Sunday, August 17, 2025
No Exit; be seeing you
Saturday, October 26, 2024
On The Prisoner television show
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McGill University campus, 1940s |
The Beatles “Revolution 9” could be used as a surrealistic sound track, played over a psychedelic montage of images, for Patrick McGoohan’s television drama, The Prisoner (1967-1968). The protagonist in The Prisoner is played by McGoohan, a former secret agent who suddenly resigns his post but offers no explanation for his decision. McGoohan’s former employer finds his sudden resignation suspicious and McGoohan is abducted from his home and finds himself incarcerated at an unknown seaside location referred to as The Village; his identity is also attacked, he is referred to by his new name, Number Six; the head of The Village is, of course, Number One. The Village is a precursor, and suggestive of, the 15-minute city; in this case it is a place to keep former government employees, all with numbers for names, and they live in relative freedom (the freedom of farm animals), socializing, playing chess, reading The Village newspaper, and some inhabitants are informers on other inhabitants of The Village. The Village is no gulag, it might be called a benevolent incarceration, it is comfortable but no one can leave and the authorities are always attempting to either control or get information out of the inhabitants, and they are all prisoners. But Number Six is not a typical inhabitant, he fights back, he tries to escape. When interrogated Number Six repeats, “I Am Not a Number; I Am a Free Man”; his strength lies in his not surrendering to his jailers, his remaining freedom lies in his refusal to give up information about himself. He says, "I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!" The whole series of seventeen episodes is a metaphor for our own existence; who do we believe and what do we believe? There is a penalty for noncompliance with the authorities, it is to be an outcast, detained, attacked, and denied one’s freedom; it is to be gaslighted. While other inhabitants of The Village have been pacified, Number Six constantly challenges the authority of his jailers; he is more determined than the other prisoners. No one escapes from The Village, attempted escape results in being chased down by an ominous giant inflated object called Rover, and inhabitants of The Village are constantly surveilled by CCTV. The Village is a dystopia somewhere between George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; it predates the 15 minute city. What else can we take from The Prisoner? It is that we are now, and have always been, prisoners, prisoners of ideas, race, social class, wealth, privilege or poverty, politics, our birth, gender, age, and/or religion, and this has decided the purpose and meaning of our existence. Our prison is self made and no one can free you but yourself. The Beatles were fans of The Prisoner and a Beatles song, “All You Need is Love”, was played during in the final episode; is it any wonder that the refrain, "Number Nine, Number Nine", is repeated in The Beatles most idiosyncratic song, “Revolution 9”? The Prisoner is both a psychological and political metaphor for contemporary life, now more so than in 1967. I nominate Laurence Fox to play in any remake of The Prisoner or a life of Patrick McGoohan.
Be seeing you.
Friday, September 13, 2024
The overweening desire for fame
What has gone wrong with Western society? Are we in decline or are we just changing? Have we become a society with few moral values or are different moral values evolving? Are we happier, more fulfilled, better people who think of the other person and not just ourselves? Are we happy, or are we just full of ourselves; or do we have no introspection, no self-doubt, and no self-awareness?
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Artificial Intelligence and Poetry
2012 |
It is through human expression that we can defeat the over arching digital tyranny; through joy and poetry we can assert our humanity.
--Richard Olafson, Shifting Towards Vitalism (2023)
In the old days, when home computers were just beginning to be available to the public, some poets made poems using computer technology and their own original programmes; some of these poems were permutations of phrases, some resulted in Surrealistic visual images, and while a few of these poems were interesting they were basically meaningless as poetry and never real poems. Now we’ve moved on to Artificial Intelligence writing, well, anything you want it to write including poetry.
There is a short video on YouTube of Joe Rogan telling us that blood, discovered at the bottom of the Ark of the Covenant, had been analysed and was the blood of Jesus Christ, proving both His divinity and His existence. This video was, of course, a creation of Artificial Intelligence, it was a hoax, an attempt to fool or deceive people. This, and other videos created by Artificial Intelligence, gives one pause, what if this video was of someone in authority making some statement that people believed but it was all lies or propaganda? We are concerned with AI because it is one of the recent technologies that could be disastrous for humanity, and excluding some positive uses the existence of AI, for most people, is frightening, it is to deceive the viewer. What do we believe, and who do we believe, if technology can now perfectly duplicate the voice and facial characteristics of people in authority? Or if AI can write fake texts? There have always been false or fake texts and there will be more in the future generated by AI technology.
Why anyone would want to write AI poems is beyond me, there is no money in poetry, there is no fame, there is nothing to gain except possibly some amusement or novelty. AI can write screen plays, articles for Sports Illustrate magazine and newspapers, content for websites, PhD dissertations, term papers, or whatever someone wants and it is inexpensive, fast, possibly accurate, and he/she doesn't have to do the writing or pay an actual human writer. But poetry? Perhaps because poetry is of increasingly less value to society it is doubtful that anyone will write poems using AI except as a prank, a joke, or out of curiosity. But there is something important to learn from this possible use of Artificial Intelligence and poetry: it is to remember what it means to be human.
Can AI ever write poetry? It is not possible for one reason: poetry is the voice of the human soul and computers don't have souls. Even if computer technology becomes so sophisticated that a computer thinks it is an autonomous human being, that it attains "personhood", it will still not be poetry. Poetry requires a human being writing poems and this requires living in the physical world with real life relationships with other human beings. Even if an intelligent human-looking robot could be created, with built-in AI, it is still a computer and it has no soul. Even if you could programme in the functions of a soul--for instance, compassion, understanding, empathy, emotions, spirituality, awe, a family history, and reflection on the past--and this computer writes "poetry", it is still not poetry, it still can't express what the human soul can express. A human has a biological level of existence and a computer is man-made, it is a machine even if it is the most sophisticated machine made by man. And a computer can never have a style of writing that is honed by experience and a multiplicity of events that organize themselves randomly and are the result of events far too complicated to ever be duplicated or created in themselves. AI and its progression, a humanoid robot, is always manufactured by people, or descended from a generation of computers invented and manufactured by people; it is not created by sexual intercourse, there is no hormonal basis to AI, it has no belief in spirituality (or anything else), it has no traditions whether religious, ancestral, cultural, historical, or genetic that human beings have, and if sometime in the future it has some of these qualities, they will always be artificially created and not the result of human interaction; AI will never have genuine human qualities. Even if one day AI can identify as "human" it is still not the real thing. If we come to a time when computers think they are human beings, or the equivalent of human beings, with free will and emotions and mobility, it is possible that robots will take over from human beings, but even then whatever a robot with AI can express will never be real poetry. AI can write a facsimile poem but never a real poem. By definition only a human being can write a real poem just as only a human being can react to that poem with emotions and human reflection. AI and the human soul are mutually exclusive.
Saturday, November 11, 2023
"the nation is divided . . ."
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The Unicorn Rests in a Garden (or The Unicorn in Captivity) by an unknown artist, 1495–1505 |
When the nation is divided
there is no nation: when history is discarded
the old regret what life has become;
there is no nation when people
have lost belief in the soul; there is no nation
when people are divided and turn on each other;
when the nation turns its back
on what made it a nation
there is no nation:
ships don't reach harbour,
cod fish so plentiful off Nfld's coast are gone,
the massacre of buffalos, a mountain of bones
on a bleak autumn morning,
flash mobs stealing everything from stores,
crows, carrion, and crowds of people
live in darkness,
goodness is ridiculed, vulgarity
celebrated, macabre faces in clouds,
mobs pounding on old people's front doors:
what is old is cancelled
as decreed, as legislated;
and people love ignorance and renounce
their own culture;
they are crossing the bridge
cities burn and the ruins
are ploughed into dust—
11 May 2023
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
"No More Lockdown" by Van Morrison
In NYC |
No more government overreach
No more fascist police
Disturbing our peace
No more taking of our freedom
And our God-given rights
Pretending it's for our safety
When it's really to enslave
Who's running our country?
Who's running our world?
Examine it closely
And watch it unfurl
No more threats
No more imperial college
Scientists making up crooked facts
No more lockdown
No more pulling the wool over our eyes
No more celebrities telling us
Telling us what we're supposed to feel
No more status quo
Put your shoulder to the wind
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more government overreach
No more fascist police
Disturbing our peace
No more taking our freedom
And our God-given rights
Pretending it's for our safety
When it's really to enslave
Who's running our country?
Who's running our world?
Examine it closely
And watch it unfurl
No more threats
No more imperial college scientists
Making up crooked facts
No more lockdown
No more pulling the wool over our eyes
No more celebrities telling us
How we're supposed to feel
No more status quo
Gotta put your shoulder to the wind
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
The Collapse of America
Stephen Morrissey
Canto One
My fault, I fear, I thought that you'd want what I want Sorry, my dear!";
be an entertainer or an actor, "Just around the corner,
There's a rainbow in the sky. So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece o' pie!" There's a future in dancing
and singing, it's the old desperation rag; where are the world's
great leaders? it's all get rich quick, Mammon is god;
"Money for nothing and the sex is free".
When did the Great Decline begin?
Ezra Pound was right about usury, "Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura"; lending money at exorbitant interest rates
is evil, and who benefits? Banks and credit card companies benefit,
both are financial pedophiles grooming the public with advertising,
point awards, vacation packages to exotic places, but only
if you accrue debt on credit, only if you live beyond your means;
half the population is in debt, seduced by VISA, Master Card,
American Express, pay-day lenders, even social media have plans
for their own currency, for a piece of this lucrative deal.
The wealthy, people like Jeffrey Epstein and friends,
slobber down roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,
gravy running down the corners of their mouths,
bottles of wine consumed, while families need
whoever indebts another is evil; credit at 22% and more
is not a service or convenience, it is usury for banks' profit;
dressed in Friday casual wear, blue jeans and a T-shirt,
bankers are the same thugs as loan sharks who break your legs
currency with credit cards and to profit twice from every
financial transaction: 2% or more paid by the stores
and 22% or more paid by consumers on unpaid debt.
This is the evil of our age: bank pimps, money launderers,
and pyramid schemers, all of them whoring for money;
over half the country is in debt and believe they'll always
be in debt; the banks' formula for success: the interest
they are owed must always be increasing and greater
than the amount borrowed; and get the suckers to pay up,
and better yet, get them to borrow from one credit card
to pay a second credit card; pay interest on the interest;
corporate profit not one billion but 10 billion
per quarter. The banks are angry when you can't pay,
they meet you in the manager's office
for the ritual of cutting up your credit cards,
the disapproving branch manager and the failed
financial adviser are present with their twisted
moral turpitude, they are angry because they've lost
collecting the usurious interest that you once paid;
the old morality, save for the future, self-denial,
live within your means, now impossible;
only deadbeats pay their monthly balance;
average people driving to work in second hand cars,
their children at state run schools, parents
who don't want their children deprived of the stuff
not even a poor house or debtors prison for refuge,
now it's a back lane, a bus shelter, a park bench,
the back seat of a car, a tent in a city park;
and always more consumer goods, more stuff to buy,
all of it made on the cheap in foreign countries,
seducing average people into perpetual debt
and keeping them there.
Canto Eight
Canto Ten
Spirit is destroyed, people shuffling
through the streets staring at iPhones;
two evils: perpetual war and perpetual debt;
constant propaganda to keep people
popular entertainment seducing people
to buy what they don't need, to believe
what few believed in the past, to accept values
that their parents, grandparents,
even their ancestors just off the boat
would find horrifying; the edifice of state
is collapsing, a circus tent with elephants
standing upright on their hind legs;
a metaphor for death, white face and a red
downturned mouth, a single tear painted
under the left eye, and the tent collapsing
trapping everyone inside—it's Grand Guignol,
Judas Iscariot, and newly hired concentration
camp workers, cameras on everyone, the guy
at the next urinal is a state spy, workers
for the government's Public Scrutiny Department
at Hell Incorporated; a danse macabre,
the collapsing tent, manipulation of people
for the enrichment of the few, politicians fellating
each other in public toilets; Professor so and so
says these are brilliant poems you've written,
deconstructions of telepathically received
gibberish; history rewritten by government hacks;
the informer is your father hiding behind a curtain
in your living room, he's eager to turn you in;
CCTV cameras on every block recording
who does what, who goes where, algorithms
to detect dissent and control behaviour;
everything you say will be used against you;
I hear the anthem of the New American Republic,
sung by a hundred thousand upright members of society,
defined our society in the past has been downgraded
from mediocre to obsolete; someone is planning
a future where everyone looks the same, blonde hair
mannequins with blank stares and always smiling
with the whitest teeth possible; they think
this is just great, folks, it's never been better!
Canto Thirteen
darkness in the dead of night,
a dying man's final breath,
Lying on a deserted beach, a dead fish with a belly full
of maggots; politicians are smooth talkers
but as for truth, they have none;
a stinking corpse dumped on the side
of the road. Divide people into two groups:
the other are the politicians, out for power,
spending other people's money, taxed at source,
legislating for perpetual debt, no altruism
or benevolence but for self-gain.
It was no different in the past, in the old days
when a circus tent was set up in a farmer's field,
near the cattle pens at the railroad station,
with the sun setting on the other side of the field,
and entering this tent the locals were sold
fake remedies for arthritis, bad nerves,
or impotence by hucksters and liars;
and during elections, politicians gave speeches
at the rear of passenger trains crossing the country
and crowds eager to hear these speeches;
even the towns were divided in two,
on one side of the tracks those with money
and on the other side is where the poor lived;
but still the yokels cheered hearing of reform and a society
in which promises would be fulfilled for the betterment
of the people, but it rarely happened that way:
the circus tent collapsed during the second
performance of the evening, clowns and animal trainers
spitting up bile and blood, then the apocalyptic fire,
as the sun appeared on the horizon,
and embers floating into the sky;