[MD] How far from the text do you go?

[david buchanan]

Dan said:
The Giant isn't "out there" controlling us. The Giant is "in here" controlling us. The Giant is all of us. But we can't see it or examine it in any way. We can't change the Giant by physically manipulating it. Turning off our tv won't work. Throwing away our newspaper won't work. We can only change it by changing our way of thinking.


dmb says:

Yes, and I'd add that the failure to recognize this as a part of us, as a part of your self, can lead to all sorts of wild conspiracy theories where it is the other guy doing it to us. 

"Sometimes people think there are some evil individual 'men' somewhere who are exploiting them, some secret cabal of capitalists or '400,' or 'Wall street bankers,' or WASPs or name-any-minority group that gets together periodically and has secret conferences on how to exploit them personally. These 'men' are supposed to be the enemies of 'man'. It gets confusing, but nobody seems to notice the confusion." (LILA, p. 217)



"So Phaedrus had been right in running then. But now - funny thought - this was actually his home. All his income came from here. His only fixed address now was right here - his publisher's address on Madison Avenue. He was as much a part of the Giant as anyone else.    Once you understand something well enough, you don't need to run from it. In recent years each time he'd returned to New York he could feel his fear of this old monster lessening, and a kind of familiar affection for it growing." (LILA, p. 219)