Friday, December 2, 2011

what Dick thought was much more dangerous


(I have been making a similar point in the "was Dick postmodern?" discussions.)

"The Baudrillardians are happy to have him point out that time is an illusion; that the authorities are out to get us; that God can talk through cheesy television advertisements; and that, with the endless refractions of different media playing the same message back and forth, nothing is quite as it seems. But they are happy for him to do so just as long as it is a fun metaphor making an important point but not to be taken seriously.

Judging by these journals, however, what Dick thought was much more dangerous."
...
"Dick’s theology, though not quite orthodox, is not noticeably more odd or problematic than that of Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena or St John of the Cross."

"The oddest thing of all is that a man who perfectly described the world in which we all now live, who predicted the anxieties that would affect the citizens of the 21st Century, can – on the basis of these journals – be dismissed as a nutcase."

"The trouble is that the Exegesis doesn’t read like that. It reads like a clever man trying to come to terms with the world around him, a world that he had always distrusted, and that gave him reasons to distrust it."

"...the unfashionable truth is that Philip K. Dick believed in an old-fashioned story: this world is an illusion, and the world that matters, the one which can be relied upon, was revealed by Jesus Christ."

Did Philip K. Dick Dream of a Message from God?

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