Transcendental Experience

http://web.archive.org/web/20060111103615/http://laingsociety.org/biblio/transexperience.laing.htm

Whadda ya think dues??

 

Whadda ya think dues??[/QUOTE] The author is the late shrink R.D. Laing, a pioneer of the anti-psychiatry movement, along with David Cooper, Thomas Szasz , etc., which was big back in the 1960s. I read two of his books, The Divided Self and The Politics of Experience. As I recall, his point was that schizophrenia and other forms of madness can be sensible responses to a society that's fundamentally sick and insane, or family situations that were similarly crazy. He arrived at this conclusion by adopting a phenomenological method in which, instead of the "know-it-all" approach of most psychiatric "experts" of the day, he listened carefully to what his patients were telling him about their "delusions"and took it seriously, at face value. It seemed to me that his "scholarly" writings were sounding more and more like his patients' thought processes, which can happen when you think of them as "hierophants of the sacred." As I recall, at one point he was thinking about entering a monastery somewhere in Southeast Asia, but it might not have worked out. I understand he died from a heart attack after playing tennis back in 1984.

That date seems kinda symbolic. If Laing thought society was crazy back then, what would he make of our present "reality", which is becoming more Orwellian by the day? Is our external realty that "reality"of Fox or CNN or MS Now or OAN, or Newsmax, etc.? Are the external folks we interact with humans or AI. In the specific article you posted, Laing makes point that society is making advances in knowledge about the external world, while lagging in its understanding of the internal one. I can see why so many of my friends have turned inward in an effort to blot it all out! And I don't think they'd be diagnosed as psychotic!

But I don't think we'll survive it by escapist retreats into internal realities. That doesn't even work well for ostriches. Maybe the solution lies buried in the inner recesses of my brain, but before I get there, there's a mess on the doorstep to clear up. We need more clear thinking and rationality about external reality, not less! Of course, that involves getting the wheels turning inside my head, but in response to a clear view of external reality.and the problems there that need clear5-headed solutions.

 

Thats a good summary of it!!

Gracios!

 

I have always contended that society has always been, and is at present, "crazy" to one degree or another.

Just look at any period of history.[/QUOTE]

True, "to one degree or another". But I think the craziness now has reached a new level of batshit intensity. Grant's administration was corrupt. McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt were imperialists; Kennedy and LBJ got us into Vietnam; there were demagogues like Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 50s; Nixon, despite his denial, was a crook; and the second Bush got us into Iraq, torture, the 2008 recession, etc. I remember thinking of G.W.--this has got to be as bad as it gets. But he's lookin' better & better by comparison with the here and now. Oh, for the good old days! From my great grandad's telling, the World War II generation was the "finest". We've gone downhill since then--and then some !. What would it have been like if Caligula had had the internet, nuclear weapons and AI at his disposal? We may soon find out!

 

Yeah, and don't forget Stalin. but at least in those days there were folks elsewhere with the guts and moral integrity to stand up to them. Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948 when the perils of technology and mass society linked to demagoguery and the frailties of human nature were already becoming apparent. And that was mainly TV and the experience of those totalitarian experiments you mention--especially the U.S.S.R. Putin figured out how to do it without the baggage of Marxism-Leninism.