Essay: Filth

My first reaction to The Ticket I think I shared with the general sentiments of the class. In the first day of reading, I felt that the content was disgusting. However, I strongly felt that the nonsense and the nastiness were all part of the writer’s strategy, and would fall into place soon. By the middle and end of the book, I lost hope of holding out for a grand explanation of the offensive content. As we discussed in class, I got the feeling that the book was made to slap the reader in the face, and it did a damned good job at that. However, I did find some very meaningful ideas hidden in several places of the book.
I think that my reaction and the reaction of the class to The Ticket and Filth have a lot to do with Freudian psychology. I think that these writings appeal to the socially unacceptable urges of our Id. The content of The Ticket and Filth also appeal to our sex and death drives. The Superego sees the response of our Id to the stimuli presented in these books, and tries to censor the Id. In class, our blogs, and plurk, most of the students spoke out against the content of these two books. Perhaps this means that we feel that it would be socially unacceptable to tolerate the ideas presented in the two books, so we choose to protect our social status by using Freud’s defense mechanism of Reaction Formation. In class, a student asked a critical question along these lines. “What if I find myself aroused by some content in The Ticket? What does that say about me?” I was glad this student had the courage to say that, as I feel that many of us likely had that thought but were not about to tell anybody.
Why does pornography work? I think that one of the driving factors is the anonymity of the porn consumer. They have no intimate relationship to deal with, no emotional investment in their sexual partner(s). With their anonymity, they can release the Other and let it satisfy its sexual desires (see my blog on the Id and the Other). Within reason, I think that releasing the Other isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I think the problems arise when people lose control and let porn become an addiction, or they lose the boundary between pornographic fantasyland and real life.
After reading The Ticket, I feel desensitized. The Filth did not shock me as much as it would have had I not read Burroughs. Anal rape? That’s old news. I feel like I would need something even more vulgar to disgust me. I think that the same desensitizing cycle applies to pornography, as discussed by Edward Marriot (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/08/gender.weekend7). At first, one is turned on by viewing straight sex in its most normal forms. However, after a while, the standard material doesn’t incur the desired effect on the viewer. They turn to more hardcore material to get the reaction they want. I get the feeling (and Edward Marriot seems to agree) that what porn consumers want most is to break the rules. This may be why red states have higher porn consumption than blue states, and why hardcore porn and even more offensive material like bestiality is in high demand.
Another reason that I was not offended by The Filth as much as The Ticket is that I was easily able to find meaning in The Filth. I found that The Filth really got me thinking about I-Life and other dimensions. These involved thoughts plus a coherent plot allowed me to largely ignore a lot of the graphicness and explore the deeper meanings. The Ticket, on the other hand, is much less coherent and it was really had for me to get much out of it. I strongly think that if Burroughs had made the deeper meanings in the text more obvious, I would have had a much easier time disregarding the nastiness. In fact, I encountered one great notion in The Ticket that was contained in only a page or two. I wrote two blog updates that were centered on language in the mind, and how it is unavoidable. Finding this great idea hidden in the muck, I was more than willing to accept the offensive content if I could have this one diamond in the rough. But like I said, that idea lasted only a page or so, and I didn’t find anything as great in the rest of the book. I think that this was Burroughs’ point of the book, to create a book that was a hell of a lot more rough than diamond. I don’t feel that his ideas on words were the biggest idea he hid in the book, but it is the idea that resonated the most with me.