Fictional Sociology began from a premise that the therapeutic mentality in its numerous forms, contrary to its intentions, increased human suffering.
It was necessary for our work that we accepted this premise; it wasn't difficult. From the bereavement counselors sent to help school children in times
of lost classmates, to the history of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the ambiguous classifications in the DSM IV, it was easy to see how the
psychological community wasn't really sure about what caused these adverse reactions. In some instances they weren't even able to construct time
in the linearly accepted manner most people perceive when dealing with causality and symptoms. Then there are the institutions themselves,
educational and hospital administrators all working from the 'panoptic' model. Where penal servitude and self-surveillance help insure smooth and
efficient progress towards a brave new world where citizens monitor their own health and compliance for the greater good; or corporate profits,
whichever is in vogue.
So, it wasn't difficult to accept the premise - the response was another matter. A firm no thank you, as Ivan Illich suggests, in order to maintain
the open-ended opportunities of wonder. Bill Arney said that this was the ideal he was using to foster our understanding of the problem - to not
get involved with the outcome because it would not encourage growth, but instead further our compliance with what was to be expected. This
autonomy was one of the most difficult lessons any one in higher education, student or professor could hope to convey or to understand. Being
unreasonable is never easy in a social milieu where doing what is expected, what you are told, or what you should do is the raison d' erte.
This is one of the reasons why the 'Spokesperson' experiment was so successful in showing an unreasonable response to the comfort and
complacency at Evergreen through satire.
Satire is the primary reason I enrolled in Fictional Sociology; I had even done some reading on the history of the subject over the summer. The
most important aspect of what I learned about satire is that it is directed not just at one's enemies, as my reading this summer suggested, but that
it usually is targeted at the pompous or those who take themselves too seriously. One of the other major elements, equally as important, is that
good satire is self-implicating, in that it attacks ones own foibles and proclivities towards aggrandizement. Some of my more beneficial work in
seminar came out of discussion on the works of Al Franken and Lenny Bruce. With Franken I pointed out that his thesis concerns the breakdown
of civil discourse in the political arena, and that he essentially held himself back from using that same incivility towards his targets. This is
illustrated in the brutal comments he made to the Dutch film crew and his polite attempt to get Newt Gingrich to understand his confusion about
a joke. I pointed out in out discussion of Lenny Bruce that the point that Lenny was arrested on was not the word he used, but the implications
of homosexual teachers in a homophobic society, and that this has not changed.
The other major reason I took this program was for the media component. Art and the construction of effective visual satire were as engaging for
me as the satire itself. In particular one of my favorite texts was Dave Hickey's work The Invisible Dragon, which discussed among other
topics the taking of art out of the social and political context it was created in, and sterilizing it by institutionalizing it in huge cultural 'refrigerators'.
The work we did in the Graphic Imaging Lab has helped me in understanding the mammoth imaging program Adobe Photoshop. I also learned
some important basics about photography and lighting, of which the group assignment on recreating the lighting effects of a work of art was the
most helpful and instructive. Hugh and Steve are to be admired for their patience and informative work with this program. The flyers I produced
for the fictional 'Interview with an Anti-Christ', while not technically excellent, largely because the images were taken from the Internet and not
source material, helped to illustrate what is in my opinion my best work in the program.
My only reservation about my work in this program was that an illness in the second week, which progressed to the point where I lost all hearing
in one ear by fifth week, made my focus largely non-existent during that time. I continued to read the texts and sporadically attend lectures and
seminar during this illness, none the less I still regret the lack of produced material and the inconvenience this caused my group members and my
seminar leader.