Comfortably Numb with an Infected Humanity by Michael O’Malley

In a world where helpless civilians are constantly mutilated by poisonous gas, people are bullied to the point of resorting to suicide, and children are being ripped apart by bullets flying through their classrooms, it is easy for faith in humanity to be cloaked in clouds of hopelessness and sorrow. However, even in the darkest of times, light can be found. For instance, after tragedies meant to disband people and destroy hope—like the plane hijackings of September 11^th, 2001, the Parkland High School shooting, and the Boston Marathon bombings—people did not give in to fear and let their hope be destroyed. They decided instead to continue living their lives as normal and band together to comfort each other, showing humanity’s natural inclination to aid one another. What about the people who commit these acts of terror? While it may be easy to conclude that they are naturally evil, bad people, this is not the case. These “bad guys” are simply sick, broken people. Broken by what exactly? The answer is simple, yet it is hidden in plain sight: civilization. The minds and souls of people are constantly being contaminated by flawed civilizations which function around unnecessary competition and determine your worth according to how much physical stuff you have. The film Swept Away, directed by Lina Wertmuller, focuses on the ways that civilization can destroy a person and shows what happens when someone’s humanity becomes ill. Wings of Desire, directed by Wim Wenders, focuses on the contrary, however, and shows not how civilization can destroy people but how little efforts to restore humanity to its natural state can make a big difference. Swept Away and Wings of Desire convey that humanity is not broken in nature, but instead is diseased by the unwritten behavioral constraints of society which idolizes a “power to prevent” lifestyle and demands that material wealth and socio-economic competition the supreme aim of life. This illness can be cured.

The idea that humanity is naturally good is proven to us every day in our own lives. For example, as I was sitting in Hofstra University’s Student Center, I was reading an article about a school being shot up during a gun-protest walkout and began to doubt my faith in humanity. How could humanity possibly be naturally good if whenever people try to make a difference it is immediately shot down? After convincing myself there is no hope for a cure, I packed up my things and began to leave. As I was walking away, a random lady stopped me and handed me a meal voucher, saying “Go get yourself a lunch; it’s free.” It was at this moment that I realized I had been wrong for concluding humanity is evil because everywhere there are people who naturally feel inclined to help each other, even if they are strangers. Not only from this did I learn that humanity must be naturally good, and it is just plagued by civilization, but I also discovered that my mind had been transformed by society. My initial reaction to this stranger doing the right thing was that I did not need a voucher because I already had a dining plan of my own. However, before I could decline her offer, I stopped myself, realizing that my mind had been taught to think in a materialistic way; my immediate behavior was to ask myself, “Can this benefit me?” By thinking in a selfish and materialistic way we as people not only prevent ourselves from curing humanity but prohibit others as well by putting them down for trying to help others.

The concept that the flaws of civilization disease humanity is also often featured in today’s music and cinematography. In modern music, such as Jon Bellion’s song New York Soul (Part ii), we are warned not to adhere to civilization’s unfair and destructive “power to prevent” rules. Bellion delivers a message for all of the kids who are being raised in psychologically and spiritually damaging societies: “Let me give the kids just a little help/tell 'em money is not the key to wealth/cause if it can stop the pain how the fuck did you explain the bunch of millionaires that killed themselves” (Bellion). The flaws of civilization being expressed through modern music culture is not a new thing and can even be traced as far back as the band Pink Floyd, an English rock group which became active in 1965. Throughout their album, The Wall, a discussion of civilization’s brainwashing and ruining the minds and souls of people can be found in many of their songs, including “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” and “Comfortably Numb.”  “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” is the story of how civilization infects their pure and innocent minds; it even features a chorus of schoolchildren shouting the lyrics: “We don’t need no education/we don’t need no thought control/no dark sarcasm in the classroom/teacher leave those kids alone” (Pink Floyd). “Comfortably Numb” has a similar message; it is the story of a man who has already been destroyed by the behavioral constraints of his society and explains that in his world “there is no pain,” stating how he has become “comfortably numb” (Pink Floyd). This resonates with the modern world because we have become desensitized. When Columbine High School fell victim to a shooting, people felt tremendous pain whether they were involved or not; however, with schools being shot up so often now, the victims are viewed as “statistics” instead of living, breathing souls. With terrorist attacks becoming a more prevalent reality, it is not uncommon for a person to respond to the statement, “There was a shooting today,” with shallow questions like: “Where?” or “How many people died?” Society itself has become comfortably numb.

Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away focuses on a communist, working-class man, Gennarino, who is constantly belittled by a bourgeoise woman named Raffaella. Swept Away was pretty comical in the beginning, but it quickly transformed into a film so disturbing that it was nearly impossible to watch, and yet I could not peel my eyes away from the screen for even a minute. When the two opposing characters shipwreck on a deserted island, we are shown how sick and twisted Gennarino has become due to his oppression in a “power to prevent” civilization. A “power to prevent” society is the more traditionally taught idea in which competition between individuals must be present, and individuals must repress themselves and others in exchange for a healthy society; however, it has quite the opposite effect. Typically, for a “power to prevent” civilization to function, both the oppressed and the oppressors must be present. A “power to prevent” lifestyle is based on the thesis that in order to succeed in society, one must “step on the backs of others” to “climb the socio-economic ladder” and rise in status. The theory embeds into the minds of the people a proposition that, in order for one party to gain, another party must suffer. For instance, throughout most of American history, America has based its civilization on an oppressive “power to prevent” system of capitalism; specifically, in relation to African Americans. Throughout all of American history, African Americans have been systematically oppressed and “put down” by the white upper and middle classes; slavery, sharecropping, poll taxes, literacy tests, black codes, convict leasing, Jim Crow laws, and more have all been in effect with the sole intention of keeping one class of people down in order for another to prevail. The conservative “power to prevent” capitalism which America has run on for much of its history would eventually lead to the Great Depression due to the formation of monopolies and an insufficient flow of currency as a result of an oppressor-oppressed based society.

In the context of the film, most people would be distressed on an uninhabited island; however, Gennarino sees the shipwreck as a blessing and uses it as an opportunity to “get ahead” because in his new habitat the normal unwritten constraints of society are turned upside-down. For once, Gennarino is at the top of the social ladder. While from an outside perspective it is clear that Gennarino and Raffaella’s chances of survival would increase greatly if they joined together as equals, Gennarino has been worn down by civilization so much that he is unable to rid his mind of the damaging oppression which he has dealt with his entire life; instead of joining together, Gennarino would rather inflict oppression on another person even after knowing how damaging it is. The effects of civilization on Gennarino are first shown in the scene when Raffaella says there must be some law against letting others go hungry and Gennarino responds: “If there was such a law they could put all of the wealthy people in the world in jail, but, since there isn’t, all you see in jail is the poor” (Wertmuller 49:20). While less evident, Raffaella’s mind has also been contaminated by the effects of societal competition. Rather than treating Gennarino like her equal when they shipwreck, Raffaella still ignorantly hangs on to her “power to prevent” ideology and treats him as a servant where the unwritten rules of society do not pertain.

Not long after showing how corrupted the two characters’ minds have become as a result of their flawed civilization, Swept Away features a sickening rape scene in which Gennarino first violently abuses her and then makes Raffaella beg for him to have sex with her. When viewing this scene for the first time, it was unbelievable. I even thought to myself, “This is ridiculously unrealistic. No one would ever act this way to another human being over as a result of their social status,” but if that were true, then school shootings and rape would not be a real worldly issue. Lina Wertmuller, a progressive feminist, was attacked for including these types of scenes and titled a traitor to the cause; however, she was simply misunderstood. These scenes were not included to belittle the value of women, but to show how deeply our humanity can be deranged from living in these “power to prevent” civilizations which do not only demand us to “act in a savage way to another version of ourselves,” but require us to create status (Gordon). In the rape scene, we are truly shown how deeply scarred Gennarino’s mind and soul are. After every punch, he exclaims: “That’s for causing inflation and raising taxes and hoarding your money in Swiss banks instead… and this is for the hospitals where the poor people can’t get in… and that’s for raising the price of milk and cheese” (Wertmuller 1:08:30). No human being would ever naturally beat and rape another person, but after being constantly belittled and dehumanized in a “power to prevent” civilization, Gennarino does so to establish dominance and put his own ill mind at ease.

Whereas Swept Away focuses on the many ways that civilization causes humanity to fall ill, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire focuses on how humanity can be cured. Wings of Desire is the story of two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, who watch over civilization and eternally attempt to ease a diseased humanity. The film spends a considerable amount of time presenting scenes in which the two angels aid distraught people laced in the pain of enduring their broken souls. For instance, in the very beginning of the film, there is a scene which takes place on a train full of working-class people who struggle to earn enough money to survive. Wim Wenders allows the audience to hear what is going through the minds of the train’s passengers who are overcome by the problems created from their own artificial habitats. The scene highlights this by showing one woman worrying: “How will I pay? With my small pension?” (Wenders, 23: 30). Damiel finally settles on trying to console a man who has lost everything in his life including his family, friends, and his faith. The man thinks to himself: “You’re lost. It can go on for a long time. Abandoned by parents. Betrayed by wife. Friend in another town. Your children only recall your stutter. You could hit yourself as you look in the mirror” (Wenders, 23:35). This man has become so hopeless that he is willing to inflict physical pain on himself, a common action in modern civilization. When Damiel sits next to the man and puts his arm around him, the man feels the hope he had lost and thinks: “I’m still there. If I want it. If I only want it. I can drag myself out again” (Wenders, 23:40). This scene symbolizes how everyone in society goes through the same type of pain, and if people would just care for one another, then suffering could be relieved, or at the very least be greatly minimized. It does not take an angel to treat another with kindness. In “power to prevent” civilizations people are told to mind their own business and care for no one but themselves, and if someone does try and reach out to another person, they are shamed. If this idea does not seem realistic enough, try giving a smile to a stranger passing by in your own life; many will look at you like you are insane.

Wim Wenders makes sure to exaggerate how much “power to prevent” societies have desensitized people in the scene where a man has been in a motorcycle accident and is dying on the street. Even though a crowd of people is surrounding him, no one even tries to help him. Although it is likely that none of the bystanders could actually save the man, they could have at least tried to comfort him so he did not die alone. Instead, they simply stared at the man like he was a freak and watched the life fade from his eyes. It is only until an angel comforts the man in his time of dying that someone else steps in to help. Wenders makes a point to show that this is how sick humanity has become. Even nowadays, while it is a much less intense scenario, if someone at a grocery store very obviously could not reach something from the top shelf, almost everyone would feel inclined to help them, but very few people would actually do something. Meanwhile, most people would just brush it off with a quick “not my problem.”

Perhaps the most important scene in the film is when a man so broken by society decides to commit suicide. This scene is absolutely pivotal because for the first time even an angel cannot save an already-broken man. Every person in the film up to this point could feel the divine presence of Damiel and Cassiel; however, this man’s mind and soul were so deeply ruined that he could not even feel “hope’s” head resting on his shoulder. When it is shown what the man is thinking before he takes his own life, the audience can see how ill his mind is because he is only able to ramble about nonsense: “It’s cold. My hands were always warm. A good sign. It crackles underfoot. What time is it? The sun’s setting. Logical. The west. Now I know where the west is” (Wenders 1:08:17).  Wenders purposely waited a full hour to put this scene in the film to show a reality of civilized existence. Although the audience would think that the man would be saved because of one angel, they are proven wrong. This is to show how often times people will see someone in distress, whether it be in their own lives or on the internet and wait for some other “angel” to come along and help solve the problem, rather than just stepping up and doing it themselves. Perhaps if this man was cared about by others or simply asked how he was doing prior to this event he could have been saved. It is from this scene that the message of the entire film is clear, and more importantly, Wim Wenders gives humanity the key to cure itself.

To cure humanity, it will take more than two angels. Every single person must make an effort to be an “angel,” which does not mean that people must sprout wings and be touched by the hand of God, but instead they must simply give little efforts to make life better for one another. To save a broken humanity, civilization must abandon its “power to prevent” lifestyle in exchange for a “power to join” lifestyle based on love and feeling: for one another, life, and for humanity in its entirety. An example of a “power to join” lifestyle is exhibited through the first time Damiel and Marion meet as human beings. Not once does either of them mention the fact that Damiel is an angel and Marion is a mere human being. Instead, they accept each for who they are and are able to look past their major differences through the power of love. The first step to curing an ill humanity is to recognize that it is not okay to ignore the fact that our current “power to prevent” lifestyle is destroying the minds and souls of human beings, and change will not happen by itself. It is up to everybody to give a little bit of effort in their everyday lives to make a big change.

Works Cited

Jon Bellion. “New York Soul (Part ii).” The Human Condition, 2014.

Pink Floyd. “Comfortably Numb.” The Wall, Apr. 1979.

Pink Floyd. “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2.” The Wall, Apr. 1979.

Wenders, Wim, director. Wings of Desire. 1987.

Wertmuller, Lena, director. Swept Away (1974). English Dubbed. YouTube, YouTube, 19 Feb. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzAEF5g35uw.

Rusted Gears: My Triumph over the American Education Factory by Samantha Brookes

Female, bisexual, single, short; a writer, a sister, a friend: I ask, "Just how much does the social order affect who we are?" Today, society is one of the most crucial factors as to how our personality develops. Being different isn’t celebrated; those who look, act or express themselves differently are weeded out or forced to change. Only those who fit in may succeed, and it doesn’t matter who we are or who we want to be. From the very beginning of our childhoods, school comes into play and directs us to the path that fits its needs. Still, as we get older, we may try to break free from this directed path and expand our minds to what lies beyond society’s rule. We then may manage to be a part of the community without losing ourselves to the edu-cage-tion machine and become more than just another gear that helps it turn.

Competitive, grade-centric, power hungry, materialistic, attention-seeking, afraid, obedient, approval addicted:  I, like everyone else, was raised to be this way and to follow the conventional path that would decide what I’d become. This was the case until middle school, where I slipped into a deep depression that I couldn’t bring myself out of. It wasn’t until I stopped going to school completely that those around me noticed something was wrong. Only when I stopped functioning in class did everyone see there was a problem. Throughout long, pressing hours with therapists, I was allowed to express myself as long as I didn’t step outside the borders they had drawn for me. I was permitted to speak until the clock ran out and then I was told to attend school and given some pills to numb me of any and all emotions which led me to a single conclusion: none of these adults actually cared if I was depressed or not because they had the medicine to take care of that. What they cared about was whether or not I was going to class and learning how to work for the benefit of society. I wasn’t a person who needed their support; rather, I was a rusted gear slowing down the machine.

Restrictive, demanding, disconcerting, unmotivating, unethical, unimaginative: The educational system in our country has become a factory meant to produce well-oiled cogs for gears that will eventually come to function within the machine known as modern civilization. No longer are schools focused on educating the youth but rather about developing young minds into something the rest of civilization can benefit from. The system strips away our individual identities by placing us into the educational funnel early within our lives, teaching us how to do the same things in the same way, so that each of us can serve as a gear in the machine. In Plato’s Allegory of The Cave, he demonstrates the ignorance that society breeds. People are chained up in a cave, forced to look only one way all their lives, shown only the shadows of puppets projected upon a wall. They’re unable to understand the rest of the world because they’ve only been taught to see things in a single way all their lives. The educational system is the same, providing standardized tests that force students to do and see things a single way. This method of learning erases any possibilities of developing individual identities or alternative forms of experiences. If we’re shown only one possibility in our lives, how could we know of all the other possibilities? “I don’t see how they could see anything else” (Plato). Much of who we are is the result of the overbearing control that society has held over us and how we develop our identities. This control is exposed to us through their education factories that sort us into groups that can benefit society and groups that cannot.

My own struggle with mental illness pushed me out of the mainstream factory and into a separate system for students who aren’t functioning properly. It didn’t take me long to realize that many of the students in this separate reality had given up on making anything of themselves in much the same way as the system had given up on them. I wondered how were we supposed to believe in ourselves when society didn’t. Although my program was custom-made for students struggling with mental illness and advertised itself as helping students with mental illness graduate, it was no more than a facade for those who looked in on the program. We students knew better. We would never again be a part of the machine. We were broken and placed outside the system so that our disease of mental illness did not infect the rest of the machine that had been so carefully constructed. I had been released from the conventional machine and thrown into the box they kept in the corner for the rusted gears who threatened productivity.

Even teachers who tried to get our gears turning again had morale problems. Their help was soundless to us. Many times class was stopped because students had broken down from anxiety and then got into screaming matches over due dates, their faces turning red and tears often streaming down their cheeks. We were scared we wouldn’t be able to live up to the standards teachers expected us to reach. Some students simply couldn’t handle being within the classroom setting and were led elsewhere. Wade, a close friend of mine in the program, once exploded after a teacher had confronted him over some missing work. He couldn’t find it and the teacher said if he didn’t get it done he’d fail. Slowly I watched as his anger and frustration built; even the teacher recognized that, but it hadn’t been enough. In a moment of rage Wade slammed his hands on the desk and started yelling at the teacher. When he realized he couldn’t win, he stormed out, striking the wall so hard that the next time I saw him I couldn’t help but joke that he probably broke it. Despite it being one of the most terrifying events during my time in the program, I was more concerned with how he was feeling than scared of the violence he expressed in that moment. To see him break down as all of us had done in one way or another was itself very instructional. We were certainly grappling for something to ground us, unsure of what lay beyond the machine that had raised us.

To not function within society is different for those who find themselves with an illness or impairment. Our utilitarian, technocratic society is shaped specifically to eradicate any need to move past the fourth stage of Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development where an “individual is oriented toward authority, fixed rules, and the maintenance of the social order” (Kohlberg). I had been kicked off the assembly line and refusal to stay within this stage. Even worse, I was moving beyond it, questioning, reaching out, and defying society’s narrow conformist game. I didn’t like being alone, but after being with only myself as company, I was able to find my own identity. I had to understand that the school system wasn’t in place to teach us but to mold us. Once this realization took hold, I stopped feeling as though I had been thrown out and more like I had been liberated. Still, this liberation did not quench my longing to be included.

For those trying to re-enter society, it is a whole new challenge of having to alter one’s identity so that it will conform with everyone else’s. Gloria Anzaldua speaks knowingly on the issue of identity as a Chicana in “How to Tame A Wild Tongue.” She tells of how her culture developed from the need to find its own identity since they were no longer considered Spanish after having to conform to American mores. The very culture she had changed herself to be a part of refused to accept her because of her Spanish heritage. To push the boundaries even further, she was an outspoken lesbian who wasn’t afraid to "untame" her tongue and lash out to be heard. Even with this constant fight for freedom and rights, people outside of the machine will be forced to change themselves so that they may fit into it. Now as a college student, I find myself being trained to do nothing more than make money, pushed with the need to pay off society for all it has done for me. I’m expected to get to class, get good grades, get a degree, and then get a job. From there, I will work until my life nears an end, all for the benefit of society.

When we first enter into the world, we do not know who we are or what we’re meant to do. The machine takes advantage of this innocence, trying to make us into something that they can use for themselves. However, as Alan Watts reminds us in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, "We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it" (Watts); the machine makes us into who we are, but this does not mean that it is all we are.

The system leaves little room or time for us to find ourselves for it is not designed for us to know that we are more than just gears spinning for its benefit. However, despite its attempt to stop us from searching for our individuality, we long to develop ourselves, to discover who we are beyond the spinning gears bolted in that single space of the machine. No human being wants to be just be another cog; we can’t help but want to free ourselves from the ignorance the system breeds. What those nuts and bolts fail to realize is that the individual is stronger than the machine. With the freedom to express ourselves and think differently than others, society is able to grow and expand.

Every person experiences life differently, and each person thinks differently. Expecting us to conform to become “just another brick in the wall,” as Pink Floyd once sang out on the album known as The Wall, is outrageous. Roger Waters cried out, “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control” (Waters, 5). He attacked the system and brought to light the war we face at freeing ourselves from society’s control just as so many did before him and so many will continue to do. The educational system under the rule of the machine erases any chances for growth, especially the ambition to become more than what it made us. “All contain the power to reinvent ourselves and create a new, empowered identity that expands what is possible in our lives” (Robbins).

Individuality is one of the key tools that allows everyone to grow as a community as well as a person. The freedom to express who you are should be something that is supported, not hidden, nor mocked. We shouldn’t fear what makes one of us different from another. Accepting each person’s individuality can bring everyone together, for our differences are what makes us strong. We shouldn’t need to conform to be accepted. No matter how different two people may be, "Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (Whitman). We are all the same people, no matter how different each individual may be we are still the same. Why not celebrate what makes us different? Why not accept that we are all separate beings and stop throwing others away because they’re not like ourselves? Although society will try and conform us, we must recognize that we have our own identity.

Free thinking, insightful, compassionate, intelligent, caring, transformative: From where I stood outside the machine, I saw no rusted gears. I was told that I was rusted, that I could no longer function within the rest of society and yet here I am. I stand within society, but I am no longer a rusted gear that had been tossed out, nor am I a functioning gear within the machine. I am myself, capable of living within society without allowing it to control who I am.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Web.

Kohlberg, Lawrence. "Stages of Moral Development According to Kohlberg." Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy Pennsylvania State University. Web. 4 Mar. 2016.

Robbins, Anthony. "The Meaning of Life: Finding Your True Identity."  29 July 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2015.

Sheehan, Thomas. Plato THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE, Web.

Waters, Roger, and David Gilmour. The Wall. Pink Floyd. Sony Music Entertainment, 1979. CD.

Watts, Alan. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. (1973).

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself (1892 Version)." Poetry Foundation. Web. 04 Dec. 2015.