The Subliminal Man

Another fascinating JG Ballard story. This time I realized one of Ballard's best qualities: he is a master of psychological, invisible prisons. Most of his stories seem to involve this theme and there is so much to be learned from it. There are those who have trapped themselves unknowingly in psychological plots, and also those who have been trapped by others. And then even those who were once trapped and see through it and yet decide to give in. It's just fascinating, and for some reason this story in particular elucidated it for me.

This one makes an amazingly realistic prediction of consumerism. Though the premise, that they are secretly bombarded with subliminal consumerism messages, may not be exactly true for us. Though honestly it does seem as though our commercials are incredibly smart and utilize psychology to try and take advantage of people. Just watch commercials with the mute button some time and, if you didn't realize it before, you should be able to break past the veil and see that the images almost always tend to be completely random attempts at association. The best example is big breasted women showing off their bods in beer commercials.

However in JG's world there are just big screens over all the highways that project statements like "BUY NOW BUY NOW" and then when the people realize that they are constantly buying, the actions are backed up by economists insisting that it's necessary for the economy. Every moment of their lives is constantly eaten away by purchasing and working. And something I found interesting, they constantly discard old models for new ones, it being supposedly cheaper to buy new ones instead of fix the old. That certainly reminds me of computers. But in a way this creates a sort of psychological prison where the behaviors become more and more acceptable, and even though the main character seems to notice it for minutes at a time, more subliminal messages suddenly have him back on the manipulated track. Interestingly enough his wife seems to notice, but not really care. The psychological element is truly presented fully forward in this one, like a fascinating scientific study or something.

Overall, the idea, compared with our society is actually very scary and not totally unrealistic. Though I'm not sure if compulsory subliminal messages would work or are possible on a mass scale, in some ways commercials do come close. Again the exaggerated reality of Ballard's worlds is ever present, I really enjoy the way he takes something he sees and pushes it to the Nth degree.