MINDFUL FACSIMILES

The tail end of my last entry as led me to this one. I’ve always had a “postmodern” fascination with simulacra, since the world seems to have become a place of imitations without originals. A crisis of identity is, to me, what underpins most crises today. The theme comes up so much now that eventually it will no longer be as abstruse and opaque as it’s been for so long. It’s almost a daily mantra now hearing someone whisper, “Damn, who am I?”

For some it festers just under the skin, barely conscious. For far more it’s an existential moment, but for even them it’s pushed away like a bad dream – like postmodernist theory itself. While throwing out the bath water, why not the baby too. It lends weight to that other problem – denial.

Denial or not, the fact is that we’re so deeply cemented into the problem of imitations that it’s become as “natural” as artificial turf, false teeth, monikers, hair dye, contact lenses, sunglasses, and “selfies.” No one notices, no one cares. And even if they did, they’d deny that these are prosthetics. “This is me!!” is an almost expected response.

The fact is, we need to constantly reconstruct ourselves. And why? It seems we’re on an eternal mission to find authenticity. And it seems that it simply doesn’t exist within. First we seek it from without, by validation from others. Then we look for it through projections of ourselves (which we’d like to substitute out in society). What validation we don’t receive from outside we fulfill by ourselves via mental projection.

Some say Narcissus was the first to try. Others say it came much earlier, in all of us – congenitally – through the twin archetype. There’s the argument that single fetuses are conceived as twins, and another that twins are conceived as single fetuses. Who’s to say? But maybe the whole fascination with doubling starts here. And when twins become inseparable in mythology, they often become legendary monsters to one another. They become codependents and objects of fear and loathing at the same time.

Whatever its origins, we’ve become a civilization obsessed with doubling. Self-portraits have always been efforts to extend ourselves either for identification or indemnification. Either way, we’re enamored with mirror likenesses. At the same time, we’re never satisfied because our projections always fall short. So we keep making them.

Then there are puppets who take our names or nom de plumes for the purpose of mutual identification. The author of Pinocchio lost his father as a child and struggled all his life alone. His alter ego seems to have been an effort to re-parent himself. And the fact that we can read four-hundred versions of Pinocchio today (in over 70 languages) says that child neglect and abandonment is not uncommon – nor are a variety of ways in which to attempt re-parenting.

Puppeteering goes back to ancient Rome, used as a literal extension of oneself. Marcus Aurelius mentions “this which pulls the strings is the thing which is hidden within.” There’s even a Biblical reference about “Thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit” And thus begins a long tradition of doppelgangers which initially went so far as to bleed into wandering spirits (dybbukim) and graven images.

We might say it was all about preservation and restoration. But restoration is actually a modern term. In ancient times what was preserved was the sense of wholeness. One “forgot” himself in the sense of becoming empty, to then be filled again (replaced) by his projection. It was a path to psychic completion. The idea of “restoration” itself didn’t begin to take on meaning until more centuries (and history) had passed, where there was sufficient memory of times which had lived and died. In time, a consciousness began growing about (nostalgic and cautionary) comparisons. And with that came the cases for anachronisms, trompe l’oeil, false premonitions, and pseudo-remembrances (“cryptamnesia,” deja-vu, etc).

This is another way of saying that as time progressed, the present became less as less complete on its own. It became measured by the past, by memory, by pressures to return to older ways. Preservation became restoration. And as this transitioned the experience of “fully lived” literal extension shriveled.

By the 18^th century it had disappeared completely. Portraits, statues, and puppets lost their capacity to extend us. No longer divine, their voices were now taken over by ventriloquists. They began appearing on stage, no longer making efforts to hide the difference between the puppet and the puppeteer. It became prototypical vaudeville as audiences enjoyed watching mechanical figures being worked with strings and comic “companions.”

The idea of the parrot “parroting” us was more than just entertainment. Humans talk through the larynx and shape words with the tongue and palate. Parrots talk through the lower part of the trachea which, one could say, made them “the first ventriloquists.” This was the earliest version of the tape recorder – having voices spoken back to us on command. And again, it was an unconscious drive to fill a void through our own sounds.

It approaches the condition of irony just knowing that the first human mimic was not a human at all, but a bird. Perhaps we anthropomorphize animals because our own sounds just aren’t enough. We go back to the primal rain forest to hear “the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature,” said James Boswell.

The obsession with doubling moves on. Why do we see “double?” Why not in triplets? Why do we “ditto” things? Why are there “parallel” universes?” Why do we experience deja–vus? Deja–vu is an intersection of two points of view – past and present, actual and virtual. Why is it never an intersection of three? Perhaps because of double-helixes, dividing cells, and twin planets encircling distant stars. Or maybe because ours is a time of great fragmentation and alienation, and we need to keep our searches down to “one” projection at a time.

It seems to be all about the effort to transcend our voids and trying to get to a higher truth. Which means it’s also about stubbornness and self-preservation, hence the humbling need to reexamine what “preservation” means. There is no instinct more powerful and determined than the need to get back to who we are.

Simulation and virtual extension has its darkest and most dangerous manifestation in warfare. Battles are played out over and over almost like a dark angel trying to understand its purpose. And consider the instruments of modern projection: video monitors, radar systems, infrared gun-sights, nighttime visors, electronic tracking systems, sonar, and satellites – all so realistic that, as many facing computer screens (in “virtual” combat) confess: one can’t tell the difference between a real target and a screen image. Human beings are reduced to inanimate targets in video game format. No remorse, no compunction, no afterthought to killing crowds of people (innocent or not). All that matters is the “score.”

And then there are the museums – going from “wax” to “real-life animatronics.” Not too long ago wax figures were all about the “dead and gone.” It was a necropolis. Now it’s organic. It breathes and responds to stimuli and questions from visitors. It engages people with breathtaking movements. The “living museum” may be the newest oxymoron, but it makes no difference to the visitor/seeker unconsciously in pursuit of something. Lifelike figures are really built to convey and deliver the penultimate message, like a messiah, even if we’re oblivious to what it could possibly be. Absent a messiah, we replace him/her with as many prerecorded alter-egos as necessary to hear a transforming logos.

This is all about a mounting desperation to “touch” something deep. The impostor is less and less fake today, just as the real is less and less real. The ratio between them is in an unnerving free-flotation. And we’ve finally “crossed over” into that space where no one knows where “real” ends and “imitation” begins. The effect has taken us into a free-fall. “What is a fake?” and “who/what is it asking the question in the first place?” So now we’re questioning premises of premises, proofs of proofs – and the whole universe is finally deconstructing.

Ventriloquism, “joyful impostures,” endless contradictions/conundrums — maybe it’s all about backing up instead of moving forward. Maybe backwards IS forward. Maybe the answers lie in the questions, and even more so in who asks them (and why). Who am I to say that I’m not an imitation of an imitation who once went in search of a fool’s errand — an original? Maybe there are none. Maybe there are no answers – not if the question(-er) isn’t even real.

Maybe doubling is about doubling back. The more we try to tell things apart, the deeper we get stuck, the more we search for self-portraits, replications, and mechanical voices – substitutes expected to give us answers about substitutes. And we find ourselves right back where we were – at some place that was supposed to be “of no return.”

Hello! I think I’ve just reintroduced a school of thought we’ve spent the last forty years desperately trying to debunk– postmodernism. Maybe there’s something to it after all.

All that said, we can only appreciate the confusion of identities in the midst of the most mundane of mundane worlds – politics – a universe of cover-ups, hypocrisy, “factual untruths,” and legal legerdemain. Where honesty, trust, and justice are just facades/covers for “winning at all costs.” Where elected leaders are the biggest liars and frauds of all time. And speaking of doubling, I think Richard Cohen (columnist for the Washington Post) described well this world of fake doubles:

“The Washington leaker, a poltergeist with a phone, is sometimes good and sometimes bad but is almost never caught. He or she disappears into the Washington souk, an exotic marketplace where information is traded, character is assassinated and the air is redolent with hypocrisy.”

Washington – where Pinocchios, imitations and fake reconstructions surface every day and without existential worry. Proof that leadership requires absolutely no accountability for “negative” projection: If our own projections are perfect (positive), others must be imperfect (negative). And when projection becomes the American people themselves, citizens had better meet up to the politician’s expectations, or else they’re doomed. They become the evil twin deserving of nothing. One step removed from “self-perfection” is the Pygmalion effect – visualizing/expecting perfection in the negative/ imperfect other.

The press are no different. They are the minions and messengers of everyday projection. Hence they’re also the architects of secrecy which impugns their own character and credibility. And as Ted Gup said in his book Nation of Secrets, “”Today, more than ever, the husbanding of secrets is used not to keep information from America’s enemies but to keep it out of the hands of Americans.” I would go a step further and say it’s to keep secrets about ourselves from ourselves – as we are the enemy.

These are the people whose journey to discovery, through parrots, puppets and ventriloquism, will be an incredibly long road. Eventually, “leadership” for them will come from those they allegedly lead – who have no need for notoriety or public acclaim, who find their power privately, quietly, and without need of validation from a mirror’s reflection. Tragically, “the led” of this kind are few in number, but I think, as we “put on faces” each morning, as we project our graven images, more and more are seeing the hazards of it all. It’s making us mindful. And it’s turning “reflection” into a whole different thing – something coming in instead of going out.

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