A blog about the psy disciplines and politics
“Dunque ho trovato che ci sono parecchie cose nel mondo attuale, delle forze impersonali e poi delle scoperte tecnologiche che spingono l’umanita’ verso quel totalitarianismo che ho descritto nella mia favola di trenta anni fa.”
“E poi ci sono scoperte tecnologiche soprattutto nel campo della psicologia, della farmacologia e della fisiologia che possono essere utilizzate per dittatori futuri. In questo senso mi trovo un po’ pessimista sull’avvenire.”
The last Emperor of Russia and Vladimir Bekhterev’s Psycho-Neurological Institute revolutionaries.
Un rovesciamento del mito della caverna di Platone: anziche’ essere liberati dalla prigionia dei sensi e delle percezioni veicolate attraverso la cultura, la societa’, la storia, ovvero attraverso l’ego psicoanalitico, i cittadini trasformati in pazienti vengono sempre piu’ isolati tra loro, distanziati, fatti operare attraverso il digitale ovvero a distanza, e vengono cosi’ infilati in una caverna di isolamento digitale, virtuale e tra non molto allucinogena.
Sia ‘cibernetica’ che ‘psichedelico’ sono espressioni con una chiara origine politica.
Fino a che punto un capitalismo che si cinesizza puo’ vedere la convergenza teorica di ‘comunismo acido’ e ‘completamente automatizzato’ da una parte e di ‘cypsy capitalism’ o ‘capitalismo cyber-psichedelico’ dall’altra?
E’ possibile capire la caotica politica contemporanea attraverso lo studio della storia della psichiatria e delle psicodiscipline?
PsyPolitics intende continuare nell’analisi dei prepotenti fenomeni politici oggi in corso.
“Probably the one event capable of instigating so fundamental a change would be a major collapse. Only if the present producing and distributing apparatus should definitely break down, only if hunger and cold should spur the minds of a majority of the nation into unaccustomed activity, could a revolution conflicting with nearly every current belief gain momentum.”
“Since revolution should neither be desired nor expected now, and since the transformation from capitalism to technocracy is so drastic that certain of its stages will certainly be considered to be of a revolutionary nature, it may be asked what preliminary steps should be taken in order to prepare for the crucial moments.”
“Revolution, as Trotsky puts it, can only occur when the class in power has outlived its usefulness and thereby become rotten.”
“As a result, capital has been shorn of its function though the realization of this may not immediately percolate through the group consciousness.”
“There is no a priori reason why a sustained, even intelligent, study of the phenomena which induce these visions cannot eventually permit us to attain them at will.” “And when a being is in possession of them, he knows or thinks he knows the meaning of life and thus, as a secondary benefit, reduces, by the aid of memory, to their proper unimportance, the sorrow, the tragedy, even the ostensible evil which is woven of necessity into the texture of our temporal days.”
“Society since the beginning has discouraged by means of church, school, and statutory restrictions all experimentation in the domain of spiritual living. The consequence has been a stultification of the intellect, a frustration of the emotions, and a damming up of nervous energy which is bringing many people to the verge of a nervous breakdown. A technocracy would attempt to set free that great surplus of vital energy now burning itself out, uselessly, in the business game, and redirect it into unexplored channels.”
“Research work, directed toward discovering the causes of psychic maladjustments, may prove more difficult than devising a machine to pick cotton; and successful achievement in this field will surely be harder to measure.”
“As a last measure the energy certificate” – a measure reminding of today’s Chinese ‘social credit’ – “could be cancelled. This punishment should prove efficacious in most cases. When an individual proved obstinately recalcitrant for obscure reasons, the psychiatrists would attempt to unravel the trouble. In no case should real punishment, such as solitary confinement or labor forced by physical threats, be necessary.” “On first thought, tyranny, due to the human tendency to get drunk with power, would seem to be a grave menace to the technocracy. Our present constitution is so preoccupied with guarding against this menace that executive action is greatly hampered. In fact, action would be nearly impossible if every legal requirement were conscientiously fulfilled. In a technocracy there would be no statutory checks on tyranny.”
“Human energy, applied to finding ways of life that satisfy, to creating values which uplift the spirit, may improve the lot of man on earth as emphatically in the inner psychic sphere as man’s genius, directed toward conquering the outer material world, has ameliorated the conditions of his physical existence.”
“Man and his environment act upon each other. Both are altered in the process.” “Some men work upon the external world. The remolding of the earth’s crust in order to make it more congenial to human life, and the use of natural materials to satisfy physical needs are functions of men of action.” “Other men remold human nature. Their attempt is to adapt man to his environment rather than vice versa. The transmuting of the nature of man, the developing of his perceptions so that he is able to attune himself to those inner harmonies which give value to life, the digesting of phenomena so that instead of fear and disgust they give pleasure, and the interpreting of nature’s phases are the province of the artist.”