My Anti-Hero Complex
It really isn't so complex.
I have an anti-hero complex. But before you go looking that up in the DSM-51 like some autistic pedant repeating Webster endlessly, I’ll just tell you it isn’t in there. Does it have to be before someone believes me? Do I have to have an official diagnosis before it can exist? Can I not confess? I’m trying to get out in front of this thing.
The closest some commissariats have come to diagnosing my anti-hero complex is making up something called Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Or ODD. That's right. ODD. As in, boy it sure is ODD these god-complex suffering bastards fabricated a medical condition to diagnose free citizens with.2 Can’t wait for the sequel. ODD 2: ODHD.
Sadly, there are no fun prescription drugs I can extract from this. Not yet. I’m hoping anxiety medications sometime in the future, since those are fun no matter function. Alprazolam, Lamb! Alprazolam, Lamb! I wannabe sedated! Twenty-four hours ago!3 Put a rush on it! But no Rush! 2112 sucks. All twenty minutes of it. Just finish, dudes.4
This could be a real psychological disorder, as ODD as it seems to admit it. But if so, an astonishingly large fraction of our species is afflicted. Many humans suffer a deep desire to be free. The sick bastards.
Here are a few select specimens.
There is the old Spartacus story to consider, wherein a bunch of uppity slaves decided to apply on-the-job training to rebellion. We call that mission creep in my industry. To hear the Romans tell it these inferiors couldn’t stand killing each other only to enrich individuals who didn’t care for them at all and only expected them to obey. How ODD.
So, they revolted. They had no chance of success in war against the height of republican Rome, but they took city after city from their old masters and liberated the slaves within. Many joined their ranks, and their quixotical rebellion swelled like a musical theory PhD’s penis five hours into Rush’s 2112. They should consult a real doctor, in my opinion. This is also the opinion on the back of this erectile dysfunction medication that totally isn’t mine.
But they lost eventually. The slaves, I mean. Every surviving slave of the war was crucified along the road from the Alps to Rome. This was a sort of morbid precursor to streetlamps if streetlamps bled and moaned in agony. But it was never confirmed whether Spartacus himself had been killed or not. He was a crafty fellow and the Roman generals knew that. They worried he escaped. Legend says when they rounded up and interrogated the remains of his army as to which of them was Spartacus, each claimed, “I am Spartacus!”
There is no historical source for this. Mostly because it didn’t happen, and someone had to make it up after a quaaludes bender. That’s what legend has it means. In this case, the lie in question was made up by a communist.5 This should surprise no one. Communists are collectivist rebels against reality and when they swear obedience to The Party and The Cause, they implicitly swear to overturn the truth wherever it is tragically and accidentally stumbled upon.
There are also rebels without a cause. These folks fear conformity as much as the next guy. To a man, since no woman is this stupid, they all violently agree conformity is the gravest crime a man can commit. They wore mostly black back in the day, pretty good looking to be honest, but now they wear bright, gay ass hues to prevent identification in a Skittles vomit splashed police lineup and they hate motorcycles because gasoline.
Their enemies are also the bourgeoisie. They call things bougie6 since Marxists dictate how these ODD non-conformists use everyday language. It just means middle class, which goes towards explaining why their policies all intend to hollow it out. Because they’re also communists these days. Stay bougie, Ponyboy.
There are the hillbilly rebels to consider as well. They sort of have a cause, but nothing a product of diverse genes or creative breeding could identify. They are born with teeth, usually, but lose them as the years go by. It’s all the drugs, you see. Strangely, there is often a classical Greek education involved in rearing uncle-fathers and sister-mothers into excellent, tooth-free chefs of meth.
They often use terms like ethos, as in, they had a different ethos back when a man was expected to breed with his family. They generally hate the welfare state, toothbrushes, baths, cops, minorities, or anything not guzzling gasoline. Exceptions are made for lipstick lesbians on the internet. For reasons. They also take any chance to tell ODD stories about ancient Greece. Drug addled nerds.
Plutarch tells an ODD story from almost 2,500 years ago about a fellow named Aristides the Just. The Athenians were assembled to ostracize some poor bastard from the city as was their custom. Ostracism saved them the trouble of killing a man and they may need them later. In fact, they often did need them later.
Votes were cast by scribbling someone’s name on chunks of pottery called ostraca. This made it difficult for the illiterate to participate without aid. One suspects Citizen X was ostracized the most often, whoever that was. But an ignorant douche approached Aristides and asked him to write the name “Aristides” on his ostraca, quite unaware he was asking the man to aid and abet in his own exile.
Without a word about his identity, Aristides wrote his name and handed the shard back to his earnestly uneducated banisher. But he did ask the fellow why he was intent on doing away with such an honest man. To which the dumb shit honestly replied, “I’m just sick of hearing his name.”
Other people can pretend to be Spartacus all they like, though I doubt that mensch would have them. They can all grease their hair the same way to show solidness or whatever and how non-conformist they all are. They can even move off the grid and bake the finest methamphetamine this side of the Mississippi. But it’s all enough to make me reach for that ostraca. I never did learn Greek, believe it or not.
Still, Jesus told me to not throw stones. And where is he now? Super dead. But there is hope. Humans have an ODD tendency to be what they want to see. I suspect the political equivalent of the musical revolution of the 70’s is on the horizon. I won’t go into this any further. Prophecy never profited a man, after all.
While Rush was masturbating on stage like an ancient Greek philosopher at the Olympics for twenty-minutes at a time, an entire generation was getting really sick of hearing it. So, they made their own music rather than just listening to the interminable slop record companies served at communal troughs. They decided they weren’t cows.
They pumped out ninety second anthems about drugs, about not doing drugs, about rock and roll high schools, about some chick named Ursula who grew some tits, etc. The list goes on. Bite-sized songs, reinvigorating audiophilia into something more bad ass and less… corduroy. We call it punk, because that’s the sound a dick makes when it hits the back of a throat. Bam, bam, bam, bam!
It is loud, fast, and crass, because there is no war but class war. And that's exactly what I'll tell a state appointed doctor once they start prescribing fun drugs for an ODD sort of mental illness. Alprazolam, Lamb! Alprazolam, Lamb! I wannabe sedated!
Sic vivitur.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5th Edition. Bible for graduate students. It’s full of mental disorders and god complexes, too. But you get to claim you fucking love science instead of timeless lessons and stories starring gods and heroes as characters. See also, comic books.
The Ramones, I Wanna Be Sedated
For those born yesterday, Rush is a band who started sort of strong before descending into interminably masturbatory progressive rock music.
Howard Fast was that wishy-washy, reformed, lying commie.
Bougie is retard-slang for bourgeois because they can’t pronounce that word in the first place and baby talk is their kink.