Paranoid Pedagogies: The Metaphysics of Coding in the Religious Tracts of Jack T. Chick

• In Event: Public Pedagogies: Torture, Paranoia, and Popular Culture

Abstract

In this paper we use the religious cartoon tracts of Jack T. Chick to explore what we call “paranoid pedagogy” and to examine how paranoia functions to constrain desire. Paranoia designates “an absolute system of belief” where meaning is “permanently fixed and exhaustively defined by a supreme authority, figure-head, or god” (Holland, 1999, p. 3). Paranoia constitutes one way of coding or socially organizing desire within capitalist societies, and is hence not merely a purely psychological, but also a social, state (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983). We also take up the issue of how we might create a way to live in this world freed from the paranoiac impulse to enslave through transcendent forms of morality, absolute Law, and Judgment.

Authors

• Jennifer April Sandlin, Arizona State University

• Jason J. Wallin, University of Alberta