Know Your Enemies

The Parties Of Interzone.

Liquefactionist

The Liquefactionists are a party who base themselves on consuming (liquidating) one another, until everyone is liquidated into one person. As Burroughs says, the party will turn in on themselves, eventually, only one man will be left. This parodies racism and totalitarianism, with man’s hatred of one another ultimately leading to the destruction of everybody else.

Divisionists

The Divisionists create clones of themselves to take control of Interzone. Each man tries to create as many clones as possible without being noticed; he disguises his clones through cosmetic surgery. As people discover the clones they are mobbed and destroyed. Again, the idea of this party is that one man will take over the world. One clone of one sex of one race will ultimately prevail – a parody of racism and sexism.

Senders

The senders are the ultimate evil. They want to control the world through telepathic mind control. This party will take over when one man controls the thoughts of every other man. This is the most extreme form of totalitarianism shown in the book. Hassan is suggested to be a sender, and is the ultimate villain in the novel.

Factualists

The factualists are the only party with good intentions. They combat the evil of the other three parties by exposing it; this is enough to destroy an evil. They live for truth and freedom. AJ – who exposes Hassan – and Bill Lee – who writes naked lunch to expose evil – are the two main Factualists in the novel. The downfall of the factualists are that they are human, and subject to greed, making them liable to sell out.

The above excerpt was prompted by a discussion here of the Greek Golden Dawn. And of course the parties are from the imaginings of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch.

Bonus: If the intersection of secret societies (specifically the Golden Dawn) and politics interests you this long bit (100 pdf pages) Hitler and the Golden Dawn (Age of Horus) is quite good. I once belonged (for about two years) to a Temple that was very Crowley oriented. So I know a fair amount about the subject from direct experience.

The dividing line between the parties for me once I figured it out is the Power and Control faction vs the Liberty faction.

Lord of Light by Zelazny is good science fiction on the subject as is “Naked Lunch”. The Control parties are always at war with each other vying for who will be the ultimate controller. The Liberty parties just want to leave you alone. Which of course in anathema to the Control parties of all stripes.