anarchists seem uncritical of the social sciences in key ways

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anon (not verified)
anarchists seem uncritical of the social sciences in key ways

I've been noting this over some time, from a post-Left anarcho perspective. Alleged anarchists engaging me, quite heatedly, from a compromised position which they seem oblivious to. Compromised by their seemingly uncritical and not-seriously-thought-out beliefs when it comes to ideologically-challenged pronouncements against the usual scapegoated groups (those which are prohibited from being truly heard out).

"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."
--R. D. Laing

Thus so many self-professing anarchists allow this form of neocolonialism to proceed, largely unchallenged, at least in the deeper places than merely "the root".

Take so-called "mental illness".
That "frame of reference" surrounds everyone these days, which of course remain confining. Of course, because your Always Friendly (tm) social scientists HAVE TO get PAID. And if they were to allow ALL the competing schools of thought to be heard about and even truly understood, well, then they'd find themselves unable to obtain Big Funding and all the hollow prestige that comes with that!

The curiously-labled ("right-wing"; more on that later) psychiatric whistleblower, Dr.Thomas Szasz, MD was an insider pschiatrist and thorn in the side of ALL coercive psychiatry for many years, at least since the 1950s all the way up to when he took himself out (in his 80s) in the the 2000s. It is said that he is most known for his book THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS, published in, what, 1976? Where he discussed his ideas that, yes, people have "problems in living", but that it was improper to perpetuate the non-demonstrable science of so-called "mental illness."

Szazz wrote many books, and was interviewed many times, which you should be able to still find. Calling psychiatry a "new religion". His book THE THEOLOGY OF MEDICINE was especially excellent in this regard. Demystifying the "medical police" in ways few other psychiatric dissenters articulated (well worth looking into!).
And so on. Lots of nuggets of worth!

(dovetails well with Harriet A. Washington's 2006 book, MEDICAL APARTHEID, btw!)

Szasz was (of course) labled "Right-wing", i think, because the Left vanguard believed it needs "the therapeutic state"--as so many Leftists are professionals along those lines. I figure, like another bio-psychiatric dissenter, Dr.Peter R. Breggin, his challenge was too radically insightful for them, so they had to neutralize him, and what better way than to label him "Right-wing"? (Breggin btw is currently being silenced by a curiously political-sounding legal suit being brought against him.)

Then there was Szasz's involvement with the cchr. The cchr took heavy hits (known for using at least 3 cameras to document some of the harrassment they take from people militantly denouncing them), but to my knowledge persists. Certainly far from perfect, at least their (cchr.org's) publicly-available analysis of psychiatry (and footnotes) were (and are?) freely available on their site! (i used their revelations about Mondale and the Trilateralists, post-1975, in my own research)

Bottom line, i don't throw out the baby (Szasz's excellent revelations) with the bathwater (Szasz's being an Expert --above us-- and his not demystifying some crucial things around that)

Then there's R.D.Laing. I like him most for his ideas about how so-called "schizophrenia" is a self-taught way, or tactic, and that people should allow "crazy people" (not his words, tho) to GO ON THEIR JOURNEY unfettered by persons seeking to suppress their symptoms, Allopathic-medicine style. To aide these challenged people on their JOURNEY was his tact. Not to block them, or otherwise silence the symptoms, like the Allopaths (as I understand it)!

Of course, he still had a School of Thought which, i think, was STUCK in the idea that challenged-humanity "needs" the Expert, the Professional Mediator, while the informal village remains scattered and forgotten, largely. And i suspect that this is why he had so much trouble with a woman by the name of Mary Barnes (i think she saw thru the Game of Professional, and gave him hell, even if unable to articulate it!). Laing also brought up the idea of "knots" and how people tie themselves up in such, having been unable to find other potentials to liberate themselves from tyranny (in SO MANY forms).

Some groups challenging psychological and psychiatric propaganda:
(some you can only find via archive.org)
www.madpride.org
www.stopshinks.org (especially their 'reading room')
www.madnessradio.net
www.szasz-texte.de (szasz.com is only secure to look at via archive.org, apparently)
fireweedcollective.org (seems quite anti-authoritarian!)
www.mindfreedom.org (has a 'shield' you can use to stop being coerced into a psych "hospital"; used to publish Dendron, a psych survivor periodical)

"As domains of experience become more alien to us, we need greater and greater open-mindedness to conceive of their [valid] existence."--R.D.Laing (from The Politics of Experience, pdf: https://vdocument.in/r-d-laing-the-politics-of-experience.html?page=9
)


Some very daring info on how social science is held back by statecraft of late:

www.mhamic.org/rind/ (note: I do not trust the wikipedia entry, due to it being 'locked'; which is an ideological tactic pointed out by the heavily marginalized and whistleblowing science researcher, Dr.Judy Mikovits)

See especially this section:
The Congressional censure of a research paper: Return of the inquisition? by Kenneth K Berry and Jason Berry
"...this may be the first time in US history that the legislative branch of the federal government has officially condemned and censured a scientific publication. . . We have taken the first large and frightening step away from scientific freedom and toward totalitarianism in control of scientific endeavors."
&
Condemnation of a scientific article
"In this article, Rind et al. explain the rationale of their study, provide a summary of its findings, and describe the events leading up to its condemnation. They also present and carefully refute each criticism leveled against their study, and outline threats to science that may result from the reactions of professionals and politicians. They conclude that their critics have a moral and economic agenda."

The above reminds me of a book about Szasz taking on several challengers, entitled: Szasz Under Fire: A Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics (Under Fire Series) by Jeffrey A. Schaler (www.schaler.net). The back and forth between the various factions (!) of psychiatrists, writing quite without the usual academic jargon, is quite interesting!

(Such jargon itself is a tell-tale sign of how academia learns to hide itself from truly liberating 'the masses' while being paid well --and, crucially, not put under attack-- by the State. The APA above had some serious problems with that when it published The Rind Report in its main publication in 1998)

Other sources worth noting on how scientists and science is silenced by state and/or its lackeys when "push comes to shove":

  1. 911scholars.org
  2. https://londonrealtv.libsyn.com/dr-judy-mikovits-is-coronavirus-a-plande...
    (Dr Judy Mikovits, whistleblower)
    Robert F Kennedy, Jr's film "The Real Anthony Fauci" (book for free on archive.org)
    "Ideology and the Human Sciences" by David Ingleby

Okay, so that should get some of you "hot around the collar", and perhaps begin a crucial study on the games of the social sciences and politics. If you want to go even deeper down the proverbial "rabbit hole", i recommend:
Theodore Roszak: The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, where he discusses the lie of objectivity in the scientific method, amongst other deep insights!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/630033.The_Making_of_a_Counter_Culture
Also, by Szasz:
"The Art and Science of Pseudology"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210911164817/http://www.szasz.com/5pseudol...
&
"The Medicalization of Everyday Life"
https://web.archive.org/web/20220211012026/http://www.szasz.com/freeman2...

and this one that i didn't look into very closely yet:
https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-science-has-been-corrupted/

You can also find Paul Feyerabend (i didn't think he was very accessable to a 'lay audience'), Thomas Kuhn, and Michael (or Karl?) Polanyi, all whom challenge scientific method, itself, in various ways.

Now, i'll brace myself for the usual knee-jerk reactionary-isms around here!
:)

anon (not verified)
Wow, as a lover of free

Wow, as a lover of free speech and free thought, it’s very intelligent of you to have announced in advance how everyone who disagrees with you is either compromised or reactionary. Sounds like the beginning of a great thread where we’ll all learn a lot of new things from each other, especially when you toss in a link to COVID conspiracy theories that have been everywhere for the past three years. Nice post, you have me convinced, you don’t seem mentally ill at all! Enjoy your rabbit hole.

anon (not verified)
Your "love" is idiotic,

Your "love" is idiotic, liberal beliefs. There is no such thing as "free thought"' and "free speech"... everything is a codified product or byproduct of culture and language. We are what is taught to us, what we read, what we hear. Hence the importance of having a counter-culture as a solid basis for opposition instead of just following Facebook "free-speech" influencers or fashion trends.

Your god is a piece of commodity.

anon (not verified)
Yes, some anarchists are

Yes, some anarchists are behind in the social sciences. It's a hegemony of normality that is so boring and is part of consumerism's prerequisite,,,,,there will always be a craving for distraction, commodity and spectacle if one has a dreary external authority controlling your thoughts and desires. Those that don't conform are mad.

lumpy (not verified)
I just wasted half an hour on

I just wasted half an hour on that hack Jeff Schaler's janky old website? that boy sure seems to love getting his hot takes on the news and documenting all of it as proof of his big boy pants?

anyway, the only thing on his (extremely reactionary leaning) site that i could find, seems to contradict what this writer is saying about Szasz but i did appreciate learning that RD Laing recanted his famous quote about schizophrenia!

interesting stuff! also, this "mad pride" shit seems really toxic and irresponsible. mmmk, thanks for the weird tangent!

Z from The Cont... (not verified)
We Contemptuous ones don't

We Contemptuous ones don't waste time because time is a leftist construction to control our dismal wolf spirits! We think "anarchists" could learn a thing or too from reactionary war strategies if only their snowflake fear of what is "toxic" or "unwoke" were first burned in flames of our flamethrowers.

Nettle
no fear

haha, whatever. i'm not afraid of what is toxic or woke. i still don't want to drink bleach or call someone the n-word. but you do you.

Nettle
or

un-woke, however.

Z from The Cont... (not verified)
Typical Bay Snowflake leftist

Typical Bay Snowflake leftist constraints you are putting on yourself. We contemptuous need to breathe our wolf fire on all of these civilized prisons. Our fortresses are hidden in the forests outside your tech cities and we will come in the night like free wolf clans to devour the herds. Shapen your teeth and join our pack or get ate.

Nettle
if

if you all desire to be assholes go ahead. what you put energy into desiring you will become in the long term.

my desire is to be kind and caring to all beings, that is unless & until i need to rip your eyes out with my bare hands or eat your heart with my bare teeth.

Z from The Cont... (not verified)
You can try but while you

You can try but while you were being kind we were taking down doe-eyed herds with our unrestrained authority like true anarchs. The Tao of the Contemptuous is unknowable but we know that our "assholes" desire what our assholes desire.

Nettle
lol

guess i don't need to eat your brains, seems like someone else did that already.

lumpy (not verified)
it's the brainworms!

it's the brainworms!

infinite tower of, brainworms all the way down

Z from The Cont... (not verified)
We The Contemptuous breathe

We The Contemptuous breathe fires like the great Wyrms of Hell and will melt your leftist snowflake "mental health" reifications without a care.

Dracarys

anon (not verified)
Brah, yr getting trolled.

Brah, yr getting trolled. That’s someone making fun of the contemptuous. But they got the style all wrong. The sentences are half as long as they need to be & the paragraphs should contain at least 12 sentences. Pretty sure that is the contemptuous style guide.

anon (not verified)
i have read some about mad

i have read some about mad pride, and have met some people who leaned that way. i guess it seems misguided in specifics, but in general it's part of the challenge to the way we understand things now.

both encouragment to think about things differnetly, and putting uor own lives in the mix, and explaining or describing how broken things are in this culture. these cultures. whatever.

i think it's true that to make an impact ideas need to be stated aggressively sometimes or most of the time. but its also easy to get sucked in to our own hyperbole of course.

lumpy (not verified)
yeah, that's fair. where to

yeah, that's fair. where to draw the line between legitimate critique and self reinforcing delusions of grandeur is ... an important test of personal autonomy, to say the least!

anon (not verified)
I dunno man.., despite the

I dunno man.., despite the excellent quotes by Laing this text reads like some Infowars fan who did just happen to read from anti-psychiatry theory. Especially with all the capitalized terms, this sounds like more of the same old ramblings from the lunatic fringe.

I've been with the criticism of Covid politics but taking the same language and similar approach to Qanon types ain't a very clever way to elaborate on these critiques, imo, unless this is yet more elaborate sicko trolling.

Z from The Cont... (not verified)
Oh like we anarchists can't

Oh like we anarchists can't learn anything from "Infowars fans" or "Qanon types"? What is this leftist snowflake kind of thinking? We Contemptuous take lessons like wolves feasting on prey after a long night of stalking. Don't be a coward when our fire breath consumes your moralistic enclaves of fear.

anon (not verified)
It's sort of obvious,

It's sort of obvious, critical theory is not a strong point with anarchists these days like it is with capitalists, that is why capitalism, corporatism and neoliberalism is surging.
The capitalists have gotten to the level of accepting that social inequity=supporting the fair treatment of gender ,race,colour, ethnicity,age,marital or parental status,sexual pref , disability or religious beliefs.
Critical theory is a social theory that aims to critique and try to change society as a whole. Critical theories attempt to find the underlying assumptions in social life that keep people from fully understanding how the world works, sort of like the perception of leftism and woke within the capitalist system,
Capitalists are even getting into restorative justice,=Healing the effects of crime and injustice.
Anarchism is losing its significance as a force for change.

anon (not verified)
OooOooh a nOooob that has it

OooOooh a nOooob that has it aLL fiGureRD oUt! Here's some reading, smart-guy who thinks they know "hoW tHe wOrLD wOrKs" (sOoo important!): https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/topic/critical-theory

Remove thy fedora and start here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jason-mcquinn-critical-self-theo...

anon (not verified)
HooOoow daAare you liken me

HooOoow daAare you liken me to steam punk pseudo-Luddites!!

anon (not verified)
The whole trend with "wokeism

The whole trend with "wokeism" is not only the result of ignorance/bigotry but also the avoidance in itself of social critique, where due to "WOKE" thinking "A", then avoiding to think like "A" coz it's "WOKE". Exact same tendency -even more intense- can be found within the Western Left who keep bible-belting with their guilt-by-association logic fallacies or ideological scapegoating... i.e. accusing anyone criticizing Covid policies to be a Qanon Far Right conspiracy theorist, or going after sexual abuse of kids as if it's just this super-specific faction of Hollywood Biden Democrats doing it, where the problem is very widespread in society way across ideological lines.

Critical theory starts with people reading it, of course, or having it taught.. but with the loads of social media pollution this gets pretty hard.

I'noobie (not verified)
Yeah I like Jason McQuinn and

Yeah I like Jason McQuinn and Stirner's description of critical self theory he forworded his essay with. A good start for anarchist noobies such as myself, thanks anon :)

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