One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

1. Introduction to Politics and Political Analysis Braunwarth One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest • Written by Ken Kesey • Grew up in Oregon, Most likely to succeed • Won fellowship to creative writing program at Stanford • Became a volunteer to test new drugs at the local VA hospital • Discovered LSD and became interested in alternative methods of perception • Worked in a mental institution and spoke extensively with the patients

3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest • OFOCN explored themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity • Common themes at a time when U.S. was actively committed to opposing communism and totalitarian regimes • But Kesey directed criticism at American institutions themselves • Revolutionary approach that would find greater expression during the 1960s • Novel was published in 1962 and was an immediate success

4. OFOCN • Started a commune in CA and became an LSD guru • Led the Merry Pranksters on a road trip across the U.S. with numerous subversive adventures • Movie was released in 1975 without Kesey’s permission • Nominated for 9 academy awards and swept the 5 major categories

5. OFOCN • This film is an allegory • Everything in this film is symbolic of some aspect of society • What is the major conflict? • What are the major political symbols? • What does Nurse Ratched represent? • The psychiatrists and administrators? • What about McMurphy? • The Patients? • The Chief?

6. Nurse Ratched • What does she symbolize? • How does she maintain order on the ward? • How does she get people to her desired outcomes? • Does she solely rely on physical force? • Why do the orderlies follow her? • Is she dishonest? • What is your opinion of her? • Does she have to maintain order? • Would you like to go to her job every day?

7. Randall McMurphy • What does he symbolize? • Is he a threat to the order of the ward? • Is he dangerous? • Is he crazy? What is crazy? Who decides? • Does he know what he is up against? • What happens to him in the end?

8. Freedom/Liberty • Why the basketball game/fishing trip/betting/drinking/sex? • Why too much f***ing and fighting? • Why is it important that McMurphy “tries”? • Does McMurphy want to tear down a system or build a better one for the patients?

9. The Chief • What does he symbolize? • Why the big man/small man language? • What happened to his father? • What is Kesey trying to say about the modern society?

10. The Patients • What do they symbolize? • Do you feel sorry for them? • Do they take responsibility for themselves? • Do they have power? • Why don’t they leave? • What empowers them and what emasculates them? • Have they really changed at the end?

11. Power/Order/Security/Conformity • Where do the nurse and McMurphy get their power? • Do people crave order and conformity and security? • Can order lead to oppression? • What about critical thought? • What does this say about democracy? • If we are to avoid oppression, we must remain active and vigilant

12. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

13. Maslow • Maslow presents a hierarchy of human needs • More basic needs need to be met before individuals are concerned with higher needs • What do we need to satisfy before higher-order goals like love and freedom? • What might you give away for a sense of safety and security? • With what needs is government concerned? • How does our capitalist society encourage one to satisfy various needs? • Alan Watts on Music and Life • How is this relevant to the situation in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

14. Kohlberg • Example of each stage? • At what level of moral development are the patients at? • Is this true for society at large? • How can/does power command obedience in society?

15. Milgram • What is the peril of obedience? • Why do people obey the scientist? • Would you follow through to the end?

16. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” • Is what you see always what you get? • Is what you see always the truth? • Describe an experience in which something that looked true turned out to be false or vice versa. • How/Why do people accept illusion as reality? • What can happen if the illusion is shattered and reality is revealed?

17. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”

18. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” • What is reality for the people in the cave? • If a prisoner is released from the cave and compelled to look at the light, what will he experience? • If a liberated prisoner goes back and tries to enlighten his fellow prisoners, what reaction will he get?  Why? • Why must the liberated prisoners return to the cave?

19. Allegory • What is an allegory? • A symbolic representation about the human existence • What is Plato's central message about politics? • Why do you think the people of Athens were antagonistic to Plato's ideas? • What happened to Socrates?

20. Shadows • How much do the people in the cave know of themselves and others? • Ignorant and ignorant of their ignorance • About what are they talking? • Would mistake appearance for reality

21. Enlightenment • If a prisoner is released from the cave and compelled to look at the light, what will he experience? Why? • Pain, can’t force to learn • What does the sun symbolize? • Truth

22. Education • If the liberated prisoner goes back and tries to enlighten his fellow prisoners, what reaction will he get? Why? • Ridicule and attack • Majority are sure of themselves • Why would the prisoners have such a bad opinion of his experience outside of the cave? • Threatening and hard to understand

23. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”

24. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” • Describe other contemporary "caves" in which people might feel "imprisoned"? • What lessons can be drawn from the Cuckoo’s Nest? • How is Plato's cave like politics today? • What illusions do people believe? • Why do they believe them? • What happens when these illusions are shattered?

25. Thoreau • Thoreau has a low opinion of the common man who needs to create a government to tell him what to do even when he knows such actions to be unjust • How is this situation similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? • Thoreau feels we have an obligation to disobey such directives from such governments. Do you agree with both his assessment of the common man and the government created by such men? • He feels that working within the system only perpetuates a system that tries to keep citizens fearful and insecure thus inhibiting their ability to gain the strength and wisdom necessary for the challenges of liberty

26. Thoreau • Have you ever felt your government acted unjustly? How did you respond? • What would you have done if you lived in Concord during Thoreau’s time? • Thoreau maintains that once individuals are ready to act according to their conscience they will no longer need or want government • Assuming we have not reached that point yet, how are Thoreau’s ideas relevant to contemporary democratic action? • Thoreau can also be read as a lesson for necessity of citizens to be active and vigilant to protect their freedom from the encroachment of government power • How is this similar to the situation on the Ward?

27. MLK: Letters from the Birmingham City Jail • Tradeoff between freedom and order • Why Civil Disobedience, direct action, tension? • Why not other forms of democratic participation? • Why not violence? • How does MLK justify breaking the laws of society? • What about the moderate who prefers order to social tension?