Generalismo

By Thom Hawkins

I. Tercio de Varas (Córdoba, March 1964)

There are few spectators this afternoon, and no matador stands in the arena with the bull. The animal, its black satin fur shining in the sun, stands alone in the dust, wary of the silence. The puerta de cuadrilla opens and a man steps out wearing a charcoal grey business suit, black hair slicked back from his forehead. In his left hand he holds the red cape of a matador, stretched wide with a wooden dowel. In his right hand he holds a small metal box with a simple electronic button on its face, and a long antenna resembling an estoca, the matador’s traditional sword.

The man holds the cape waist high, its movement a stand-in for his own. The bull charges. The man holds his ground, points the antenna toward the bull, and presses the button firmly.

II. Tercio de Banderillas (Madrid, October 1963)

A few months earlier, this man, José Delgado, sat in an outdoor café with his colleague, José Silva. “Man,” he spoke, “did not invent man.” Delgado was fond of using these pronouncements in conversations. He leaned forward, anticipating Silva’s response.

José Silva seemed unfazed by the remark. He sat back in his chair at the café table, pushing his grey hair from his broad face. “I invented myself.”

“Ah,” Delgado responded. “From your perspective, you are a self-made man. We all are, in our own eyes. We are spectators of our own lives. We take action and say to ourselves ‘I did this,’ for I alone made that decision. I consulted no higher power. I am no man’s man—I am my own. But the brain tells us otherwise. Neurologically, when we get down into the dust of things, we peek in on the bits and pieces of our higher functions, we find that there is no decision. There is only action that can be traced back deterministically from the firing of a neuron to the connection of a synapse, to our birth and our conception, to the meeting of our parents, itself an inextricably predictable event where each person is a neuron and their relationship a synapse, and so on and so on through the evolution of mankind and the formation of matter.”

Silva nodded knowingly. “You describe a system, an exploitable system. If the brain is merely deterministic, as you describe, I would be unable to make a fool of myself, and yet I can.” He plucked the lemon slice from his gin and tonic. “I can hold this lemon in my hand and imagine it on my tongue. The sourness of it. And my tongue reacts as if I have actually done so. The salivary glands are creating a buffer between the receptors on my tongue, and this lemon, which I am still holding in my hand. And now I make the choice to put this lemon to the side.” He tossed the lemon across the small round table toward Delgado, just enough to be out of his own reach. “And now I have made a fool of my tongue, which thought it had a lemon and now it does not. How could I do that if the same brain that produced the saliva also knew that the lemon would never arrive?”

“You think this is an accident?!” Delgado shot back. “Just because we do not yet fully understand why we have adapted in a certain way, doesn’t mean we have come to that state through pure chance. Most adult male humans are capable of growing a mustache. Our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, do not share that trait. We may not understand the role of that particular trait, but it evolved, which is a deterministic process, resulting in a particular characteristic of humans as great apes.”

“Though neither of us chooses to wear a mustache,” Silva identified. “A choice we have made consciously.”

“Yes, as part of our ecological liberation. This is what gives us our superiority over the other creatures—not the mustaches themselves, but the ability to shave them off.”

“The razor as the pinnacle of evolution …” Silva mused.

“I hope that isn’t it! But our entire evolution has been guided by fate, by the interaction of existing constraints, between individual structure and environmental circumstances.”

“Nature versus nurture?”

“More precisely nature as nurture. It is through our interaction with the environment that we develop.”

“You reject out of hand the nurture aspect?” Silva leaned over the table to retrieve his lemon slice.

“I don’t reject the idea of nurture, but it’s subordinate to nature. Nurture is a feature, if you will.”

“Like our mustaches!” Silva raised his gin and tonic up off the table in mock salute.

“Which we shave off … to ecological liberation!” Delgado raised his cerveza up into the awning of the umbrella.

The two men sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and watching people walk by on the Calle del Pozo. Silva finally spoke. “The Coué method … it is a healing technique. There are two principles. The first is that we can only think of one thing at a time.”

“That sounds more like a limitation of attention rather than thought. Focus is the bottleneck.”

“Okay, we can only attend to one thought at a time … satisfied?”

Delgado smiled. “Quite.”

Silva continued, “Principle two, as we attend to that thought, it becomes true because our bodies transform it into action.”

Delgado frowned. “I don’t see how that follows.”

“It’s simply another way of stating what you’ve already proposed—that nurture is only represented as a change of state in nature.”

“But you couldn’t simply wish for something to be true and it becomes so—that’s absurd!”

“Control of one’s mind has its limitations,” continued Silva. “I cannot think that my drink is full and it will become so. But my mind does have power over my body—to accelerate healing, for example, through positive thought reinforcement.”

The mesero chose that moment to emerge from el Café de la Suiza to refresh their drinks. The two men paused their conversation until he re-entered the café. “How about control over other’s minds?” Delgado asked. “Is that possible?”

“Certainly. You’ve heard of extra-sensory perception?” Silva was relieved that Delgado had finally gotten to the point of why he had invited him here.

“Yes, but I don’t see a neurological basis for it.”

“I’m not talking about magic here. Or even mystery, necessarily—but the unknown. You must admit that there are unknowns in science, in neurology, even to you. Not unknowable, even—just not yet known.”

Delgado smiled at Silva’s flattery. “I can grant that possibility.” 

“Oh, thank you! We have senses through which we perceive the world—sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch.”

“Yes, yes …”

“And of course, others, such as the ability to sensetemperature, pain, body position, …”

“Yes …” Delgado pushed, impatiently.

“Well, couldn’t it be possible that there are other capabilities that allow us to sense and even interact with our environment?” Silva did not wait for a response before continuing. “You spoke earlier about ecological liberation. About one’s ability to influence or control the factors of one’s existence.”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you have proposed that we evolved this ability, we earned our ecological liberation through a change of state to our nature.”

“Again, yes.”

“Well? Surely, we have not stopped evolving. We don’t just cross a threshold into ecological liberation and then BANG …” Silva slammed his fist down onto the small metal table for emphasis. “This is all gradual, and we continue to evolve. We continue to earn our further ecological liberation.”

Delgado frowned. “You’re saying that we’re evolving a power to read minds.”

“That’s just the beginning. You’re thinking too passively. We have evolved the power to project ourselves into minds. Do you believe this?”

“Yes—I mean, I’m looking into something similar in my line.”

“Where are you with your program?”

Delgado smiled with pleasure at Silva’s interest. “I’ve found the locus of aggression in the amygdala and …” He sat up straight and leaned forward over his drink. “… I’ve managed to implant a small device to stimulate it remotely. In cats and rhesus monkeys.”

“You’ve got mad monkeys?” Silva joked.

“I’ve got some I’ve made mad, and ones that started out so that aren’t any longer,” Delgado responded, seriously. “There was one monkey in particular that displayed aggressive behavior. I put an implant in his brain that would inhibit this behavior when electrically stimulated and gave the other monkeys access to a remote trigger.”

“I can think of many applications for this technology at family gatherings! You’ve achieved direct stimulation of the brain, but you also mentioned a correlate to extrasensory projection?”

“I did,” Delgado paused, unsure whether to continue, weighing his trust in this man he knew only by reputation. Then, deciding that this kind of exchange was exactly why he’d invited Silva to have this discussion, he continued. “Next is indirect electrical stimulation of the brain. Focused magnetic pulses to disturb the brain’s electrical field. To influence the brain.”

“You believe me after all? That what I do is possible. Reading and transmitting thought—electricity could be the carrier.”

“I believe that it could be possible, yes. That is why I wanted to have this discussion.”

“And what do you need from me?” Silva asked.

“Proof. A proof of concept.”

“Very mysterious. You have a target?” It didn’t quite sound like a question.

Delgado glanced cautiously around them. “Not to be spoken about in an open forum.” Although no longer as dangerous as it was the first couple of decades after the war, people still occasionally disappeared after conversations like this. In fact, it was better to talk in the sunlight so it didn’t appear you had something to hide.

“Spoken? You are too late, my friend. You’ve had the thoughts. You invited me here specifically because of these capabilities. Surely you assumed I would take a peek inside your magnificent mind.”

Delgado looked surprised, then concerned. Was it true? He suspected Silva to be a fraud, but at the same time, was desperate enough to extend this invitation and to confide in him thus far. The potential upside was worth the risk.

“You should trust me,” Silva urged. “I know you are not sure, but you have no choice.”

“No choice?”

“None of us have any choice, according to you!” Silva replied, boisterously.

Delgado smiled. “Here we are, the two foremost experts in control of the mind, neurologically and psychologically, confronting a power that neither of us can comprehend—the power of a single mind over all others.”

“A master manipulator, to be sure,” Silva hedged. “But I would hesitate to call it mind control. Men like …” He paused, out of deference to Delgado’s paranoia more than any other reason. “Franco,” he whispered, “merely understand that public opinion is volatile and easily manipulated.”

“We,” Delgado quickly added. “We ourselves are easily manipulated.”

“We are still human, despite our ecological liberation.”

“We understand enough to know that we’re being manipulated. And yet …”

“Powerless,” Silva finished his sentence for him. Their sentence. The two men continued from their merged thought into a union of thoughtfilled silence. The tinkling of glasses being washed in the café. Mopeds buzzing down the Calle Caretos. Children released from school on a sunny afternoon.

“Natural history teaches us that when underdeveloped brains are in charge of great power, the result is extinction.”

“And yet we still hope. And that is what makes us powerless. We believe we still have freedoms that can be taken away. That is why we do not fight. To fight, we must have no hope.” For once it was Silva making the pronouncements.

Delgado nearly cut Silva off with an impatient reply. “I’m low on hope, and I need your help.”

“Because your approach is limited. An implant is out of the question.”

“For certain,” Delgado whispered, urgently.

“And your extension with focused magnetic pulses?” Silva asked.

“The range is still far too short to be effective on such a man.”

“He is very well protected, of course.” Silva sat back in his chair, his hand on his chin. He stared off beyond Delgado’s left shoulder. “You need my help to access him more… remotely?”

“Yes,” Delgado replied through his teeth, sensing that Silva just wanted to hear him ask. “I need … help.”

“I am a healer, my friend,” said Silva gently.

“You would not call what this man does an illness?”

“He is a cancer on Spain, to be sure,” Silva acknowledged.“But that type of cure is well outside my purview.”

“I can guide you. I have the map. I will be your …” Delgado tried to recall the word used in Silva’s book, the book he turned to, he now realized, in desperation. “… I will be your psychorientologist.” The words stumbled from his lips.

“It took me decades to develop my program. I appreciate your situation, but all I can offer is to help you, the individual.”

“You are offering to help me acclimate to this subjugation?” Delgado’s face was tense.

“That is my offer.”

“I reject your offer.” Delgado hissed, at the same time looking off to his left, to ensure no pedestrians had taken an interest in the sudden shift in their tone.

“That is your right.” 

Delgado finished his cerveza, and banged the bottle back down on the metal table in response to Silva, whom he could no longer look in the eye.

“Your program,” Silva asked, “what is next for it?”

III. Tercio de Muerte (Córdoba, March 1964)

Delgado holds the cape waist high, its movement a stand-in for his own. The bull charges. He holds his ground, points the antenna like an estoca toward the bull, and presses the button firmly.

As quickly as he presses the button, the bull’s short charge slows to a stagger. It recovers, and circles, bewildered. Delgado ripples his cape. The bull charges again, Delgado presses the button on the stimoceiver, transmitting the signal to the implant in the bull’s brain. The bull stops again, looking more stunned than inhibited. It had taken many bulls, many operations to get to this point, and this was not the end. There would be one more, one who could not be implanted, but who must be stopped.

Delgado stands over this penultimate bull, which he has privately nicknamed Generalísimo, his teeth bared and triumphant—hip cocked, right foot out and to the side. He flourishes the cape, raises the stimoceiver antenna high, and takes a bow.

[This fictional story is inspired by the lives of José Delgado, Yale professor of neurophysiology notable for his research on mind control and electrical brain stimulation, and José Silva, who experimented the nature of psychic abilities and brain wave activity.]