A utopian interest in the abstract
Truman, Christof, and the unreal world
In schizophrenia the experience of time breaks down and there is a resulting lack of flow and continuity in the experience of life. With this lack of flow there comes a re-presentation of the world in such a way that nothing seems substantial, or indeed real. This is certainly the way I hear some describe their experience of life these days and I would not diagnose them with schizophrenia.
But like the schizophrenic it is as if everything is a performance, a façade, an impression of being real but ultimately unreal. It seems as if people are not really going about life for real but are just play acting, going through the motions, it’s as if it is all a big performance – it’s The Truman Show, and the schizophrenic subject is Truman.
I cannot help but think this is not unlike our modern perception of the world through screens, where images come at us via flashing coloured pixels at various frame rates, building an illusion of life – the truth and reality of which is becoming increasingly suspect.
And do our overlords suffer from these same schizo tendencies?…
Engagement with real persons is replaced by a utopian interest in abstract humanitarian values: ‘I love Mankind, but I detest humans’.
According to a [schizophrenic] patient of Minkowaska’s:
I have managed to detach myself from the realm of the material, and in my actions I am guided by impersonal principles. I respond not to a limited environment, but to the whole world. I’ve come to live for the idea and look on people impersonally. I’ve been united in thought, not with human beings, but with humanity, and sought as far as possible to attain the absolute. I’ve submerged my filial love in a greater love. (McGilchrist, 2021, pp. 357-8)
Those who have grand theories for humankind, supposedly out of the love for humanity, can be more in love with their own scheme than the good of the people1. Again “engagement with real persons is replaced by a utopian interest in abstract humanitarian values.”
What sort of insanity have we become? Is it one similar to the schizophrenic tendency where organic flow is no longer perceived and there remains a hyper-focus, hyper-intellectualism2, hyper-analysis, hyper-rationalism3, but ultimately a detached world of unreality? A hyper-surveillance Truman Show for the egos of the self-appointed ‘Christof’ producers and directors of the world?
Do we accept this version of the world4 or do we call it out for what it is?
McGilchrist, I. (2021). The matter with things: Our brains, our delusions and the unmaking of the world. Volume one, the ways to truth. Perspectiva Press.
"I've given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in is the sick place. Seahaven is the way the world should be." - Christof, The Truman Show
Our knowledge will take its revenge on us, just as ignorance exacted its revenge during the Middle Ages. - Friedrich Nietzsche
The problem with schizophrenia is not a lack of rationalism or logic but an exaggerated facility that then blots out other crucial aspects of life. There is much that should remain in the background, as implicit, but when all is brought into the foreground the implicit is lost, all becomes explicit and in need of conscious scrutiny. Trying to see all the frames of a film, in a static array, projected in a grid fashion on the wall, is not how one is supposed to experience the film - something crucial is lost.
We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented, it's as simple as that. - Christof, The Truman Show