On Tue, 8 Feb 2000, Dace wrote:
> I take the notion that "society is nuts" quite literally. Mental illness is
> primarily a function of societies, while individuals merely focus and
> magnify these disturbances. This entails the existence of collective
> mentality. I look at it this way: If mentality can exist in conjunction
> with a single brain (an impossibility!) then it can exist in conjunction
> with a thousand brains. The only difference between individual minds and
> group minds is that individuals are conscious. The group mind can't engage
> in self-reflection. That's why "the mob" is far more likely to engage in
> disturbed behavior than individuals, including the individuals who comprise
> the mob. This is what happened at MyLai. The soldiers of Task Force Barker
> were otherwise normal people who got caught up in a group-based mental
> disorder.
>
This is exactly why I disagree with this use of mental disorder terms to make sense of social events. You make it sound like the soldiers were swept up in some type of mystical and irrational group mind that allowed them to act in evil ways.
I have a simpler explanation. Milgram's work on obedience clearly demonstrates that people will tend to do what an authority figure asks them to do. Their moral beliefs, their personalities, male or female, rich or poor, do not seem to matter much. If we are asked by a legitimate authority to do something, we will usually comply. --and the sad irony is that most people think they would not do "horrible things": it could only be due to some kind of-- mental disorder.
Note what happens when you smuggle in mental disorders here: people turn their attention away from the important social issues of the power of conformity, the influence of authority figures, the role of hierarchical bureaucratic organizations in producing human behavior. Psychologizing events like My Lai is a very effective strategy for obscuring the power of the social context.
And gee, I wonder who benefits if we trivialize or fail to recognize the impact of bureaucratic hierarchies and authority in a capitalist society? And why do people so frequently use mental disorder categories to explain social events when research like Milgram's clearly contradicts the idea that evil behavior must be caused by psychosis?
Miles "I'm an anti-humanist and damn proud of it" Jackson