I remembered Saturday Holmes’s speculations about “hominids”, when we were trying to find out the motifs of crimes in New York and Washington.
May be, he didn’t read it, or Holmes has some other materials on the problem of psychiatry besides the note about “Matrix”?
And at this point there appeared a question, which I didn’t notice, when studying medicine and having a practice as a doctor: why is psychiatry in western countries a branch of medicine, and not of general psychology? Doesn’t it mean that psychological science is insolvent and, as a result, it can guarantee only isolation of its patient from society, but not always his recovery and returning to the society? And isn’t a reason of psychologists to reject from interfering to the sphere of psychiatry and to prefer developing pseudo-scientific literature? And when touching it carelessly, common people start to feel suddenly and absolutely on blank space “Oedipus complex”, or “latent and subdued homosexuality” and other socially dangerous patterns of behaviour. In other words, don’t the relations between psychological science and common people in western countries resemble very much the relations between the Owl and Winnie-the-Pooh, whose head was full of sawdust:
Winnie, can you read?
Generally, I can’t, but if I’m told, what is written there, I will read it.
Then listen, foolish tiny bear: it is written here, that…
But there are no psychiatrists on the West, who could cure the victims of psychologists and such psychologists themselves, who earn their living by banal writings on the themes of human soul depths.
And who is this Internal Predictor of the USSR, if he dares to speak so directly about this mental disease of the whole civilization whose propaganda convinces everybody in its not-having-an-alternative on the basis of its incontestable superiority in everything? Br-r-r… this thought made me get the creeps on my skin… And is Holmes connected with them somehow?
Curious, I decided to have a look on this site www.dotu.ru, and it was a pity that I didn’t have Russian version of “Microsoft office” on my note-boor with Pentium-IIIM. In English version of the site, besides two analytical notes which Holmes has printed for me, there was a short report about the theme of basic works devoted to the Conception of Social Security, as an alternative to the biblical conception of ruling, and at the same time all guests of the site were offered to learn Russian for better understanding the new conception.
In my thoughts I thanked the creators of the site for a good advice and was intended to see firstly some works, expecting to find some files with “pictures” and probably even the enigmatic “picnics” among them. I accounted on the fact that graphic files, especially like those of “picnics”, were to take much place in the informational base of the site. It took me much time to fulfil this operation, but finally I’ve found files with “pictures”. Unfortunately, they had nothing to do with “picnics”, but represented the copies of pictures by some Russian painters. Then I understood that I had only two ways to achieve my goal. The first – long and hard: to install on my computer the means of support of Russian language, and using my knowledge in Russian (far from perfect), to try to understand by myself the works of Inner Predictor, and after that to return to the “picnics”, being ready for it. However, having remembered all difficulties dealt with the article about “Matrix”, I considered that all other works would hardly be easier for comprehension, and regarded the first way hopeless. The second way seemed to me simpler, but its realization demanded for outside help.
September 25 – 30. Holmes’s books
In last ten years there appeared many new Russian émigrés in London: some of them went in for business, others taught in Universities and colleges, others worked in mass-media sphere. Unfortunately, I hadn’t any acquaintances in these circles, and so I had to turn to the meditation of Mr. Hopkins, who was well acquainted in these surroundings.
I really know some people among Russian émigrés, – started Hopkins, – but I’d like to know before, Watson, what exactly do you want to learn about Russia?
I’m interested in last ten years of Russia after USSR collapse.
What do I hear, Watson? Maybe you’re fed up with chess and decided to go in for politics? Ten years passed after Russians had left Afghanistan, and you never wanted to hear anything close to politics when you returned from there, as I remember. Well, well! At last, it’s your problem. I’ll try to talk with one Russian, which, I think, can satisfy your interest to Russia. I’ll call you in about two days and we’ll meet somewhere, say, in Woldorf. Do you agree, Watson, to meet in Woldorf?
Though I was far from the sphere usually called “politics”, I still supposed, that I knew something about events in Russia in last ten years: USSR, as “superpower №2”, split up to the plenty of states, and among them Russia became the successor of the “empire of evil”. Thinking about Russia this way, I caught myself thinking with cliché, formed by our mass media under influence of rich and powerful partner of my old good England.
And at this point I remembered one of former USA presidents, who declared in live broadcasting on TV, that he has just signed an edict, according to which USSR was outlawed and armed forces of USA were ordered to inflict a nuclear strike on the “empire of evil”. Afterwards it turned out, that Reagan happened to joke, thinking that tuning and checking of apparatus went on, while the broadcasting of his speech to the country has started already. Fine jokes for a leader of “superpower №1”… And we all are extremely lucky, that this “joke” wasn’t followed by return-preventing massed strike by “superpower №2”.
Have Russians missed this, in effect, declaring war to them in live broadcasting? Or did they have so strong nerves and knew whom they dealt with? And what do I think about America indeed?
The question, suddenly come to the light from the depths of sub-consciousness, made me think about the subjects, which for common people belong to the sort of things which “goes without saying”, and I founded out, that I don’t have any distinct answer to it. I didn’t like this condition somehow. And maybe the point is in the enigmatic name of “Internal Predictor of the USSR” which awoke nostalgia for passed Empire? We, Englishmen, have yet recovered from the similar illness, but maybe nostalgia is especial enigmatic attribute of Russian soul? Or Russian empire hasn’t yet passed, and its intelligent services, having far-going plans on future and realizing them step-by-step, have played giveaway checkers with naïve West? These questions didn’t make my condition easier…
Having returned home, I took the books, which Holmes had left for me, and got the second note from the site www.dotu.ru. There were three books, and I give their titles in the order, in which Holmes left them for me:
Zbignev Brzezinski. “The Grand Chessboard” (American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives).
Ralph Epperson. “Invisible hand. The introduction to the view on history as a conspiracy”.
M. Buygent, R. Lay, G. Lincoln. “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”.
Since the note represented the review on the work of professor of American foreign policy from the School of contemporary international researches by Paul H. Nitze attached to the John Hopkins University in Washington, the former adviser on the questions of national safety of American president in 1977 – 1981, consultant of the Strategic and International Researches Centre, and so on, and so on; and the title of review (“Egoist is like one sitting for long in a well”), in effect, was a characterization of the author of the book and reminded about Oscar Wilde’s fairy-tale “Selfish Giant”, it can be said, that I had no choice. Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday I devoted to reading “The Grand Chessboard”. It can seem strange to somebody, but the book by Brzezinski helped me to answer the question which has never before risen in my mind:” What’s my real attitude to America?”