Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

It's a very Victorian theme, Richie, that we are animals who are controlled by civilisation, and if only we could somehow get rid of our baser instincts, we'd be better people. It also ties into Hobbes and Rousseau and has later echoes in A Clockwork Orange - what would a human who was incapable of evil actually be like? It is really the only Robert Louis Stevenson I enjoy reading - well worth checking out Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comicbook for a good version of Hyde - forget the dreadful movie, Moore just sold them the rights and they wrote their own script and dialogue, oblivious to the fact that they'd just done the deal with the best dialogue-man alive only to not ask him to do any scripting.

hey thanks for replying. Your an intelligent person Andrew, and I always like reading what you say; you put things across in a way that gets you thinking. Is an interesting thing this idea we are like animals controlled by civilization. I often think that thought when I see drunk people, how their mood changes so suddenly, how over emotional they get and unpredictable, how easily they go out of control and do things they wouldn't normally do; and perhaps wake up the next morning shocked to discover the things they did do whilst under the influence of alcohol. But they had a good time, and laugh it off, blame it all on being drunk. I have a good time ussually when i'm drunk; you go a bit wild, and some people get real addicted to this other side to themselves; and long to be free of thier inhibitions so they can feel like themselves again, yet often I notice (myself included) it can lead down the path of self-destruction and is not so good if you overdo it, like it wasn't too good for Dr. Jekyll to keep becoming Mr. Hyde, cause he found after a while he couldn't stop being him anymore. I think at sometime in the distant past, we must have come to the conclusion in our prehistoric days that we needed some kind of order to survive and so created this more civilized side; yet how did we come to this conclusion? I read somewhere that it could have been intoxication itself which gave people the idea of civilization, they reckon our prehistoric ancestors experimented with magic mushrooms and other hallucinogens, and this helped them to look at things in a different way and concieve ideas. And so there came the birth of civilization; but then the ironic thing is that hallucinogens are outlawed by practically every civilization today, but it is possible it was these substances that created it in the first place. but whatever the score, Mr. Hyde is still raging beneath the surface, and is maybe why people want to get drunk so much, to find release from that need of losing control, and is why so many people go down a destructive path... I dunno, just waffling... and I guess this sort of subject isn't the most popular for discussion, this sort of topic disturbs me a little, but also fascinates me, and there I feel the same duality within myself which freaks me out. Have never read the Extraordinary League of Gentlemen comic books; agree about the movie, that was utter shite, and I felt really bad I'd wasted nearly two hours of my life watching it... typical blockbuster pish. Will go check out these comic books by Alan Moore though. Thanks for pointing those out, need something new to read. [%sig%]

I've only read the first comic book, but it is indeed rather good. The idea of Mr. Hyde always 'raging beneath the surface' is compelling, but I don't like to think of it that way. I prefer Stephenson's idea of a transformation - that human beings are equally given to behaving in a sociable and civilized manner as they are to behaving like selfish animals, and different circumstances bring about the changes. When people feel that behaving drunkenly brings out a more truthful side to them, it's usually because they find themselves too constrained when they're being Jekyll, but this needn't be the case. Part of our aim, as a society, is surely to work out what circumstances lead to our becoming Mr. Hydes, and eliminate them, or else find a safe place to channel the rage. I've lately come by the opinion that in English society in particular, the problem runs very deep.

Yeah, there seems to be a fine line between sanity and insanity; & I think given the right circumstances, anybody can lose it & go crazy; no matter how together they think they are, how holier than thou etc. Everybody is close to the edge of this precipice. [%sig%]

Interesting point, Hen. As Milgram's experiments (and indeed a huge amount of totalitarian governments) have shown, you don't need to be a bad person to do bad things; most of us are capable of things that we would never dream of, if put in the particular situation.