226 lines
10 KiB
Standard ML
226 lines
10 KiB
Standard ML
INTERVIEW
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with
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WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
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conducted by
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Gregory Corso
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and
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Allen Ginsberg
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Originally appeared in Journal For the Protection of All People
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1961
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Transcribed by Flesh
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1992
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B= William Burroughs
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C= Gregory Corso
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G= Allen Ginsberg
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C: What is your department?
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B: Kunst unt Wissenschaft
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C: What say you about political conflicts?
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B: Political conflicts are merely surfaced manifestations. If
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conflicts arise you may certain powers intend to keep this
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conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the
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situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts
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is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are
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charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you
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the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him
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to follow, obey the cloth.
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C: Who manipulates the cloth?
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B: Death
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G: What is death?
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B: A gimmick. It's the time birth death gimmick. Can't go on much
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longer, too many people are wising up.
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C: Do you feel there has been a definite change in man's makeup?
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A new consciousness?
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B: Yes, I can give you a precise answer to that. I feel that the
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change the mutation in consciousness will occur spontaneously
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once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that
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the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents
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expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought
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feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host.
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G: And if removed, what step?
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B: The forward step must be made in silence. we detach ourselves
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from word forms-this can be accomplished by substituting for
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words, letters, concepts, verbal concepts, other modes of
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expression; for example, color. We can translate word and
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letter into color (Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels,
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words quote "words" can be read in silent color.) In other
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words man must get away from verbal forms to attain the
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consciousness, that which is there to be perceived at hand.
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C: How does one take that "forward step," can you say?
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B: Well, this is my subject and is what I am concerned with.
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Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are
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built into you---in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not
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realize the word-armor you carry; for example, when you read
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this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right
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following the words that you have been accustomed to. Now try
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breaking up part of the page like this:
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Are there or just we can translate
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many solutions for example color word color
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in the soft typewriter into
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political conflicts to attain consciousness
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monopoly and control
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C: Reading that it seems you end up where you began, with politics
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and it's nomenclature: conflict, attain, solution, monopoly,
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control--so what kind of help is that?
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B: Precisely what I was saying---if you talk you always end up with
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politics, it gets nowhere, I mean man it's strictly from the
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soft typewriter.
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C: What kind of advice you got for politicians?
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B: Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.
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C: What if people don't want to change, don't want no new
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consciousness?
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B: For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling
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to do so--I might for example however have suggested to the
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dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship,
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and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities---it would
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not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant
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dinosaur. I can make my feeling very clear, Gregory, I fell like
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I'm on a sinking ship and I want off.
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C: Do you think Hemingway got off?
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B: Probably not.
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(Next day)
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G: What about control?
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B: Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more
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efficient the control the better. All political organizations
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tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable
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factor of AFFECT---emotion. Any machine tends to absorb,
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eliminate, Affect. Yet the only person who can make a machine
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move is someone who has a motive, who has Affect. If all
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individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the
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performance of their duties they would have to be at least one
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person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the
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machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine the
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machine will slow down and stop forever. Any unchecked impulse
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does, within the human body & psyche, lead to the destruction
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of the organism.
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G: What kind of organization could technological society have
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without control?
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B: The whole point is I feel the machine should be eliminated. Now
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that it has served its purpose of alerting us to the dangers of
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machine control. Elimination of all natural sciences----If
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anybody ought to go to the extermination chambers definitely
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scientists, yes I'm definitely antiscientist because I feel that
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science represents a conspiracy to impose as, the real and only
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universe, the Universe of scientists themselves----they're
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reality-addicts, they've got to have things so real so they can
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get their hands on it. We have a great elaborate machine which
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I feel has to be completely dismantled--- in order to do that
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we need people who understand how the machine works ---the mass
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media---paralleled opportunity.
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G: Who do you think is responsible for the dope situation in
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America?
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B: Old Army game, "I act under orders ." As Captain Ahab said,
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"You are not other men but my arms and legs---" Mr. Anslinger
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has a lot of arms and legs, or whoever is controlling him, same
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thing as the Wichman case, he's the front man, the man who has
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got to take the rap, poor bastard, I got sympathy for him.
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C: Could you or do you think it wise to say who it will be or just
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what force it will be that will destroy the world?
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B: You want to create a panic? That's top secret----want to swamp
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the lifeboats?
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C: O.K. How did them there lifeboats get there in the first place?
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B: Take for instance some Indians in South America I seen. There
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comes along this sloppy cop with his shirt buttons all in the
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wrong hole, well then, Parkinson's law goes into
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operation---there's need not for one cop but seven or eight,
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need for sanitation inspectors, rent collectors, etc.; so after
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a period of years problems arise, crime, dope taking and
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traffic, juvenile delinquency---So the question is asked, "What
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should we do about these problems?" The answer as Gertrude Stein
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on her deathbed said comes before the question--- in short
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before the bastards got there in the first place! that's all---
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G: What do you think Cuba and the FLN think about poets? And what
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do you think their marijuana policy is?
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B: All political movements are basically anti-creative----since a
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political movement is a form of war. "There's no place for
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impractical dreamers around here" that's what they always say.
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"Your writing activities will be directed, kindly stop horsing
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around." "As for the smoking of marijuana, it is the
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exploitation for the workers." Both favor alcohol and are
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against pot.
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C: I feel capitol punishment is dooming U.S.A.
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B: I'm against Capitol Punishment in all forms, and I have written
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many pamphlets on this subject in the manner of Swift's modest
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proposal pamphlet incorporated into Naked Lunch; these pamphlets
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have marked Naked Lunch as an obscene book, most all methods
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of Capitol Punishment are designed to inflict the maximum of
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humiliation---note attempts to prevent suicide.
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G: What advice do you have for American youth who are drawn to
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political action out of sympathy for the American revolution---
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B: "I wouldn't be in your position"---old saw. If there is any
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political move that I would advocate it would be an alliance
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between America and Red China, if they'd have us.
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C: What about the Arab peoples---how are they faring?
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B: They're stuck back thousands of years and they think they're
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going to get out with a TV set.
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C: What about the Negros, will they make it---not only the ones in
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the South, but everywhere?
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B: Biologically speaking the Afro-asiatic block is in the
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ascendancy---always remember that both Negro and White are
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minority groups---the largest race is the mongoloid group. In
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the event of atomic war there is a tremendous biological
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advantage in the so-called underdeveloped areas that have high
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birth rates and high death rate because, man, they can plow
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under those mutations. The country with a low birth rate and low
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death rate will be hardest hit---and so the poor may indeed
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inherit the earth, because they're healthier.
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G: What do you think of White Supremacy?
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B: The essence of white supremacy is this: they are people who want
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to keep things as they are. That their children's children's
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children might be a different color is something very alarming
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to them---in short they are committed to the maintenance of
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static image. The attempt to maintain a static image, even if
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it's a good image, just won't work.
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C: Do you think Americans want and could fight the next war with
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the same fire and fervency as they did in World War 2?
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B: Undoubtedly, yes---because they remember what a soft time they
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had in the last one---they sat on their ass.
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