If you are a regular visitor to this blog, I hope you understand that I'm not serious. This is not a parody account either, so what is it I'm trying to convey with this title? The message is that no problem exists in isolation. A problem being something which is perceived by an individual, or group of people, as such. Now, as you likely knew, the good old doctor had his practice in decadent Vienna, where he came across patients struggling with 'mental conditions', and he decided to dig deeper to find the 'root causes'.
At a more general level this was the area of expertise of philosophers throughout the ages. And none of them presented the universal solution to all of our problems. Many added new ones others had never thought of. Same thing happened when Freud, and others, began to look into our 'souls' for cures to the mental problems we were wrestling with. Both the church and public superstition never bothered. It was 'divine intervention', and if a madman became a burden, you locked him up, or killed him. Problem solved.
Freud's excavations produced fascinating theories about the structure of our deepest drives, below the level of conscious thought. A complex mix of natural instincts, and conditioning, overpowering our reason in some cases. His approach laid the foundation for scientific research, away from quick fixes. On the Dutch language part of this blog I've written about the subsequent transformation of his purely scientific, fragile approach to the impatient application of what he found by 'behaviourists', some of his family members among them, 'monetising' what he found through designs embraced by governments and the pharmaceutical companies, as well as a large procession of 'therapists'. And why this caused more problems than it solved. In particular that branch of Edward Bernays, Freuds nephew, with a focus on propaganda. Eagerly embraced by the Nazi's. And a fixture in the media these days, with 'influencers' everywhere.
Yet, I myself embrace the work of Sigmund Freud as true science, and extremely insightful and important, in particular when combined with modern neuroscience. Same thing with the work of philosophers throughout the ages, and truly smart people with inspiring discoveries today. And in the same vein I'm eager to learn from 'AI'. None of these individuals, nor that 'machine intellect', is to blame for the bad choices made on the back of knowledge accumulated. Again and again we *abuse* science, and incomplete information, to act in ways which wreck our chances to improve our lives, and save humanity from destroying itself. We 'solve' problems by creating new ones, often much larger. In part, because there is 'good money' in first creating lots of problems, and then set up the company to 'solve' them. Same with governments. It is sick, or cynical, or both, but we go there again and again. Why?
'The Devil made me do it!'
No he didn't. You made choices for which you are responsible. It could be that you are not able to carry that responsibility, because your upbringing and education did not prepare you for it. Or you accepted responsibility without understanding the problems, let alone that you knew how to solve them. Or you saw the problem, but not what had created it. No problem exists in isolation. A flat tire maybe. Although even that minor mishap has the potential of creating a host of problems. Ask any racing car driver. Science unearthing how moral conditioning interfered with strong 'carnal' desires to produce 'deviant' behaviour and unsound suppression, Freud's specialty, should have been taken at face value. Not as a clear signal that moral conditioning is a bad thing, and that there is good money to be made wrecking sane people.
In a previous article I described how scientists discovered that mice living in a state of abundance from birth, first grew their community rapidly, but after reaching an invisible ceiling, fell back into decline. I added that we couldn't know why, because who knows what these mice were thinking? But the behaviour observed in these mice became increasingly destructive, which was an alarming observation. Why? Because we may think we are smart, and something like that would not happen to us, but I'm afraid we are too smart for our own good, using our intellect to design mass-extinction tools and strategies, which are not a solution, but part of the problem. Leaving 'harebrained' leaders, or certified madmen, to figure out which human beings we need to kill first. Watching the scenes unfold on the television, in our news media, and on social media, while serving as props, as 'bulk', or senseless supporters and haters.
The excuses we come up with to 'explain' why we kill, destroy, maim, sanction, starve, and design even better weapons and ways to accomplish the destruction of opponents are mind-boggling. Desensitised we watch as our 'friends' throw a Palestinian teen off the roof of a high building. We absorb the news that thousands of underage girls have been 'trafficked' to serve a 'Network' of powerful people, at best focussing on the ones we don't like to put the blame on them exclusively, while protecting others, and the women who recruited and trained those girls, refusing to accept that the entire 'Film-' and 'Music-Industry', the 'Media', and huge numbers of leading corporate tycoons, and established politicians, as well as authorities we should be able to rely on to keep us safe, are involved, corrupted, or even the 'brains' behind it.
Now let me go back to the opening statements in this article, where I posited that Freud found his patients in decadent Vienna, one of the two centers of power in the Austrian-Hungarian empire of the Nineteenth century. There is no 'definitive' definition of 'decadent', but we intuitively 'know' what is meant when people use that word. In Dutch that very same word exists, with no less than ten definitions, all of them descriptions really, but signalling that it is the mark of decay because it is 'too much'. No limits. No restraint. Vulgar abuse of valuable resources. No integrity. No consideration. Scandalous. Yet, if you subscribe to the idea that creating wealth is a good thing, and that Adam Smith's thoughts on how to make nations wealthy are admirable, and deserve respect, you are left with a problem. The problem of avoiding decay.
The key, if you ask me, is not in finding quantifiable limits, but in our upbringing and education. In finding a binding contract within society producing responsible people, capable of carrying the weight of their own decisions. Capable of reflection. Capable of commitment to common Laws, not flexible Rules, respectful of their fellow human beings, and the boundaries of their area of responsibility. Rejecting abuse of power, while working towards compromises to float all boats, 'no child left behind'. And not as a cynical political slogan while the 'Network' you are part of is trafficking minors, harvesting organs, thinking of how to improve deadly viruses, and find excuses to provoke wars, or choking communities with a different set of values economically.
To conclude this article, you are probably left wondering why I suggested that it was all Sigmund Freud's fault. This morning I read a post on 'X', which blamed an influential person for saying the same thing about Trump as the man arrested for trying to kill him over the weekend. Namely that Trump was a rapist and a pedophile. I'm not the judge or jury on that one, but a real judge convicted him of rape, and a friend of the family, close to Melania, herself being 'trafficked' from Brazil at age fourteen by her former husband, who recently arranged for her to be picked up by 'ICE', and sent back to Brazil as an illegal immigrant, to get custody over their son, threatened Melania with revealing 'all' about her and her 'pedophile' husband. Under no circumstances are these accusations an excuse to go out on a killing spree. But that former friend of the family should be invited to 'spill the beans', and put her money where her mouth is, so to say. Subsequently followed up by a thorough, impartial investigation into 'wrongdoing', with the accused being offered a fair chance to defend him- or herself.
The problem here is self-evident. This has been going on *way* too long, and to find qualified and responsible investigators within the system we created is next to impossible. And that system is not contained to the US, but it extends to the countries with all these leaders which came out on cue to condemn that teacher from California who made a fool of himself by turning himself into a spectacle as he raided that meeting, armed to the teeth. He provided them with a stage where they could solemnly pledge allegiance to 'democracy' and the 'rules', portraying themselves as humble servants of the people, even as they dump more billions into their wars, allow gangs in Ukraine to raid homes to find cannon-fodder for an unpopular war, and introduce cutbacks on welfare and desperately needed investments in crumbling infrastructure, pumping up the volume on expanding the Military Industrial Complex. And include a thoroughly corrupt country into the EU and NATO, while turning a blind eye on genocide and cynical plans to 'get the oil'.
Some 'elitist' people feel that what scientists like Freud find should be kept under wraps, because abuse of that knowledge could create the conditions we're are witnessing today. They set up 'secret societies' to handle these delicate issues with 'care'. Providing a pretty tough framework of norms and standards, tested and upheld, with serious punishment for transgressions, protecting the common people from being exposed to the consequences of irresponsible applications of what is known, but too dangerous to share. While I reject that impulse, it goes without saying that I recognise the problem of irresponsible use and abuse of sensitive knowledge by truly stupid individuals, whether elected or appointed. Not for the first time, I propose to limit the authority of people at the top of the food chain through a smart constitution, easy to understand and observe *Laws*, not rules, and every citizen equal before the Law. It is not an air-tight solution for the problems which are clearly threatening humanity, but it reduces the risk of some stupid fool pulling the plug, and taking all of us with him, or her. May have been something his or her parents said or did which led to that outcome, but I'm not interested, and in no mood to be forgiving.