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ONE_GESTALT
October 14-20, 2004
Tracing a line, one
individual's vision
of group vision... STURGEON
Theodore Sturgeon:
More Than Human (1953)
"The Skills of Xanadu" (July, 1956)
The Cosmic Rape (1958)
While re-reading Godbody (1986)
"The Cosmic Rape":
GODBODY
Another idiot, making
contact with fabulous. There are recurrent motifs throughout
much of Sturgeon's work, and one of
A slimy rapist, them is a focus on the low-down, the
dosing his victim. worst of humanity, the low grade
moron, the shambling beggar.
And a damaged
genius, I've even heard
trapped and Ninety percent of it suggested that
tortured, everything is shit. there's a hint of
turned against sadism behind
his talent. Ninety percent this obsession,
of humanity? though that's one
The puritanical, world's crazier
psychologically Ninety percent of critical opinions.
maimed all that is within
personality, any human being?
turned against
sex.
SPOILERS
The invading hive mind, the
"gestalt". Here spun as a
villain, elsewhere Sturgeon Ah, no: the invading hive
takes a more positive look. is the villain because it
is an invader.
Consider the Compare that to
overprotective the lost child The way Sturgeon
mother of Chapter who is suddenly plays it,
10, who refuses happily plunged humanity responds
to let her son into a world to the threat by
out of her sight, where she always creating its own
and so dooms him knows that she's hive-mind, a mind
to a frozen loved, because that acts in
terror of the of permanent concert and yet
outside world. mental contact. preserves
individuality.
This is the Isolation
*one* detail builds It then "turns
of this book strength, the tables" and
I remember Connection conquers (or
from my 1st builds The suggestion seems to "marries") the
reading strength...? be that humanity's long Medusa.
decades ago. gestation as isolated
individuals makes them
I suspect not more powerful than the
because it Medusa, once they're
resonates with united.
any inner fear
I'm familiar Does it then "We have no need of saviors
with, but follow that We are each one different
probably because the new human- And we will join in wonders
it does not... enhanced When we are each one whole."
it seems so Medusa will
odd to me. then enter a -- "Dr. Doom",
stage of by the Thirteenth
decadence, Floor Elevators
Still I remember a long decline?
my first day at
kindergarten being
a tearful parting...
The narration shifts from
Maybe a few decades from the stories of the
ago this detail many characters (the
meant more to me. samples of humanity) to a
global overview told in
A reminder of an summary, and the voice
embarrassing moment, becomes more and more and
when I was still more obviously Sturgeon's
close enough to it voice.
to take it as me
that was embarrassed. Did he mean this to
reflect the merging
of humanity into one?
Was it simply a
necessity in describing
a gestalt mind impossibly
greater than out own?
Whatever the reason,
Disparate individuals -> it looks rushed,
Fusion into a single view? perfunctory, like
a book only partly
A faceted view, finished, filled in
like the eye of with excerpts from
an insect. the outline it was
sold with.
TELL_ME_TRUE
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