Essay. THE MALFUNCTIONING SOCIETY.

Since capitalism is a predatory social and economic system, predatory personalities rise to power.1

There has been the constant refrain that we are a malfunctioning society.2 The discourse asserts that we are beguiled by triviality, meaningless cultures and mass commodity consumption, we are brainwashed by the media and institutions; we are used and abused, unloved and mistreated. Because of this situation we suffer the resulting traumas of a primal competitiveness. This adds up to the fear, pain, guilt and torment of a life-world beleaguered by modern enslavement. The theory has it that due to this enslavement, not only do we sabotage ourselves; we systematically destroy the planet as well. Further, we are

led to believe the system neither fulfils our desires nor does it give us hope for improvement. We are doomed to a deterministic, miserable apocalyptic end; a collapse! These apocalyptic teachings suggest we are all victims of an internal narrative that is linked to past, painful experiences, which get buried beneath a more pleasant and soothing consumer lifestyle. We are told this discourse is a profound and damaging delusion destroying the authentic inner self. The delusion in turn is fed by a myriad of everyday practices and myths; the pleasures and sensations that come from
1

William Blum [2012] Iraq. Began With big lies. Ending With Big Lies. Never Forget on Counter Currents 4th January 2012. Hellas, P [1996] The New Age Movement. Oxford, Blackwell, p18.

entertainment and the capitalist marketplace that are said to lead us into a constant searching for a panacea. We are, to put it differently, social constructs that have lost our way and thus, we have lost touch with humanity. Humans certainly engage in an inner conversation, but whether there is an inner self that is the authentic self-guiding, determining voice of our future is highly questionable. Human behavior is based on the

accumulation of past events, our individual personalities and genetic dispositions. The delusions and the causes of fantasies are beyond the New Age assertions, many of which are engulfed in their own power relations, customs, delusions and quasi-religious brainwashing. Historically, men and women took up arms and fought bloody battles to defend their beliefs for a better world. Today, the crusade is cultural and psychological. Today, crusaders toy, not just with the material desires, but with the cognitive impulses. The causes of the social malaise are deeply emotional, evolutional, traditional, political and historical and we need to resolve the problems within the proper context; that is a genuine politics of global social justice. Democracy does not work at its best, but it works better than anything the world has seen previously. We can only make it better if we put the politics into activism and make the personal political. Let me qualify this statement. Politics is fast being usurped by quasireligious and esoteric paradigms and there are obvious dangers in mixing religious fantasy and politics. In addition, there is a significant disinterest in the political field that can only be put down to a deliberate dumbing down where political knowledge has become limited to a rhetorical diatribe.

For many people there may not be anything intrinsically wrong with a little magical thinking providing it does not dominate lives and become the source of pain, anger and corruption. There would be no great art or

literature without fantasy, but there is an obvious need to learn the difference between literary fictions and reality/real polity. There is a need to know how we might change the world for the better and there is an urgent need for a plan. For most individuals the only way their lives can be changed for the better is through rational political action to improve social and working conditions; better health and education.3 What is currently on offer is a compelling argument for potential; that involves small steps and feel good activities, but it sets up a duality between localized manageable projects and real global change. We need a vision that includes the local and the global. Any potential is highly conceptual and cannot be based on one concrete formula. Advocates of potential negate the fact that the individuals life-world resources are the foundations for building potential and each individuals potential is different. The potential argument claims to provide people with encouragement by focusing only on the positive elements and possibilities, but this means no self-reflection and almost no critique of the outside forces. Advocates of potential see things as always positive and they fail to understand the despondency many people in the world are forced to experience. Moreover, there is the tendency to romanticize the struggle and plight of those less fortunate. The notion of being only positive comes largely from positive psychology, which transcends the self-referential view.
3

The self-

Ibid.
3

referential view consists of many thoughts and perceptions, which are now seen as an over-reaction and/or a pathology causing anxieties and consuming our domains. Positive psychology aims to regulate thoughts against anxieties and tame the over-reaction by changing the mental focus instead of working through the problems. Positive psychology reflects the belief that humans are intrinsically positive by nature, when there are obvious flaws in humanity that need to be addressed. To this end, positive psychology side-steps much of the Freudian theory that humans have a dark unconscious made up of past experiences and internalized fears that need to be brought to the surface and examined. Positive psychology offers a quick fix to problems that take a life-time to accumulate. Moreover, there is no evidence that it works. Positive psychology assumes that individuals know their real self while most of us struggle to actually find out who we are and what purpose our lives serve. What we are calling life and/or self is a life-long journey, not a page in a book that can be copied and acted out. Positive Humanism. The positive psychology that stemmed from humanist psychology was not meant to be limited or constraining, but liberating. For example, the idea of self-actualization for Abraham Maslow produced the fullyfunctioning individual. In Maslows hierarchy of needs self-actualizers reach a good mental health state by coming to terms with all their primary level needs, this includes the need for physical and emotional survival. Maslow defined self-actualization as the desire for self-fulfillment and outlined the characteristics he believed were necessary to bring this about. This meant an accurate perception of reality rather than a reality distorted by beliefs. Maslow thought unhealthy persons remade the world to fit the

shapes of their fear, needs and values. Maslow therefore generated a system of alternatives that include: Acceptance Simplicity Gratitude Employment Naturalness Empathy Independence Creativeness Democracy 4

For Maslow positive emotions led to emotional competency and healthier outcomes. The Psychoanalyst Samuel I Greenberg MD has suggested that neurosis now affects over 80% of the American population.5 Most mental illness is caused by fears. People do not like to talk about

their fears directly so they recast them into fantasies, Utopias and/or apocalyptic discourses. We live with a constant politics of fear and its reflexivity in the media and escape along pathways of false dreaming. Keeping up Appearances. It would appear that conservatives are more receptive to fears and threats than non-conservatives. According to one study conservatives are plagued in suppression and repression. All people have expectations and dreams, but the healthy person recognizes that the world is full of obstacles and they are realistic about their options and achievements. Seemingly, the conservatives are overwhelmed with fantasies and anxieties about their position in the world
4

D.T. Kenrick , Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S.L. & Schaller, M. [2010] Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations. Perspectives on Psychological Science; Vol. 5 No. 3, pp292-314. S .Greenberg [1971] Neurosis is a Painful Way to Live, New York, Signet Books p64.
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as well as their desired achievements. Conservatives believe that without their leadership everything in society will collapse. When researchers asked the questions; why do conservatives always paint the worst case scenario? Why are conservatives so pessimistic? They found conservatives have larger fear centers in their brains. The British study from University College London indicated that conservatives brains tend to have a larger amygdale. The amygdale is the oldest part of the brain and the centre responsible for primitive emotions. The amygdale is connected with fears and other instinctive behaviors. In contrast, the

brains of conservatives were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate, the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism. Geraint Rees who headed up the study was asked to examine the differences between the liberal and conservatives brains for a BBC4 Today show, the findings came as a shock, but they have also prompted questions about whether all politicians should be brain scanned to ascertain if they are telling the truth about what they believe.6 It may be that many world leaders are not fit to lead. Conservatives also appear to have a need to compensate for their short comings so they devise ways of changing others rather than changing themselves. Transtheoretical Change Model [TTM]. Many individuals and groups make no secret about the fact that they want
6

to

change

peoples

behavior

and

some

recommend

the

D. Tracer [2010] Conservatives have larger brains at Alternet posted 30th December 2010.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149362/study%3A_conservatives_have_larger_%27fear_c enters%27_in_their_brains Retrieved 31st December, 2010.

Transtheoretical Change Model [TTM] for the task. This is a popular model for change, yet few people have heard of it or know when it is being applied. James O. Prochaska of the University of Rhode Island and his colleagues developed the Transtheoretical Model [TTM] beginning in 1977.7 They examined different theories of psychotherapy, hence the name transtheoretical and refined them into a new formula. The model consists of four core constructs: stages of change, processes of change, decisional balance, and self-efficacy.8 The TTM interventions are said to have a significantly greater impact than other programs because of their ability to:
Involve a large percentage of the target population [people not ready, getting ready or ready to change], Support high participation rates, Achieve strong efficacy rates, Produce multiple behavior changes, and Use optimal tailoring which minimizes demands on clients and coaches.

Out of 1,000 people needing to make a lifestyle change TTM claims to target 100% of the population while other programs typically target only the 20% of that population. In addition, TTM interventions typically have 70%-80% participation rate with proactive recruitment while other programs typically have a 10% participation rate. The question is who determines the need for change?
7

Over the past decade there has been a

J.O. Prochaska [2005] The transtheoretical approach. In: Norcross, J.C., Goldfried, MR. [Eds.] Handbook of psychotherapy integration. 2nd Ed. New York: Oxford University Press; p. 147171. J.O. Prochaska and W.F.Velicer [1997] The transtheoretical model of health behavior change. AM J Health Promotion SepOct; 12[1] 1997 pp3848. Retrieved March 18th 2009.
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consistent revival in behavior modification as a means of dealing with social problems that include increased levels of mental illness, crime and family break-down. Most of these conditions stem from poverty, suffering, damage, stress and the new underclass relations. The potential for change is directed towards capitalist growth not self-development. These changes also impact on the way we are meant to view the environment. Timothy Morton [2007] draws on Darwins scientific speculations and notes that by identifying the bodys energy producing bacteria as the mitochondria in each individual cell industrial society has produced [] the quasi-objects, such as asbestos, radioactivity and dioxins that have truly opened the body up to its environment, albeit in the negative.9 Undoubtedly, in a science laboratory these bacteria are great selfregulating examples of nature to be marveled and adored. Perhaps curing their impacts on humans can also be viewed as an ecological crisis. Much depends on how we see things in relation to our ideology and survival.

Many deep ecologists argue that anthropocentric humanism and/or human development is a central component in the ideologies that have given rise to an ecological crisis. Hence, many would welcome the deadly virus. The result of the ecological view has been a de-centering of the subject. This according to deep ecology is said to form a spirituality and deeper connection with the earth.10 It also makes nature both substance and essence; otherwise viewed as [w]holism].

T. Morton [2007] Ecology without nature. Harvard University Press Cambridge Massachusetts. p108. A. Nss [1989] Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy Cambridge Cambridge University Press, p187.
8

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Any system can generate its own forms of mysticism where the small is collapsed into the [w]hole to create the subject as a zero-dimensional point in a field, which as David Harvey points out resembles nothing so much as the Cartesian reduction itself; [I] or the limitation of identity to a dot or doubt.
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The converse is also true; the dot can multiply and

become the dominant player in the field of political social order. However, this centering, de-centering and re-centering is not without its consequences. If we are trying to re-center on a computer model it is just a matter of pressing keys. This is not the case when we are trying to recenter someones focus or personality. For some people shifting focus can be highly problematic, in particular for people who are prone to fears, anxieties and/or are self-conscious. realization of the Cartesian [I]. Shifting consciousness is related to the shifting truth, or that which is changing our perceptions of the world. Indeed, in todays society there is so much sensory overload that it would be fair to say that many people have trouble sorting the truth from fantasy, rather they get lost in meaningless narratives. This leaves people caught in a quagmire of utopian ideas, thoughts and feelings, not all bad if we are able to recognize what is happening in order to escape if we need to. To be able to travel in and out of fantasy requires great skill and mindfulness; it was once the domain of the Magus. Self-consciousness is the ultimate

11

D. Harvey [1996] Justice, Nature and the Geography of Distance Oxford, Blackwell, p8-9.

Utopia. Utopian ideas generally become popular at times of critical change. The utopian dream-state is the brains way of offering a defense against feelings of anxiety and pessimism. Thomas More coined the word Utopia for his 1516 book. The word utopia comes from the Greek outopos, which means no place the full Latin title of Mores book is De Optimo Republicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia.
12

Mores work is

largely a plea for rational judgment and out of this he created a fantasy or potential way of life. More envisioned a new society at a time of immense human and canonical crisis. Thomas More experienced extreme anxiety that was brought about by a divided Europe. He despised the feudal capitalist system that he and many of his fellow country folks had encountered as cruel and unjust. More lived on the hope that utopia could be brought about by the bourgeoning European Renaissance, otherwise known as the re-birthing of the classic, scholastic and humanistic traditions. The classic traditions are grounded in the works of Aristotle and Plato and Mores Utopia became just as rigid and oppressive as the regime he opposed. Utopias hold great appeal, but in any group idealism, as the anthropologist Emile Durkheim suggested, the individual personality gets lost in the social morass.13 This means all the individual problems get put aside; or should I say inside. The individuals problems do not go away
12

M. Zeitlin [1996] In defense of utopia. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, 00270520, Dec 1996, Vol. 48, Issue 7, p48.

13

E. Durkheim [1992] Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. London Routledge, p56.
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they merely fester and wait for the right opportunity to surface. In the group situation this often results in heightened conflict. What I am

suggesting here is when a group goes out onto the street to protest that action is made up of a lot of individual grievances, many of which may have absolutely nothing to do with the group cause and/or its protestations. Fredric Jameson calls this the value of the utopian form.14 in mind Jameson writes
Utopia as a form provides the answer to the universal ideological conviction that no alternative is possible. It does soby forcing us to think the break itselfnot by offering a more traditional picture of what things would be like after the breakutopia is a meditation on the impossible, on the unrealizable in its own right.15

With this

Utopias come in many guises and each needs close examination. Cuba, for example, stands as the exemplar of utopia for many socialists and environmentalists. Cuba holds particular significance for the Free Food Movement. At the height of an energy embargo Cubans experienced a food shortage and large numbers of people got sick or starved. Eventually, Cubans were forced to grow their own food in massive community gardens, but they only partially solved the hunger problems. Later these gardens were used as propaganda to argue that everyone should prepare for a western apocalypse by copying Cuba and growing community food. However, the idea was seriously flawed. First, it was flawed because had the Cuban gardens been the only source of food the Cubans would have continued to

14

Fredric Jameson [2005] Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions London Verso pp xii and 232. Ibid.
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starve. The fact is Cuba needed to import 80% of its food from the United States.16 This was still not enough to satisfy Cubas needs and the Cuban people have lived mostly on vegetables and beans. newsgroup, Derkeiler.com comments:
Cubairon-deficiency anaemia is the commonest nutritional disorder: recent studies by the Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene show that anaemia prevalence in the eastern region is 56.7 percent among children under 2 and 20.1 percent in children aged 2-5. Support for the National Plan on Prevention and Control of Anaemia in the Five Eastern Provinces of Cuba | WFP | United Nations World Food Programme - Fighting Hunger Worldwide.. Cuba, with a population of a little over 11 million people, imports about 80% of its domestic food requirements.17

The

Second, the ability to grow food requires land and other resources, which in the west are generally under the control of governments or the propertied class. The poorest people are generally poor because they have no capacity to purchase property for shelter or to grow food. Third Cuba is a communist nation and the west is capitalist. Superimposing a communist model on a capitalist system and expecting it to work is simply ludicrous. Nonetheless, the Cuban community gardens analogy gained a wide following. This should not preclude any group of people getting together to grow food, but the actions [any actions] should be carried out in full awareness of the purpose, expectations, influences and outcomes.

16

Cuba | WFP | United Nations World Food Programme - Fighting Hunger Worldwide and Permaculature org. http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?4311-Cuba-imports-70-of-itsfood Retrieved 7th August, 2011 and World Food Production Org. http://www.wfp.org/content/support-national-plan-prevention-and-controlanaemia-five-eastern-provinces-cuba Retrieved 7th August, 2011. Ibid.
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Soviet communism took up the notion of Utopia by attempting to remove private ownership giving it to the state, but the world soon learned that the state was no more egalitarian than private investors. Communal land is now touted as an appropriate solution to climate change and a predicted food crisis, but this reduces food production rather than increasing it. If we are going to feed the world then it has to be through technologies such as urban farming. This is where food is grown in massive skyscrapers. It is not a lot different to the backyard greenhouse only on a different scale. What is different is the amount of capital involved and this leaves two choices, either the corporations like Monsanto continue to govern and expand their food interests or the industry becomes a nationalized essential service working in the interests of all people. Misreading Utopias. In the Introduction to the Transition Handbook the writer, Rob Hopkins, tells how he gained the inspiration for a new collective when he journeyed in 1990 to the isolated Hunza Valley in Northern Pakistan. Here, according to the books descriptions, the people live in traditional communities, described as tranquil. The community lives within its limits by recycling everything. All the waste including human waste is carefully composted and returned to the land. The scene is considered practical as well as paradisiacal. The writer states: Hunza is quite simply the most beautiful, tranquil, happy and abundant place and the place resonated with a deep genetic memory somewhere within.18

18

Rob Hopkins [2008] The Transition Handbook, Totness, Green Books Part 1, pp.12-13.

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However, this is typical of the romantic view often espoused by Utopian thinkers. In 1996 John Tierney of the New York Times wrote his view of the Hunza Valley:
The mountain air did seem pristine, but the people spent most of their time inside mud huts breathing horribly polluted air from open fires. They suffered from bronchitis and a host of ailments like tuberculosis, dysentery, malaria, tetanus and cancer. An iodine deficiency in their diet caused mental retardation. Children went hungry in the spring as food stores dwindled. The life expectancy for people in the isolated traditional villages, according to a 1986 medical study, was only 53 years for men and 52 for women. The healthiest people were the ones living in more modern villages near a new road to the outside world. There, trucks were bringing in food, vaccines, antibiotics, iodized salt and stoves with vented chimneys. Nearest this road, life expectancy was rising, a trend that would have delighted the designers of General Motorss Futurama: better living through highways. The people of Hunza were not delighted, though. Virtually everyone I interviewed believed that the intrusion of modern civilization was shortening lives. People blamed their current health problems on chemicals in imported fruit and germs in imported grain, and they insisted that the valley had once really been Shangri-La. An elderly woman named Bibi Khumari told me: The people today are like pencils. We were like tree trunks. The babies were so healthy in the old days. How many babies did you have? I asked. Sixteen. But the first 13 died. Thirteen died? But you said in those days the babies were so healthy.

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I had a curse from the fairies, she said. That was why my children were dying. Otherwise the babies were healthy. She paused, then added absent-mindedly, Nowadays there is not as much fairy sickness.19

By 2010 the northern sector of Pakistan had become a haven for Taliban terrorists. Food shortages, car bombings, suicide attacks on

innocent people and untold human misery plagued the area. Visiting journalists reported how women were being deprived of adequate education and basic freedoms. The only escape for children was the Madras schools that breed fundamentalism and violent Jihad.20 Pakistan

correspondent Mustafa Qadri reported 74% or 122 million people in Pakistan earned less than $3 a day and 75% of women experienced male violence with one of the worst crimes being acid thrown into the face of female victims.21 An agency helping people with disabilities [called

special persons] reported how in Hunza there were common problems of mental retardation, the deaf and dumb; slow growth, speech problems and physical disability. In 2012, wife murder, female infanticide, infibulations [female genital mutilation], slavery, child labor, child soldiers, Sharia, fatwas and suttee are all deemed culturally acceptable practices in the

19

J. Tierney [1996] The Optimists are Right in The New York Times. 29th September, 1996 http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/29/magazine/the-optimistsare-right.html?scp=2&sq=Hunza+valley+health&st=nyt Retrieved 25th September, 2009. Ibid. M. Qadri [2009] After Freedoms Dawn: A Snapshot of Pakistan and its People in New Matilda. 21st August, 2009 www.newmatilda.com/2009/08/21/facespakistan Retrieved 15th September, 2009.

20 21

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region.22

The agencys representative believed all these issues were

related to small communities and in-breeding.23 Cultural Relativism. The romantic view that has overshadowed the pre-modern world since colonialism has led to a western form of cultural relativism mainly taking place through the ideas of localization and community renewal. Cultural relativism happens when the identity of the individual is introjected into the [cultural] group;24 and/or when consciousness becomes a collective consciousness. This can be compared to the collective consciousness of

the religious group and/or the cult. In other words it involves likemindedness, as opposed to diversity, and the total subjugation of the individual to the group. Of late this has included groups who choose to dilute the politics of real democratic freedoms and focus on the traits of affinity and semantics that are visible in the group. The idea resonates with Donna Haraways notion of a world run by disinterested cyborgs. The cyborg is a creature of nature and culture it contains no nostalgia or repudiation and makes no attempt to explain either. It has as much affinity for technology as it does with the wilderness and as such it uses the boundary objects [potentials] to shift from one side to the other.

22

A.Kamguian [2009] [Ed.] The Committee to Defend Womens Rights in the Middle East http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=70 Retrieved 14th September, 2009. KADO [2009] Special care for special people rehabilitation centre. Pakistan http://www.rchunza.org/background.html Retrieved 15th September, 2009. The Term introjection is used by Sigmund Freud [1929] in Civilization and its Discontents [Harmmonsworth Penguin] to describe the loss of individual ego to the collective ego of the group.
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23

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Boundary breaches ruptures the ontological certainty that determines the ecological subject and the Cartesian subject It positions itself as human+animal+machine.25 It is not hard to see this happening as we all

sit at our computers communicating in virtual worlds, albeit of our own making. This does though change human perceptions and we need to be aware of how this happens and of its possible consequences. For example, it raises questions like, do war games lead to more aggression on the urban streets? On the positive side the virtual worlds have opened the door to these kinds of discussions, but the discourse [and indeed the power of virtual worlds] has not gone unnoticed. Since the failure of political institutionalization the boundary has been pushed towards the self-regulating system where everything floats freely in an abyss. It is a bit like the claw vending machine that picks up prizes

after you have put your money in the slot and pushed the right buttons. There are many prizes some harder to pick up than others, but the only real requirement is that you have paid your money, the rest is chance. This is the same chance that applies to the animals who, may or may not, stumble across enough prey for a feed. Nothing really separates us from these animals except our powers to reason. Viewed from this perspective the

animal biology is our biology and it produces organisms that exist as objects of knowledge and this confounds and reduces the line between humans, animals and nature.26 Reason re-shapes the objects of knowledge. Haraway seeks to push the boundary the other way to reflect a selfevident difference. Animal, nature and people are not the same. Importantly, Haraway does not see the boundary as the death of the
25

Peter C. van Wyck [1997] Primitives in the Wilderness: Deep Ecology and the Missing Human Subject. New York. New York State University Press, p106. Neil Evenden [1985] The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment.Toronto. Toronto University Press, p122. See Also van Wyck, p106.
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subject,

but

as

an

opportunity

for

alternative

proclamations.

Deconstructing the human as a masterful subject is an affirmative. For the critical theorist as for Haraway the meaning of humans qua organisms is open and presents as an opportunity to explore all options. The cyborg trope does not convince Peter C. van Wyk who believes that boundary objects herald from particular locations in particular times. In other words boundaries only have meaning for particular localized, embodied subjects, whereby Haraways situated knowledges puts the local in competition with the global, which is a non-situational, nonlocalized ecological problem. van Wyck has explored this idea in some detail to conclude that a future of breached boundaries is a context for the total commodification of reality, whereby he identifies a huge contradiction. One either grasps the earths condition and the place of species within it or one foregoes the construction of problems as global systems, and grasps the situation only partially owing to a necessary situatedness and locality. This makes the serious global and local problems a mere superficial dilemma and allows for business as usual. When one dwells on the notions of non-political affinity and semantics one assumes the presence of a priori reason; but history has shown that neither a priori reason nor instrumental reason alone will over-ride the need for responsible self-actualization that requires both intuitive and experiential knowledge for the proper functioning of any society.

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