GL - the "Jihad" remark was intended to be an ironic poke at your apparent insistence that Wilson fans were all goosestepping wanker potheads who can't think for themselves. My apologies if I didn't make it obvious enough that I was taking the piss. I, for one, am trying to be good-humored here.
Now: I will concede your point that Wilson's message seems not to have changed much over the years, and that he presents much the same material, in varying forms, throughout his works. I would suggest that this isn't a sign of stagnation so much as the consistent evolution of a theory over time, and an attempt to reach a large cross-section of the population with said theory. Illuminatus! isn't everyone's cuppa, but he has produced other works which appeal more to the philosophical, to the scientific, to readers of fiction, nonfiction, biography, fictionalized history, historicized fantasy, theatre, and James Joyce. It's a rare talent to write well in more than one style, which he does. And the message that he attempts to transmit is simply this: question your assumptions, don't listen to any so-called authorities, learn as much as you can, and enjoy life. My opinion is that this is a message that bears repeating, and not a lot of alteration in its basic form. However, there is a legitimate danger of a formula such as this becoming a dogma itself, and its messenger a guru, which is where we run into the basic paradox of discordian thought and chaos magick - avoiding a rigid belief system while using the formulas that "work". That is an issue which has been discussed at length elsewhere. Basically, though, I'd say the reason his ideas haven't "progressed" as much as you might expect is simply because most people haven't caught up to him yet. Present company excepted, the majority of the human population never questions what they perceive as reality, or stops to think about why they believe what believe. The fact that someone is out there encouraging people to do that is heartening, even if it's an old hippy wheezer in a wheelchair.
The old hippy wheezer in question is, of course, fallible, and on occassion I'd imagine this would cause him to turn out ill-conceived or poor quality writing, though at this point I've admittedy read less than half his works and apparently haven't run into that bit yet. I have sometimes heard things come out of his mouth in interviews that made me wince, but it seems that if he has some time to think and a keyboard he consistently does fairly well. (That's part of why I'm excited about this opportunity, besides the fact that it will finally goad me into reading things I've been putting off looking at.) He's human, not a saint, and the porn editor thing would probably bother me a lot more if it wasn't Playboy, which hardly counts as porn by comparison to anything else that's out there... but he's just a good writer with some very interesting ideas.
I'd hazard, though, that if there are impressionable folks out there looking for a guru to lead them by the nose, there are way worse people they could latch onto. I'll take a thousand hippy pothead discordian wannabes over one Rush Limbaugh dittohead any day. Except maybe for doing my taxes.
Again, there are many RAW works that I haven't cracked the covers on yet, but in the material I've been exposed to thus far he's much less on the "sex & drugs" trip than, say, Leary or Terrence McKenna. I haven't ever seen him suggest that the best and sole route to world peace and universal happiness was mind-altering substances... just mind altering. And I happen to agree to a large extent. Nothing about the human condition is going to change unless the individuals who comprise the planet's population change. Drugs are one way to change your wiring, but there are other ways - magick, meditation, sex, gnosis, yoga, and martial arts being among them. I can't fault Wilson for offering all of them as options, and considering the amount of time he spent hanging about with the Leary crowd, I'm surprised not to have heard more about drugs from him.
Regarding space migration, life extension, and the information explosion: these are not Wilson's ideas alone, and in my opinion there's fairly credible evidence that such advances are being artificially delayed by the Conspiracy... but aside from that, sure, maybe those ideas are whacked. It's not his central message, or even closely tied to it. Toss the dross, then. You've the right. I like thinking maybe there's a revolution of some kind around the corner for humanity. For right now I'll settle for one of my own.
Quantum Psychology is the reason I'm here. Well, half the reason, along with the Invisibles. My life has altered drastically over the past two years because of Wilson's and Morrison's writing. You want to talk about realism? An author is "real" when he makes you think hard enough to change your mind about something. And these two helped me change my mind about everything.
Besides, he's a cool old fart who smokes pigslaying quantities of pot and runs for governor of California under the banner of the Guns-n-Dope Party. C'mon, big ups for the attitude at least. |
