Had he been reading this blog, Brendan O’Neill would have
found answers to some of his prayers. Most especially, he found have found some
analysis of the role that therapy might have played in Elliot Rodger’s
murderous rampage. And he would also have found an extensive, multi-year
analysis of the therapy culture.
O’Neill writes:
I think
Rodger's reported reliance on therapists from childhood through to adulthood
deserves more analysis than it has so far received, because it potentially
speaks to a dark side—a very dark side—of the modern therapy culture. There has
been a mad
dash to blame Rodger's actions on the misogynistic websites that he was known
to visit, with some claiming these sites warped his mind and made him
murderous. There has been far less focus on the therapy culture which by all
accounts, and according to his family and friends, was a far more longstanding
part of his life than his Internet habits.
Elaborating a point that I made yesterday, O’Neill explains that
Rodger might well have been suffering from inflated self-esteem:
For one
of the main, and most terrifying, achievements of the modern cult of therapy
has been to churn out a generation of people completely focused on the self and
in constant need of validation from others; a generation that thinks nothing of
spending hours examining and talking about their inner lives and who regard
their own self-esteem as sacrosanct, something which it is unacceptable for
anyone ever to dent or disrespect.
Could
Rodger's fury at the world for failing to flatter his self-image as a good,
civilized guy be a product of the therapy industry, of the therapy world's
cultivation of a new tyrannical form of narcissism where individuals demand
constant genuflection at the altar of their self-esteem?
Here is O’Neill’s analysis of the therapy culture:
Therapy
culture has created a new army of little gods made fearsomely angry by any
perceived insult against their self-esteem. It has generated groups of people
who, like something out of the Old Testament, think nothing of squishing things
that offend them or hurt their sense of self-worth. It has made a whole new
anti-social generation whose desire to protect themselves from emotional harm
overrides the older human instinct to engage with other people and be tolerant
of their differences. When Rodger says "I am a living god," he is
speaking, not from any kind of wacky religious script, but from the mainstream
bible of therapy. The cult of therapy convinces individuals they are gods and
that their self-esteem is a gospel that must not be blasphemed against.
While we are talking about Elliot Rodger, we can also turn
to Ross Douthat’s comments in his New York Times column today.
Yesterday, I essayed to show how Freudian treatment might
have helped produce the mindset that told Rodger that sexlessness was a fate
worse than death and murder. The actions that constitute the Oedipus complex, being incest and patricide, are depraved and violent.
Perhaps it was a bit of a stretch, but clearly,
Rodger’s multi-year work in therapy did not help him. Talk therapy was not
suited to someone who was suffering from a psychosis, not a neurosis, a
depression or a personality disorder.
For Douthat, however, the culprit is Hefnerism, that is the
Playboy Philosophy of Hugh Hefner.
In Douthat’s words:
The
culture’s attitude is Hefnerism, basically, if less baldly chauvinistic than
the original Playboy philosophy. Sexual fulfillment is treated as the source and
summit of a life well lived, the thing without which nobody (from a carefree
college student to a Cialis-taking senior) can be truly happy, enviable or
free.
Meanwhile,
social alternatives to sexual partnerships are disfavored or in decline:
Virginity is for weirdos and losers, celibate life is either a form of
unhealthy repression or a smoke screen for deviancy, the kind of intense
friendships celebrated by past civilizations are associated with closeted
homosexuality, and the steady shrinking of extended families has reduced many
people’s access to the familial forms of platonic intimacy.
Yet as
sex looms ever larger as an aspirational good, we also live in a society where more people are single and
likely to remain so than in any previous era. And since single people have, on average, a lot less sex than the
partnered and wedded, a growing number of Americans are statistically
guaranteed to feel that they’re not living up to the culture’s standard of
fulfillment, happiness and worth.
As much as I would like to second Douthat’s notion that the
Playboy Philosophy has defined the culture, the foundation for that peculiar
call to decadence was Freudian theory.
Freud did not say that sexual expression was either the path
to the good life or a sign of a good life. He said that sexual expression was
the royal road to good mental health.
Despite what some of his followers proclaim, Freud did
promote a freer and more open sex life for everyone. Yet, he defined the issue
in terms of sickness and health, as though sexual repression, failure to have
sexual experience, failure to talk about sex, failure to learn about sex from a
very early age… would make people mental ill. To some of his followers, bad sex
would also necessarily lead to bodily illness, too.
As much as we would love to give credit to Hugh Hefner, the
founding father of this peculiar rhetorical flourish was Sigmund Freud.
Clearly, the attitude permeates the culture. But, one
suspects strongly that Rodger learned it from a Freudian or neoFreudian
therapist.
3 comments:
It's ironic that O'Neill writes for Reason, a libertarian journal that admires the likes of Ayn Rand(who wasn't exactly known for her humility).
In FOUNTAINHEAD, an architect-as-superhero-visionary blows up an entire building complex because it compromised his perfect plan.
Libertarianism promotes the self, the individual, hedonism, pleasure, drugs, and gambling culture. If it makes you feel great, it's great. To be sure, libertarianism argues against doing harm to others, but do self-absorbed libertarians care about anything but themselves?
Liberatarianism also says that free markets will sort everything out, and we can all very happy.
Right!
It says even prostitution is great since it promotes freedom--even though it reduces humans to marketable commodities like meat at the supermarket. Some libertarians even argue that we should sell our organs.
'Reason' needs to examine itself.
The article by O'Neill makes some good sense. Yes, there's a problem with narcissism and therapy and all that. But the thing is most people who are narcissistic and/or undergo therapy don't go around killing people. Otherwise, Woody Allen and fellow NYers would be shooting up everyone.
Rodgers, due to his bi-racial identity and strange personality, can be characterized as anything: conservative, liberal, anti-male, anti-female, anti-white, anti-Asian, anti-whatever.
All sorts of people can project their own ideas onto him.
So, the Left says rightwing ideas made him do what he did. And the Right says leftwing ideas made him do what he did. Feminists blame his 'misogyny' while masculinists say he's the product of our feminized culture.
There's probably a degree of truth to all such statements.
But none explains why he decided to go all the way and kill people. Most misogynists don't kill. Most leftists and most rightists don't kill. Even most schizophrenics don't kill.
I think maybe the key to understanding Rodgers is something that might be called HDS or humor deficiency syndrome. If you knew nothing about his murder spree and watched his videos and read his 'manifesto', you'd think he was being half-funny. You'd think, sure, he had gripes against the world, but he was also mocking himself, laughing at himself as he called himself 'magnificent' and 'like a god'.
Such sense of humor has a way of defusing one's inner tensions. It's about lightening up, not taking oneself too seriously.
If you didn't know about his murderous rampage, you'd think his 'manifesto' or autobio was a kind of satire of narcissism.
But the creepy thing is Rodgers meant everything he wrote and said. He wasn't kidding, not even half-kidding or quarter-kidding. Without the ability to laugh at himself, he had no way of defusing his inner tensions. And so, maybe he exploded.
After all, even most narcissistic people have some sense of humor and can laugh at themselves. Not Rodgers. Even his smiles were dead serious.
But Rodgers, like Bickle in TAXI DRIVER, was bereft of any sense of humor.
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