The Prisoner of the Brave New World

kateoplis:

The typography of John Carpenter’s They Live

architizer:

Modern Panoticon.

(via the-scrivener)

I love how tumblr pulses with synchronicity, just as I finished the last post and looked at my Dashboard, there was one of the “random” suggested “tumblrs” on the right (if Twitter posts are Tweets, are tumblr posts tumblrs?)

The machine is alive…

executions:

son of a gun by Therewassomethingwrong.

(via executions-deactivated20120313)

It was just a little synchronicity that I found the last article while setting up the opening of this blog, but it shares a resonance to the theme, because The Prisoner was based on the new world of psychology and its usefulness to the state for behavior modification and control.

Besides the poor monkeys in the experiment, human children and babies have been used in similar experiments—in the name of science.

In the post-1950’s with the Cold War hysteria still fresh, a continuing theme in movies and T.V. shows about alien takeovers or mad scientists was the theme of outsiders controlling one’s mind, a reflection on the public hysteria whipped up over Communism trying to infiltrate our society and convert our thinking, allegedly through Rock & Roll, risque trashy B movies, and sexploitation in the media. This theme was also adopted by religeous fundamentalists as evidence of Satan corrupting our “civilization.”

Curious how over several generations we now have a satanic looking alien in the Star Wars franchise, and modern conspiracy theorists talk about alien reptilian shape shifters complete with horns, delivering your evening news, their cat-like slit eyes flashing out through some slight digital hiccup in the data stream.

It could be shown that our modern technocratic rulers are as strange as anything imagined in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” or “The X-Files” and this could be due to several possible influences, all equally strange.

scipsy:

[Biology: An Inquiry into the Nature of Life (via Reanimation Library - Catalog)]

Love is a wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding. Because of its intimate and personal nature it is regarded by some as an improper topic for experimental research. But, whatever our personal feelings may be, our assigned mission as psychologists is to analyze all facets of human and animal behavior into their component variables. So far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in this mission. The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists. But of greater concern is the fact that psychologists tend to give progressively less attention to a motive which pervades our entire lives. Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence.

These are the first lines of the classic paper by Harry F. Harlow: The Nature of Love (1958)

In that paper Harlow describe one of the most fundamental experiment of the history of psychology.

In Harlow’s classic experiment, two groups of baby rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers. In the first group, a terrycloth mother provided no food, while a wire mother did, in the form of an attached baby bottle containing milk. In the second group, a terrycloth mother provided food; the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food, and that the young monkeys chose the wire surrogate only when it provided food.

Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort, no matter which mother provided them with food. This response decreased as the monkeys grew older.

When the monkeys were placed in an unfamiliar room with their cloth surrogate, they clung to it until they felt secure enough to explore. Once they began to explore, they occasionally returned to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in an unfamiliar room without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They froze in fear and cried, crouched down, or sucked their thumbs. Some even ran from object to object, apparently searching for the cloth mother, as they cried and screamed. Monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhibited the same behavior as the monkeys with no mother.

Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods, they were separated from their cloth mothers for three days. When they were reunited with their mothers, they clung to them and did not venture off to explore as they had in previous situations. Harlow concluded from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore.

The study found that monkeys who were raised with either a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that had only a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. Harlow’s interpretation of this behavior, which is still widely accepted, was that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful to the monkeys. (via wikipedia)

Going back to the roots, the original cover for Brave New World.

The series digitally remastered.

Tribute art to McGoohan in a Warhol style.

—Bowthorpe from deviantART

McGoohan’s name in the show was simply Number 6. He was a secret agent that resigned—mirroring his real-life resignation from formula television where he was in a show cloning James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the more adventuresome The Avengers.

“He had already turned down the roles of James Bond and Simon Templar (The Saint) when Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. This time, McGoohan had even more say about the series; it was expanded to an hour and the writing was changed to allow McGoohan more acting range. The popularity of the series exploded. McGoohan became the highest paid actor in the UK and the show lasted almost three more series.”

“After shooting the first two episodes of Danger Man in colour going into its third season, McGoohan told Lew Grade he was going to quit.”

“In the face of McGoohan’s intention to quit Danger Man Grade asked if he would at least work on “something” for him. McGoohan gave him a run-down of what would later be called a miniseries about a secret agent who resigns suddenly and wakes up to find himself in a prison disguised as a holiday resort. Grade asked for a budget, McGoohan had one ready, and they made a deal over a handshake early on a Saturday morning to produce The Prisoner.”

—Wikipedia