「正常人」的病態 WHY "NORMAL" PEOPLE ARE SICK

科學和藝術的主要目的之一即在事物的多樣性中找到統一。兩者都致力對自然現象無窮的多樣性和異質性做出解釋,專注於事物間的共通點(甚至有時創造共通點),並把所有事物分門別類地收入標籤盒中,以從中抽出某些「定律」、「規則」或「系統」,如此便能消弭自然、生命的神秘感或模糊性,進而理解並掌握這些現象。


但我認為,這種「一切有序的意志」可能危及人類的基本安在。在整個自然演化史中,各物種的每個成員都是唯一而獨特的。每個生物體都經由融合父母的基因來繁衍後代,保證了後代基因圖譜的無限多樣性。研究指出,兩個人之所以會互相喜歡,是基於彼此的費洛蒙無意識地互相吸引。通常,基因圖譜越不同的兩人間,越有吸引力。也就是說,若一個女孩吸引我,那正是因為她的基因與我的極為不同,如果我跟她做愛,兩套獨特的基因結合,那我們的後代將會「更健康」,因為具有多樣化基因,更容易抵禦疾病。事實上,基因混合,讓後代各自生而獨特的概念,正是「性」演化出來的原因。「性」促進物種的異質和多樣,同時消減統一和同質性的機會。換句話說,性,使得我們每個人獨一無二,而獨特性則是在自然中生存的關鍵之一。想像一下,疾病來時,若每人的基因都很相似,很容易就被全族殲滅,因為每個人對於同一種疾病都同樣脆弱無助。但如果我們的基因差異很大,人類將更容易倖存,因為只有部分人口對某種疾病缺乏抵抗力,其餘的人則有免疫力而不受感染。


但是正如前述,我們的文化汲汲營營地追求效率、控制和產量;藉著宗教、政治和意識型態教條等名義,力求規範、統一人的個性,我認為這是反自然的行為,損害了人性和人的生物本能。科技進步伴隨著組織性的發展,而過度組織化導致異質性和多樣性的縮減,最終導致不符人性的全體一致,損害了自由和自我表達的可能性。在政治上,過度組織化可導致極權獨裁統治。想想工廠最有經濟效益的操作模式,工廠裡的機器平順運作,工人被貶為不停重複同樣動作,執行同樣任務的「人形機器」。如此工人與機器完全同步,跟任一家工廠裡的任一台機器都沒兩樣。也許正因如此,我們的當代西方社會,儘管技術、科學、知識進步,精神卻全然病態。我們已經成為思維、行動彼此類似的「人形機器」,獨特性和個性不僅被破壞,還被斥為瘋狂,甚至愚蠢。身處在這強烈要求一致性而非多樣性的世界,我們只希望與整體一致,這才是明哲保身的作法。


這就是為什麼我認為:有時最「正常」且「符合標準」的人,其實是最病態,最不正常的。所謂「正常人」的病態,在於他們為了符合體制,成為與眾人一致的「人形機器」,違反基本多樣性的本能。他們表面上看來歡樂,因為他們都已如此順服適應這種不自然的生存方式,意願已被消音,甚至不再想努力發聲了。從結構上來看,他們只在這種文化中相對正常,然而這文化在生物上卻是不正常,不自然的。這些不正常,去個性化的人們往往不知道究竟為什麼內心總是空虛,永遠無法滿足;為什麼連一點創造性、靈性和自由都感受不到?事實上,他們已經如此一致,幾乎沒有人會再去對正常、感官鈍化的幻覺提出質疑了。自由正遭受威脅,因為自由和統一性不可共存。當每個人都趨於一致,我們的精神則越趨病態,成為「人形機器」的走向,正是反自然之道而行。


One of the main purpose of science and art is to reduce the multiplicity of things into unity. These endeavors seek to explain the endlessly diverse and heterogeneous phenomenon in nature, concentrate on what they have in common (and sometimes invent them) and put them all in boxes with labels to abstract some kind of “law” or “rules” or systems so that the mysterious and ambiguities of nature and life can be eliminated, be made sense of, and dealt with.

 

But I think this notion of a "will to order" can be unsettling and dangerous to a person’s fundamental well being. Think of the way nature operates to ensure the uniqueness and individuality of each member of a species throughout its evolutionary history. Each organism reproduces its kind by mixing the father’s genes with the mother’s to make sure the genetic blueprint of the offspring is as diverse as possible. There was a study done that showed that when a person is attracted to another, it is based on an unconscious attraction to the other’s pheromones. 

And usually such an attraction occurs between two individuals who have sets of genetic blueprints that are different from each other. In other words, if I am attracted to a girl it is precisely the reason that her genes are very different from my own, and if I have sex with her and mix our two unique sets of genes together, then our offspring would be “healthier” because it would have genes so diverse that it could fend off diseases easier. In fact, this notion of mixing genes so that the offspring could be different and unique from one another is exactly the reason why sex has evolved. Sex promotes heterogeneity and multiplicity while reducing and eliminating chances of uniformity and homogeneity. In other words, sex makes each one of us unique, and uniqueness is one of the keys to survive in nature. Imagine if all of us are genetically similar, the population would be wiped out from a disease much quicker than if we were diverse and unique because if we all had the same genetic blueprints we would be all vulnerable and defenseless to this one disease. But if we are all different, then the population would more likely to survive because only SOME of us would be vulnerable, while the rest of us stay immune and un-infected.

 

But as I mentioned earlier, our culture, with its interests in efficiency, control, and production in the names of religious, political, and ideological dogma, has sought to standardize and unify the uniqueness of the individual, which I think could be a de-natured act of insult against human nature and its biological instincts. The advance in technology is accompanied by advances in organization, and over-organization results in the reduction of heterogeneity and diversity, which ultimately leads to subhuman conformity that undermines the possibility of freedom and self-expression. In politics, over-organization can lead to a totalitarian dictatorship. And think of the way the factories are operated in its most economically efficient mode; the smoothly running machines in factory cause the workers to become automatons as they are all minimized to perform the same tasks with the same gestures – perfectly in-sync with a machine that operates just like every other machine in a factory that runs in every other factory.  This could be why in our contemporary Western society, in spite of its technological, scientific, and intellectual advances, are all sick in the mind. We have become automatons who think and act just like each other, where uniqueness and individuality are not only undermined, but looked down as a mode of madness or even foolishness. We all want to conform because that’s the safest bet to make in a world that violently demands unity out of multiplicity.


This is why I think sometimes the most “normal” people; the folks who are the most “conformed” are the sickest and most abnormal. “Normal” individuals are mentally ill because they are going against their basic instincts of multiplicity in order to conform to a system so they can be automatons like everybody else. On the surface of things, they seem to be happy because they are so well-adjusted to our de-naturalized ways of existence that their wills and voices have been silenced so well that they do not even make a struggle to be heard. But structurally, they are normal only relatively, in a culture that is biologically abnormal and de-natured. These abnormally and de-individualized people often wonder what the hell is going on. Why is it that deep down inside, something inside them is never quite fulfilled and content - and that they don’t feel the slightest bit of creativity, spirituality, and freedom?  Indeed, their conformity has become so uniform that it is inconceivable to question this illusion of normality and de-sensitization. Freedom is at risk because it is impossible to co-exist with uniformity, and when everybody is the same as everybody else, we become mentally sick because being “automaton-ized” is precisely what nature doesn’t want us to become.