this is no small undertaking --- that the risks are terrible, t And yet, there are some who know, who hear the music of the spheres, who accept the deeper challenge to carry history forward. These will be found, on close examination, when they have removed some of the outmoded ideological baggage we force them to carry, to be engaged in founding a new form of temporal consciousness, which I call "groovin' on time." -TIME, PATHOS, AND SYNCHRONY: Accelerating Alienation - - -INTRODUCTION - -This paper is one of a series reporting participant observation on -the relation between the "psychedelic subculture" and the almost -unexperienceable rate of social change endemic. to our post-industrial -environment. "Acidoxy versus Orthodoxy" compared and contrasted some of the value conflicts between "heads" and therapists as -they experience their respective changes. "Groovin' on Time --- Fragments of a Sociology of Psychedelia"? examined the hypothesis that -psychedelic drugs represent the beginnings of an emerging psycho -chemical technology enabling homo sapiens to manage the otherwise -unmanageable rate of social change generated by cybernetic automation. In this chapter what is explored is the view that our -post-industrial vate of social change radically alters the notion of -"alienation", anachronizing and rendering obsolete some of the very -criteria we have been accustomed to use in attributing the statuses -"mental health" and "mental illness" to individuals, groups, and/or -"subcultures." In addition it is argued that the rate of change -inflicted by the current cybernetic environment on individuals, -groups, and/or subcultures calls for the delineation of wholly new -criteria as to whom we should call "alienated", mentally healthy -and/or mentally ill. Application of these criteria throws light on the -differences between a "bum trip' and a good one, between tripping -and schizophrenia, and, in addition, help us to put the double bind -hypothesis in a perspective rendering it susceptible to further -generalization and specification. - - -In our view, bum trips, schizophrenic episodes, and other "hang - - -" - - -ups" are called "alienated" because, in an environment which - - - - -changes faster than we can comprehend it, we become addicted to -outmoded conceptions of the temporal nature of human experience. -Abandonment of these unnecessarily limiting conceptualizations is -facilitated by examination of an alternative metaphor.? - - -We shall argue that recasting the dialectical metaphor can -provide theoreticians and clinicians with a new way of understanding -the social genesis of individual "pathology" and suggests a way -to transcend it. - - -OBSERVATIONS - -As everyone knows, New York's Greenwich Village was the -location of the largest permanent assembly of "heads" (regular users -of psychedelic substances) in the nation:or in the world, for that -matter. But what is becoming equally well-known, through increasing -advertisement in the several media, is that New York and San -Francisco no longer may lay claim to a monopoly on psychedelic -enthusiasts, especially since those college campuses which do not -report the existence of their head contingents are only exactly that, -ie., those who do not report. Few doubt that they are there -nonetheless, and it is becoming increasingly clear that not all of them -wear long hair, since even high school teenyboppers now practice -that form of communication. +\chap {\caps\rm Time, Pathos, and Synchrony:} Accelerating Alienation +\sec Introduction -Network radio is thoroughly aware that the special music of -psychedelia, sometimes called acid rock, is a two billion dollar -business which it ignores at its peril, notwithstanding the exquisite -paradox that acid lyrics put down the sort of (bureaucratic) -"uptight" consciousness of which the networks consist. Similarly the -most brilliant films and videotapes now emerging from head culture, -which laugh in tragicomic dada style at the "strait" movie world, are -being sought by the same networks and movie worlds whose -existence they mock and subvert. Few painters ignorant of the -psychedelic experience are counted in the avante garde, as are few -practitioners of post-New Left politics. Clinics opened with the aim -of offering relief to those "damaged" by their drug-induced +This paper is one of a series reporting participant observation on the relation between the "psychedelic subculture" and the almost unexperienceable rate of social change endemic. to our post-industrial environment. \et{Acidoxy versus Orthodoxy}\bknote{1} compared and contrasted some of the value conflicts between "heads" and therapists as they experience their respective changes. \et{Groovin' on Time --- Fragments of a Sociology of Psychedelia}\bknote{2} examined the hypothesis that psychedelic drugs represent the beginnings of an emerging psycho chemical technology enabling \e{homo sapiens} to manage the otherwise unmanageable rate of social change generated by cybernetic automation. In this chapter what is explored is the view that our post-industrial \e{rate} of social change radically alters the notion of "alienation", anachronizing and rendering obsolete some of the very criteria we have been accustomed to use in attributing the statuses "mental health" and "mental illness" to individuals, groups, and/or "subcultures." In addition it is argued that the rate of change inflicted by the current cybernetic environment on individuals, groups, and/or subcultures calls for the delineation of wholly new criteria as to whom we should call "alienated", mentally healthy and/or mentally ill. Application of these criteria throws light on the differences between a "bum trip" and a good one, between tripping and schizophrenia, and, in addition, help us to put the double bind hypothesis in a perspective rendering it susceptible to further generalization and specification. +In our view, bum trips, schizophrenic episodes, and other "hang ups" are called "alienated" because, in an environment which changes faster than we can comprehend it, we become addicted to outmoded conceptions of the temporal nature of human experience. Abandonment of these unnecessarily limiting conceptualizations is facilitated by examination of an alternative metaphor.\bknote{3} +We shall argue that recasting the dialectical metaphor can provide theoreticians and clinicians with a new way of understanding the social genesis of individual "pathology" and suggests a way to transcend it. +\sec Obsercations -adventures quickly discover that there are at least two kinds of acid -enthusiasts: heads who know what they're doing, who therefore -don't want any "help" of the traditional kind* (psychotherapy, job -counselling, family therapy, et a/.); and very young patients who -seem adrift in the chaos of contemporary life, the angry lost -runaways seeking refuge, peace and a meal, maybe. Universities find -themselves in a situation not essentially dissimilar, since often, as -Kenniston® reports, the brightest kids, who have the best ideas as to -what the universities must become if they are to survive, are those -who are closest to the head scene. Young bi-cultural professors (half -intellectual and half hip) are decreasingly rare. Record companies -now employ "company freaks" who mediate between bedraggled -looking rock groups and vested company executives.© The demand -for young therapists who "know acid" soars while hope of finding -them in sufficient numbers approaches the vanishing point. +As everyone knows, New York's Greenwich Village was the location of the largest permanent assembly of "heads" (regular users of psychedelic substances) in the nation:or in the world, for that matter. But what is becoming equally well-known, through increasing advertisement in the several media, is that New York and San Francisco no longer may lay claim to a monopoly on psychedelic enthusiasts, especially since those college campuses which do not report the existence of their head contingents are only exactly that, ie., those who do not report. Few doubt that they are there nonetheless, and it is becoming increasingly clear that not all of them wear long hair, since even high school teenyboppers now practice that form of communication. +Network radio is thoroughly aware that the special music of psychedelia, sometimes called acid rock, is a two billion dollar business which it ignores at its peril, notwithstanding the exquisite paradox that acid lyrics put down the sort of (bureaucratic) "uptight" consciousness of which the networks consist. Similarly the most brilliant films and videotapes now emerging from head culture, which laugh in tragicomic dada style at the "strait" movie world, are being sought by the same networks and movie worlds whose existence they mock and subvert. Few painters ignorant of the psychedelic experience are counted in the avante garde, as are few practitioners of post-New Left politics. Clinics opened with the aim of offering relief to those "damaged" by their drug-induced adventures quickly discover that there are at least two kinds of acid enthusiasts: heads who know what they're doing, who therefore don't want any "help" of the traditional kind\bknote{4} (psychotherapy, job counselling, family therapy, \e{et al.}); and very young patients who seem adrift in the chaos of contemporary life, the angry lost runaways seeking refuge, peace and a meal, maybe. Universities find themselves in a situation not essentially dissimilar, since often, as Kenniston\bknote{5} reports, the brightest kids, who have the best ideas as to what the universities must become if they are to survive, are those who are closest to the head scene. Young bi-cultural professors (half intellectual and half hip) are decreasingly rare. Record companies now employ "company freaks" who mediate between bedraggled looking rock groups and vested company executives.\bknote{6} The demand for young therapists who "know acid" soars while hope of finding them in sufficient numbers approaches the vanishing point. Observations of similar phenomena are not hard to assemble: +A graduate Sociology student teaching in a "ghetto" grammar school (to avoid the draft) plans a thesis on why the black kids who used to see through the political slogans of the "War on Poverty" at age twelve, now do so at age nine, and even earlier. -A graduate Sociology student teaching in a "ghetto" grammar -school (to avoid the draft) plans a thesis on why the black kids who -used to see through the political slogans of the "War on Poverty" at -age twelve, now do so at age nine, and even earlier. - - -A Philosophy Ph.D. drop out from Berkeley guest-lectures to a -Social Pathology class at a small university, during which he first puts -down the audience for not understanding McLuhan, then, putting -down McLuhan as nostalgic, begins extolling "Bucky" Fuller. - - -Three black pre-teens helping to collect dollars during the -Living Theatre's performance of "Paradise Now," pocket every other - - -bill, giggling "shee-it" at the naivete of the bourgeoisie who think -they're "contributing to a just cause." - - -A conversation at a coffee house examines for two hours why -the strobe light behind the Beatles film "The Yellow Submarine" -helps enjoy it if you're high on pot. - - - - -Young clinical psychologists who protest they haven't learned -anything fundamentally new since they began "training" wonder if -acid therapy will render their educations obsolete. - - -Exotic nightclubs offer total environments of mixed media, -renting out shifting sound-light-movie-slide-music-video walls, with -individual earphones and semi-transparent gowns for seven dollars an -hour. - - -Four interns and their wives look for an inexpensive house in -the "East Village" to establish a commune offering free medical care -evenings and weekends. - - -The Philosopher Whitehead proclaimed in 1950 that the West -had witnessed more change in the last 50 years than in the last 50 -centuries, and the several commissions investigating the 21st century -announce that the rate of social change in the year 2000 will have -become 300% faster than it is now. - - -Private portable video cameras and tape recorders were owned by -5 million Americans by 1970. - - -Scientists at MIT are investigating whether video-holography -will replace television as the major medium of the next decade. - - -DISCUSSION - -The foregoing are all examples of a phenomenon increasingly -observable in our age of rapid change. What is common in each -observation is a discrepancy between two rates of change, to which -we apply the term achrony.'»® Achronistic situations are found -when those accustomed to one rate of change are confronted by -another. Those accustomed to a rapid rate who find themselves in a -decelerating situation are thus not entirely dissimilar to those who -are accustomed to a relatively slow rate of change who find -themselves confronted by an accelerated one. Both experience a -change in the rate of change tliey are used to, although, to use an -algebraic metaphor, they are oppositely signed. - - - - -But calling one change "positive" and the converse "negative" -clouds the potential severity of the emotional experience engendered -by such situations. For example, if "identity" is based on the -expectation that a given rate of change will continue to obtain -throughout one's life, "positive" changes in the rate of change will -precipitate continuous identity crises. In psychoanalytic language, -this means that one will constantly face a situation in which one's -identifications become increasingly obsolete. The fact that persons -faced by the prospect of identity annihilation often resort to violent -defensive actions in order to maintain their identities? »1° focuses the -severity of achronistic plights at the appropriate level of magnification. This sort of thinking leads logically to the abandonment of -philosophies based on sameness, or identity, since these concepts -suggest a permanence and stability which it is no longer possible to -observe in any but the most remote culture still untouched by -cybernation. - - -An even more somber example comes into view if we look at -the so-called generation gap in an achronistic perspective. The young -for whom each new experience represents a greater percentage of -their entire experiential world, can, for that reason, accept change -experiences far more readily than their adult counterparts, for whom -new experiences constitute a lesser percentage of their total -accumulation. The truism that most kids are far more open to change -than their elders, is only partly explained by the fact that adults, by -the time they have reached adulthood, have slowed down their rate -of change as compared to their young, who are still changing rapidly. -It is also partly explained by the fact that the young were born into a -world that was already changing faster than the world into which -their parents were porn, so the two generations not only change at -different rates, but they are changing their rates of change at -different rates. The "gap" problem is thus far more serious than the -adjectives "traditional versus innovative" suggest, for the "gap" is -not simply one set of norms against another---it is actually one set of -rate norms against another. The generations are quickly growing -further apart. - - - - -Mathematicians and astronauts are accustomed to calculate such -rate discrepancies by placing them in differential equations, where -the X's and the Y's, so to speak, are changing rates of acceleration -and deceleration. Clearly, if you want to calculate exactly when and -for bow long to fire your rocket engine to boost your acceleration -from sub-orbital to escape velocity, how long you may continue to -decelerate due to earth's gravity, when you will begin to accelerate -due to moon gravity, when and for bow long you should fire your -engine to escape moon orbit, and when and for how long you must -fire to decelerate in order to land safely, clearly, you had better -master changing rates of change. - - -It is less commonly observed that exactly the same sort of -exquisite timing is called for in comprehending the rates at which -technology alters cur social and personal lives. Factually, we do not -have the ability to calculate with comparable precision how to -accelerate and decelerate the rates of social change that govern us. In -this perspective, it is curious to note that so few have even sought, so -to speak, the gas pedals and the brakes of our society. More -curiously, when they are sought, a cry and a harangue are heard that -control over the rates of commonly change-inducing technology will -lead to facism, imperialism, socialism, communism, name your -poison. - - -Yet, few dispute that it is to technology that we must look if -we wish to locate the forces accelerating our rate of change. The -situation becomes urgent when we note that machine technology, -which outpaced muscle power a hundredfold, was itself outpaced a -millionfold by the early computers, which in turn were outpaced -another millionfold by current nanosecond computers, which do -more than two billion bits of arithmetic per second. To put it mildly, -automation increases the rate of change of work, which, in turn, -increases the rate of change of the society in which that work is -done. Similarly, cybernation, which is the automated work of -processing information, has vastly increased the rate at which -'information and feedback change the environment. We must thank - - - - -McLuhan for reminding us that we are in a very different world from -the one in which a few monks labored for years to produce a few -illustrated bibles. Now, billions of words in millions of books and -hundreds of thousands of magazines leap out at us from our -cybernetic environment. The scholar is not the only one faltering in -this gale of words. Nor are the children alone in receiving the -combined barrage of TV, radio, and other forms of urban din, whose -rate of increase, I need hardly remind you, is increasing. - - -Very well, you say. Granted. The rate of social change is -increasing. So is society's information output. What has all that to do -with "alienated youth"? with LSD? with schizophrenia? - - -THEORY - -It lies in the very heart of that process we call "generalization" -to array a large number of common instances under one idea, to -which we commonly affix a name, which labels it as the class, or set, -of all such objects. We usually perform this magic on classes of -objects we can see, visually, and for similar reasons, have come to -believe that only visible objects lend themselves to the process of -generalization. And, since time is something we don't see, visually, -we have come to believe that it is not a member of the class of -generalizeable objects. - - -But this is false, as the astronauts of more than one nation -continue to visibly demonstrate. Their trips are vivid proof that a -very substantial theory of temporal generalization does in fact exist. - - -And, as has been argued elsewhere, the LSD trips of those -astronauts of inner space we call "heads" also provide us with proof -that times are experientially generalizeable, that tripping is an -experience of temporal generalization, in which the exponents of -time, or rates of temporal change, and not simply mechanical -succession, are deliberately enjoyed for their own sake. Heads who -manage to trip successfully and without discernible damage are - - - - -perfectly comfortable with shifting rates of joy.' Indeed the more -rate changes one enjoys, the better the trip. This is because acid, for -heads, seems to confer the mysterious ability to expand the -apperception of time, such that, when you have more time to enjoy -what you're into, you enjoy it for a "longer" time. - - -To put it another way --- if you experience your experience at a -slower rate than your wristwatch, you will feel that you have more -time to spend on each experience. However, you aren't experiencing -slower than your wristwatch. In fact, you're processing more -information than usual (for example, your eyes are dilated, letting -more light in). Thus, while it helps a little to say that it feels like -you're going slow and your watch is going fast, it is more accurate to -say, as heads do, that you're high, as in a higher level of -generalization. Another metaphor describing the high is this: imagine walking on your knees, underwater about four feet deep, then -standing up into the fresh air and blue sky. Now imagine that the -water is clock time (or, as Heidigger called it, Das Element) and that -time is to us what water is to a fish. Now ask yourself --- what is this -fresh air and blue sky above? - - -It must be another kind of temporal experience. One which -generalizes clock time, hence both transcends and illumines it, as a -generalization illumines a particular. Clock time is seen as only one -of the kinds of temporal experience you can have when you become -aware of other kinds. - - -But how is this possible? Isn't there only one kind of time, the -succession of one moment after another, that is, what Bergson called -duration? Perhaps the physicists are the right people to answer this -question. But be prepared even there for a surprising answer, since -some physicists have now accustomed themselves to the idea that -time is not an invariant, and that not all fundamental qualities (e.g. -the positron) are, as they say, anisotropic,' or one directional. And -it just may be that there are other kinds of time if we but knew how -to look for them. - - - - -But, whatever the physicists find, theoretical and clinical -scientists do not have to pore over abstruse mathematical equations -to become aware of an experience in themselves and in their -constituency of a very common experience, namely, that sometimes(!) experience seems to drag, so that minutes seem like hours, -and, "at" other times, experience is so joyful that hours seem like -minutes. - - -What I am asking you to imagine, if you have not had a -psychedelic experience, is a region of consciousness in which time -becomes so elastic that both expanding and contracting time become -only two of the qualities of another whole region of temporal -experience. In addition, I not only ask you to imagine it, but I -suggest that the experience of this region is absolutely commonplace, -a common characteristic of everyday life. +A Philosophy Ph.D. drop out from Berkeley guest-lectures to a Social Pathology class at a small university, during which he first puts down the audience for not understanding McLuhan, then, putting down McLuhan as nostalgic, begins extolling "Bucky" Fuller. +Three black pre-teens helping to collect dollars during the Living Theatre's performance of \playtitle{Paradise Now,} pocket every other bill, giggling "shee-it" at the naivete of the bourgeoisie who think they're "contributing to a just cause." -To understand this, you have but to reflect that a generalization, any generalization, consists of arbitrarily drawing an imaginary -temporal parenthesis around a number of remembered experiences -you have had before, so that you say, in effect, these are all kind -"A"? and the rest are kind "not A." That is, as Hegel'? noted long -ago, negation is constitutive of assertion. You must say this is one of -these and not those in order to say this is this. You must, as Plato! * -noted long before Hegel, re-cognize in order to cognize at all. +A conversation at a coffee house examines for two hours \e{why} the strobe light behind the Beatles film \filmtitle{The Yellow Submarine} helps enjoy it \e{if} you're high on pot. +Young clinical psychologists who protest they haven't learned anything fundamentally new since they began "training" wonder if acid therapy will render their educations obsolete. -Dialectical theorists are wholly familiar with this line of -reasoning, which was sufficient unto the task of describing how we -generalize as long as the world moved by at a relatively slow and -manageable pace. In such a world, the frequency with which a -number of A's came by was relatively comfortable, and one was -under no special press to construct categories to subsume all such -A's. Aristotle, as I recall, constructed a metaphysic in which 10 -categories subsumed the entire cosmos. +Exotic nightclubs offer total environments of mixed media, renting out shifting sound-light-movie-slide-music-video walls, with individual earphones and semi-transparent gowns for seven dollars an hour. +Four interns and their wives look for an inexpensive house in the "East Village" to establish a commune offering free medical care evenings and weekends. -But now when the pace at which new A's enter experience is so -fast and furious that we must become specialists in order to manage -ever smaller quadrants of daily life, the situation is almost totally +The Philosopher Whitehead proclaimed in 1950 that the West had witnessed more change in the last 50 years than in the last 50 centuries, and the several commissions investigating the 21\tss{st} century announce that the rate of social change in the year 2000 will have become 300\% faster than it is now. +Private portable video cameras and tape recorders were owned by 5 million Americans by 1970. +Scientists at MIT are investigating whether video-holography will replace television as the major medium of the next decade. +\sec Discussion -different. Marx described an industrial revolution that took a -hundred years to elapse. We now process experience via computerized machines that change the nature of the environment in ten -years. - +The foregoing are all examples of a phenomenon increasingly observable in our age of rapid change. What is common in each observation is a discrepancy between two rates of change, to which we apply the term achrony.\bknote{7}\tss{,}\bknote{8} Achronistic situations are found when those accustomed to one rate of change are confronted by another. Those accustomed to a rapid rate who find themselves in a decelerating situation are thus not entirely dissimilar to those who are accustomed to a relatively slow rate of change who find themselves confronted by an accelerated one. Both experience a change in the \e{rate} of change tliey are used to, although, to use an algebraic metaphor, they are oppositely signed. -And heads devise environments in which a dozen movies, a -dozen symphonies and a dozen Kaleidoscopic strobe lights barrage -their consciousness with sensations as awesome in number and kind -as the birth of a galaxy billions of light years in "size." +But calling one change "positive" and the converse "negative" clouds the potential severity of the emotional experience engendered by such situations. For example, if "identity" is based on the expectation that a given rate of change will continue to obtain throughout one's life, "positive" changes in the rate of change will precipitate continuous identity crises. In psychoanalytic language, this means that one will constantly face a situation in which one's identifications become increasingly obsolete. The fact that persons faced by the prospect of identity annihilation often resort to violent defensive actions in order to maintain their identities\bknote{9}\tss{,}\bknote{10} focuses the severity of achronistic plights at the appropriate level of magnification. This sort of thinking leads logically to the abandonment of philosophies based on sameness, or identity, since these concepts suggest a permanence and stability which it is no longer possible to observe in any but the most remote culture still untouched by cybernation. +An even more somber example comes into view if we look at the so-called generation gap in an achronistic perspective. The young for whom each new experience represents a greater percentage of their entire experiential world, can, for that reason, accept change experiences far more readily than their adult counterparts, for whom new experiences constitute a lesser percentage of their total accumulation. The truism that most kids are far more open to change than their elders, is only partly explained by the fact that adults, by the time they have reached adulthood, have slowed down their rate of change as compared to their young, who are still changing rapidly. It is also partly explained by the fact that the young were born into a world that was already changing faster than the world into which their parents were porn, so the two generations not only change at different rates, but they are \e{changing their rates of change at different rates.} The "gap" problem is thus far more serious than the adjectives "traditional versus innovative" suggest, for the "gap" is not simply one set of norms against another---it is actually one set of \e{rate} norms against another. The generations are quickly growing further apart. -Confronted by a rate of experience of such stupendous (or -mind blowing) complexity, the human mind must attempt to -re-cognize faster than ever before. To do so requires wholly new -kinds of generalizations. Therefore, we should not be surprised that -many people in diverse regions of society have begun to move -beyond generalizing only visible objects, by attempting to generalize -(invisible) tzmes. Many are beginning to learn how to have such -experiences comfortably and joyfully because they know that just as -duration generalizes rest, as velocity generalizes duration, as acceleration generalizes velocity, so there are other kinds of temporal -experience which have as their particulars, changes in the rate of -change. They confirm William James'! view that there are regions of -mind as unusually different from our waking consciousness as our -waking consciousness differs from our dreams. - +Mathematicians and astronauts are accustomed to calculate such rate discrepancies by placing them in differential equations, where the $x$'s and the $y$'s, so to speak, are changing rates of acceleration and deceleration. Clearly, if you want to calculate exactly \e{when} and \e{for bow long} to fire your rocket engine to boost your \e{acceleration} from sub-orbital to escape velocity, \e{how long} you may continue to \e{decelerate} due to earth's gravity, \e{when} you will begin to \e{accelerate} due to moon gravity, \e{when} and \e{for how long} you should fire your engine to escape moon orbit, and \e{when} and \e{for how long} you must fire to \e{decelerate} in order to land safely, clearly, you had better master changing \e{rates} of change. -One of these regions, I hold, is filled with that kind of time -heads call "high," a region which consists of the generalizations of -our more banal experiences of duration, velocity, and acceleration. I -think we have become aware of it recently, because the number and -kinds of change-experiences thrust on us by our hurtling cybernetic -environment --- has made obsolete our usual method of making -generalizations, that is, of recognizing our world in traditional spatial -categories. - - - - -This view gives us the basis of an answer to our central inquiry -which may now be rephrased as follows. Could it be that a higher -more general kind of time-experience may be in conflict with a lower -more special time-experience, as a meta-message may be in conflict -with a message, as in the double bind theory of schizophrenia? That -a bum trip consists of the annihilating terror of being in what feels -like two different times at once? Could it be that time, which we -thought at its very interior core to be the rate of things, might -consist of levels of itself characterized by differing rates of -occurrence, such that clock time is only one specific form of -experience? - - -The hypothesis is attractive, since it helps to explain why some -schizophrenics are described as stuck in "concrete (linear) thinking" -while others seem lost in a strange world of racing images. It helps to -explain why "talking somebody down from a bum trip" consists -essentially in telling him to "go with it" --- "get into it" --- "ride it" -"follow it" "it's all right --- it's all valid experience." It even helps to -explain why it's called a trip, as if it were a voyage in time. - - -In this connection, it is instructive to recall the theoretical -paradigm of the double-blind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson and -his co-workers wrote: - - -Our approach is based on that part of communication -theory which Russell has called the theory of logical types. The -central thesis of this theory is that there is a discontinuity -between a class and its members. © - - -If we recall that the genesis of a logical class is a generalization made -to re-memberallexperiences of a given kind, it begins to be clear -that double-bound (schizophrenic) persons are those told simultaneously to remember an experience as a member of a class and "at" -the same time to deny validity to the experience of that class. In +\brk +It is less commonly observed that exactly the same sort of exquisite timing is called for in comprehending the rates at which technology alters cur social and personal lives. Factually, we do not have the ability to calculate with comparable precision how to accelerate and decelerate the rates of social change that govern us. In this perspective, it is curious to note that so few have even sought, so to speak, the gas pedals and the brakes of our society. More curiously, when they are sought, a cry and a harangue are heard that control over the rates of commonly change-inducing technology will lead to facism, imperialism, socialism, communism, name your poison. +Yet, few dispute that it is to technology that we must look if we wish to locate the forces accelerating our rate of change. The situation becomes urgent when we note that machine technology, which outpaced muscle power a hundredfold, was itself outpaced a millionfold by the early computers, which in turn were outpaced another millionfold by current nanosecond computers, which do more than two billion bits of arithmetic per second. To put it mildly, automation increases the rate of change of work, which, in turn, increases the rate of change of the society in which that work is done. Similarly, cybernation, which is the automated work of processing information, has vastly increased the rate at which information and feedback change the environment. We must thank McLuhan for reminding us that we are in a very different world from the one in which a few monks labored for years to produce a few illustrated bibles. Now, billions of words in millions of books and hundreds of thousands of magazines leap out at us from our cybernetic environment. The scholar is not the only one faltering in this gale of words. Nor are the children alone in receiving the combined barrage of TV, radio, and other forms of urban din, whose \e{rate} of increase, I need hardly remind you, is increasing. +Very well, you say. Granted. The rate of social change is increasing. So is society's information output. What has all that to do with "alienated youth"? with LSD? with schizophrenia? -other words, the bind prohibits the experience of generalization -(uniting past and present experiences in a synthesis), yet commands -the present experience to be familiar. This annihilation of memory -negates the very process of present experience. +\sec Theory +It lies in the very heart of that process we call "generalization" to array a large number of common instances under one idea, to which we commonly affix a name, which labels it as the class, or set, of all such objects. We usually perform this magic on classes of objects we can see, visually, and for similar reasons, have come to believe that only visible objects lend themselves to the process of generalization. And, since time is something we don't see, visually, we have come to believe that it is not a member of the class of generalizeable objects. -Bum trips, like schizophrenia, are therefore well described as -failed dialectics, since their pathology results from the negation (of -"normalcy") not itself being negated. Some therapists encourage the -schizophrenic to "go on through" the process of madness, since they -believe, and, I think, correctly, that madness is only the first moment -in a dialectical process, that madness itself must be negated after it -negates "sanity." The above is only a very fancy way of defining -the word "freaky" in the context of a "freak out" philosophy, which -regards episodes of madness as prerequisite to the achievement of a -"higher" synthesis. - +\brk -In the instance of schizophrenia, our hypothesis suggests that -there is indeed a double bind at work in its genesis, but that double -binds are a very special sort of temporal contradiction in which the -person is not only asked to remember what he is commanded to -forget; he is also asked to experience two different times simultaneously. Yet this is a patent impossibility unless the person can be -made aware that he will not lose his mind but gain another -dimension of it by entering a region of experience in which such time -conflicts are only special cases of another kind of time,-which, if he -chooses, he can inhabit comfortably. Unfortunately, few therapists -are aware that there is such a region, and therefore find it impossible -to offer support and encouragement to a patient who is trying to -find it. Therapists addicted to the view that there is only one kind of -time, clock time, will obviously not be able to avail themselves of -this clinical prerogative. +But this is false, as the astronauts of more than one nation continue to visibly demonstrate. Their trips are vivid proof that a very substantial theory of temporal generalization does in fact exist. +And, as has been argued elsewhere, the LSD trips of those astronauts of \e{inner} space we call "heads" also provide us with proof that times are experientially generalizeable, that tripping is an experience of temporal generalization, in which the exponents of time, or rates of temporal change, and not simply mechanical succession, are deliberately enjoyed for their own sake. Heads who manage to trip successfully and without discernible damage are perfectly comfortable with shifting rates of joy.\bknote{11} Indeed the more rate changes one enjoys, the better the trip. This is because acid, for heads, seems to confer the mysterious ability to expand the apperception of time, such that, when you have more time to enjoy what you're into, you enjoy it for a "longer" time. -Heads, however, know all about this region, which is why, on -the one hand, they are not baffled by a bum trip (e.g. a temporarily -stalled dialectic---a 'thang up') and why, on the other hand, +To put it another way --- if you experience your experience at a slower rate than your wristwatch, you will feel that you have more time to spend on each experience. However, you aren't \e{experiencing} slower than your wristwatch. In fact, you're processing \e{more} information than usual (for example, your eyes are dilated, letting \e{more} light in). Thus, while it helps a little to say that it feels like you're going slow and your watch is going fast, it is more accurate to say, as heads do, that you're high, as in a higher level of generalization. Another metaphor describing the high is this: imagine walking on your knees, underwater about four feet deep, then standing up into the fresh air and blue sky. Now imagine that the water is clock time (or, as Heidigger called it, \e{Das Element}) and that time is to us what water is to a fish. Now ask yourself --- what is this fresh air and blue sky \e{above?} +It must be another \e{kind} of temporal experience. One which generalizes clock time, hence both transcends and illumines it, as a generalization illumines a particular. Clock time is seen as \e{only one} of the kinds of temporal experience you can have when you become aware of other kinds. +But how is this possible? Isn't there only one kind of time, the succession of one moment after another, that is, what Bergson called duration? Perhaps the physicists are the right people to answer this question. But be prepared even there for a surprising answer, since some physicists have now accustomed themselves to the idea that time is not an invariant, and that not all fundamental qualities (e.g. the positron) are, as they say, anisotropic,\bknote{12} or one directional. And it just may be that there are \e{other} kinds of time if we but knew how to look for them. +But, whatever the physicists find, theoretical and clinical scientists do not have to pore over abstruse mathematical equations to become aware of an experience in themselves and in their constituency of a very common experience, namely, that sometimes(!) experience seems to drag, so that minutes seem like hours, and, "at" other times, experience is so joyful that hours seem like minutes. -somebody bumtripping prefers an experienced head to a therapist -innocent of this information. A head will say --- "Keep going," a -"strait" therapist is likely to say---"Come back." As in the case of the -"generation gap," here are two groups changing at different rates of -change: the one attempting to devise learning experiences for -themselves which expand the ability to handle exponentially -increased rates of information confrontation, the other advising a -diminution of that same ability. This is often regarded as antipromethean advice. +What I am asking you to imagine, if you have not had a psychedelic experience, is a region of consciousness in which time becomes so elastic that both expanding and contracting time become only two of the qualities of another whole region of temporal experience. In addition, I not only ask you to imagine it, but I suggest that the experience of this region is absolutely commonplace, a common characteristic of everyday life. +To understand this, you have but to reflect that a generalization, \e{any} generalization, consists of arbitrarily drawing an imaginary temporal parenthesis around a number of remembered experiences you have had before, so that you say, in effect, these are all kind "A" and the rest are kind "not A." That is, as Hegel\bknote{13} noted long ago, negation is constitutive of assertion. You must say this is \e{one of these and not those} in order to say this is this. You must, as Plato\bknote{14} noted long before Hegel, \e{re}-cognize in order to cognize at all. -Although the traditional name applied to the class of events -described above as failed dialectics is the word "alienation", there are -several reasons to believe that the term is dated, i.e., obsolete.!® -Originally, Feuerback used the term to describe the condition of -estrangement lJovers felt when they were drawing apart when they -wanted to draw together. Hegel applied the term to all dialectical -processes which were half-complete. Marx applied the term to social -classes in unequal relation to the means of changing their historical -situation. While it is correct to observe that so-called alienated youth -stand in an unequal relation to the masters of our technological -environment, and to observe that youth is "alienated" from such -institutions as the draft, universities, business, and political parties, it -is necessary to observe a crucial difference between Marx's proletariat and today's psychedelic generation, namely, this generation does -not want to belong to a culture it finds obsolete. It wants to change -the rate of culture change, not simply its contents. +Dialectical theorists are wholly familiar with this line of reasoning, which was sufficient unto the task of describing how we generalize as long as the world moved by at a relatively slow and manageable pace. In such a world, the frequency with which a number of $A$'s came by was relatively comfortable, and one was under no special press to construct categories to subsume all such $A$'s. Aristotle, as I recall, constructed a metaphysic in which 10 categories subsumed the entire cosmos. +But now when the pace at which new $A$'s enter experience is so fast and furious that we must become specialists in order to manage ever smaller quadrants of daily life, the situation is almost totally different. Marx described an industrial revolution that took a hundred years to elapse. We now process experience via computerized machines that change the nature of the environment in ten years. -For this reason, we must begin to speak of the post-cultural era -as the ideal of radical youth. For the same reason, we may no longer -properly regard them as a "sub-culture" having most of their norms -in common with us and a few deviant norms thrown into the bargain. -In a very real sense, the generation of youth who are experimenting -with technologies which may well master rates of experience far -beyond our present mastery, may with some justice regard the strait -world as alienated from the kind of post-cultural world we shall all +And heads devise environments in which a dozen movies, a dozen symphonies and a dozen Kaleidoscopic strobe lights barrage their consciousness with sensations as awesome in number and kind as the birth of a galaxy billions of light years in "size." +Confronted by a rate of experience of such stupendous (or mind blowing) complexity, the human mind must attempt to re-cognize faster than ever before. To do so requires wholly new \e{kinds} of generalizations. Therefore, we should not be surprised that many people in diverse regions of society have begun to move beyond generalizing only visible objects, by attempting to generalize (invisible) \e{times.} Many are beginning to learn how to have such experiences comfortably and joyfully because they know that just as duration generalizes rest, as velocity generalizes duration, as acceleration generalizes velocity, so there are other kinds of temporal experience which have as their particulars, changes in the rate of change. They confirm William James'\bknote{15} view that there are regions of mind as unusually different from our waking consciousness as our waking consciousness differs from our dreams. +One of these regions, I hold, is filled with that kind of time heads call "high," a region which consists of the \e{generalizations} of our more banal experiences of duration, velocity, and acceleration. I think we have become aware of it recently, because the number and kinds of change-experiences thrust on us by our hurtling cybernetic environment --- has made obsolete our usual method of making generalizations, that is, of \e{re}cognizing our world in traditional spatial categories. +This view gives us the basis of an answer to our central inquiry which may now be rephrased as follows. Could it be that a higher more general \e{kind} of time-experience may be in conflict with a lower more special time-experience, as a meta-message may be in conflict with a message, as in the double bind theory of schizophrenia? That a bum trip consists of the annihilating terror of being in what feels like two different \e{times} at once? Could it be that time, which we thought at its very interior core to be the rate of things, might consist of levels of itself characterized by differing rates of occurrence, such that clock time is only one specific form of experience? -soon inhabit if current technology continues to accelerate its rate of -change. +The hypothesis is attractive, since it helps to explain why some schizophrenics are described as stuck in "concrete (linear) thinking" while others seem lost in a strange world of racing images. It helps to explain why "talking somebody down from a bum trip" consists essentially in telling him to "go with it" --- "get into it" --- "ride it" "follow it" "it's all right --- it's all valid experience." It even helps to explain why it's called a trip, as if it were a voyage in time. +In this connection, it is instructive to recall the theoretical paradigm of the double-blind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson and his co-workers wrote: -It seems preferable to reserve the term alienation for those -situations in which two lovers, or classes, or sub-cultures, stand in -unequal relation to the means of achieving a goal they clearly -envision as their desirable condition, and to apply the term achrony -when the discrepancy experienced by antagonists is one of rates of -change. They are very different experiences which ought to have -their own terminologies. (The final chapter discusses how achrony -generalizes alienation by focusing on the rate exponents of that -condition. Suffice it here to say that it is difficult to agree on the -means of change while disagreeing sharply on the rates which seem -likely to bring it about "in time.") +\Q{Our approach is based on that part of communication theory which Russell has called the theory of logical types. The central thesis of this theory is that there is a discontinuity between a class and its members.\bknote{16}} +If we recall that the \e{genesis} of a logical class is a generalization made to re-memberallexperiences of a given kind, it begins to be clear that double-bound (schizophrenic) persons are those told simultaneously to remember an experience as a member of a class and "at" the same time to deny validity to the experience of that class. In other words, the bind prohibits the experience of generalization (uniting past and present experiences in a synthesis), yet commands the present experience to be familiar. This annihilation of memory negates the very process of present experience. -CONCLUSION +Bum trips, like schizophrenia, are therefore well described as failed dialectics, since their pathology results from the negation (of "normalcy") not itself being negated. Some therapists encourage the schizophrenic to "go on through" the process of madness, since they believe, and, I think, correctly, that madness is only the first moment in a dialectical process, that madness itself must be negated after it negates "sanity."\bknote{17} The above is only a very fancy way of defining the word "freaky" in the context of a "freak out" philosophy, which regards episodes of madness as prerequisite to the achievement of a "higher" synthesis. -The central nervous system functions, as Freud observed, like a -cell wall, keeping certain things in and certain things out, by -regulating the rate of substances exchanged between cell and -environment. LSD seems to have the power to speed up the pace at -which the central nervous system engages in a dialectic with the -environment. It seems to do so by opening the door to higher regions -of temporal experience, such as changes in the rates of change. When -these rates are harmonious, like notes in a chord, we experience a -synchrony of times, a joy which is very like the music of our -experience. When they are "out of sync," as video people say, we -experience a shattering horror, a temporal bind, in which various -aspects of ourselves seem to be proceeding at different and -conflicting paces. This sort of depersonalization, i.e., of feeling in -two times at once, is at the root, we believe, of all "mental illness," -in varying degrees and amounts. - - -The same condition, in which one rate of experience is in -conflict with another, characterizes the so-called generation gap, - - - - -which, at the moment, comes on like a piper cub and a rocket going -in opposite directions through a hurricane. Similarly, we may employ -the term achrony to describe the rate discrepancy between those -blacks who want dignity now and those moderates who insist it will -take a long time. - - -Achrony, then, differs from alienation as acceleration differs -from duration. It is not simply a condition of estrangement from the -means of change, but a condition of temporal dysynchrony. Just as, -in the spatial metaphor, you can't do anything about what's -bothering you if you aren't in the same place as it is, so, in the -temporal metaphor we have described above, you can't do anything -about the rate of experience that oppresses you if you aren't in the -same time dimension as it is. - - -The special pathology which becomes the lot of those who are -unable to master the variations of temporal experience which the -current pace of social change inflicts is therefore much more severe -than those forms of pathology it generalizes, since it no longer -suffices to know what the pathogen is. We know. It is the pace at -which technology outmodes our powers of generalization. The -crucial issue is: can we devise modes of consciousness which can -comprehend and thus master the forms of time we now passively -experience. +In the instance of schizophrenia, our hypothesis suggests that there is indeed a double bind at work in its genesis, but that double binds are a very special sort of \e{temporal} contradiction in which the person is not only asked to remember what he is commanded to forget; he is also asked to experience two different times simultaneously. Yet this is a patent impossibility unless the person can be made aware that he will not lose his mind but gain another dimension of it by entering a region of experience in which such time conflicts are only special cases of another kind of time,-which, if he chooses, he can inhabit comfortably. Unfortunately, few therapists are aware that there is such a region, and therefore find it impossible to offer support and encouragement to a patient who is trying to find it. Therapists addicted to the view that there is only one kind of time, clock time, will obviously not be able to avail themselves of this clinical prerogative. +Heads, however, know all about this region, which is why, on the one hand, they are not baffled by a bum trip (e.g. a temporarily stalled dialectic---a 'thang up') and why, on the other hand, somebody bumtripping prefers an experienced head to a therapist innocent of this information. A head will say --- "Keep going," a "strait" therapist is likely to say---"Come back." As in the case of the "generation gap," here are two groups changing at different rates of change: the one attempting to devise learning experiences for themselves which expand the ability to handle exponentially increased rates of information confrontation, the other advising a diminution of that same ability. This is often regarded as antipromethean advice. -For it is one thing to trip in a mixed media environment that -blasts away outmoded concepts of time and space, which most -experts agree is what acid does. It is quite another for a whole -society to dwell serenely in a comfortable mastery of its rate of -change, a condition of temporal peace we call synchrony. It is not -obvious that we can manage the latter with anything like the felicity -of the former. +Although the traditional name applied to the class of events described above as failed dialectics is the word "alienation", there are several reasons to believe that the term is dated, i.e., obsolete.\bknote{18} Originally, Feuerback used the term to describe the condition of estrangement \e{lovers} felt when they were drawing apart when they wanted to draw together. Hegel applied the term to \e{all} dialectical processes which were half-complete. Marx applied the term to \e{social classes} in unequal relation to the means of changing their historical situation. While it is correct to observe that so-called alienated youth stand in an unequal relation to the masters of our technological environment, and to observe that youth is "alienated" from such institutions as the draft, universities, business, and political parties, it is necessary to observe a crucial difference between Marx's proletariat and today's psychedelic generation, namely, \e{this generation does not want to belong to a culture it finds obsolete. It wants to change the rate of culture change, not simply its contents.} +For this reason, we must begin to speak of the post-cultural era as the ideal of radical youth. For the same reason, we may no longer properly regard them as a "sub-culture" having most of their norms in common with us and a few deviant norms thrown into the bargain. In a very real sense, the generation of youth who are experimenting with technologies which may well master rates of experience far beyond our present mastery, may with some justice regard the strait world as alienated from the kind of post-cultural world we shall all soon inhabit if current technology continues to accelerate its rate of change. -The urgency of attaining a post-cultural era is not lost on the -young, who know, perhaps better than those well socialized in the +It seems preferable to reserve the term alienation for those situations in which two lovers, or classes, or sub-cultures, stand in unequal relation to the \e{means} of achieving a goal they clearly envision as their desirable condition, and to apply the term achrony when the discrepancy experienced by antagonists is one of \e{rates} of change. They are very different experiences which ought to have their own terminologies. (The final chapter discusses how achrony generalizes alienation by focusing on the \e{rate} exponents of that condition. Suffice it here to say that it is difficult to agree on the means of change while disagreeing sharply on the rates which seem likely to bring it about "in time.") +\sec Conclusion +The central nervous system functions, as Freud observed, like a cell wall, keeping certain things in and certain things out, by regulating the rate of substances exchanged between cell and environment. LSD seems to have the power to speed up the pace at which the central nervous system engages in a dialectic with the environment. It seems to do so by opening the door to higher regions of temporal experience, such as changes in the rates of change. When these rates are harmonious, like notes in a chord, we experience a synchrony of times, a joy which is very like the music of our experience. When they are "out of sync," as video people say, we experience a shattering horror, a temporal bind, in which various aspects of ourselves seem to be proceeding at different and conflicting paces. This sort of depersonalization, i.e., of feeling in two times at once, is at the root, we believe, of \e{all} "mental illness," in varying degrees and amounts. +The same condition, in which one rate of experience is in conflict with another, characterizes the so-called generation gap, which, at the moment, comes on like a piper cub and a rocket going in opposite directions through a hurricane. Similarly, we may employ the term achrony to describe the rate discrepancy between those blacks who want dignity now and those moderates who insist it will take a long time. -forties, that if we are to survive the seventies, we must immediately -begin to devise radically new methods and strategies. It is an instance -of bitter irony that we call those engaged in that adventure -"alienated youth." +Achrony, then, differs from alienation as acceleration differs from duration. It is not simply a condition of estrangement from the means of change, but a condition of temporal dysynchrony. Just as, in the spatial metaphor, you can't do anything about what's bothering you if you aren't in the same \e{place} as it is, so, in the temporal metaphor we have described above, you can't do anything about the rate of experience that oppresses you if you aren't in the same time dimension as it is. +The special pathology which becomes the lot of those who are unable to master the variations of temporal experience which the current pace of social change inflicts is therefore much more severe than those forms of pathology it generalizes, since it no longer suffices to know \e{what} the pathogen is. We know. It is the pace at which technology outmodes our powers of generalization. The crucial issue is: can we devise modes of consciousness which can comprehend and thus master the forms of time we now passively experience. +For it is one thing to trip in a mixed media environment that blasts away outmoded concepts of time and space, which most experts agree is what acid does. It is quite another for a whole society to dwell serenely in a comfortable mastery of its rate of change, a condition of temporal peace we call synchrony. It is not obvious that we can manage the latter with anything like the felicity of the former. +The urgency of attaining a post-cultural era is not lost on the young, who know, perhaps better than those well socialized in the forties, that \e{if} we are to survive the seventies, we must immediately begin to devise radically new methods and strategies. It is an instance of bitter irony that we call those engaged in that adventure "alienated youth." THE COMING SYNTHESIS: CHRONETICS AND CYBERNATION (The Architecture of Social Time) |