So I had a conversation about SEX — yes, SEX — with an old friend and I do mean from a very long time ago. He is now a major libertine. As I told him once I got a word in edgewise, he was out of line to be pressing this information upon me. Still, the conversation was strikingly less oppressive than many other conversations I have had in life. Here is why.
–Would you ever do anything like this? he asked.
–No, said I, –and please do not try to tell me it is out of repression.
–I wouldn’t say that, said he –I would say it is a question of taste.
And I realized how different this conversation was from any I had in Reeducation. Reeducation never took no for an answer and always called disagreement denial.
*
That, of course, is also why interrogation under torture does not lead to accurate intelligence. Neither is it undertaken in the misguided belief that it will do that.
It is undertaken to mark people, to change them. In this way many victims, malgré eux — when their bodies are left in garbage dumps or allowed to wash up on beaches as if by accident, or when, living, they are released — become in one way or another agents of the state.
These things are well known.
*
Another friend from long ago was trained as an interrogator and as part of this training his (mock) capture and interrogation were staged. This was done by surprise and the [relevant military organization in the country in question] had a great deal of information about his life, as well as the results of several personality sorters and other psychological tests.
They were thus able to take this information and, at 2 AM under unnaturally bright lights, reflect a heavily distorted, yet somehow recognizable version of his past, his motivations, and his desires at him.
Now, we know you never stood up to anyone, Mr. A., they started out, citing an example from kindergarten in which he had run away as opposed to defend another child from a bully. It got worse from there.
*
This happened to him while I was being reeducated. We could each see what had happened to the other. Yet he was loyal to his unit, and I was going to Reeducation voluntarily. We looked at each other from across a large room as if in a mirror, aware we should not move closer, acknowledging that we knew but could not now, and might not ever speak about this.
*
That is what I know about conversation, information, Reeducation, and “enhanced” interrogation techniques.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
NOTE TO SELF. About Reeducation, I still need to write a post about its attacks upon one’s intellectual being and why these worked on me — I had sustained such attacks before, which is why remaining a professor is in a way like remaining at the scene of my death, a death I keep trying to overcome. I still need MORE weapons and armor against this. I think I will get that grizzly bear, the one on the Bear Flag, as a totem.
isn’t that the female situation under patriarchy? it constantly reflects a heavily distorted version of ourselves back to us. It makes all our strengths and virtues — standing up for ourselves, using reason rather than submission and so on — seem like mere avoidance mechanisms designed to avoid coming to terms with “reality”.
“Which reality?”, you might ask.
Well, patriarchal versions of reality. Of course.
Yes — unfortunately, good point, although it appears I still do not fully comprehend it.
Let’s see — who tried this:
1. My mother
2. My dissertation director
3. My first professor job
4. Reeducation
5. This professor job in general
6. This professor job in particular under the outgoing chair of one of my departments
7. The Catholic friend I blasted earlier this spring.
Reeducation was the worst because it taught me that everything my mother had taught me, which the world had taught me was not true, was in fact true. But I still did not name the phenomenon correctly, am still trying to learn to name it.
Funny you should mention grizzly bears. I’m reading a book by Gertrude Atherton about old California which describes an entertainment: a fight between a bull and a grizzly bear, where the bear tears off the bull’s head. One of the characters says a swipe from the paw of a grizzly was sufficient to destroy a face, and an embrace would kill. And then there were the rattlesnakes!
Atherton is a treasurehouse of attitudes toward wildlife, Indians (sullen, mutinous), Spanish grandees (adventurous, noble, bold, if somewhat feckless), senioritas (simpering and weak), white women (like herself, intelligent, beautiful, amorous, adventurous, admired by all), and so on.
Her books are available in a very handy Kindle format for less than a dollar.
In aesop’s fables there’s the story of a fox whom, upon accidentally losing his tail to a trap, tries to persuade other foxes that this is a preferable way to be.
Patriarchy as a system also exerts this subtle and coercive effect towards conformity to a state of loss. It is as such an often subtle (at least until challenged — then it shows its teeth) and pervasive form of ressentiment.
It is perpetuated by those who have sacrificed much of their intellectual and emotional integrity to the concept of a giant phallus that has purported mystical protective properties.
I think people should be the way they want to be. Now there’s a revolutionary idea for you!
I should read Atherton.
Can I repost this to Twitter or FB or somewhere? It’s too good. I’ll cite you as author.
“Patriarchy as a system also exerts [a] subtle and coercive effect towards conformity to a state of loss. It is as such an often subtle (at least until challenged — then it shows its teeth) and pervasive form of ressentiment.
It is perpetuated by those who have sacrificed much of their intellectual and emotional integrity to the concept of a giant phallus that has purported mystical protective properties.”
She’s quite readable and full of information, especially about common attitudes in her time and place.
Strong quote, yes. But I would argue that the patriarchy is about as “subtle” (and effective) as foot binding. Just because we are so accustomed to it, we hardly notice the process (twisting, twisting the form of ourselves and others) doesn’t mean it’s subtle…or painless…or “beautiful” (as it’s purported to be when we are being positively reinforced for acquiescing or encouraged not to cry).