Do you
know what le vice anglaise - the
English vice- really is? Not flagellation,
not pederasty - whatever the French believe
to be: its our refusal to admit our
emotions. We think they demean us I suppose.
Terence Rattigan In Praise of Love, (1973)
Act II,
The English have no soul, they have the understatement
instead.
George Mikes, How to be an Alien, p.24
This souls prison we call England.
George Bernard Shaw,
Heartbreak House, Hector in Act III
However, (much to the
chagrin of the people who believed in an
ideal state) there still remained a considerable
minority of the population who who maintained
some sort of an emotional, inner world,
and despite its painstaking dissimulation,
it emerged at the most inopportune times
obstructing the normal state of affairs
in Brutland. Bad rumours had it that these
individuals had been in possession of a
soul - one of the most abhorrent miasmata
for a native.
It was obvious that
these people were a disruption and a disgrace
to the equal opportunities regime as they
made heavy demands on the national resources
and kept complaining too much of an inner
void and thus becoming useless to society.
It was decided that
some sort of measure should be taken, so
the state built specialized institutes in
which cultural misfits would gather in large
groups in order to undergo a de-emotionalization
treatment. Those who would successfully
complete the programme would return to society,
cured of their disease, in full working
order. Those who failed were doomed to spend
the rest of their life in de-emotionalization
institutes under the best of health care.
Extreme cases that still maintained a soul
would undergo a soul lobotomy or a soul
castration/clitoridectomization (according
to the severity of each case and depending
on the sex of the patient) if symptoms persisted.
It was reputed that
in Brutland something like 20% of the National
Health Service (NHS) funds were injected
into de-emotionalization institutes. Even
if this is true, it is clearly insufficient,
as streets (at least in urban areas) seemed
to abound in emotionally challenged individuals.
*
A common disease which
afflicted the natives and at times lead
to their admittance in a de-emotionalization
institute was the co-called Seasonal Affective
Disorder (SAD). This was due to one of the
fundamental characteristics of Brutland:
clouds. Some people, who undoubtedly belonged
to the emotionally challenged, had the audacity
to demand the presence of that morally repugnant
substance called unobfuscated solar radiation.
There were talks amongst the political circles
of legalising it but still it was a matter
of principle for the Brutish democracy to
avoid a potentially disastrous reform of
good old obfuscation.
However, I cannot obviate
the necessity of expressing certain doubts
about the so-called seasonal nature of the
disease in question. I have strong reasons
to believe that it is probably an epidemic
of unimaginable proportions and I would
suggest to the health committee a renaming
of this disorder into Lifelong Affective
Disorder (LAD).
© Copyright by Spiros
Doikas
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