Psychoanalyst R. D. Laing on Normality:
“From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentieth century mother, the baby is subjected to those forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents, and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age……
The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man.
Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal.
Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.”‘
“The Politics of Experience” (New York: Ballantine, 1967), pp. 58, 28.
My Comment
Laing is making an extreme statement, I realize. But there are insights in what he writes, as well, for instance, when he says that habits are imposed on us early in life to make us conform to certain ways of thinking and acting – habits which alienate us from our conscience and from our authentic self.
That’s close to the teaching of “mechanical man” in Gurdjieff’s writing.
The Hindu teaching about “vasanas” or sense impressions (that we cultivate) seems close too. The vasanas.drive us (through cause and effect) into mechanical action. The emphasis here is less on external conditioning as on our own unconscious role in creating mechanical patterns.
In Christianity, the closest teaching is the one in the Gospel about casting off the “old man” and putting on the new. The “old ma”n conforms to the outward appearance of things; he’s driven by the “old Adam”. I take this to mean biological urge (one form of habit and enslavement), but surely it must also include conventions formed by society and by state, although we have to distinguish between these types as well.
Couldn’t that be why one of the teachings of the Gospel – a controversial teaching – is that the love of God comes before love of parents and family? And that it can bring a sword between family members?
If we set aside the theology for a moment, isn’t that close to Laing’s comments about our need to escape our family conditioning, a conditioning imposed on us often in the name of love?
All these traditions are very dissimilar and we can’t gloss over the differences, but the underlying phenomena are not that far apart, either. Laing’s conclusions can be indiscriminate, but the questioning of childhood conditioning seems very useful.
Those are my thoughts, anyway, coming from my interest in how and why people become deluded or propagandized.
I guess I am too shallow, but it sounds like psycho-babble to me.
Its often necessary to make comments extreme so that some people understand. All thoughtful and current teachers know that nuance escapes most people. And while the point is extreme in Lang there are nuances and dependencies in his work–if you are wedded to the ideas/instittuions he critiques their very nature will make you hostile to his ideas. Lang is truly revolutionary in many ways and a truthteller.
Myabe Gregg is shallow maybe he is not. It appears a sad sign of our times that even very well written ideas–while upsetting are alwasy dismissed as extreme, weird, psychobabble and the like. Actually, Laing is very clear. I think it hits to a point made by Hoffer (I am surprised you don;t qoute hoffer Lila–very much makes your points and ideas we have discussed–I commend him to you!). Here is Hoffer and it goes to a problem modern western/westernized people have–a cognitive perhaps existential problem/attrribute;;
“Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.”
The above is probably a secret of the effectiveness of propoganda, conforting myths of home and family and so forth—the conformt of nice discrete easy to understand certainties–all false of course….
Hi Robert –
Yes…
we want unconditionality but all truths are conditioned…
so I find it useful to look at things with a degree of awareness of this.
As you say, the problem is wanting certainty where by its nature it can’t be had in the form we want it in…
Of course, there ARE certainties, but by their nature, the way we frame them is always limited or conditioned by the time and culture we grew up in , our psychological make up, language, and so on.
But Greg does make a very good point that some of these things can be interpreted too broadly and then they DO degenerate into psychobabble…especially when they are misapplied reflexively to reinforce various liberal-left mythologies.
But if for a moment you forget the baggage of political radicalism and cut through to what Laing is talking about – the degree to which we are conditioned…then there’s an insight here – normality is not all that “norm – al”
It is not only in the childhood or in family, rather throughout his or her life, more often than not, an individual trades the truth, common sense, honesty and values for the “safety” of being “a part of the group”. Humans are social creatures. Unfortunately, this approach often makes the habitat for the humans a mad world; in the long term, it is often the road to hell.
Akiro Kurosava said “In a mad world only the mad are sane.” In view of the theme of the post, one can rephrase the statement as “In a mad world only only those not conforming with the rest are sane …”.
Yes absolutely. The right/left myths are all equally silly and dangerous. The insight is that yes that normality is really conformity–and often conformity is dangerous. It was/is “normal” normal to burn withches, stone theivies, mutilate girls, tap phones, jail people who smoke a wild growing weed, create money out of thin air. I am with you that all this “normality” is nuts. The normality of family relations in western nations will one day be looked back upon in horror! Yes, many ideas are ruined by the accretions of academic jargon, political correctness, and decorative language used as a way to signal the authors allegiance to some “preferred group. Notice people who use the word “community” whereas others use “market” or some “social justice” and other such nonsense…..Ugggh. Much nonsense and fog have to be cut through in contemporary debates–ofen we discover there is nothing there…..
Roman–great insight. Kurosawa was a genious. I can watch Ikiro over and over–rarely such great insights can be gleaned from a film. Ran! is also great but Ikiro speaks to the crisis of the 20th century organizational men/bureacrats. While many of us loath bureacrats and even organization men, the madness and futility that is their lives is something we must recognize–more normality for you!
What is “mass” is not always what is “public” and what is “public” is not always “state” and what is “state” is not always “government” (an an institution).
Ultimately, it a problem of language for me.
This is where the problem arises. And that is why childhood conditioning interests me because the baggage we carry and that accompanies our use of language often begins there.
Psychopaths, for example, use language in a way quite different from non-psychopathic individuals. (Maybe I mean sociopath as well, here). That is their advantage…they can dissimulate and manipulate through this difference.
R,
Indeed, Akiro Korosawa was a great director. I wish I wasn’t introduced to some of his movies (by accident) at too early an age though, so couldn’t fully appreciate them (like “Shadow of Worrier”), but his movies are great, and lest we forget that the Hollywood classic “Significant Seven” is a remake of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”.
Lila,
Sociopaths are often excellent speakers, and they use whatever language to manipulate and exell doing this. However, as a saying goes, “The greatest devil can be seen through his smallest actions.”
Roman.
Hi Roman –
I don’t feel there is anything particularly “public” about such behavior…
you can find it in families and in private companies too…
How often does the CEO of a company go off rushing madly into some business idea and all his merry men (and women) have to follow too..
Same goes in group life, when pater familias (and mater), indulge in self deception, follies and infidelities his or her poor family has to suffer through..
So in what way is this “private” spectacle different?
But others might see it differently.
r and Roman: I’m a big Kirosawa fan myself. Ran is a great spectacle, but perhaps my favorite among his movies is one of his lesser known ones, “Dodes’ka den.”
Well, Laing’s is an extreme statement, I realize, and there’s truth in what you say about some of the conclusions he reaches.
But there are insights in what he writes, as well, for eg., what he says about habits being imposed on us early in life to conform. Habits which alienate us from our conscience and authentic self.
That’s close to the teaching of “mechanical man” in Gurdjieff.
The Hindu teaching about “vasanas” (or sense impressions that we allow and that drive us via cause and effect) is different…. but close.
In Christianity, there is the teaching of the “old man” versus the new man. The old man conforms to the outward appearance of things.
Isn’t that a commentary close to Laing’s comments about conditioning?
Of course, all these traditions are very dissimilar, but it’s helpful to note that the underlying phenomena they are discussing are not that far apart, nonetheless.
I’m interested in how and why people become deluded or propagandized or susceptible to delusion or propaganda.
A lot of people, from Laing to Alice Miller, have blamed childhood training.
(I’ll post this as my comment as well)
Lila,
Memory jogged–Laing and Rajiva remind me of what Voltaire once said:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
This should be the tag line of a new book.
Thanks Robert, I love that line.
I take it Voltaire is expressing his anticlericalism
there but it’s applicable to many of the shibboleths of political thought today.
I’d say the operative word isn’t “believe” but “make”
…
Greg,If you think it’s “psychobabble” you have not understood it at all. Psychobabble means using jargon to make a superficial psychological view sound sophisticated and profound. But Laing is rejecting the psychological worldview.
Greg you’d better re-read it and make an effort to understand. Laing was turning everything upside down. Psychologists and psychiatrists HATED Laing. Obviously he was not talking psychobabble. He was doing the opposite–he was defusing the pretentions of the mental health system. HE was saying, “You guys
are pompous phonies. You try to make crazy people normal but the normals are the worst of all.” Read The Politics of Experience and try to understand it because you have it backwards.
My books show Laing’s influence.
Seth Farber, PhD
http://www.sethHfarber.com
Greg,If you think it’s “psychobabble” you have not understood it at all. Psychobabble means using jargon to make a superficial psychological view sound sophisticated and profound. But Laing is rejecting the psychological worldview.
Greg you’d better re-read it and make an effort to understand. Laing was turning everything upside down. Psychologists and psychiatrists HATED Laing. Obviously he was not talking psychobabble. He was doing the opposite–he was defusing the pretentions of the mental health system. HE was saying, “You guys
are pompous phonies. You try to make crazy people normal but the normals are the worst of all.” Read The Politics of Experience and try to understand it because you have it backwards.
My books show Laing’s influence.
Seth Farber, PhD
http://www.sethHfarber.com