Psychopathy and Psychiatry

Psychopathy is the standard for identifying criminality but a few caveats should be considered: any person with a mental disorder tends to have periods of time which are normal and then there is the pathological or disordered period; the disorder is probably triggered by the social environment and not simply a continuous brain state or malfunction. The problem of antagonism in social relationships, especially concerning the “power of family” and the ‘cutting-off’ effect from “authorities" (which may or may not be via official channels) deserves to be addressed - are people being responsible when they deny their role in triggering the psychopathological break in another?

In "The Divided Self" Laing construed this attribution as a function of an extremely disjunctive relationship between the person who is in the role of a depersonalized—and depersonalizing—diagnosing psychiatrist and the person who has become a depersonalized, and sometimes depersonalizing, diagnosed patient. This construction is a contribution towards a personal understanding (*Verstehen) of what is going on between psychiatrist and patient, in contrast to a scientific explanation of what is going on in the patient alone. In fact, he offered a personal understanding of the psychiatrist's scientific explanation and construed it as, unwittingly, a way of cutting off

the cutoff person from the possibility of reunion and renewal.

The psychiatric, diagnostic look is itself a depersonalized and depersonalizing cutoff look. 

Psychiatry is an application of a highly sophisticated scientific look that is culturally deeply conditioned. It is a way of seeing things, and the relation between things, by subtracting all personal experience. However, a person is not a thing, nor is a thing a person. It is a look which is cultivated with the express intention of not seeing intentions in others or even collectively as in the intention of a group. Things have no intentions. It is the exact opposite of a sensibility cultivated with the express intention of recognizing and sympathetically understanding the intentions of others, and their interconnections.

Laing is opposed to physical treatments, e.g. drugs and surgery.

The Oediple Complex

 The Oediple Complex

The Oediple Complex is simply the threefold relation between the infant, it’s mother and a third person which may be the father, or another person.  Reducing Sophocles play or Shakespeare’s Hamlet to actual biological relations and then adding onto that matrix the unconscious motivations related to the castration complex, phobias, sibling rivalry, and other disorders, especially hysteria, is what most psychoanalysts do.  

The development of the idea put Freud in different speculative positions from a seduction theory to a fantasy theory. Experimental social psychology and ethology have clarified what is in fact occurring: infants experience stranger anxiety and separation anxiety to which various attributions are associated. Also, infants seek comfort over food to which they form attachments. Most of the vissitudes of the so-called Oedipal Complex are unique and arbitrary. Infants, children and adults change their attachments or objects for a variety of reasons. The attachment to family roles is dogma even though incest between parents and offspring, and between siblings, is universally discouraged if not illegal. But, social and psychological relations between family members persist under a death drive where separation is denied leading to the excessive rates of domestic violence and interpersonal violence.

Between Kant and Hegel - Free will

One issue driving the free-will controversy is the distinction between historicism and anti-historicism. Historicism posits distinctively different circumstances for decision-making. Thus, the capabilities for free will change. 

Anti-historicism claims that the human capability for free will does not change regardless of circumstances. 

Hegel links freedom with reason in the context of historical change. For Hegel, as for Kant, blaming someone for something depends on how much he knows about the factors involved and how much he can be expected to know. State of mind or blame refers to what the actor knew about the case at a certain time. 

Kant demands compliance with principles and norms, eg categorical imperative, rules, etc. Hegel, however, does not simply link free will to responsibility, he also connects freedom to reason through expanding understanding. Conceptual truth is not a given framework as it is for Kant, concepts and the connections between concepts change and move just as history changes to higher and higher forms of freedom, so does reason.

A lacuna emerges here because Hegel is positing that freedom is a good for everyone, that everyone is seeking freedom, thus no one denies the claims of freedom. However, this is not the case and would place Hegel back on the anti-historicist side with Kant. Power and ambition dominate the present scene over against virtues, or Kant’s good will, which degenerates into the moral forms of false consciousness. 

False consciousness to Hegel are conceptual frameworks which both illuminate and misrepresent. The framework at issue is individualism. Where Kant represents the moral life in universal and necessary terms, the limitations of individualism are concealed. Hegel calls this situation the spiritual zoo where each individual finds himself assessed by others in terms of his role in their pursuit of freedom, and free will. Each person becomes the fate of another. To deny these impersonal forces and one’s own disillusionment (each of us however must be disillusioned or we would live our lives in an illusion), individuals turn back to virtue and take up arms against others and the world. In doing this, they claim they were just minding their own business and following the law as obedient citizens!

Hegel identifies this absoluteness in free will, duty, as excusing self-seeking, rivalry and ruthlessness which disguises the objective truth. The Kantian followers do not differentiate the commodities or entities involved in their deliberate acts, it is no concern of theirs whether the principles they obey affect things or other humans!

I’ll cut it off here with a notion from Thoreau. “Sometimes, we have a duty to disobey.”

Amoralism

Nietzsche chastised morality as untruth.

With the decay of religion and its palpable philosophical secularizations, restrictive prohibitions lost their inherent authority, their substantiality. It became ludicrous to pronounce prayers or commitment to a church with sincerity, especially as witnesses to 20th century horrors which were permitted by the major religions.

 In the 19th century, material production was still so undeveloped that it could be proclaimed with some reason that there was not enough to go round.  Anyone who did not criticize political economy as such, had to cling to the limiting principle which was then articulated as unrationalized appropriation at the expense of the weak.  The objective conditions have changed.  It is not only the social non-conformist or even the narrow-minded bourgeois who must see restriction as superfluous in face of the immediate abundance.  The implied meaning of the master-morality, that he who wants to live must fend for himself, has in the meantime become a still more miserable lie than it was when a nineteenth-century piece of pulpit-wisdom.  

If in Germany the common citizen proved himself a beast, this has nothing to do with national peculiarities, but with the fact that bestiality itself, necrophilia, has become in the face of manifest abundance the attitude of the backward, the deluded philistine, that same ‘hard-done-by’ mentality which the master-morality was invented to combat.  

If Cesare Borgia, late 15th, were resurrected today, he would look like David Friedrich Strauss and his name would be Adolf Hitler.  The cause of amorality has been espoused by the same Darwinists whom Nietzsche despised, since evolution meant racism, and who proclaim as their maxim the barbaric struggle for existence with such  vehemence, even though it is no longer needed.  True distinction has long ceased to consist in taking the best for oneself, and has become instead saturated with taking, the practices in reality of the virtue of giving, for Nietzsche occurs only in the mind.  

Ascetic ideals constitute today a more solid bulwark against the madness of the profit-economy then did the hedonistic life sixty years ago against liberal repression.  The amoralist may now at last permit himself to be a kind, gentle, unegoistic and open-hearted as Nietzsche already was then.  As a guarantee of his undiminished resistance, he is still as alone in this as in the days when he turned the mask of evil upon the normal world, to teach fear of its own perversity.

Marxism is not communism

 Marxism is not Communism

Marxism should be sharply distinguished from communism. The communist ideal as discussed by the early Marx is not the same as Lenin's (from Kautsky) notion of the vanguard party. Nowhere does Marx mention a vanguard party, instead he talks about a well-organized proletariat leadership which took the form of unions in the 1800's. What Chapman did was to present a version of Marxism by picking out certain phrases from the Communist Manifesto, a document from the young Marx. Chapman specifically stated that he was not going to address the mature Marx?!  

Anyway, the point is that Marx's works considered in his historical period, and events related to his works which occurred in the 20th century were hardly based on his ideas. The best example is the issue of the primacy of class struggle which most every Marxist from Lenin to Althusser acknowledges is the central issue in history, the wheel of Historical Materialism: Marx's key insight. Class struggle takes particular forms/appearances at different times in history. The class struggle in Russia circa 1905-1917 is different from the class struggle in the 1920's between the Communist Party and the two worker groups: farmers and industrial workers. The Cuban Revolution does not only involve the US puppet Batista but the international mafias as well which Castro kicked out. The Chinese Revolution pitted the Nationalists led by Chiang Kia-Shek - intermission fight against the Japs - continue the Revolution and the long change of the culture through Mao's reforms from agrarian to industrialization, and then from poverty to middle class diffusion and a capitalist-communist nation-state. The class struggle took the form of different social and economic classes, or fractions, conflicting within the leadership and within the population in each historical situation. But, the scientific socialist "law" of historical change via class struggle is different in each concrete particular moment and place. Marx could not possibly anticipate these particulars and although these "Marxist" leaders used Marx as a springboard, it is a leap (no pun) to infer that their policies were based on Marx's ideas. In sum, the communist parties of the 20th century hardly resemble Marx's ideas of dictatorship of the proletariat which implied Democracy: government by the people. Ironically, the only real instance of a proletarian dictator was Hitler.  

What is overlooked is that Marxism was cohered to refer to the USSR and Red China. However, Marxism took many different forms in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Southern Asia, and America - different forms of democracy and socialism. In these latter instances, Marxism was used against the totalitarian forms in Russia and China, and especially against the Nazi's. The only real resistance to patriarchy, capitalism and liberal political leadership has been Marxism in its emancipatory form. One of the best cases of this difference was between Trotsky and Stalin. Like Marx, Trotsky spelled out in detail the important moral issues in persuing liberation. Trotsky's was the only real voice against Stalinism in the 20's and 30's. The rest of the Marxists had their hands full with Nazism! US conservative extremists turned the word 'Marxism' to mean unions, even Democrats, and communists and socialists, after WWII because before and during WWII, they were allies! My main point is that Marxism must be understood as a complex of variants, some good and some bad, and not as a monolith, and certainly not as Marx's original theory of history, economics, or politics. Where Alvin Gouldner talks about two Marxisms, read.

Lastly, what is obscured with all of these historical happenings and theoretical asides, is the everyday changes in the lives of the peoples concerning their occupations, their families, their marriages and their social relations. When Marx talks about the topsy-turvy world of capitalism with its fetishism, commodification, social domination, mystification, expropriation, and alienation, he is not only referring to the social relations between workers under capitalism, but to the supposedly more rational and decent institutional arrangements under communism. Such a peaceful and utopian state of affairs never occurred. While the USSR mocked the US over its racism, it applied severe anti-semitic punishments and should be understood as having an equivalent genocidal effect as Nazi Germany. But, the maelstrom in social relations, e.g. sexual behavior, that occurred after these various revolutions is repulsive: Soviet families disintegrated, Cuba persecuted homosexuals with a vengeance, China underwent an abortion epidemic. All of the maladies that Marx specified as horrific under capitalism were doubly worse under these new regimes. It was only where the themes of emancipation and liberation were implemented by the left that a resistance to capitalist and communist institutional confusion restored a sense of order and fairness. The impetus for this orderliness were the unions, the social movements that threatened the political sphere, the educational system which improved literacy and above all publications in higher ed, and the civil sphere of journalism, TV and radio, that spread the news of corruption and brutality which embarrassed the political class and led to legal and financial changes.

Democracy

 Democracy

Socialism in my understanding is not necessarily a system, or not only a system. Socialism means to me that all decisions are social, mediated by the social and not from on high or through a set of norms and rules structured by the economic or political system. It is not that politics are unimportant and your schema is certainly worthy as a reform of our current democracies. From the system perspectives, we must always pursue more democracy and not believe in some sudden switch to more or pure democracy. The issue is that the system can only be held responsible if it is an obstacle to social mediation, rather the solution it was intended to be. For example, how does the system intervene and modify the tyranny around family relations: marriage, sex, family and neighbors (in the broad sense of everyone in the region). Crime and social control is a system imperative but does not include social mediations that are part of the character or personality of the people. The kind of change that socialism represents is not merely a new or better system. Socialism should develop better social relations! In this sense, democracy is supervenient to socialism unless socialism really means 'social.'

The Dispute between Deconstruction versus Structuralism

 The Dispute between Jacques Derrida and John Searle, or

Deconstruction versus Structuralism

Searle claimed that Derrida's style was obscure and dismissed. But, in doing this he used the fallacy of authority instead of dealing with the argument on the basis of its merits.

The issue was over John L. Austin's 1962 "How to do Things with Words" which basically claimed that every utterance, or message, consisted of both a proposition - a true or false judgment, called constatives, and a performative or an implication to do something. Performatives do not have any truth value but imply an action ought to be taken.

Austin was criticizing the view of language from logical positivism ala Wittgenstein that a statement either had a truth value or was meaningless. Austin described his view of language as Speech Act Theory which consisted of 3 levels of the performative: the Locutionary Act: a description of the meaning of the sign at issue, the Illocutionary Act: the influence the locution brings on those in certain social settings, and the Perlocutionary Act: how actions are taken, how people actually respond to the locution.

Austin also emphasized felicity conditions: how an act fits with social conventions, whether the situation is appropriate and how the speech act is expressed. A felicity condition is one that fits social conventions and acts towards societal norms.

Derrida addressed Austin's theory in 1988 "Signature, Event, Context" firstly by emphasizing the distinction between speech and writing, between talk and reading! Then, he pointed out that communication is limited by context - that communication is imperfect - there is an absence of absolute communication in both speech and writing. Derrida opposes Saussure's notion that wriitng merely represents speech, that speech is by far the most fundamental form of communication, albeit imperfect. Instead, Derrida describes good communication as a process of iteration, of repeating the comprehensibility so that correct and legible communicative gestures occur. The necessity of repeating is found in writing, and not much in speech.

Iterability occurs through writing and less in speech in that spoken communication is always attached to a speaker while in written communication there is a detachment from the author. The iterability of any form of communication extends to the separation of the iteration into another context, called citationality. Citations are independent of context but necessary for communication because they allow for the possibility of communication in another context.

Derrida claims that intentionality is not the foundation for meaning but has a place - intention does not ground meaning! For communication to work, meaning must work in different contexts and transcend any single intention. Hence, the relation of the intended meaning and the received or interpreted meaning. Language has a life of its own independent of individuals and intentionality!

Derrida now addresses Austin's Speech Act Theory over the issue of 'infelicitous utterances.' Austin admits they occur but he does not examine them. Infelicitous speech acts, for Austin, are pretend performatives, as in a play or writing a story. He labelled these parasitic speech acts and did not build his linguistic framework on them. For Derrida, citationality is more important than intentionality. By narrowing down language and excluding parasitic speech acts, Austin does not have an all encompassing view on language. Derrida claims that felicitous utterances need parasitic speech acts to fulfill itself - both use citationality to apply meaning into another context. The citationality of parasitic speech acts are just as valid as the citationality of felicitous utterances.

Searle 1977 "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida," asserts that Derrida misunderstood Austin and that he, Searle, may have misunderstood Derrida. Searle's first criticism is that there is no difference between speech and writing, both are iterable which denies that written communication is more permanent than spoken. Searle claims that Derrida confuses iterability with permanence but obviously a spoken utterance loses its existence, it is in the air, whereas written communication does not lose its existence as long as a copy remains.

The absence that Derrida attributes to communication, its imperfection, does not regard the physical absence, as with the speech after it is spoken, but with the inability to express one's thoughts. Searle critiques Derrida's speech/writing difference, and the idea of iterabiity, as a foundational error that undermines the practice of deconstruction.

Searle 1983 "The World Turned Upside Down" asserts that for the meaning of a writing to be considered permanent, it must have intention attached to it. This breaks from Derrida's intersubjective conceptionn of language. For Searle, meaning is tied to the subject. For Derrida, meaning in written text is found outside of any individual's intention and never perfectly expressed, thus the absence.

Searle defends Austin's difference between felicitous speech acts and parasitic speech acts. Derrida blurred the lines, he said; felicitous acts do not depend on parasitic discourse. Searle continues that Derrida blurs the distinction between citation and parasitic discourse. Citation, says Searle, is the mentioning of the cited source without using it whereas a parasitic speech act does not mention the cited source but the speech act uses it. Derrida claims however that parasitic discourse cites as it utters - they cannot be separated. Although, parasitic discourse does not make it explicit that the utterance is referring from somewhere, the utterance exists because it is referring to something; the utterance is a citation even though it is not a self-aware citation, the referral is the citation. Searle argues that even if the intention of the utterance were lost, the intentionality of the receiver creates the meaning. Searle says that in the absence of intention, meaning cannot be found.

The context for their disagreement is the difference between linguistic structuralism and deconstruction. Structuralism entails an all encompassing structure of the properties of language; these properties interrelate through binary oppositions that produce hierarchies and principles within language. Derrida's deconstruction critiques these binary oppositions. The absence, or imperfection of communication, is the metaphysics of presence. Derrida employs differance to demonstrate why writing does not depend on speech - the double meaning of a word cannot be differentiated in speech but it can be differentiated in writing. Deconstructive action is differance (to differ and to defer or postpone), it removes the rigidity of meaning and the structure: what plays against you. 

Derrida sees the meaning in language as separate from the communicator and separate from intention, thus meaning is subject to context.