HUMAN NEUROSES This particular quadrant of space is reserved for the exploration of human neuroses, with the word human being used (and most unequivocally) in its plural sense. There will be no truck here, in other words, with individual neuroses, like OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) for example, but only those that afflict the collective consciousness. This is no doubt an ambitious undertaking, and its very nature prompts the question of qualifications (a degree in anthropological studies, for example). The question is a valid one (however pretentious it might appear), but there is something about it that steers us, almost irresistibly, to another one:
Who could possibly be qualified to make such a determination, i.e., that anyone was qualified to deal with such a subject?
The power to make such a (valid) judgment would carry with it the implication that the party bestowing said qualification is itself already in possession of it, would it not? If they were not in possession of it, then what possible significance could be found in their gesture of conferring it upon another? How could someone give you authority that they did not already have, any more than they could give you (on a more mundane level) money they did not have? It is truly difficult to understand how an advanced degree in Anthropology (or any field, for that matter) would qualify its holder to speak with some form of true legitimacy (or with the power supposedly inherent in conferred qualifications) on the neuroses of the masses. To understand why, consider the very process of conferring academic degrees in the first place. If you have ever attended a graduation ceremony, you've heard the lingo, " ... by the authority of the Board of Regents ..." etc. What is the Board of Regents but a microcosmic extension of the greater hive? It is, in other words, a collective consciousness of its own, which means that its stamp of authority conferred on a particular student for completing an "approved" course of study that focused on the mental health of that greater hive would constitute little more than an instance of the pot calling the kettle black. Such an action would be, in another words, nothing more than a gesture of self-referencing, and all such referencing is meaningless. There can, in fact, be no qualifications to undertake this journey, only a desire, which means that the quest will necessarily be a philosophical one. But the results will be (one would surely think) nonetheless worthy of consideration. Who would not want give serious consideration to the their own mental health? We would all agree (and surely without any equivocation) that such a state underlies (and ultimately confers worth, or meaning) upon our involvement in everything we undertake. If we were somehow to learn that we were mentally unhealthy, would we not want to take measures to correct it? We cannot help but notice here that this question, however valid a question it might be, nevertheless resonates with a sort of discordant strain. It suggests a highly questionable mental process, since such an awareness—that we were mentally ill— would surely suggest that we were not mentally unhealthy. It suggests a virtual conundrum, and serves to further underscore the sheer difficulty of finding our way through this portion of space. By the same token, if human society truly is neurotic, which I firmly believe it to be, would it not also want to change its direction, to take a hard look at what precisely it is doing and muster the gumption to stop doing it? A daunting task, you say? Indeed it is. How exactly do you get human culture to look at itself, and do it forthrightly and honestly? How do you convince a society that it is basically messed up in its collective head? For an individual like myself to make such a claim will be (I have little doubt) regarded as the height of conceit, or a form of utter brashness or perhaps just downright silly. And there is little doubt that I will receive the counter charge that I am the one who is mentally unhealthy for making such statements, or perhaps for setting forth upon a virtually impossible quest. It is true, I am a bit hung up on the idea of the real and the contrived and its effect on human culture, especially its mental health. What is real and contrived? It is but another way of referring to what is natural and what is man-made. Our natural urges (to eat, eliminate and procreate) are real. How we go about satisfying these urges is contrived (at least for the most part). I define health in terms of its proximity to our natural inclinations. Show me a man (or woman) who does not eliminate waste and I'll show you a most unhealthy man or woman (i.e., a dead one). Yes, it's pretty much that simple. It is my contention that human culture is increasingly neurotic (unhealthy) because of its totally irrational predilection to separate itself from natural promptings. Human beings are driven by the two basic dynamics that are commonly referred to as the natural and the man-made (or what I am calling the real and the contrived). Of the two, I firmly believe that natural forces are by far the more compelling. We have purely contrived (man-made) laws, for example, regarding sexual coitus between males and females based upon their respective ages. These neurotic laws, however, do not actually prevent the forbidden sexual contact from taking place. It seems that nearly every day there is another story in the news about a man (or, increasingly, a woman) being arrested for violating these laws, and invariably the network journalists who report (and offer their banal comments on) these stories exhibit great difficulty in concealing their own contempt for this sort of behavior. It is common to hear them refer to such activity as sick. It is also common to hear the average citizen in the street (whose mindsets quite often are molded by television personalities) do the same. But if health is defined in terms of compatibility with Nature, then it is the journalists and the common people (as well as their chosen legislators who are making the unnatural laws) who are more inclined to (mental) illness than the so-called perpetrators of the behavior that is being so severely decried. It is natural (i.e., normal) for human beings to engage in sexual activity. It is also normal for them to engage in that activity whenever the hormones that prompt them to do so become active (regardless of chronological age). The idea that we are not supposed to engage in sexual activity on the basis of chronological age factors is a purely human contrivance. Nature knows nothing of such subtleties. The various network journalists who are so unabashedly calling others sick for engaging in purely natural behavior are basing their definition of sickness on contrived social ideas, not upon natural impulses. In the same way that we (as individuals) would get sick (and eventually die) if we did not satisfy our natural urges to eat and eliminate, we (as a species) will also get sick (and eventually die) if we suppress (or impose too many unnatural restrictions upon) our perfectly natural urges to procreate. In other words, if anyone might be sick, it is the people who are claiming that naturally-driven behavior is sick. The only gauge we should be using for determining whether or not sexual activity is natural or unnatural (i.e., normal or abnormal, healthy or sick) is puberty. If a man or woman engages in sexual activity with a post-pubescent partner (no matter the chronological age), then said activity should not be referred to as abnormal or sick. If anything, such behavior should be viewed as perfectly normal (because it is prompted by natural forces) and healthy. Such sexual behavior might, within the context of certain social factors, be viewed as ill-advised or unwise, to be sure, but certainly not sick, and most definitely not criminal. Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
|
