We Should Take Care of Each Other

“ We should Take Care 

of each-other…

Wouldn’t it be nice to be like, 

“Remember that time,

They wuz’ gonna Kill Jesus 

but then He got 

all that Money?”

[laughing] 

Real Talk, man. It’s not a racial thing. 

It’s about Us, making 

Our Society better. 

It’s about like even 

these women that 

are coming forward, 

and everyone says "They’re Brave.", 

and many of them are. 

And a few of them – a few of them sucked The Dick and got 

buyer’s remorse. 

[laughing]

You know, that’s a huge omission from This Narrative : —

This wouldn’t have gone this far 

if some women weren’t willing to DO it. 

You can’t ask every woman 

to Hold The Line. 

Some Women can carry things 

heavier than others. 

So, We should fight 

for one another. 

We should forgive 

the ones of us 

that are weaker and 

support the ones of us 

that are stronger. 

And then we can beat The Thing. 

If you guys keep going 

after individuals, 

The System is going 

to stay intact. 

You have to have Men 

on Your Side. 

And I’m Telling You right now, 

you’re gonna have a lot 

of imperfect allies.

I’ll tell you What Happened, 

but I can’t say it directly : 

There’s a book to me that encapsulates my entire experience -- before I left The Show. 

And the book is called 'Pimp'. 

It’s written by a guy named Iceberg Slim. 

Yeah, bring it up here. 

This is Matthew. 

Matthew’s from France. He’s White. 

And yet, he has an 

original copy of 

this book 

written by a black 

American who was 

a pimp in the ’40s. Iceberg Slim. 

His real name was Robert Beck -- 

He got the name 'Iceberg' because he was in a bar in Chicago, 

and there was a shootout in the bar, 

and a bullet went through this n i g g a’s hat, 

and he still finished His Drink. 

Pimps love shit like that. 

They said, “Man, 

You’re Ice-Cold.” 

And he said, “I Like that.” 

And it stuck.

This book is so heavy in the front and has a glossary of pimp terms, because the ideas are so foreign to the American ears. 

For instance, do you know what the phrase 

“mileage on a ho” means? 

[laughing] 

Of course you don’t. 

Mileage on a ho is a very wild concept. 

It means that, 

Pimps understand there’s a finite amount of bad shit a person can do before they lose their fucking mind. 

And a good pimp can 

look at A Woman 

that he’s never seen 

before, and Call it : 

"She’s Good for 500 fucks." 

That’s her mileage —

Anything over that, 

that bitch is gonna spill. 

They Do it to You -- 

Why the fuck you think most of us work from nine to five? 

‘Cause nine to six 

might kill a bitch. 

[laughing]

Iceberg Slim was the one 

that broke down what 

A Bottom-Bitch was. 

Does anyone know what a

Bottom-Bitch is? Anyone? 

What’s a Bottom-Bitch, sir? 

"It’s your, uh– 

it’s your prostitute 

that’s the best out 

of all of ’em, 

that bring in the 

most money."

That’s right. That’s exactly right. Are you Black? 

[laughing] 

That’s right. 

A Bottom-Bitch is a pimp’s Number-one Ho. 

She’s even a bitch 

that helps him keep 

the other bitches 

in Line. I will repeat. 

She’s even the bitch 

that helps him 

keep the other 

bitches in line. 

If The Pimp was McDonald’s, 

then the Bottom-Bitch is his French fries. [laughing] 

The rest of them bitches like fish sandwiches and 

cherry pies and 

shit like that. [laughing]

Iceberg Slim breaks down 

some of the coldest 

Capitalist Concepts I’ve 

ever heard in My Life. 

He describes in detail how

 these men break women so that 

they will give them the money 

that they make with their own bodies. 

There’s A Story in here so cold, 

it makes me shudder 

to think about it -- 

Iceberg Slim is trying to Control The Woman that 

he finds uncontrollable. 

So he asks an older pimp how he can rein her in. 

And the older pimp says, 

“Oh, that’s easy, Iceberg -- All you have to do, 

is beat that bitch with 

a coat-hanger -- and then 

run her a bath -- and 

give her some pills.... 

She’ll be so grateful 

that You Fixed her, 

that she’ll forget 

You were The Motherfucker 

that beat her in 

the first place.” 

That’s some cold shit.

Now. At the end of this book, Iceberg Slim tells A Story. It’s kind of the crescendo of the book. 

And in The Story, 

Iceberg Slim’s bottom bitch is at the end of her mileage -- If she was good for 500 fucks, she was at for 498. 

[laughing] 

She was bubbling, you could see it. She was going crazy. 

She started saying all kinds of shit. 

“I always wanted to be in The Circus.” 

"Circus..!? This bitch is losing it." 

[laughing] 

“I can juggle, too, you know?” 

Juggle? 

[laughing] 

He had to let her go. 

It was hard to let a bottom bitch go, 

and he wasn’t ready to let her go, 

because his organization couldn’t handle losing her. 

But she didn’t know that. 

She didn’t know how important she was. 

So what he did was, he called her to ignite her -- 

He said, “Look, bitch, you and I got to part ways.” 

She said, 

“Fine, motherfucker, I don’t need you anyway, 

because I know somebody at Ringling Brothers.” 

He was like, 

“All right, whatever." 

[laughing] 

"I got one last trick for you. It’s a big money trick. 

You do this for me, 

You get paid, I get paid, 

and we go our separate ways.” 

She said, 

“Fine, motherfucker, what do you want me to do?” 

He said, 

“Okay, there’s a guy in that hotel across the street --

He’s waiting for you in room number seven : 

I want you to go over there and fuck him....

But before you do, I need you to 

put some of this stuff in his drink. 

And then he’s gonna fall asleep. 

When he does, 

his briefcase on his bed, 

bring the briefcase to me. 

That’s the trick, bitch. Can you handle it?” 

She said, 

“Fuck yeah, I can. I can’t wait to get rid of you.” 

And then she ran outside, 

jumped on a unicycle and peddled across the street. 

[laughing] 

And Iceberg watched her. He’s like, 

“Man, she’s pretty good.” 

[laughing] 

“If I never jerked off in her face, 

maybe she would’ve been in The Circus, now.” 

[laughing] [laughs]

And she runs up the motel steps 

and disappears in room number seven. 

She’s gone for a real long time. Real long time. 

So long, in fact, that Iceberg got a little worried. 

But then, suddenly, she came back. 

[gasps] 

He says, 

“Where’s the briefcase?” 

She said, 

“I didn’t get it, Daddy.” 

“What do you mean you didn’t? What’s wrong with you?” 

She said, 

“I did everything you said, 

but that man don’t look right -- 

Something Wrong, Daddy.” 

“What do you mean? Did you put that stuff in his drink?” 

“I did everything you said, Daddy, 

I put all of it in his drink.” 

He said, 

“Wait a minute, bitch, you put all of it in his drink?” 

Now he had to see for himself. 

So the two of them go to the motel, and they go into room number seven. 

And on the bed laying lifelessly is the white man that she was supposed to fuck. 

Iceberg said, 

“You right, bitch. He don’t look good. What the fuck?” 

So he called a friend of his that was a doctor that was close by. 

And the doctor came in, gave the guy a thorough examination and told them both what was obvious : 

“Slim, this motherfucker is dead.” 

“Oh, God, Daddy. Oh, no. 

Oh, no. We killed him!” 

He said, 

“Calm down, bitch -- We didn’t do anything. 

[laughing] 

You killed this motherfucker.” 

And then he reached on the bed and he grabbed the briefcase. 

He popped it open. It was filled with money. 

More than any of them had ever seen. 

Iceberg took a little bit of the money and gave it to the doctor, 

and the doctor left discreetly. 

“All right, bitch, let me think...

[sighs] 

I can fix this for you. 

I know somebody I can call --

But if I call him, 

I’m gonna owe these motherfuckers a big favor.” 

“Oh, God, Daddy, please. I don’t want to go to jail.” 

“Neither do I, bitch, so you shut up.”

He picked up the phone. She heard him mumbling in the phone a little bit. He hung up the phone, and then she was pacing the room, and he was just standing there cool, and they were waiting and waiting, and then suddenly, a van pulled up downstairs. 

Two guys get out with a carpet. 

They walk upstairs, they roll that carpet out on the floor, they throw the body in the carpet. 

They roll that motherfucker up like a burrito, they pick that shit up, and they throw it in the back of the van. 

They come back up 

and Iceberg opens the briefcase again 

and gives them a little money --

He says, 

“I’ll get in touch with you guys later.” 

They say, 

“You’re not going to get in touch with us, we’ll find you.” 

He said, 

“Whatever, n i g g a.” 

And they bounced. 

“Oh, God, Daddy. Oh, God.” 

He says, 

“Relax, bitch. Listen. 

We getting the fuck out of here. 

You go downstairs and you get the car. 

We gotta leave separately.” 

She went, she got the car. 

Iceberg grabbed that briefcase, waited a few minutes, 

looked out the window, and then he went down with her. 

They both got in the car, and they drove off. 

She was a blubbering mess. 

“Oh! Oh, we did all this shit!” 

He said, 

“I told you bitch -- We didn’t do anything. 

You killed the motherfucker, 

and I cleaned him up, 

and now we got us a secret. Okay? 

I know I’m not going to tell, bitch, is you?” 

“Oh, no, I ain’t gonna tell.” 

He said, 

“All right, baby, cool. 

I’m gonna need you 

to stay with me for a while 

till this shit cools down.” 

She goes, 

“Okay, okay. Okay.” 

That’s The Game.

That’s how the whole shit works, ladies. You understand? 

This bitch was at the end of her mileage. 

She was at for 498, 

she ended up tricking for Iceberg 

for another six months. 

She must have turned another 200 tricks for him. 

Do you understand? 

That’s some cold shit. 

And the cold shit about it is, that 

the dead guy on the bed wasn’t even dead at all --

This motherfucker was just 

a friend of Iceberg’s, acting like he’s asleep. 

The Doctor wasn’t a Doctor -- 

He was a motherfucking butcher 

that happened to 

have a white coat. 

[laughing] 

And the dudes who came in 

with the moving van clothes 

was dressed like movers 

because they were movers --

Iceberg had gotten 

a new apartment. 

[laughing] 

And the bag of money… 

was Iceberg’s money 

in the first place. 

The money he got from 

all those women. 

That’s a cold game. 

That’s the motherfucking 

Capitalist Manifesto, 

and that’s Why I Went 

to South Africa. 

So now we got us 

a little secret, bitch. 

[laughing]

Misery

“The sky was darkening purple – sunset. Five-thirty, maybe six o’clock. 

The tide was still in and he could have gone back to sleep – wanted to go back to sleep – but he had to think about this bizarre situation while he was still capable of something like rational thought. 

The worst thing, he was discovering, was that he didn’t want to think of it even while he could, even when he knew he could not bring the situation to an end without thinking about it. His mind kept trying to push it away, like a child pushing away his meal even though he has been told he cannot leave the table until he has eaten it. He didn’t want to think about it because just living it was hard enough. He didn’t want to think about it because whenever he did unpleasant images intervened – the way she went blank, the way she made him think of idols and stones, and now the way the yellow plastic floor-bucket had sped toward his face like a crashing moon. Thinking of those things would not change his situation, was in fact worse than not thinking at all, but once he turned his mind to Annie Wilkes and his position here in her house, they were the thoughts that came, crowding out all others. His heart would start to beat too fast, mostly in fear, but partly in shame, too. He saw himself putting his lips to the rim of the yellow floor-bucket, saw the rinse-water with its film of soap and the rag floating in it, saw these things but drank anyway, never hesitating a bit. He would never tell anyone about that, assuming he ever got out of this, and he supposed he might try to lie about it to himself, but he would never be able to do it. 

Yet, miserable or not (and he was), he still wanted to live. Think about it, goddammit! Jesus Christ, are you already so cowed you can’t even try? 

No – but almost that cowed. 

Then an odd, angry thought occurred to him : She doesn’t like the new book because she’s too stupid to understand what it’s up to. 

The thought wasn’t just odd; under the circumstances, how she felt about Fast Cars was totally immaterial. But thinking about the things she had said was at least a new avenue, and feeling angry at her was better than feeling scared of her, and so he went down it with some eagerness. 

Too stupid? No. Too set. Not just unwilling to change, but antagonistic to the very idea of change. 

Yes. And while she might be crazy, was she so different in her evaluation of his work from the hundreds of thousands of other people across the country – ninety percent of them women – who could barely wait for each new five-hundred-page episode in the turbulent life of the foundling who had risen to marry a peer of the realm? No, not at all. 

They wanted Misery, Misery, Misery. 

Each time he had taken a year or two off to write one of the other novels – what he thought of as his ‘serious’ work with what was at first certainty and then hope and finally a species of grim desperation – he had received a flood of protesting letters from these women, many of whom signed themselves ‘your number-one fan’. 

The tone of these letters varied from bewilderment (that always hurt the most, somehow), to reproach, to outright anger, but the message was always the same: It wasn’t what I expected, it wasn’t what I wanted. Please go back to Misery. I want to know what Misery is doing. 

He could write a modern Under the Volcano, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Sound and the Fury; it wouldn’t matter. They would still want Misery, Misery, Misery. 

It’s hard to follow … he’s not interesting … and the profanity! 

The anger sparked again. Anger at her obdurate density, anger that she could actually kidnap him – keep him prisoner here, force him into a choice between drinking dirty rinse-water from a floor-bucket or suffering the pain of his shattered legs – and then, on top of all that, find the nerve to criticize the best thing he had ever written. 

‘Bugger you and the effword you rode in on,’ he said, and he suddenly felt better again, felt himself again, even though he knew this rebellion was petty and pitiful and meaningless – she was in the barn where she couldn’t hear him, and the tide was safely in over the splintered pilings. Still … 

He remembered her coming in here, withholding the capsules, coercing permission to read the manuscript of Fast Cars. 

He felt a flush of shame and humiliation warming his face, but now they were mixed with real anger: it had bloomed from a spark into a tiny sunken flame. He had never shown anyone a manuscript before he had proof-read it and then retyped it. Never. Not even Bryce, his agent. Never. Why, he didn’t even – For a moment his thoughts broke off cleanly. He could hear the dim sound of a cow mooing. Why, he didn’t even make a copy until the second draft was done. 

The manuscript copy of Fast Cars which was now in Annie Wilkes’s possession was, in fact, the only existing copy in the whole world. He had even burned his notes. Two years of hard work, she didn’t like it, and she was crazy. 

Misery was what she liked; Misery was who she liked, not some foul-talking little spic car-thief from Spanish Harlem. He remembered thinking: Turn the pages of the manuscript into paper hats if you want, just … please … 

The anger and humiliation surged again, awakening the first dull answering throb in his legs. Yes. The work, the pride in your work, the worth of the work itself … all those things faded away to the magic-lantern shades they really were when the pain got bad enough. 

That she would do that to him – that she could, when he had spent most of his adult life thinking the word ‘Writer’ was the most important definition of himself – made her seem utterly monstrous, something he must escape. She really was an idol, and if she didn’t kill him, she might kill what was in him.

Her Name is Pussy Galore

 

“….I must be Dreaming.”

“ They had been treated like a mixture of royalty and people from Mars. Bond had answered the first, most urgent questions and then it had all suddenly seemed to be too much for his tired mind to cope with. 

Now he was lying luxuriating in the peace and the heat of the whisky and wondering about Pussy Galore and why she had chosen shelter under his wing rather than under Goldfinger’s. The connecting door with the next cabin opened and the girl came in. 

She was wearing nothing but a grey fisherman’s jersey that was decent by half an inch. The sleeves were rolled up. She looked like a painting by Vertes. She said, ‘People keep on asking if I’d like an alcohol rub and I keep on saying that if anyone’s going to rub me it’s you, and if I’m going to be rubbed with anything it’s you I’d like to be rubbed with.’ She ended lamely, ‘So here I am.’ 

Bond said firmly, ‘Lock that door, Pussy, take off that sweater and come into bed. You’ll catch cold.’ 

She did as she was told, like an obedient child. 

She lay in the crook of Bond’s arm and looked up at him. She said, not in a gangster’s voice, or a Lesbian’s, but in a girl’s voice, ‘Will you write to me in Sing Sing?’ 

Bond looked down into the deep blue-violet eyes that were no longer hard, imperious. He bent and kissed them lightly. 

He said, ‘They told me you only liked women.’ 

She said, ‘I never met a man before.’ The toughness came back into her voice. 

‘I come from The South. You know the definition of A Virgin down there? 

Well, it’s a girl who can run faster than her brother. 

In my case I couldn’t run as fast as My Uncle. I was twelve. 

That’s not so good, James. You ought to be able to guess that.’ 

Bond smiled down into the pale, beautiful face. He said, ‘All you need is a course of T.L.C.’ 

‘What’s T.L.C.?’ 

‘Short for Tender Loving Care treatment. It’s what they write on most papers when a waif gets brought in to a children’s clinic.’ 

‘I’d like that.’ She looked at the passionate, rather cruel mouth waiting above hers. She reached up and brushed back the comma of black hair that had fallen over his right eyebrow. She looked into the fiercely slitted grey eyes. ‘When’s it going to start?’ 

Bond’s right hand came slowly up the firm, muscled thighs, over the flat soft plain of the stomach to the right breast. Its point was hard with desire. He said softly, ‘Now.’ 

His mouth came ruthlessly down on hers.  ”

IS PROGRESS POSSIBLE? by C.S. Lewis

 

Inconvenient Truths on Climate Change

Student : 

“Drought, flooding and ocean acidification unanticipated for 65 million years all result from climate change according to over 700 of your fellow scientists so I was wondering whether you thought climate change could be an issue that would unite us all; 

Left and Right, 

moving Us beyond debates, 

C-16 into discussions at the UN ??? meeting here next month 

where perhaps Humanity might finally discover 

its global map of meaning.”

Peterson : 

“No.”

(Audience laughs and applauds)

IS PROGRESS POSSIBLE?

WILLING SLAVES OF THE WELFARE STATE

   

  From the French Revolution to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, it was generally assumed that progress in human affairs was not only possible but inevitable. 

Since then two terrible wars and the discovery of the hydrogen bomb have made men question this confident assumption. 

The Observer invited five well-known writers to give their answers to the following questions : 

'Is Man progressing Today?' 

'Is Progress even possible?' 

This second article in the series is a reply to the opening article by C. P. Snow, 'Man in Society', The Observer (13 July 1958).]

   

  ‘Progress’ means movement in a desired direction, and we do not all desire the same things for our species. 

In 'Possible Worlds' (One essay in J.B.S. Haldane's Possible Worlds amid Other Essays (London, 1927). See also 'The Last Judgment' in the same book) Professor Haldane pictured a future in which Man, foreseeing that Earth would soon be uninhabitable, adapted himself for migration to Venus by drastically modifying his physiology and abandoning justice, pity and happiness. The desire here is for mere survival. Now I care far more how Humanity lives than how long. Progress, for me, means increasing Goodness and Happiness of individual lives. For the species, as for each man, mere longevity seems to me a contemptible ideal.

  I therefore go even further than C.P. Snow in removing the H-Bomb from the centre of the picture. Like him, I am not certain whether if it killed one-third of us (the one-third I belong to), this would be a bad thing for the remainder; like him, I don't think it will kill us all. 

But suppose it did? 

As a Christian I take it for granted that human history will some day end; and I am offering Omniscience no advice as to the best date for that consummation. 

I am more concerned by what The Bomb is doing already.

  One meets young people who make the threat of it a reason for poisoning every pleasure and evading every duty in The Present. 

Didn't they know that, Bomb or no Bomb, all men die (many in horrible ways)? There's no good moping and sulking about it.

  Having removed what I think a red herring, I return to the real question. Are people becoming, or likely to become, better or happier? Obviously this allows only the most conjectural answer. Most individual experience (and there is no other kind) never gets into the news, let alone the history books; one has an imperfect grasp even of one's own. We are reduced to generalities. 

Even among these it is hard to strike a balance. Sir Charles enumerates many real ameliorations. Against these we must set Hiroshima, Black and Tans, Gestapo, Ogpu, brain-washing, the Russian slave camps. 

Perhaps we grow kinder to children; but then we grow less kind to the old. Any G.P. will tell you that even prosperous people refuse to look after their parents. 'Can't they be got into some sort of Home?' says Goneril (In Shakespeare's King Lear). 

  More useful, I think, than an attempt at balancing, is the reminder that most of these phenomena, good and bad are made possible by two things. These two will probably determine most of what happens to us for some time.

  The first is the advance, and increasing application, of science. As a means to the ends I care for, this is neutral. We shall grow able to cure, and to produce, more diseases - bacterial war, not bombs, might ring down the curtain - to alleviate, and to inflict, more pains, to husband, or to waste, the resources of the planet more extensively. We can become either more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there. 

  The second is the changed relation between Government and subjects. Sir Charles mentions our new attitude to crime. I will mention the trainloads of Jews delivered at the German gas-chambers. It seems shocking to suggest a common element, but I think one exists. On the humanitarian view all crime is pathological; it demands not retributive punishment but cure. 

This separates the criminal's treatment from the concepts of justice and desert; a 'just cure' is meaningless. 

On the old view public opinion might protest against a punishment (it protested against our old penal code) as excessive, more than the man 'deserved'; an ethical question on which anyone might have an opinion. But a remedial treatment can be judged only by the probability of its success; a technical question on which only experts can speak. 

Thus the criminal ceases to be a person, a subject of rights and duties, and becomes merely an object on which society can work. 

And this is, in principle, how Hitler treated the Jews. They were objects; killed not for ill desert but because, on his theories, they were a disease in society. 

If Society can mend, remake, and unmake men at its pleasure, its pleasure may, of course, be humane or homicidal. The difference is important. But, either way, rulers have become owners. 

Observe how the 'humane' attitude to crime could operate. If crimes are diseases, why should diseases be treated differently from crimes? 

And who but the experts can define disease? 

One school of psychology regards my religion as a neurosis. 

If this neurosis ever becomes inconvenient to Government, what is to prevent my being subjected to a compulsory 'cure'? 

It may be painful; treatments sometimes are. 

But it will be no use asking, 'What have I done to deserve this?' 

The Straightener will reply: 

'But, my dear fellow, no one's blaming you. 

We no longer believe in retributive justice. 

We're healing you.' 

This would be no more than an extreme application of the political philosophy implicit in most modern communities. It has stolen on us unawares. Two wars necessitated vast curtailments of liberty, and we have grown, though grumblingly, accustomed to our chains. The increasing complexity and precariousness of our economic life have forced Government to take over many spheres of activity once left to choice or chance. 

Our intellectuals have surrendered first to the slave-philosophy of Hegel, then to Marx, finally to the linguistic analysts.

  As a result, classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian, and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. 

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good - anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. 

Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers'. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. 

There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 

'Mind your own business.' 

Our whole lives are their business. 

  I write 'they' because it seems childish not to recognize that actual government is and always must be oligarchical. Our effective masters must be more than one and fewer than all. 

But the oligarchs begin to regard us in a new way. 

  Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retrace our steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel, masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. 

That is one horn of the dilemma. 

But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn. 

  I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has 'the freeborn mind'. But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. 

For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. 

Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone's schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is between societies with few freemen and societies with none. 

  Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, Mother must Bnow Best. 

This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of Scientists, till in the end The Politicians proper become merely The Scientists' puppets. 

  Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him than for any other man.

  Thirdly, I do not like the pretensions of Government - the grounds on which it demands my obedience - to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. 

This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique (Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Politique tirée de propres paroles de l'Écriture-Sainte (Paris, 1709)). I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord', it lies, and lies dangerously.

  On just the same ground I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in'. It has been magic, it has been Christianity. 

Now it will certainly be Science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' 'science' - they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled. 

We must give full weight to Sir Charles's reminder that millions in the East are still half starved. To these my fears would seem very unimportant. 

A hungry man thinks about Food, not Freedom. 

We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce full bellies and medical care for the whole human race: nothing, in short, but a world Welfare State. It is a full admission of these truths which impresses upon me the extreme peril of humanity at present.

  We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness, and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it: omnicompetent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has emerged before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers - a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians - a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.

  The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting? 

  Let us make no mistake about The Sting. The Swedish sadness is only a foretaste. To live his life in his own way, to call His House His Castle, to enjoy the fruits of His Own Labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death - these are wishes deeply ingrained in white and civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow. 

  All this threatens us even if the form of society which our needs point to should prove an unparalleled success. But is that certain? What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny'. 

All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. 

Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before? 

 

Take on The Role of The Encourager.

Wong :

She's breaking free! Hold her! 

Strange! Take America's power. There's no other way. 

Strange :

Yeah. This is the only way. 

It's me, in other me's body. 

America :

You're gonna take my power, aren't you? Before Wanda can. 

It's okay. I understand now. 

Strange :

No, America. 

I've come here to tell you to Trust Yourself, Trust Your Power. 

That's how we stop her.

America :

I can't control it... 

Strange :

Yes, you can. 

You have been all along. 

Every time you opened a portal, 

you sent us exactly 

where we needed to go. 

America :

What about the first time? 

Strange :

Even that led you to this moment —

You are gonna kick that witch's ass. 

I've got you!

Take on the role 

of The Encourager.

If you are The Worrier or The Skeptic, 

who warns yourself and others 

against going through with things 

(who warns against forward movement) 

you are suppressing 

The Divine Masculine. 

Don’t warn people around you off the path they are headed towards. 

Instead, encourage them 

towards their fears; 

encourage them to 

make the attempt. 

Honor their process. 

Allow them to make mistakes 

without rescuing them. 

The Rescuer is not a function of Manhood; 

it is a function of Boyhood. 

The Rescuer is a boy 

trying to prove himself. 

A Man does not need 

to prove himself. 

Divine Masculine is all about 

growth and encouraging others 

towards growth. 

Encouragement is the most divine manifestation of the masculine expression of Love.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan - 4th Dimension

Orange Alert

 

RIDGEON. I was just telling them when you came in, Blenkinsop, that I have worked myself out of sorts.

BLENKINSOP. Well, it seems presumptuous of me to offer a prescription to a great man like you; but still I have great experience; and if I might recommend a pound of ripe greengages every day half an hour before lunch, I’m sure youd find a benefit. Theyre very cheap.

RIDGEON. What do you say to that B. B.?

B. B. [encouragingly] Very sensible, Blenkinsop: very sensible indeed. I’m delighted to see that you disapprove of drugs.

SIR PATRICK [grunts]!

B. B. [archly] Aha! Haha! Did I hear from the fireside armchair the bow-wow of the old school defending its drugs? 

Ah, believe me, Paddy, the world would be healthier if every chemist’s shop in England were demolished. 

Look at the papers! full of scandalous advertisements of patent medicines! a huge commercial system of quackery and poison. 

Well, whose fault is it? Ours. 

I say, ours. We set the example. We spread the superstition. 

We taught the people to believe in bottles of Doctor’s stuff; and now they buy it at the stores instead of consulting a medical man.

WALPOLE. Quite True. I've not prescribed a drug for the last fifteen years.

B. B. Drugs can only repress symptoms: they cannot eradicate disease. The true remedy for all diseases is Nature’s remedy. 

Nature and Science are at one, Sir Patrick, believe me; though you were taught differently. 

Nature has provided, in the white corpuscles as you call them — in The Phagocytes as we call them — a natural means of devouring and destroying all disease germs. 

There is at bottom only one genuinely scientific treatment for all diseases, and that is to Stimulate The Phagocytes. 

Stimulate The Phagocytes. Drugs are a delusion. 

Find The Germ of The Disease; prepare from it a suitable anti-toxin; inject it three times a day quarter of an hour before meals; and what is the result? 

The Phagocytes are stimulated; they devour The Disease; and The Patient recovers — unless, of course, he’s too far gone. That, I take it, is the essence of Ridgeon’s discovery.

SIR PATRICK [dreamily] As I sit here, I seem to hear my poor old father talking again.

B. B. [rising in incredulous amazement] Your father! But, Lord bless my soul, Paddy, your father must have been an older man than you.

SIR PATRICK. Word for word almost, he said what you say. No more drugs. Nothing but inoculation.

B. B. [almost contemptuously] Inoculation! Do you mean smallpox inoculation?

SIR PATRICK. Yes. In the privacy of our family circle, sir, my father used to declare his belief that smallpox inoculation was good, not only for smallpox, but for all fevers.

B. B. [suddenly rising to the new idea with immense interest and excitement] What! Ridgeon: did you hear that? Sir Patrick: I am more struck by what you have just told me than I can well express. Your Father, sir, anticipated a discovery of my own. Listen, Walpole. Blenkinsop: attend one moment. You will all be intensely interested in this. 

I was put on the track by accident. 

I had a Typhoid case and a Tetanus case side by side in The hospital: a beadle and a city missionary. 

Think of what that meant for them, poor fellows! Can a beadle be dignified with Typhoid? Can a missionary be eloquent with lockjaw? No. NO. Well, I got some typhoid anti-toxin from Ridgeon and a tube of Muldooley’s anti-Tetanus serum. But the missionary jerked all my things off the table in one of his paroxysms; and in replacing them I put Ridgeon’s tube where Muldooley’s ought to have been. The consequence was that I inoculated the typhoid case for tetanus and the tetanus case for typhoid. [The Doctors look greatly concerned. B. B., undamped, smiles triumphantly]. Well, they recovered. THEY RECOVERED. Except for a touch of St Vitus’s Dance The Missionary’s as well to-day as ever; and The Beadle’s ten times The Man he was.

BLENKINSOP. I've known things like that happen. They cant be explained.

B. B. [severely] Blenkinsop: There is nothing that cannot be explained by Science. 

What did I do? Did I fold my hands helplessly and say that the case could not be explained? By no means. 

I sat down and used my brains. I thought the case out on Scientific Principles. 

I asked myself 'Why Didn't The Missionary die of Typhoid on top of Tetanus, and The Beadle of Tetanus on top of Typhoid?' 

Theres a problem for you, Ridgeon. Think, Sir Patrick. Reflect, Blenkinsop. Look at it without prejudice, Walpole. 

What is the real work of The Anti-Toxin? 
Simply to Stimulate The Phagocytes. 

Very well. But so long as you stimulate The Phagocytes, what does it matter which particular sort of serum you use for the purpose? Haha! Eh? Do you see? Do you grasp it? Ever since that I've used all sorts of anti-toxins absolutely indiscriminately, with perfectly satisfactory results. I inoculated the little prince with your stuff, Ridgeon, because I wanted to give you a lift; but two years ago I tried the experiment of treating a Scarlet Fever case with a sample of Hydrophobia serum from the Pasteur Institute, and it answered capitally. 

It Stimulated The Phagocytes; 
and The Phagocytes did the rest. 

That is why Sir Patrick’s father found that inoculation cured all fevers. It stimulated the phagocytes. [He throws himself into his chair, exhausted with the triumph of his demonstration, and beams magnificently on them].

EMMY [looking in] Mr Walpole: your motor’s come for you; and it’s frightening Sir Patrick’s horses; so come along quick.

WALPOLE [rising] Good-bye, Ridgeon.

RIDGEON. Good-bye; and many thanks.

B. B. You see My Point, Walpole?

EMMY. He cant wait, Sir Ralph. The carriage will be into the area if he dont come.

WALPOLE. I’m coming. [To B. B.] Theres nothing in your point: Phagocytosis is pure rot: the cases are all blood-poisoning; and the knife is the real remedy. Bye-bye, Sir Paddy. Happy to have met you, Mr. Blenkinsop. Now, Emmy. [He goes out, followed by Emmy].

B. B. [sadly] Walpole has no intellect. A mere surgeon. Wonderful operator; but, after all, what is operating? Only manual labor. Brain—BRAIN remains master of the situation. The nuciform sac is utter nonsense: theres no such organ. It’s a mere accidental kink in the membrane, occurring in perhaps two-and-a-half per cent of the population. Of course I’m glad for Walpole’s sake that the operation is fashionable; for he’s a dear good fellow; and after all, as I always tell people, the operation will do them no harm: indeed, Ive known the nervous shake-up and the fortnight in bed do people a lot of good after a hard London season; but still it’s a shocking fraud. [Rising] Well, I must be toddling. Good-bye, Paddy [Sir Patrick grunts] good-bye, goodbye. Good-bye, my dear Blenkinsop, good-bye! Goodbye, Ridgeon. Dont fret about your health: you know what to do: if your liver is sluggish, a little mercury never does any harm. If you feel restless, try bromide, If that doesnt answer, a stimulant, you know: a little phosphorus and strychnine. If you cant sleep, trional, trional, trion—

SIR PATRICK [drily] But no drugs, Colly, remember that.

Strange, Dead and Evil

America,

The Princess :

Did that Kill it? 

Evil, Dead Strange :

No. That, THAT will Kill it :

The Book of Vishanti! 

We can't let it Take Your Power. 

Get to The Book!

America,

The Princess :

How do we get across? 

Evil, Dead Strange :

Jump! 

Evil, Dead Strange :

It's Too Strong! 

I can't hold it...!! 

....I'm So Sorry. 

This is The Only Way. 

America,

The Princess :

What are you doing?! 

Evil, Dead Strange :

We can't let that thing 

TAKE Your Power. 

You can't Control it. 

But I CAN. 

America,

The Princess :

But We're Friends! 

You'll Kill Me! 

Evil, Dead Strange :

I Know.... 

But in The Grand Calculus of The Multiverse, 

Your Sacrifice is worth MORE 

than Your Life.

Doctor Strange and The MoM

 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

Glass of red, please? 

Strange :

Allow Me, Miss. 

(with a wave of His Hand, Stephen 

transforms Her Water into Wine)

A little too on the nose? 

What, for You, at My Wedding? 

Nah. It was Perfect.

Strange : 

Congratulations. 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

Thank You. There's Charlie. 

I have to introduce you 

because he's kind of... 

It's embarassing, but he's 

a BIG fan. So... 

Strange :

Hey, uh, Christine... umm... 

I should have... 

I wish it had been different. 

I never stopped caring about Us, but 

I Had to Make Sacrifices. 

To Protect You. I'm Sorry. 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

....It was never gonna work out between Us. 

Strange :

Why Not? 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

Because, Stephen... 

You have to be The One 

Holding The Knife. 

And I always respected you for it, 

but I couldn't Love You for it. 

How long have you had 

that one in The Barrel...? 

Strange :

Long time.

 Dr. Christine Palmer :

Yeah. I bet.

 
Strange :

Truly, I'm just Glad 

that You're Happy. 

I am. I really, really am. 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

Good.  Are You? 

Strange :

I'm Happy. 

Dr. Christine Palmer :

Good. You Deserve it. 

Strange :

Thank You. 

Look out!