2004.12.08 Dark Side Tour
How well do you know yourself?
Actually, the question I'm asking is, "How well do you know your dark side?"
I don't mean the part of you that swears, or drinks, or disprespects authority, or has those cool-seeming urges for cause-less rebellion. No, I mean a different facet all together. Let me show you...
DISCLAIMER: The following procedure is for illustrative purposes only. Please do not attempt without appropriate incentive - like the fall of society.
We've got to move some stuff out of the way. Shifting aside these unwanted cardboard boxes of superficial social perception reveals the junction box of my basic personality. It's locked, and there's there's some fumbling with the keys because this part of me isn't checked all that often. There's a long, wince-inducing creak as we swing the metal cover door open to reveal the jumbled and almost inscrutible guts of the personality junction box.
All right, the first thing to go here is this big, heavy circuit breaker for the fundamental pro-social sense that most functional humans possess. It's so large because there is a lot of fundamental evolutionary machinery running off of it, and it strains the lever for a moment before turning off with a startling bang. With that big sucker out of the way, we can then easily disconnect the wiring for a whole array of subsequent personality functions. We pop the jacks out for charity, empathy, small-talk, mimicry, voice intonation, gesticulation, and even this oddly-wired plug for the circuit that really enjoys petting furry creatures.
This next step is a little more convoluted. We shut down the monster bank of high-voltage switches that run my ego - temporarily. While it's unpowered, we selectively deactivate those ego-related personality functions that can yield positive social effects. To off we flip the switches for honour, we dial down the ability for contemplating self-harm, we flip a few more switches to disable anything that even remotely resembles a sense of responsibility, and we yank out the dubiously-functioning jerry-rigged system for personal hygiene. A quick check that the multiple desire and whim drives are still functional, as well as the temper and anger modules, and we re-engage the high-voltage switches with a series of sizzling snaps.
The last bit is tricky. We need to hotwire the rationalization and extrapolation arrays so that they don't compensate for any of the deactivated systems. Most people actually accomplish this quite easily with either alcohol or other narcotic substances, but I don't want to effect that kind of widespread cognitive deficit. Luckily, I have some experience with dampening the cognitive systems with direct patches wired in from the anger modules. A couple of heavy alligator clips and a whiff of ozone later, and I think we're done.
So, let's take this customized personality out for a test drive! Keep in mind, nothing has been added - these are all pre-existing elements interacting.
The world is dark. And in that darkness, I am an inky shadow. All that I see are objectives, and paths to them. There is no one else. There is only me, my objectives, and paths with obstacles. There might be people in the world, but they don't exist for me - unless they are an objective, or an obstacle. Neither case is likely to be pleasant.
That's probably too abstract for you to see clearly. Let me shine a light on some details from outside my new world view so that you can appreciate some of the colour. A child would scream as I bit into it, because I am hungry and I caught it, but it wouldn't scream long because the noise would bother me and I would make it quiet by the most expedient means available.
...That's probably enough of that.
Do you recognize what I am? I think I am that thing which humanity sought to protect itself from by developing society. I think I am a thing that hunts us all, still, from within. Can you make out something like this thing that I am inside yourself? I think it's probably there, and that you would be able to recognize it if you really knew yourself well.
Why do this horrible thing? I think that if you can recognize and understand your dark side then you can better avoid it. I think that if you truly glimpse your dark side then you will have appropriate motivation to resist it.