Alice in Wonderland technique

The Aardvark of Uncertainty by Chris Green

I appear to have swapped the cow for a handful of beans. My memory of the transaction is a little hazy but here are the beans. It seems a strange kind of bargain to have made. Why would I do such a thing? Looking on the bright side, at least these are magic beans. It says so here. So their yield is likely to be bountiful. And if it is to survive, the planet needs vegetation far more than it needs cattle. In any case, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. There won’t be any now the cow has gone, will there? I’d better get on and plant the beans.

The internet doesn’t have a lot to say about how or when to plant magic beans. There are pages on pages about growing runner beans, kidney beans, aduki beans, mung beans and other kinds of beans that I’ve never heard of but nothing whatsoever on the magic variety. I am in the garden wondering where I should plant them when I have a visitor. At first, I think it must be the cleaner calling round to give the house a going over but then I realise it is Karma. I am pleased she has called round. Things have been a bit up and down since she left. I become easily confused. Otto is working on this with me. Otto is not from the village. He’s a professor of something and has letters after his name. He has been helping me for a couple of months now. Reality, he says, is a slippery customer but if I follow his regimen, there is every chance I will begin to see things more clearly.

Karma doesn’t appear to have noticed that the cow has gone. Perhaps she thinks that Daisy has just wandered up the lane again and will soon be back. She wants to talk instead about how politicians and the media have adapted the Alice in Wonderland interrogation technique to everyday life to keep us all in a heightened state of confusion.

‘We are accustomed to a world of logic and predictability, Geoff,’ she says. ‘But we are now bombarded day and night with layer upon layer of contradictory information.’

‘Perhaps you should talk to Otto about it,’ I say. ‘He probably understands this sort of thing. But I’ve no idea what you are talking about. Has anyone actually seen an aardvark?’

‘The Alice in Wonderland technique,’ Karma says, ‘is a method of interrogation pioneered by the CIA designed to break down the familiar and normalise the strange. Several interrogators pepper the subject continuously with unrelated nonsensical questions until they are no longer sure what is going on. This technique is now being used on us in our daily lives. There are zillions of narratives coming at us every minute through advertising, the media and the internet, each claiming to be common-sense, helpful or right. Conflicting messages, many of them unfamiliar or just plain weird fighting to bury themselves in our consciousness. We find ourselves on a battlefield of ideas. With all our boundaries breached, we enter a state of cognitive dissonance. In such a state, we are ready to accept and comply with many things we would otherwise reject.’

Is Karma in her roundabout way trying to tell me that she doesn’t believe there ever was a cow? Is that where this is heading? To prove to her that there was a cow but now there is not, I show her the magic beans. How much more proof does she need? I ask her where she thinks I should plant them. She points here and there but she doesn’t seem that interested. We don’t manage to stay on the subject very long because Karma has another rant at the ready.

‘The social theorist, Michel Foucault posits that where there is a discourse, there will be a reverse-discourse,’ she says.

‘What is a discourse?’ I ask because I honestly don’t know what she is talking about. ‘Discourse is simply a medium through which power flows,’ she says. ‘This flow can be reversed via the discourse without challenging the fundamental assumptions or concepts on which the discourse relies. Realising this to be the case, people in power the world over now set the reverse discourse in motion at the same time they launch their idea. By taking charge of the whole narrative, they are then able, at any time, to direct the narrative around the subject back to the original discourse.’

Karma can be intense at times. This was one of the issues we had when we were together. She would often go off on one when all I wanted was a little peace and quiet so I could read my book. As a result, I learned to switch off. A lot of what she says comes in one ear and goes out the other. Despite this, if and when I look at what she has said, I find that she is often right. She was right about the revolution in Stanistan. It was never going to change anything for the masses. All revolutions ever do is replace one dictatorial elite with another dictatorial elite which acts exactly the same as the one they replaced. She was right about the travel companies going broke. It was to do with product life cycle. They hadn’t re-invented themselves sufficiently to take account of changing travel arrangements. Karma’s analysis of situations is usually spot on. I used to rely on her explanations of complex issues. At the moment, though, I just want her to stop talking so I can concentrate on the garden. I am not sure what to do with the seeds. And I don’t imagine Foucault is going to be much help. Karma though seems determined to keep plugging away.

‘The creators of the discourse can plunder the reverse discourse at any time,’ she says. ‘If their idea becomes unpopular, so long as they control the reverse discourse as well, they maintain their hold on the balance of power. They are thus able to set the agenda.’

I’m sure she is right. I have always felt that things seem to be out of our control so someone must be pulling the strings. All of them. I nod my agreement.

‘Perhaps the beans could just go in the old veg patch where the potatoes were,’ I say. ‘I will need to dig it over first though and fertilise it a bit.’

‘What people don’t realise,’ she continues, ‘is that most protest groups are actually financed and run by those they are protesting about. They fool you into thinking there is an active campaign to stop whatever it is they are doing. But the campaign is never likely to succeed because the perpetrators themselves are running it. The weapons industry run peace groups, the oil barons finance Extinction Rebellion and so on.’

I am still a little lost as to where this might be heading but for some reason, it reminds me that Otto and I are off to see the wizard later.

……………………………..

I don’t know what has happened to Otto. We got separated somewhere along the yellow brick road. I think I became distracted by the black buzzards circling overhead and lost my bearings. I was unable to find the road again. The flask of tequila may not have brought out the best in my orienteering skills. Eventually, in the middle of nowhere, I came across a railway station. I am slowly making my way back home aboard the Bob Dylan coach of the night train. I am searching for the right track. I need a tune that’s going my way or who knows where I might end up? Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again perhaps or It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry. Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like a Rolling Stone come to mind but Shelter from the Storm seems a safer bet.

But even so, there’s blood on the tracks and I am not able to settle. The Tom Waits coach is no better. Downtown Train and Tom Traubert’s Blues don’t settle me so I’m not expecting God’s Away on Business or The Piano Has Been Drinking to do it.

I hear footsteps and a door opening.

‘Why are you listening to Leonard Cohen?’ Karma says.

I am no longer aboard the train, it seems. I am back at home and Karma has let herself in.

‘Tom Waits,’ I say.

‘What?’ she says.

‘Not Leonard Cohen,’ I say. ‘It’s Tom Waits.’

‘Why are you listening to Tom Waits, Geoff?’ she says. ‘He’s so depressing. Especially that one about sleeping in a boxcar.’

‘Swordfishtrombone,’ I say. ‘Brilliant lyrics.’

‘It’s about shell shock,’ she says. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d better check on you. You’re not answering your phone.’

‘I appear to have lost my phone,’ I say. ‘I think Otto may have it but he’s disappeared. You haven’t seen him, have you?’

‘No I haven’t,’ she says.

‘We were on our way to see the wizard,’ I say. ‘And Otto just vanished.’

‘This Otto doesn’t seem to be someone you can depend on, does he?’ she says. ‘Never mind. I see you managed to plant the beans. You can see their purple flowers from way down the road. They’re towering over the clump of bamboo hedging already. That’s in what, forty-eight hours? They were magic, after all. ……. By the way, Geoff, I’ve been meaning to ask. Where’s the dog? Where’s Daisy?’