Ian F. Svenonius - The Psychic Soviet and Other Works

THE PSYCHIC SOVIET

THE

PSYCHIC

SOVIET

AND OTHER WORKS BY

Ian F. Svenonius

DRAG CITY INC., CHICAGO

Copyright 2006 Ian Svenonius (C)&(P) 2006 Drag City Inc.

Edited by Genevieve Gill. Proofreading by David Grubbs.

Illustrations by I.F. Svenonius. Photography by Garnett Soles. Production by Scott McGaughey. Layout by Dan Osborn.

Versions of some of these essays were originally published elsewhere, such as in the periodicals Index, BB Gun, Sound Collector, Audio Review, Dot Dot Dot, Plan B, Portland Mercury, Weird War World, among others. Thanks to those who encouraged & published them, particularly Jesse Pearson, and Index and BB Gun magazines.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Request to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to: Drag City Incorporated Attention: Permissions Department

P.O. Box 476867 Chicago, IL 60647-6867

Printed in Hong Kong

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921122 ISBN: 0-9656183-9-0

DC307 / FIRST EDITION

www.dragcity.com www.weirdwarworld.com

Dedicated to M-26-7

CONTENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1. THE PSYCHIC SOVIET

2. VAMPIRISM AND VAMPIROLOGY

3. THE BLOODY LATTE

4. BEATLES VS. STONES

5. ROCK 'N' ROLLIGION

6. THE RESPONSIBLE USE OF ROCK 'N' ROLL

7. EAT THE ROCUMENT

8. TIME AS MONEY

9. SEINFELD SYNDROME

10. ROCK 'N' ROLL AS REAL ESTATE

11. A WARNING TO SWEDISH GIRLS

12. SCION-TOLOGY

13. MORDOR DEAREST

14. CAMP EXPLOITATION

15. THE STILYAGI

16. THE SEDUCTION OF PAOLO HEWITT

17. THE MIX MASTER RACE

18. YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET NO SATISFACTION

19. PERSONAL INSCRIPTION

INSTRUCTIONS

This volume should clear up much of the confusion regarding events of the last millennium - artistic, geo-political, philosophical, et al.

Its small size will make it easy to carry around so as to refer to in case of ethical quandaries, arguments, and social feuds. It is intended for such "street" use, hence the durable sleeve and paper stock.

Feel free to scribble rebuttals and notations in the generous margins of the book itself. Or to quote it aloud. This is intended as a living volume.

None of this collection is to be confused with so-called "academia." Instead, it is a kind of free verse, outside of science or respectability and at liberty to flaunt its diabolical exhumations on its user.

The reader is invited to participate in the use of the book not only by scanning it with his or her eyes, but also by running a finger up and down its spine. It should be passed around when it is finished so as to proliferate its explanations, theories, and inventions.

The Psychic Soviet may not be used in certain situations, or by certain people, or on certain occasions. Such conditions should be self-evident, and we trust that its user shall act responsibly and appropriately if such a circumstance or situation should arise.

I.F.S.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

RRC

THE PSYCHIC SOVIET

THE PSYCHIC SOVIET

The Cold War in Psycho-Geopolitics

The first class antagonism which appears in history coincides with the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male.

FRIEDRICH ENGELS

I. PSD

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the most grievous psychological event in recent history.

Though referred to officially in bourgeois society as moral fable and totem of God's will, this calamity - the 1991 defeat of international socialism - has plunged the population of the world into a state of nihilism and despair.

Though this depression is recognized as a global crisis, its cause is not widely acknowledged or even understood. Even so, the post-Soviet world is a place haunted by its former inhabitant and the nature of that inhabitant's demise. The fantastic popularity of antidepressants is just one symptom of a "Post-Soviet Depression" (PSD) syndrome. Other signs of PSD are worse and more far-reaching in re: to their long-term effects.

The idealism that once characterized Homo Sapiens, for example, seems to have vanished. Instead of drawing up hopeful plans for the future, or engaging his signature feature ingenuity - he now stares vacantly into the abyss. Meanwhile, the earth is steered toward apocalypse by its most deranged element.

Man's new fatalism reveals that he, like his leaders, has become deranged. Once he was a crusader for this or for that. Now, in the throes of PSD, he is either an idiot, a "kook," or just a transcendental lecher. He holds the future in open contempt. His brain is just a warehouse for putrefied cynicism. His only appetite is for sensory and sensual "kicks"; garden-variety vulgarities devised to stay numb and perpetuate idiocy.

For him, the end of the Cold War signaled, instead of a chance to proliferate peace and equality, an accelerated reiteration of the Neroism and barbarity that had characterized his most abject moments. It marked the final, hopeless, capitulation to Abaddon.

The "war on terror" and its various offspring (renditions, invasions, space weapons, torture chambers, et al.) are just the grotesque ejaculations of the USSR's malfunctioning, off-balance - albeit victorious - arch-nemesis, the USA. They were inevitable after and foretold by the far grander, much misrepresented, and strangely underplayed super-event known as "The Socialist Collapse."

Why though should the undoing of an institution so universally despised and as disfigured by revisionist historical framing as Soviet socialism precipitate such cosmic depression? The USSR was - and still is - everyone's favorite punching bag.

The answer, though not altogether rational, reveals an unconscious understanding of events barred from the official narrative of history.

II. PSYCHO-GEO-TICS

Politically delineated "state" entities, although they are contrived abstractions, nonetheless have deep and resonant associations for what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as the collective unconscious, or "mass mind." These geopolitical characters are a constellation referred to as much as the family in the self's determination of identity, their fortunes often determined by their inhabitants blind, convulsive will.

Political constructs such as national/racial identity or the emotional attachment to a state's leader are sublimated projection: the cloying gurgles of an infant child. They make no sense even to their mewing dispatchers.

They are simply the voiced rationalizations for a deeply rooted identification with (or, perhaps, alienation from) nation states (not only one's own, but all perceived states) as archetypes in a system of astral-political deities.

This phenomena, whereby the politically contrived abstraction of the nation assumes an archetypal character or persona is an intrinsic quality to mankind and is called psychological geopolitics or "psycho-geo-tics" for short.

Psycho-geo-tic conflict is perhaps best exemplified by one of its many ancient examples - the warrior city-state Sparta versus democratic Athens - but has been an underlying current in human history long before that particular S&M duo was conjured up by Greek perverts. Lord Byron was acting out a psycho-geo-tic impulse centuries later when he joined the Greek war against the Turks and jumped to his death in the Bosporus. (Byron, being a Romantic-era "animal man," was more prone than normal people to act on psycho-geo-tic instinct.) The confrontation between Vietnam and the United States - a more recent event -is shrouded in much psycho-geo-tic "fuzz"; US motorcycle enthusiasts still wistfully yearn for that war, which gave full expression to barbaric impulses repressed at home by the civil rights movement. Though transnational conflicts all have their materialist / political root causes (i.e., imperialism), the manipulation of primitive psychology ("psy-ops") is key to rallying support for mass violence.