“See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” Jesus, from an eyewitness account recorded by Luke the physician, chapter 11, verse 35.
“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Jesus as recorded in the eyewitness account of Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 6, verses 22 and 23.
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I don’t have to tell you that mental health and the lack thereof has been in the news lately. Tied mainly to reports of mass killings, the national mental health issue has been spotlighted when evil rears its ugly head. This post is about perspective on the mental health industry from someone who knows and for those on the treadmill of psychoanalysis.
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We learned the other day that the mass murderer Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez supposedly suffered from depression “…Abdulazeez’s family said he suffered from depression for years, and condemned the “heinous act of violence.””
Yet, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez willfully and coherently texted “an Islamic verse: “Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him.” Then, Abdulazeez immediately acted out those words by killing four Marines and a sailor.
Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez
GIGO: Abdulazeez was not depressed. Rather, he was unhappy, bored and dissatisfied with his view of the West and probably with himself. Stoking his ego with radical Islamist mal-machismo and personal grandiosity, Abdulazeez thought he would become bigger than life itself by becoming part of something that he thought was even bigger than himself – Islam’s Grand Jihad and the Slaughter of Innocents.
Psychology would not have benefitted the mental health of Abdulazeez. Psychology does not judge right from wrong. Psychology is the multiculturalism of all values, the egalitarian leveler of all thoughts into equal subjective and even political values.
Could it be that psychology, like gun laws is ineffectual due to the depraved moral character of the persons involved? Could it be that the individual’s eye and society’s eye is NOT focused on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” (From the apostle Paul’s to epistle to the Philippian church, chapter 4, verse 8.)
With regard to mankind’s focus and his progress in the area of proper human self-reflection…”Psychology is not a key to self-understanding, but a cultural barrier to such understanding as we can achieve…” from the Preface of “Admirable Evasions, How Psychology Undermines Morality” by Theodore Dalyrymple, 2015.
Admirable Evasions
Who is Theodore Dalyrymple? Theodore Dalyrymple is a pen name used by retired prison psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Daniels. I have written about Dalrymple in a previous post (see below).
Theodore Dalrymple aka Anthony Daniels, retired prison psychiatrist
“Admirable Evasions” sheds much-needed light on the mental health industry and in particular on the proactive diagnosis of depression.
Commercially advertised medications are prescribed to stave off unhappiness, dissatisfaction and ennui. Depression as a mental health state is used in courtrooms (and the media, as shown above) as a defense. Thus, responsibility for one’s felony first degree murder is not correlated to one’s accumulated misbehavior or evil compounded into utter darkness.
Dalrymple’s book, as the sub-title puts forward, exposes the absolution of patients from moral culpability. Psychology, instead, seeks to divine a secret knowledge through its Sisyphean scientism efforts in hopes of uncovering the ‘deep’ mystery of the patient’s unhappiness. We read also of the consumer’s constant demand for felicity and the bottom line commercialism behind antidepressant prescriptions. Dalrymple also provides a brief and sardonic history of psychoanalysis.
“The purpose of such all-encompassing understanding, other than moral self-aggrandizement, is the evasion of one’s own moral responsibility; for it follows that if no one is to be judged (because to judge is to judge harshly), then one is not oneself to be judged-not even by oneself. This, in effect, means carte blanche to do as you feel like, because all behavior is put on equal moral footing; it is only to be understood.” (Chapter Four)
Briefly, scientism is a coupling of the lexicon and theories of science with pop culture, anthropology, politics, popular consensus and ultimately with Neo-Darwinism. Scientism becomes a form of ‘truth’ through repetition and consensus opinion. Scientism is the appearance, the apparition, of science and not the reality of science.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) for example, is a frequent scientism apparition. And, just as in the opening scene of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the apparition of AGW sets a macabre and eerie tone while foreshadowing a theme of death.
Scientism, like Hamlet’s apparition’s appearance is expected by ‘those in the know’ to be feared and revered-the spirit of Mother Gaia is to be worshipped.
But scientism, uncoupled from reality and from this earth, is not subjected to honest reflection on the empirical science or the realities of cost to benefit analysis (see my previous post). Scientism seeks to generate free-floating angst meant to separate you from your money for the ‘right’ environ-mental cause and candidate.
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Theodore Dalrymple has worked in the mental health industry over a course of a lifetime, mostly with prison inmates. With characteristic insight, candor, humor and background Dalrymple empowers the reader with his common sense observations about the mental health industry. He tells us that the mental health industry is NOT based on science. (This pseudo-science has to finance its own grandiosity by repeating its weekly psychic readings.)
Using his logo centric cerebral scanner Dalrymple gives us his diagnosis of mental health scientism where experimentation becomes published ‘settled science” until the next ‘sure’ thing comes along. Counseling “initiates” sooner or later are subjected to new ‘insights’ but the game is always to designate them as “victims”, victims who need to forgive themselves and/or learn to churn out positive self-esteem so as to inflate the ego and ward off scary intruders. And, remember Primal Screaming? “Shout, shout, Let it all out.”
“We [the mental health industry] need everyone who suffers to be a victim because only thus can we maintain our pretense to universal understanding and experience the warm glow of our own compassion, so akin to the warmth that a strong, stiff drink imparts in the cold.” (Chapter Four)
From Chapter One: “The first psychological scheme of the twentieth century to provide man with the illusion of much expanded, if not complete, self-understanding, together with hope of an existence free of inner and outer conflict, was psychoanalysis, then came behaviorism, after which came cybernetics, Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology were next; and now neuroscientific imaging, together with a little light neurochemistry, persuades us that we are about to pluck out the heart of our mystery. Suffice it to say, by way of deflation of exaggerated hopes and expectation, that 10 percent or more of the population now takes antidepressants, a figure is all the more remarkable as the evidence is lacking that they, the antidepressants, work except in a very small minority of cases; rather the reverse. That they are taken in such quantities is evidence more of dissatisfaction with life than of increased understanding of its causes, as well as of the spread of superstition regarding neurotransmitters and so-called “chemical imbalances.” (emphasis added)
Dalrymple goes on to talk about the absurdities of Freudianism and of Freud himself: [Freud] belonged more to the history of techniques of self-advancement and the foundation of religious sects than to that of science… He says Freud was ”a habitual liar who falsified evidence…”and “ he was a self-aggrandizing manipulator of people…”
“Admirable Evasions” delves into the mental health industry’s ‘absolution’ of a patient’s wrong doing based on as yet to be determined psychological mysteries locked in the patient’s brain. Hence the undermining and “Evasion” of morality as the book’s title posits. Hence, morally deficit people are left to roam our streets and at times kill others. Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is not a defense in court or a comfort to those who have lost a loved one to amoral psychoanalysis with its lawless diagnosis.
“Men can change; this is their glory and their burden, for it is precisely the capacity to change that renders them responsible for their actions; but what they do may be irreparable.”
The above quote from Admirable Evasions is found within the article “The Multiple Lives of Mehdi Nemmouche” . There Dalrymple talks about the “doctrine of the Real Me”.
Mehdi Nemmouche
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Everyone wants an out…
Remember CPL Max Klinger of the MASH unit who feigned mental illness (in women’s clothes) so as to be discharged as unfit?
Remember “The devil made me do it.”?
On the couch, morality is posited as just a scary apparition, an angry “Epicurean” god, a figment of a tormented mental condition, an unwarranted guilt complex, genes gone awry, synapses misfiring or firing at the wrong time due to over-stimulation. One Nudge too far!
To neo-Darwinists, morality is considered a Darwinian materialist’s adaption to one’s societal surroundings. Neo-Darwinists do not want to go where morality dwells because that would entail submitting to a Moral Absolute. It is much easier for their pride to accept a humanist’s scientism solution every time. It is easier for them to dabble in the mystical arts of new age scientism.
Dalrymple, in a footnote, admits that he (an atheist) has no moral high ground of his own: “The fact that I do not have any watertight metaphysic of morals does not mean that psychology can just rush in to fill the gap.”
…but fools rush into the utter darkness anyway.
“…Emerson said in one of his brief excursions into comprehensibility, foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (Chapter Four)
The default diagnosis of mental illness proffered by the media and by the waiting in the wings defense psychologists is most likely evil and its focus on fatalism.
“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
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Theodore Dalrymple’s answer to the mental health industry’s inability to improve one’s healthy self-awareness is straightforward-read good literature. Read and become self-aware after reflecting on the characters and the situations they encounter in the book. I agree. Psychoanalysis tends to be a masturbation of the ego.
I also agree, as Dalrymple asserts, there is some good in the mental health industry. There are those who are dealing with incurable psychosis. These need help working with reality. But, most people do not need the packaged nonsense. They do need good books, good friends, exercise and to be held accountable for their actions by their friends and society before the point of no return.
As a Christian, I would strongly suggest that if you are desirous of a healthy mind that you also turn your eyes upon Jesus. Cable TV and today’s media have nothing healthy to offer you. You won’t find moral absolutes on TV.
Consider the following offering to evil:
“Lady Gaga’s Bisexual ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’ Character Revealed in Sexiest Season Yet”
[Ryan] “Murphy tells ET that he plans to initiate Gaga with a particularly “disturbing and awful” murder scene with her co-star Bomer, when the show begins filming next week.”
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“Diversion is the only thing that consoles us in our wretchedness, and yet diversion is itself the greatest of our miseries. For it is diversion above all that keeps us from seriously taking stock of ourselves and so leads us imperceptibly to perdition.”
—Pascal, Pensées
From the Evil One’s point of view, the liturgy of psycho-babble is meant to replace the Lord ’s Prayer.
In Jesus you learn to forgive others and no longer hold grudges or unresolved anger. Any root of bitterness is soon uprooted and you are free to plant a plush garden in its place. That garden will be where Jesus comes to visit-as he did with St. Teresa of Avila and where He also visits me.
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“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20
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I have written about Dalrymple in a previous post: “Three Atheists I Listen To”
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A second opinion: “The Moral Limits of Psychology”
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Added 8/6/2015:
Bryant Brewer
Judge rejects insanity defense, convicts man in Chicago cop’s murder:
“Following more than 2 1/2 hours of closing arguments, Judge Timothy Joyce concluded that Bryant Brewer wasn’t mentally ill but simply chose “not to be bound by society’s norms.”
“The only completely truthful thing I heard from (Brewer) is that he’s a cop killer,” the judge said as Soderberg’s widow, Jennifer Loudon, clutched a tissue in her right hand. “He brutally, callously, viciously and without compunction murdered Officer Thor Soderberg.””
…
Officer Thor Soderberg
“Joyce delivered a lengthy verdict, finally announcing the guilty decision after 8 p.m. He found Brewer guilty on all counts — including the attempted murder of three other officers in addition to Soderberg’s first-degree murder.
The judge concluded that the defense presented no admissible evidence that Brewer had schizophrenia.”
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Added 8-7-2015, from NBC News:
“…the same jury that convicted Holmes of 24 counts of first-degree murder and 140 counts of attempted murder last month in the July 20, 2012, massacre at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora. The jury deliberated less than 13 hours before reaching that decision.”
“Defense attorneys argued that [James] Holmes suffered from schizophrenia and he was legally insane when he carried out the attack. The jury rejected that defense in finding Holmes guilty.”
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Added: 10-4-2015
This astounding finding should be an integral part of the mental health debate:
Robert Whitaker author of Anatomy of an Epidemic asks the question, here paraphrased…
Is there a correlation between the increase of prescribed psychotropic medications over the past twenty-five years and the current epidemic of disabling mental illness? He notes that the disabled mentally ill place a significant burden on society.
Cindy Wity 
Don’t Show Up. Be There!
August 29, 2015 Leave a comment
Do you know the Olympics motto? “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger”)
I bet you know Nike’s motto just from their swipe logo: “Just Do It.”
Why as Americans have we turned from away from meritocracy toward a progressive Disneyland of ‘equal’ ‘happy’ outcomes? Is it because of laziness? Perhaps. Is it due to sociologists and psychologists and therapists promoting untethered self-esteem and dignity? Most likely. Is it due to the politically partisan pandering of materialism by Progressives which demands an unnatural faux-equality to gain votes? Most likely. Whatever the lack of motivation, the Apostle Paul (c. 5 – c. 67) knew that man’s inherent idleness would kick in if he smelled a free lunch:
“And, indeed, when we were with you, we gave you this command: Those who won’t work shouldn’t eat!” Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica, 2 Thessalonians 3:10
For the people who have to prove themselves day after day, an athlete for example, the fact is that they have to earn their place on the team. Sports fans take meritocracy as a matter of fact. Why can’t we as an American people not only dream but also train and discipline our lives to create the outcomes that we desire to happen, as a matter of fact?
Every time we let government try to make equal outcomes happen we lose liberty, becoming ever more enslaved.
Do you know Pittsburgh Steelers’ linebacker James Harrison’s motto? “Earn it.”
PITTSBURGH, PA – DECEMBER 28: James Harrison #92 of the Pittsburgh Steelers warms up prior to the game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Heinz Field on December 28, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
“James Harrison won’t let his sons accept participation trophies”
Pittsburgh Steelers’ linebacker:
“[James]Harrison took to social media this weekend to lash out at the idea that his sons should receive participation trophies simply for playing sports, saying that when he found out his sons were given such trophies, he demanded that they be sent back. Harrison believes that a trophy should be something you earn by being the best, not something you receive just for trying.
“I came home to find out that my boys received two trophies for nothingmaking them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best…cause sometimes your best is not enough, and that should drive you to want to do better…not cry and whine until somebody gives you something to shut u up and keep you happy.”
Harrison concluded with the hashtag, “Harrison Family Values.” In James Harrison’s household, there’s no credit given for just showing up. If you want a trophy, you’d better win.”
James Harrison Instagram
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At the beginning of last year I posted the following article about the futility of utilitarian egalitarianism
“Egalitarianism. Is It Equal To The Task?”
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”
Here the Apostle Paul is writing a word of encouragement to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 9:24). Remember Corinth? It is a city is in Greece, Greece being the birthplace of the Olympics.
Should Olympians ‘race’ when everyone gets the same prize at the finish line?
Egalitarianism = equal outcomes. And equal outcomes are what Progressives want to have happen within our legal system, within our education system-within society as a whole.
Egalitarianism is posited as a means to create the unspoken Utopian bureaucratic island where near-perfect socio-politico-legal systems exist and where no one has advantage over another except for the so-called elite who have been ‘blessed’ with “superior intellect.” Only they know enough to define life for you. (e.g., Cass Sunstein’s recent Nudge book).
In my younger days I was a sprinter. I would run many heats and then the final events. To do so I had to prepare for the weekly track meet. I will use my own ‘summer event’ experience to help you to consider whether egalitarianism is equal to the hard work and discipline required for life’s trials and to decide whether the rise of “egalitarianism” will benefit or hurt our society.
I wrote the following anecdote/moral fable based of my understanding of the “Constrained Vision” and the “Unconstrained Vision” as delineated by Thomas Sowell in his own favorite book “A Conflict of Visions”:
A Tale of Two Foot Races
Race Number One:
Eight men enter a race. They are roughly about the same height and weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men enter the race knowing that there will only be one winner. It was for this outcome that they had prepared themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years.
Months prior to the track meet the eight men are told of the rules: A runner must run in qualifying heats. If the runner is successful in those heats the runner will then be allowed to compete in the final race with the other qualifying runners; a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will be disqualified as having a “false start”; the commands “Ready”, “Set” and a gunshot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified; runners will be timed and the first runner to cross the finish line will be the winner of the race.
The runners all agree and sign off on the rules before the race.
On the day of the race and after qualifying in the heats eight runners come to the starting line. They know that they must run straight ahead in their own lane to reach the one-hundred meter line. They know that if they jump the gun twice they will be disqualified from running. They know that they must sprint as hard as they can to cross the finish line first. They are knowingly competing for first place. The race before them has now become the culmination of years of exhausting training and dedication to finishing the race and receiving first prize.
When the race is announced the runners shed their sweats and come to the starting line. The track official then announces, “Ready”. The runners will then carefully position their legs into the starting blocks and place their open hands stretched behind the starting line.
Once the runners have settled the track official then snaps “Set”. The runners immediately come up to a “set position”, coiled in their starting block. With the burst of the starting pistol eight men bolt from their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their disciplined bodies will carry them.
The winner of the race is the one who breaks the tape. There is also a second, a third and fourth place finisher. The runners-up each congratulate the winner for his speed and, implicitly, for his fidelity to the rules and his commitment to the sport of racing.
The first three finishers receive medals, adulation and wreaths of honor from the thousands who have come to watch a fair race between those who have so vigorously prepared themselves. The experience of the race has bolstered each runner’s self-esteem. The cheering crowd is also moved by each runner’s self-sacrifice, dedication and self-discipline. This spectacle has confirmed the crowd’s understanding of playing by the rules and aspiring to excel within those rules. Those who witnessed the race that day are stirred, encouraged to excel at what they do.
All eight racers later return home. The runners-up are now more dedicated than ever to prepare for another day of racing and to receiving their own crown of victory. Ciltius, altius, fortius.
Race Number Two:
Eight men enter a race. They are roughly about the same height, weight but come from very different backgrounds. The eight men entered the race knowing that everyone will be a winner. It was for this outcome that they saw no need to prepare themselves with rigorous discipline during the past four years. They just had to show up.
Months prior to the race the eight men are told the rules. They are told the rules are subject to change at the time of the race based on the current ad hoc articulated reasoning of one superior intellectual with unquestionable virtue. A runner must run in qualifying heats but this will not be a constraint. Whether or not a runner is successful in those heats he will be allowed to compete in the final race with other ‘qualifying’ runners. The heats are basically events created to satisfy the need for more equality.
More rules: a runner who jumps the gun twice at the starting line will not be disqualified from running. Instead he will be given another chance; the commands “Ready” and “Set” and a gun shot will be used by a track official to start the race fairly, though any sincere attempt to cooperate with the official will be accepted; each runner must stay in his lane or he will be disqualified unless, of course, their background is such that they have never stayed within the lines; runners will not be timed because such keeping of minutes would be discrimination against slower runners. The first runner to cross the finish line will wait at the finish line so that everyone will be considered a winner of the race. This must be done at any personal cost to the first one crossing the finish line.
The runners agree and sign off on the rules before the race.
On the day of the race all of the runners come to the starting line. They know that they are supposed to run down to the finish line before the outcome-determining patrons. They know that there will be equal prizes and the egalitarian appreciation of well-wishers to look forward to. They are going to run for this reason. This race is now the culmination of years of knowing that the battle is just showing up and doing what you are told.
When all the runners are in their starting blocks and their hands are behind the starting line the track official then says, “Ready”. After a long moment of reasoned judgment the official says “Set”. The runners come up to set position. Then the race official shoots the starting gun. The eight men come out of their starting blocks and run down the track as fast as their unfocused discipline has trained them.
At the finish line everyone is a Finisher, even those who left the race due to being out of breath. There are hand-shakes and kudos all around for having shown up for such an event.
At the awards ceremony all the runners receive medals and congratulations. Thousands have come to watch a race between runners who have shown up for a race where the outcome was predetermined to be fair – fair as defined by the few judges of superior intellect and of unquestioned virtue.
Later, all the runners return home and rest for another day of showing up.
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Filed under Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with egalitarianism, equal outcomes, fairness, family values, James Harrison, James Harrison Instagram, meritocracy, Olympics