Scribbled Realm Theory: The Rise and Fall of the Neurotic Personality
——See "The Scribbler" ——Neurosis · Personality Pluralism · Yin-Yang Symbiosis
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The film "The Scribbler" is literally translated as "scribbler" and intentionally translated as "magic word ghost talk". These names do little to predict the plot. The film is a fantasy film in the context of a neurotic personality, and contains a pluralist standpoint that justifies the abnormal. This theme is already quite flooded, such as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and the like. It's just that the "neuropathy" that has been rectified should be interpreted metaphorically, instead of advocating that the neurosis in reality should be given up treatment, after all, reality is not fantastic.
[Scribbles say]
The film tells the story of a woman with multiple schizophrenia who comes to an apartment for self-rehabilitation. The spooky apartment is home to a number of women with neurotic personalities and a man, who seem not to be in rehab but to escape by staying in the buffer zone between the mental institution and worldly reality. Eliminate the threat of alternative selves or dissonant personalities. The treatment method used by this woman with multiple schizophrenia is "electric shock cauterization", that is, the use of electric shocks to destroy other personalities other than normal personalities, so as to become a person with a single "normal personality". The so-called "normal people". In the process of self-rehabilitation, she discovered that there is a yin and yang between a personality that can be called "scrawler" and her "normal personality". At the same time, the apartment where she was in continued to fall and die, so that getting rid of her own suspicion was integrated with finding the perpetrator. In the end, while solving the troublemaker, she also reached a personality state that suits her: symbiosis, between normal personality and abnormal personality.
The film's narrative logic is not so reassuring, especially in the sense that it is a suspense film, and the reason for taking on the suspense seems weak. However, in the sense that it is a fantasy film, the narrative logic should not be too bad.
【Reverse treatment of neurosis】
Unlike real neuroses, in such films, neurosis is a metaphor for individuality, which does not subjectively trouble the subject, but objectively suppresses the subject, that is to say, a society organized into a whole will. In essence, the neurosis that is considered to be in reality is the initiator of the neurosis, not the victim. The root of neurosis is thought to be a lack of love, and for a subject who can gain self-affirmation there is no anxiety about the lack of love, no spontaneous neurosis, but may be eroded by the external will of the subject. Anxiety for sure. This external will is an unnatural society. It expects people to love society, obey the rules set by the majority, and become parts of the social machine; it worries that individuals do not love the society represented by the group, so the society without personality is itself Personality is given and taken as "normal", as required by the will of the group, or at least as required by the "will of the majority." Personalities that do not obey the will of this majority are considered to be deviant and anti-social.
In the film "The Scribbler", the normal and abnormal personality is expressed in the opposition of writing. With a perverse personality, she writes upside-down, front-to-back, and often makes seemingly meaningless outlines. Compared with the normal way of writing in society, her way of writing implies a contempt for the rules of society, and the scribbled outlines show an unbearable sense of disorder in society. Deviant personalities that are out of harmony with most are considered a threat to society, "without coherence, society will slide into chaos," which society considers the opposite of order.
Just as "the minority obeys the majority" was taken as an appropriate criterion for selection, the adage "if you can't change the world (usually referring to a society organized into a general will), then change yourself" is considered an irrefutable norm of rational personality planning. Implicit in such judgments is the premise that the goal of choosing or planning is to achieve agreement. But there is no logically unquestionable basis for this: Consistency is not the result of nature, but the goal of social greed. The decision of the majority may not be good and true, but may be narrow and absurd, and the majority's repression of the minority is rude or autocratic. That seemingly reasonable motto can be a pile of absurdities.
The normal personality defined by the narrow majority requires multiple personalities to become single and differentiated personalities to become consistent: in this way, the neurotic personality is treated to promote the neurotic personality from abnormal to normal. This kind of planning for the rise of personality is in line with the mechanistic goals of the group. But it may actually be a "depersonalized target". In the film, the only normal person among the so-called neurotics is an impersonal. It's a joke, of course, but it's not necessarily unrealistic.
【Suspension of Pluralism of Personality】
Having a normal personality may instead mean lacking a true personality, "when you realize you are losing your soul, it means you still have a soul".
While "normal" people seem to have hard-to-refute arguments, people with multiple schizophrenia have undeniable perceptions of normality.
In the film, when the neurotic therapist says, "Being healed and being accepted by society are two sides of the same whole, and without coherence, society will slide into chaos"; at this time, the female patient quotes a sentence, "Chaos is only a to call an order not yet understood". Chaos seeks to find order from chaos, and it is fruitful. The value of so-called chaos is not necessarily inferior to order, but reversed in time and space.
"The right hand does not necessarily understand what the left hand does", but this does not lead to the conclusion that the right hand has reason to eliminate the left hand. The normal and abnormal between the two are relative, and it is difficult to understand, and there is no need to categorically reject understanding. "The way to deal with it is to learn to appreciate the importance of symmetry." After the individuality is eliminated, the commonality will also be exhausted. After all, the commonality itself is empty, and it becomes obvious only after the high-probability personality suppresses the low-probability personality.
The film's defense of neurosis in the metaphorical sense is in fact establishing a position of personality pluralism, and for the field of public life, the significance is to promote the creed of democracy against "tyranny of the majority".
【Symbiosis of Yin and Yang】
If order defies chaos and consistency overcomes difference is based on some mechanistic philosophical creed, then personality pluralism is based on some organic philosophical insight.
"Multiple personalities" is a universal phenomenon in the metaphorical sense, and each subject is in this state: Yin and Yang coexist and control each other. The film clearly adopts the Chinese concept of "Tai Chi Yin-Yang" here. The intention to keep only the yin or yang side is pathological, and it may obliterate the natural personality. The solution lies in achieving a state of yin and yang symbiosis.
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