“Those two skies had divided her life into two parts: blue sky, black sky. The second sky was the one she would walk beneath to her death, her true death, the faraway and trivial death of old age.
And he? He was living beneath a sky that had nothing to do with her. He no longer sought her out, she no longer sought him out. Recalling him awakened neither love nor hatred in her. At the thought of him, she was as if anesthetized-with no ideas, no emotions.”
- Milan Kundera, Ignorance
“All of them were delighted by that stroke of inspiration, and a man with an extraordinary paunch developed the idea that Western civilization is going to perish and that humanity will finally be liberated from the enslaving burden of the Judeo-Christian tradition. These were phrases Jan had heard ten, twenty, thirty, a hundred, five hundred, a thousand times before, and those few meters of beach soon turned into a lecture hall. The man spoke, all the others listened with interest, and their bare genitals stared stupidly and sadly at the yellow sand.”
- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
As a psychology associate, I deal with medication issues on a daily basis. “Can this challenging behavior in which this client is engaging be prevented by this medication?” The answer is, more often than not, an emphatic “no.” The solution to an individual’s aggression towards others or aggression towards themselves should be dynamic: Among the mentally ill and, most often, the mentally retarded, the motivation behind an individual’s engagement in a particular behavior is derived from a combination of brain defects, environmental stimuli, learned interpersonal responses, witnessed and experienced trauma, compulsions, emotional reactions, anxiety, and psychosexual drives.
Once a diagnosis based upon symptoms of psychosis, mania, impulsiveness, or severe paranoia is made and the “medication solution” is implemented, an individual’s behavioral motivators become even more unbalanced. Even if not applied recklessly, this continued imbalance occurs for three reasons:
I had these points in mind when I read Christopher Lane’s Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. Lane begins with a terrific visiting of the back-stabbing, tension, infighting, and nastiness that preceded the publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s third Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). The DSM-III is a physician’s field guide to mental illness. Lane presents the DSM-III as human endeavor: The committee responsible for its completion was comprised of egotistical and well-intentioned neuropsychiatrists who narrow-mindedly constructed a flawed document.
From my reading of the DSM-III, this is an accurate assessment and the conclusions that Lane draws, based upon his analysis of his evidence and multiples interviews, are overwhelmingly valid. It is unfortunate then that roughly “normal” individuals should be subjected to pharmaceutical empire that predicates its marketing upon the assertions of the DSM-III.
Lane explains it thusly:
Step One: Take the results of an ambiguous questionnaire to prove that the new disorder far exceeds psychiatrists’ already ample expectations, leading them to suspect the presence of a widespread, underdiagnosed problem. Step Two: List the new disorder in the DSM, thereby inviting drug companies to treat it. Step Three: Shower doctors with free samples of newly minted pills [many doctors have a closet literally filled with free samples], while bombarding television viewers with carefully crafted ads. Step Four: Castigate dissenters for failing to recognize the severity of the illness and for heartlessly prolonging patient suffering. (p. 196)
Ultimately, this type of system thrives in a society in which doing something is considered better than doing nothing and in a culture in which consumerism imparts identity. This is America and, in America, at least one child as young as two has been prescribed one of these mind and body altering medications. The pursuit is ostensibly more important than the happiness.
Lane presents an adequate amount of empirical data and anecdote to compellingly argument that our current crop of psychopharmacological medications are, by-and-large, dangerous and that our current means of distribution are fraught with corruption. Unfortunately, Lane lacks the philosophical cleverness to explore how American culture sustains this beast and where it’s all headed. I, like many other professionals, would like to know; though, something tells me it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
After numerous false starts, I’ve finally finished Reza Aslan’s No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Fure of Islam. Although I have no desire to review No god but God, it is important to note that if you’re not previously familiar with the ahl’s, al-’s, ha’s, and ta’s that dominate distinctive Middle Eastern names and terms, Aslan’s narrative can be tedious.
Islam has a long history of acquiescing to puritanical oligarchy. Hence, a Muslim individual’s social, political, and interpretive ideology is dominated by the Islamic entity into which he or she borne. This is because Muhammad’s Quran was a made in the moment text and is not an orthodoxical device. It has taken centuries of Islamic scholars, holy men, and wars to achieve the orthodoxic and orthopraxic principles and regulations that dominate the distinctive Islamic sects.
Throughout its history, Islam has been engaged in what I can only describe as a “trying to get it right” cycle. The goal of each cycle is to return Islam to Muhammad’s egalitarian and quasi-socialist ideals. Inevitably, the oligarchical regime that claimed a return to these ideals becomes corrupted by power and violently oppresses all social, politcal, and interpretive dissent. Eventually, the oppressed, through shared anger and intellectual organization, violently revolt and become the new oppressive oligarchical regime. This cycle has been furthered by British and American imperialism and interference. Since the beginning of their occupations, the British and American Judeochristian philosophies and intentions have been considered the corrupting influences. The road to hell that is the present jihad against the West is paved with these “good” intentions.
(A modern example of an American attempt at a “good” intention is epitomized by Dinesh D’Souza’s screed The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. This treatise is an attempt to bridge the Christian-Muslim cultural divide by appealing to the traditionalists of both religions. How this affiliation would truly enforce its intentions is not discussed but I fear that, like its predecessors, its enforcement will further the aforementioned cycle.)
At its core, Islam is a very egalitarian and pluralistic religion that has been perverted and taken to ridiculous extremes. Aslan hopes that the next revolution will instill those democratic ideals that he persuasively argues are at the heart of Muhammad’s visions. Since any real and lasting change can only come from within, the effects of the unfortunate American occupation of Iraq are likely to quash Aslan’s hopes. At least within the foreseeable future. What will happen during the next 500 years of inter- and intra-religious strife is anyone’s guess.
No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Fure of Islam paperback edition can be purchased through Amazon for $10.17.
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