Saturn wrote:
peebo wrote:
Saturn wrote:
NarcissusSavage wrote:
In my opinion, one of the greatest contributors to "mental dysfunction" is forced inclusion within a society. For example, I am a US citizen, I live within a society and am compelled to modify my behavior to within the standards of the American societal rules, and am bound by its laws, and face the general opinions of other Americans in my interactions. I made no decision to join this group, yet am fully bound to it and responsible for conforming regardless. This forced inclusion may be a root cause of feelings of powerlessness, discontent and numerous other "mental health" issues. My philosophies of life, my choices of behavior and what I consider important in general does not align well with the society I have found myself a member of. The compulsive nature of inclusion only further aggravates this and amplifies it to levels of dysfunction.
I have often pondered why citizenship is mandatory, and why there is not a system in place for people who are born into a society whom disagree with it on fundamental levels. Then again, I disagree with it on so many levels I shouldn’t be surprised that compulsive inclusion is just another one on the list.
I agree. I think this for me is core to 'the human condition': natural intellectual animals living thoroughly within civilization rather than within nature as our pre-human ancestors did. But don't forget that civilization for all it's troubles, has provided and continues to provide great benefits to us, ones which we not be able to have in a state of nature. Civilization is basically here to stay so the question is how best to optomise that civilization and ones individual life within it.
don't you think it might be the nature of social organisation within civilisation, rather than civilisation itself, that might be the problem? for instance, don't you think that authoritarian conditioning might well be a source of trauma?
To say 'the nature of social organisation within civilization' is, to me, another way of saying 'the nature of civilization' or the nature of 'a particular civilization', and to this extent I would agree with you, that that is 'the problem'. However, I do find it hard to see how, in practice, any form of civilization and the various sub-forms within that, can be immune to generating fundamental difficulties in terms of individual psychic life. And this is because any state of culture rather than of nature demands the sublimation of natural inclinations in exchange for the aggregated benefits of the civilized state. What is more, within a civilization, natural desires will express themselves in one way or another and this will lead to social and economic injustice, among other things, where some get what they want at the expense of others not getting what they want.
but surely civilisation can be egalitarian and tolerant? disparity of wealth and the atomising, alienating effects of capitalism are what i would see as the problems.
Quote:
I think authoritarian conditioning is at least a major source of trauma. For Freud, at least, I understand, the early Freud, the primal authoritarian trauma is the one inflicted by the father on the son by barring his full enjoyment of the mother. The corresponding electra complex on the female side, I find less compelling, but the general idea, for me, significantly illuminates, the causes for individual and collective, what has come to be known as, psychic dysfunction. For Freud, the authoritarian rules and norms of society by which we are all conditioned, are the father writ large. So we have trauma occuring through the conditioning by the family and by the wider state and culture as a whole.
How do you see it?
aye i think it's a big factor. the education system, pressure to conform, tendency towards bullying and authoritarian relationships, economic precarity, working long hours under pressure in meaningless low paid demeaning work, living in claustrophobic and overcrowded environments etc. all of these are contributory factors.
_________________
?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?
Adam Smith
06 Jan 2012, 5:03 pm
