antisocialism

[Dace]

>I don't see any wall of insanity here; I
>see an economic and political system that systematically provides
>resources to a small elite at the expense of the majority.  I think
>it sucks, sure.  But to call the people who support the status quo
>out of their fucking minds is exactly the kind of individualistic
>thinking that perpetuates the status quo.  If you haven't already
>guessed, I'm with Foucault on this: the psy-sciences are one of the
>pillars of modern power relations, they are not the means to our
>salvation.  The further we get from using this psycho-discourse,
>the better off we'll be.
>
>Miles
>
>
It's not individualistic insofar as most of these people are as sane as
anyone else in their personal day-to-day lives.  But they reveal
narcissistic and antisocial pathologies in the context of the group-mind.
This is illustrated time and again.  NGO rep Beth Burrows ran across this
conundrum at the Biodiversity Convention last year in Cartagena, Colombia.
The US did everything in its power to destroy the convention, which would
cut into US corporate profits.  Afterwards, Burrows was incensed and asked
an FDA man how he could stand himself.  She said right to his face, "You're
an evil man."  Another NGO rep who was standing nearby said, "Beth, this is
not an evil man.  I know him.  He's a very nice person.  Really."  And I'm
sure he is a nice man.  But he unconsciously disengages his human empathy
when goes to work and, being a nice man, must delude himself into thinking
he's doing the right thing.

There's a great article in this week's Nation, "Letter from Zambia," that
illustrates what I'm trying to get at.  It talks all about the stupendous
suffering going on in that all-too-typical country, about how people with
treatable illnesses can't afford medical care, so they stay at home and only
make it to the hospital when it's time to get carted off to the casualty
ward.  The Zambians even have a name for it: BID-- "Brought in Dead."  As
Mark Lynas writes, "For more than twenty years now the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have been forcing structural adjustment
programs, or SAPs, on the bankrupt countries of Africa.  **Trapped between a
near-religious belief in economic neoliberalism and the US-driven interests
of big business**, these two institutions are blind to the havoc they are
causing."

We're dealing with a two-fold problem, part material and part mental.  A lot
of very smart people genuinely believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the
contrary, that neoliberalism is actually good for the majority of the
world's population.  They think you're crazy if you suggest that it's really
about economic subjugation.  You cannot reason with these people.  Yet how
many of them suffer from a diagnosable "personality disorder" or psychotic
illness?  Not many, that's for sure.

It would be nice to think that we could persuade people with a
"near-religious belief" that they're wrong, but they are beyond the pale.  I
hope I'm not just letting my anger get the best of me.  I feel I'm being
dispassionate about this, and that it's not just about name-calling.

Psychological analysis can be quite useful in helping to overcome
capitalism.  But before any progress can be made, we must recognize that the
atomistic thinking characteristic of our society has distorted our
understanding of mental illness.  In fact, mental illness-- whether benign
or malignant-- is primarily a function of society.  What individuals
experience is a mere shadow.

Ted