Burroughs Month: If we controlled television, then we control America.

via D Billy over on And I Am Not Lying.

Rat: The movement is developing a different definition of news, a different description of what is important. If we controlled a television station, our news would be substantially different than Walter Cronkite.

Burroughs: If we controlled television, then we control America.

via comicallyvintage.

R: What would it mean if we had one station? We could, like the German SDS, make a demand for TV time. And then escalate our demand to a whole channel. What would happen if we got a channel?

B: We got to get them all. As soon as we get them all, we control this whole stupid middle class. We’ve got America.

(Rat Magazine Interviews Burroughs, 1968.)

This is an almost quaint discussion in retrospect, yes? Imagine if states gave a shit about the television. They do not, because they themselves are at the mercy of the same true boss that has come to wield all the power in this particular method of public communication.

Apaga la tele. Viva tu vida. Buenos Aires, Argentina. edit: Valpairiso, Chile.

It seems, to me at any rate, that the control of television has gone not to a political group, who are too busy eating one another alive like a coil of very stupid snakes, but to a far more sinister agenda: the networks cede over all to the dollar. They don’t care how you think and vote, or even if you think and vote. They prefer you complacent, uninformed, and unquenchably thirsty for high-fructose corn syrup. They don’t want you to support your local politician nor overthrow your government. They only want you to Buy Things. As long as you’re doing that, as long as you are spellbound by product placement and commercial breaks, the in-between drama of any particular channel is of utter unimportance to the true bosses. Keep up the good work: I’ve got my new diet pomegranate 7-up jampacked with important antioxidants right here beside me, so I know I sure am!

Note on the pictures: According to D Billy on the excellent And I Am Not Lying, both these illustrations come from an old Aquaman Big Little Book called “Scourge of the Sea.”

Burroughs Month: Hieroglyphs, ROSE, and thought control

Les Liens Invisibles via defacedbook on the tumblr.

The study of hieroglyphic languages shows us that a word is an image … the written word is an image. However, there is an important difference between a hieroglyphic and a syllabic language. If I hold up a sign with the word “ROSE” written on it, and you read that sign, you will be forced to repeat the word “ROSE” to yourself.

via lemonlove on the tumblr.

If I show you a picture of a rose you do not have to repeat the word. You can register the image in silence. A syllabic language forces you to verbalize in auditory patterns. A hieroglyphic language does not. I think that anyone who is interested to find out the precise relationship between word and image should study a simplified hieroglyphic script. Such a study would tend to breakdown the automatic verbal reaction to a word. It is precisely these automatic reactions to words themselves that enable those who manipulate words to control thought on a mass scale.

(Burroughs, William S. Interivew: “Prisoners of the Earth Come Out.”)

Burroughs photographed by Allen Ginsberg, 1953. Coilck to enlarge.

I’m not certain about this. A lot of the time I think in words. At least, I think I do. I read such a great deal and speak to my family and friends and students so much, that I know I find myself wandering the house thinking in full sentences. I’m almost positive of this. I do not consider this style of thought, nor words being the necessary articulators and wives to my thoughts, as inferior to a purer thought absent of words. I understand the function of language and the theories of Mssrs. Lacan and Derrida, with which Mr. Burroughs’ theory would seem to agree and from which it sort of shoots off, but the thought control parts and the ability to divorce one’s own thoughts from words in to a language of pure image is shakier ground for me. I get it, I think. I’m just not sure I agree. Whether I disagree that it is possible, or disagree that it is important, I’m not sure.