Ønsker mennesker at være frie? ... eller vil de i virkeligheden hellere være fri for det ansvar som friheden indebærer?
Lizzie James: I think fans of The Doors see you as a savior, the leader who'll set
them all free. How do you feel about that? It's kind of a heavy burden, isn't it?
Jim Morrison: It's absurd. How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts
to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie--people claim
they want to be free--everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most,
the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People
are terrified to be set free-they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who
tries to break those chains. It's their security....How can they expect me or
anyone to set them free if they don't really want to be free?
Lizzie: In your early, first album, stuff, there's a definite feeling of an apocalyptic
vision – "break on through"- a transcendence. Do you see this as a still existing
possibility?
Jim: It's different now. (Pause) It used to seem possible to generate a movement
– people rising up and joining together in mass protest – refusing to be repressed
any longer – like, they'd all put their strength together to break what Blake calls
"the mind-forged manacles."…..The love-street times are dead. Sure, it's possible
for there to be a transcendence – but not on a mass level, not a universal rebellion.
Now it has to take place on an individual level – every man for himself, as they
say. Save yourself. Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation
with violence.
Lizzie: What causes that? Jim: If natural energy and impulses are too severely
suppressed for too long, they become violent. It's natural for something that's
been held under pressure to become violent in it's release…a person who is too
severely suppressed experiences so much pleasure in those violent releases…they're
probably rare and brief. So he becomes infatuated with violence.
Lizzie: But then – the real source of evil isn't the violence – or the infatuation with
it – but the repressive forces.
Jim: That's true – but in some cases, a person's infatuation with violence involves a
secret complicity with his oppressors. People seek tyrants. They worship and support
them. They co-operate with restrictions and rules, and they become enchanted with
the violence involved in their brief, token rebellions.
Lizzie: But why is that? Jim: Tradition, maybe – the sins of the fathers. America was
conceived in violence. Americans are attracted to violence. They attach themselves to
processed violence, out of cans. They're TV - hypnotized – TV is the invisible protective
shield against bare reality. Twentieth-century culture's disease is the inability to feel
their reality. People cluster to TV, soap operas, movie, theatre, pop idols, and they
have wild emotion over symbols. But in reality of their own lives, they're emotionally
dead.