I'm OK, You're A Moron

John Edwards, like most socialists, knows what's good for you. Everyone in your life has an opinion about what you should do. We all experience that. But what if those everyones, became a Someone with power to actually bend your life to their will? Imagine a bureaucrat deciding your fate for you own good, and, it goes without saying, but I'll say it, the greater good.

Well, it's happening in England. Pregnant women threatened with having their babies taken away based on what they might do. A potentially emotionally abusive mother will have her baby taken at birth. The mother is in a bind, of course. If she tells the social workers to take a leap, she may never see her baby. Shrinkwrapped says this process is inevitable:

There is a certain inevitability to such stories. After all, once the government decides what is best for its subjects, all in the name of benevolence and caring, it follows rather predictably that they will begin to intervene in order to ensure the outcomes of which they approve. Further, when the government pays for health care, they will naturally want to enforce adherence to those behaviors they imagine will minimize their financial exposure.

All of this emerges from the Mental Health Morass that has developed since Freud's initial principles have been misunderstood and misapplied in the name of Mental Health.

The troubling thing about this story is that the field of psychology is hardly a hard science. I know some will take issue with that statement. Parts and pieces of the profession are substantiated, but it's difficult to imagine, that a superficial visit from the social worker would net an understanding of the patient's mind. Shrinkwrapped says:

The primary misunderstanding of Freud and Psychoanalysis, a misunderstanding that continues to be propagated by the forces of Therapism, concerns the locus of responsibility for our behavior. Freud's greatest insight was that to a large extent our manifest behavior is the outcome of compromises among many impulses and inhibitions, most of them unconscious, which sum and move us to action. As such, the goal of Psychoanalysis has always been to make us more aware of our hitherto unconscious motivations so that we can take more responsibility for our behavior. Therapism does the exact opposite; it attempts to relieve us of responsibility by assigning motivation and blame to all sorts of agencies (parents, society, brain chemistry) which are by definition outside the realm of our moral agency.

It is a small step from such thinking to enabling and encouraging the government to tell people how to live, how to raise their children, and how to think. As Neuroscience enlarges our understanding of the biochemical and physiological underpinnings of behavior, those who have done so much to diminish moral responsibility will be in a powerful position to mandate proper thought. The dangers are real and growing.

And here is the dirty little secret at the heart of Therapism: Too many of those who press the Therapism agenda are unknowingly pursuing their own unconscious desires, for power, control, and a host of other hidden wishes. They imagine their motives are pure but the unconscious exists even within those who wish to help you "for your own good"

Be ware, the helpy helper, especially when he wants to be your next president.