G'day George,
On balance, this is the sort of LM line with which I have much sympathy.
The more alienated we become, from the daily grind that ever more defines us
as much as from each other, the further the commodity form must extend to
ameliorate its own effects. Where kinship and community ties once did the
job of keeping us sane (stabilising our identities, helping us through
crises etc), now we poor lonely bastards must reach for the credit card if
we are to find someone with the time to listen to us and the authority to
reassure us. All top-down stuff and all paid for.
Social phenomena get dressed up as psychological deviations. Symptoms are
dressed up as the malaise. And Prozac and paternalism take the place of
social agency.
If only the mad are sane in a mad world, our neuroses are being
professionally nurtured unto psychoses. Whilst our health system runs out
of funds in a welter of invented maladies and faddish treatments - and our
society runs out of confidence as the vast majority of us are turned into
self-diagnosing narcisists, seeing precisely what is normal in a world like
this (sense of futility, crises of self-worth, sense of ostracisation etc)
as an embarrassing departure from an inculcated norm that has nothing to do
with mean or median.
A little loose talk on the pillow or a few pints with someone who gives a
fuck are worth more, and cost less, than all the DIY tapes and pontificating
professionals in California.
'Course, that's no good if your pillow partner is out on unpaid overtime, or
if you're a friendless piece worker in a strange city, or if you're too
fucked to talk, or they're too fucked to listen - or if the whole world is
too fucked for any talk to make sense of it anyway.
I need a beer and a blast of Dusty Springfield.
That can work at a pinch, too.
Cheers,
Rob.
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