Corrupt

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William Seward Burroughs II (1914 - 1997)

If one were to think of a heroin addict, you'd be forgiven for not associating this with any kind of serious literature or philosophical thinking, especially today where all celebrities or 'artists' all seem to be checking into rehab after one spliff and a pint of beer. However, Burroughs seemed to avoid being more famous for his excesses than his works, and deservedly so. Despite personality traits that many would deem distasteful Burroughs left some fantastic works that stripped away the pleasant façade of modern society, revealing it for what it really is.

Introduction

William S. Burroughs (II) was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1914, the grandson of William S. Burroughs I, inventor of the adding machine. Maybe somewhat surprisingly, Burroughs' childhood was seemingly nothing out of the ordinary. In the introduction to Junky (his first work, semi-autobiographical), Burroughs recalls memories probably similar to those experienced by thousands of others: being neither brilliant or backwards in school, disliking maths and sports. Although he does recall nightmares as a child and hearing an adult say that smoking opium causes pleasant dreams. So it was decided. "When I grow up I'm going to smoke opium."

After graduating from Harvard, Burroughs was able to live off the allowance allowed to him by his parents. He wound up in Europe, having a brief period of being a medical student in Vienna, and marrying a Jewish woman in order for her to gain entry to the U.S.A (they would later divorce, naturally). Burroughs eventually returned to his home country having no great desire for work. Trying odd jobs after being deemed unfit for service in the army during the second world war, Burroughs eventually wound up in New York, and it was these experiences that made out the material for Junky. It was also in New York where the foundations for the 'beat movement' were laid and he met his wife Joan Adams, whom he would later shoot in a drunken game of William Tell. Burroughs later stated that "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death."

In later year Burroughs would once again leave the U.S. and live in several locations in Europe, Tangiers and Mexico. He eventually returned home, first to New York city and later Lawrence, Kansas, where he died from heart attack complications in 1997.

Beat Generation

The "Beat Generation" was an American literary movement during the fifties/early sixties featuring well-known writers such as Kerouac and Ginsberg. There was no real style to bind the movement; some writers wrote stories, others poems and the writing style itself varied from bare-bones staccato sentences to spontaneous prose and cut-up (which we will come to later). To look at it in a less cynical light (viewing the movement from an 'aftermath perspective' would warrant a cynical perspective), the Beat movement was supposed to achieve what the hippies tried the following decade. Known faces within the movement (regardless of any political affiliation) rejected the commonly accepted ideas from that particular era. There was an emphasis on freedom, not a freedom to own as many cars as you liked or to earn lots of money, but on a more basic, human-nature orientated freedom (a kind that appeals to most humans without the bad aftertaste of 'political freedom'). That is to say a freedom found within, not something granted by external political bodies. Such freedoms are represented in Kerouac's free-roaming inwardly searching 'mad men', or Burroughs law-defying, job-avoiding narrator 'Lee'.

Whilst most literary scholars would class Burroughs as a part of this movement, it doesn't seem to paint the picture correctly. As Hunter S Thompson once noted of himself 'I was too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippy.' Regardless of Burroughs' age in comparison with that of the other 'beats,' what is of actual importance is the gap in ideologies between the rest of the group and Burroughs. This might be where the Beat movement failed; a lack of tying ideology aside from some very basics.

The Beats managed what most counter-culture movements managed to achieve, that is, to step back and say "Jesus Christ, I think we went wrong somewhere." However, merely identifying a problem isn't enough. The real task is identifying the root causes and not the symptoms caused by this root problem or root problems. The Beats managed to only notice symptoms: it is wrong to invade foreign countries for no particular reason; it is wrong to exploit people to earn more money for yourself and so on - all the things that aren't very 'right' in modern society.

Ginsberg seemed happy to simply stay on the left of the fence. Whilst he wasn't entirely wrong he never did much except call the U.S. government names and suggest solutions of holding hands, hoping that everything would turn out okay; the same kind of swill people like Lennon wound up spewing -- the kind of stuff that would make Burroughs vomit, were the truth told. In On The Road by Kerouac we can read a somewhat deeper meaning beneath the searching for 'kicks,' probably highlighted by Dean Moriarty's searching for 'It'. Kerouac, a Catholic, claimed his characters' search in On The Road was inward and religious, which is possible. However, in the end, most of the beats' philosophy boiled down to 'just leave me alone, man.'

Burroughs, on the other hand, had a more mature philosophy. Whilst this might be contributed to his age, nobody else seemed to follow in time, either sticking with their old ideas, falling prey to New Age Spiritualism, or dying prematurely. In Kerouac's On The Road, it is noted how, in New Orleans, everybody sits at the feet of Old Bull Lee (the pseudonym applied to Burroughs in the book) as if he were a teacher. Kerouac tells us of a man who wants to build a table, a fence and a shelf 'that will last a thousand years.' Perhaps at first glance that is just a statement to highlight Burroughs' quirkiness, however, read more deeply it is a window into a life philosophy.

The Johnson Family

To say someone is a Johnson means he keeps his word and honors his obligations. He's a good man to do business with and a good man to have on your team. He is not a malicious, snooping, interfering self-righteous trouble-making person . . . . A Johnson minds his own business. But he will help when help is needed. He doesn't stand by while someone is drowning or trapped in a wrecked car.

---William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine

Whilst many have interpreted this as some kind of arch-libertarian, pro-individualism philosophy, I'd have to disagree. Whilst Burroughs may have enjoyed having his own individual identity, I wouldn't call him an individualist. To suggest that he was would suggest he held a belief in modernity, democracy and the idea that every individual is capable of making sensible choices. Just quickly glancing through some of his works or statements is enough to see that this is far from the truth.

What Burroughs recognised is the paranoia and cowardice that runs rampant in modern society. To a point, we are encouraged to spy on our neighbours to see if they commit minor offences, like working for cash in hand or smoking grass, and to go running to the correct authorities if we find this is so. Such actions appeal to particular kinds of people in our society. They like to think they are heroes for ridding their community of such evil fiends; horrible menaces who think the government doesn't have the right to take their money or regulate naturally occurring substances less harmful than legal drugs. However, these same people are not heroic at all. When it comes to some real action: if their tax evading, dope smoking neighbour's house is broken into, for instance, they are the last to put a hole between the intruder's eyes or at least wrestle him to the ground until the cops get there. That would place them at significant risk, and they cannot understand the need to risk sacrifice in order to stop a town being overrun by thugs.

A Johnson might be more accurately described as a regular decent human being, maybe like your parents or your friends or partner. Not concerned with absolutes like 'individualism' or 'collectivism', they recognise the serious and the non-serious. They realise that a person has a right to have his business un-interfered with, but that seeing things solely in the realm of the individual is collective suicide.

The world operates on symbols and not reality. We live in a strange age where cops are judged on figures, not real results. It isn't really the fault of police but the arrest of 100 relatively harmless drug users is considered better than the arrest of one murderer/child molester/rapist. Not on a moral level, but on a statistical (symbolic) level. A Johnson, unlike the general public, is able to separate symbols from reality and is not concerned with this superficial version of reality peddled out by governments and their bureaucracies

Junky

This was Burroughs' first published work, originally coupled with the confessions of a narcotics agent. Firstly it seems 'just' an account of heroin addiction, I say 'just,' but such a document might be more useful for 'professionals' to take advice from rather than listening to a suit who thinks a beer after work counts as alcoholism. However, much more than an account of heroin addiction lies within the pages of Junky.

One might compare Junky to, say, Sartre's Nausea, as a story of someone who is struggling to come to terms with the world and find meaning. Where the main character's preoccupations in Nausea are a historical book and a woman, the main character's preoccupations in Junky are heroin and crime.

The question, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any other direction. Junk wins by default.

This quote, found early in the book, indicates a symptom of the Modern Disease.. to put it bluntly: there's fuck all to do. The alternative to the lifestyle portrayed in the book is the school-college-job-girlfriend-wife-TV-brats-suburban house scenario (not necessarily in that order). Whilst maybe more palatable than a life of crime and addiction, it really isn't any different. It used to be the norm, now more like an exception, but the desire to form a family used to come from a stable foundation built with someone you'd like to share a life journey with. Now people seem to stumble into having kids with people they don't love but were screwing to take away the boredom in their lives.

Burroughs couldn't really think of any job he wanted to do (reflected in the narrator in Junky) and didn't really need to work thanks to his allowance from his parents. He makes token risks at losing his freedom; lush rolling on the subway, selling and using heroin etc. Almost as if prison seems preferable to the non-existence of a life filled with no experience, just jobs and other distractions.

Whilst later novels used the 'cut up' technique, Junky is written in a straight narrative, using short and straight to the point sentences, similar to, say, Ernest Hemingway. Beyond merely being a writing style, when compared with Hemingway we again see a suggestion in such a style. Despite characters doing 'exciting' things, these actions are described basically and without significance, hinting at the futility of a life lived without a deeper, richer meaning.

The Naked Lunch

Some grindcore bands challenged people's views by thrashing an extreme, comical parody in their songs. Naked Lunch does much the same, savagely attacking all the ideas modern society holds dear: democracy, equality and so on. But more than just being an entertaining rant for people who'd find a political doctrine boring, Naked Lunch delves much more deeply into the problems of modern society, rather than just criticizing obvious symptoms.

As in other books, drugs (particularly heroin) feature often, but their metaphor is taken further than in earlier works. Heroin is used a symbol of control in Naked Lunch, not in the paranoid liberal idea of governments pushing drugs into cities to control the population. Burroughs makes a much more ballsy statement: the governments in modern society work the same way as the heroin business (Burroughs noted he never found anything useful about being addicted to heroin, however, his experiences with the drugs, he claims, gave him fantastic insight into the operations of society).

The Dependency Pyramid

The pyramid of junk, one level eating the level below (it is no accident that junk higher-ups are always fat and the addict in the street is always thin) right up to the top or tops as there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on the basic principles of monopoly.

Sounds like your workplace? The town you live in? It's supposed to. Many people shriek in horror at the idea of people selling heroin in their towns and cities, shedding tears at all the people being destroyed and used just for profit. Then they go off to work to get the same treatment. The difference being selling software is legal.

Burroughs also refers to need; the government constantly invents new needs, whether they be minor like bigger houses, faster cars or major like security against those Evil Terrorists or protection against That New Deadly Virus. The result is the same; namely that more control is gained.

Aside from just drugs, many scenarios and parodies from the real world are used to emphasise the control used in our modern society.

The Talking Asshole

The Naked Lunch is made up of several scenarios and routines. One segment within the book is a short story about a man who taught his asshole to talk as part of a stand-up comedy gig. Because it earned him laughs and a bit of cash, the man did not think much about his talking asshole, but in time, he learned the consequence of his ignorance.

After a while the ass started talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time. Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in-curving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags nobody loved it and it wanted to be kissed same as any other mouth. Finally it talked all the time day and night, you could hear him for blocks screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it, but nothing did any good and the asshole said to him: 'It's you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we don't need you around here any more. I can talk and eat and shit.'

Many parasites live amongst us in society, and most people feel sorry for them and want to help them. They want marginalised foreigners to have more control over the community, they want retards to be involved in MENSA, born paraplegics to train runners etc. They do this, not because they really believe those people were destined to do those jobs and were halted by some cruel and unjust force. They do it to feel better about themselves; in the first instance it is nothing more than a kind act of charity to make them feel better and look better in the eyes of others.

But, as the saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. People expect that, having helped these parasites, one day birds will tweet, the sun will shine and a retard will skip off with his head of MENSA badge pinned to his jacket, all achieved with some good ol' fashioned hard work. However, that is not the reality. A whole society becomes victim to these parasites who have been allowed more and more and thus have expected more and more. What we thought was harmless and in need of a helping hand overthrows us and selfishly takes more and more.

The Talking Asshole is a symbol of the lack of direction in society. Because we no longer have any goals and have stagnated, we rely on charity and focus on miniscule 'cute' distractions to keep us focused and amused without recognising how these things are able to grow and take over our lives - not out of any evil will of their own, but through our own misguided 'good deeds' spawned from our own lack of any healthy culture.

Naked Lunch faced obscenity trials back in the 60's. Whilst many would presume this was due to references to sodomy and the generally graphic material, maybe it had more to do with the challenging of those dearly held ideas of the government and church that the book contained.

The end result of complete cellular representation is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on opposite principle of inventing needs to justify its existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action, to the complete parasitism of a virus.

William S. Burroughs - A CORRUPT Perspective

As mentioned before, one might not expect great things to come from a seemingly degenerate heroin addict, but despite such an image, Burroughs no doubt wrote fantastic books with a great insight into the failings of our modern society, which ties him in with many figures that otherwise have nothing to do with him.

Burroughs' work was far ahead of its time. One of the things he introduced to the literary world was the so called cut-up technique.

Burroughs described the cut-up technique as a way of altering reality. The idea is to write something (or find an already written page), cut it up and re-order it so the story or article changes. Some have dismissed this as garbage claiming it as an obvious sign of a lack of artistic merit. However, such people are probably the ones who saw the cut-up technique as a novelty technique. What Burroughs was getting at was a lack of linear reality; for example, he claimed that The Naked Lunch could be entered into at any page and still leave the book readable. That is a reflection of reality itself. Whilst some would claim that 'reality' is absolute and cannot be altered, this is not true. Hallucinogens seem to show that perception-based reality (which is all we can experience) is merely data that can be fed through any kind of interpretation device e.g. the brain. The brain is not foolproof, so who can claim any kind of objective reality based solely on perception?

What is best about the works of Burroughs and the views he has expressed in interviews is his ability to see through the sham that is modernity. Whilst his contemporaries in the 'beats' were fooled by revolutionary talk or a more comfortable material lifestyle with some indulgences less marginalised, Burroughs saw it for the bread and circuses that it was.

Burroughs also succeeded where many 'political activists' failed. He was able to differentiate between symptom and cause. Whilst some went attacking the Jews, others capitalists, others the government, others 'lefties' and others 'righties,' he was able to see that:

I feel there is some hideous new force loose in the world like a creeping sickness, spreading, blighting. Remoter parts of the world seem better now, because they are less touched by it. Control, bureaucracy, regimentation, these are merely symptoms of a deeper sickness that no political or economic program can touch. What is the sickness itself?

Politicians today give us easy answers: The problem is Capitalism/Nazis/Communists/Negroes/Terrorists/America and so forth. This simple solution thesis is rampant in modern society. What Burroughs recognised is that individuals or ideas were not the problem, but that the existence of certain individuals or ideas within particular contexts were the result of the failing of particular societies. The problem lies within ourselves as a collective, not within the symptoms that have come our way as a result of our failings.