| |
|
The Black Iron Prison/Empire - From the source:
17. The Gnostics believed in two temporal ages: the first or present evil; the second or future benign. The first age was the Age of Iron. It is represented by a Black Iron Prison. It ended in August 1974 and was replaced by the Age of Gold, which is represented by a Palm Tree Garden.
So, first, the Black Iron Prison is a symbol for the Age of Iron. The Prison is a figurative place - a passive set of conditions, the state-of-the-world.
This is the origin of entropy, undeserved suffering, chaos and death, as well as the Empire, the Black Iron Prison; in essence the aborting of the proper health and growth of the life forms within the hologramatic universe.
Syntactically, it looks like PKD is equating the Black Iron Prison with the Empire. There does seem do be some difference, though, in how he uses the terms, even though they refer broadly to the same "thing."
29. We did not fall because of a moral error; we fell because of an intellectual error: that of taking the phenomenal world as real. Therefore we are morally innocent. It is the Empire in its various disguised polyforms which tells us we have sinned. "The Empire never ended."
In the novel VALIS, Dick/Fat refer to being in the Black Iron Prison, but the Empire is shown (as above) as having agency, at least metaphorically. While we sit in the BIP, the Empire tells us we have sinned - yet still they are all one manifestation of the Age of Iron in the damaged universe. To employ a metaphor that's already overloaded, the BIP/Empire is sort of like the photon 'wavicle' model - under certain conditions, it is best described as a location or set of circumstances, and under other conditions it is best described as an embodied force or agent. [This is probably making too much of it, but I was up really really late last night, and...]
41. The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one.
More explicitly now, the Empire is given agency. At the same time, it is also defined in depersonalized terms. The metaphor is made more transparent.
42. To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox; whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby it becomes its enemies.
And, finally, the Empire is repersonalized in a new way - any one of us might be part of the Empire - while also dismissing the idea of the Empire as a literal, embodied conspiracy per se (i.e. an actual secret society with concrete aims). Rather, it is reaffirmed as a force - I hesitate to say current, but it's not the worst image - only, it's a current that pervades everything.
So, the BIP and the Empire are one and the same thing, but the Black Iron Prison describes the more passive or generalized aspects of 'it,' while the Empire describes the more active or differentiated aspects.
So, to bring us back to quimper's question: yes, to an extent Dick/Fat was referring to the Black Iron Prison when he said "the empire never ended." The second meaning (i.e. Time stopped, we are still living in Roman times) has already been mentioned. A third meaning refers to the Empire manifested as the Nixon administration, which did end during the timeline of the novel (IIRC), though Phil and Fat both worry that the Empire won't go down without a fight. The KING FELIX cypher, though, has made it clear that the Age of Iron is (at least supposed to be) at an end. How long it will take before the Age of Gold (the Black Iron Prison replaced with a Palm Tree Garden) gets going in earnest, and how tumultuous the transition will be is anyone's guess. The ending of the novel is pretty ambivalent (though few, I think, would ever accuse PKD of being generally optimistic).
I'm not sure how necessary this entire post has been, but my lack of coffee has impaired my judgmental faculties. 'Scuse, please.
~L |
|
|
) 
