Prescription for Patient X, the Humans
Aug 19th, 2010If you like it here, please subscribe - by RSS or by email - and get new posts as I write 'em.
Patient X, the Humans, presents to clinic disoriented, unable to agree on a future, and with significant retrograde amnesia.
Patient is by turns delusional or hostile, alternately refusing to admit to significant differences of agenda and values; and insisting on imposing strong beliefs on others via verbal aggression or violence. In both states, patient is highly sadistic.
Diagnosis: Severe and deeply entrenched Addiction to both Conflict and Denial, also resulting in a host of co-morbid conditions, the most immediately lethal of which is Totalitarianism.
Past treatments (as related by patient): War, with wide-reaching and disastrous systemic side effects; Global Policy, prescribed by the clinic at Geneva, mostly ineffective or anti-therapeutic; and, most recently, a Twelve Step program referral by a facility in Washington, to which the patient could not ultimately commit (“Power greater than ourselves…God…amends…personal inventory….Forget it.”)
Suggested therapy:
Complexity™.
Complexity is a Moral, Emotional, and Intellectual- based compound with significant palliative effects in humans. It has been widely marketed under the name Democracy, a brand which is undergoing significant issues of copyright infringement and used to label several, often contraindicated, therapies. (See below.)
Complexity has several drawbacks which prevent it from being widely prescribed.
Significant therapeutic challenges:
Supplies of Complexity are close to depleted, and there has been delay in approving further, large scale manufacturing. The drug requires extensive phase 2 trials, during which patients, especially those in proximity to an epidemic of Totalitarianism, frequently die.
Compound is able to withstand boiling or freezing, but often breaks down in these states once ingested by patients.
Most saliently, Complexity is exceedingly difficult to mass distribute, as it tends to corrupt in transit; is very costly to preserve; and is experienced by many as painful to ingest.
Its effects are also slow to take effect, which most patients find discouraging.
As such, the production of Complexity is highly controversial. Its critics in the clinical community are extremely vocal.
Benefits:
With Complexity, each nation becomes capable of hearing criticism and examining its assumptions, its origins, its charters, and its actions, even as it expresses confidence in and a willingness to defend, at a cost, its core principles. The ‘catch’ is that these principles are sometimes harder to immediately define while taking Complexity. (This flaw has nearly shut down trials of the drug several times in the past.)
While Complexity does, characteristically and almost exclusively to other therapies, allow for the maintenance of a society with both one’s empathy and one’s active resolve intact, it requires extensive self-monitoring, and causes occasional shakiness.
Complexity, if taken immediately, is the best treatment for Totalitarianism, but is completely contraindicated in cases where this condition is entrenched and incurable. In those cases, there is no known cure. Due to the contagious nature of this disease, total quarantine is our recommendation, while amputation is sometimes necessary.
Notes:
Complexity has, in most populations, been shown to be correlated with lower fertility rates. Interestingly, it is also used, off label, as an aphrodisiac.
Complexity can be used while operating heavy machinery, when indicated. It does not need to be taken with food, but some liquid is necessary as most find it rather hard to swallow, and often bitter.
Complexity can be taken together with Religion and Spirituality, although these patients report significant migraines.
Complexity is actually most effective when taken with Clarity, but this drug has been out of use for some time. The makers of Complexity hope to begin trials with New Clarity next spring.
Side Effects:
Patients often experience delays in gratification; self doubt; decreased feelings of efficacy; and difficulty expressing themselves immediately, whether verbally or physically. It is known that a large percentage of patients discontinue use when experiencing these discomforts.
Dosage:
Dosage is difficult to gage, and must be adjusted and monitored throughout a patient’s lifetime.
Exclusions:
Complexity is heavily contraindicated when a patient is taking Dogma or Reaction, sometimes mislabeled Democracy. Absorption in these cases is very poor, and the combination of these palliatives has been found to occasionally cause hallucinations.
Complexity is also dangerous when taken with Vagueness of Purpose, a commonly occurring compound found in micro-doses in almost all western nutrition, with immediate analgesic benefits. It too, is often mislabeled Democracy.
Those self-medicating with large quantities of Vagueness of Purpose often report that they feel just like they have taken Complexity. While the two substances are of similar molecular ideation, the palliative effects are not even remotely similar.
(Vagueness of Purpose, for example, while fast acting, has no long term therapeutic effect whatsoever, and high doses are strongly correlated with Moral Blindness. VOP is also known to be a direct cause of a neurotic condition known as Very Highly Specified Outrage on Behalf of Others, characterized by a jerking knee.)
Important Note:
Do not dispense Complexity to Tyrants!
These individuals often demand a supply of Complexity for its well-known sedative effect on indigenous journalists, but will never ingest it themselves. Tehran, Gaza City, and Pyongyang, for example, are noted for Complexity-seeking behavior from western suppliers.
Prognosis:
Given above therapeutic history and limitations, we are not terribly hopeful.
This particular patient, however, has surprised us before.
tags: conflict, democracy, denial, human history, moral clarity, moral complexity, Peace, totalitarianism, War
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2 Responses to “Prescription for Patient X, the Humans”
Perhaps you forgot that even a low dose of Complexity taken with out a daily dose of Logic leads to the syndrome Chaos.
By Diana Barshaw on Aug 21, 2010
This would make a wonderful board game. (Or drinking game, depending on the spin you would want to take.) For fun, you could throw in a guy named Piggy (he would have glasses), a guy named Jack (he would have a spear). There could also be a confused guy named Ralph who tries really hard to deal with the Complexity, but — on the whole — he is pretty inept. Oh, and there could also be a conch shell (which would have to get smashed during each game . . .and then people would have to send request via internet for new conch shells. It’s a serious money maker!
xoxoRASJ
By RASJ on Aug 24, 2010