Editor:
I wish to lend gentle counseling to the ignorant musings of Richard Feit and his thoughts on psychology. One only need to survey a limited analysis of history to recognize the malicious intent of psychology and its masters within the halls of power.
Allow me to clarify: Psychology, while certainly rooted in the ideological shift of the Enlightenment, is more appropriately centered in the dramatic social changes of the 19th through 20th century Industrial Revolution.
With the transition of the labor base from agrarian to urban manufacturing, a false science was required to condition the American populace to understand the “beauty” and “righteousness” of the wage system.
Within this context, psychology was born with the express purpose of addressing the worker’s discontent. More clearly, millions of former farmers were forced into factories and had to become conditioned to accept 18-hour days and the possibility of having their limbs torn off. In essence, psychology acts as an ideology for slaves, whereas the focus shifts from a social context of discontent to an individual one.
Political and economic hierarchy demands that individuals see their discontent as rooted in the self and not unjust and unhealthy social constructs. (How else could such systems persist?)
What has been the result? Americans are the most sedated people on the planet. We have a pharmaceutical industry that wields more power than the weapons industry. We have children being prescribed dangerous psychotropic drugs which lead to suicidal and homicidal ideation.
We have a legal system which has centered psychology along side justice and sentences individuals to therapy (domestic violence, drug and alcohol offenses).
The bible of psychology, the DSM, labels fear of public speaking as a mental disorder. Further contextual clarification can be found in Michael Foucault’s History of Madness.
Josh Mason
Cortez
