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 Edited by

EDUCATIONAL FUTURES
Palgrave Studies in
Jennifer A. Sandlin and Jason J. Wallin

PARANOID
PEDAGOGIES
Education, Culture, and Paranoia
Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures

Series Editor
jan jagodzinski
Secondary Education
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The series Educational Futures would be a call on all aspects of education,
not only specific subject specialist, but policy makers, religious education
leaders, curriculum theorists, and those involved in shaping the educational
imagination through its foundations and both psychoanalytical and
psychological investments with youth to address this extraordinary precarity
and anxiety that is continually rising as things do not get better but worsen.
A global de-territorialization is taking place, and new voices and visions
need to be seen and heard. The series would address the following questions
and concerns. The three key signifiers of the book series title address this
state of risk and emergency: The Anthropocene: The ‘human world,’ the
world-for-us is drifting toward a global situation where human extinction is
not out of the question due to economic industrialization and
overdevelopment, as well as the exponential growth of global population.
How to we address this ecologically and educationally to still make a
difference? Ecology: What might be ways of re-­thinking our relationships
with the non-human forms of existence and in-human forms of artificial
intelligence that have emerged? Are there possibilities to rework the
ecological imagination educationally from its over-romanticized view of
Nature, as many have argued: Nature and culture are no longer tenable
separate signifiers. Can teachers and professors address the ideas that
surround differentiated subjectivity where agency is no long attributed to
the ‘human’ alone? Aesthetic Imaginaries: What are the creative responses
that can fabulate aesthetic imaginaries that are viable in specific contexts
where the emergent ideas, which are able to gather heterogeneous elements
together to present projects that address the two former descriptors: the
Anthropocene and the every changing modulating ecologies. Can educators
drawn on these aesthetic imaginaries to offer exploratory hope for what is a
changing globe that is in constant crisis? The series Educational Futures:
Anthropocene, Ecology, and Aesthetic Imaginaries attempts to secure
manuscripts that are aware of the precarity that reverberates throughout all
life, and attempts to explore and experiment to develop an educational
imagination which, at the very least, makes conscious what is a dire situation.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/15418
Jennifer A. Sandlin • Jason J. Wallin
Editors

Paranoid Pedagogies
Education, Culture, and Paranoia
Editors
Jennifer A. Sandlin Jason J. Wallin
Arizona State University University of Alberta
Tempe, Arizona, USA Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures

ISBN 978-3-319-64764-7    ISBN 978-3-319-64765-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64765-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953538

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains
neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Andrew Hammerand

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Series Editor Foreword

Our present ‘global’ situation is a precarious state: the movement of asy-

lum seekers, migrants, diasporic peoples have placed an extraordinary
financial and psychological pressure on the European Union. Such pres-
sure, however, is worldwide as borders that have become walls are breeched
by those who are fleeing war-torn countries; the rise of ISIS has made the
question of ‘religion’ once more decisive as ideological divisions become
hardened when identity and belonging, as shaped by the first condition of
worldwide migratory movement, become unraveled and nomadic. This
unrest is multiplied by the precarity of the economic situation, where it is
said that the capitalist system presents the 1% against the 99% as young
people find it difficult to find work and a place in the symbolic order.
Lastly, such precarity that reverberates around the globe also includes the
‘globe’ itself in terms of the Earth’s climate change, a euphemism for the
changing conditions of the land and oceans that are shaped by industrial
growth and pollution. This sketch of a world at the brink of unprece-
dented change presents us with a compelling image that something needs
to be done. But what? And is it too late? Yet, we are living in a time where
the most marvelous technologies have come to dominate our lives, and
the promise of these technologies to put things right can always be heard.
Educational Futures address this state of risk and emergency through
three key signifiers:

1. The Anthropocene: The ‘human world,’ the world-for-us, is drifting

toward a global situation where human extinction is not out of the
question due to economic industrialization and overdevelopment, as

v
vi SERIES EDITOR FOREWORD

well as the exponential growth of global population. How do we

address this ecologically and educationally to still make a difference?
2. Ecology: What might be ways of rethinking our relationships with the
non-human forms of existence and inhuman forms of artificial intelli-
gence that have emerged? Are there possibilities to rework the ecologi-
cal imagination educationally from its over-romanticized view of
Nature, as many have argued: Nature and culture are no longer tenable
separate signifiers. Can teachers and professors address the ideas that
surround differentiated subjectivity where agency is no long attributed
to the ‘human’ alone?
3. Aesthetic Imaginaries: What are the creative responses that can fabu-
late aesthetic imaginaries that are viable in specific contexts where the
emergent ideas, which are able to gather heterogeneous elements
together to present projects that address the two former descriptors:
the Anthropocene and the every changing modulating ecologies. Can
educators drawn on these aesthetic imaginaries to offer exploratory
hope for what is a changing globe that is in constant crisis?

The series is an attempt to explore and experiment with an educational

imagination, which, at the very least, makes us conscious to what is a dire
situation.
 Preface

This edited book explores the under-analyzed significance and function of

paranoia as both a psychological and a social force in contemporary educa-
tion. While much has been written on the role of epistemological uncer-
tainty and the death of metaphysics in education, this book claims that the
desire for epistemological truth characteristic of paranoia continues to
profoundly shape the aesthetic texture and imaginaries of educational
thought and practice. Attending to the psychoanalytic, post-­psychoanalytic,
and critical significance of paranoia as a mode of engaging with the world,
this book inquires into the ways in which paranoia functions to shape the
social order and the material desire of subjects operating within it. This
book largely argues that paranoia is not an individual pathology, but
rather, a mode of social organization and imaginary configuration of real-
ity. Attending to a little-studied area of educational philosophy and schol-
arship, this book attempts to analyze the reasons and functions of paranoia
in social and educational settings, and in turn connects these reasons to a
broader calculus of social conformity and potential for social resistance.
Aiming to understand how the paranoiac imaginary endemic to social life
is made manifest in education and educational research, the book exam-
ines the issues paranoia makes manifest for teachers, teacher educators,
and academics working toward change.
The book is divided into three sections. In SECTION ONE:
PARANOID AESTHETICS, the authors address such questions as: How
does paranoia function as a form of aesthetic representation tethering
social potentials to prior social codes and images?; In what ways might
paranoiac pedagogies be detected in the contemporary aesthetics of

vii
viii PREFACE

­ opular culture and, further, the exertion of power at varying scales of

p
aesthetic and affective experience?; and, How might paranoia be rethought
as an aesthetic counterpart to the affective politics of neoliberal capitalism?
These questions are focused around the aesthetics of paranoia, and how
paranoia is related both to imaginaries produced and circulated, for exam-
ple, via Hollywood film, and self-image—as seen in the neoliberal obses-
sion with self-representation and self-surveillance that manifests through
selfie culture and the kinds of self-marketing and promotion that happen
via social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
In their contribution to the book, Andrew Hammerand and Bucky
Miller provide a photo-essay that simultaneously plays with and critiques
both physical mechanisms and sites of surveillance as well as aesthetic
expressions of surveillance or paranoid chic. These images both capture
and critique the present cultural condition of paranoia and surveillance.
We are extremely fortunate for the contribution of jan jagodzinski,
whose genius work on paranoia and education predate this book by over a
decade. In his essay for this book, jagodzinski draws upon psychoanalytic
and post-psychoanalytic theorizations of paranoia as they inform upon the
use of ‘dangerous images’ (i.e. controversial, extreme, or challenging
imaginaries) in the classroom. Focusing on the paranoiac refusal of such
images as they might destabilize, contort, or ‘penetrate’ the accepted
worldview of the student, jagodzinski articulates how paranoia functions
as a means to keep one’s eyes closed to the unthought, or rather, to those
imaginaries that exceed those accepted images of the world that shore up
student subjectivity and buttress it against the excess of the real that par-
ticular images, in their extremity and violence, return to us. However, this
kind of paranoia can also have the more positive effect of revealing how
vision and knowledge are in fact framed in particular ways to begin with.
Finally, jagodzinski evokes the challenges of teaching that avoid the trap-
pings of both the paranoiac refusal to look and the neoliberal impetus that
we, as consumers, are impelled to look.
In the last chapter of section one, Doug Aoki takes up a related line of
questioning that is connected to self-image, particularly the presentation of
one’s ‘professional’ educator self via social media and in (and out of) the
classroom. Addressing two ways this kind of professorial paranoia emerges—
the refusal of ‘friending’ students on Facebook as well as the insistence of
being called ‘Dr.’ by one’s students—Aoki problematizes these enactments
of paranoia, discussing how this paranoia reveals an expression of ego
entwined with a culturally located form of academic ­self-­perception anti-
thetical to the pedagogy and wisdom tradition of karate-dō 空手道.
 PREFACE
   ix

In SECTION TWO: PARANOID SOCIETY, authors address such

questions as: How does neoliberal economics require paranoia to sustain
itself and, following, what kinds of social potentials might be liberated
from under paranoiac social organization?; How does/might paranoia
support and promote public fantasy?; Where today might educational
research and practice express paranoiac tendencies?; and, How might con-
temporary calls for educational fundamentalism be analyzed as a symptom
of paranoia? In a general sense, these questions aim to investigate how
meaning becomes fixed within the dogmatism of paranoiac thinking. Such
investigation is crucial today insofar as paranoiac modes of social produc-
tion tend to fix meaning and knowledge in ways that prevent flows of new
meaning, which works to concretize meaning and thus restrict meaning
from changing. In this second section of the book, the authors seek to
understand how current paranoiac libidinal investments in contemporary
social issues encode meaning and help to shape and fix social structures,
including educational systems and practices.
In our contribution to the collection, we (Jenny Sandlin and Jason
Wallin) use a case study of the religious cartoon tracts of Jack T. Chick to
examine how paranoia functions to both regulate and constrain desire.
Here, we take up paranoia as constituting one way of coding or socially
organizing desire within capitalist societies, and thus view it as not merely
a purely psychological, but also a social process. In particular, we explore
the paranoiac investments of Christian Fundamentalism, which is on the
rise in the United States and increasingly influences social, cultural, eco-
nomic, educational, and political decision-making. We examine the para-
noiac worldviews of the Christian Fundamentalist cartoons of Jack T. Chick,
which we argue construct and transmit social and political beliefs along
with their theological messages. These messages include the paranoiac anx-
iety that Satan is working through a host of peoples and practices, includ-
ing communism, Masonry, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, Harry
Potter, Islam, Dungeons and Dragons, and many more. Moving beyond
examining this particular paranoid fundamentalist Christian worldview, we
use Chick’s cartoon tracts to illuminate the functions of paranoia in broader
capitalist society, including explicating how this paranoiac mode of social
organization permeates more formal educational realms, particularly edu-
cational policy and practice as well as the academic fields of curriculum
studies and curriculum theorizing.
While the kinds of libidinal paranoiac investments Mark Helmsing
explores in his contribution to the collection are perhaps less dramatic than
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x PREFACE

those espoused by Donald Trump or Jack Chick, they are equally capable
of producing particular kinds of subjectivities around what it means to be a
good American citizen. Helmsing turns his attention to the social studies
classroom to explore how social studies marshals paranoid affect to pro-
duce particular kinds of citizens and consumers. He presents two case stud-
ies of social studies teachers teaching the high school courses American
History and Geography and History of the World, to explore how the para-
noid pedagogies utilized within social studies education employ certainty
and centrality to fix a particular vision of what social studies is and what
‘correct’ interpretations of US history are. Helmsing describes how social
studies helps to present a paranoiac fantasy of American history and culture
that baptizes students into a particular patriotic vision of American citizen-
ship, where Middle Eastern countries and peoples are presented as ‘the
enemy,’ learning about the ‘Other’ involves seeing America as the center of
the world, and the superiority of the United States is reinforced at every
turn. Furthermore, Helmsing argues that social studies itself is a paranoid
fantasy, as it does not exist in ‘the real world,’ but, rather, is a fiction con-
structed out of the fear that young people will not grow up to become
patriotic citizens who inhabit conservative, neoliberal values. Helmsing
argues that social studies education—through certainty and centrality—
fixes its vision and practice on certain ways of thinking and being, which
closes off all other possibilities. Thus, we are provided with another exam-
ple of how meaning becomes coded with a paranoiac structure, which helps
us to further understand how meaning becomes concretized in univocal
ways and thus difficult to change.
One final example of how paranoiac social structures code meaning in
ways that are certain, sweeping, regressive, and dogmatic is presented in
the final contribution to this section. Here, Nathalia Jaramillo and Erik
Malewski explore the resurgence of nativist educational policy reforms
across the United States and the corresponding public discourses that
position immigrants as invaders of a foreign body. Jaramillo and Malewski
discuss how the kinds of social paranoia we discuss above—which are cur-
rently front and center in political discussions across the globe and gaining
even more attention via Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and presi-
dency—thrive under fears of scarce resources where immigrants are por-
trayed as taking jobs and public resources. Using Arizona as a case study,
Jaramillo and Malewski illustrate how social paranoia over immigration
manifests in successive attempts by government leaders to mask, erase, and
 PREFACE
   xi

deny historical trauma. The authors argue that while the United States is
made up of largely unceded territories, this fact is lost on a nation that
continuously equates immigration control with the war on terror. Jaramillo
and Malewski address the history of nativist ideologies and their connec-
tions to a wider geopolitical struggle for wealth and resources and the
transformation of democratic impulses toward isolationism and hierarchy.
Finally, to counter such paranoiac affective investments and the oppressive
meanings they code into society and culture, they call for what they term
epistemological studies of ignorance and the use of decolonial pedagogies,
and offer the concept and practice of comunalidad as a tactic for finding
voice and community.
Finally, in SECTION THREE: PARANOID PEDAGOGIES, authors
address questions such as: How might paranoia be rehabilitated from
under its pathological and negative conceptualization as to mobilize new
conditions for understanding and critiquing the present state of society
and education?; How might paranoia function as a mode of cultural cri-
tique and aesthetic imagination recalcitrant to the obfuscating powers of
the media and/or public opinion?; What are the specific functions and
forms of paranoia as a form of social production and in turn, what kind of
social body is paranoia capable of producing?; and, What is the character
of the transferential relationship between social paranoia and individual
pathology? This final section aims to reclaim paranoia from its condemna-
tion as a psychical disorder and bulwark against social progress and change.
Significant to the scope of this project, this final section takes seriously the
proposition that paranoia functions as a mode of social production that
might resist present trajectories of neoliberal capitalism.
Towards this productive rethinking of paranoia, Jennie Stearns and
Charlie Blake develop a vision of pedagogy born from the nuptials of
paranoia and parasitosis. Drawing upon a diversity of educational and phil-
osophical thinking, Stearns and Blake speculate that the parasite and the
paranoia it induces is capable of reorienting the pedagogically implicated
concepts of hospitality, sacrifice, and the Freirian liberatory impulse of
pedagogy of the oppressed. They argue that the ostensibly ‘delusional’ para-
noia of Morgellons (the paranoiac belief that the skin is infested with
imperceptible, inanimate material) is a conceptual and affective resource
for instantiating new forms of subjectivity and resistance significant to the
challenges of the twenty-first century. Accelerating the paranoiac
tendencies of Morgellons, Stearns and Blake argue for a productive
­
xii PREFACE

paranoia that coincides with an ecopedagogical ethics of openness towards

the Other, defined as both the inhuman and the recognition of the inhu-
man in the human.
Next, Jake Burdick examines the potentially productive pedagogies
embedded in conspiracy theorizing. In his chapter, Burdick argues that
paranoia and the political logics of conspiracy theorizing constitute poten-
tial modes of resisting the social psychosis of late capitalism, as he takes up
a critique of Hofstadter and Jameson’s vast influence upon the study of
conspiratorial thought. Drawing upon Lacanian theory and its unique
conceptualization of paranoia, Burdick develops a portrait of paranoid
psychosis as a productive, critically pedagogical disposition. Contrary to
the pathological characterization of the paranoiac, Burdick theorizes the
conspiracy theorist as a subject caught in the symptomatic machinations of
truth seeking, informing by way of its positive disposition to critical doubt
a mode of political resistance recalcitrant to the perpetuation of oppressive
social formations and their affective inscription upon life. Paradigmatic of
this section’s aims, Burdick argues for a more nuanced conceptualization
of paranoia divorced from the pathological characterization of the para-
noiac or the presumption that paranoia refers to a specific fantasy object of
desire. Deploying the complex conceptualizations of desire and pleasure
in Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, Burdick draws upon and expands the
notion of critical paranoia, particularly as it informs a style of rational con-
spiracy theorizing concerned foremost with routing the inscription of
oppressive social formations on the body.
Assuming a singular approach to the study and performance of para-
noia’s productive potential, Jorge Lucero, with Julio Cesar Morales,
concludes the book with an experimental bricolage. In three ‘movements’,
Lucero demonstrates the potential socio-political force of paranoia as it
might be understood as a mode of nonterminating resistance. With artist
Julio Cesar Morales, Lucero’s chapter assembles Morales’ paintings of
undocumented immigrants, the transcription of a performed conversation
between himself and Morales, and finally, an essay on the generative con-
ditions of educational standardization. Across these sections, Lucero aims
to introduce new parameters for imagining paranoia and inducing a para-
noiac imaginary through the revelation of paranoiac suspicions of manipu-
lation and subterfuge. Across the chapter, Lucero and Morales suggest a
form of arts based paranoia that intends to shock the apparent world. This
is accomplished, in part, through Lucero’s performative amplification of
the paranoiac’s obsession for the unseen world. It is in this performative
 PREFACE
   xiii

mode that Lucero ‘shocks’ the reader by inducing the paranoiac’s capacity
for imagining the other, thereby producing a dilated image of the world in
potentially productive, transversal tension, with the accepted world and its
establishment imaginaries.

Jennifer A. Sandlin
 Jason J. Wallin
 Contents

1 Out of Our Minds: A Haphazard Consideration

of Paranoia and Its Antecedents1
Jason J. Wallin and Jennifer A. Sandlin

Part I Paranoid Aesthetics27

2 The Menticide Sequence29

Andrew Hammerand and Bucky Miller

3 Penetrating Images: Paranoia in Media Pedagogy37

jan jagodzinski

4 Pedagogy and Distance55

Doug Aoki

Part II Paranoid Society67

5 ‘The Last Judge’: The Paranoid Social Machine

of Jack T. Chick’s Religious Tracts69
Jennifer A. Sandlin and Jason J. Wallin

xv
xvi Contents

6 Making America Great (Again and Again): Certainty,

Centrality, and Paranoiac Pedagogies of Social Studies
Education in the United States99
Mark E. Helmsing

7 Social Antibodies: Paranoid Impulses in Nativist

Educational Reform 121
Nathalia E. Jaramillo and Erik Malewski

Part III Paranoid Pedagogies143

8 It’s Been Getting Under My Skin: Paranoia,

Parasitosis, and the Pedagogical Imperative  145
Jennie Stearns and Charlie Blake

9 The Paranoid and Psychotic Pedagogies

of Conspiracy Theory: Locating the Political
in the Sinthome of Conspiratorial Logics 169
Jake Burdick

10 Ad-Hoc Means Necessity: An Assemblage Machine

Infused with Paranoia for Generativity’s Sake189
Jorge R. Lucero and Julio Cesar Morales

Index 207
 Notes on Contributors

Doug Aoki is a retired academic and now teaches traditional Okinawan

karate. His dojo is the Nantanreikan, which means ‘the Hall of Difficult
Grace,’ and does a very material form of cultural criticism. Jenny Sandlin
has been his student, but he is clearly not good enough yet as a teacher to
convince Jason Wallin to train. Doug retains hope, though, and practices
hitting things hard every day just in case.
Charlie Blake has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge,
Oxford Brookes, Hertfordshire, Manchester Metropolitan, Liverpool
Hope, and Northampton and is currently visiting Senior Lecturer in
Media Ethics and Digital Culture at the University of West London and
Lecturer in Philosophy for the Free University of Brighton. He is a com-
poser and performer in the Manchester-based, post-industrial cabaret
ensemble, Babyslave, who have recently co-released the two albums, Kill
for Dada and Runt, and is a founding and executive editor of the award
winning Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities. He has co-edited
collections such as Shadows of Cruelty: Sadism, Masochism and the
Philosophical Muse; Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism,
and Immanent Materialisms: Speculation and Critique, and has published
recently on music and hypostitional analysis, the topology of serial killing,
ecosophical aesthetics, nihilism and kleptomancy, xenosonics, and the
greater politics of barnacles, bees, and werewolves.
Jake Burdick is Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies at Purdue
University. Jake is the co-editor of the Handbook of Public Pedagogy
(Routledge), Complicated Conversations and Confirmed Commitments:

xvii
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Revitalizing Education for Democracy (Educators International Press),

and Problematizing Public Pedagogy (Routledge). He has published work
in Qualitative Inquiry, Curriculum Inquiry, Review of Research in
Education, Review of Educational Research, and the Journal of Curriculum
and Pedagogy. Jake can be contacted at [email protected]
Andrew Hammerand is an artist living near Phoenix whose work
explores issues of privacy, authority, and our increasingly digitized culture.
A series of his photographs from his work ‘The New Town’ was exhibited
throughout 2016 at the International Center of Photography Museum in
New York City, and was recently exhibited (Spring and Summer 2017) at
the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin. Andrew received an Emerging Artist
Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston in 2015, and art-
ist books from ‘The New Town’ were finalists in the Photo-Eye Best
Books of 2014, and also nominated for the MACK First Book Award in
2015 and 2016. Andrew holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State
University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of
Art and Design.
Mark E. Helmsing (PhD, Michigan State University) is an Assistant
Professor of History & Social Studies Education at George Mason
University. His scholarship investigates how narrative modes, genres, and
affects shape and stylize the ways we teach and learn about history and
heritage in schools, museums, and in popular culture. Mark’s research
appears in numerous journals and books including Theory & Research in
Social Education; Journal of Social Studies Research; Journal of Adolescent
& Adult Literacy; Race, Ethnicity, & Education; and Review of Education,
Pedagogy, & Cultural Studies.
Nathalia E. Jaramillo is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and
Deputy Chief Diversity Officer at Kennesaw State University. Prior to
her appointment, Nathalia held faculty appointments at the University
of Auckland New Zealand, Faculty of Education, School of Critical
Studies (2011–2014) and Purdue University, College of Education,
Department of Educational Studies (2007–2011). Nathalia collaborated
closely with a number of departments at her respective institutions, and
conducted research and taught courses on social justice, critical theory,
and critical methodologies. Nathalia has written extensively in the fields
of critical educational thought and politics of education. She has lec-
tured throughout Latin America, Spain, Finland, Turkey, Greece, and
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
   xix

Portugal. A ­selection of her co-authored and single-authored work has

been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and Turkish. Her work
is interdisciplinary and examines questions around culture, politics, gen-
der, and epistemology utilizing the frameworks of decolonial and femi-
nist thought.
jan jagodzinski is Professor of Visual Art and Media Education,
University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and the series editor
for Educational Futures (Palgrave). He is the author of The Anamorphic
I/i (Duval House Publishing Inc., 1996); Postmodern Dilemmas:
Outrageous Essays in Art & Art Education (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997);
Pun(k) Deconstruction: Experifigural Writings in Art & Art Education
(Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997); Editor of Pedagogical Desire: Transference,
Seduction and the Question of Ethics (Bergin & Garvey, 2002); Youth
Fantasies: The Perverse Landscape of the Media (Palgrave, 2004); Musical
Fantasies: A Lacanian Approach (Palgrave, 2005); Television and Youth:
Televised Paranoia (Palgrave, 2008); The Deconstruction of the Oral Eye:
Art and Its Education in an Era of Designer Capitalism (Palgrave, 2010);
Misreading Postmodern Antigone: Marco Bellocchio’s Devil in the Flesh
(Diavolo in Corpo) (Intellect Books, 2011); and Arts Based Research:
A Critique and Proposal (with Jason Wallin, Sense Publishers, 2013). He
is also editor of Psychoanalyzing Cinema: A Productive Encounter of
Lacan, Deleuze, and Žižek (Palgrave, 2012); The Precarious Future of
Education (Palgrave, 2017); What is Art Education? After Deleuze and
Guattari (Palgrave, 2017); and Interrogating the Anthropocene: Ecology,
Art, Pedagogy, the Future in Question (Palgrave, 2018).
Jorge Lucero is an artist who is currently serving as an associate professor
and chair of art education in the School of Art + Design at the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Through the permissions of conceptual
art Lucero now sees the potential of being in the academy.
Erik L. Malewski is Chief Diversity Officer and Professor of Curriculum
Studies at Kennesaw State University, USA. Prior to his appointment,
Malewski was Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies at Purdue
University where he conducted research and taught courses focused on
diversity, multiculturalism, equity, and global issues in education. Malewski
has held leadership roles in national and international research organiza-
tions and is well published in prominent journals and texts. He is editor of
the Curriculum Studies Handbook: The Next Moment (Routledge, 2010)
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

and has published articles in Curriculum Inquiry, Teachers College Record,

and Teaching and Teacher Education. He has worked in educational equity,
private industry, social service, and diversity consulting prior to his role at
Kennesaw State University.
Bucky Miller is an internationally-exhibited artist and writer who was
born in Phoenix, 1987. He is a Russell Lee Endowed Presidential Scholar
in Photography and William and Bettye Nowlin Endowed Presidential
Fellow in Photography at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2015 he
completed a residency in London as part of an exchange with the Royal
College of Art Program in Sculpture. Prior to that he participated in the
Little Brown Mushroom Camp for Socially Awkward Storytellers in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Bucky is a recurrent contributor to the Believer Logger.
He currently resides in Austin, Texas.
Julio Cesar Morales was adjunct professor at The San Francisco Art
Institute and associate professor in Curatorial Studies at The California
College for the Arts. Morales is an advisor and writer for The San Francisco
Quarterly Art Magazine; from 2008 to 2012 he was adjunct curator for
visual arts at Yerba Buena Center for The Arts in San Francisco. Morales
was a contributing curator for the Japanese pavilion at the 2013 Venice
Biennale and is currently curator of visual arts at Arizona State University
Art Museum. Morales’ artwork has been shown at international museums,
exhibitions, and biennials from Cuba to Istanbul, Los Angeles to
Singapore. His work has been featured in publications, including Flash
Art, The New York Times, Artforum, Frieze, Art Nexus, and Art in
America. His work is in private and public collections including The Los
Angeles County Art Museum, The Kadist Foundation, The San Diego
Museum of Contemporary Art, and Deutsche Bank, among others.
Jennifer A. Sandlin is an Associate Professor in the Social and Cultural
Pedagogy program in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona
State University. Her research focuses on the intersections of education,
learning, and consumption, as well as on understanding and theorizing
public pedagogy. Her work has been published in Journal of Consumer
Culture, Adult Education Quarterly, Qualitative Inquiry, International
Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Curriculum Inquiry, and
Teachers College Record. She recently co-edited Disney, Culture, and
Curriculum (with Julie Garlen, Routledge, 2016) and Teaching with
Disney (with Julie Garlen, Peter Lang, 2016); other recent co-edited
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 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
   xxi

books include Critical Pedagogies of Consumption (with Peter McLaren,

Routledge, 2010); Handbook of Public Pedagogy (with Brian Schultz and
Jake Burdick, Routledge, 2010); and Problematizing Public Pedagogy
(with Jake Burdick and Michael O’Malley, Routledge, 2014). She is co-
editor of Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (with Will Letts) and serves
on the editorial boards of several international journals. Jennifer received
a BA in English Literature from Millsaps College, an MA in Anthropology
from the University of New Mexico, and a PhD in Adult Education from
the University of Georgia.
Jennie Stearns is an Associate Professor of English at Georgia Gwinnett
College. Her research interests include nineteenth-century US literature,
gift theory, African American literature, and the connections between lit-
erary texts and their economic contexts. She is a previous president of the
Georgia and Carolinas College English Association. Her work has been
published in Curriculum Inquiry and Cultural Studies <=> Critical
Methodologies.
Jason J. Wallin is Associate Professor of Media and Youth Culture in
Curriculum in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta,
Canada, where he teaches courses in visual art, media studies, and cultural
curriculum theory. He is the author of A Deleuzian Approach to
Curriculum: Essays on a Pedagogical Life (Palgrave Macmillan), co-author
of Arts-Based Research: A Critique and Proposal (with jan jagodzinski,
Sense Publishers), and co-producer of the 2016 extreme music documen-
tary entitled Blekkmetal (with David Hall, Vivek Venkatesh, and Owen
Chapman, Uneasy Sleeper Inc.).
 CHAPTER 1

Out of Our Minds: A Haphazard

Consideration of Paranoia and Its
Antecedents

Jason J. Wallin and Jennifer A. Sandlin

As convention dictates, it seems prudent to begin this brief introduction

with a genealogy of paranoia, although ultimately, such an approach
betrays the very idea of paranoia as it is radically transformed in the con-
temporary period. This said, the idea of paranoia is generally derived from
the Greek root words, para (beyond), noos (mind), and ia (condition), but
is also etymologically linked to the Greek word paránoos, which suggests
something closer to ‘a demented mind’. Each amount to the relatively
equivalent etymological idea of being out of, or beside, one’s mind. Today,
the expression ‘being out of one’s mind’ is perhaps too common, referring
often to minor nonconformist or asocial behaviors such as when one trans-
gresses moral and common sense through intoxication or participation in
extreme acts. In its more general sociopolitical use, the e­ xpression implies
insanity and madness, and hence articulates a threshold of what is com-
monly considered normal, at least from a particular institutional and social

J.J. Wallin (*)

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
J.A. Sandlin
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J.A. Sandlin, J.J. Wallin (eds.), Paranoid Pedagogies,
Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64765-4_1
2 J.J. WALLIN AND J.A. SANDLIN

definition of normality. In popular culture we see this idea repeated time

and again via scenarios in which a character eclipses the threshold of ratio-
nal thought (being the ordered and sound mind) and lapses into a disor-
dered state through which they become other-than or ‘outside’ of
themselves. Such a transformation often comes about when one takes
delusion as truth, or more extremely, through the transpiration of strange
intensities by which the subject is made to differ from itself. Jack Torrance,
the antagonist in Stephen King’s The Shining, is indexical here, both for
his confusion of delusion as truth and, further, for the ways in which the
Overlook Hotel’s occulted affects divest him the image of loving father
and husband he is portrayed to be at the outset of the film.

A Feverish Genealogy
The use of the term paranoia to connote both bad judgment and insanity
run corollary to the meanings of the term in Ancient Greece, where it
referred loosely to both ‘folly’ and ‘derangement’ (Lewis, 1970). Yet,
beyond such bald definitions, allusions to paranoia in Ancient Greece
attended to more nuanced aspects of social and psychological life. In the
Grecian playwright Aristophanes’ Wasps (422 BC), for instance, references
to paranoia made manifest a particular social concern for the return of
tyranny figured via the threat of Persian invasion (Mitchell-Boyask, 2009).
The Grecian playwright Euripides’ (460–430 BC) Electra (413 BC)
employs a paranoiac mode of thinking that upends the Trojan War’s sacred
justification and privileged point of reference in the cultural history of the
Greeks (Hampsey, 2004). Plato used the term paranoia in reference to the
‘off-track’ or rather, irrational thinking of Aeschylus’s character Orestes in
Oresteia, who in a moment of what Plato refers to as ‘distracted conscious-
ness’ commits matricide (Glass, 1998; Hampsey, 2004). Aristotle posits in
paranoia the means to control social unrest and revolt through the inven-
tion of terrors capable of diverting the attention of the people upon some
common malefactor against which the State rises up as a savior and protec-
tor (Brady, 1971). For Hippocrates, paranoia described a form of derange-
ment symptomized in delusion (false ideas), madness, dementia, and fever.
Across these very general and all too brief remarks on paranoia, we might
extrapolate at least two ideas. First, from the point of its etymological ger-
mination, both the implicit definition and function of paranoia vary greatly.
While we might be familiar with the definitions of paranoia advanced by
Hippocrates, in which the term refers generally to a psychosomatic disorder,
 OUT OF OUR MINDS: A HAPHAZARD CONSIDERATION OF PARANOIA... 3

and Plato, for whom paranoia marks the suspension of rational and ordered
thinking manifest in degrees of ‘bad judgment’, there insists within the use
of the term quite different inflections. For instance, Euripides seemingly
uses paranoia as a technique for troubling prevailing cultural metanarra-
tives, hence expanding the field of potential responses or conceptualizations
of historical events by positing potential contradictions or alternatives to
accepted thought. Aristotle lays bare a particular strategy of ideological con-
trol through the creation of social panic hinged to the paranoid idea that an
enemy more virulent than the State lurks at the borders, or rather, outside
of the polis. For the different functions of paranoia in antiquity, the idea of
paranoia nevertheless remains linked to the notion of being ‘out of’ or
‘beside’ one’s mind. Hippocrates’ connection of paranoia to the symptoms
of delusion and madness, Euripides’ pessimistic fabulation of a counter-
myth to the common metanarratives of the State, Plato’s critique of thought
and behavior antithetical to rational self-control, or Aristotle’s strategy for
social control in the fabrication of enemies peripheral to the State each posit
the idea that the mind exists or functions in relation to ‘outside’ forces.
Hence, and in summation, while the function of paranoia varies in antiquity,
such variance remains hinged to the idea that paranoia describes the decen-
tered mind, or rather, the ‘mind’ presupposed by the prevailing ideals of
rationality, psychological health, and acquiescence to established or com-
monly accepted cultural truths.

The Modern Paranoiac, Descartes

The idea of paranoia presumes ‘being out of one’s mind’ for the fact it imag-
ines an aspect of ‘one’s mind’ or one’s subjectivity existing ‘elsewhere’.
While the function and meaning of paranoia extends from its definition
and use in ancient Greece, its most salient modern expression might be
detected in Rene Descartes’ (1911) early modern philosophical master-
work Meditations on First Philosophy. In this philosophical treatise,
Descartes questions how we might know with certainty that what we per-
ceive as true is not in fact a delusion or manipulated contrivance. Put dif-
ferently, Descartes’ project attempts to inquire into the question of how
we know that what we know is true. Descartes approaches this fundamen-
tal philosophical question by first attempting to suspend those ideas he
had accepted as true in childhood and youth. It is from this initial skepti-
cism of accepted truths that Descartes founds his far-reaching rational
method for philosophical inquiry. Important to our consideration here,
4 J.J. WALLIN AND J.A. SANDLIN

Descartes’ meditations begin with the paranoid idea that a malevolent

demon has deceived us in misidentifying delusion as truth, or rather, in
taking ‘false things’ as certainties. More specifically, Descartes (1911)
commences his philosophical treatise with the question of whether there is
‘a certain genius which is extremely powerful, and, if I may say so, mali-
cious, who employs all his powers in deceiving me?’ (p. 10). The malevo-
lent deceiver of Descartes’ philosophical treatise constitutes an impetus for
skeptical thought insofar as it is through skepticism, or rather, the skeptical
method of scientific rationalism, that we might overturn accepted delu-
sions and falsehoods in order to perceive reality by way of its ‘clear and
distinct’ self-evident truths. Descartes dramatizes such overturning of
‘false thinking’ through the dual postulation of a benevolent and non-­
deceptive God, and further, the founding of conscious thought as the
expression of a God whose beneficence debars deception. Descartes hence
purports that the truth of reality or what amounts to a founding meta-
physical truth of reality insists within the self-evident existence of a benev-
olent God and the consciousness of the subject or cogito. For Descartes,
both God and the cogito constitute the self-evident foundations upon
which true thought might be commenced.
What is crucial to this pivotal moment in the history of philosophical
thought is not its culmination in the creation of a rational metaphysical
order, or rather, its suggestion that God and the cogito comprise self-­
evident truths founding the truth of reality. More crucial than these philo-
sophical claims is that Descartes’ profoundly influential Meditations on
First Philosophy is seemingly born from paranoia. Commencing with the
paranoid proposition that a malevolent deceiver has intentionally deluded
our thinking, Descartes posits that the mind is located ‘elsewhere’, or is at
least manipulated from a vantage outside itself. While the evil demon of
Descartes’ meditations is dismissed through an ultimate appeal to the
supreme beneficence of God, it ultimately remains as an unresolved pre-
cursor of the rationalist project. Thacker (2015a) contends that Descartes’
paranoid reference to an evil, manipulative mind constitutes an excess of
the rationalist project. Descartes finds at the heart of his meditation not a
rationalist anathema to the problem of truth, but rather, the greatest
threat to philosophy figured in the evocation of a world or mind that can-
not be known and further, a world or mind indifferent to any rational
attempt to apprehend or dispel it (Thacker, 2015a). Simply put, the influ-
ential rationalist project commenced in Descartes’ Meditations on First
Philosophy is marked by a paranoid excess figured as an evil mind and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOE CARSON'S

WEAPON ***
Joe Carson's Weapon
 By JAMES R. ADAMS

From Mars they had come, these vanguards

of a ruthless horde that would conquer
Earth—if they could steal the weapon
of Joe Carson's fertile mind.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Planet Stories Spring 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Joe Carson grinned broadly and again reread his letter to the editor
of Galactic Adventures. Galactic Adventures was Joe's favorite
science-fiction magazine and he had spent many happy hours
roaming the cold of space and inventing ponderous machines
through the medium of its pages.
The latest issue lay open on the desk before him, its garish cover
mercifully hidden from view. The cover was Joe's main reason for
writing his missive, although he had several minor motives, not the
least of them being his desire to see his name in print. The book was
opened to the readers' section, which contained various vituperative
gripes, complaints and kicks in the pants for the editor, intermingled
with gushy, complimentary notes that praised the magazine to high
heaven. Boy! That one from Henry Snade (The Obscure Organism)
was a lulu. It told the editor, in no uncertain terms, where to go and
gave half a page of reasons why he should never return.
Joe had all but bashed his brains out trying to pen a letter half as
entertaining as the one from Snade and now his eyes flickered with
appreciation as he scanned the product of his efforts.
Ye Humble Ed:
Once again the keeper has negligently left my door unlatched and I
slyly crawl from my cage, drawn by one, irrevocable purpose.
Glancing hither and yon, to make sure I am unobserved, I dash to
the fence and clear it with a prodigious leap that carries me half way
to the corner drugstore.
Snatching a tricycle from a gawping kid, I push his face in the mud
and pedal furiously the remaining distance to the store. Leaping off,
I rush in and batter my way through the screaming throng, shouting
imprecations at all who stand in my way.
Panting with exhaustion, I at last reach my goal and clutch it to my
breast. The crowd surges forward and frantic hands grab at the
prize.
"It's mine! All mine!" I shout in their faces. "No one can take it from
me!"
Galloping madly from the store I race swiftly across yards and up
alleys, quickly losing the howling mob in the distance. Squatting
under a street-lamp, I sneak a triumphant look at the treasure. What
is it? Yep, you guessed it—Galactic Adventures!
But—shades of Major Mars!—what is that horrible monstrosity on the
cover? A BEM, no less ... an abominable, wretched BEM. Why, oh
why, can't we have at least one different cover painting? Wesley is
no good. Get Marlini or Sidney to do the covers. I don't mind a BEM
now and then, but a steady diet of them soon palls on the palate.
(Heh heh.) All joking aside, your covers are terrific.
Now we come to the task of rating the stories. Only one stands out
in my mind as being of excellent quality. I refer to Arthur M. Ron's
super-epic, The Infinite Finite. The other stories paled into
insignificance in comparison to this classic. More power to Ron!
Percival's Puissant Pulveriser and Nothing Is Something follow Ron's
story in that order. The rest are not worth mentioning.
The interior illustrations are somewhat better than the cover,
although, for the most part, they are inaccurate and do not follow
the themes of the stories. Ye gods! Can't your artists read? So much
for the art, which wasn't so much.

Say! What does that jerk, The Amphibious Android, mean by calling
me a "mere child"? His assertion that I'm but a youth of fifteen is a
good way off the beam. I've been reading Galactic Adventures for
the past eight years and I was nine years old when I picked up my
first copy, so figure it out for yourself. A jug of sour zeni to him. May
fire burst out in his s.f. collection and utterly destroy it. No! I retract
that. That's too horrible a fate, even to visit upon The Amphibious
Android. Let him wallow in his ignorance. I, The Super Intellect, will
smile down on him and forgive him his sins.
That's an interesting letter from Charlie Lane. The Miserable Mutant
has propounded an amazing theory that has set me to wondering.
Perhaps G. A. can induce one of its authors to work this theory into
a story. I'm reserving my four wooden nickels right now for the tale,
if it is written. I'll even suggest a title—Those Who Are Froze In The
Cosmos. How's that? Well, I didn't like it either.
Once again I tear my hair and roar: GIVE US TRIMMED EDGES! Ye
Ed must know by now that the majority of fandom is in favor of
trimmed edges. As it is, one comes suddenly to the most interesting
part of a story, at the very bottom of a page and spends several
moments feverishly attempting to gain a hold on the ragged edge
and go on to the next passage. By the time he has accomplished
this, he is a raving lunatic, a martyr to trimmed edges. I am not a
crusader, as is The Misled Biped, but I insist on seeing justice done.
As a whole, this is a fair issue. I might even call it good, if it were
not for the artwork and stories. Ron's epic will live forever in my
mind, although its ending was rather weak and it could have been
developed into a more powerful tale by having the Slads all die in
the Inferno.
I enter my plea for longer stories. A long novel by M. S. Jensen
would be appreciated. His last, Dr. Higbaum's Strange Manifestation,
was a gem. On the other hand, short stories are not without merit
and good old G. A. wouldn't be the same without them. I believe the
story policy had best remain as is.
Give Higgins a rest. His yarns are rapidly degenerating into hack,
with only four out of the last five meeting with this reader's
approval. I don't like to be finicky, but it seems like he isn't
contributing his best material to G. A.
Well, this missive is growing to huge proportions and I would like to
see it in print, so I'd better sign off.
Oh, yeh, almost forgot to comment on the departments. They are all
good, with The Reader's Opinion being the most interesting. Ye Ed's
ruminations come in for a close second. Do not change the
departments in any way, although the quiz and the Strange
Phenomena feature could be discontinued, without any great loss.
Before I close, I wish to make a revelation which will rock the world.
Yes, Ed, I have a secret weapon! Nothing can stand against this
terrible invention and, with it, I could even destroy Earth, with Mars
and Pluto thrown in for good measure. Beware, Ed, lest you arouse
my ire and cause me, in my wrath, to unleash this vast force upon
helpless, trusting mankind.
Having read G. A. from cover to cover, I crawl back to my cage,
drooling with delight. Prying up a loose stone in the center of the
floor, I tenderly deposit the mag among the other issues of my
golden hoard. Replacing the stone, I sigh contentedly and
manipulate my lower lip with two fingers to indicate complete
satisfaction. See you next issue!

Joe Carson
The Super Intellect
Joe carefully placed the letter in a previously addressed envelope,
mentally complimenting himself for authoring such a masterpiece.
Slapping a stamp on the back, he sealed the envelope and rushed
forth to post it at the nearest mail-box.

Harl and Kir-Um slowly materialized and glanced about to take stock
of their surroundings. They were on the roof of some tall building
and night pressed in all about them, relieved only by the intermittent
winking of a huge neon sign anchored on the roof.
They had come from far off Mars to draw out and discover the
weaknesses of Earth—for the Great Invasion was not far in the
offing and the Grand Councilor had deemed it wise to know in
advance where best to strike and in what manner.
Mars was in its final death throes and its inhabitants must soon
immigrate to a new world or perish. Their sister planet, Earth, was
best adapted to their particular form of life, thus it had been
selected for subjugation to their purpose.
The atoms that were Harl and Kir-Um were hurled, in a state of
fluidity, through space, to be reassembled on Earth. For the purpose
of escaping detection, they had assumed the bodies of terrestrials
and now they stood, staring triumphantly out over this world that
was soon to be theirs. The conquering hordes would follow later in
spaceships, as soon as Harl and Kir-Um had gathered the necessary
data.
Harl spoke—mastering the strange vocal-cords with an ease that
amazed him. To be sure, he spoke an alien, unintelligible tongue. We
translate:
"Well, Kir-Um, what now? We have arrived at our destination, but I
haven't the slightest idea what to do next."
Kir-Um pondered this a moment and eventually answered: "The
situation suggests we first descend to the surface of this world and,
from there, perhaps we can map a line of attack."
"E-e-e-ump!" Harl made the noise, which, on Mars, denoted extreme
pleasure. "Excellent, Kir-Um. How can a decadent civilization, such
as this one undoubtedly is, stand against such brilliant minds as
ours?"
"You are right, as usual, Harl," Kir-Um agreed. "My analysis of the
problem was only typical of a Martian. Now, let us proceed to the
base of this crude structure."
By diligent search, they finally located a stair leading downward and
cautiously made their way into the bowels of the building.
Reaching the fifth floor, Kir-Um placed a restraining hand on Harl's
shoulder and pointed excitedly to a door at the far end of the hall.
Light streamed from beneath it and glowed faintly through the
frosted glass panel set in its upper half.
Scarcely daring to breathe, they approached the door and stood,
regarding it with apprehensive eyes. Harl noted the gold-leaf
lettering on the glass panel, but the cryptic legend had no meaning
to his Martian mind. But, to an Earthly member of that rabid army
known as scientification fans, the words would have brought a tinge
of awe. For this was the room where far-flung systems were denied
existence, by one shake of a firm, unyielding head; where the most
expressive cuss-words of super villains were brutally censored with a
fiendish swipe of a little, blue pencil—the editorial office of Galactic
Adventures.
"Harl," Kir-Um whispered softly. "There's a creature in that room! Do
you not detect its thought vibrations?"
Harl opened his mind to reception and stood a moment, as if in a
trance. His eyes slowly dilated and he gasped in astonishment.
"Yes, Kir-Um, there is a creature in there. A strange, horrible
creature, possessed of mad, meaningless thoughts. I—I wonder
what it looks like?"

Kir-Um pointed to a small, oddly-shaped aperture, which

undoubtedly was some sort of device for locking the door. Hesitantly
he stepped forward and placed his eye to the hole.
Inside the room, Newt Jorgsen, the building's janitor, was hugely
enjoying the contents of a letter he had retrieved from the
wastebasket. Tears streamed from his blurry eyes and his bent, bony
shoulders shook with spasms of laughter. His gunboat feet were
planted firmly on the editor's desk and a tall bottle of beer, smuggled
in by devious means and of which Newt was inordinately fond, sat
on the floor at his side. The letter was from one Joe Carson and the
mirth it provoked almost caused Newt to spill from his precarious
perch and brought numerous, gleeful shouts of, "Oh, Yimminy!" from
his foam-flecked lips.
Kir-Um stared in amazement at this tableau and uttered a quick,
staccato, "Ickly-unc!" Luckily, Newt did not hear the Martian's
expression of surprise, but continued his perusal of the letter.
Kir-Um drew back and silently motioned Harl to look. Harl sucked in
his breath, but dutifully bent forward to the door. Newt had just
placed the bottle to his lips and Harl gasped with horror as he half-
emptied it, with one, tremendous gulp. On Mars, such wanton waste
of moisture would be punished with swift death, without benefit of
trial. But this wasn't Mars: this was Earth, the planet of abundance.
Kir-Um plucked at Harl's sleeve. "Why do we cringe at the sight of
this creature, Harl?" he whispered. "After all, it is no more repulsive
than are these wretched bodies we have nobly assumed, for the
glory of our race. We are great, Harl. Unselfishly, we have foregone
the pleasures and conveniences of our magnificent physiques, so
that our civilization might once again take its rightful place in the
destiny of our System."
Harl's mind wistfully conjured a picture of his own, splendid body,
with its bulbous head, sleek, furry torso and many sensitive
tentacles, and he sighed heavily. "Yes, we are truly martyrs. My only
regret is, I have but nine tentacles to give for my species."
The two ceased their council of self-glorification and stood "listening"
to the thoughts of the Being inside. Their first impression was that
the Earthman was insane, so the mad cogitations of his mind would
indicate. Such random notions as: "Corner drugstore ... BEM ...
Amphibious Android ... Trimmed edges ..." had no significance to
them. But, quite suddenly, they picked up a thought that electrified
their very beings and caused a quick glance of fear to pass between
them. At the same time, it was a glance of elation, for here they had
found what was probably Earth's most invulnerable armament.
Intently, they concentrated on the astonishing thought unraveling in
the creature's brain.
Newt had reached the next to the last paragraph of Joe Carson's
letter and he was now reading it, with great enthusiasm. The hearty
chuckles it gave Newt were lost on the Martians, for they did not
know the meaning of humor. They understood only that here was
the greatest force against which they would have to contend; the
biggest obstacle in the path of the coming invasion; a barrier that
would have to be battered down and made impotent.
"This is incredible, Harl," Kir-Um whispered in awe. "Imagine it—a
weapon powerful enough to destroy all Earth! With such a thing,
they could completely annihilate our invading forces."
"It causes me no little alarm," Harl agreed. "I can't conceive of such
a fantastic weapon, but perhaps these Earthlings possess more
intelligence than we give them credit for. Perhaps they have
anticipated our invasion and have prepared for it."
"Harl," Kir-Um said with great solemnity, "I believe we are standing
in a citadel of science. A place where great, new theories and
devices are propounded and deliberated. And that creature in there
is the guiding hand of this stronghold of knowledge. The letter he is
reading was undoubtedly written by the highest intellect of this
world. As you say, this genius may have foreseen our coming and
moved to nullify it. Spurred on by desperation, he created this
marvelous weapon and thought to surprise our onrushing, confident
armies with an impregnable defense. Quite by chance, we have
stumbled upon this dastardly plot, before it could be brought to
bear."
"But what can we do?" Harl despaired. "The letter does not reveal
the nature of this weapon. How can we combat something of which
we know absolutely nothing? I am of the opinion we should abandon
our conquest and die a slow, peaceful death on our own aging
world."
Kir-Um deliberated this advice, the deciding factor being a vision of
the Grand Councilor rising up in all his wrath and condemning the
two who had brought the bad news.
"No, Harl. The Grand Councilor might not approve of such a course.
To suggest such a thing would be to admit we have failed, and the
Councilor does not tolerate failure. Without thought of the
consequences, he might order us executed and deprive our planet of
two of its greatest minds. No, that won't do."
"We have no alternative," Harl pointed out, still whispering. "We
cannot stand against such a weapon, and better to sacrifice
ourselves than have our entire space fleet meet with destruction. If
only our armies could come through the Ato-Decomposera Twunend-
Materializationa Tutherend, perhaps we could surprise these
scheming Earthlings and overwhelm them, before they could bring
this tremendous force into play. But, unfortunately, we don't have
the metal to build enough of the machines."
Kir-Um nodded thoughtfully. "No, we can't stand against this
weapon. But we can gain possession of it and put it to our own
use!"
Harl stared uncomprehendingly at Kir-Um. "You mean, ferret out this
genius and force him to divulge the plans of his invention?"
There was a gleam in Kir-Um's eye now. "Not only that, we'll secure
a working model and take it with us, to study and build from. No
doubt the weapon is complicated and, in this manner, we can gain
first-hand knowledge of its working."
"E-e-e-ump," Harl murmured softly. "Good, good, Kir-Um. It amazes
me that I didn't think of the very same thing. But, of course, you're
one hundred and thirty nine years older than I and, naturally, your
mind is more alert."
"Naturally," Kir-Um nodded. "But to get back to more vital matters....
We shall go to this Joe Carson, who, according to the thoughts of
that creature inside, resides in a place called Majestic, Maine. I also
receive the impression this town is three hundred miles north of
here, in a straight line. The problem of transportation is easily
solved; we will purloin some sort of vehicle for the purpose. Once
there, we shall question this intellect, under influence of a hypnotic
sleep, and lay bare his secret. The plan will move forward of its own
momentum then. Let us go."
The two alien beings from a far world eventually gained the ground
floor and, easily forcing the, to them, crude lock, made their way out
into the night.
For a long moment, they stood, looking up at the black, impassive
sky. Something within their hearts called out to the mocking void for
reassurance; pleading for a tiny shred of encouragement. But no
answer came from the hollow emptiness that surrounded them.
Then, placing a thumb and finger to their nostrils, in the ageless
Martian gesture signifying complete unity of purpose, Harl and Kir-
Um strode forth to meet the destiny that awaited them.

Joe Carson glanced back uneasily at the two disheveled, unkempt

figures pedaling along wearily behind him. He was returning home
from the nearest drugstore, having purchased there all the latest
science-fiction magazines he could lay his hands on. The mysterious
strangers had appeared suddenly from a side-street, four blocks
back, and had clung doggedly to his trail, from that point on. Joe
didn't know what they were up to, but he was keeping a wary eye
on them.
Harl and Kir-Um had performed a somewhat remarkable feat in
driving two stolen bicycles across three hundred odd miles of
steaming, strength-sapping, concrete highways and bumpy, bone-
dry country lanes, that weren't much more than wagon-ruts through
the woods. They had made many false starts and had fallen prey to
numerous mishaps, such as punctures and broken spokes. They had
subsisted on berries, small game and whatever food they could
glean from a farmer's field. Since they had not yet mastered the
tongue of these Earth people, they couldn't ask for food at the small
road-stands that dotted the way. Nor could they ask directions to
their destination. But, by dint of stubborn adherence to their
purpose, they had, at last, arrived at the little, prosaic town of
Majestic. Covered with dust from head to foot and ready to topple,
from sheer exhaustion, they made their way through the streets,
feeling a dull conviction of defeat growing within them. For they
were unable to read the names of the streets or the numbers of the
houses lined tidily along each side, like proud soldiers. It was night
again and the uncompromising gloom only added to their despair.
The glaring street-lamps winked gleefully at their plight and cast
strange shadows to confuse their tired minds. The plain natives who
passed them paid no attention to the Martians. Being of a farming
community, they were used to seeing men encrusted with dirt and
grime, going home to a hard-earned night's rest.
Harl and Kir-Um were about ready to concede failure, when they had
turned from a side-street into the main thoroughfare. There, a
thought impinged upon their ever-receptive minds that lent new zest
to their sinking spirits. The reflection they received was:
"Boy! You're a lucky stiff, Joe Carson. You'll sure have some good
reading tonight!"
Joe Carson! The name struck a vibrant chord in their brains and sent
a feeling of elation surging through their bodies. Here was the object
of their quest. The person whom they had travelled across scores of
miles of terrifying, unfamiliar terrain to find.
Immediately they took up a close orbit in his wake, determined not
to lose this brilliant inventor of strange weapons in the darkness of
the night.
Joe was at once aware of his shadows, but he thought perhaps they
merely happened to be going his way. As block followed block,
however, with no let-up of the pursuit, he began to suspicion a dire
purpose behind their actions.
Harl and Kir-Um were slowly overtaking the object of their chase,
making no attempt to conceal themselves. Squeezing out every last
bit of energy, they matched pace with Joe, as he speeded up his
pedaling in an effort to pull away.
Joe was beginning to get a little bit scared. What could he have that
the strangers would want? Certainly not his bike, for it was worth
only a few dollars and had just about seen the end of its years of
usefulness. He laughed mentally at the fantastic thought that maybe
they were after his science-fiction magazines. Then, what?
They were approaching Joe's house now and his fear mounted
steadily. His parents were gone, away at some social function, and
they wouldn't return for three or four hours yet. There was nothing
else to do, and so Joe, philosophically deciding to let fate take its
course leaped from his bike and made a sudden dash for the shelter
of the house.

Instantly they were after him, pounding across the dew-laden sod
with all the agility and grace of a couple of rampaging
hippopotamuses. Joe bounded through the front door and swung to
snap the night-lock. At that moment, something grasped his mind in
a firm, unrelenting grip. He no longer had any desire to resist the
intruders and stood waiting for them to enter and make him
prisoner. Quickly Harl and Kir-Um forced him into a chair and stared
down at their victim with triumphant eyes.
"So," Harl panted. "At last we shall learn the secret of Joe Carson,
Earth's most amazing genius. Kir-Um, he is but a youth. I shudder at
the thought of one so young possessing so much knowledge. Could
it be that we have made a mistake?"
Kir-Um looked up at Harl reprovingly. "Do Martians ever err?" he
demanded. "No, this boy has a powerful, secret weapon and we
must get it from him, at all costs. I can't understand you, Harl. It
would seem as if you actually sympathize with these puny Earth
people. The Councilor wouldn't like to hear that, Harl. I would hate
to see my best friend put to death because he was too friendly with
the enemy."
"I'm not friendly with these Earthlings, Kir-Um," Harl hastily
objected. "I merely think we should be cautious and not proceed at
too fast a pace but what we shall be lured into some sort of death
trap."
"Well and good," Kir-Um nodded. "I believe we both realize our task
calls for vigilance and a meticulous sifting of fact from fancy. That
much goes unsaid. Conceding this genius is merely a boy, perhaps
he is a child prodigy or, then again, he may have invented this
weapon by accident. That is of little import, however. He has the
weapon, we want it and we shall have it."
Harl bowed humbly. "You are right again, Kir-Um. Your deductive
powers constantly amaze me. Shall we begin the questioning?"
Kir-Um wasted no time in preliminaries, but came right to the point.
"Where is your secret weapon, boy?" he snapped. He spoke in his
native Martian tongue, but the thought behind the words was quite
clear in Joe Carson's receptive mind. Joe fumbled for words and
finally answered:
"Weapon? What weapon? The only kind of weapon I've got is my
Daisy B-B gun, and that's no secret. Mr. Jones, next door, found out
about it yesterday when I shot out his front room window. Boy, was
he sore!"
Kir-Um nodded knowingly at Harl and said, in an aside: "He's trying
to mislead us. But he won't succeed. The truth will out."
Harl leaned forward to try his hand at the cross-examination. "You
know very well what weapon we mean, creature. You have kept your
secret well, but now you must relinquish it. Do not try to delude us
with fanciful stories and false denials."
"Somebody's been feeding you a line, chum," Joe laughed. "Your
trolley's jumped the track. Go on back to your cage, pa, and dream
up another one. You bore me."
The Martians realized the youth's mental barrier was going to be
more difficult to break through than they had anticipated. The
situation called for tact, yet the amount of time left to them
necessitated a direct attack. Kir-Um summoned all the powers of
concentration at his command and slowly, but surely, forced Joe's
mind into a state of passiveness. Satisfied, at last, the Earthling
would give direct replies to his questions, Kir-Um once more took
over the interrogating duties.
"You cannot deceive us, boy," he began. "A few days ago, you wrote
a letter to Earth's great science center, Galactic Ventures, I believe it
is. In this letter, you stated you possessed a secret weapon, powerful
enough to destroy this whole planet. You did not divulge the details
of this invention, but promised dire happenings to anyone
unfortunate enough to have this weapon directed upon them. We
want the plans of this amazing contrivance and you will do well to
place them in our hands, without delay."
"Oh, that," Joe's voice came dull and emotionless. "That's just a
joke. Just something I dreamed up to give the ed. a laugh."
Harl and Kir-Um didn't know what a 'laugh' was, but they did know
that they were finally making some progress. A meaningful glance
passed between them and they silently congratulated themselves for
uncovering the genius' secret in such short order.
"And these Jokes, creature," Harl spoke, "does anyone beside
yourself possess them?"

The Martians feared perhaps this strange scientist had already

distributed his weapon among his fellowmen, in preparation to resist
the coming attack. Joe's next revelation immediately justified their
fears and shocked them to the point of frustration.
"Sure. All the stf. fans have their little jokes, and they never miss a
chance to use them on some dumb ninny. Once I saw the Misled
Biped pull a joke on a guy and he nearly went into epileptic fits. Of
course, it was a low-grade joke, or it would have laid him out cold as
a mackeral. You better never meet up with a fan when he's in a
joking mood, 'cause they don't have a bit of mercy and he'd
probably play you till you busted wide open."
The goggling intruders had visions of their marvelous bodies,
bloated till they were but horrible travesties of themselves, then to
burst apart like rotten bladders. Their eyes tried to pierce the
forbidding blackness of the suddenly-alive corners of the room and
sandpaper tongues darted nervously across dry lips. This bland-
faced boy seated in front of them was suddenly a repulsive gargoyle,
squatting in his evil throne and reveling in his fiendish power.
Harl coughed and made a feeble effort to compose himself. He had
been right—this was too big for them to cope with. They may as well
return to Mars and forget their dream of conquest. The Grand
Councilor was a fool for ever sending them on such a foolhardy
expedition and he and Kir-Um were still bigger fools for accepting
the task. Yet, how could they have known they would have to face a
smoothly-geared organization consisting of bloodthirsty monsters
and power-mad geniuses who dreamed up fantastic weapons just as
an idle pastime? It was a plain case of underestimation of the foe, a
miserable, stupid failure.
"Don't give up so easily, Harl," Kir-Um had intercepted Harl's
unguarded thoughts and, realizing utter despair was rapidly pulling
them down to the point of bolting for the door and making a frantic
exit from this mad world, grimly purchased a new hold on his
waning optimism.
"Don't forget," he added, carefully shielding his thoughts from the
ugly Earth-creature, "once this force is in our hands, we will be as
powerful as they. More so, in fact, by virtue of our superior
intelligence and our ability to improve the Jokes and make of them
weapons far surpassing the crude originals in performance. The
mere mention of a Joke seems to cause a strange emotion in this
youth; an odd, violent vibrating of the entire body, accompanied by
spasmodic grunts and squeaks. Probably it is his passionate reaction
to the thought of the magnitude of his terrible deed. It is like
nothing a Martian has ever known. But it is proof this Earthling
regards his own creation with apprehensive fear and is reverently
aware of its immense potentialities. We must also realize only a
portion of the population of this world has Jokes at their command,
which will make our invasion easier and our victory far more certain.
True, many of us will die, but, in the end, we will have Earth and all
its wondrous resources for our very own. Would you place your own
personal valuation above the continuation of our species, Harl? Do
you respect the wishes of the Councilor—Dibble-Ibble, bless him—or
do you love your own precious fur in preference to honor and glory?
Reflect a moment, Harl, and I know you'll see the wrongness of your
decision."
Harl's chin was already halfway down to his feet and his shamed
blushing indicated he had reconsidered and repented. He still had his
doubts, but they had been squelched to a bare fraction of their
former greatness by Kir-Um's defaming tirade.
Kir-Um reminded Harl of their determination by pinching his nostrils
together and, assured of Harl's co-operation, resumed the
questioning of the youth.
"Do you have a Joke with you now, creature?" he asked curiously.
"You bet," Joe replied. "I'm lousy with 'em. Wanta hear one? I got
one that'll simply kill you."
The Martians recoiled in terror.
"No," Kir-Um said sternly. "We do not wish to have the Joke
demonstrated on us. The first suspicious move you make, Earthling,
and you are dead. You may exhibit the Joke and operate it, if you
wish, but do not direct it at us, for your life."
"Okay," Joe agreed amiably. "I'll just give you sort of a sample. Here
goes: Why did the moron plant dynamite in the dairy? He wanted to
see a boom in the ice cream industry!"
Joe bent double, clasping his hands to his stomach and emitting loud
"Haws" and raucous "Hee hees." His head bobbed back and forth
like an apple in a tub and his feet played a staccato rhythm on the
carpeted floor.

Harl and Kir-Um looked on in confused wonder. They could see no

reason for the boy's sudden outburst. They looked in vain for the
weapon Joe had promised to display. Then the light dawned in Kir-
Um's mind and he let go with a tremendous: "E-e-e-ump!"
"Harl!" he said excitedly. "Don't you see—it's the words! The words
are the weapon; his Joke, as he calls it. Imagine it—words built into
a complex pattern to form a destructive force! It is in an embryo
stage though, Harl. This creature barely averted disaster just now
when his Joke back-fired on him. The pain must be excruciating, the
way he is retching and gasping for breath. We may consider
ourselves lucky he didn't aim the weapon at us. I shudder at the
thought."
Harl was shuddering, too. They were indeed fortunate they were not
the object of the force Joe had unleashed, or they would probably
now be nothing but lifeless hulks, rotting on the weird world that
had betrayed them. He could not understand how words could cause
such havoc, but undoubtedly they could, for wasn't the pitiful Thing
before them even now contorted with the paralyzing torture he had
accidentally inflicted upon himself? Harl knew he could never forget
the gruesome drama he was now witnessing. Why, even the
creature they had encountered at the citadel of science must have
been a victim of a Joke, for he had acted in the same strange
manner.
"That's the only possible explanation, Harl," Kir-Um was speaking
again. "This Earthling has discovered a way to assemble words in
such a formation as to cause a violent agitation in whatever they are
directed upon. I suspect, Harl, if this genius had received the full
force of that Joke, it would have shaken him apart, utterly and
completely. In other words, it would have decomposed his atoms
and spread them from here to Dibble-Ibble knows where. Now, we
must learn how to form these word patterns, thus to use them
against our foe in the coming invasion. Creature, have you a treatise
on Jokes?"
Joe ceased his giggling and thought a moment. Yes, he did have a
treatise on jokes and they would find it in his desk upstairs. Be sure
and not touch his perpetual-motion machine, though, for it was
delicately balanced.
Kir-Um immediately dispatched Harl to procure the valuable
document and waited impatiently till his companion returned. He
accepted the book reverently and placed it safely in an inside pocket.
"Good," he muttered. "Now, creature, you will forget all that took
place here."
Joe nodded dully. "I understand. You guys are strictly from dreams. I
won't remember a thing about you when I come out of my coma."

The Martians walked to the door and turned to stare triumphantly at

their strange companion of the evening. There was a slight twinge of
pity in Harl's heart, as he thought of this boy as nothing but a bunch
of jumbled atoms flying helter-skelter through the universe, all
because he had made a Joke.
"You will awaken an hour after we leave," Kir-Um directed.
"Sixty minutes to the dot," Joe affirmed.
Harl and Kir-Um stepped through the door and breathed deeply of
the night air. It all seemed like a nightmare now, but the significant
bulge in Kir-Um's coat pocket confirmed their brief interlude with the
amazing genius, Joe Carson.
Kir-Um withdrew the book and painfully deciphered the title, by the
light streaming from a window. It read: Joe Miller's Joke Book. The
printer must have made a mistake, he reflected. It should read: Joe
Carson's Joke Book. But no matter.
In the Martians' minds, a picture formed. It was a beautiful picture.
Hundreds of sleek, fast spaceships hurtled down on Earth, forming
almost a solid sky of steel above the hapless planet. They were
strange spaceships, for apparently they carried no armament. The
metal that would have been used to equip the ships with guns had,
instead, gone into the building of more dreadnaughts of space, for
they possessed a weapon far more destructive than any bolt from a
ray-gun or blast of a disintegrator-cannon. On the bridge of each
ship stood a renowned Martian scientist, a small book clutched
tightly in his hand. And on the flagship, the Grand Councilor himself
occupied the place of honor, the original copy of the weapon open
on a stand before him. As the huge armada entered Earth's
atmosphere, gigantic amplifiers blared forth messages of doom to
the inhabitants. Words with horrible meaning assailed the ears of the
population: 'Why doesn't a chicken cross the road? It doesn't want
on the other side!' 'Who was that wife I seen you with last night?
That was no wife, that was a lady!' Human creatures screamed in
agony and fell in the streets. Ghastly moans of 'Ha haw oh hee!'
escaped from clenched teeth and bodies retched with the
unbearable pain of their torture. Slowly their bodies decomposed,
losing a couple of billion atoms with each convulsion. Soon, not a
human remained on Earth and this beautiful world and all its riches
passed into the hands of the proven superior species—the Martians.
Ah! It was a lovely dream. But soon it would be more than a dream
—it would be happy reality. Harl and Kir-Um both sighed together.
 Spacers would hover, their mighty weapons blaring forth.

They pressed buttons concealed under their coats and slowly began
to fade, their outlines becoming indistinct and hazy. Kir-Um raised a
hand to his head in salute.
"Poor, foolish Earthlings," he murmured, "this is the end. Always
remember, if it had not been for Joe Carson's Joke, you would never
have found your demise. I salute you, strange creatures."
And they were gone.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOE CARSON'S
WEAPON ***

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