Re: New York Times on Scarcity

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

You're right: psychopathy or sociopathy (what the DSM IV calls "antisocial personality disorder") describes the most successful personality disorder under capitalism. The problem (in terms of individual success) with schizophrenia is that it involves self-destruction.  The person with schizophrenia can't function in the dominant society. Paranoid schizophrenics don't simply "watch their backs" -- they do so _too much_. They don't change "personalities on a dime." That's a different disorder (multiple personality disorder). Those with schizophrenia have extremely disordered thoughts, hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there, etc. 

off to UCLA for psychological testing (not about me, BTW) ... 

Jim Devine


> -----Original Message-----
> From: k hanly [mailto:khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 7:45 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] New York Times on Scarcity
> 
> 
> I thought the appropriate psychological orientation for success in
> capitalism was to be a psychopath. At least that is the 
> hypothesis of the
> Corporation documentary.
> 
> http://www.thetyee.ca/Entertainment/current/The+Corporation+Sh
> rinking+the+Psychopath.htm
> 
> By a quirk of legal fiction, our courts treat a corporation 
> as if it were a
> person. Alas, that person is by design a psychopath, conclude 
> a team of B.C.
> filmmakers who put the "dominant institution of our time" on 
> the couch and
> apply to its behaviour the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
> Disorders.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 9:18 AM
> Subject: New York Times on Scarcity
> 
> 
> > -clip-
> >
> > My reading of Mirowsky is that he argues that Nash
> > formulated the problem the way he did because he was
> > paranoid schizophrenic. I don't think Nash's paranoid
> > schizophrenic equilibrium is wrong. I just think it is
> > paranoid schizophrenic.
> >
> > Sabri
> >
> > ^^^^^^
> > If we say that capitalism has mostly crazy ,socio-economic 
> environments,
> > then in a way being crazy is a rational response to getting 
> on in it.
> Maybe
> > his paranoia was  well founded generalized fear, and may be 
> many of the
> > players of the bourgeois game in reality  ( not 
> theoretically) have well
> > founded fears. Don't successful Americans have to have a knack for
> watching
> > their backs ? Don't they have to have the ability to change their
> > personalities on a dime , turn on others and stab them in 
> the back, etc. -
> > socalled schizophrenia ?
> >
> > Charles
>