Giuseppe-Joe
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Define a 'proper socialist'? To err is to be human, to be perfect ,divine. The only plaster saints I have encountered are precisely that, plaster saints, not flesh and blood human beings. I think there is a danger of falling for the cult of personality, the great man theory of history. To quote Oliver Cromwell, it is important to take a measured view of personalities 'warts and all.' We are all a complex mass of contradictions. The important thing is to be awre of it.
I have just listened to the Radio Programme Marxism Today on I Player.It is supposedly part of a series called Analysis. The latter is conspicuous by its absence. It was vacuous, trivial and totally wrong! How the hell it got by the editor is a question that needs addressing. There was no attempt at defining terms.It consisted of opinions and assertions. Moreover, the political bias was painfully obvious.BBC:Bullied By Conservatives. Impartiality?Please don't make me laugh! If a listener bereft of knowledge of Marx or Marxism listened to this garbage s/he would end up knowing even less.Bad,Bad,Bad!The presenter is allegedly a journalist.For The Beano?In comparison the Bettany Hughes programme has an intellectual pedigree and she has done her homework.Moreover, she makes a fair attempt at getting to the essence of Marx in a restricted time slot.Her presentation of Nietzsche is also creditable. Both act as an incentive to explore further.I'm conjecturing that given the revived interest in Marx and thinkers influenced by Marx, the Neo Liberal elites are getting nervous.I've noticed in Waterstones freshly minted copies of Popper's The Open Society And Its Enemies and Hayek's The Road To Serfdom.An attempt at balance?Please, I'll die laughing.It's a counter attack!
I encountered Laing in print in 1974(the same year when I first read The Socialist Standard)when I was at Newcastle Polytechnic. I worked my way through the Divided Self ,Self and Others and The Politics of Experience.Along with Eric Hobsbawm he had an enormous impact on the way I viewed the world. I also recall listening to Laing being interviewed by Anthony Clair on the Radio Programme 'The Psychiatrists Chair' in the 1980s. Laing came across as both humane ,humourous and self critical.He appeared to have shifted his position on the use of medication in Psychiatry and admitted that he was not a plaster saint by any means.Whilst there apears to be a genetic component to schizophrenia Laing should be lauded in his attempts to humanise psychiatry, to give patients a voice.As a social worker I have experienced the dominance of the medical model and the arrogance of so called professionals.A lot of so called medical opinion is often class prejudice disguised by medical terminology. Laing(along with another significant figure of The 1960s Harold Wilson)is undergoing a re-evaluation.
I think the words of James Connolly seconds before his execution encapsulate both positions:'I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty'.His utterence was in response to Father Aloysius, a Capuchian monk ,who asked Connolly 'Will you say a prayer for those men who are about to shoot you?'(Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916(p.635)by Peter De Rosa 1990). One does not have to believe in a deity to empathise with the sentiment. Nonetheless the Rising is a good example of the irony of history: a revolution that ushers in what was in effect a theocracy.
With regard to sociopathy/psychopathy vis-a-vis capitalism I recommend that you have a look at The Corporation- The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power written by Joel Bakan a Canadian Law Professor. The Corporation is akin to a psychopath in that its '…legallydefined mandate is to pursue,relentlessly and without exception, its own self interest, regardlessof the often harmful consequences it might cause to others.' Sounds familiar
