Thursday, April 17, 2008

from 'rebels and devils' dr. hyatt
Way back in 1952 Robert Lindner a clinical psychologist with strong psychoanalytical background boldly suggested that rebellion was instinctive and was the quintessence of the creative personality. However for Linder creativity comes from separating oneself from the collective and the will of the masses. The prime purpose of society is to bend the will of the individual to the will of the majority, to become as others are to accept the illusions of the mass. He saw rebellion as important as the sex instinct for the survival of the species for without rebellion nothing new arises.
In clinical terms this means rebellion is healthy and normal requiring neither treatment or imprisonment.

At the time this did not fit well with the conservative and social mentalities of that decade, nor does it today.

Adjustment is practiced by a number of professions and most of the middle class. Linder at the time predicted that in time the psychology would become handmaidens of the state and big business, losing its meaning for those that need it. Both institutions would begin to believe that psychology had more to offer than it did.
Linder also went on to write that in order for humanity to reach potential it had to overcome, the triad of gravity, ignorance and mortality, something that tim leary also asserted throughout his work.
(unfortunately leary is only remembered for his lsd experiments therefore most of his work goes unnoticed)
linder went onwards to say that anything- thought or deed- which enables man to break these limits is intrinsically good: while anything that prevents him is bad. he also saw normal existence as a cage and normal human behavior as bordering on the pathological. worse he suggests that restriction and moral inhibition as practiced ten, and now, as inherently evil.
Of course this does not mean that people can do what they want in the same way 'do what thou wilt' does not.
Society's cure means surrendering mind and body thus happiness is a modern pact with the devil meaning the individual surrender individuality for a promised peace.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Written word for word by Christopher Hyatt.