To continue existing inside the system, in order to maintain his comfortable Alpha-Plus lifestyle and privileges, Bernard realizes he must continue performing his tasks and not rock the boat too much. Although he accepts that he is in essence a slave to or within the system, he believes his mental freedom sets him apart. And indeed it does. It actually makes him a danger to himself and others.

Bernard questions the world around him. He even questions how he perceives the world around him. How many of his beliefs, how much of his personality is due to his being conditioned? Can he resist? He believes he can. He even allows himself the small intellectual rebellion of questioning the legitimacy of the conditioning process, an unspeakable transgression for someone entrusted with its integrity.

He goes too far without even realizing it. In the end his unorthodoxy, his unwillingness to live in unconsciousness, destroys his comfortable Alpha-Plus life. He is not capable of conforming to the expected norms that have been achieved by extensive conditioning and indoctrination and is thus exiled so he cannot pollute the system. He is too much of a rhinoceros in the China shop, so to speak.

Bernard considers this an intolerable punishment, whereas...

“... if he had the smallest sense, he’d understand that his punishment is really a reward. He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who’s any one."

In considering Bernard being labeled a rhinoceros, I had to ask myself if I too bore characteristics of the rhinoceros. I certainly feel I do. By all rational accounts, I am deep in the conditioning centers of the current system. I see exactly how children are selectively educated to perform specific tasks while those knowledge sets that would enable them to even consider real freedom are withheld.

I like to believe I have broken through the worst of the conditioning. Somewhere along the way, one clear morning, I awoke and realized that the orthodoxy of our world was entrained, a comfortable unconsciousness that made the world make sense only because it wasn't viewed too closely. In recognizing the cage I somehow felt free, even though I knew I wasn't.

And now, years later, I am shaking the cage. The porcelain plates on the wall are wobbling. Everyone near me can hear it. Some of them are turning away, some look on with concern, those being conditioned wonder at what it might mean. I imagine I can see comprehension in their eyes.

And I am wondering if there is an island out there waiting for me, or if the alternative is something less... liberating?