A Warning from Cinematic History: The Tragic Case of James Xavier - The Man with the X-Ray Eyes

"He stripped souls as bare as bodies!"

 Ray Milland as Dr James Xavier in

The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

 

I. 

 

People who subscribe to the myth of Genesis [1] believe that darkness is simply a lack of illumination, or the absence of visible light. 

 

In other words, they think of it as a purely negative quality in binary opposition to divine radiance; that truth, goodness, and wisdom all shine brightly, whilst darkness is the home of secrets, lies, and a shameful form of ignorance that leads to sin. 

 

Such metaphysical dualism is, of course, just a convenient way of ordering the world for simple-minded folk who fear complexity (and, indeed, fear the darkness and those things that go bump in the night).

 

Artists and philosophers, on the other hand, understand that not only is darkness vital - that human life needs a little shadow to add depth and mystery - but light and darkness are coeval. That is to say, they are intimately connected and bring each other forth; not absolutely distinct and separate. 

 

Thus, when I say that I love the darkness, I am not implying I hate the light. 

 

Indeed, my concern, as a philosopher, is not to critique those who wish to see the world clearly by the light of reason, but take issue with those who subscribe to an ideal of total transparency, driven as they are by an insane desire to see through everything in a profoundly dangerous (and nihilistic) manner as if they had x-ray vision like the man who best exemplifies our Transparenzgesellschaft [2], James Xavier. 

II.

 

The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963) is an American science fiction film directed by Roger Corman, from a script by Ray Russell and Robert Dillon, and starring Ray Milland as Dr James Xavier, a scientist who develops eye drops that allow him to see beyond the visible spectrum into the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths. 

 

What starts out as fun - seeing through a pretty girl's clothing - soon ends in tragedy. For eventually Xavier can see the world only in forms of light and texture that his brain is unable to fully comprehend and - having lost the darkness - he loses his mind and his life. 

 

The film was a huge hit at the time, but it is only now that it's warning about the dangers of total transparency and of no longer being able to close one's eyes and dream in revitalising darkness, takes on cultural pertinence.

 

As Xavier's self-induced condition worsens, he begins to wear thick protective goggles, that uncannily anticipate the headsets that we are encouraged to put on in order to explore a digital metaverse in which reality is dissolved in an acid of virtual light.     

 

One fears that eventually the only thing that will save us from madness will be to gouge out our own eyes, as Xavier does his.  

 

   

 

If thine eyes offend thee ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring here to the famous opening lines of Genesis 1, which detail how light was created by God and separated off from the primal darkness that was upon the face of the deep when the Earth was without form and void.

 

[2] This concept is explored by Byung-Chul Han in his book The Transparency Society, trans. Erik Butler, (Stanford University Press, 2015). I have discussed this book in a three-part post on Torpedo the Ark: click here for part 1; here for part 2; here for part 3. 

How the Metaverse Reduces Us All in Stature

As Paul Murray's waist chopped avatar soon discovers:

 "The greatest poverty is not to live

In a physical world ..." [1]

 

 

I. 

 

My friend Catherine, who has an academic interest in the topic of torture and capital punishment, will doubtless know that one of the favoured methods of execution in ancient China involved the condemned being cut in two at the waist by someone wielding a very large blade.

 

Thankfully, in the modern world this practice has been abolished - unless performed by a surgeon as a life-saving last resort [2].  

However, if you ever decide to enter the so-called metaverse - an immersive virtual environment - you may be shocked to find yourself (or, more precisely, your avatar) without legs, genitals, buttocks, or anything else below the waist, having effectively been given a digital hemicorporectomy the moment you don your VR headset. 

 

That's certainly the case in Mark Zuckerberg's derisible first attempt to establish a techno-utopia, despite his investing huge - HUGE - sums of money [3] in a project which the Facebook founder sincerely believes to be the future for human interaction and digital socialization.    

 

Known as Horizon Worlds, it's been described as a desperately sad and lonely space; like an abandoned shopping mall or theme park. Certainly not the kind of 3D cartoon world anyone would willingly choose to hang out in for very long - even if they are eventually promised legs! [4] 

 

 

II. 

 

"It's hard", writes Paul Murray, "not to read the fact that half of you disappears when you enter Horizon Worlds as symbolic somehow ..." [5]. 

 

That's true: and what it's symbolic of is (i) once you enter the metaverse there's no running away and (ii) Zuckerberg wants us to exchange the sheer intensity of lived experience - the full-life of the body, it's forces, flows and desires - for the mere simulation of such. 

 

D. H. Lawrence was alert to the danger of this almost a century ago: 

 

"The body feels real hunger, real thirst, real joy in the sun or the snow, real pleasure in the smell of roses or the look of a lilac bush; real anger, real sorrow, real love, real tenderness, real warmth, real passion, real hate, real grief. All the emotions belong to the body, and are only recognised by the mind." [6] 

 

Today, to paraphrase Lawrence, many people live and die without having had any real thoughts, feelings or experiences, even if they've spent many long hours chatting on social media or hanging out in a virtual reality. 

 

For they've effectively been cut off at the waist and become creatures for whom everything is in the head and "whose active emotional self has no real existence, but is all reflected downward from the mind" [7].   

 

Mark Zuckerberg likes to present himself as a liberator, but really he's just another executioner ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Wallace Stevens, 'Esthétique du Mal', in Collected Poems and Prose, ed. Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson, (The Library of America, 1997), p. 286.  

 

[2] Hemicorporectomy - or trans-lumbar amputation as it is also known - is an extremely rare (and extremely radical) procedure, used, for example, to stop the spread of aggressive cancers in the spine and pelvic region, or other uncontainable conditions. Apparently, the key to surving such surgery is having sufficient emotional and psychological maturity to cope - as well as the physical resources to undergo intensive rehab. So not for everyone then - and certainly not for me (even having eyestrain or a toothache makes me ponder if it wouldn't be better to be dead).      

 

[2] In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo reports that Zuckerberg has invested staggering sums in his metaverse project; tens of billions of dollars in just a couple of years. See 'My Sad, Lonely, Expensive Adventures in Zuckerberg's V. R.' (4 Nov 2022): click here.     

 

[3] Meta promises that its Horizon avatars will be getting legs sometime this year, so you'll not just have to float around with half your body missing. (Apparently, legs that move in concert with the user are very hard to get right in virtual reality systems, but the technical engineers are working on the problem.)

[4] Paul Murray, 'Who Is Still Inside the Metaverse? Searching for friends in Mark Zuckerberg’s deserted fantasyland', New York Magazine (13 Mar 2023): click here for the online version in Intelligencer.

 

[5-6] D. H. Lawrence, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, in Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 311.