Who do you mean by this? Those who are outraged at Kaepernick’s actions or those who conceal their guilty conscience by being too fervent in their protests? — Brett

The former. I don't know enough to tell a genuine white supporter from a fake one.

I wasn't there, but unenlightened maybe able to provide us more insight into what may have lead to such lack of historical evidence. — boethius

I'm not sure. There was something of a cultural revolution, but there was a great deal of naivety. The suit thing actually happened, and I think it shows that for most people, it wasn't a revolution but a fashion, a temporary lifestyle thing. But some things did survive. The whole-food movement, the ecology movement the anti psychiatry movement, the interest in Eastern philosophy and religion, and indeed the sexual revolution. The Vietnam war was stopped. But when you attack the guns with flowers, you've got to mean business and be prepared for shooting. A lot changed at that time, and some of it was destroyed or subverted by reactionary forces (Thatcherism in the UK), and some just became the way things are.

My claim to fame is that I used to make wholemeal bread for the people who set up [url=http:// https://www.suma.coop]Suma[/url], because they were born out of an informal food cooperative connected with the Free School and alternative newspaper that were part of the Leeds alternative scene in the seventies. Perhaps the answer to your question is that where a revolution succeeds, it becomes the norm and so invisible.

Ken Kesey was the American hippie of magic bus fame who wrote One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, which we were all reading along with Laing, and that contributed to considerable reform of psychiatric treatment, including the ending of lobotomies and a vast reduction in electro-shock, which was used as a punishment more than as a treatment. It's hard to even conceive that a standard treatment for mental illness (for difficult cases) at the time was basically to stick a spoon in the patient's head and give his brain a good stir.

But my concern with bringing all that up was to illustrate how a concern with student unrest was prioritised over academic excellence at the the time, and how the curriculum was politically censored and liberal and critical views suppressed. This illustrates how academia can be and is distorted by political considerations. It is obvious since both universities and students are funded out of taxation, the government exercises a deal of influence, whereas students exercise very little. Arguably, modern students have a bit more power since they have become 'customers'. But arguably too, this is an illusion. But apart from the talk that money does on behalf of the government, there is legislation that controls what counts as a university, and what they can and must do to provide an education that counts for a degree. Indeed the whole curriculum is now measured in a ghastly points system derived from the Open University, where each module counts so many points at this or that level, and so many points get you a degree. A national system about as independent of state control as something that is totally controlled by the state. Fortunately, this is all quite OK, because the UK is a totally legitimate state. We hope.

I'm trying and failing to stay away from mentioning the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes, Colonialist, Empire builder and benefactor to Oxford University. That place of independent scholarship that does not influence the government, any more than the government influences it.

Well I say what I would do if I were a white American, but it's not the law. If others want to make another gesture, of solidarity, I think I can respect that too. What I cannot respect is claiming to be outraged and insulted - that gesture symbolises a guilty conscience and a complete lack of respect for humanity.

You have to contextualise a new symbolic gesture within the gestural tradition.

What does it mean to stand for the national anthem? One stands to attention to show that one is attending to the meaning of the symbolic song, and stands ready to serve the nation.

So one breaks that tradition as a black man by kneeling, to show that one is not on an equal footing, but shows a subservient service. In this way it shows respect but also inequality. The appropriate white gesture is to stand next to the kneeling black man, awarding him the truth and honour of his inequality, and when the anthem ends, to offer him a hand up.

Respect.

I'm still not sure I'm seeing the benefit of the 'responsibility' thing here though. — Isaac

I don't see it as a benefit at all, but as a fact. I have almost no influence on anyone because I haven't ever lived for power or money. But I always vote, for example, because it is irresponsible not to vote, even though it is vanishingly unlikely that my one vote will change the result. The guy I vote for usually loses, but the vote is counted and it counts, because he loses by one less vote and that makes him a bit more electable next time.
Everything is important, everything matters for its own sake and as a part of the whole. To look for benefits is to be a consequentialist and consequentialism fails because consequences are infinite and unknowable. I do a lot of things in a lifetime, and who knows, one post I make here just might change the mind of the next crazy tyrant, or persuade someone to stop beating their wife, or whatever. Or it might in a thousand years become incorporated into a book of aphorisms that guide a million people. So I try to get it right.

I think we are each responsible the way each neurone is responsible for the functioning of the brain. Our relations and our communication create the social world, and that is why it is so important to pay attention to relationships and speak the truth. They are the fabric of our life.

There's only any point in assigning myself responsibility for those things I can properly affect...and the actions of psychologists acting on the instruction of the Chinese government ain't one of those things. — Isaac

Yes I think I agree. One cannot address every issue that one becomes aware of, so If you haven't spoken or acted on the Chinese issue, well neither have I. I raise issues here, and in the past I have tried to support people with mental health issues in various ways, and point people towards what i believed to be sympathetic help. But I'm not a very good internationalist - tant pis. But perhaps somewhere in the BPS, if there isn't, there should be, a department of international relations that makes relationships with its foreign counterparts, and if the occasion arises remonstrates publicly with them. No?

That's not the history I learned, not even remotely close; in fact terribly wrong.. Kindly, support your claim with evidence. — tim wood

Yes it is wrong, and I won't defend it. The morality was not that straightforward at the time, and the extermination camps became a justification after the event. But aside from the strict truth of the example, there is the principle that I sought to illustrate, and if that is acceptable, my poor history is relatively unimportant to this discussion.

But I dont think thats the objective of the current riots. Im not afraid to say, I dont beleive they are being governed by some super fantastic ideal of racial equity, it all sounds very pretty the first time, and after that, it just begins to sound exactly all the other bids for power by every other similar movement since forever. — ernestm

Yes. It reminds me most of the suffragettes. There was, and still probably is, a dispute between the peaceful, legal suffragists, and the militant property damaging suffragettes. My feeling is that nothing will change unless you make such a bloody nuisance of yourself that giving in becomes easier than resisting. Literally bloody, whether the blood of the demonstrator or of riot control.

That complicity is limited though. Whilst I rarely work with children, my wife has been a child psychologist for nearly 20 years and in our experience of the field, the overwhelming majority of psychologists are opposed to this kind of treatment, many are opposed even to the very existence of the drug. The BPS has very strong guidance on medicating behavioural problems. Unless you think psychology ought to have its own police force I don't see how you can hold us accountable for a failure to comply with the guidance. — Isaac

I'm glad to hear this. But I do think the BPS should police the practice of its members, as the BMA should, as for that matter the RIBA should, come to that. It's implied by that 'we'. A football club is responsible for the behaviour of the team and the fans.

One of the questions I'm not clear about in relation to the op is how to tell a legitimate state from an illegitimate one. One cannot inspect the parents' marriage certificate. So I tend to at least question, or not take for granted, the legitimacy of every state. Fair elections, free press, educated population, these help but may not guarantee...

And then there is the dispute about responsibility. Am I responsible for psychology as a psychology graduate? I rather think I am, even though I do not practice, and never have, my education makes me responsible in the same way that education and a democratic system makes the people responsible for the government. It's a broad view, that if I deny responsibility for anything I know about, I am irresponsible unless I have done what I reasonably can about it. That's probably controversial...

Thats not what Black Lives Matter says. It has made clear, ONE more instance would be enough to trigger complete destructoin of the entire nation. On the other hand, Black Lives Matter has been particularly disintrested in protecting the lives of blacks who will be murdered, at the rate of about one a day for two years, without police intervention to stop it, and I regret to say, given what it has said and done, it appears to me to be a terrorist organization now that really could not care that much who dies, black or not. — ernestm

This is difficult, and I urge you to caution. It was before my time that Britain declared war on Germany and plunged the world into a conflagration that cost millions of lives, mainly on the basis that "Jewish lives matter." I don't want to say that Churchill was a terrorist, or did not care about the lives to be lost. Did the war save Jewish lives or cost Jewish lives? I don't think it is knowable; we only have the war happening, not the alternative. Not to mention all the other lives.

But that is not the calculation that should be made even if it could be made. Ask first what is right. Consequentialism fails because consequences are both infinite and unknowable. So I resort to principles and virtues- truth, fairness, and if the police are corrupt and there is no justice then no life has much value. Putting up with that to stay safe-ish is not morality, but expediency.

It is a judgement whether or not to disband a police force. I would hope that some other policing arrangement would be made, and it could be that reform could be managed without disbanding, I cannot judge from here. But at least allow that those protesting are not trying to kill black people or promote anarchy but to make a safer fairer place for everyone, even if there is a high price to be paid.

I find it hard to beleive the abuse could amount to anywhere near equivalent to a murder a day. — ernestm

It's not a great advert for policing though is it? "Safer than the Mafia!"

I reject the idea that simply because psychiatrists are psychologist this somehow implicates the whole of psychology in their actions. — Isaac

I think our disagreement here has become a matter of degree. Obviously psychology is diverse, and anything I say about it is a generalisation rather than a universalisation.

It's actually the institutions outside of academia (schools and the NHS) which now produce the most force to overmedicate. — Isaac

I agree. Crudely, the chemical cosh is cheaper than real care or real justice. But hang on. This is still an indictment of psychiatry. If it bases its treatments on the requirements of schools for order in the classroom, then its claim to validity is lost. This is exactly what the complaint of the thread is, children are drugged for the convenience of the school, and we call it ADHD. Not treatment of illness but social control.

What do you think? — ernestm

I'm a follower of a facebook page that puts up art by women artists through history, and the person who runs it has been banned many times for posting nakedness. Facebook is shit.

Looking at the article, and with a large caveat of ignorance, I'd say you have a completely valid point, and there is nothing inherently racist in what you say.
But, from what I read there is a big problem in Baltimore. Let me say that I do not absolve black people of all responsibility on the grounds of racism. I am an antiracist, and that means I believe black people are just as capable of being assholes as anyone else. And in general, I am in favour of assholes being dealt with by the police.

But we have deaths in custody, we have convictions for corruption, we have suggestions of unlawful use of police power. I assume, (correct me if I'm wrong,) we are dealing with a predominately white police and a predominately black community. And a long history of antagonism. In such a case, it is almost inevitable that there is an identification on all sides of white corrupt police v. black criminals. I pity the cops here, because whatever they do including if they do nothing, it looks racist. and doing nothing probably costs more black lives, than are lost in the back of police vans.

"If they don't like us killing them, we'll leave them kill each other."

Said probably no one, but it's what has been done. But I don't think it would be right to lay the blame for this at the door of those who protest the police injustices aforementioned. The black community needs policing; every community needs policing. And every community needs policing it can trust and assent to. The best way to do that is not to start from here, as the Irish proverbially say. But failing that, police corruption and violent prejudice needs to be called out and rooted out, black officers need to be predominant in black neighbourhoods, segregation need to be tackled, and drug dealers need to be harassed. We need justice and we need it to be fair and proportionate.

None of this supports or illustrates the point being made by boethius, which is that psychology, as a whole, serves some state instituted function which other institutions (like philosophy) do not. — Isaac

I don't speak for boethius, obviously. But there is no question that psychiatry exercises a coercive function by incarceration and forcible treatment that cannot be divorced from the state as it is incorporated of necessity into the justice system. And that was the main criticism of Szasz, as you know, which has not been addressed anywhere as far as I am aware.

Academic philosophy may have influence, but it does not have the same direct involvement with the affairs of the state. Laing should have been on my abnormal psychology reading list and wasn't, and psychiatrists are psychologists as well as medics, so the connections are direct. Philosophy degrees do not contribute to anyone's right to incarcerate or forcibly treat anyone.

I am truly sorry for you, I think you have been traumatised by some really bad experiences, and I don't at all mean to insult or belittle you. We are not going to reach agreement through further discussion, so I apologise if I have added insult to injury, and wish you well. I think I'll leave it there.

The removal of draconian anti-homosexual laws and treatments involved psychiatrists like Laing and Szasz, philosophers like Foucault, psychologists like Cooper and Antonucci. It also involved a lot of ordinary activists, lawyers, doctors and journalists. — Isaac

It certainly did. And there was and still is a great deal of resistance, and denigration of Laing and Szasz, indeed they are more heroes of anti-psychiatry as you no doubt know. And at the time, they were not on the course of psychology I studied, but very much on the student controlled revolutionary alternative course. So the academic institution of psychology that I was part of at the time, was very much "involved to prevent the breaking down of an old structure to build a new one." And was doing it by dismissing those very people you cite now as being at the forefront of the change that you now want to claim credit for in the name of academic psychology.

That is a sad story. But not a response to what I posted. It explains but does not justify your personal racist attitudes, but does not explain the discrimination in the justice system of another country at every stage from stop, to arrest, to charging to conviction rate to sentencing and nor does Sapir/Whorf even if true. Racial prejudice throughout the justice system is the only possible explanation.

the problem is, such statistics can also be interpreted to substantiate the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, because, African Americans simply have a different concept of justice than Caucasians due to their linguistic heritage, which does not define boundaries of property ownership like Caucasians naturally do, for example. — ernestm

Firstly, the black community in the UK is not African American but overwhelmingly either African or Afro Caribbean. Secondly, this is not the report of black people but of the UK Judiciary, about how black people and other minorities are treated by the justice system. What the people stopped and searched, arrested, and sentenced,, disproportionately think or are incapable of thinking has no bearing on the matter at all.

That wasn't the hypothesis I came to. :grin:

Criminal justice
63. Evidence suggests that an individual’s ethnic group is not significantly associated with an increased or a reduced likelihood of offending.61 However, at every point in the criminal justice system certain minority groups experience harsher outcomes.
64. Black people make up between 2–3% of the population. However, they constituted 15% of those who were stopped by the police in 2008/09. Other ethnic minority groups were also over‐represented.
65. Further, between 2006/07 and 2009/10, the proportions of Stop and Searches for the Black and Asian groups increased (from 22% and 9% to 33% and 16% respectively).62
66. Gypsies and Travellers have experienced blanket raids of their sites on the basis of unfounded allegations by local communities. The police have power to remove and destroy vehicles if directions are not followed and this means that most leave voluntarily when served notice, but then lack access to legal processes to challenge the direction. This means that Travellers are often forced out of their homes by default.63
67. Across England and Wales as a whole, there were more arrests per 1,000 population for each of the Black and Minority Ethnic groups (except for Chinese or Other) than for people of White ethnicity. There were 84 arrests per 1,000 population for the Black group compared with 26 arrests per 1,000 population for the White group, 29 per 1,000 for the Asian group and 59 per 1,000 for those from a Mixed ethnic background. Per 1,000 population, Black persons were arrested 3.3 times more than White people, and those from the Mixed ethnic group 2.3 times more.64 This data is best understood as evidence of whom the police suspect of committing crime. 65
68. A higher percentage of those in the Black and Minority Ethnic groups were sentenced to immediate custody for indictable offences than in the White group in 2010 (White 23%, Black 27%, Asian 29% and Other 42%). In 2010, the highest average custodial sentence length for those given determinate sentences for indictable offences was recorded for the Black ethnic group, at 20.8 months, followed by the Asian and Other groups with averages of 19.9 months and 19.7 months respectively. The lowest average custodial sentence length was recorded for the White group at 14.9 months.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/judicial-college/ETBB_Ethnicity__finalised_.pdf

Look what that language gone and done; look what them antiracists made happen.

I'm not sure why... — Benkei

Have little think about that, and you might come up with a hypothesis.

This current 'black vs. white' nonsense does nothing but create racial tensions where there were none. — Tzeentch

Right. So racism isn't created by a legacy of a culture of colour-based slavery justified by a racist narrative of white superiority, followed by years of jim crow laws Klan terrorism and lynching, endless propaganda and jokes against black people and so on. It's created by anti racists. As long as we're clear. I rather disagree.

All I can say is that the journey towards truth is a mentally hazardous journey. We grow up given a mental structure, to toss it aside, or any foundational part of it, and build a new structure is the definition of a mental breakdown. The role of psychology in society is to scare you away from doing any such breaking down; the role of philosophy is to invite you to see clearer what is worth tossing aside and what is worth building upon. — boethius

I'd like to illustrate this a little. Alan Turing was a homosexual who was arrested and faced with the choice of chemical castration or imprisonment. He chose the former, and soon after committed suicide. Whether that was recorded as a cure or not I don't know. In this case it was not a matter of tossing anything aside, but of being unable to conform to the standard of sanity.

It is hard to imagine if you have not experienced it, but the depth of opprobrium of being called "a queer" at the school I went to was far far worse than being called mad; far worse than being called a traitor; it demanded a fight immediately and absolutely. It was illegal of course - Gross Indecency and Buggery were the crimes, I was on the jury once for a trial (the case collapsed, because the vital witness was too ashamed to give evidence). This attitude survives somewhat in the prison population, where 'nonce' as a term of abuse has slowly and incompletely migrated from homosexual to pedophile as the law and the obsessions of the public have changed. Some people do not still distinguish.

So it was in a sense a kindness for psychiatrists to maintain that these people could not help themselves, and needed help, not punishment. Psychiatry becomes an agent of the state on one side, but an agent of mitigation of the state on the other.

We still have places of incarceration for the criminally insane, where the psychiatrists are agents of the state in the same way that prison officers are.

So it would be interesting to me at least to look at some accounts of the pioneers of Gay liberation, who must have gone through this 'mental breakdown' of being unable to sustain their 'proper' self-disgust.

But there must have already been, as it were, a semi-secret counter-culture, of meeting places and signs, and indeed there was an argot, that was used in Beyond our Ken and Round the Horn (classic radio comedies from the 50's & 60's. And of course show business was a hotbed of 'luvvies' and still is, (because you had to act normal to survive).

Not really.

Somehow racism is poorly hidden, and those racists I have met in my life often had no problem telling me so. — Tzeentch

How do you know that? Do just assume that all racists are proud enough to be open about it? It seems to me that being racist is something one might want to hide because it can get you into trouble, rather like homosexuality can in some places. It would get you banned from this site for instance. It would get a policeman sacked I'm fairly sure, in the UK.

It would be rather odd, don't you think given how very very few people declare racism that is is such an issue in society. Why would Morgan Freeman think it is worth our all changing our language for the sake of a few nutters?

An event occurs, and the immediate conclusion is that it must be because of racism. What if the skin colors of those involved had nothing to do with any of it?

Media loves to frame things to fit a narrative. Media loves outrage, because outrage draws attention. It's all about language, because it so deviously manipulates us. — Tzeentch

What would convince you? Not media, obviously. Statistics? Is there something short of a declaration of white supremacy?

It's not about the language.

https://leejasper.blogspot.com/2020/06/lambeth-metropolitan-police-officers.html?fbclid=IwAR0OTXa5hScnS4qxVsyq2wfBrFS-6OYCgFV592K9f4xCLZsuaxsmOgDa44c

And nothing in this story is part of the human condition, nothing is inevitable. We do not need to behave like this, we do not need to treat each other like this. and learning a different way of speaking will not sort it.

So yes, I'm trying to make you. The fact that it's not working is a reflection on you, not me. — Isaac

Shit man, get over yourself. You sound like a Victorian schoolmarm. You are just a joke now.

yes, you absolutely do have to prove every fucking word. — Isaac

Make me, big boy.

Are you going to argue the law governs dining etiquette because you're not allowed to stab your guests with a fork? — Echarmion

Yes, of course. The law against murder or assault governs the whole of your life, and the whole of the country. You can of course do whatever you like, if that is allowed.

The next necessary stage of the process is to establish if that's had any effect and to what extent. — Isaac

Sorry, I missed that statute. You are not the thought police, and you are not the boss of me. There are rumours of an old boy's network. They don't advertise. I don't have to prove every fucking word, and you don't have to take any notice.

Please tell me about the law that regulates what you talk about with your significant other at the dinner table. — Echarmion

Sure. It's the riot act. If I talk too loud, the police will be called to the restaurant. There are things you can do that the state allows. And the law specifies what is allowed and what is not allowed. There is nothing that is not either legal or illegal. So at home, as long as I am not disturbing the neighbours and as long as my talk does not constitute coercive control, or blackmail, or sedition, or incitement to violence or terrorism, I can say whatever I like. In other words, what i can and cannot say to my wife over the dinner table is enshrined in law. Got it?

We know about historical uses of mental health (Orwellian usage) diagnoses and incarceration and forcible treatment by states, that we now think illegitimate, even if we think the state that used them otherwise legitimate. Here is an incomplete catalogue

It's patently absurd to claim that the law governs every aspect of social life. — Echarmion

You are quite right. there is no state control over what we write here, for example, except of course in those states that block sites like this. And other states that would block it or otherwise sanction us if they didn't like what was being said. But I seem to recall not very long ago the state, or a state, that some of us might want to call legitimate, putting pressure on Facebook, to regulate content. Patently absurd.

Sure. If you wonder if you are rationalising your actions, and you decide you are not, you have to wonder whether you are just rationalising in your decision. and if you decide you are rationalising then you cannot trust that result either.

Two psychologists meet in town.
A. Hello, how am I?
B You're fine. How am I?

A feeble joke, but it illustrates that introspection (examining oneself) is a form of alienation (dividing oneself) in this case the wonderer separates himself from the rationaliser. But of course this only happens in the imagination. The sad truth is that the wonderer is rationalising in the very act of examination. Gosh that sound very complicated, but it isn't really. One has divided into the observer and the observed. but one cannot do this; actually they are the same thing.

It is as though one were to look in the mirror, and try to work out what one was thinking from the expression on one's face. Try it some time, you might be good at it. But you might do better to use a friend instead of a mirror.

to start throwing around accusations that some specific institution is a particularly pernicious example of this tendency purely on the grounds that it might be. — Isaac

OK. I' try not to do that. Thanks for the heads up.

Some institutions are banned by the state.Others are heavily regulated, and some heavily influence the functioning of the state. Life is annoyingly complicated. In the latter category, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge deserve a mention. there are even more of their graduates in government than there are in comedy

You're equating the state and the entirety of society. — Echarmion

Yes, more or less. The state guarantees the law, and the law governs every aspect of social life from the voltage of electricity supplies to the allowable chastisement of your children.

I don't know exactly if this ties in with the op, but it seems as though there is a tension built in here. We have been through a century or so of unparalleled change in human understanding and power over the material world. Life in the West at least has totally transformed. But institutions, by hypothesis, have not.

HSBC for example, is a colonial artefact. The voting system dates back to a time of mass illiteracy and no mass or electronic communication. Mark an X in the box. You will think of examples of archaic practices.

One of the institutions is the marketplace and the economy. Property law and taxes are designed for a world that is not automated. The limitations of speed of transport and communication set constrictions in trade that have now gone. But the banks, the foundational arbiters of the economy were largely founded to support the Slave Trade, and are substantially the same institutions today.

The abolition of slavery was the last major change to property law, if one excepts the allowing of married women to own property in their own right, and the massive extension of territorial waters and sale of mineral and fishing rights therein. (I may have missed something, correct me if so).

So the institutions of slavery remain though slavery is gone. So apart from the fact that the British government has only recently finished paying off the loans it took out to compensate the slave owners (and of course since they are not immortal, their inheritors) for their losses, one might wonder how the banking system we inherit works for, say the inheritors of the North Wales slate quarry workers, whose industry was developed by the slave owning families into a massive and highly exploitative industry.

We’re not totally stupid — Brett

Glad to hear it.

We are all agents of change, we can’t help it. — Brett

Yes. Individuals are agents of change, but institutions are agents of stability. (approximately)

So I applied to go to uni in 1969, the year after the students had occupied the chancellors' building' staged sit-ins and started their own courses. Amongst other things these included studies of various revolutionary thinkers that were not on any of the courses. Marcuse, Fanon, Friere, Laing, and others. I wasn't really aware of it at the time, but I went to a rather strange interview that I later realised was entirely focussed on establishing whether or not I was going to be 'difficult'. I was a naive and ignorant wimp, so I got an unconditional offer.

More useless anecdote, I fear, but at least its British, damnit. But one does not need a conspiracy theory. The university admin had had a lot of difficulty and the place had become associated with trouble. So they were concerned to forestal any continuation of the trouble by selecting out the trouble makers. Change is hard work, uncomfortable and uncertain. we don't like it. But even before one's first degree, never mind the PhD, 'the state' or as i tend to call it 'the status quo' selects and filters. As of course it must in the situation of educational scarcity that has been set up. Most of us have to be ignorant experiment fodder for the elite.

Well not hatred particularly, and of course there is helpful advice out there. "don't eat the yellow snow.' I exaggerated for entertainment. but there is a philosophical problem with self help that the helper has the same problem at the one to be helped. Have you tried other-help at all? You know counselling, psycho-analysis, a loving partner. I think relationships have more potential for transformation.