THE ASYLUM

in·sti·tu·tion·al·ize

1

: to make into an institution : give character of an institution to <institutionalized housing>; especially : to incorporate into a structured and often highly formalized system <institutionalized values>

2

: to put in the care of an institution

~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 The Asylum

    His house was certainly peculiar, and since this was the first thing Fenchurch and Arthur had encountered it would help to know what it was like.
    It was like this:
    It was inside out.
    Actually inside out, to the extent that they had to park on the carpet.
    All along what one would normally call the outer wall, which was decorated in a tasteful interior-designed pink, were bookshelves, also a couple of those odd three-legged tables with semicircular tops which stand in such a way as to suggest that someone just dropped the wall straight through them, and pictures which were clearly designed to soothe.
    Where it got really odd was the roof.
    It folded back on itself like something that M. C. Escher, had he been given hard nights on the town, which it is no part of this narrative's purpose to suggest is the case, though it is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have dreamed up after having been on one, for the little chandeliers which should have been hanging inside were on the outside pointing up.
    Confusing.
    The sign above the front door read "Come Outside," and so, nervously, they had.
    Inside, of course, was where the Outside was. Rough brickwork, nicely done pointing, gutters in good repair, a garden path, a couple of small trees, some rooms leading off.
     And the inner walls stretched down, folded curiously, and opened at the end as if, by and optical illusion which would have had M. C. Escher frowning and wondering how it was done, to enclose the Pacific Ocean itself.
    "Hello," said John Watson, Wonko the Sane.
    Good, they thought to themselves, "hello" is something we can cope with.
    "Hello," they said, and all, surprisingly, was smiles....
    ...Wonko the Sane laughed. It was a light easy laugh, and sounded like one he had used a lot before and was happy with.
    "Ah yes," he said, "that's to do with the day I finally realized that the world had gone totally mad and built the Asylum to put it in, poor thing, and hoped it would get better."
    This was the point at which Arthur began to feel a little nervous again.
    "Here," said Wonko the Sane, "we are outside the Asylum." He pointed again at the rough brickwork, the pointing, and the gutters.  "Go through that door"-he pointed at the first door through which they had originally entered-" and you go into the Asylum. I've tried to decorate it nicely to keep the inmates happy, but there's very little one can do. I never go in there myself.  If I am ever tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away."
    "That one?" said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.
    "Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."
    The sign read:
    "Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."
    "It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."

~ Ripped off shamelessly from Douglas Adams' So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, the fourth book in his incomparable Hitchhiker's Trilogy. If you can appreciate the irony in that, these books are for you.

Who has been institutionalized into the Asylum? We have. You, and I, and everyone else who lives in any highly structured society. Schools are not only institutes of learning, they are instruments of social control. There's nothing inherently wrong with that - we could not exist in a state of constant anarchy. If everyone did exactly what they wanted, all the time, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead-style, we obviously wouldn't get anywhere.


But schools can go too far, and where they leave off, society begins. We learn to think as others think. Do as others do. Believe what we are told. Be what we are expected to be - or else. We run the constant risk of over-socialization, of simply accepting the status quo without stopping to wonder whether or not we actually should be. As Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace and perpetual hilarity, so eloquently pointed out, we run the risk of failing to think for ourselves to the degree that we need instructions on a packet of toothpicks.


What is Common Knowledge?

Read more »

in·sti·tu·tion·al·ize

1

: to make into an institution : give character of an institution to <institutionalized housing>; especially : to incorporate into a structured and often highly formalized system <institutionalized values>

2

: to put in the care of an institution

~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 The Asylum

    His house was certainly peculiar, and since this was the first thing Fenchurch and Arthur had encountered it would help to know what it was like.
    It was like this:
    It was inside out.
    Actually inside out, to the extent that they had to park on the carpet.
    All along what one would normally call the outer wall, which was decorated in a tasteful interior-designed pink, were bookshelves, also a couple of those odd three-legged tables with semicircular tops which stand in such a way as to suggest that someone just dropped the wall straight through them, and pictures which were clearly designed to soothe.
    Where it got really odd was the roof.
    It folded back on itself like something that M. C. Escher, had he been given hard nights on the town, which it is no part of this narrative's purpose to suggest is the case, though it is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have dreamed up after having been on one, for the little chandeliers which should have been hanging inside were on the outside pointing up.
    Confusing.
    The sign above the front door read "Come Outside," and so, nervously, they had.
    Inside, of course, was where the Outside was. Rough brickwork, nicely done pointing, gutters in good repair, a garden path, a couple of small trees, some rooms leading off.
     And the inner walls stretched down, folded curiously, and opened at the end as if, by and optical illusion which would have had M. C. Escher frowning and wondering how it was done, to enclose the Pacific Ocean itself.
    "Hello," said John Watson, Wonko the Sane.
    Good, they thought to themselves, "hello" is something we can cope with.
    "Hello," they said, and all, surprisingly, was smiles....
    ...Wonko the Sane laughed. It was a light easy laugh, and sounded like one he had used a lot before and was happy with.
    "Ah yes," he said, "that's to do with the day I finally realized that the world had gone totally mad and built the Asylum to put it in, poor thing, and hoped it would get better."
    This was the point at which Arthur began to feel a little nervous again.
    "Here," said Wonko the Sane, "we are outside the Asylum." He pointed again at the rough brickwork, the pointing, and the gutters.  "Go through that door"-he pointed at the first door through which they had originally entered-" and you go into the Asylum. I've tried to decorate it nicely to keep the inmates happy, but there's very little one can do. I never go in there myself.  If I am ever tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away."
    "That one?" said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it.
    "Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do."
    The sign read:
    "Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."
    "It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."

~ Ripped off shamelessly from Douglas Adams' So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, the fourth book in his incomparable Hitchhiker's Trilogy. If you can appreciate the irony in that, these books are for you.

Who has been institutionalized into the Asylum? We have. You, and I, and everyone else who lives in any highly structured society. Schools are not only institutes of learning, they are instruments of social control. There's nothing inherently wrong with that - we could not exist in a state of constant anarchy. If everyone did exactly what they wanted, all the time, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead-style, we obviously wouldn't get anywhere.


But schools can go too far, and where they leave off, society begins. We learn to think as others think. Do as others do. Believe what we are told. Be what we are expected to be - or else. We run the constant risk of over-socialization, of simply accepting the status quo without stopping to wonder whether or not we actually should be. As Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace and perpetual hilarity, so eloquently pointed out, we run the risk of failing to think for ourselves to the degree that we need instructions on a packet of toothpicks.


What is Common Knowledge?

Read more »