The Longing for Fathers

  

I and My Kind inherited a utopia 

built on Human Suffering. 

Mine is NOT any 

World You Know.

— Overman

[Borg operating room]

(The entity originally Picard is being augmented. 

He gets a prosthetic forearm with attachments, 

and his skin turns white. 

A single tear rolls from his eye.)

“Real Policemen, of course,

Don’t DO This, 

they go around 

in pairs.”

— Kim Newman,

Commentary Track,

Exorcist III : LEGION

Robocop :

Aim for Me.

Submission to 

a Loving Authority.

It's okay not to know 

what you want. 

No, I know what I want. 

I know EXACTLY what 

I want right now. 

What's that? 

It's BAD. 

It's okay. 

I want someone to tell me 

What to Wear in The Morning. 

[HE LAUGHS] 

Okay, well, I think there 

are people who can —

No, I want someone to tell me 

what to wear every morning. 

I want someone to 

tell me what to eat, 

what to like, what to hate, 

what to rage about, 

what to listen to, 

what band to like, 

what to buy tickets for, 

what to joke about, 

what not to joke about. 

I want someone to tell me 

what to believe in, 

who to vote for, 

and who to love, 

and how to tell them. 

I just think I want 

someone to tell me 

How to Live My Life, Father, because 

so far I think I've been 

getting it wrong. 

And I know that's why people 

want people like you in their lives. Because you just tell them 

How to Do It. 

You just tell them 

What to Do, and 

What They'll Get 

out of the end of it. 

And even though I don't believe 

your bullshit, 

and I know that scientifically,

nothing I do 

makes any difference 

in the end anyway, 

I'm still scared! 

Why am I still so scared?! 

So just tell me 

what to do. 

Just fucking tell me 

what to do, Father! 

Kneel. 

What? 

Kneel. 

Just kneel.

"Almost all of The Book was based on stories my friends told me and stunts we pulled together. The rest was just a matter of looking for the themes, the topics that brought people together in Excited Conversations.

The Longing for Fathers 

was a theme I heard a lot.

The Resentment of Lifestyle Standards imposed by Advertising was another.

The Goal all along was to write a novel based on Being with People and Listening to Them. That's why so much of Fight Club was written In Public, at parties, in bars, at the gym, at work."

-- Palahniuk 

….Yes, it was a Day of Mourning 

for the families of 113 people 

known dead at this hour, 

among them, 

Two former United States Presidents 

who had retired in the Santa Barbara area.

A Day of Mourning for Our Country.

Police Union representatives and OCP continue negotiations today in hopes of averting a citywide Strike by Police, scheduled to begin Tomorrow at Midnight.

Justin Ballard-Watkins has more :

‘They're still On Duty, 

but what about Tomorrow?’

That's The Question we put to people in the crime-plagued 

Lexington area —

“They're Public Servants.

They got Job Security.

They're not supposed to strike.”

“It's a Free Society, 

except there ain't nothin' Free,

'cause there's No Guarantees, you know?

You're on Your Own.

It's The Law of The Jungle."

Be very careful.

Excuse me, please.

They must be remodeling.

Hiya, Barbara.

Listen, I'm here to see Dick Jones.

But when I'm done,

I've got some free time.

Maybe you could fit me in.

He's expecting you, Mr. Boddicker.

You can keep The Gum.

This looks good.

Get a measurement on that.

Bring a hammer, too.

Hey, Dickie boy. How's Tricks?

That Thing is Still Alive.

I don't know what you're talking about.

The Police Officer who arrested you, 

The one you spilled your guts to.

Hey. Take a look at My Face, Dick.

He was Trying to Kill Me.

He's a Cyborg, You Idiot.

He recorded every word you said.

His Memory's Admissible as Evidence.

You involved me.

You're gonna have to Kill It.

Listen, Chief.

Your Company built the fucking thing.

Now I gotta deal with it?

I don't have time for this bullshit.

Suit yourself, Clarence.

But Delta City begins construction 

in two months.

That's 2 Million Workers 

living in Trailers.

That means drugs, gambling, prostitution.

Virgin Territory for 

The Man who knows 

how to open up new markets.

One Man could Control it All, Clarence.

I guess we're gonna 

be Friends after all, Richard.

Destroy It.

Gonna need some major firepower.

You got access to military weaponry?

We practically are The Military.

The Policeman :

Did You bring The Gun?

Partner :

The Precinct was deserted.

Half The Force didn't 

Show up for Work Today.

Everyone else Walks Out at Midnight.

I guess We're on Strike.

I wasn't sure What You Needed.

I sort of grabbed things.

Your Gun.

You asked for this?

(She produces from her bags several jars of pureed Orange & Apricot-Flavoured RoboCop Baby-Food.)

Partner :

I Brought You 

Some Food.

The Policeman :

No, Thank You --

I'm not hungry.

You may not like 

What You're Going to See.

Using the pit-mechanic's power-drill,

he begins to methodically 

unscrew and then remove 

his plate-armoured facial visor, 

one long retaining-screw at a time,

until finally --

Partner :

It's really Good to See You Again, Murphy.

The Policeman :

Murphy, had a Wife and Son --

What happened to them?

Partner :

....after The Funeral, 

she moved away.

The Policeman :

Where Did They Go?

Partner :

She Thought You were Dead.

....She started-over again.

The Policeman :

I can Feel Them.

But I can't Remember Them.

……Leave Me alone.

The Handless Maiden

 

"You will produce a 

Handless Maiden,

every day of Your Life --

You set aside some 

Feeling-Function,

in favour of better 

Productivity of Your Mill.

And to clinch it off -- if you trace back 

The Origin of The Word 'Mechanical',

to it's Greek origin, 'machinae',

'To Trick" --

Now, there's nothing wrong with 

The Mechanics of Life --

There's nothing wrong with 

The Mechanical Thing --

But there is everything wrong 

with The Mechanical Attitude."

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, I think that Star Wars is a valid mythological perspective. 

It shows The State 

as A Machine and asks: 

Is The Machine going 

to crush Humanity, 

or Serve humanity? 

And Humanity comes 

not from The Machine, 

but from The Heart.

(Clip from Star Wars)

VADER: 

Luke. Help Me to 

Take This Mask Off.

LUKE SKYWALKER: 

But You’ll Die.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I think it was 

in The Return of the Jedi when 

Skywalker unmasks His Father. 

The father had been playing one of these Machine roles, a state role. He was the uniform, you know? And the removal of that mask, there was an undeveloped man there, there was a kind of a worm. By being executive of a system, one is not developing one’s humanity. I think that George Lucas really, really did a beautiful thing there.

BILL MOYERS: 

The idea of machine is the idea that we want the world to be made in our image, and what we think the world ought to be.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, the first time anybody made a tool, I mean, taking a stone and chipping it so that you can handle it, that’s the beginning of a machine. It’s turning outer nature into your service. But then there comes a time when it begins to dictate to you. I’m having a bit of struggle with my computer, actually.

BILL MOYERS: 

Your computer?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I just bought one a couple of months ago, and I can’t help thinking of it as having a personality there, because it talks back, and it behaves in a whimsical way, and all of that. So I’m personifying that machine. To me, that machine is almost alive. I could mythologize that damn thing.

BILL MOYERS: 

There was a wonderful story about, I think, President Eisenhower, when the computer was first being built. You remember that story?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Eisenhower went into a room full of computers, and he puts a question to these machines, “Is there a God?” And they all start up and there’s all those lights flashing and wheels turning and things like that, and after about 10 minutes of that kind of thing, a voice comes forth, and the voice says, “Now there is.”

Well, I bought this wonderful machine, IBM machine, and it’s there. 

And I’m rather an authority on gods, 

so I identified The God, 

and it seems to me to be

An Old Testament God 

with a lot of rules, 

and no mercy.

BILL MOYERS: 

It’s unforgiving, isn’t it.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Catch you picking up sticks 

on Saturday and you’re out,

that’s all….

BILL MOYERS: 

But isn’t it possible to develop toward the computer, the computer you’re wrestling with at this very moment, isn’t it possible to develop the same kind of attitude of the Pawnee chieftain who said that in the legends of his people, all things speak of Tirawa, all things of speak of God. 

It wasn’t a special privileged revelation, 

God is everywhere 

in His Works, including 

The Computer.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, indeed so. I mean, the miracle of what happens on that screen, you know, have you ever looked inside one of those things?

BILL MOYERS: 

No.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

You can’t believe it. It’s a whole hierarchy of angels, all on slats, and those little tubes, those are miracles, those are miracles, they are.

BILL MOYERS: 

One can feel a sense of awe.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, I’ve had a revelation from my computer about mythology, though. 

You buy a certain software, and there’s a whole set of signals that lead to the achievement of your aim, you know. And once you’ve set it for, let’s say, DW3, enter, if you begin fooling around with signals that belong to another system, they just won’t work, that’s all. You have a system there, a code, a determined code that requires you to use certain terms.

Now, similarly in mythology, each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work. It’ll work. But suppose you’ve chosen this one. Now, if a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he’d better stay with the software that he’s got. 

But a chap like myself, 

who likes to play with —

BILL MOYERS: 

Cross the wires?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The various softwares, I can run around, but I probably will never have an experience comparable to that of a saint.

BILL MOYERS: 

But do you think that The Machine is inventing new myths for us,

 or that we with The Machine are inventing new myths?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

No. The myth has to incorporate 

the machine.

BILL MOYERS: 

A pagan deity?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Just as the old myths incorporated the tools that people used, the forms of the tools and so forth are associated with power systems that are involved in the culture. We have not a mythology that incorporates these. The new powers are being, so to say, surprisingly announced to us by what the machines can do. We can’t have a mythology for a long, long time to come; things are changing too fast. The environment in which we’re living is changing too fast for it become mythologized.

BILL MOYERS: 

How do we live without myths, then?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, we’re doing it.

The individual has to find the aspect of myth that has to do with the conduct of his life.

 There are a number of services that myths serve. 

The basic one is opening the world to the dimension of mystery. If you lose that, you don’t have a mythology, to realize the mystery that underlies all forms. 

But then there comes the cosmological aspect of myth, seeing that mystery as manifest through all things, so that the universe becomes as it were a holy picture, you are always addressed to the transcendent mystery through that. 

But then there’s another function, and that’s the sociological one, of validating or maintaining a certain society. That is the side of the thing that has taken over in our world.

BILL MOYERS: 

What do you mean?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Ethical laws, the laws of life in the society, all of Yahweh’s pages and pages and pages of what kind of clothes to wear, how to behave to each other, and all that, do you see, in terms of the values of this particular society. But then there’s a fourth function of myth, and this is the one that I think today everyone must try to relate to, and that’s the pedagogical function. 

How to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. 

Myth can tell you that.

We Meant it for The Best.... To Make People Safer.

 

This Boat is My Home --

You All are Guests on it.

That Don't Include You 

'less I Conjure it Does.

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

I'm sorry. 

"If your quarry goes to ground, 

leave no ground to go to." 

You should have taken My Offer. 

Or did you think 

none of this was 

your fault? 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

I don't murder children. 

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

•I• do -- If I have to.

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

Why? 

Do you even know 

why they sent you? 

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

It's not My Place to ask. 

I Believe in 

Something Greater Than Myself. 

A Better World. 

A World without Sin. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

So Me and Mine gotta lay down and die 

so you can Live in Your ‘Better World’? 

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

I'm not going to live there. 

There's no place for me there, 

any more than there is for you.

Malcolm — 

I'm a MONSTER. 

What I Do is EVIL. 

I have no illusions about it, 

but it Must Be Done. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

Keep Talking. 

You're not getting a location trace 

off this wave. 

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

And every minute you keep 

River Tam from me, 

MORE people will DIE. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

You think I care? 

An Operative of 

The Parliamentary Alliance :

Of course you care. 

You're not a Reaver, Mal. 

You're A Human Man 

and you will never understand how... 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

Get these bodies together. 

We got time for grave digging? 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

Zoe, You and Simon rope them together. 

Five or six. 

I want them laid out 

on the nose of Our Ship. 

Zoe Washburne :

Are you insane? 

I won't desecrate these bodies.

 

Simon Tam :

I don't understand. 

What do you mean, the bodies... 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

I want you to muck up the reactor core. 

Just enough to leave a trail and make it read like we're flying without containment, 

not enough to fry us. 

Kaylee :

These people are Our Friends. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

Kaylee -- you got a day's work to do 

and two hours to do it. 

Jayne, you and Wash hoist up 

The Cannon Mount. Goes right on top. 

Piece or two of the other ship, stick it on. 

Any place you can tear hull 

without inner breach, do that, too. 

We're gonna need paint. 

We're gonna need red paint. 

Sir... 

Do you really mean to turn Our Home into an abomination so that we can make a suicidal attempt at passing through Reaver Space? 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

I mean to Live. 

I mean for Us to Live. 

The Alliance won't have that, 

so We go where They don't follow. 

God's balls, there ain't no way 

we're going out there. 

Mal, think about what you're asking. 

...those Reavers'll eat us alive... 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

This is How it Is. 

Anybody doesn't wanna fly with me anymore... 

This is your Port of Harbour. 

There's a lot of fine ways to die. 

I ain't waiting for the Alliance to choose mine. 

I mean to confound these bungers. 

Take my shot at getting to Miranda. 

Maybe find something I can use 

to get clear of this. 

So I hear a word out of any of you 

that ain't helping me out 

or taking your leave, 

I will shoot you down. 

Get to Work. 

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds :

This report is maybe twelve years old. Parliament buried it, 

and it stayed buried 'til River dug it up. 

This is what they feared she knew. 

And they were right to fear, 

'cause there's a whole universe of folk 

who are gonna know it too. 

They're gonna see it. 

Somebody has to 

Speak for These People.

Y'all got on This Boat 

for different reasons, 

but y'all are come to 

The Same Place. 

So now I'm asking more of you 

than I have before. Maybe all. 

'Cause as sure as I know anything 

I know this: 

They Will Try Again. 

Maybe on Another World, 

maybe on this very ground, swept clean. 

A year from now, ten, 

They'll swing back to The Belief that They can make people... better. 

And I do not hold to that.

So no more running. 

I aim to misbehave.

Very Funny Religion...

Grand Moff Tarkin Talks to Lord Vader - 

Star Wars: Episode IV

LORD Da'ath VADER : 

HE, is Here.

Imperial Grand-Moff 

Governor TARKIN : 

Obi-Wan Kenobi?

What makes you Think So?

LORD Da'ath VADER :

A Tremor in The Force.

The Last Time I Felt it, 

was in The Presence 

of My Old Master.

Imperial Grand-Moff Governor TARKIN : 

Surely, he must be dead by now.

LORD Da'ath VADER :

Don't Underestimate The Force.

And I Warn You, Tarkin -- 

Do Not Call Me 'Shirley', Again.

Imperial Grand-Moff Governor TARKIN : 

The Jedi are Extinct. 

Their Fire has gone out of The Universe.

You, My Friend, 

are all that's left 

of Their Religion.

Yes?

Officer of The Watch :

We have an Emergency Alert 

in Detention Block AA-23.

Imperial Grand-Moff 

Governor TARKIN : 

The Princess? 

Put all sections on alert.

LORD Da'ath VADER :

Obi-Wan is Here.

The Force is with Him.

Imperial Grand-Moff Governor TARKIN : 

If you're right, 

he must not be allowed to escape.

LORD Da'ath VADER :

Escape is Not His Plan.

I, Must Face Him, Alone.

I Have a Good Feeling about This.

“You get a totally different civilization, 

a totally different way 

of living according to Your Myth 

as to whether Nature is Fallen 

or whether Nature is itself a

Manifestation of Divinity, 

and The Spirit being The Revelation of 

The Divinity That’s 

Inherent in Nature.” 

— Joseph Campbell

"I once heard a wonderful lecture by Daisetz Suzuki, 

you remember, this wonderful old 

Zen philosopher, who was over here. 

He was in his 90s. 

He started to lecture in Switzerland 

that I heard in Ascona. 

He stood up with his hands on his side, and he said, 

“God against Man —

Man against God —

Man against Nature —

Nature against Man —

Nature against God —

God against Nature —

Very funny religion.....”

Now, in the other mythologies, 

One puts Oneself 

in accord with The World. 

If The World is a mixture 

of Good and Evil, 

you do not put yourself 

in accord with it. 

You Identify 

with The Good 

and You Fight 

against The Evil.

And this is a religious system 

which belongs to The Near East, 

following Zarathustra’s Time. 

It’s in the Biblical Tradition, 

all the way, in Christianity 

and in Islam as well. 

This business of 

not being with Nature, 

and we speak with sort of derogation of 

“The Nature Religions.”

You see, with that 

Fall in The Garden, 

Nature was regarded as corrupt. 

There’s a Myth for you that 

Corrupts The Whole World for Us. 

And every Spontaneous Act is Sinful, 

Because Nature is Corrupt 

and 

Has to be Corrected, 

Must not be yielded-to. 

You get 

A Totally Different Civilisation, 

a totally different way of living 

according to your myth as to whether 

Nature is Fallen or whether Nature is itself 

A manifestation of divinity, 

and The spirit being the revelation of the divinity that’s inherent in nature.