Blind Faith in senseless language: the cage panics back
an indicative transposition like ‘I’m here But For the Grace of God’ is, she says, literally senseless, and regardless of whether she hears it or not it’s meaningless, and that the foamy enthusiasm with which these folks can say what in fact means nothing at all makes her want to put her head in a Radarange at the thought that Substances have brought her to the sort of pass where this is the sort of language she has to have Blind Faith in
Context
The scene's terminal crisis, where the program's demand collides with a lexical mind that cannot make itself submit. Joelle's despair is precisely the addict's: Substances have brought her to a "pass" where survival requires Blind Faith in language she can prove is meaningless — the surrender of intellect is the price of staying alive, and she can see the price. And her critique lands on Gately as relapse-vertigo, not as argument: with "nothing in his huge square head" to answer her, the Disease reasserts instantly — the cage, the old panic, the smily-face flickering onto her blank veil. The theme's darkest note is here: the same intelligence that sees through the clichés is the intelligence that will not let you be saved by them, and it summons the Spider back the moment it's given the floor. (Closes on Gately deciding to Turn It Over and settling in "asking silently for help to be determined to try to really hear or die trying." The subjunctive/counterfactual grammar critique itself is language-grammar's/irony-sincerity's — cross-ref.)