by Fritz Leiber
“But in spite of the ribbing we kept going because we knew we had hold of a sound idea: that if a person can be made to feel he’s different, if he is encouraged to take the initiative in expressing himself in even a rather trivial way, then his inner man wakes up and takes over and starts to operate under his own steam. What people basically need is a periodic shot in the arm. I bunk you not when I tell you that here IU has always done and is still doing a real public service. We don’t necessarily give folks new personalities, but we renew the glow of those they have. As a result they become happier workers, better citizens. We make people individuality-certain.”
“Uniqueness-convinced,” Miss Rawvetch put in brightly.
“Depersonalization-secure,” Dr. Gline chimed. He was a small man with a large forehead and a permanent hunch to his shoulders. He added: “Only a man who is secure in his own individuality can be at one with the cosmos and really benefit from the tranquil awe-inspiring rhythms of the stars, the seasons, and the sea.”
At that windy remark David Cruxon quirked a second grimace and scribbled something on the pad in front of him.
Diskrow nodded approvingly—at Gline. “Now as IU began to see the thing bigger, it had to enter new fields and accept new responsibilities. Adult education, for example—one very genuine way of making yourself more of an individual is to acquire new knowledge and skills. Three-D shows—we needed them to advertise and dramatize our techniques. Art—self-expression and a style of one’s own are master keys to individuality, though they don’t unlock everybody’s inner doors. Philosophy—it was a big step forward for us when we were able to offer people ‘A Philosophy of Life That’s Yours Alone.’ Religion—that too, of course, though only indirectly…strictly non-sectarian. Childhood lifeways—it’s surprising what you can do in an individualizing way with personalized games, adult toys, imaginary companions, and secret languages—and by recapturing and adapting something of the child’s vivid sense of uniqueness. Psychology—indeed yes, for a person’s individuality clearly depends on how his mind is organized and how fully its resources are used. Psychiatry too—it’s amazing how a knowledge of the workings of abnormal minds can be used to suggest interesting patterns for the normal mind. Why—”
Dr. Snowden cleared his throat. The noise was slight but the effect was ominous. Diskrow hurried in to say, “Of course we were well aware of the serious step we were taking in entering this field so we added to our staff a large psychology department of which Dr. Gline is the distinguished current chief.”
Dr. Snowden nodded thoughtfully at his professional colleague across the table. Dr. Gline blinked and hastily nodded back. Unnoticed, David Cruxon got off a third derisive grin.
Diskrow continued: “But I do want to emphasize the psychological aspect of our work—yes, and the psychiatric too—because they’ve led us to such fruitful ideas as our program of ‘Soft-Sell Your Superiority,’ which last year won a Lasker Group Award of the American Public Health Association.”
Miss Rawvetch broke in eagerly: “And which was dramatized to the public by that still-popular 3-D show. The Useless Five, featuring the beloved characters of the Inferior Superman, the Mediocre Mutant, the Mixed-up Martian, the Clouded Esper and Rickety Robot.”
Diskrow nodded. “And which also has led, by our usual reverse-twist technique, to our latest program of ‘Accent the Monster in You.’ Might as well call it our Monster Program.” He gave Wisant a frank smile. “I guess that’s the item that’s been bothering you gentlemen and so I’m going to let you hear about it from the young man who created it—under Dr. Gline’s close supervision. Dave, it’s all yours.”
“Gentlemen,” he said in a deep but stridently annoying voice, “I had a soothing little presentation worked up for you. It was designed to show that IU’s Monster Program is completely trivial and one hundred percent innocuous.” He let that sink in, looked around sardonically, then went on with, “Well, I’m tossing that presentation in the junk-chewer!—because I don’t think it does justice to the seriousness of the situation or to the great service IU is capable of rendering the cause of public health. I may step on some ties but I’ll try not to break any phalanges.”
Diskrow shot him a hard look that might have started out to be warning but ended up enigmatic. Dave grinned back at his boss, then his expression became grave.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “A spectre is haunting America—the spectre of Depersonalization. Mr. Diskrow and Dr. Gline mentioned it but they passed over it quickly. I won’t. Because depersonalization kills the mind. It doesn’t mean just a weary sense of sameness and of life getting dull, it means forgetting who you are and where you stand, it means what we laymen still persist in calling insanity.”
Several pairs of eyes went sharply to him at that word. Gline’s chair creaked as he turned in it. Diskrow laid a hand on the psychiatrist’s sleeve as if to say, “Let him alone—maybe he’s building toward a reverse angle.”
“Why this very real and well-founded dread of depersonalization?” David Cruxon looked around. “I’ll tell you why. It’s not primarily the Machine Age, and it’s not primarily because life is getting too complex to be easily grasped by any one person—though those are factors. No, it’s because a lot of blinkered Americans, spoonfed a sickeningly sweet version of existence, are losing touch with the basic facts of life and death, hate and love, good and evil. In particular, due to a lot too much hypno-soothing and suggestion techniques aimed at easy tranquility, they’re losing a conscious sense of the black depths in their own natures—and that’s what’s making them fear depersonalization and actually making them flip—and that’s what IU’s Monster-in-You Program is really designed to remedy!”
There was an eruption of comments at that, with Diskrow starting to say, “Dave doesn’t mean—”, Gline beginning. “I disagree. I would not say—”, and Snowden commencing, “Now if you bring in depth psychology—” but Dave added decibels to his voice and overrode them.
“Oh yes, superficially our Monster Program just consists of hints to our customers on how to appear harmlessly and handsomely sinister, but fundamentally it’s going to give people a glimpse of the real Mr. Hyde in themselves—the deviant, the cripple, the outsider, the potential rapist and torture-killer—under the sugary hypno-soothed consciousness of Dr. Jekyll. In a story or play, people always love the villain best—though they’ll seldom admit it—because the villain stands for the submerged, neglected, and unloved dark half of themselves. In the Monster Program we’re going to awaken that half for their own good. We’re going to give some expression, for a change, to the natural love of adventure, risk, melodrama, and sheer wickedness that’s part of every man!”
“Dave, you’re giving an unfair picture of your own program!” Diskrow was on his feet and almost bellowing at Cruxon. “I don’t know why—maybe out of some twisted sense of self-criticism or some desire for martyrdom—but you are! Gentlemen, IU is not suggesting in its new program that people become real monsters in any way—”
“Oh, aren’t we?”
“Dave, shut up and sit down! You’ve said too much already. I’ll—”
“Gentlemen!” Wisant lifted a hand. “Let me remind you that this is a democratic conference. We can all speak freely. Any other course would be highly suspicious. So simmer down, gentlemen, simmer down.” He turned toward Dave with a bland warm smile. “What Mr. Cruxon has to say interests me very much.”
“I’m sure it does!” Diskrow fumed bitterly.
Dave said smoothly, “What I’m trying to get over is that people can’t be pampered and soothed and wrapped away from the ugly side of reality and stay sane in the long run. Half truths kills the mind just as surely as lies. People live by the shock of reality—especially the reality of the submerged sections of their own minds. It’s only when a man knows the worst about himself and other men and the world that he can really take hold of the facts—brace himself against his atoms, you might say—and achieve true tranquility. People g
enerally don’t like tragedy and horror—not with the Sunday-School side of their minds, they don’t—but deep down they have to have it. They have to break down the Pollyanna Partition and find what’s really on the other side. An all-sugar diet is deadly. Life can be sweet, yes, but only when the contrast of horror brings out the taste. Especially the horror in a man’s heart!”
“Very interesting indeed,” Dr. Snowden put it quietly, even musingly, “and most lavishly expressed, if I must say so. What Mr. Cruxon has to tell us about the dark side of the human mind—the Id, the Shadow, the Death Wish, the Sick Negative, there have been many names—is of course an elementary truth. However…” He paused. Diskrow, still on his feet, looked at him with suspicious incredulity, as if to say, “Whose side are you pretending to be on?”
The smile faded from Snowden’s face. “However,” he continued, “it is an equally elementary truth that it is dangerous to unlock the dark side of the mind. Not every psychotherapist—not even every analyst—” (Here his gaze flickered toward Dr. Gline) “—is really competent to handle that ticklish operation. The untrained person who attempts it can easily find himself in the position of the sorcerer’s apprentice. Nevertheless…”
“It’s like the general question of human freedom,” Wisant interrupted smoothly. “Most men are simply not qualified to use all the freedoms theoretically available to them.” He looked at the IU people with a questioning smile. “For example, I imagine you all know something about the antigravity harness used by a few of our special military units—at least you know that such an item exists?”
Most of the people across the table nodded. Diskrow said, “Of course we do. We even had a demonstration model in our vaults until a few days ago.” Seeing Wisant’s eyebrows lift he added impressively. “IU is often asked to help introduce new devices and materials to the public. As soon as the harness was released, we were planning to have Inferior Supe use it on The Useless Five show. But then the directive came through restricting the item—largely on the grounds that it turned out to be extremely dangerous and difficult to operate—and we shipped back our model.”
Wisant nodded. “Since you know that much, I can make my point about human freedom more easily. Actually (but I’ll deny this if you mention it outside these chambers) the antigravity harness is not such a specialist’s item. The average man can rather easily learn to operate one. In other words it is today technologically possible for us to put three billion humans in the air, flying like birds.
“But three billion humans in the air would add up to confusion, anarchy, an unimaginable aerial traffic jam. Hence—restriction and an emphasis on the dangers and extreme difficulties of using the harness. The freedom to swim through the air can’t be given outright, it must be doled out gradually. The same applies to all freedoms—the freedom to love, the freedom to know the world, even the freedom to know yourself—especially your more explosive drives. Don’t get me wrong now—such freedoms are fine if the person is conditioned for them.” He smiled with frank pride. “That’s our big job, you know: conditioning people for freedom. Using conditioning-for-freedom techniques we ended juvenile delinquency and beat the Beat Generation. We—”
“Yes, you can beat them all right!” Dave breaking in again suddenly, sounded raspingly angry. “You got all the impulses such movements expressed so well battened down, so well repressed and decontaminated, that now they’re coming out as aberration, deep neurosis, mania. People are conforming and adjusting so well, they’re such carbon copies of each other, that now they’re even all starting to flip at the same time. They were over-protected mentally and emotionally. They were shielded from the truth as if it were radio-active—and maybe in its way it is, because it can start chain reactions. They were treated like halfwits and that’s what we’re getting. Age of Tranquility! It’s the Age of Psychosis! It’s an open secret that the government and its Committee for Public Sanity have been doctoring the figures on mental disease for years. They’re fifty, a hundred percent greater than the published ones—no one knows how much. What’s this mysterious Report K we keep hearing about? Which of us hasn’t had friends and family members flipping lately? Any one can see the overcrowding at asylums, the bankruptcy of hypnotherapy. This is the year of the big payoff for generations of hysterical optimism, reassurance psychology and plain soft-soaping. It’s the DTs after decades of soothing-syrup addition!”
“That’s enough, Dave!” Diskrow shouted. “You’re fired! You no longer speak for IU. Get out!”
“Mr. Diskrow!” Wisant’s voice was stern. “I must point out to you that you’re interfering with free inquiry, not to mention individuality. What your young colleague has to say interests me more and more. Pray continue, Mr. Cruxon.” He smiled like a big fat cat.
Dave answered smile with glare. “What’s the use?” he said harshly. “The Monster Program’s dead. You got me to cut its throat and now you’d like me to finish severing the neck, but what I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter a bit—you were planning to kill the Monster Program in any case. You don’t want to do anything to stop the march of depersonalization. You like depersonalized people. As long as they’re tranquil and manageable, you don’t care—it’s even okay by you if you have to keep ’em in flip-factories and put the tranquility in with a needle. Government by the three Big Cs of Commission, Committee and Conference! There’s a fourth C, the biggest, and that’s the one you stand for—government by Censorship! So long everybody, I hope you’re happy when your wives and kids start flipping—when you start flipping. I’m getting out.”
Wisant waited until Dave got his thumb on the door, then he called, “One moment, Mr. Cruxon!” Dave held still though he did not turn around. “Miss Sturges,” Wisant continued, “would you please give this to Mr. Cruxon?” He handed her the small folded sheet of pink paper from his breast pocket. Dave shoved it in his pocket and went out.
“A purely personal matter between Mr. Cruxon and myself,” Wisant explained, looking around with a smile. He swiftly reached across the table and snagged the scratchpad where Dave had been sitting. Diskrow seemed about to protest, then to think better of it.
“Very interesting,” Wisant said after a moment, shaking his head. He looked up from the pad. “As you may recall, Mr. Cruxon only used his stylus once—just after Dr. Gline had said something about the awe-inspiring rhythms of the sea. Listen to what he wrote.” He cleared his throat and read:
“When the majestic ocean starts to sound like water slopping around in the bathtub, it’s time to jump in.”
Wisant shook his head. “I must say I feel concerned about that young man’s safety…his mental safety.”
“I do too,” Miss Rawvetch interjected, looking around with a helpless shrug. “My Lord, was there anybody that screwball forgot to antagonize?”
Dr. Snowden looked up quickly at Wisant. Then his gaze shifted out and he seemed to become abstracted.
Wisant continued: “Mr. Diskrow, I had best tell you now that in addition to my advisement against the Monster Program, I am going to have to issue an advisement that there be a review of the mental stability of IU’s entire personnel. No personal reflection on any of you, but you can clearly see why.”
Diskrow flushed but said nothing. Dr. Gline held very still. Dr. Snowden began to doodle furiously.
A monster is a master symbol of the secret and powerful, the dangerous and unknown, evoking the remotest mysteries of nature and human nature, the most dimly-sensed enigmas of space, time, and the hidden regions of the mind.
—the notebooks of A.S.
Masks of monsters brooded down from all the walls—full-lipped raven-browed Dracula, the cavern-eyed domeforeheaded Phantom, the mighty patchwork visage of Dr. Frankenstein’s charnel-man with his filmy strangely compassionate eyes, and many earlier and later fruitions of the dark half of man’s imagination. Along with them were numerous stills from old horror movies (both 3-D and flat), blown-up book illustrations, monster costumes and disguises includ
ing an Ape Man’s hairy hide, and several big hand-lettered slogans such as “Accent Your Monster!” “Watch Out, Normality!” “America, Beware!” “Be Yourself—in Spades!” “Your Lady in Black,” and “Mount to Your Monster!”
But Dave Cruxon did not look up at the walls of his “Monsterarium.” Instead he smoothed out the pink note he had crumpled in his hand and read the crimson script for the dozenth time.
Please excuse my daughter for not attending lunch today, she being detained in consequence of a massive psychosis. (Signed and Sealed on the threshold of Serenity Shoals)
The strangest thing about Dave Cruxon’s reaction to the note was that he did not notice at all simply how weird it was, how strangely the central fact was stated, how queerly the irony was expressed, how like it was to an excuse sent by a pretentious mother to her child’s teacher. All he had mind for was the central fact.
Now his gaze did move to the walls. Meanwhile his hands automatically but gently smoothed the note, then opened a drawer, reached far in and took out a thick sheaf of sheets of pink notepaper with crimson script, and started to add the new note to it. As he did so a brown flattened flower slipped out of the sheaf and crawled across the back of his hand. He jerked back his hands and stood staring at the pink sheets scattered over a large black blotter and at the wholly unanimate flower.