Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis

This is the title of an article in today's NYTimes which I commented on and was eventually approved and published, but I thought that I would post it here on my blog as well, anyway:

". . the complex interactions between genes and the environment that lie at the heart of many mental disorders."

We don't need to understand these "complex interactions", not that it would help much, even if we did.

We need to understand something much simpler, which we - even the experts - don't see, because we don't WANT to see it, not because we can't.

It is the fact that the genetic basis of human nature evolved in a natural environment VERY different from the artificial environment of civilisation we live in today.

If we were the "rational animal" we (especially academics) suppose ourselves to be, we would have shaped this environment to serve the best interests and well-being of society at large, but we are not and we didn't.  We are far more a "rationalising animal" which rationalises state, economy and status quo to suit our own personal, narrow and short-sighted, self-interests.

Society has been shaped over centuries by its ruling elites and their most favoured clients to serve their own personal self-interests, at the expense of society at large and of its long-term survival.

See BLOG in which I elaborate in these ideas.

Capitalism for the Rest of Us

This is the title of an article (LINK) in today's NYTimes, which I made the following - unapproved and thus unpublished - comment on:

Capitalism, notwithstanding the failure of socialism resulting in it now being lauded as the only show in town, is inherently unjust, inhumane and, most importantly of all, unsustainable on our finite, vulnerable and overpopulated planet.

It works fabulously well for millions of people - in fact, for everyone who is anyone in society, and as a consequence is relatively wealthy, including the social science academics we look to as authorities in understanding society and the economy.

The human brain surely evolved to want (subconsciously even more than consciously) to maintain the environment it depends on and has been successful in. Thus it is impossible for academics, or anyone else, to be objective about their own society, civilisation or the economy that supports them.

The only way to obtain a degree of objectivity is by viewing ourselves and our situation from a human-evolutionary, i.e. Darwinian, perspective, but this, on account of initial attempts having gone so horribly wrong (especially when the Nazis used misconceived ideas of social Darwinism to justify their insane racial ideology and wars of aggression), academics have made a taboo of.

The fundamental problem lies in our lack of understanding of the true nature of the state itself, which creates the legal framework within which any economy operates.

Here's a LINK to my own approach to developing such an understanding.

Why are our Parks so White?

This is the title of an article in yesterday's NYTimes Sunday Review, which, as you can imagine, laments the relatively low percentage of ethnic minority, compared to white, people who visit America's national parks.

My comment was not approved, so I'm posting it here:

The article's obsession with DIVERSITY makes my skin crawl. 

What is promoting DIVERSITY other than Orwellian newspeak for white people to promote our own ethnic decline (as the article points out, America's founding race will soon have reduced itself to an ethnic minority) and ultimate demise?

Will a "white-free" America really be something to celebrate . . ?

It seems to me that we have gone from the ugly extreme of "racial hatred" (especially towards black people) to the opposite extreme of "racial self-hatred", or if "hatred" is too strong a word, to racial self-denial and self-contempt, which is hardly any better.

I've been observing this madness for many years in London UK, my city of birth, experiencing Native (white) Britons, like myself, being reduced from the overwhelming majority (>99%) to an ethnic minority, and being told by politicians that it is something I must "celebrate" - or be condemned as a "bigot" and "racist".

It took a long time, but I've finally discovered the power-politial method to this madness, which is this:

Post-racial multicultural society and ideology serve the state’s age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, dividing society into a supposedly morally superior, now "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, naturally less colour-blind, masses, who must submit to their ruling elite’s moral authority, and power.

See BLOG in which I elaborate.

The NYTimes' Unintentional Contempt for Europe

This is my response to a NYTimes editorial, "Europe’s Shared Responsibility for Migrants"(June 5, 2015), encouraging Europe to take in yet more immigrants and asylum seekers. I emailed it to them for publication, which, of course, they didn't do, and is why I'm publishing it here.

If the current wave of immigration into Europe was a one off, I would sympathise with the Editorial Board's attitude in respect to Europe taking the immigrants in, as expressed in last Friday’s editorial, “Europe’s Shared Responsibility for Migrants” (June 5th), but this is not the case. Europe has been experiencing wave after wave of poor-world immigration for decades. We have already taken in millions, and there is no indication that the flood is about to stop anytime soon. On the contrary, all the signs are that the flow of immigrants will continue to grow, as population, poverty and conflict in poor-world countries also grow. 

So long as there is a significant wealth-poverty, freedom and opportunity gradient and little to impede the flow, people will move along it in one direction only, just as heat moves from hot to cold, until equilibrium has been reached, i.e. when conditions in the West cease to attract, which, in the fantasy world of most social and political scientists (especially economists), will be when the poor world is as rich and free and full of opportunities as the West is, but in reality will be when conditions in the West have deteriorated sufficiently.

I can’t believe that members of the Editorial Board are being wilfully or maliciously blind to the long-term consequences of mass poor-world immigration into Europe, so I assume that their blindness has other causes, which, of course, they are also blind to and thus unaware of. 

Clearly, they want to do right by the immigrants and asylum seekers, as individual human beings, who would be hugely helped - in the short to medium term, at least - if allowed to settle in Europe, but far from being a long-term solution, it is a recipe for conflict and disaster on a scale with the potential to exceed even that of the 20th century. The saying, “The way to Hell is paved with good intentions”, springs very much to mind.

Europe, over the centuries, has had its fill of its own inborn ethnic tensions and conflicts (and these between peoples of very similar race, culture, religion and ethnic origins), but now, following the traumas of WW1, WW2 and the Holocaust, just as Europe’s major ethnic groups (nations) are learning to get along, we are importing en masse from abroad the potential for new and additional ethnic tensions and conflicts (which, in respect to Muslims and “blacks” we are already experiencing). Just as Europeans are finally learning to share their continent peacefully with each other, it is deemed not enough; we are now expected to share our continent with an ever-increasing (and this is the crucial point) number of non-Europeans as well, which is MADNESS. 

Europe has a distinctive indigenous population of closely related peoples, just as America does, only instead of making up just a tiny, impotent, proportion of the total population, we still constitute the overwhelming majority. Neither have we been subjugated or dispossessed by foreign invaders, as native Americans were, but by our OWN ruling elites, who are now imposing the madness of mass poor-world immigration on our already overpopulated subcontinent and the DIVERSE, multi-ethnic society that comes with it.

The method to this madness, which it took me a very long time to recognise and develop an understanding of, is only partly economic (the import of cheap foreign labour, i.e. “human resources” into the West) and generally acknowledged.  Far more important, but largely unrecognised, is the ideological and power-political role this madness plays, serving, as it does, as an instrument of socio-political intimidation, rewards, punishments, manipulation and control, just as medieval church ideology once did.

Post-racial multicultural society and ideology serves the age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, dividing society into a morally superior, now "colour-blind", ruling elite (supported by their favoured clients) and the morally inferior, naturally less "colour-blind", masses, who must submit to their superiors’ moral authority - and power.

No one is really "colour-blind”, of course, but can only feign it (perhaps without being consciously aware of it), humans being the inherently and intensely tribal animal that we are. Although the issue is complicated by the Paradox of Race Does and Doesn't Matter  depending on whether we are dealing with personal relationships between individuals or more abstract relationships between strangers, especially in large numbers.

Race is NOT the "social construct" that the state would have us believe it is (except when you try dividing closely related peoples from the same subcontinent into different races, as the Nazis insanely did), but real and important. Not in the way that racial supremacists believe it is, but because it reflects our ethnic origins and is thus central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. genuine national, identity. Which is, of course, why the state, which poses as our nation, in order to legitimise itself, its ruling elites and the immense power they wield and abuse, seeks to deny and suppress this basic truth.

"Celebrating Diversity" is nothing other than Orwellian newspeak for ethnic Europeans (white people) to celebrate our own ethnic displacement (white flight), replacement (we have already been reduced to an ethnic minority in large swathes of our major cities, including my own birth place) and ultimate demise . . .

In place of "original sin" (disobedience of divine, i.e. priestly/state authority) we now have "racial prejudice" (the natural human inclination - like original sin - to identity with members of one's own tribe, race or ethnic group, which absurdly was made responsible for the Holocaust and equated with the evils of Nazi racism), which only submission to priestly/academic/political/state ideology and authority can save us from eternal damnation for, not as heathens and heretics, as in the past, but as "bigots" and “racists".

Why did it take me so long to recognise these simple and now - to me, at least - obvious truths? Why have academics still not recognised them? And why have they resisted all my efforts, thus far, to point them out to them?

It is because POWER (of the state) forbids it, and because academics, like their medieval predecessors and counterparts, are themselves privileged clients and employees of their respective "patron state", with a massive personal self-interest (subconscious more than conscious) in rationalising and defending its role, self-image (as our "nation") and ideologies (social, political, economic and racial, formerly religious), on which the state bases its claim to moral and knowledgeable authority.

Our understanding of ourselves, society and the state is fatally misconceived, because the human brain (including, most importantly, that of academics) evolved to want to maintain the environment on which it depends and has been “successful” in (as everyone who is anyone in society invariably has been), and thus rationalises its view of reality accordingly. 

Overcoming this obstacle and developing a more objective and realistic understanding of society and the state is no mean task - a bit like trying to jump over one’s own shadow - but at the moment most academics are not even aware of it, which means that the social and political sciences are still stuck in a pre-Copernican, i.e. pre-Darwinian, dark age, with modern social science academics clinging to their misconceived ideas just as Ptolemaic astronomers and Galenic doctors once did to theirs, and for much the same reasons.

If we are to solve our - increasingly dire - social, political, economic and environmental problems, which the very survival of our civilisation urgently depends on us doing, we need a much better, more realistic, understanding of ourselves, society and the state, which at present is clearly lacking.

As human beings we are ALL prejudiced about EVERYTHING and EVERYONE,  including RACE, notwithstanding the huge pressure that state ideology puts us (especially our academic, political and media elites) under to deny and suppress it in ourselves and to demonise it in others. Demonising racial prejudice was an understandable overreaction to the horrors of Nazi racial ideology, and to the injustice and inhumanity of Jim Crow and Apartheid, but instead of allowing reason and good sense to correct this overreaction, it was quickly consolidated into an ideology (post-racial multiculturalism) of socio-political intimidation and control.

Demonising racial prejudice for its role in crimes of racial hatred is like demonising male sexuality for the role it plays in rape. Obviously, the two are connected, and we need to control our prejudices in a civilised fashion, just we do our sexuality, but not deny, demonise and suppress them. The legitimate role of the state is to formulate and enforce laws which ensure that our prejudices and sexuality are expressed in an acceptable and civilised fashion.

I appreciate just how shocking, or absurd - initially, at least - the ideas I have expressed here must appear to you at the NYTimes, including members of the Editorial Board, who will, of course, have to approve their publication in your Op-Ed section. I feel like an atheist hoping to get my views on Christianity published in a conservative Catholic journal.

Like the Catholic church, you at the NYTimes are committed and beholden to an ideology (post-racial multiculturalism) that I am radically criticising. However, you are also committed to seeking the truth through free debate and discussion, by means of which we might arrive at a better understanding of ourselves, society and the state.

It would be naive of me to expect you to publish this offering, but I hope that you will at least read and give some thought to my ideas.

Best regards

Roger Hicks

Comments not approved by the NYTimes

The last 3 times I have attempted to post a comment in response to an article on the NYTimes website it has not been approved and thus not published, which is a shame, so I'm publishing them here instead:

The Issue That Won't Go Away by Paul Krugman, June 20, 2015

My comment:

The issue of RACE won't go away, not because of slavery, but because state ideology, which denies the importance - even the very existence - of race, is misconceived.

Race is NOT a "social construct", as the state and its clients and employees in academia would have us believe (except when you try dividing closely related peoples from the same subcontinent into different races, as the Nazis insanely did), but REAL and important. Not in the way that racial supremacists believe it is, but because central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group, i.e. genuine national, identity, which, of course, the state doesn't want us to have, because it deceitfully poses as our nation itself, in order to legitimise itself, its ruling elites and the immense power they wield and abuse.

Western states, like Britain and America, now exploit race to divide and rule society, dividing it into a morally superior, i.e. "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, i.e. naturally less colour-blind, masses, who must submit to their ruling elite’s moral authority, and power, just as in medieval times.

No one is really "colour-blind", of course (we are all SINNERS), but can only feign it, humans being the inherently and intensely tribal animal that we are.

I elaborate further on these ideas in this BLOG.


White Supremacists Without Borders by  Morris Dees and J. Richard Cohen, June 22, 2015

My comment:

        "Britain, too, is experiencing an upswing of nationalist, anti-immigrant politics."

Unsurprisingly, given the scale of mass poor-world immigration into our country, which has already reduced native (white) Britons to an ethnic minority in large swathes of our major cities and, combined with higher immigrant birth rates, is on course to reduce us to one in the country as a whole, before today's teenagers reach retirement age.

It is NOT racist not to want to be swamped by immigrants and reduced to an ethnic minority in one's ancestral homeland. If you doubt me, try asking a native American, or an Aboriginal Australian.

Those who really hate other races (genuine racists) are a tiny, impotent minority. The real threat to civilisation comes from an  IDEOLOGY of white racial self-denial and self-contempt (an overreaction to the horrors of Nazi racial ideology), which in all western democracies has taken the place of medieval church ideology as an instrument of socio-political intimidation, rewards, punishments, manipulation and control.

It serves the age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, dividing society into a morally superior, now "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, i.e. less colour-blind, masses, who must submit to their ruling elite’s moral authority.

See BLOG in which I elaborate.

Middle-Class Black Families, in Low-Income Neighorhoods by David Leonhardt, June 24, 2015

My comment:

Wouldn't a simple explanation [for the observation that higher earning blacks still tend to live in poorer neighbourhoods] be that they prefer to live in black neighbourhoods, despite them being poorer, than in richer, but predominantly white, neighbourhoods?

Why can't America, or any other western state, simply accept the fact that race is real and important? Not in the way that racial supremacists believe it is, but because central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group (e.g. neighbourhood) identity.

It is, I suggest, because post-racial multicultural society and ideology serve the state’s age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, just as medieval church society and ideology once did, dividing society into a morally superior, now "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, i.e. less colour-blind, masses, who must submit to their ruling elite’s moral authority and power.

This is a shocking suggestion, I know, but surely one that social scientists need to be looked into. 

I elaborate further in this and subsequent BLOGS.

What's Preventing the Sustainability Revolution?

This was my submission to the Conservative Party's Quality of Life Policy Group, which I never received any feedback to and had pretty much forgotten about. I've just rediscovered it and thought I'd post it to my blog.

An evolutionary/anthropological approach to the root causes of the "Sustainability Problem"

Revised version: 11 Feb 07

When tackling big problems, we are often encouraged to "think outside the box", but when someone actually does so – as I have – and comes up with insights and ideas that don't fit nicely into any of the existing boxes, they tend to be ignored or ridiculed.

This tendency to ignore, ridicule, or otherwise resist ideas that would challenge or undermine the status quo is not surprising in view of what is known about human cognition, the fact that we don't experience reality itself, but an interpretation of it, produced by our brains, which it adapts to be more-or-less consistent with the view we already have of the world, and is thereby very strongly influenced by past and present interpretations of experiences, as well as by our dependencies and vested interests.

The view we have of the existing socio-economic order is no exception, and because from birth we are all totally immersed in, familiar with and dependent on it, and because of the anxiety it would cause if we did, our brains, which evolved in, and to cope with, totally different circumstances, actively prevents us from recognizing its inherent non-sustainability. This accounts for our collective blindness to the perilous impact our economy and way of life are having on our finite and vulnerable planet, and the threat they pose, if not immediately to ourselves, certainly to our children and grandchildren.

Global warming is just one major consequence of an underlying "Sustainability Problem" that we should have faced up to 30 years ago, when publications such as "The Limits to Growth" by Meadows et. al. first drew broad public attention to the fact that an ever increasing population of technologically empowered, but essentially insatiable human beings (still dominated by their animal nature and behaviour), is placing an unsustainable drain and strain on Earth's finite resources and carrying capacity. Instead, because of the enormous implications for our economy and way of life, and all the vested interests in continuing with "business (and pleasure) as usual", we went (allowed ourselves to be led) into collective denial. Which, essentially, is where we still are - virtually everyone, although some more than others - but now struggling both to and not to face up to the situation as the effects of our increasing impact on the planet become ever more apparent and threatening. 

At the moment, despite all the talk about the environment, sustainability and saving the planet, we have yet to face up to the sheer scale and magnitude of the Problem. The threat it poses is terrifying, which only adds to our reluctance to face up to it; but continuing to bury our heads in the sand will not make it go away. On the contrary, like an approaching tsunami, it will engulf and destroy us if we refuse to recognise the threat. Only by facing up to it can we avoid - or at least, reduce the impact of - the approaching catastrophe, by creating sustainable economies and ways of life (for 7-9 billion! people) in our own (humane) way. 

If WE fail to do so, a ruthless Mother Nature will do it for us. The climate change we are witnessing is her just "warming up" for the job. If it entails reducing human numbers by 100's or even 1000's of millions, that is what she will do. She is not squeamish. The poor will suffer first, of course, as always, but for once we really are ALL in the same boat, Spaceship Earth, rich and poor alike.

We urgently need to face up to the ROOT CAUSE of the "Sustainability Problem", which lies in our animal nature. Unsurprisingly, in view of what Charles Darwin is supposed to have taught us about human origins, it is in our animal nature and behaviour that the existing socio-economic order (our economy and way of life) is rooted, and which free-market capitalism developed, naturally enough, both to serve and exploit.

Human emotions and behaviour evolved over millions of years to serve the individual and their family group in the struggle for survival and advantage in the "natural environment" (which included other, rival, groups of humans). With the advent of civilisation, for the individual, this Darwinian (blind, dumb-animal) struggle transferred to an artificial, "socio-economic environment", where - greatly facilitated by the development of free-market capitalism - it continues as the driving force of most human (particularly economic) activity. Only now it is driving us towards disaster, because, as things are, we cannot help but give priority to economics (the household of man in the artificial, "socio-economic environment"), rather than to ecology (the household of our planet in the natural environment), despite it being obvious (were we not blinded by familiarity and dependency) that human survival urgently demands the opposite.

From birth, we are ALL totally immersed in, familiar with and dependent on the existing socio-economic order, making it virtually impossible - not least, because of the anxiety it would cause - for us to recognise its INHERENT non-sustainability.

Man is not a fallen angel, but an animal; not just a "prime ape" (if you will excuse the pun, and the one that follows) but Earth's Greatest  Ape, who greatly and dangerously overestimates his powers of understanding and reason; like a child, and misled by his scientific name - Homo sapiens, indeed!  The failure to recognise the extent of our own blindness and irrationality (except in others, of course) is the biggest underlying threat to human survival (and, incidentally, the principal reason for my opposition to the large-scale use of nuclear energy).

The truth - which far from fitting into any boxes, threatens to rupture or sweep many of them away (thus, the massive resistance to facing up to it) - is that our growth-dependent economy and the grossly materialistic way of life it engenders are both rooted in our primitive, animal nature and, as a consequence, are fundamentally unsustainable. 

Mine is an anthropological approach to the "Sustainability Problem". It is an approach which needs to be applied to ALL the social sciences: history, politics, sociology, economics, etc. The reason it is not is that social scientists too, like everyone else, are blinded by their own total dependency on the existing socio-economic order and environment, and on the niches they occupy within it.

In view of everyone's absolute dependency on, and vested interests in, the status quo, implementing the radical changes necessary for Sustainability would be quite impossible, with everyone naturally inclined to preserve their own niche and advantages (social status, source of income etc.) in the existing socio-economic environment. This is why there has been so much talk and argument about global warming, but so little action; and the action which has or is intended be to taken barely scratches the surface, without going anywhere near solving the Problem.

The solution is not to try changing the existing order, but to create an Alternative, within, but distinct from and increasingly independent of it, which, as it grows, we can transfer our activities, dependencies and vested interests to - each of us, when we are ready and at our own pace, bit by bit, and without coercion, which would be counterproductive, evoking strong (if not violent) resistance from our animal nature, in defence of its interests in the existing socio-economic order. 

By “we” I mean those of us who have come out of denial (to some extent at least) and recognized what is at stake, for our children and coming generations. Surely, there can be no greater motivation than that. The way forward is for us to use the Internet to self-organize into groups, and groups of groups ("nonymous religious societies", which I will explain in due course), which will further self-organize and interact, gradually replacing the existing socio-political order (initially, some politicians are not going to like it, but hopefully most can be won over). There will be as many "nonymous religious societies" as are needed to cater for everyone. If you cannot find one you like, you can get together with like-minded individuals and found your own. Genuine, grass-roots democracy will come into its own, with people free to pursue their own enlightened (as opposed to dumb-animal) self-interest. And what greater self-interest can there be than saving the planet for our children and future generations?

We have allowed ourselves to be deceived and dominated for far too long by our own animal nature and a socio-economic order that is rooted in and dependent on it (expending much of our brain power in rationalizing and justifying it). We have to create an alternative socio-economic order, rooted in our more enlightened human nature. Otherwise we will perish.

If this all sounds rather idealistic it is because at the moment that is what it is: just an idea – for preserving the planet for our children and future generations. Although the rudimentary beginnings of such an Alternative are already in existence (organic farming, fair trade, recycling, renewable resources, cooperative rather than exploitative and competitive economics, etc.), they lack a coherent theoretical and moral framework that would provide a clear and distinct alternative to the existing socio-economic order. This is what urgently needs to be developed and put into practice, grass-roots democratically, with experience feeding back into theory and further development.

Diversity is what gives the natural world beauty and stability. For the past 400 years or so, ever increasing globalization, and the absolute priority given (by our animal nature) to economics and MONEY (the most versatile form of POWER), have been reducing diversity in all its forms, biological and human (not least, in the name of “multi-culturalism”). We need to give priority, not to economics, but to Sustainability, and to retaining and cultivating human, social, economic and biological diversity.

I know how tempting it must be to dismiss me and my ideas to the lunatic fringe, but please don't; at least, not until you have given them serious, unhurried consideration. You've nothing to lose, but possibly a whole world to gain.

A Comment NYT didn't want to Publish

The New York Times published an article, Migrants Face Fortress Europe’s Deadly Moat, by Kenan Malik, in which the author says the following:

"The European Union should . . dismantle Fortress Europe, liberalize immigration policy and open up legal routes for migrants."

This was my response, which the NYT chose not to publish:

Kenan Malik is a native of ASIA and unconcerned for the interests of native Europeans not to be inundated with immigrants from other continents.

Despite being overpopulated itself, Europe has already taken in 10s of millions of poor-world immigrants, who are the cause of rising ethnic tensions in our cities. Tensions that will grow as the number of immigrants and their off-spring grows.

Allowing even more in, as Kenan Malik would have us do, will make an already difficult situation even more difficult and eventually lead to violent conflict and even civil war.

Post-racal multicultural ideology, which encourages mass poor-world immigration (not just into Europe) and the creation of multi-ethnic societies is not what it is made out to be, but an instrument socio-political intimidation and control, a modern, secular replacement, effectively, for medieval church ideology, which I elaborate on in THIS and further (linked to) blogs.