The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [90]
Leon demonstrated a compulsive need to immerse himself in activity (not only on the Flora and Fauna Commission, but in his work in the laundry and vegetable rooms), but on his own terms, that is, alone. He apparently found the demands placed on him by group work extremely burdensome. He would go to great lengths to remain within the group for the sake of satisfying whatever flicker of need still remained within him for human companionship. But genuine co-operation seemed to be more than he either needed or was capable of giving.
Thus, Leon went along enthusiastically at first with Dr. Yoder’s invitation to work on the Flora and Fauna Commission, but within three days we found him going to fantastic lengths to transform the three-man project into a strictly one-man operation. When, in the early part of July, we undertook to revive the Commission, we experienced the same results—initial enthusiasm and expressions of desire to co-operate, followed by the usual quarreling between Leon and Joseph, in which the co-operation bogged down. Further efforts on our part to give the project continued guidance were thus stifled to the point of extinction.
By the first of August it was apparent that we had learned all we were going to with this kind of experimental device. The Flora and Fauna Commission was dead as far as the three men were concerned—and the time had now come to explore another avenue, suggested by our theory for changing systems of belief and behavior.
[1]These letters were actually written by me, with Dr. Yoder’s permission.
[2]This combination of Leon’s real first name and his delusional last name was used in connection with a special confrontation procedure, directed specifically toward Leon, which we were undertaking at that time; he rejected the compromise name as firmly as he rejected his real full name.
PART TWO
CHAPTER XI
THE PROBLEM OF AUTHORITY
THE DISSOLUTION of the Flora and Fauna Commission marked the end of the first phase of our research. Before turning to the second phase, it is necessary to remind the reader that our interest in what happened from day to day to the three Christs of Ypsilanti stemmed, not from a specific theoretical concern with the nature of schizophrenia or paranoia as such, but from a more general concern with the nature of systems of belief and with the conditions under which such systems, especially closed systems, can be modified so that they are more open to the influence of experience, more in accord with social and physical reality, and more likely to reflect harmony between the inner needs of the self and the outer demands of society.
The first phase of the study dealt primarily with one proposal, one technique designed to introduce conflict within a system of beliefs: confront a person with others who claim the same identity as he, thus producing a dissonant relation between his primitive belief in his own identity and his primitive belief that there cannot be more than one person who holds a given identity. The major reactions observed thus far in each of the three delusional Christs (and these reactions will be discussed more fully in Chapter XIX) may reasonably be attributed to the conflict-producing dissonance brought about by the confrontations, and the men’s reactions to these confrontations represent their efforts to reduce this dissonance.
By the time the Flora and Fauna Commission ceased to function, it had become reasonably clear that the process of adaptation or reduction of dissonance was now more or less complete.