The Kindness Cut of All

Abstract

Has this problem happened to someone you know? A SaveScreen file compiled on Monday wasn't erased. All of Tuesday's work was added to the existing file and the problem wasn't discovered until the file was printing or downloading into the Cataloging Micro Enhancer software. The result? A pile of unwanted printouts, or ME records that must be deleted one at a time (If you notice the problem early enough, you might elect to delete the entire file and try again.)

J. G. Ballard’s Surrealist Liberalism

“…"Beyond the hedges and the chain-mail fences the nuclear bombers stood at the ends of their runways, guarantors of the civilised order upon which the university so preened itself." 112 This pointed comment evokes his earlier description of "the saving miracle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," an act of barbarity that (Ballard always maintained) was necessary to halt yet greater suffering. 113 Despite his anxieties about the logic of the Cold War, Ballard was adamant about the moral and political superiority of the Western capitalist system and the need to defend it against challengers.…”

“…112 This pointed comment evokes his earlier description of "the saving miracle of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," an act of barbarity that (Ballard always maintained) was necessary to halt yet greater suffering. 113 Despite his anxieties about the logic of the Cold War, Ballard was adamant about the moral and political superiority of the Western capitalist system and the need to defend it against challengers. He was convinced that it offered the best hope for achieving psychic happiness.…”

“…Later, in a scene describing an experiment with LSD, Jim quotes the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, a favorite of the surrealists: "place the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible." 110 Kindness says little about Jim's political views. Like Empire, it is a diagnostic piece of writing, not a programmatic manifesto.…”

“…"I had mislaid part of my mind somewhere between Lunghua and Shanghai," Jim reflects. 107 The bulk of the story unfolds during the Cold War, in a "narrative organised around the deathly repetition and ultimate therapeutic mastering of repressed trauma." 108 Jim struggles to make sense of his wartime experience before he finds domestic happiness with Miriam, an interlude shattered by her sudden death, followed by his slow and uneven path to psychological recuperation through the quotidian labor of caring for their children.…”

“…Later, in a scene describing an experiment with LSD, Jim quotes the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, a favorite of the surrealists: "place the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible." 110 It could serve as Jim's (and Ballard's) personal creed. Eros and Thantos jostle for primacy.…”