We believe surrealists are still seeking, in their many courses, that elusive document: the New Declaration of The Rights of All People…Letters of green worms on an obsidian parchment… A fundamental axiom in this document-to-come must necessarily be the unalienable right to the radical imagination in all its manifestations and processes. This means, above all, the right of assertion, a right to bestow ontological and existential weight in any measure to the notions of fundamental desire, however, wherever, and in whatever guise they may choose to appear. Against all conformity with present opinions, who perceive in the marvellous only the malformations of the present world—that is, so-called mental illness—we believe such a symphony of ideas must be an utterly tangible utopian endeavour.
What stands in the way of such a project? All guardians of “reality” in its present, stunted form: legislators, officers, professors, those armed with guns and batons, certainly—but a special underline in red ink for those who wield syringes! The doctors of the body and the mind, who insist that certain states of mind must be this and not that—in accordance with the dictates of their well-funded research and pharmacological influences… It is an industrial-complex that limits and delimits the framework of miserable thoughts in a miserable world.
As such, we believe the fight against repressive psychiatry to be an ongoing front on par with the many others being waged against social, poetic, racial, sexual and economic repression. As part of this campaign, we would like to propose a particular opportunity for subversion and the promotion of solidarity between imagining-beings and other subjectivities. A modest opportunity. We note that the current definition of delusions in the DSM-V (Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder) is explicitly anti-social in character:
Delusions are fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Their content may include a variety of themes (e.g. persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, grandiose).[…] Delusions are deemed bizarre if they are clearly implausible and not understandable to same-culture peers and do not derive from ordinary life experiences. […] The distinction between a delusion and a strongly held idea is sometimes difficult to make and depends in part on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite clear or reasonable contradictory evidence regarding its veracity.
This seems to indicate that, should a belief of such a kind be shared, it would no longer be qualified as a “bizarre delusion” but would need to be fit into reality in some plane or another. We smell our opportunity.
TO ALL COMRADES WHO SEE CLEARLY…
We hereby put out an open and ongoing call for visions, obsessions, notions of all kinds, but especially those as yet unshared masterpieces maliciously labeled “delusions” by the above definition. Our goal is to socialize these antisocial ideas by sharing them, and, unequivocally co-signing them as a collective. This is a perpetual act of solidarity with the imaginative potential of everyone; that is, a pre-signed blank cheque to the world of the psychotic; that is, our own world in formation.
To those of you who suffer under the scrutiny of cynical medical professionals, to those who struggle daily to book a single appointment, to those whose float between an abyss of personal loathing and an institutional criticism of everything you see, hear and feel to be true, to those of you who are sick of feeling ashamed for seeing the world as it is—SEND US YOUR DELUSIONS! We propose to share them with you. The aim is to collect, compile and undersign an ongoing catalogue of heretofore antisocial notions to be made explicitly communal and in order to endlessly and without mercy stretch reality like a victim on the rack.
Yours frothing at the mouth,
The Ottawa Surrealist Group
APPENDIX: RUNNING TALLY OF MISERIES
In addition to the above, we would also like to take this opportunity to flip the DSM-V on its head by fixing permanently certain mainstream beliefs as unquestionable delusions in all cases, until further notice:
Nationalism
The American dream
Organized religion
Institutional medicine
The Media
Democracy
Health
Arts and Culture
Sports
Etc.