There was a psychiatrist for every five schools in The Democracy, and the teachers had been instructed to report to their local psychiatrists any boy or girl who revealed “undesirable” traits, “emotional immaturity,” “anxiety states,” “psychotic symptoms,” “neuroses,” or “paranoid tendencies.” The psychiatrists were particularly insistent upon being informed about strong “nonconformists,” and those who were markedly “asocial” and who did not “fit in with their age-group,” or displayed signs of “maladjustment.” If the child were very young, the terrified parents were brought in for “serious discussion” about the “welfare of the child.” The real object of these “discussions” was to discover if the parents had been teaching the child “religious superstitions” or inculcating him with “subversive ideas.” Quite often fathers and mothers of such “rogue” children received long prison sentences to the work camps and in the mines, and the child was entered in a “school of training.” Therefore, a parent would rather have been informed that his offspring had some fatal disease than to be informed that the little one was not “adjusting himself properly to his group” or was showing symptoms of “schizophrenia.”
Durant knew that all this was part of the plan of Government to destroy incipient individualism, courage, intelligence, originality, pride, independent thought and genius among the children of the subjugated proletariat. To The Democracy, these children were a powerful threat.
The children of the privileged groups were not subjected to this horrible policing and destruction of the human mind, for they were trained for “leadership” over the masses of the people. Durant’s own children had not yet been entered in any Federal school, and it had been the thought of what would happen to his boys in the Government breeding-grounds of anonymity which had made him join the Minute Men. He knew only too well that anonymity is the most dangerous symptom of madness, and that the obliteration of personality—the goal of the psychiatrists—results in passivity and uncomplaining and thoughtless docility. There was, for the proletariat of the cities, a program of deliberate mental and physical indignity, a future of impotent “littleness” without stature, and quiet servitude. The psychiatrists had not only formulated this plan but had put it into action.
This had no parallel in history at all. There had, in centuries past, occasionally appeared evil men who resorted to murder and torture in order to suppress “heresy,” but they had been concerned only with “spoken” heresy. What a man thought in the recesses of his spirit had been of no importance to old oppressors. But in this century of complete madness and slavery, it had become of overwhelming importance to the evil men of power that potential “heresy” should be blotted out in the minds of children so that the populace should be deprived of personality and rendered harmless to their masters.
Durant had discovered that there were two kinds of Government psychiatrists: the wild-eyed and intense fanatics who actually believed that they were rendering a service to humanity in the destruction of the human identity, and the cold-eyed cynics who knew very well what they were doing, and why, and who enjoyed with sadistic pleasure, the disintegration they accomplished. There was a quality of hatred in them for their fellowman, and a loathing. The first were zealots, the second, murderers. To Durant, the zealots were the more dangerous, for they were utterly mad.
New recruits to the Minute Men were given extensive lectures on this subject. They were taught the jargon of psychiatry, and they were shown how, over several decades, the psychiatrists became so appalling a menace to the people and why tyrants had taken them into their service. These men were the new devils of humanity, the new vampires, the new sorcerers and witch-doctors, the new wickedness and degeneration. No mores of the past applied to them, no tradition, for, from the beginning, they had been men without morality. Good and evil did not exist for them as actual things in themselves. All the virtues and disciplines of the human soul had appeared to them only as aberrations and capable of disgusting interpretations. Man, to these men, had no intrinsic grandeur or heroism, no importance as a soul, no actual dignity, and all his gods were based on loathsome imaginings or perversions, and all his instincts of charity, kindness, sympathy, compassion and generosity had, as their roots, some ugly “suppression” or were manifestations of self-seeking “exhibitionism.” To a godless, conscienceless and materialistic despotism, the psychiatrists, then, were invaluable.
Durant wondered whether Dr. Joseph Healy, head of the Public Psychiatric Department, was a zealot or a cynic. When Dr. Healy entered his office, it was at once evident that he was a cynic, and was therefore expedient, vulnerable to cash, and could be cowed. He was a slender man of medium height, about forty-two, well tailored in a light gray suit and white linen, quick and rather graceful of motion, and very businesslike and assured. No fanatic, he; he was well washed and groomed and every silvery-blond hair was meticulously in place on his excellent shaped head. If he was an extreme radical, as so many of his colleagues were, he certainly was a paradox, for nothing could have been finer than his dark blue silk tie, his personal jewelry, his hand-made boots. No, Durant decided with absolute conviction, this man was no zealot, but a ruthless murderer and sadist, calculating all that he did, and pocketing his profit.
Durant motioned him silently to a chair, leaned forward and scrutinized him. He had discovered that this speechless scrutiny had a disconcerting effect on frauds, though it did not move fanatics. Dr. Healy’s smiling face, so narrow, so delicate of skin, flushed faintly, though he lit a cigaret with complete confidence, and made a careful ritual of the act, saying as he did so: “It is pleasant to meet you, Major. I’m glad you are a young man. Major Burnes was old, and unprogressive.”
Durant grunted. The other officers moved a little closer, so as not to miss a word or a gesture. Dr. Healy ignored them, and seemed sincerely unaware of their presence. He lifted his eyes now, and Durant saw them clearly: pale, cold blue eyes, slightly protuding, coated over with the glaucous film of mercilessness.
“Director of the Public Psychiatric Department,” said Durant slowly.
Dr. Healy could produce a very charming smile, not ingratiating, but deliberately friendly. He, in turn, studied Durant. A dull, doltish Army man, he decided. Trained from childhood to be an animal in uniform. He, Dr. Healy, could trace his thought processes, exactly. The man was afraid of him, as dolts were usually afraid of psychiatrists. The old fear of the brainless warrior and the cretin masses for the “medicine man,” the “man of magic,” thought the doctor, with tolerant inner laughter. Durant, like any other animal, was mentally but fearfully circling around him, sniffing the air, wondering if rabbits would be produced from the atmosphere or strange manifestations be evoked. Dr. Healy thought he could hear those padding footsteps, the hard breathing of apprehension and monkey-curiosity.
Dr. Healy leaned back in his chair, with well-bred negligence, and crossed his elegant legs. (His father, and grandfather before him, had been honest bricklayers.) Dr. Healy was prepared to be gently but affectionately amused, guiding and confidence-inspiring. He glanced furtively at his watch. Fifteen minutes would do it. He had had some uneasiness at the news of the new major, a young man. It took so much of a man’s time to “break in” new arrivals. This, however, would be easy. The scrutiny which at first had disconcerted him was nothing but the blank stare of a robot, he decided.
“Are you in a hurry, Doctor?” asked the Major.
“I beg your pardon?” asked Dr. Healy, startled, glancing up from his watch. And then he drew the cigaret from his mouth, as he saw Durant’s eyes.
“I saw you looking at your watch. Are you in a hurry?” Durant smiled. “If you are, and you have some previous appointment, I’m afraid you’ll have to make other arrangements. You see, I intend to have a thorough talk with you.”
Dr. Healy put down his cigaret, and the fine skin of his forehead bunched together. He watched the smoke rising from the ashtray. His friendly and paternal smile became somewhat fixed. Intangibles
, to Dr. Healy, were more real than any “reality,” and much more powerful. He was not the psychiatrist who “lived by the book,” but by his enormous intuitive powers. He continued to watch the smoke. He was coolly enraged with himself for his superficial judgment. I must watch it, he thought; I’m getting careless. He sent the exquisitely tuned antennas of his mind into the charged air between him and Durant, and they turned all ways, like the living petals of sea anemones. And the antennas twisted, moved about, shrank and dilated, sensing danger.
“I did have some appointments,” said Dr. Healy pleasantly. “But nothing of importance. Even if they were, Major, this interview is much more important.”
“I’m glad you think so, Doctor. And I agree with you. It happens, too, that I have some knowledge of psychiatry.”
Dr. Healy began to relax. “Knowledge of psychiatry.” Good! There was no man so easy to mislead, to use, to bend to one’s purposes, as a fool who confessed that he had “some knowledge of psychiatry.” Use the jargon on him, pretend to be amazed at his knowledge, talk to him as if he were an equal, assume that he understands the most intricate of terms, and you had him. To disagree with you then on any point, thereafter, he would have to confess his ignorance and stupidity, and this the human ego avoids at almost any cost. I’ll soon have him eating out of my hand, thought Dr. Healy, and put on a very interested expression.
“I’m glad to hear you understand psychiatry,” he said. “It makes things simpler. I won’t have to explain my terminology then, Major. We can proceed on a certain basis of mutual understanding.”
Durant had some difficulty in keeping from smiling. He made himself nod gravely, and he inclined his head with the gesture of one who is modestly flattered. Dr: Healy lit another cigaret, and fastidiously ground out the first. “You know the work of the Public Psychiatric Department, Major?”
Durant nodded at the papers on his desk. “I’ve gone over these. But I’d like some things explained.” He picked up one paper.
“This is the section dealing with adults, not children, Doctor. This is your last brief report, or a portion of it, dated four days ago. I’ll read you one phrase: ‘We must not have ambivalence toward Government. Such reveals neurotic associations with regard to a parent, and indicates emotional immaturity.’ Now, Doctor, will you kindly tell me what the hell you mean by that?”
Dr. Healy lost considerable of his confidence, and again the skin of his forehead bunched together. This robot had actually confessed ignorance. A bad sign. The doctor coughed briefly. “I’m sorry, Major. I thought you understood he term ‘ambivalence.’” He waited, tentatively, for the eager affirmation. It did not come. Instead, Durant grinned. “I don’t,” he said. And looked at the doctor with amused inquiry.
Dr. Healy became just the slightest bit alarmed. But his voice remained smooth and cordial. “I should say, in the terms of the layman—” He paused. Durant nodded, and repeated: “In the terms of the layman—’”
“Well, then, Major, it means a state where a man has conflicting attitudes toward any object, such as love and hate, acquiescence and rebellion. Existing simultaneously for a particular government, a person, or situation.”
“Common enough,” agreed Durant. “My grandfather was a stern old party with some hideous ideas. But very bright and imaginative and lively. I loved him even more than I did my father, and I could have cut his throat with pleasure at almost the same instant. I suppose practically everybody has this—this ambivalence, eh?”
“It’s not a healthy state,” said Dr. Healy, becoming the teacher. “It can build up a very active neurosis, and, in some cases, can make the patient psychotic.”
“That makes practically all of us crazy, then,” said Durant. He put a cigaret in his mouth, and Keiser sprang to light it for him. Grandon was listening with intense interest. The other officers, impatiently waiting for Dr. Healy’s discomfiture, looked bored.
“I wouldn’t say we’re all ‘crazy,’” replied Dr. Healy, with amused tolerance. “We all make individual adjustments. However, there is such a thing as mass ambivalence, and vigilant and informed governments are now on the alert for it and adjust it in time, before it can become dangerous.”
Durant nodded seriously. “In the old days, before psychiatry, it just meant that the people became inflamed under tyranny and shot up the works—meaning the government, and set up a few gallows and guillotines on their own, and established a new government by revolution. Very common. In the old days.” He smiled at Dr. Healy artlessly.
But Dr. Healy was no longer very amused. The antennas of his mind began to quiver.
“What do you psychiatric fellows do when you encounter mass ambivalence, or in the words of a layman, when you find sections of the population brooding on ropes and axes?”
Dr. Healy said, picking his words very carefully, and watching Durant with the intensity of a stalking animal: “We find the ringleaders—or rather, I should say, the ones who exhibit the emotional disturbance in a marked form—”
“And shoot them,” said Durant genially.
Dr. Healy decided his cigaret was adulterated. He ground it out.
“No, Major. No. We reeducate them. We show them that they don’t really hate our form of Government. They are really only subconsciously reacting to hidden hostilities toward a parent, either a father or a mother. Once they understand that, and that they have substituted our Government for the parent in their minds—”
“You send them forth with your blessings, completely adjusted, eh, Doctor?”
Dr. Healy’s filmed eyes considered Durant, and his mouth opened a little. Then, he said deliberately: “Yes.”
“You return them to their friends so they can do a little psychiatry on them? Amateur psychiatrists, themselves, teaching love for our Government?”
“Yes,” said the doctor again.
“No more—emotional—scars, Dr. Healy?”
“None, Major”
Durant continued to smile. He thought of the torture rooms of the frightful FBHS, where brave men were crippled, blinded, murdered, and from which only a few, and they incoherent madmen, ever emerged as warnings to others who might show symptoms of “ambivalence.” The physical tortures and scarrings were awful enough. But men like Dr. Healy specialized in the mutilation of minds. Durant’s fingers twisted his cigaret to fragments. He glanced involuntarily at Grandon, who was almost at his elbow. The young lieutenant was grinning abstractedly, as he stared at the doctor.
Dr. Healy was thinking very rapidly. This new major was not a fool. He had made some interesting remarks, all with that bland smile of his. Dangerous remarks. Was he subtle? Dr. Healy remembered reading the full report on this major: Regular Army man, educated; parents, sound American stock; not married, completely trustworthy; devoted to the Government; formerly active in espionage. He had been passed on by the FBHS, with laudatory comments. Highly recommended by the Chief Magistrate, Arthur Carlson. Yet—those remarks. Dr. Healy considered them again. Innocent? Or baiting? Or crafty?
Durant followed his thoughts. I’m not as careful as I should be, he thought. But his own mind was a red cloud of hatred. He said: “Well, that is your department, Dr. Healy. I just wanted a little information for myself. Curious. Whatever it is you do, in your—hospitals—is probably the only thing you can do. But let’s go on. I quote from your report: ‘We must become even more active in reorientation courses, in view of the new war.’ What does that mean?”
Dr. Healy regained some confidence. “Instead of the regular indoctrination which we have been giving to the people once a week, we must now, in view of the new war, increase the indoctrination, having three sessions a week in each locality, under the supervision of a psychiatrist. During the last war, there were too many marked neuroses arising in the population, so many, in fact, that our psychiatric resources were badly strained. Too many people—”
“Went right out of their minds or started to shoot their own officers in the back or burned down barracks or sl
aughtered our own soldiers on the streets,” said Durant. “Yes. I remember that. It became serious, didn’t it? A mob tried to assassinate the President, himself. Yes, I remember. And thousands just walked out of the defense factories or committed suicide, or broke up their machines. Very bad.”
“Very bad,” agreed Dr. Healy, watching Durant closely. But Durant’s expression was all disgust at such behavior.
“We had to shoot down the mobs by the streetful,” went on Durant. “That was in New York, Doctor, and I understand that the same thing happened elsewhere.”
“Mass neurosis. We must avoid that in this war, Major. We must increase the resistance of the mass-mind and educate it to a full understanding of what this war means.”
“They did it better in the old days, a century or two ago,” commented Durant. “They just invented gorgeous uniforms, trained some excellent brass bands, promised loot to the soldiers, and the citizenry thought up exciting slogans and sent everybody out to murder. Ah, the happy flags in those days, and the music and the exuberance and extra rations of rum for the gallant soldiers, and the best girls of the homeland and the enemy territory for the soldiers, and the medals! Simpler than indoctrination, eh, Doctor, wasn’t it?”
Dr. Healy began to feel safe. He said, in a superior tone: “It was crude, Major, though I grant you it was effective. However, wars in those days were confined almost purely to the Military, and today wars are mass efforts and the masses are directly affected. Battlefields are in every city in every street and in every house.”
The Devil's Advocate Page 13
