DAEDARUS, OR A SCHIZOPHRENICS GUIDE TO POLITICS

DAEDARUS, OR A SCHIZOPHRENICS GUIDE TO POLITICS

(Short story)

Benoy P.J

The RP(Rescue Party) was formed as an answer to all the problems of our society, or so its proponents were want to claim, including the problem of ‘politics’.  Daedarus’s responses to the existence of the party was somewhat mixed, at times he would appear as an onlooker during a public meeting held by the party, some of his friends would join in a procession or so, Daedarus may also be seen gazing at the procession of its opponents, the Freedom Party (FP), and as to his leanings nothing definitely could be said, other than that he was omnipresent even in gatherings were nothing was spoken for or against anything. That he did not even have a definite shape or skin colour and could easily dissolve into any gathering as a faceless apparition decisively influencing its policies was obvious, since almost all political or individual decisions taken after his coming to be in the year 0000 was in someway or other influenced by him. A contraption of many faces, who could make each of them his own, who at the same time remained faceless, submerged partially in each one, and never completely available, Daedarus however seemed to possess a male gender identity. However, some of the Daedarus clones were female, and as to the clones, they were never in anyway similar to each other in physical appearance or mental makeup. Apocalypse was always a part of their makeup, and an element of Manicheanism inherent almost as if it were a generic/genetic trait. Daedarus fixed objects and people to their original places, as if they were held there by a secret twine, though Daedarus itself , it could be easily made out, was simulacral, without any original.   

Conceived by some as an anagram, Daedarus motions continuously at subordinating human potentials and possibilities to suit its ‘Superiorism’ and through the clones who work in concert with ‘MF’ and ‘A.L’ personae constantly erects projects which would appear to be emancipatory or conservative according to the requirement of the day, and would inspire crowds into responses of some frantic variety from which they could seldom back off. The ‘Show Down’ was one of the regularly occurring terms in any Daedarus Dictionary, often reduced to a colloquial ‘Shadun’ through which the designs of the clan could be precipitated. The ‘shadun event’ was conceived as a point were ordinary reasoning would be cancelled through the workings of a populist outcry, vehemently fought for and argued but totally meaningless. Panicked responses, demolitions and pogroms or genocides and further advances of State power were never too far off from its repertorie, but such events could never be traced to any singular origin.

The congregations of the Daedarus clones were of a highly secretive order, and as to whether there have ever been any, one could never be sure. Very often the clones worked independently, argued themselves into distinct positions, and fought amongst themselves, and seldom recognized each other as of a common kind, so that the policies could be carried out through groups which were totally antagonistic to each other, each leading to some new possibility of making impossible any political / social/ religious congregation. It is not that all such projects were established by the Daedarus clones, that would be too farfetched and would reduce all the possibilities to a singular active agency, which was far from the truth, but whatever efforts and pursuits were generated by society at large would soon be parodied and deflected in such a way that effective congregations would turn out to be impossible.

Further, the Daedarus effect was to generate its own projects with heatedly argued positions that made everything appear to be dependent on the outcome of such an event, that almost anybody will have to take a stand on the proposed project, which, if it were to be pursued further would prove itself to be totally absurd and contradictory and in the interests of the superiorism that it tends to propound. Sometimes projects which were already on the way would be usurped by the Daedarus clones active in it through their ‘true dedication’, ‘high morality’, ‘selfless work’ and so on which were qualities that seemed to be lacking in almost anybody else in the movement, since ordinary people tended to proceed from a frugal economy that necessitated some sort of material- cash support for their activity. The clones (also called Klons, improving upon their predecessors in the KKK.) were always well empowered in terms of knowledge, had a fad for high culture, and would be adept at the argumentation of petty details. Alternately they would argue for the merits of populist culture but were generally contemptuous of what they called D-Culture or degraded culture of the popular variety, which would somehow tend to undermine SS-Culture (Superiorist/ Supremacist culture).

It would be a mistake if someone were to look up Daedarus in the telephone directory, because there either was no person at all in that name or there were too many. So much so that if you were to call out “Daedarus….” in a crowd, at least a dozen people would look back at you, and you will never be able to find out as to how many of those who looked were named Daedarus, and how many of those not named Daedarus were actually Daedaruses, and of those named Daedarus how many had merely happened to be so named, since the name had turned out to be a popular one in the land of Constipancy.

A constipality was the local body that would regulate the problematics for a legitimate expression in the region, rendering a whole lot of possible everyday behaviour as placed on the brink of criminality. For example, the willful use of cigarettes for smoking in public places was considered unlawful, whereas the consumption of any amount of smoke as was produced regularly in an industrial situation was termed mandatory. If someone were to consume poison for committing suicide, that is definitely punishable , but if the farmers , industrialists, the State etc., found it necessary to treat their products with high amounts of toxic materials, the effects that these produced on you will escape all notice. Though the logic of the Constipality was essentially that of subordination and tyranny, the constipants were to present themselves as benevolent and respectful of the commonfolk wherever the appearance suited them, as a means to entice them or suspend disbelief in the system.

The Constipancy effectively utilized a system called tongue wag or surround sound to bring order to its precincts, and apart from the Daedarus klons (who were more active in the construction or elaboration of plots) would employ other varieties of personae including the MFs, A.Ls, appeasers, X-fixers, diggers, sniffers and poison sacs among others to actualize these programs. Any actual person, could at sometime or the other be  co-opted into one of these positions since the operation of the system was essentially based on partial observers and knowledges and totalizing was well near impossible due to the vast multiplicity of forces and relations at work. On the other hand there was also the prospect of a klon, digger, sniffer or poison sac crossing over and becoming a generator or precipitator.

The kind of playfulness and camaraderie exhibited by an appeaser towards the generator/s is effective in drawing out the generator towards vulnerable positions, which the appeaser then manipulates cleverly to turn the table on him. Subversive and transgressive aspects of practice are doubled back to the avant-garde as a retro effect through populist sneering. While the appeaser has a sugar coated style of functioning the denouncer or poison sac uses his sting to make the subject wince. The immediate pleasantness of an appeaser is meant to create a friendly impression on the person who is under ‘training’ so that their rebuttal would emotionally affect the generator to a greater extent.

The digger, as the name foretells is an individual/ group of individuals employed to fish out details regarding a particular individual/group of individuals (Generators) who are active in social/ political/religious life going back to their entire life with inspection glasses alongside sniffers who work around aspects of personal behaviour such as sexual preferences, habitual responses, political attitudes etc., and MF and A.L personae who work to generate/ influence the opinion of the Generator in favour of Power and also to maintain constant pressure over individuals through the deployment of surround sound / tongue wag that is constantly reworking public opinion around him/ her. The Generator him/her self is someone in whom the Daedarus system perceives an original intent and line of flight which could countermand/ upset the organization of Superiorism, and by actively working on and around him/her employing devices generated from allusions to possible biographies (the Narcissus ploy) producing a constant tension and confusion so that the effectivity of the individual and of such projects are questioned and the threat is diffused, the mechanism of correction works towards what is in its terminology ‘The Wonderful Tomorrow’.

An archive of the historian of daedarucy would contain anything from billboards, gestures, responses, accusations, trials, number games, symbols, vehicles, names, meetings, performances, Gestapo, undergarments, doodles, eating habits, intoxicated responses, praise, suggestion, anything that can contribute to a historicism of the everyday world. Is Ramu Daedarus? I cannot make sure, since the prospect of him turning into a generator is never too far off. But in this case, and in all cases we will have to decide this since the continued well being of the whole world is dependent on this. But who will eventually decide this? And even if there remains the prospect of there being such a person, how can one be at all sure that he himself/ herself is not daedarus, or maybe just an MF personae? This is why I am want to say that the world is a figment of our imaginations, gentlemen!    

To point out certain types in this raw game and what cooks for those who cook wouldn’t in anyway preclude the chance that none of these types are at all openly perceivable, and that only individuals exist, and that individuals are too complex to be reduced to schemata/ phenotypes. However with the hindsight that a more relativistic vision provides, I would like to pursue these enquiries so that the truth of what appears to be nonsense surfaces and much of what had hitherto appeared to be true to commonsense can eventually be seen in a different light.

It may be difficult to stand by madness against reason as I am here proposing, but that is what I am about to do, to be madder still so that the madness that is reason may sleep on or take wings as is necessary. The perception of such sociological facts compound the difficulties herein,  and in the aftermath the author is already on the verge of regaining illogicity . Thank you.