Well, now that we've heard this No. 2 sophistry from Rodneyoscopy, the Village Idiot, it's my turn. Not that he didn't start out okay; he descended into observations that show he's at best confused and at worst completely oblivious of what McGoohan was about in creating this series. If he equally "allowed" himself to think a little deeper than worn-out right-wing cliches about the (narcissistic, selfish, etc.) individual of the 60s, he would have understood that McGoohan wasn't advocating a "cult of the individual." Like many well-meaning but ignorant Americans, R is confusing "rugged individualism" (of the Robber Barons and then the Corporate Bosses) with authentic and healthy (not so much individual-ism) but selfhood. (And pray tell, if you don't have a "self," then it's so much the better for any kind of collectivist movement to come along and erase your humanity in the name of "don't think for yourself, we will unburden you of this responsibility.")
Does he really believe the "self is a dangerous enemy"? Probably not his "self" but all those he doesn't like! Please, give us a break! (And do I have to point out that Nazi Germany wasn't Nazified because of an over-abundance of self-willed good Germans?) When I hear people talk like R, I recommend they read an essay that surely would have been outlawed in The Village--Emerson's "Self-Reliance." R's assertion--"We're all obsessed with self, we're all obsessed with more, and now, and me, and gimme... and what happens if that's affected us, and what if that kind of world, what are the consequences of that?--presumes that "self" is equal to selfishness and (capitalist) acquisitiveness, or greed. This is his folly. It is an assertion neither socially, psychologically, not spiritually supportable. For the sake of argument, I would assert that this is a perversion of the "self," a self that has some sort of stunted development--stunted by the kind of system that McGoohan was fighting against. (May I recommend Dr. Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism--Reich who was kicked out of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and finally books burned by US government and thrown into prison(er). "What if we live in a society now that's selfish and dangerous?" The only thing wrong with this statement is that R should have added--"just like The Village" at the end of it. (What did George Bush tell the American people to do as they prepared to take away all our civil liberties after 9/11? "Go shopping!")
'The self is the most dangerous enemy.' Wasn't something very like this the message of 'Fallout' and by extension the whole original series? No. Wrong! I suggest he watch it again (if it will make any difference). Does R realize there are plenty of nasty people and groups around that would like nothing better than that you get rid of your "self." Even so-called gurus from the East advocated this--and all the better to get your money and screw your women, with no questions asked! In any case, R talks like we have passed from the authoritarian society and in our 60's zeal we have gone to the other extreme--anarchic selfhood. Really? When did this happen? Did I miss something? All I remember was Reagan becoming governor of California by vowing to bring law and order to those unruly and SELFISH hippies who were causing all that trouble down at the universities. Damn, I guess I missed out on all the Bacchanalian fun of selfhood run wild!
Now for R's comments about McGoohan vis-a-vis Gallager.
"Folks see this as a betrayal of the source material and a subversion of McGoohan's message." I TOTALLY AGREE! In fact, I sensed it even before it aired on Sunday. The red flag was casting Caviezel. I said to my "self": Why would an ultra-orthodox Catholic (with fascist and anti-semitic tendencies--The Passion of Christ) want to play the part of someone who stands for everything he hates? Well, I had to wait will the last episode to find out: because Gallager made a travesty out of McGoohan's The Prisoner. Thus, this term "new angle" on The Prisoner is simply Orwellian: their new angle that says "Hey, you need not rebel against the totalitarian assault against the integrity of the human self/spirit. No, it just looks like we of the Shadow Government are evil; no, we are on your side--we're really the good guys just trying to help you out (reign in that wayward self of yours)." GIVE US A BREAK!
And if someone like R comes back at me with the last episode of McGoohan's Prisoner, I'm ready. I'm guessing some Village Idiot will try and tell me that because No. 6 pulled off the mask of No. 1 and it was No. 6 himself that this proves that McGoohan was trying to warn us about the "self." I will wait patiently for the chance to demonstrate who understands the series and who doesn't--and, by extension, what's terribly wrong with the remake. (Please don't take me as saying I
completely understand it; for maybe no one does except McGoohan himself--and maybe, as all really creative artist do, he finds things in it that he didn't originally intend.) Suffice to say for now that, firstly, The Prisoner can be interpreted on many levels--social, psychological, analogical--and that what may be true on one level doesn't work on another. Secondly, the built-in ironies and ambiguities make any hard-and-fast interpretation impossible. (But one ambiguity was not that we couldn't ascertain that No. 6's rebellion against the shadowy powers that be was righteous--it was not ultimately misplaced, because they were just trying to make him a better person; less selfish and contrary to authority.) Thirdly, that McGoohan had something that the creators of this travesty don't have--a wicked sense of humor (note that the first time the mask was pulled off it was a monkey). And finally, that recognizing one's complicity in one's own repression is NOT THE SAME AS finding that the "self" is the real enemy. (I don't want to get too metaphysical about the concept of the "self," but I should try to roughly define what I understand by this term. The "self" as we know it today is the result of a long process of psycho-cultural evolution. It begins in the Hellenistic mystery religions, gets a leg up in the newly developing cult of Jesus, comes to birth around the twelfth century in certain INDIVIDUALS, and develops in the succeeding centuries until it becomes, so to speak, conscious of itself in Continental European philosophy (Hegel). Roughly and simply put, the "self" is our interorized, subjective consciousness. This subjectivity, though, is not the be-all-and-end-all of human evolution; it is a step to something else. But in oder to get to that one has to have a fully developed, integrated self. This is why, in Western psycho-history, "God" had to become conscious in the subjective I of a human being. Thus, I don't see the "self" as equivalent to the ego that has been mis-shaped by a socio-economic system like capitalism. So I respect that there are limitations to this "self" of ours, but what R seems to be describing doesn't apply.)
R's silly equivocation ("Second, what is the problem anyway if the new series actually does examine the material in a different way? I don't see why the new show should be a McGoohan paint-by-numbers ...) would have us believe that to follow the spirit of McGoohan's vision for The Prisoner is somehow some kind slavish endeavor; that "different" means to completely subvert the essence of the series.
(What's R's number again?) Furthermore, his "and besides, no one on the new team is saying "ubiquitous surveillance, mind control and pharmaceutical brainwashing are a *good* idea"--is wrong; this is EXACTLY what they're doing. (Wouldn't it be giving their game away if they got too open about what they are doing?)
At this point a little history of the origins of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in Western culture. I would ask, what medieval institution established the first world-wide intelligence-gathering operation, came up with the first methods of "rendition," invented the systematic science of torture, and for those true enemies of God, they burned them at the stake, even for thought crimes? And why did they do it? Hint. Jim Caviezel is a proud member of this institution. Answer: the Catholic Church. Answer: the Church officials did it because they wanted to save their mortal souls; in other words, THEY WANTED TO HELP THEM! Does any of this sound familiar? (Oh, I almost forgot. What medieval institution first rounded up Jews in the 11th century and slaughtered them en mass? Did anyone see or hear of the blatant anti-semitism in the Passion of Christ?) But the historical irony here is that this was done in the name of the first truly INDIVIDUAL soul in that part of the world at that time. And what does an imperialistic state do with this kind of person? They have to do this! (See book, The Murder of Christ by W. Reich.)
Now, I could go on a bit longer. I would love to deconstruct, point by point, the reasons behind why so many are so blind to what this new revival of The Prisoner is really all about. But I've gone on too long already. So let me put my final point about this travesty of everything McGoohan stood for in a little metaphor.
There was one more episode we didn't see, because, if we'd seen it, it would have exposed the shadowy men behind the curtain of this new Prisoner mini-series. The episode goes like this: No. 1 tells No. 2 to create a TV show that makes some of the idiots in the Village believe that they've seen a show about a Prisoner who, finally, after some 40 years later, learns to obey; indeed, learns to take his proper place in the order of things. (And, if they're is any residual selfhood still in him, he can at least try from a position of power to change the system from within. Remember the lesson No. 6 learned when they urged him to run for office in the Village?) Then, because the Village is now a more technologically advanced place, they set up a website on the internet so the Village Idiots who have bought this charade can go on line and try to persuade the obstinate, self-possessed prisoners who just can't get it through their rebellious heads that black is white, bondage is freedom, foes are friends, conformity is individuality, that we have to fear the "cult of the individual" rather than the cult of human sheep, that they need to watch a TV show to supposedly warn them when all they have to do is look at what's going on all around them, that Jim Caviezel didn't not weasel himself into a role so he could negate it; that he is not the crypto-fascist that he really is.
In other words, fellow prisoners (in case you missed the point): The Prisoner franchise is now in the hands of No. 1 and his Shadow-Government gang, and some of you--and this is really their victory--can't tell the friggin difference!
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