[lbo-talk] Thomas Szasz, R.I.P.

[Wojtek S]

[WS:]  Szasz was my hero in my college years and an authority I quoted
in my discussions with my ex-girlfriend, herself a psychology major.
But unfortunately his views were later undermined by the progress made
by science.  His views on schizophrenia - which I took for granted in
college - proved to be wrong.

His main contribution was his strong opposition to quackery in
psychology, but then not the whole psychology is quackery.  In the
hindsight, he should have been more careful in drawing a distinction
between the two.  In a way, his criticism of psychology resembles
Graeber's criticism of economics - bot focus on quackery as if it were
the whole discipline.

So the lesson to be learned is to hedge criticism against possible
advances in actual science.

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."