J. G. Ballard - The Subliminal Man

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J. G. BALLARD

The Subliminal Man

J. G. Ballard is a British writer who has been called a "poet of death." But

Ballard, especially in the early part of his career, also wrote excellent

extrapolative science fiction on social themes, and this haunting story is one

of his finest.

Here Ballard speaks of the enslavement of the unconscious, of an economic

system that forces people to consume against their will through the use of

technology. Ballard makes an important assumption-the belief (at least

implicitly) that people would not want to consume at high rates if they were

not "forced'' to do so. In a profound sense, "The Subliminal Man" is a basic

critique of the underlying dichotomy that pervades the concept of

advertising-that of needs versus wants. We all have basic needs like food,

sex, clothing, and shelter. Almost everything else (including the book you are

now reading) is wants, often artificially created by the culture in which we

live. Think how much more difficult resistance would become if the technology

of subliminal advertising were forced upon us. This threat goes beyond the

financial difficulties that families would be in. We would also be threatened

with dehumanization, for it is the ability to think and chose that separates

us from the rest of the animal world.

Ballard's story also assumes that industry will continue to manufacture

products that will easily and quickly wear out, or if this is not the case,

then it will find ways to make us dissatisfied with the products we now have.

There is little evidence that things will change for the better.

"The signs, Doctor! Have you see the signs?"

Frowning with annoyance, Dr. Franklin quickened his pace and hurried down the

hospital steps toward the line of parked cars. Over his shoulder he caught a

glimpse of a thin, scruffy young man in

ragged sandals and lime-stained jeans waving to him from the far side of the

drive, then break into a run when he saw Franklin try to evade him.

"Dr. Franklin! The signs!"

Head down, Franklin swerved around an elderly couple approaching the

outpatients department. His car was over a hundred yards away. Too tired to

start running himself, he waited for the young man to catch him up.

"All right, Hathaway, what is it this time?" he snapped irritably. "I'm

getting sick of you hanging around here all day."

Hathaway lurched to a halt in front of him, uncut black hair like an awning

over his eyes. He brushed it back with a clawlike hand and turned on a wild

smile, obviously glad to see Franklin and oblivious of the latter's hostility.

"I've been trying to reach you at night, Doctor, but your wife always puts the

phone down on me," he explained without a hint of rancor, as if well used to

this kind of snub. "And I didn't want to look for you inside the Clinic." They

were standing by a privet hedge that shielded them from the lower windows of

the main administrative block, but Franklin's regular rendezvous with Hathaway

and his strange messianic cries had already been the subject of amused

comment.

Franklin began to say: "I appreciate that-" but Hathaway brushed this aside.

"Forget it, Doctor, there are more important things happening now. They've

started to build the first big signs! Over a hundred feet high, on the traffic

islands just outside town. They'll soon have all the approach roads covered.

When they do we might as well stop thinking.

"Your trouble is that you're thinking too much," Franklin told him. "You've

been rambling about these signs for weeks now. Tell me, have you actually seen

one signaling?"

Hathaway tore a handful of leaves from the hedge, exasperated by this

irrelevancy. "Of course I haven't, that's the whole point, Doctor. - He

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J. G. Ballard - The Subliminal Man

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