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There is a Policeman Inside Our Heads
I have this weird problem when I go to big stores - the ones that have those prominent theft detector things at their entrances. I always feel like I’m going to set the alarm off. I totally tense up as I walk towards them, hold my breath and try to play it cool as I walk by.
And I’m not just talking about when I walk out of the store either. I’m talking about when I walk in to these stores as well. I get nervous like I’m going to set them off. Not just nervous, but ever so slightly paranoid and guilty even. And I know that I haven’t stolen anything - heck, I haven’t even been in the store before. It’s totally weird. Maybe it’s just a personal hang-up of mine, but it happens often enough for me to notice it and intensely dislike it.
A few of us had this same conversation about cops the other day. When you’re out driving around and you spot a cop car, what’s your instant reaction? Slow down, make sure everything’s cool, right? What about when you pass one by on the street? What’s the first thing that you think about or feel? I always get tense - even when I’m not doing anything wrong.
Ryan and I were breaking the cop-sighting reaction down to something like this: you see a cop, and you play it cool. But you’re actually tense, so your playing it cool is a lie. Which makes it even worse, making you feel like you’re doing something wrong. And then, all of a sudden, you find yourself in a ridiculous mental trap where you’re pretending like you’re not doing anything wrong, to cover up the fact that you really aren’t doing anything wrong, so that the cop won’t notice you not doing anything wrong.
Totally fucked up.
I know it sounds crazy, but I also know that I’m not the only one this sort of thing happens to. But maybe all my friends are just as weird and paranoid as I am though. So let’s do a quick test sampling and hear what your own internal reactions are in these situations. How screwed up is it that costumed authority figures don’t even need to point guns or other ritual devices at us in order to make our heads spin round and round and doubt ourselves to the nth degree?
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May 8th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Interesting observation, Tim. I am EXACTLY the same way. Now, even more curiously, I wonder:
A) why I have never thought much about it
B) what motivates such behavoir
C) why I never thought that someone else may feel similarly.
I have some pet theories but they have little but conjecture to back them up.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Conjecture is our bread and butter around here if you haven’t noticed!
May 8th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Whatever it is, it seems to be REALLY deeply ingrained for me - evoking a sort of pre-rational state of panic.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:22 am
I don’t tense up when I approach those theft detectors. I do, however, almost invariably cross my fingers when I walk through them (both into and out of the shop).
May 9th, 2006 at 2:12 am
Have you considered showing some leg?
May 9th, 2006 at 3:27 am
I don’t cycle through thoughts when I see a cop. Sure I play it cool, but my dominating thought is I hate you and all you stand for. It’s directed at the uniform, of course, and not the person. But that doesn’t leave too much mental space left for a spiral of self-doubt.
There is certainly a cop in my head, and a judge, and a lawyer, and I want to kill them all. (Isn’t it just about time for the FBI to come knocking on my door?…)
May 9th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Sure, it’s old, and it’s Hakim Bey, but the question does bring this to mind…
On a slightly different note, I find it equally fascinating that nobody pays any attention to car alarms, other than to be utterly annoyed by them when they go off incessantly.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:40 am
Just saw this over at Digby’s blog. It’s enough to make you sit up straight.
They’re crackin’ down on autonomous, collective, natural peace, that’s for sure. Or at the very least, a new social paradigm is ever so gradually being unveiled. There is the capricious security class/cult and then there is everyone else with greater or lesser degrees of blank psychological states upon which new worldviews can and will be built. With a little help from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo I think we (Wii) just may be able to bear it.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:55 am
I also do the same thing. Whenever I go through those magnetic pillar things they have by the doors in shops I expect to set them off, I’m always thinking “What might I have in my bag that will set them off” as I walk past them.
May 9th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Yah, you know, I feel the same way about those theft detectors. And cops? Hoo boy. Whenever I’m driving drunk down the street and I see a cop behind me, I really start to freak out. Like, does he know? Am I swerving too noticeably? Will this officially be the time my luck runs out? Did I leave my trunk open?
Quasi-facetiousness aside, I know exactly what you’re talking about….and it bothers me. Perhaps this lingering guilt we feel at times is a genetic memory of Original Sin, or some nonsense like that. Of course, the Gnostic in me can’t help but feel that the Archons have deliberately created a mechanism in us that makes us guilty and afraid for no apparent reason. (other than to feed their insatiable appetites, of course).
May 9th, 2006 at 8:53 am
In my experience, fear certainly seems to feed off of itself, similar to anger and hate and all those dark-side & archonic forces. For me, the battle in this circumstance (and in all situations like it) is not to hide or ignore your initial gut reaction, but to let it pass through you and not attach itself.
In my personal quest to free myself of fear and desire, the battle seems to be increasingly shifting to smaller and smaller fronts, as in “will i make this green light in time,” “will i get the answering machine or not,” “will this door be unlocked or not,” and so forth. in each of these instnaces there is one outcome that is feared and one that is desired.
the sin, in my experience, isn’t to have a preference (indeed, i think it is incredibly helpful to acknolwedge as much), but instead to cling onto your preferential fear or desire. you may desire that light to stay green or fear that the cop behind you pulls you over, but these feelings must be allowed to pass through you. to remain centered seems the goal.
i cannot help but think that “the archons” are indeed drawn to both our fear & desire… but if we work on letting ourselves remain centered (a life-long pursuit), we approach a sort of freedom. not a world free from such archonic presences, but a world where we’re free from our “predicted” reaction to them.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:16 am
One of my primary goals, and anything but easy. Society seems almost a tailor-made obstacle to that goal.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I get nervous for ‘no reason’ too. Why? Because I’ve internalized enough examples throughout my life (luckily most of them secondhand, though that seems to do the trick), of two things:
One: technology fucking up (ie - an alarm being set off by something other than what it’s actually supposed to detect). You may be found innocent in the end but you still have had to go through the initial embarassment (and there’s a big source of tension for most people, right there).
And two: People in positions of power/authority abusing their power; innocent people being blamed and punished for things they haven’t done and being powerless to defend themselves; being at the mercy of someone else’s judgment, nomatter how poor or unjust, possibly even depending on nothing more than whether that authority is in a good or bad mood that day.
It would make sense that seeing a uniformed cop or a theft detector, which can be symbols for one or both of the above described situations (especially if you’ve ever personally experienced or witnessed one), would trigger the kinds of emotions associated with those kinds of situations.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Kind of off topic but - I tense up whenever I see a cop car. It does NOT make me feel safe. Guess that comes from from growing up in inner-city NYC.
Allison is right - contemporary society does everything but help you to remain centered. It does everything to keep you continually scattered and more susceptible to buying ridiculous products…..
May 9th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Allison really hit the nail on the head for me.
When I walk up to the detectors as I go out the store, I get nervous. It’s not because I’m scared I did anything wrong, it’s because I am scared that the technology will mess up and say I did, and I’ll have to defend myself against others where I’m guilty until proven innocent.
My reaction is similar, on somewhat broader scale, when I see a police car or a cop. I feel more apprehensive, because they could potentially have a larger impact on my life if they decided to. The fact that the system is so large also effects my reaction — there is more of a chance that I am inadvertantly breaking a minor law due to a lack of knowledge than there is that I somehow managed to accidentally steal something from the store.
May 9th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Part of the problem, IMHO, is that the damn legal code is so fricking convoluted, you can never TELL if you’re doing anything wrong. Besides, a policeman needs no reason to stop you and ask you for ID.
I think it’s this uncertainty which gets to people. I know it gets to me.
May 9th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
That seems like it’s increasingly the point!
May 9th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
it`s designed to be that way. who wins? judges, lawyers, cops, etc. is it for the money or is it for the greater control of society as the stories of utter frustration and anger towards the judiciary system (as well as the rest of the bureaucracy.) suggest.
do we scare them that much? i think we do. i think they sit awake at night wondering if one of us is standing there in the dark barely breathing with a knife from the kitchens, just hovering out of range of the dim glow of the green digital numbers on the bedside alarm.
how could someone have got through all the security?
ha…….have a nice sleep technocrat.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
In Sweden we have this wonderful law which says that it’s illegal to be under the influence of narcotics. That means that police can stop you any time, arrest you, take you to the hospital or police station and demand a urine sample. If you don’t comply they forcibly steal some blood from you. Imagine how fucking paranoid this makes you!
They use your own body as evidence against you. Quite a mindfuck I have to say. I used to smoke hashish on a daily basis for about ten years, which meant that I was constantly illegal for these ten years. Finally it just did my head in. Now I can’t smoke without getting too damn paranoid. Still get paranoid when I see the cops tho. I mean, maybe I do have some stray atoms of cannabis floating around in my blood that will show up on a test, what do I know..
I loved the post by the way.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
[…] Whether or not Leary knew anything about Durkheim is debatable, but the text above paints a very curious picture which could easily be applied to the counter-culture of the sixties and seventies which Leary was so influential within. Maybe he was simply an agent for some medley of government organizations. Maybe he railed against them. Perhaps he was involved in a delicate push and pull around this issues. We can’t ever know for sure, but we can look at how these ideas of personal freedom, crime and deviance play out in our society and in our pop culture nowadays. With the cop fetish crawling all over our culture (and even moreso inside our heads) now more than ever, these to me seem to be very important questions. Questions which few people seem to be asking, perhaps for fear of being themselves perceived as deviant. Read Similar Articles: […]