An article in Truthout asserts that “Since all human occurrences take place in society, it is obviously a truism that all insanity must, in some sense, be social… Not only can individuals be dysfunctional and pathological but that societies can be irrational, self-destructive and given to denial, self-deception and violent self-contamination.”
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Excellent, insightful article and very relevant.
I would point out that whereby in Freud’s day or Victorian type times, the main problem was said to be neurosis, Dr. George K. Simon exposes that today our main problem is lack of good character, narcissism and too much aggression. He describes this quite well in his popular book, IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING, with great advice on how to deal with the many covert manipulators pretending to suffer neurosis or having it wrongly attributed to them due to past psychological assumptions when they are really fighting and using other bullying to get their way all the time regardless of the consequences to their victims.
There are now a ton of books out there about character disorders like narcissism and psychopathy as many struggle to survive in a very cold, heartless world with an increasing jungle mentality.
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Wow! A very well written and powerful article. I came to the same conclusions about capitalism while doing research for the Social Justice class that I taught to high school students. The material never was popular and I was always labeled as being a “communist” because I taught in private schools. You had to be pretty well off financially to be able to attend these schools so Social Justice and an honest critique of capitalism was not a popular thing at all.
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We cannot truly understand Biological Psychiatry and how to defeat it without undestanding the true nature of capitalism. This was an excellent posting and quite relavent to the essential nature of the MIA website.
I believe it was Duane (for whom I have great respect and agree with most of the time) who once admonished people on this website for attacking capitalism, the military, and religion. These subjects should not be off limits because they provide an important context for understanding the nature and survival of Biological Psychiatry.
Capitalism creates empires and turns everything in its wake into a commodity to be bought and sold; the military defends and extends the empire; and religion(in most situations) defends the status quo and directs people away from activism and toward individual salvation. These can all be critical subjects to be explored in our movement, and besides we all need to have a little fun somtime.
Richard
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Richard,
Did you notice the link to Dr. Gabor Mate’s CAPITALISM MAKES US CRAZY: Dr. Mate Speaks On Addiction at the bottom of the above article?
I had recommended Dr. Mate as a growing popular authority on addiction especially among the disenfranchised and cited his book, THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS, in your recent post. Since you expressed interest, you might be interested in a video of a talk by Dr. Mate on addiction below:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/6900
Richard, you asked me to review your other addiction articles and I said I would, but I wrote a couple of comments on your last article that I did “review” and you didn’t respond. So I haven’t commented on your other articles because I don’t know how to reach you literally to let you know if I do comment, so I thought it would be futile.
I’ll say one thing here that stood out in your second article on addiction. If I understood correctly, you indicated that YOU THOUGHT alcoholism and/or drug addiction is genetic. Now, comments like that really drive me crazy especially coming from somebody claiming to support survivors. So, in my opinion, making such bogus genes claims like that without evidence plays into the hands of the enemy using such eugenics claims to stigmatize and poison those they see as eugenically inferior. Now, that one DOES make my blood boil!! I’ve gone after Jill Litrell for making such unproven claims too with regard to alcohol abuse and schizophrenia.
Here is a link to a great enlightening book review of a great book, PSEUDOSCIENCE IN BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY, that totally debunks such nasty eugenics claims for everyone’s pet theories including alcohol abuse and schizophrenia:
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/br-pibp.htm
I know “Dr.” Pies will get me for being “antipsychiatry,” but that’s okay because it’s far better than being “forpsychiatry!”
I think Stanton Peele’s and other books I cited to you deal with the absurdity of addiction being genetic very well too.
It may seem like I’m coming down hard on you, but the opposite is true. I have a high regard for your posts, your comments and you as a person trying to do your best to help people in less than ideal circumstances including all of us here. So, I’m sort of writing “tongue in cheek” here, but I really do get very upset and angry about psychiatry’s never ending fraud, dangerous theories with a eugenics spin to continue to prey on humanity for greed, power and profit in the guise of mental health. Dr. Jay Joseph does a great job in articles on this site and elsewhere debunking psychiatry’s lies about bad genes causing their VOTED IN stigmas and in his books, THE MISSING GENE and THE GENE ILLUSION.
Anyway, if you respond to this and let me know you are still interested especially after this post, I will check out your first two articles and comment as you requested. As I told you, I was pretty impressed with your posts, especially the last one, and I liked the second one except for the eugenics claims. (I know — I mean it to get your attention because talk is dangerous as those in NAZI GERMANY found out).
You’ve been writing some good posts lately too and I appreciated your help and clarification when I was concerned about some of the invalidating theories that harm the victims when one is feeling insulted, abused and gaslighted. You helped name the problem in that opposite views and approaches of CBT and REBT versus the trauma model of dealing with environmental stressors/abuse were being debated for the most part as I said.
Hope to hear from you soon.
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Donna
I share your detest of genetic theories in explaining human behavior. I often use Ashley Montagu’s phrase “genetic theories of original sin” which he used to describe the Sociobiologists, the forerunners of today’s genetic determinists. And since I do not beleive in “sin” I certainly do not believe in related genetic theories. Perhaps you misinterpreted one of my comments or maybe I made a mistake in how I presented a certain concept.
I am off to work soon so I cannot respond more at this time. If you want to dialogue more about my addiction series you could do it under part 3 of my series; I will check it now and then. I appreciate your feedback very much as well as your complements.
You Go Sister! Comradely Richard
