Power, Responsibility and Freedom

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Pow e r , Re spon sibilit y a n d Fr e e dom

An I nt ernet Publicat ion By David Sm ail

1 I n t r odu ct ion The st andpoint from which I writ e is a 'clinical' one, and t he ( t ent at ive and provisional) conclusions I com e t o are t he result of having st ruggled for years t o m ake sense of t he kinds of dist ress people bring t o t he psychological clinic, and how t hey cope wit h it . I n t he course of t hat st ruggle I have found m yself const ant ly wandering int o t errit ory t hat is only part ially fam iliar t o m e and being forced t o use t ools not rout inely found in t he clinical psychologist 's kit . Though t his is not a work of sociology, polit ics or philosophy, it will at t im es seem as if it is t rying t o be; but I want t o insist , st ill, t hat it is a work of clinical psychology, and t hat is because it is t hroughout root ed in and inform ed by 'clinical' experience. Even t hen, however, I have heavily t o qualify t he use of t he word 'clinical' because it carries wit h it so m any false assum pt ions. The m aj orit y of t hose who find t hem selves in dist ress in West ern societ y t urn t o t he clinic because t here is nowhere else t o go t hat carries t he sam e prom ise of relief. They, as well as m ost of t hose who t reat t hem , believe t hat t hey are host s of a personal illness or disorder t hat can be cured by est ablished m edical and/ or t herapeut ic t echniques. That belief, however, is in m y view ( and t he view of m any ot hers) false, and it is clinical experience it self t hat reveals it as false. By 'clinical psychology', t hen, I do not m ean a set of m edically or t herapeut ically based procedures for t he cure of em ot ional dist ress, but rat her a privileged opport unit y t o invest igat e wit h people t he origins of t heir difficult ies and t o consider t he possibilit ies for change. Unfort unat ely, ort hodox clinical psychology has in m y view failed t o m ake t he m ost of t his privileged opport unit y, and has been m isled by it s anxious desire t o heal, as well as by it s percept ion of it s own int erest , int o bet raying t he scient ific basis on which it claim s t o rest . For 'science' m eans t aking realit y int o account and art iculat ing t he lessons it t eaches ( i.e. at t ending t o evidence) . And t hat is exact ly what clinical psychology has not done. For reasons which I have writ t en about elsewhere ( see, for exam ple, Sm ail 1995, 1998) clinical psychologist s have been very well placed t o gat her evidence about t he nat ure of dist ress which is as lit t le dist ort ed by int erfering fact ors as it is possible t o be. But t hough t his evidence undoubt edly form s part of t heir unform alized experience, in t heir official t heorizing t hey have st eadfast ly disregarded it in favour of convent ional, quasi- m edical not ions of personal disorder and 't reat m ent '. What clinical experience t eaches in fact is not t hat psychological dist ress and em ot ional suffering are t he result of individual fault s, flaws or m edical disorders, but arise from t he social organizat ions in which all of us are locat ed. Furt herm ore, dam age t o people, once done, is not easily cured, but m ay m ore easily ( and t hat not easily at all! ) be prevent ed by at t ending t o and caring for t he st ruct ures of t he world in which we live. These are quest ions neit her of m edicine nor of

't herapy'. I f anyt hing, t hey m ay be seen m ore as quest ions of m oralit y and, by ext ension, polit ics.

Th e n a t u r e of m or a lit y I t is inconceivable t hat em ot ional suffering could be banished from our lives. Being hum an ent ails suffering ( even if we have lost t he knowledge and wisdom which allow us t o suffer wit h dignit y and com passion) . At t he sam e t im e, t here can be lit t le doubt t hat a rearrangem ent of t he ways in which we act t owards each ot her could bring about a very significant lessening in t he degree of em ot ional pain and anguish t hat has becom e so com m onplace in our societ y t hat it is barely not iced. A m oral vision of peace, j ust ice and freedom is not hard t o est ablish; t he landscape of Eden is easily recognized. What is not easy t o underst and and resist are t he m any ways in which t he m eans of achieving t hat vision are concealed and obscured, and it is wit h t hese quest ions t hat I shall be m ost occupied. Moralit y arises t hrough t he experience of a com m on hum anit y and it s affirm at ion in t he face of power. Moralit y is not an individual, but a social m at t er; it m akes dem ands upon us which ext end beyond our finit e, individual lives. I t is about resist ing t hose forces which seek t o drive wedges bet ween us in order t hat som e m ay feel and claim t o be m ore hum an t han ot hers. Our com m on hum anit y rest s upon our com m on em bodim ent . We are all m ade in exact ly t he sam e way. We all suffer in t he sam e way. Most im m oral ent erprises seek in one way or anot her t o deny t his t rut h and t o j ust ify t he great er suffering of t he oppressed or exploit ed on t he grounds of t heir being ‘different ’ in som e way – physically, racially, psychologically, genet ically, and so on. Absolut e, selfconscious im m oralit y, on t he ot her hand, m akes use of it s knowledge of our com m on em bodim ent t o inflict m axim um pain and t hreat : t he t ort urer does unt o ot hers as he would not have done t o him self, and t he t errorist , choosing vict im s at random , im plicit ly acknowledges t he equivalence of all people. The hist ory of t he ‘civilized’ world is one in which powerful m inorit ies have sought ( ever m ore successfully) t o im pose and exploit condit ions of slavery on an im poverished m aj orit y. This is necessarily always an im m oral undert aking, for by it s act ions it denies t he cont inuit y of hum anit y bet ween slave and m ast er while seeking ideologically t o obscure t hat denial 1 .

M or a lit y n ow At t he t urn of t he t went y- first cent ury, t he st ruct ure of global societ y is grot esquely unj ust and t he m eans of m aint aining it so not only profoundly im m oral but insanely dangerous. We crazed, clever m onkeys knowingly cont em plat e t he dest ruct ion of our own habit at and yet seem helpless t o st op ourselves. There seem s t o be no m oral guidance t o point a way out of our predicam ent . The m oral voice, st ripped of aut horit y, has been drowned out . God is well and t ruly dead; t he Market has t rium phed; only t he fit t est shall survive. Can t here be a m oral count er t o t he new Business barbarism ?

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Unlike t he kinds of argum ent s which est ablish scient ific knowledge, m oral argum ent s are not progressive and accum ulat ive, nor are t hey ever conclusive. Moral argum ent and social crit ique const it ut e a running bat t le wit h ruling power, and even t hough t hey m ay be dealing wit h et ernal t rut hs, t hey will never find a form in which t hese can be assert ed once and for all; t he best t hey can hope for is t o find ever new ways of re- form ulat ing and re- st at ing t heir insight s such t hat brakes are applied t o t he ever- expanding am bit ions of power. A furt her difficult y is t hat , insofar as t hey are successful, m oral argum ent and praxis will be corrupt ed and co- opt ed in t he int erest s of power. Christ ’s m essage becom es ‘The Church’. Because power is power, it holds all t he cards, and will never be defeat ed – only im peded. Marx’s great est m ist ake was t o assum e t hat capit alism cont ained t he seeds of it s own downfall. Seem ingly he hadn’t conceived of m oving goal- post s For anyone hoping t o win t he m oral high ground once and for all on t he basis of a knock- down argum ent or a conclusive act of rebellion, t he inevit able dom inance of a corrupt and corrupt ing power is likely t o be a cause of despair. For such a person t he insight s int o venalit y, st upidit y and corrupt ion of, say, a Swift , t urn t o absolut e cynicism rat her t han m erely profound disillusion. Not only are illusions dest royed, but idealism t oo is crushed.

I llu sion s a n d ide a ls But t here is a big difference bet ween illusions and ideals. The loss of illusion is a necessary process on t he painful road of enlight enm ent ; t he loss of ideals is spirit ual deat h. We live in an age which is very nearly spirit ually dead. Perhaps it is spirit ually dead. The only redeem ing prospect is t hat , unlike bodily deat h, spirit ual deat h need not be final. ( Spirit is not a personal possession, but a propert y of com m on hum anit y; it t herefore does not die wit h t he individual body, but is in a com plet ely lit eral sense im m ort al.) I deals are in t his age poorly underst ood. People are clear enough about goals, obj ect ives and 't arget s', but m oral purposes which are designedly unachievable faze t he Business m ind. I deals are not j ust unlikely t o be realized – by t heir very nat ure t hey can never be realized. Nevert heless, t heir exist ence is what m akes life wort h living. The essent ial m oral insight is t hat hum an exist ence has t o be inform ed and guided by ideals which are m ore t han m erely achievable personal goals, and t hat we m ust operat e by m oral rules in a gam e in which we shall always be defeat ed. There is absolut ely no necessit y t hat a life lived in pursuit of good rat her t han power will be m at erially rewarded in t his world or a next ; such a life does not perm it of final achievem ent and sat isfact ion. There is no spirit ual nirvana, no final solut ion, no ult im at e cert aint y; no Cit y of God, no Kingdom of Heaven, no end of hist ory. Every inch of m oral ground gained will be lost and will have t o be re- t aken over and over again. Every m oving argum ent will be negat ed and will have t o be re- st at ed in a form unant icipat ed by power, every m orally uplift ing t ale will be cult urally silenced or revised and will have t o be rewrit t en in a newly subversive guise.

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I f, furt herm ore, we do not guard against t he fut ilit y of opt im ism , we run t he risk of handing t he world over t o t hose who know how t o exploit it t o t heir advant age. I n t he last few pages of Taking Care I give exam ples of t he kind of opt im ism born of fait h in Right and Reason which, reassuring t hough it m ay have been at t he t im e, is revealed in t he cold light of hist ory t o have been pat het ically m isguided. I n t he past we have only been able t o t ake m oralit y when laced wit h religion; hit ched t o a t errifying aut horit y or a fat uous prom ise of everlast ing life. Our t ask for t he t went y- first cent ury is t o see t hat a m oral societ y is one support ed by hum an ideals far m ore profound, st able and enduring t han a childish dependence on supernat ural fant asies or t he expect at ion of m at erial reward. The reason why we have t o do t his is sim ple and we all know it : no m an is an island. At t he heart of our problem is our underst anding of self.

Th e Bu sin e ss vie w of h u m a n it y There are m ore inst ruct ive uses for t he clinic t han t he doubt ful virt ues of 't reat m ent ' so ably crit icized by Michel Foucault and Christ opher Lasch ( see 'The Experience of Self') . For t he clinic is a fine place t o observe t he workings upon us of our environm ent ; t alking t o people in t roubled st at es of m ind brings t o our at t ent ion far less any inadequacies or short com ings of t heir own, and far m ore t he noxious influences of t he world in which we have t o live. What has been part icularly evident t o m e from t he dist ress people have felt and expressed is - beyond t he dam age done t o t hem , significant t hough it is - t he way t hat Business cult ure has over t he last t went y- five years or so colonized our m inds. Despit e a significant hiccup around t he m iddle of t he t went iet h cent ury, Business has finally t rium phed at it s end. I n doing so, Business ‘values’ and language, it s precept s and it s Welt anschauung have seeped int o every corner of our souls and shape every aspect of our conduct . I n t rying t o underst and ourselves and ot hers we seem unable t o t hink beyond Business psychology: selfish com pet it iveness fuelled by anxiet y. We are possessed by t he horrific individualism upon which Business m ores are based. We see ourselves as One of t he fevered dream s of t he dist inct , self- creat ing and selfnew cent ury is of im m ort alit y. m ot ivat ing social unit s, Leaning back in his st ret ched psychologically co- t erm inous lim o, an aged Texan billionaire wit h our skins. We believe t hat , explains his expect at ions of a unlike every ot her ent it y in genet ically engineered infinit y. nat ure, we cont rol and t ake Reckoning he will be able t o buy a responsibilit y for ourselves, life halt ed at about t he age of t hat we live out our lives fort y, he'll 't ravel a lot ', which is t hrough a series of decisions som et hing he's always want ed t o which we t ake in accordance do. He'll 'get a nice girl friend' t o wit h our feelings and our accom pany him . And he'll 'have purposes. We have t im e t o read t he newspapers'. unquest ioning fait h in our rat ionalit y, believing t hat we

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are able t o direct and if necessary change t he course of our lives according t o perceived necessit ies. We do, it is t rue, acknowledge t he possibilit y of ‘unconscious’ m ot ives, but t hese are again seen as personal t o ourselves and in principle alt erable once t heir nat ure has been brought t o t he at t ent ion of our conscious will. We believe t hat happiness is obt ained t hrough personal developm ent and consum pt ion. We are even losing t he courage t o die.

A n e w Cope r n ica n sw it ch Our only hope is t o ‘de- cent re’ ourselves, t o see t hat we are not islands and t hat our exist ence does indeed m ake sense only as ‘part of t he m ain’ 2 . We are social creat ures who have com e t o m ist ake our nat ure as isolat ed individuals. Consequent ly, we do not underst and how our social world has com e int o being nor how we operat e wit hin it : we st um ble around blindfolded, full of envy, rage and pain. We are not who we t ake ourselves t o be: not , individually, t he archit ect s of our personal dest iny, not responsible for all we do and t hink. We are t ruly not , even, ext inguished by a personal deat h; t he Texan billionaire does not in fact have t o st eal t he exist ence of our progeny in order t o find t im e t o enj oy t he newspapers ( but for our progeny, of whom he will be a part , t o exist , he will need t he courage t o die) . Exact ly as Copernicus showed t hat our planet is not t he cent re of t he universe, so we need t o see t hat our ‘selves’ are not t he fons et origo of our experience and conduct . As far as underst anding ourselves is concerned, our Twent iet h Cent ury psychologies have been alm ost ent irely m isleading. I t is wit h som e of t hese m isunderst andings, and t he ways t hey are exploit ed by power, t hat m uch of t he rest of t his publicat ion will be concerned.

1. Anyone who t hinks t hat slavery no longer exist s in t he m oder n world should consult Disposable People, by Kevin Bales ( Univ . California Press, 1999) . Not only is t he pract ice of slavery widespread, but it ex ist s on an unpr ecedent ed scale. Bales is car eful t o consider only 't rue' slavery: people being forced t o work for not hing. People hav ing t o work at m eaningless j obs for barely subsist ence wages is lit t le bet t er ( see Viviane Forrest er's The Econom ic Hor ror for a denunciat ion of t his st at e of affairs) . 2. Thank s t o Ernest Hem ingway, not t oo m any people can be unawar e of t his passage from John Donne's Medit at ion 17, but it will do no harm t o repeat it : No m an is an island, ent ire of it self; every m an is a piece of t he cont inent , a part of t he m ain. I f a clod be washed away by t he sea, Europe is t he less, as well as if a pr om ont ory wer e, as w ell as if a m anor of t hy friend's or of t hine own were. Any m an's deat h dim inishes m e, because I am involved in m ankind; and t herefore never send t o know for whom t he bell t olls; it t olls for t hee.

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2 Th e St r u ct u r e of Socia l Spa ce To underst and t he relat ions bet ween societ y and self, t o m ake sense of our experience as sent ient and m oral beings, we need t o develop knowledge which doesn't at present exist . The division of labour in t he int ellect ual m arket place has result ed in a profound and pervasive disart iculat ion of knowledge. For exam ple, sociologist s know lit t le of what psychologist s are doing, and neit her group is likely t o be fam iliar wit h t he work of m oral philosophers. Even if t hey were ( and in t hose rare inst ances when t hey are) t he various form s of specialized ‘knowledge’ are not const ruct ed t o fit t oget her at all easily. Academ ia has becom e a com pet it ive indust ry, not a body of m en and wom en seeking t o underst and t he place of hum anit y in t he world. Social inj ust ice and inequalit y are int im at ely linked t o personal pain and unhappiness, but t here is no academ ic discipline cent rally concerned t o invest igat e and explain t he relat ions bet ween t hem . Such work t akes place only incident ally and on t he m argins. Alt hough, t hankfully, it is com ing at last t o be recognized in t he social and life sciences t hat a separat ion of m ind from body is not one t hat can validly be m aint ained, a sim ilarly unhelpful separat ion of self from societ y is st ill very m uch in evidence. The very fact t hat sociology and psychology are set up as separat e disciplines, split t ing what is in fact an indissoluble whole ( i.e. t he social and t he personal) , m eans t hat even t he st udent who st rives for int egrat ion is st uck at t he very foundat ion of his or her t hinking wit h t he assum pt ions derived from one end of an art ificial dichot om y. There is a furt her, logical, difficult y at t he heart of our effort s t o underst and ourselves, and t hat is t hat , in order t o do so, we cannot get out side ourselves. We can do a lot bet t er wit h inanim at e m at t er and wit h biological syst em s less com plex t han ourselves precisely because in t he process of invest igat ing t hem we do not ( so m uch) have t o t ake int o account our own essent ial nat ure. We can look at t hem from t he out side. When t hinking about ourselves, however, we are caught up in covert purposes and m ot ivat ions which are so m uch a part of ourselves t hat we cannot possibly be obj ect ive about t hem . I n t he cont ext of our t hinking about ourselves, t here is no out side. Even so, perhaps we could get quit e a bit furt her t han we have.

Con ve n t ion a l psych ology Psychology, for exam ple, seem s alm ost wilfully blind not only t o t he significance of it s own exist ence ( in m aint aining an individualism which is of t he first im port ance t o t he preservat ion of t he current social order) , but also t o som e of t he m ost glaringly obvious fact ors in hum an m ot ivat ion ( e.g., t he operat ion of int erest ) .

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I do not m ean t hat psychology should not exist , but it s pot ent ial value, from a clinical perspect ive at least , lies less in it s exclusive focus on individuals t han in it s abilit y t o illum inat e subj ect ivit y: what it feels like t o be a person in t he world ( and why) . I t is in any case a pret t y st range sort of individual t hat em erges from t he t ypical int roduct ory psychology t ext – a disj oint ed collect ion of m echanism s ( percept ion, sensat ion, em ot ion, cognit ion, et c.) which som ehow m anage t o com bine t o generat e ‘behaviour’ which is, in t he final analysis, willed, rat ional and apparent ly ent irely det ached from t he kinds of preoccupat ion ( about m oney and power) which in fact , whet her or not we like t o adm it it , so dom inat e our daily lives. Alt hough psychology at t em pt s t o preserve it s ‘scient ific’ st at us by seem ing t o st and out side t he obj ect of it s st udy so t hat t he lat t er’s ‘behaviour’ can be predict ed and cont rolled, it nevert heless, t acit ly or ot herwise, ends up wit h a perspect ive on t he person as a rat ional agent who looks out at t he world from t he self as cent re, processes ‘st im uli’ and ‘decides’ what t o do. This kind of view fit s in, of course, pret t y well wit h our everyday underst anding of ourselves and how we funct ion, and no doubt helps t hereby t o preserve t he appeal of ‘official’ psychology. One of t he m ore obvious feat ures of t he vast bulk of t he ‘findings’ of ‘scient ific’ psychology is t hat t hey accord closely wit h com m on sense. This is of course not necessarily a fault , and could I suppose be t aken as an indicat ion t hat t hings are not going t oo far wrong. However, it seem s t o m e m ore likely t hat t his som ewhat t edious confirm at ion of received wisdom is a reflect ion of a set of assum pt ions which underlie t he views of us all – psychologist s bot h lay and professional. For when we com e t o t hinking about ourselves, our ‘psychologies’ and our relat ions wit h each ot her, we are governed by som e very basic prej udices which, t hough in part very m uch cult urally and socially det erm ined ( and, as we shall see, m ercilessly exploit ed by power) are also very nearly inescapably im posed upon us by our nat ure as creat ures em bodied in t im e and space.

Vie w fr om t h e se lf a s ce n t r e Each one of us occupies, in t he grander schem e of t hings, an infinit esim al space for an infinit esim al lengt h of t im e, and yet , for us as individuals, t his is all t he space and all t he t im e we have and so figures subj ect ively as hugely significant . Our great est int im acy is wit h t he bodily sensat ions t hat m ediat e our relat ions wit h t he world around us: because we feel, physically, what is going on, we have a sense of ‘int eriorit y’ which seem s t o be j ust about t he m ost indubit able indicat ion of what is happening t o us. We feel we know what is going on in our own ‘m inds’ wit h an especially privileged cert aint y, while we can only m ake educat ed guesses about what goes on in t he m inds of ot hers. The physical experience of doing t hings – experience which is absolut ely unavoidable – convinces us t hat , m ost of t he t im e, doing t hings m eans assessing opt ions and t aking decisions. We seem t o be given an indisput able knowledge of wishes and int ent ions which are ent irely privat e t o ourselves, and our great est guarant ee of t he t rut h of som eone else’s wishes and

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int ent ions seem s t o be t o induce t hem t o give a t rut hful account of t hem from t heir own inner experience. Our underst anding and assessm ent of t he world around us is m ediat ed socially by t he people and t hings we com e int o direct , bodily cont act wit h. The language we speak we learn from t hose who speak t o us, and we speak ( ext raordinarily precisely) wit h t heir cadences and t heir accent . Our experience of social power is t ransm it t ed by t hose wit h whom we have daily cont act – first fam ilies, t hen educat ors, t hen em ployers. On t he whole, t he nearer people and t hings are t o us t he m ore significance we are likely t o accord t o t heir effect upon us ( inevit ably, for exam ple, children experience t heir parent s as enorm ously powerful) . At t he sam e t im e we are of course surrounded by a com plex apparat us conveying inform at ion and cont rolling m eaning; t he ext ent t o which we are able t o gain a crit ical purchase on t his apparat us will det erm ine our underst anding of our world. I n all t hese spheres we are encircled by an horizon beyond which t he world is a m yst ery. From t he perspect ive of t im e also we occupy a life- span which gives us a sense of t he ‘lengt h’ of hist ory. The elderly live in an era which, for t heir grandchildren already beyond t he reach of fashion, becom es a realm m erely of nost algia. The Norm an Conquest seem s t o m ost of us in Brit ain ( who know about it at all) t o belong deep in t he m ist s of t he past – and yet t here are st ill fam ilies living on est at es seized t hen, and it t akes only 13 sevent y- year- olds, living back- t oback, t o get t here. We live, t hen, at t he cent re of a world of ‘proxim al space- t im e’. This world is deeply, perhaps even by now indelibly, est ablished in m odern cult ure. Only rarely from wit hin our social and cult ural inst it ut ions - as rarely, for exam ple, in lit erat ure as in t he law - is t here a glim m er of acknowledgem ent t hat we are not , at least ideally, t he originat ors of our own conduct and m ast ers of our own fat e. The whole t endency of West ern ways of t hought has been increasingly t o see t he individual as aut onom ous. Just as it was difficult for m ediaeval m en and wom en t o shake off t he convict ion – so powerfully endorsed by t heir own senses – t hat t he eart h was at t he cent re of t he universe, so does it appear selfevident t o us t hat it is our experience as individuals em bodied in t im e and space which yields us our m ost reliable knowledge of how we and ot hers t ick. I t is m y belief t hat we are as profoundly m isled by t he perspect ive from self- as- cent re as our ancest ors were by t heir geocent ric view of t he universe 1 . I hope in t he rest of t hese pages t o show in m ore det ail how, and wit h what consequences, we fall int o error in our underst anding of ourselves. Before t hat I want t o sket ch t he basics of a possible alt ernat ive view.

An a lt e r n a t ive pe r spe ct ive Global societ y const it ut es a syst em of inexpressible com plexit y. I t is like a huge cent ral nervous syst em in which ‘social neurons’ ( i.e. people) int eract wit h each ot her via an infinit y of int erconnect ing and overlapping subsyst em s. The fundam ent al dynam ic of t he syst em is power, t hat is t he abilit y of a social group or individual t o influence

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ot hers in accordance wit h it s/ his/ her int erest s. I nt erest is t hus t he principal, and m ost effect ive, m eans t hrough which power is t ransm it t ed. Here, already, is t he st arkest possible cont rast wit h our convent ional psychology: what anim at es us is not rat ional appraisal and considered choice of act ion, but t he push and pull of social pow er as it m anipulat es our int erest . I t is not argum ent and dem onst rat ion of t rut h which m ove us t o act ion but t he im press of influences of which we m ay be ent irely unaware. Reason, t hen, is a t ool of power, not a power in it self. Just like m oral right , rat ional right is not of it self com pelling and, when it is in nobody's int erest t o regard it , will be disregarded. Those who - like Thom as Paine for exam ple - seem successful advocat es of Reason in it s purest form , m ay fail even t hem selves t o see t hat it is in fact not reason alone t hat m akes t heir words persuasive, but t he causes ( int erest s) t o which reason becom es at t ached. No doubt Mein Kam pf was as persuasive t o t hose already sold on it s prem ises as The Right s of Man was t o 18t h cent ury revolut ionaries in Am erica and France. This does not m ean, t o t hose who value reason, t hat Paine's writ ing is not wort h infinit ely m ore t han Hit ler's; it m eans sim ply, and sadly, t hat Reason alone is im pot ent . What really m at t ers is power it self. I n her m ordant ly com pelling Lugano Report 2 , Susan George vividly draws at t ent ion t o t he inadequacy of rat ional argum ent as a m eans of influencing people. I n st art ing t o consider alt ernat ives t o t he pot ent ially disast rous pract ices of global capit alism , she writ es: This sect ion has t o st art on a personal not e because frankly, power relat ions being what t hey are, I feel at once m oralist ic and silly proposing alt ernat ives. More t im es t han I care t o count I have at t ended event s ending wit h a rousing declarat ion about what ‘should’ or ‘m ust ’ occur. So m any wellm eaning effort s so t ot ally neglect t he crucial dim ension of power t hat I t ry t o avoid t hem now unless I t hink I can int roduce an elem ent of realism t hat m ight ot herwise be absent . …[ B] ecause I am const ant ly being asked ‘what t o do’, I begin wit h som e negat ive suggest ions. The first is not t o be t rapped by t he ‘should’, t he ‘m ust ’ and t he ‘forehead- slapping school’. Assum ing t hat any change, because it would cont ribut e t o j ust ice, equit y and peace, need only t o be explained t o be adopt ed is t he saddest and m ost irrit at ing kind of naivet y. Many good, ot herwise int elligent people seem t o believe t hat once powerful individuals and inst it ut ions have act ually underst ood t he gravit y of t he crisis ( any crisis) and t he urgent need for it s rem edy, t hey will sm ack t heir brows, adm it t hey have been wrong all along and, in a flash of revelat ion, inst ant ly redirect t heir behaviour by 180 degrees. While ignorance and st upidit y m ust be given t heir due, m ost t hings com e out t he way t hey do because t he powerful want t hem t o com e out t hat way.

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Power is generat ed wit hin and t hrough social inst it ut ions. The inst it ut ions of power operat e independent ly of part icular individuals and at varying dist ances from t hem , affect ing t hem via alm ost unim aginably com plex lines of influence t hat t ravel t hrough individuals as well as t hrough ot her inst it ut ions. A highly sim plified diagram ( from The Origins of Unhappiness3 ) suggest s t he basic st ruct ure t hrough which power operat es: -

The furt her away from t he individual person a part icular social inst it ut ion is, t he m ore powerful it is likely t o be and t he m ore individuals it will affect . For exam ple, t he m achinery of global capit alism has enorm ous effect s on vast num bers of people in t he world who are t hem selves in no posit ion t o be able t o see int o it s operat ion. Fig. 2 at t em pt s t o give an im pression of t he pervasiveness of dist al influence. I ndividual cit izens have virt ually no way of resist ing t he powers which bear down upon t hem - t heir only hope is t o act in solidarit y wit h ot hers. Apparent ly paradoxically,t he nearer t o t he ( average) individual an inst it ut ion is, t he less it s t ot al power is likely t o be, t hough, owing t o t he dist ort ion of his or her perspect ive, it will be experienced by t hat individual as m ore powerful. For exam ple, as m ight be t he case wit h em ployers, we t end in every day life t o at t ribut e considerable power t o t hose whose ‘decisions’ m ost nearly affect us. However, it is rarely, if ever, t hat an em ployer ‘m akes a decision’ in t he sense of spont aneously exercising free will over us; it is far m ore likely t o be t he case t hat t he em ployer’s ‘decisions’ are condit ioned by econom ic event s which operat e at such a dist ance from us ( as well as t he em ployer) t hat we cannot even discern t heir basic propert ies.

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Each of us is t hus surrounded by a spat io- t em poral 'power horizon' beyond which it is im possible t o 'see'. The radius of t his horizon will of course differ bet ween individuals according t o t he availabilit y t o t hem of power. I n a general sense, t he bet t er educat ed and well connect ed will have 'longer' power horizons com pared t o less advant aged people. Despit e obvious benefit s of class, however, t he m aj orit y of us probably find ourselves in boat s m ore sim ilar t han different - hence t he abilit y of higher- order power t o m anipulat e ent ire populat ions in t erm s of t heir underst anding of how t he world works.

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A num ber of int erest ing consequences follow from t he not ion of 'power horizon'. One is t he new m eaning it gives t o t he concept of t he 'Unconscious'. Unconsciousness ceases t o be, as it is in Freudian t heory, a propert y of individuals, and becom es an ext ernal, social phenom enon: we are unconscious of what we cannot know or have been prevent ed from knowing. At t he m ost proxim al level, parent s m ay conceal aspect s of t he( ir) world from children, or exercise t heir power t o forbid access t o act ivit ies or inform at ion t hey deem unsuit able for t heir children, or indeed t hreat ening t o t hem selves. At m ore dist al levels, we are nearly all unconscious of t he origin and m anner of t ransm ission of powers which affect our lives in all kinds of crucial and int im at e ways, not because of our own st upidit y or wilfulness, but because t hey lie beyond t he zone our gaze can penet rat e. A furt her consequence of our lim it ed power horizons is, as already im plied, t he opport unit ies which are opened up for t he m ore or less deliberat e exploit at ion of our perspect ive. The globalizat ion of t he 'free m arket ' is one obvious area where t he rut hless m alpract ices of Business can be shift ed beyond t he horizon of t hose m ost able t o obj ect . Opposit ion t o abuses of power in 'developed' dem ocracies can be dealt wit h by m edia m anipulat ion and appeasem ent while t he m ost brut al exploit at ion of labour, et c., is shift ed t o places likely neit her t o fall readily under t he eye nor t o engage t he feelings of t he general public. What goes on in Burm a, Brazil, I ndonesia or Singapore is, for exam ple, relat ively easily m aint ained as a m at t er of indifference t o t he vast m aj orit y of vot ers in Brit ain. ( I t is t rue, of course, t hat readers of t he broadsheet s - oft en now sneeringly referred t o as 'high- m inded' and viewers of t elevison's int ellect ual safet y- valves, Channel 4 and BBC2, m ay be t o som e ext ent apprised of what goes on furt her afield. But , as one BBC polit ical com m ent at or elegant ly put it 't he t rouble is, it 's a t abloid world' in which it m at t ers lit t le what goes int o high m inds.) I t is also wort h not ing how t he lim it ed reach of our personal m em ories t hrough t im e hugely facilit at es t he recycling of fashion and t he m aint enance of obsolescence, t he disrupt ion of on- going organized resist ance ( e.g. t he dem ise of unionism , whose ideological origins are by now t ot ally obscure t o m ost people) , and t he abilit y t o veil in a fog of oblivion t he savage iniquit ies upon which m uch of our social st ruct ure is founded ( t he m anner in which t hose who robbed and m urdered t heir way t o propert y and wealt h have m anaged since t o clot he t hem selves in t he regalia of honour, virt ue and dist inct ion, is a m at t er for unceasing wonder) .

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The ext ent t o which an individual can be said t o ‘have’ power will depend upon t he availabilit y t o him or her of power wit hin t he syst em , i.e. how m uch power is t ransm it t ed t hrough him or her from out side sources. ( I have t ried t o out line out what t his m odel signifies for t he experience of psychological dist ress in Fundam ent als of an Environm ent al Approach t o Dist ress.) Fig. 1 gives t he im pression t hat power flows only in one direct ion - from t he m ore t o t he less powerful. This is of course som ewhat m isleading: it is possible bot h for proxim al t o influence dist al inst it ut ions and for individuals t o act back ont o t heir environm ent . I t is however t he case t hat t he flow of influence in t his 'reverse' direct ion is st rict ly lim it ed in scope and dist ance. An individual can in t his way be defined as an em bodied locus in social space t hrough which power flows. People are t hus held in place wit hin t he social environm ent by t he influences which st ruct ure it , and t heir freedom t o change posit ion or influence people and event s is st rict ly lim it ed by t he availabilit y of power wit hin t he sub- syst em s in which t hey are locat ed. I n fact , no significant am ount power is available t o t he individual beyond t hat which is afforded by t he social environm ent .

Som e of t he com plexit y of social space is conveyed in fig. 3. A ( rat her st ereot ypically conceived! ) fam ily float s in social space, t he direct ion of

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influence bet ween it s m em bers and som e proxim al syst em s shown by t he arrows and it s relat ive st rengt h by t heir t hickness. Rat her as if each of t he sm aller spheres were like a neuron or syst em of neurons in a nervous syst em , t he ‘elect rical im pulse’ of conduct ion is power and t he ‘neurot ransm it t er’ is int erest . But t he diagram leaves out infinit ely m ore t han it can illum ine. Quit e apart from t he different ways in which power can engage or coerce int erest , it is im possible t o convey t he way it flows t hrough t he syst em . Power does not originat e wit hin t he individuals, nor wit hin t he inst it ut ions shown ( e.g. work, school) , but is generat ed m uch m ore dist ally wit hin and bet ween socio- econom ic and cult ural syst em s whose all- pervasive influence defies int ricat e analysis4 . By defining t he individual as a locus in social space wit hout any significant int rinsic power of his or her own, I suspect I will be felt by m any t o be m aking a t ravest y of our idea of what it is t o be hum an, and t o be at t em pt ing want only t o dest roy precious not ions of freedom and dignit y. I do acknowledge t hat t he proj ect I am engaged in is in som e ways reduct ive, but I would also claim t hat it is a reduct ionism wit h a difference. Scient ist ic program m es in psychology in t he past have, knowingly or not , always sought t o place t he scient ist him or herself beyond t he reduct ive not ions applied t o t he obj ect of st udy ( i.e., people) . I t was for t he behaviourist t o discover and apply t he 'laws of behaviour' and for t he rest of hum anit y t o be predict ed and cont rolled by t hem . Psychoanalysis, in pronouncing j udgem ent on t he cont ent s of our 'unconscious m inds', t akes up it s 'scient ific' posit ion wit h insupport able arrogance. What I am proposing is rat her different : a set of concept s t hat t ake account of and t o an ext ent explain t he anom alies and difficult ies of our convent ional psychology but t hat also accom m odat e and elaborat e rat her t han underm ine our sense of ourselves as social agent s. I am , it is t rue, act ively seeking disillusion, but from illusions which in fact serve t o enslave rat her t han sust ain us. I n t he following page I will t ry t o clarify som e of t he issues in a lit t le m ore det ail.

1. This is of course not a v iew which I hav e sim ply invent ed for m y self out of nowher e. An excellent academ ic account of t he social origin of self m ay be found in I an Burkit t 's Social Selves. Sage, 1991. 2. George, Susan. 1999. The Lugano Report . Plut o Pr ess. 3. Sm ail, Dav id. 1999. The Origins of Unhappiness. Const able. 4. For a websit e packed w it h inform at ion about t he scient ific under st anding of com plex syst em s, t ry ht t p: / / ww w.calr esco.org/

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3 Th e Ex pe r ie n ce of Se lf I do not believe t hat t he best rout e t o underst anding what we m ean by t he ‘self’ is t hrough int rospect ion. The ‘discoveries’ t hat can be m ade t hrough at t ending carefully, even scept ically, t o one’s own psychological processes t ell us very lit t le about what it is t o be hum an ( t hough t hey m ay t ell us a great deal about what it ’s like t o be hum an) . Several philosophers – som e of t hem ext rem ely influent ial – have fallen t o t he t em pt at ion t o draw sweeping conclusions about t he nat ure of t he self from t heir closet ed rum inat ions over what went on inside t hem ( cogit o ergo sum , et c.) , wit h consequences t hat have been profoundly m isleading. As I have already suggest ed, t he view from t he self- as- cent re is subj ect t o several kinds of lim it at ion and dist ort ion in bot h t im e and space. The t rouble is, it is a perspect ive t hat is hard t o challenge because it is so com pelling and appeals so readily t o t he prej udices we all t end t o share as t he result of our singular em bodim ent . For when we look inside ourselves, we all t end t o ‘discover’ t he sam e kinds of phenom ena: feelings, t hought s, percept ions, int ent ions. From t hese we are alm ost bound t o conclude t hat , as individuals, we harbour syst em s of sensat ion, em ot ion, cognit ion and will which, in t heir various com binat ions, will be sufficient t o explain our ‘behaviour’. Tradit ional approaches t o psychot herapy have done not hing t o dim inish t his pict ure – and in fact a great deal t o st rengt hen it . And yet it is from t he experience of t rying t o help people in dist ress t hat t he inadequacy of t he convent ional approach has been borne in on m e. I t is not t hat convent ional psychot herapy does not invest igat e and illum ine t he reasons for som eone’s dist ress oft en quit e convincingly; indeed it is t he great privilege of being able t o t alk t o people at lengt h, and wit hout t he usual kinds of t hreat which result in defensive and deceiving com m unicat ion, which m akes psychot herapy as a sit uat ion a m ost revealing m edium of research. I t is, rat her, t he widespread and well docum ent ed inabilit y of t herapy t o put right t he t roubles it uncovers t hat point s us away from our received wisdom about what m akes people t ick. For what becom es painfully obvious as people st ruggle wit h t heir dist ress is t hat t he sim ple biological and psychological resources wit h which t hey cam e int o t he world are alm ost ent irely incapable of m aking any significant difference t o t heir predicam ent . I t is not , furt herm ore, j ust t hat t heir t roubles are due t o environm ent al causes beyond t heir cont rol ( t hough it is ext raordinary t hat t his glaringly obvious circum st ance is so oft en ignored by convent ional t herapies) but t hat t he very const it ut ion of t heir ‘selves’ is social rat her t han individual. A great part of what ‘I ’ am lies out side and beyond ‘m e’, and is t herefore not am enable t o t he operat ion of m y ‘will’.

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Our bodies im part t o us an overwhelm ing im pression of ‘inside’ because, of course, everyt hing we experience and do is m ediat ed by t he biological equipm ent which goes t o m ake up our individual exist ence, and of which only we ourselves are direct ly aware. And yet t he causes of what we experience and do are equally overwhelm ingly out side ourselves. No only are all t he abilit ies we have – from language t o t he m ost t rivial ( or sophist icat ed) social skill – acquired from out side, but t heir effect ive perform ance depends a) upon our having available t o us t he power t o act , and b) upon t here being a social cont ext t o receive our act ions and render t hem int elligible. Alm ost everyt hing t hat I experience as part of ‘m e’ is dependent for it s acquisit ion, m eaning and perform ance on us. I am at least as m uch a social as a biological const ruct ion. What m ight t his m ean for our convent ional psychological underst andings?

Fe e lin gs More t han anyt hing else it is our singular em bodim ent which m akes individuals of us. Alt hough we share our physical const ruct ion, in all essent ials, wit h every ot her m em ber of t he species, each of us is encapsulat ed in a skin which m arks us off from t he rest , and only we know for sure what is going on inside t hat skin ( or so it seem s) . And what t ells us what is going on is our feelings. Even here, of course, we depend in all sort s of ways on t he social cont ext in order t o recognize and m ake sense of our feelings, and t heir m eaning and com m unicat ion rely ut t erly on t he m yst erious facult ies of sym pat hy and em pat hy, wit hout which hum an relat ionship and int eract ion would be im possible. When we cease t o resonat e in sym pat hy wit h som eone else’s pain, when, for what ever reason, we fail ut t erly t o m ake t he int uit ive leap which places us em pat het ically in som eone else’s shoes, we becom e fright eningly dim inished as hum an beings. The genocidal m ob lives on t he lowest m oral plane im aginable. Our singular em bodim ent places a kind of paradox at t he very cent re of our exist ence. On t he one hand, feelings, and our unique awareness of t hem , are where our individual lives are lived. On t he ot her, it is experience of our feelings which form s t he very basis of t he possibilit y of put t ing ourselves in t he place of ‘t he ot her’. I t is t he experience of pain and pleasure ( and anxiet y and dread, ant icipat ion, excit em ent and j oy, and so on...) which m akes m y life im port ant t o m e, which shapes and defines m y m ort alit y. But it is also t he recognit ion t hat I share t hese feelings wit h all t hose ot hers who are built t he sam e way t hat ext ends t he m eaning of m y exist ence beyond m yself and m akes m e first and forem ost a m oral creat ure. I t is all t oo easy t o get derailed from our m oral life as social beings int o t he anxiet y- driven exist ence of one of Margaret That cher’s ‘individuals’, fixedly preoccupied wit h t heir own bodily sensat ions of pain and pleasure, lack and sat isfact ion. Modern consum erism encourages t he belief t hat t his is t he ‘norm al’ way t o be. I nsofar as it succeeds, it will dest roy not only societ y, but life it self. I hope it is apparent t hat by m aking our feelings, t he sensat ions of our singular em bodim ent , t he basis of our m oral and social

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exist ence I am in no way t rying t o det ract from t heir im port ance t o us as individuals. I am not , for exam ple, suggest ing t hat we should subm erge our personal int erest in som e abst ract not ion of t he great er good, t hat we sacrifice t he felt present for a not ional fut ure. What I am t rying t o say is t hat it is our awareness of ( m ost im port ant ly) our own pain which put s before us t he pain of ot hers and which behoves us, wit h t hem , t o m ake a bet t er ( less painful) world. I t is precisely because feelings are where life is lived t hat we should st rive t o const ruct societ ies t hat m ake life t olerable for all, not j ust som e of us. I t is our feelings – t he sense conveyed t o us of our relat ions wit h t he world around us – which, so t o speak, hook us int o t he net works of int erest by m eans of which power is conduct ed. At t he m ost prim it ive level, we are at t ract ed and repelled in various degrees by t he sensat ions which our dealings wit h t he world give rise t o, and it is t hrough t his process t hat we learn what appears t o be in our int erest , and what not . The essent ial crudeness of t his process is of course quickly overlaid by t he alm ost infinit e variet y of refinem ent s which a social syst em consist ing of creat ures as com plex as ourselves will bring fort h. I n his Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault 1 set s out a brilliant analysis of t he way in which European powers have learned over t he past few cent uries t o eschew cont rol of t he cit izenry by violence and t error in favour of t he m uch m ore subt le ( and effect ive) use of a kind of discipline ( t hrough exam inat ion, observat ion and record- keeping) which event ually becom es int ernalized by individuals t hem selves. Christ opher Lasch m akes sim ilar point s in his analysis of t he ‘t ut elary com plex’ 2 t hat t urns our at t ent ion inward in a kind of anxious selfm onit oring, keeping us perpet ually com paring our ‘selves’ wit h ot hers.

D isciplin e a n d Se du ct ion The solicit at ions of seduct ion have not replaced, but exist alongside a t echnology of discipline which st ill broadly cont rols t he funct ioning of t he societ al apparat us. I ndeed t here is oft en a curious, cont radict ory fusion of t he t wo which leaves m any of us in a st at e of anxious bewilderm ent . The principal m eans of discipline is t he t hreat t o livelihood. Endless, oft en cont rived change, aut horit arian hierarchies of 'm anagem ent ', t he cont rol of pot ent ial sources of social crit ique ( cont ract ual gagging, punishm ent of 'whist le- blowers', et c.) , all exist against a pervasive background of j ob insecurit y. Lay- offs, redundancies, pay cut s, people being forced t o apply for t heir own j obs: t he im m inence of personal cat ast rophe has becom e a leading feat ure of daily living. The harsher t he realit y of t he world im posed on people, t he m ore blandly seduct ive t he concept s wit h which we are induced t o fram e our experience. 'Enj oym ent ' becom es t he key, publicly endorsed crit erion of a wort hwhile life, behind which, however, reigns a t error of insecurit y. An alm ost hyst erical m ediat ized incit em ent t o selfindulgence runs alongside a pit iless dism ant lem ent of t he social support syst em s of t he poor, weak and disadvant aged; t he public world is progressively im poverished while t he privat e im aginat ion is fed wit h ever m ore 'excit ing' prom ises of sensual enrichm ent .

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High capit alist consum erism goes one st age furt her ( t hough not m ore subt le) : rat her t han playing on t he pains and anxiet ies which punishm ent and discipline arouse, t he individual becom es m anipulable t hrough t he provision of opport unit ies for unt ram m elled pleasure. What one m ight call t he deregulat ion of addict ive self- indulgence t hat has t aken place in recent years appeals direct ly t o t he m ost basic bodily sensat ions of pleasure ( pornographic sex, drugs, art ificially enhanced foods, et c.) . This, of course, engages t he individual’s int erest s in t he furt herance of a syst em which, in t he longer ( econom ic) t erm , benefit s only a very sm all proport ion of t he populat ion. There is lit t le reason t o suppose t hat power cannot be infinit ely resourceful in invent ing ways of engaging people’s int erest s t hrough t he m anipulat ion of t heir feelings, but t here is of course far m ore t o t his process t han t he direct st im ulat ion of pleasure and pain. The cont rol of m eaning ( ideological power) form s an im m ense part of t he apparat us of social cont rol, and, t o be in a posit ion t o analyze som e of it s procedures and effect s ( which will be t he subj ect of lat er pages) , we need t o consider som e furt her aspect s of t he com posit ion of ‘selves’.

Th e r ole of com m e n t a r y A great part of what we t ake t o be charact erist ically hum an achievem ent s – in part icular t hinking and willing – is int im at ely bound up wit h our abilit y t o use language. Our propensit y for reflect ing about ourselves, for weighing and assessing t he evidence of our senses, for com paring, ant icipat ing and j udging, all depend on our learning t o use words. The use of language perm it s us t o ext end our societ y, m at erially and concept ually, illim it ably furt her t han any ot her group of anim als could conceivably achieve, and indeed it is essent ially our linguist ic abilit y which defines our int elligence. I n our everyday sense of ourselves, however, we oft en overlook t he ext ent t o which what we t ake t o be individual, int erior aspect s of our personal ‘psychology’ are in fact ext rem ely fallible social const ruct ions, cult urally acquired via t he m edium of language. For what we t ake t o be causal process of t hought , decision and will are frequent ly lit t le m ore t han a kind of running com m ent ary t hat accom panies our act ions. As we grow up we learn t o at t ach words t o our act ivit ies t hat , if we’re not alm ost superhum anly at t ent ive, com e in our underst anding t o replace t he act ivit ies t hem selves. An awareness t hat we are pushed and pulled by, quit e lit erally, t he force of circum st ances gives way ( if indeed it was ever percept ibly developed) t o a convict ion t hat our com m ent ary on t hese event s act ually gives rise t o t hem . As t he Russian developm ent al psychologist Lev Vigot sky argued so powerfully 3 , t he child’s t hought is not som ehow sim ply int ernally generat ed, but is acquired from t he social cont ext . Thinking is self- t alk which has becom e silent . Many of t he charact erist ics t hat we t end t o regard as ent irely 'psychological' are acquired in exact ly t he sam e way as t hought and language - t hat is t o say, from out side. The m ost significant case in

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point is probably 'self- confidence', t he crum bling of which is so oft en at t he root of t he kind of personal dist ress which can be 'diagnosed' by t he expert s as 'neurot ic'. Confidence in t hem selves is acquired by children as t hey grow up t hrough t he confidence powerful ot hers place in t hem . Just as children learn t o t hink by hearing what ot hers say t o and about t hem , so t hey learn t o assess t hem selves according t o how t hey are act ually t reat ed. What feels like an ent irely int ernal facult y, a kind of m oral propert y which ought t o be under t he individual's personal cont rol, is t hus a 'wired- in' charact erist ic which can no m ore be changed at will t han can t he language we speak. Som e approaches t o t herapy recognize t his at least im plicit ly when t hey accord a crucial role t o t he 't herapeut ic relat ionship' it self in, for exam ple, inst illing confidence in t he pat ient t hrough t he t herapist 's 'uncondit ional posit ive regard'. Though t here is doubt less som e t rut h in t he idea of t he 'correct ive em ot ional experience', t he t herapist 's role in his or her pat ient s' lives is ( even in t he bizarre pract ice of 're- parent ing') far less powerful t han t he role of act ual parent s. Therapeut ic influence of t his kind t ypically last s no longer t han t he t herapy it self.

'Mot ives' I n psychot herapy and counselling as m uch as or perhaps even m ore t han in everyday life, we t ake it as of t he first im port ance t o est ablish what we see as t he int erior validit y of people's ut t erances, act s and int ent ions. We feel a st rong need, t hat is, t o est ablish t he purit y or ot herwise of t heir 'm ot ives'. I n t herapy, for exam ple, t he concept of 'insight ' is crucial: in order t o be able t o act in accordance wit h t herapeut ic prescript ion, it is felt , t he individual m ust be able t o see int o t he int ernal processes which cause resist ance or com pliance, for it is t hese which provide t he m ot ivat ion for his or her overt conduct . Again, som e hum anist ic psychologies, borrowing from exist ent ialism , lay great em phasis on 'aut hent icit y' as a prerequisit e for m orally sound and 'healt hy' conduct : t here needs t o be, t hat is t o say, a kind of harm ony bet ween inner int ent ions and t he out er expression of t hem . I n everyday social life t he t ransparency and sincerit y of what ot hers say and do is considered an im port ant fact or in est ablishing t heir t rust wort hiness - t o t he ext ent t hat in t he sphere of public life, polit icians ( and t he m edia circuses t hat at t end t hem ) will place m ore im port ance on, for exam ple, t he perceived 'sincerit y' of t heir ut t erances t han on t he act ual policies t hey advocat e and inst it ut e. I n t hese inst ances we are again, I believe, confusing com m ent ary wit h t he exist ence of an int erior 'psychological' world which, we feel, needs t o be accessed t herapeut ically and inspect ed m orally if we are t o rem ain healt hy, adj ust ed and properly disciplined cit izens. There is, however, no such int erior m oral space, and in m y view t he concept s which are t hought t o arise from it can be bet t er account ed for by considering t he relat ions bet ween, on t he one hand,

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what we t ell ourselves ( i.e. what I have called 'com m ent ary') , and, on t he ot her, what we do, what we feel, what we t ell ot hers, and what can be est ablished obj ect ively. The following t able at t em pt s t o clarify t his view: a ccor ds w it h :m y act ions

what I feel

t he best m y account t o available ot hers account YES

YES My com m e n t ary

YES

YES

YES

I nsight Sincerit y Aut hent icit y

YES NO

Re su lt

NO NO

Decept ion Self- decept ion

I f, t herefore, m y com m ent ary - what I t ell m yself - accords wit h what can be obj ect ively est ablished ( what I have called t he 'best available account ') , I can be said t o have insight . I f m y com m ent ary accords wit h what I feel and wit h what I t ell ot hers, I can be said t o be sincere. And so on.

M yst ifica t ion s of I n t e r ior it y Much of what psychoanalysis t akes t o indicat e a realm of 'unconscious m ot ivat ion', and, m ore im port ant ly perhaps, m any of t he ways in which we deceive ourselves and cause ot hers pain by referring t o pure m ot ives for bad act ions, can be dem yst ified by t he use of t he kind of concept ual schem a out lined here. Take for exam ple t he parent who desert s his or her fam ily. The harassed fat her, say, who t akes off in early m iddle age wit h his secret ary m ay have few qualm s about his wife's predicam ent because he has com e t o loat he her, but he will be able t o overlook t he devast at ion his children feel at being left ( not so different from , indeed perhaps m uch m ore int ense t han hers) by t elling him self he 'st ill loves' t hem . 'Love', from his perspect ive, is an int ernal, som ehow self- validat ing st at e expect ed t o sust ain his children in t heir loss. For t hem , however, 'love' is t heir experience of his em bodied presence and support , t he wit hdrawal of which inevit ably indicat es love's absence. What he t ells him self accords neit her wit h his act ions nor, alm ost cert ainly, wit h what he feels ( m ost likely an all- consum ing - and sadly all- t oo- t em porary - passion for his secret ary) . I hope it is clear t hat t his is not m eant as a m oralist ic inj unct ion against divorce. Life is oft en alm ost unbearably difficult . But fooling each ot her and being ourselves fooled about t he difficult ies only serves, in m y view, t o com pound t hem .

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I do not want t o claim t hat t his schem a is absolut ely accurat e or logically wat ert ight - it is int ended m ore as a m odel - but it does do away wit h t he necessit y for post ulat ing com plex and ult im at ely m yst erious int ernal m oral and psychological ent it ies. I n banishing a lit erally underst ood int erior space, it reinst at es t he im port ance of t he ext ernal world we all occupy. I t downgrades psychology and upgrades socialit y. Perhaps t he m ost im port ant effect of t his is t o shift our j udgem ent of t he validit y or ot herwise of what people say and do from unanalysable, supposedly int erior m oral im pulses t o an essent ially ext erior, social world of language and act ion. A world which is t hrough and t hrough perm eable t o t he operat ions of power and underst andable only in relat ion t o t hem . I do not m ean t o suggest by any of what I have said so far t hat t he em bodied individual is bereft of agency in any sense; what I do want t o say is t hat what we t ake t o be t he individual, personal processes t hrough which we underst and and shape our worlds t end t o be inflat ed by a sense of personal aut onom y which is very largely illusory.

'Cognit ions' Much of what we t ake t o be ‘cognit ive processes’ consist s in one for m or anot her of com m ent ary, or self- t alk. Cognit ive psychologist s – especially t he less sophist icat ed ones - oft en writ e as if decisionm aking processes, at t it udes, beliefs and so on are independent , essent ially rat ional ‘schem at a’ exist ing som ehow as causal agent s in people’s brains, and t hat t hey can in principle be isolat ed and accessed ( by, say, a ‘cognit ive t herapist ’) and, where necessary, alt ered t o give m ore sat isfact ory behavioural out com es. Much of t he procedure of ident ifying and alt ering such ‘cognit ions’ t akes place t hrough t he m edium of language. I n t his way, it is felt t hat , at least in principle, an individual can t ell you what , for inst ance, his or her ‘at t it udes’ are ( or at least t hat t hey can be inferred from his or her account ) , and t hat t hey can be alt ered t hrough rat ional discussion. The m ost vociferous – and sim ple- m inded - proponent of t his kind of approach in t he t herapeut ic world in recent t im es has been Albert Ellis, whose brainchild, ‘Rat ional- Em ot ive Therapy’, is widely pract ised. 4 However, rat her t han being behaviour- causing schem at a, localizable inside people’s heads and describable by t hem , ‘cognit ions’ of t his kind can only be underst ood as social const ruct ions, dist ribut ed t hroughout a net work which ext ends far beyond t he individual who appears t o host t hem . What we so oft en t ake t o be an ‘at t it ude’, for exam ple, is lit t le m ore t han t he com m ent ary individuals give t o account t o t hem selves ( and/ or ot hers) for t he way t hey conduct t hem selves in a part icular circum st ance. People do, of course, behave charact erist ically, but t hey do so for reasons which are far m ore com plex t han sim ple cognit ivism allows. People m ay or m ay not be aware of t he ways in which t heir int erest s are ‘hooked’ by powerful influences in social space- t im e, but in alm ost all circum st ances t hey will be ready t o offer an account of what t hey are doing and why, and indeed t o m aint ain a com m ent ary t o t hem selves on t he significance of t heir act ions. The accuracy of any

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such com m ent ary – whet her delivered by t he individual him - or herself or by an independent observer – will depend upon t he ext ent t o which t he social causat ion of t he behaviour in quest ion is t ransparent . And, given t he com plexit y of social influence, very oft en it will not be. As we shall see lat er, t he illusion t hat t he individual in som e sense owns, host s or is responsible for conduct whose origins are in fact largely social is one which is frequent ly ideologically exploit ed by power as a m eans of obscuring it s own m achinat ions. The illusion t hat t he individual is t he sole originat or of his or her conduct is of course nowhere m ore com pelling t han t o t he individual him - or herself, and it is as m uch as anyt hing t he convict ion wit h which people are ready t o account ( t hrough com m ent ary) for t heir conduct which gives rise t o t he whole not ion of ‘cognit ions’. For t he m ost part , t hough, all I am aware of when I perform som e act ion or ot her is t he bodily processes which t ake place in m e as I do so. I will probably have long forgot t en t hat t he nam es I give t o t hese processes ( ‘I want ed t o’, ‘I t hought t hat ’, ‘I int ended t o’, ‘I m eant t o’ , ‘I decided t o’, et c., et c.) , rat her t han describing som e self- evident , causal, int ernal rat ionalit y, were acquired originally from t he oft en t ent at ive and puzzled effort s of ot hers t rying t o read t he significance of m y infant ile adj ust m ent s t o a world get t ing t o grips wit h m e. Com m ent ary consist s largely of a series of guesses about t he m eaning of m y act ions based for t he m ost part on very scant evidence, but , because of t he ext rem ely lim it ed perspect ive from t he self- ascent re, it seem s t o t he individual involved a fairly com prehensive account of his or her ( em bodied) experience. The not ion of ‘will’ is suscept ible t o very m uch t he sam e kind of analysis.

'Will power' I have t ried before t o challenge t he not ion of ‘will power’ in m y writ ings ( in part icular The Origins of Unhappiness and How t o Survive Wit hout Psychot herapy wit h, as far as I can t ell, result s t hat dem onst rat e m ainly how reluct ant people are t o abandon it . Let m e first place t he argum ent in cont ext . I n saying t hat t here is no such t hing as ‘will power’, I am not suggest ing t hat as individuals we are likely t o find ourselves reluct ant ly com pelled t o act against our wishes by som e inexorable alien force, and cert ainly not by a force of t his kind which could in principle be underst ood and m anipulat ed by som e superior breed of scient ific social engineers. This is t he ( Brave New World, Clockwork Orange) night m are of t hose who t ake seriously t he prepost erous am bit ions of scient ist ic psychologies such as behaviourism . Nor am I saying t hat t he nonexist ence of will power furnishes us wit h a kind of perm anent excuse for im m oral or illegal conduct . I n essence I am m aking quit e a lim it ed and m odest claim : t hat t here is no int ernal, m oral facult y innat ely resident inside hum an beings which can be called upon at t im es of crisis t o deliver t hem from difficult or unwant ed sit uat ions. This is not t he sam e as saying t hat t here is no such t hing as ‘will’, nor t hat we cannot speak legit im at ely of ‘free will’. Will is t he

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availabilit y of power t o an individual t o direct socially acquired influence back int o t he environm ent . How 'free' t he will is depends upon t he ext ent of powers available t o t he individual in social spacet im e. For everyday purposes, of course, t here can be no sensible obj ect ion t o people t alking about ‘will power’. I t ’s a useful, uncom plicat ed way of referring t o t he ext ent t o which people can reasonably be expect ed t o exercise t he powers t hat are norm ally available t o t hem . I f I get fined for parking on t he yellow lines I can scarcely invoke t he non- exist ence of will power as a defence because t he opt ion of not parking on t he yellow lines would ( alm ost cert ainly) have been available t o m e. The quit e lim it ed claim I am m aking is t hat when t here is no power available t o t he individual from t he social environm ent ( eit her now or hist orically) , t here is no furt her, or ult im at e source of power upon which he or she can be expect ed t o call sim ply by virt ue of being hum an. Disput es about ‘will power’ and whet her or not som eone should have applied it t hen becom e quest ions of whet her or not he or she had access t o t he necessary powers t o act in t he part icular circum st ances. Here again t he view from t he self- as- cent re is very m isleading. I t is alm ost im possible when one does som et hing wit h difficult y or an unusual am ount of effort not t o credit oneself wit h special, int ernal powers. Our view of ourselves is not as of a locus in social space t hrough which power flows, but as an agent wit hin which power originat es. For when we act , all we are im m ediat ely aware of is t he feelings t hat accom pany t he act ion, and if t hey are st ressful, or if we find ourselves act ing against t he norm al run of our inclinat ions in pursuit of som e ‘higher’ goal, it is ent irely nat ural t hat we at t ribut e t o ourselves som e special power which seem s t o have an unusual m oral cachet . I n t hese circum st ances, what we t end t o do is sum up a highly com plex social process in a sim plified com m ent ary which we quickly and m ist akenly t ake t o have a subst ant ive realit y of it s own. Please not e here again t hat m y account is not reduct ive in t he sense t hat I am banishing m oralit y t o t he realm of t he ‘unscient ific’ or som ehow dim inishing t he freedom and dignit y of hum ankind. What I am suggest ing is t hat m any of t he phenom ena we t ake t o be indicat ive of individual aut onom y and virt ue are in fact analysable only in t erm s of social fact ors.

Th e illusion of a u t on om y Psychological at t ribut es which are convent ionally t aken t o be aspect s of our individualit y – ‘cognit ions’, ‘will’, et c. – are, t hen, principally illusions creat ed by what I have called ‘com m ent ary’. The processes which t hese words at t em pt t o describe are in fact m ore accurat ely t o be seen as being dist ribut ed wit hin t he social space- t im e in which t he individual is em bedded. This view is one which m ay t ry t he pat ience of even t he best disposed reader, since it appears t o underm ine som e of our m ost cherished not ions about t he hum an spirit . For exam ple, I rem em ber one well- known and highly respect ed ( also by m e) psychologist

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react ing wit h dism ay at m y suggest ion t hat , of t hem selves, ideas cannot have power. Social solidarit y, t he t aking up of ideas and put t ing t hem int o act ion, m ay well be pow erful, but an idea on it s own can ‘do’ not hing. I can see t hat , on t he face of it , t his appears ( am ong ot her t hings) t o rob us of t he hope t hat oppressive power m ay be com bat ed by t he exercise of m ind. Again, I t hink, we are in cases like t his m isled by a kind of short hand way of t hinking int o a convict ion t hat m et aphors we invent ( e.g., a ‘powerful idea’) describe real ent it ies. I n everyday conversat ion it is perfect ly reasonable t o describe an idea t o which, say, m illions have com e t o subscribe as ‘powerful’. But when analyt ical accuracy becom es im port ant , we need t o be able t o see t hat it is t he fact t hat m illions have t aken it up t hat m akes it powerful. I f we fail t o recognize t his, we give up t oo m uch power t o t he public relat ions indust ry and t he doct ors of spin. Power is a social acquisit ion, not an individual propert y. The isolat ed individual, uproot ed from t he social cont ext , not only has no significant powers, but would be unrecognizable as a hum an being. The aut onom y wit h which we credit ourselves is an illusion ent irely dependent on t he unreflect ive com m ent ary which we generat e from t he self- as- cent re, and which is reinforced by a host of int erest s t o whose advant age it works. The illusoriness of aut onom y becom es apparent in everyday waking life only when t he cust om ary relat ion bet ween conduct and com m ent ary breaks down, and nowhere is such breakdown m ore apparent t han in t he course of psychot herapy. Absolut ely cent ral t o t he experience of psychological dist ress for m ost sufferers is t he awareness t hat t heir conduct bears painfully lit t le relat ionship t o t heir idea of t hem selves, t heir wishes and t heir st riving. Their ‘cognit ion’ and t heir ‘will’, in ot her words, seem incapable of affect ing what t hey do or how t hey feel. I t is ext raordinary t hat t heorist s of psychot herapy have been able t o m ake so lit t le of t his st at e of affairs, since, m ore clearly t han anyone, t herapist s are confront ed by phenom ena which cry out for an analysis t hat could reconcile t heir apparent cont radict ions. I t ’s t rue, of course, t hat t he not ion of t he Unconscious was elaborat ed precisely t o account for t he cont rast s bet ween people’s conscious account s of t heir act ions ( t heir com m ent aries) and t he act ions t hem selves. However, all ‘t he Unconscious’ does is shuffle t he problem s from one ‘part ’ of t he individual t o anot her: t he whole apparat us of com m ent ary get s shoved wholesale and unm odified int o an im aginary int erior space even less int elligible t han t he one it st art ed out in. This m anoeuvre serves only t o m ake m at t ers m ore m yst erious. Not only is t he individual’s own com m ent ary disqualified ( perhaps right ly, perhaps not ) , but it is replaced by t he com m ent ary of t he t herapist who claim s t o be able t o discern t he ‘unconscious’ origins of conduct buried deep wit hin. Apart from t his gam bit , however, psychot herapy and counselling have done alm ost not hing t o get t o grips wit h t he issue t hat st ares t hem in t he face, i.e. t he disart iculat ion of com m ent ary and conduct . Having ( oft en correct ly) uncovered t he environm ent al causes of t he pat ient ’s predicam ent , all t oo oft en ‘t herapy’ can m anage lit t le

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m ore t han an appeal t o t he person’s non- exist ent aut onom y t o m ake t he necessary changes ( i.e. ‘accept responsibilit y’ for t hem : ‘only you can do it ’, et c., et c.) . 5 Clinical neurology offers m any exam ples of condit ions in which words becom e cat ast rophically split from act ions such t hat pat ient s' ut t erances and beliefs about what t hey're doing m ay be ent irely at odds wit h conduct which is nevert heless in it self far from chaot ic, and direct ed t owards perfect ly coherent and ( t o ot hers) com prehensible ends. For exam ple, in his book Dest cart es' Error ( Paperm ac, 1996) , Ant onio Dam asio uses evidence from t he observat ion of brain- dam aged pat ient s t o suggest t hat m ind is t he product of an organism , not j ust a brain, and organism s are locat ed in and m ediat e environm ent s. Brain, body and environm ent flow int o and out of each ot her, and what we do is by no m eans sim ply t he result of t he deliberat ions of a rat ional conduct or sit t ing som ewhere inside us. I t hink t here are also clear enough int im at ions of t his in ordinary experiences fam iliar t o all of us. The forem ost of t hese is in dream ing. The 'com m ent at or' is oft en absent in dream s, and t he sense com m ent ary allows us in waking life of being som ehow in charge, gives way t o a m yst erious world in which we are const ant ly surprised not only by t he event s which overt ake us but also by our response t o t hose event s. I t is oft en not clear which of t he m ult iple charact ers in dream s is 'self' or 'ot her', and t he ident it y - t he feelings, int ent ions, even t he sex of t he dream er becom es ext raordinarily fluid. The dream er spect at es rat her t han direct s, react s rat her t han com m ent at es. What we dream is, aft er all, not hing but our 'own' ideas and im ages, and yet we are const ant y surprised - som et im es even t errified - by t hem . I n dream ing sleep t he illusion of 'ownership' dies wit h t he silencing of t he com m m ent at or, and dream ers are left t o observe m ore or less passively t he ways t he world flows t hrough t hem . What people who suffer psychological dist ress t end t o becom e aware of is t hat no m at t er how m uch t hey want t o change, no m at t er how hard t hey t ry, no m at t er what m ent al gym nast ics t hey put t hem selves t hrough, t heir experience of life st ays m uch t he sam e. This is so because t here is no such t hing as an aut onom ous individual. What powers we have are acquired from and dist ribut ed wit hin our social cont ext , som e of t hem ( t he m ost powerful) at unreachable dist ances from us. The very m eaning of our act ions is not som et hing t hat we can aut onom ously det erm ine, but is m ade int elligible ( or ot herwise) by orders of cult ure ( proxim al as well as dist al) over which we have virt ually no cont rol. A person’s charact er is not som et hing he or she can choose, or indeed alt er at whim , since charact er is held in place hist orically and cont ext ually by powers and influences which are alm ost ent irely independent of personal influence. However out rageous som e m ay find t his ‘deconst ruct ion’ of personal aut onom y, I t ake for m y evidence t he experience of t hose

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who have had t o st ruggle wit h suffering. I suggest , furt herm ore, t hat sooner or lat er it is t he experience of us all. As long as our act ions accord m ore or less sat isfact orily wit h our wishes and our int ent ions - as long, t hat is t o say, as com m ent ary and conduct are art iculat ed reasonably com fort ably - we are likely t o subscribe happily enough t o t he not ion of personal aut onom y. When, however, as happens not infrequent ly in m ost of our lives, we find what we are doing running count er t o what we want , what we t hought we believed, and possibly even our best effort s, we begin t o cat ch a glim pse of how hum an conduct really com es about . Our m ist ake at such t im es is t o at t ribut e our difficult ies t o som e kind of aberrat ion such as 'm ent al disorder'. We invoke 'circum st ances beyond our cont rol' only when we want t o dissociat e ourselves from t he result s of our act ions; t he point , rat her, is t hat circum st ances are always beyond our cont rol, but m ost of t he t im e not felt ( or said by us) t o be. The ext ent t o which you can alt er your ‘self’ will depend upon t he powers available t o you t o alt er your world. ‘Therapy’ m ay help som eone t o redeploy m ore effect ively t han before what powers and resources are available t o him or her ( which explains t he oft - cit ed research finding t hat young, at t ract ive, verbal, int elligent and successful people gain m ost from psychot herapy) . Therapy m ay also provide t he person wit h m uch needed support and solidarit y at t im es of great t rouble. Beyond t hese ent irely ‘ordinary’ ( in Pet er Lom as’s sense 6 ) services, however, t here is no m agic about t herapy, and no reason t o j ust ify it s becom ing a professionalized form of ‘t reat m ent ’. ‘Selves’ are not individual, aut onom ous const ruct ions, but form at t he int ersect ion of social influences t hem selves part of a vast ly com plex syst em . I t is not t hat ‘selves’ cannot or do not change; it is sim ply t hat significant change com es about as t he result of shift s in t he pat t ern of social influence, not because of t he individual's personal wishes or effort s.

1. Foucault , Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish. Penguin Books. 2. Lasch, Christ opher . 1985. The Minim al Self. Picador. 3. Vigot sky, Lev.1962. Thought and Language. Massachuset t s I nst it ut e of Technology. 4. An excellent crit ique of t he lim it at ions of cognit ivism in t herapy and counselling is t o be found in Robert T. Fancher, Cult ures of Healing, New York: Freem an and Com pany , 1995. 5. Experim ent al psychologist s and neuroscient ist s have done very m uch bet t er w it h invest igat ing t he illusoriness of 'will- power', 'decision- m aking', and so on. I ngenious experim ent s st rongly suggest , for exam ple, t hat our act ions are frequent ly under way before our awareness of having 'm ade a decision', and t hat t he reasons we give for what we do are frequent ly confabulat ed aft er t he event . Much of t he m ore recent of t his work is usefully and accessibly sum m ar ized by Susan Black m ore ( 2001) , Consciousness, The Psychologist , 1 4 , 522- 525. 6. Lom as, Pet er. 1999. Doing Good? Oxford Universit y Press.

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4 Th e Te ch n ology of Pr ofit I . M a k e - Be lie ve Apart from t he lat ent violence t hat const it ut es t he ult im at e sanct ion of every societ y, t he dom inat ing power in t he m odern West ern world is t hat of m oney. I f t he last four or five hundred years are anyt hing t o go by, it seem s t o be a fact of polit ical econom y t hat m oney accum ulat es in fewer and fewer hands. Wit h only rare bum ps and hiccups t o hold up it s ‘progress’ here and t here, societ y has becom e increasingly unequal, and at t he present t im e t he profit m ot ive seem s not only unprecedent edly ram pant , but t o hold sway virt ually unchallenged. Such spect acular greed, such indifference t o t he povert y and suffering it inflict s bet ween and wit hin populat ions across t he globe, cannot be est ablished and m aint ained wit hout a t echnology of social cont rol. My concern is of course wit h t he psychological aspect s of t his t echnology and m y purpose here is t o elaborat e on som e of t he fact ors already ident ified in earlier pages as cont ribut ing t o t he m yst ificat ion of our underst anding of t he way t he social environm ent works. The m aint enance of econom ic power in t he hands of a t iny m inorit y of t he world’s populat ion is helped by t he abilit y of t he powerful t o exploit our sit uat ion as isolat ed individuals locked wit hin proxim al worlds. There is a ‘real world’ where t he m echanics of power are m anipulat ed t o t he profit of t hose who have learned – whet her consciously or not – how t o benefit from t hem . Though it t ouches on us oft en enough, and t hat m ost oft en painfully, t he way t he real world works is for t he m ost part kept beyond t he horizon of our abilit y t o discern. Our preoccupat ions are wit h t hings closer t o hom e: wit h our own econom ic survival and t hat of t hose close t o us, wit h our st at us wit hin t he social groups we occupy locally, wit h everyday personal sat isfact ions and discom fort s, wit h am bit ions, dream s and wishes. A charact erist ic of t he real world is t hat t he beings in it ( including, of course, all of us) are em bodied. They live and die; som e t hrive, som e suffer. I t does not suit t he int erest s of unequal power t hat t he hard realit ies of t his world are t oo well underst ood by t hose – t he vast m aj orit y – who profit from it least . For us t here needs t o be – and has been – creat ed ot her form s of world, not real, where we m ay lead disem bodied lives, det ached from t he possibilit y of laying living hands on t he levers of power. I t is a world of m ake- believe, where inside is indist inguishable from out side and where we m ay live m ore easily in our dream s t han in our bodies.

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A pa r a lle l u n ive r se of discou r se Our capacit y as hum an beings for im aginat ion and st ory- t elling m akes us exquisit ely vulnerable t o exploit at ion by t hose who underst and t he propert ies of ideological power. Our nat ural propensit y t o credit com m ent ary above any m ore det ached underst anding m akes us m ore t han prepared t o open our m inds t o versions of ‘realit y’ which are laced wit h som e kind of appeal t o our t ast es, preferences or perceived int erest s. We are, one could say, nat urally credulous The societ al apparat us which exist s for t he m anipulat ion of our credulit y form s an absolut ely essent ial part of t he t echnology of power. I n everyday parlance t his is, of course, for t he m ost part what we m ean by ‘t he m edia’. But t he news and ent ert ainm ent m edia are not t he only det erm inant s of t he way we see and int erpret t he world. Educat ion and t he relat ed inst it ut ions of int ellect ual endeavour and inst ruct ion are also crucial t o our underst anding. None of t his, of course, is lost on t hose in whose int erest it is t o channel t he fruit s of our labours int o t heir pocket s. I n recent years t he encroachm ent of Business int o areas once t hought ( no doubt naively) t o st and apart from com m ercial int erest has been perfect ly obvious. Universit ies fall over t hem selves t o replace academ ic st andards wit h business ones and corporat e int rusion int o schooling no longer causes m uch surprise or indignat ion ( George Monbiot 's exposure of t he ext raordinary influence of corporat e power on t he public sphere in Brit ain 2 seem s t o have caused barely a ripple) . This is not necessarily part of a consciously direct ed process. As I have t ried t o show in previous pages, conscious direct ion is in any case largely a m yt h. As m oney- power – capit al – flows int o fewer and fewer hands, it creat es a net work of int erest t hat m aint ains and accelerat es t he process, rat her as t he st ream s which form t he rivers and t he rivers t hem selves as t hey flow t o t he sea m ay carve t heir beds m ore deeply. There is indeed a degree of im personalit y in t he way ‘t he m arket ’ st ruct ures it self which side- st eps t he will of t hose who becom e caught up in it . I n t his way t he int erest s of significant , if relat ively sm all, sect ions of societ y becom e hit ched t o t he necessary process of disguising t he fact t hat a syst em designed t o m axim ize t he profit s of a few cannot at t he sam e t im e run t o t he advant age of t he m any. The growt h of advert ising and public relat ions, t he arrival on t he polit ical scene of a new profession of ‘spin- doct or’, et c., t est ify t o t he im port ance of cont rolling public percept ion. Apart from t hose sum m oned t o t he financial elit e who m anage t he econom y of t he ‘free m arket ’, t he best and bright est of our yout h are recruit ed t o t he m edia of m ake- believe. Making people believe t hat what is least is in fact m ost in t heir int erest has becom e a societ al t ask of t he first im port ance. Once again, t he at t ribut ion of great er realit y t o words t han t o worlds is already prefigured in t he alm ost irresist ible priorit y we accord as we grow up t o com m ent ary. Pret t y well everybody is in t his way prim ed t o at t ach enorm ous im port ance t o language, and I would not want t o suggest t hat t his phenom enon is in any way t he invent ion of a

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cynical cont rolling pow er. I t does not have t o be conspiracy t hat rules our societ y ( t hough som et im es it m ay be) , but m erely t he sliding t oget her of t he int erest s which oil t he wheels.

Th e Pe r ve r sion of Evide n ce One reason for t he invincibilit y of crude social power is it s lack of t heoret ical dogm at ism and it s pragm at ic readiness t o adopt a belt and- braces st rat egy when it com es t o securing it s posit ion ( t hat is t o say, it has no int egrit y) . While t he prom ot ion of m ake- believe rem ains a cent ral t echnique of loosening t he individual consum er's grasp on t he world, at t ent ion is st ill given t o cont rolling t he processes t hrough which we t radit ionally evaluat e realit y. The approach t o scient ific evidence is a good case in point . Though no doubt int ellect ually dem anding in m any respect s, t he scient ific m et hod is at it s best t he least coercive as well as t he m ost accurat e way we have of est ablishing what is - while acknowledging t he lim it at ions of t hese concept s - 'real' and 't rue'. The effect iveness of t he scient ific m et hod - fundam ent ally libert arian at it s core - is not lost on t hose wishing t o co- opt it in t heir int erest ; but t o do so t hey have, of course, t o pervert it . At t he crudest level t here is sim ply t he possibilit y of fiddling t he figures - an approach widely adopt ed in recent years by, in part icular, governm ent s who wish t o 'dem onst rat e' t hat what isn't t he case, is ( e.g. t he ceaseless m anipulat ion of em ploym ent and ot her st at ist ics) . Beyond t his, however, is t he far m ore insidious int rusion of corrupt ing power int o t he scient ific com m unit y it self. I nst ead of 't he evidence' flowing from t he unconst rained agreem ent of unbiased observers st ruggling in good fait h t o arrive at t he m ost obj ect ive assessm ent possible, it becom es a kind of bludgeon wit h which t o silence precisely t hose sam e observers The social sciences are part icularly vulnerable t o t his kind of corrupt ion, nowhere m ore obviously t han in t he case of t he evaluat ion of t he effect iveness of psychot herapy. The int erest s of a boom ing indust ry com bine wit h t hose of a handful of academ ic 'aut horit ies' such t hat t he lat t er use t heir st at us wit hin t he syst em t o assert t he effect iveness of t herapy, basing t heir 'argum ent ' on a t iny ( and ent irely quest ionable) handful of st udies and in t he face of m ount ains of count er- evidence which have accum ulat ed over decades1 . 'Scient ific' debat e, in such circum st ances, becom es an adversarial cont est in which 'evidence' is t reat ed like a kind of rhet orical foot ball. The out com e of t his st at e of affairs is disast rous, for t he processes whereby we arrive as a societ y at obj ect ive j udgem ent s about realit y has becom e corrupt ed and rendered unt rust wort hy at it s very heart . Scient ific argum ent becom es a cont est of aut horit y based on st at us ( a concept fundam ent ally inim ical t o t he scient ific m et hod) and ordinary people underst andably t urn from a power- ridden perversion of 'obj ect ivit y' t o essent ially m agical syst em s which, t hough equally if not m ore m isleading, seem at least subj ect ively sat isfying.

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Modern philosophy, for exam ple, has over t he t went iet h cent ury com e m ore and m ore t o credit t he im port ance of language and t o discredit any not ion not only t hat t he world can be direct ly known ( which cert ainly seem s im possible) , but t hat t here is any point at all in speculat ing about what lies beyond language. There is not hing, says Derrida, out side t he t ext ; popular readings of Foucault privilege ‘discourse’ above all else; Rort y scoffs as t he idea t hat our underst anding could ‘hold a m irror up t o nat ure’. While t hese philosophers have serious, possibly even valid, point s t o m ake, t heir st andpoint also lends it self wonderfully well t o a societ y which seeks ideologically t o det ach it s cit izens from t heir em bodied relat ion t o a m at erial world. Serious int ellect uals seem t o be t he last t o ant icipat e t he use t o which t heir work will be put . When, for exam ple, Jean Baudrillard writ es of t he ‘hyperrealit y’ creat ed by unfet t ered consum erism , it is all t oo easy for t he edge of crit ical irony t o be lost from his t ext and for it t o becom e a kind of sourcebook for m arket ing execut ives, adm en and ot her cult ural illusionist s. The whole not ion of ‘post m odernism ’ becom es popularized as t he cut t ing edge of social and int ellect ual progress, dist ract ing us from t he ( m uch m ore com prehensible) insight t hat what we are involved in is in fact a recycling of high capit alist econom ic st rat egies which reached a previous peak sevent y or eight y years ago. Psychology also has played an enorm ous part in helping t o dem at erialize t he West ern world over t he past cent ury. Freud m anaged t o represent t he significance of our experience as not only all in t he m ind, but m ost of it in t he ‘unconscious m ind’ such t hat it becam e well and t ruly im possible for us t o crit icize our world ( j ust t o crit icize our selves, and t hat only wit h t he help of a professional psychoanalyst ) . I ndeed, for m uch of psychology, what goes on in t he world, what are t he m at erial relat ions bet ween individual and societ y, is a m at t er of com plet e irrelevance. All t hat count s is what goes on inside t he individual’s head. What ever t he benefit s of t his view in t erm s of t he hope it m ay bring t o people of cont rolling t heir fat e, it is an absolut e godsend t o t hose who have a less rarefied grasp of how t o m ake t he world work t o t heir advant age. Thieves sack t he m ansion undist urbed while it s occupant s rem ain sunk in t heir dream s. I n her book No Logo 3 , Naom i Klein dem onst rat es how unint erest ed m any m odern corporat ions are in t he act ual m at erial product s t hat carry t heir brand. The product s t hem selves m ay in fact be m anufact ured at rock- bot t om cost by cont ract ors locat ed in 'export processing zones' in t he developing world, wit h com pet ing labels 'oft en produced side by side in t he sam e fact ories, glued by t he very sam e workers, st it ched and soldered on t he very sam e m achines'.The 'value added', t he vast ly inflat ed cost s of t hese obj ect s which go t o feed t he corporat e st ruct ure, is what is crucial, and it is spun out of not hing, pure m arket ing m ake- believe. I f, as I som et im es t hink it is, Psychology is t he great est int ellect ual confidence t rick of t he t went iet h cent ury, it is one whose sheer econom ic im port ance is not t o be underest im at ed!

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Effect ively, t hen, we find ourselves cut loose in a world of words where what is t rue and real is a m at t er of what we can be persuaded t o believe. Those who profit m ost from t his st at e of affairs will be t hose best able a) t o cont rol t he use of language and b) t o exploit t he capacit y of language t o int roduce us t o an infinit y of ‘realit ies’. I n The Origins of Unhappiness I described t he way in which t he concept ual fram e of Business cam e during t he ninet een- eight ies t o be im posed right across t he cult ural board. No est ablished social pract ice or inst it ut ion was left out : educat ion, healt h, sport , leisure and t ravel - and of course governm ent it self – all were flooded wit h t he sam e debased and sim plist ic language of business and account ancy. Absolut e values such as Trut h and Right , feat ures of t he now discredit ed Enlight enm ent , were replaced wit h t he crude m arket crit eria of what pays. Not hing has changed since t o im pede t his process. Whoever cont rols language, cont rols t hought . We now have inst alled at t he heart of our cult ure a generat ion barely able t o t hink out side t he param et ers of business. ‘Realit y’ is described and experienced in t erm s of com pet it ion, cost and profit ; wort h is j udged in t erm s of wealt h and st at us. The whole concept ual and

Exam inat ion of t he Business lexicon t est ifies t o George Orw ell's prescience, for largely it is a vocabulary of opposit es, designed t o sim plify our t hought such t hat we are no longer able t o represent t o ourselves t he povert y of our experience. Where t here is em pt iness, t here shall be hype. Exam ples: Awesom e Unrem arkable Cult ure Fashion; policy Cust om er Passenger; Pat ient Cynic Crit ic Downsize Sack Enj oy Buy, consum e Excellence Mediocrit y Excit ing Boring Flexible Unst able and insecure I con Fleet ing m edia creat ion I nnovat ive St ale, reinvent ed Job- seeker Person deprived of work New Old Passion Hobby Passionat e Feigning int erest Qualit y ( t ot al) [ m eaningless] Reform Revert or deform public int o privat e st ruct ures Rest ruct ure St rip asset s and sack workers Robust I nert , feeble Maj or Trivial St unning Unrem arkable Target ( t ough new, Com plet e set t ing of) execut ive inact ion Surveying 't he m arket ' in t he USA at t he t urn of t he m illennium , Thom as Frank provides a brilliant ly caust ic analysis of corporat e m ake- believe and it s at t endant vocabulary: The Big Con, Guardian, 6.1.01. This language is so absurd as t o be alm ost beyond sat ire. For a lit t le light relief, however, see anot her Guardian cont ribut ion, t his t im e by Tony Benn ( 23.1.02) .

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linguist ic regist er of our lives has been collapsed int o one dim ension, and wit h it our capacit y t o experience ourselves as anyt hing ot her t han business successes or failures: what m at t ers is not t he cont ribut ion you m ake t o t he social world, but how m uch m oney you can m ake from it . Nowhere is t his m ore obvious t han in t he once idealist ic yout h of our universit ies – it is com m onplace, for exam ple, t o com e across st udent s of m edicine who, seriously worried about t he m oney and st at us at t ached t o t heir proposed career, yearn inst ead t o becom e m anagem ent consult ant s. Not t o have a Mercedes by t he t im e you’re t hirt y is t o have failed in your life’s proj ect . The philosophical subt let y t hat at t he highest int ellect ual level acknowledges t he relat ivit y im part ed by discourse t o our ideas of realit y is, however, by no m eans reflect ed in t he ‘t abloid world’ we are now forced t o inhabit . The realit y which Business cult ure and ideology offers us is not present ed as one alt ernat ive am ong several, but as ‘t he real world’ t o which all of us m ust shape up if we are not t o end up hopelessly at t he bot t om of t he heap. Just occasionally t he universe of discourse suffers a rude int rusion of realit y which som ehow cat ches us all out , and we are left openm out hed, not knowing quit e what t o m ake of our sit uat ion. The st ory of t he railway net work in Brit ain provides an excellent exam ple. Despit e a series of accident s, som e very serious and som e m inor, and an unrem it t ing hist ory of cancellat ions and delays, t he m anagem ent of t he privat ized rail com panies claim ed t o be providing a st eadily im proving service in which safet y was t heir first priorit y. Throughout t he syst em t he experience of failure was m et wit h evasive assurances and oddly recurring excuses ( e.g. t hat lat eness was due t o a bridge having been 'st ruck by a m ot or vehicle'.) To be a passenger was like ent ering a virt ual world in which a pret ence of ( t hwart ed) efficiency consist ent ly blanket ed t he act ualit y of cancelled t rains and lat e arrivals, cold wait s on decaying st at ions and m issed appoint m ent s. Then, in Oct ober 2000, a broken rail brought an express t rain off t he t rack near Hat field, killing four people and inj uring m any ot hers. Suddenly realit y broke t hrough. The safet y which had before been spun as 'num ber one priorit y' now becam e a priorit y in fact . Apparent ly overnight , 1000 m iles of t rack becam e suspect and over 200 speed rest rict ions were im posed. At t wo hours' not ice t he line bet ween Glasgow and Carlyle was closed. Senior m anagers of Rail Track, t he com pany m ainly involved, appeared on t elevision like penit ent schoolboys caught red- handed in som e em barrassing m isdem eanour. I n an inst ant , it seem ed, passengers had becom e em bodied and t he railways and rolling st ock re- m at erialized as obj ect s in a real world. For e x posu r e of a sim ila r con t r a st be t w e e n w or ds a n d a ct ion in t h e fie ld of e du ca t ion , se e N ick D a vie s's a r t icle on de spa ir in t h e cla ssr oom , Th e Gu a r dia n , 2 .1 1 .0 0 .

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I t is t herefore recognized and expect ed t hat t he person- in- t hest reet will assum e a fairly direct linkage bet ween descript ions of t he world and t he world it self. What ordinary people t hink, what t hey conceive of as t he t rut h, is of t he ut m ost im port ance as t heir act ions ( part icularly of course, t heir act ions as consum ers) are likely t o be based upon it . The best , m ost convincing descript ion of t he way t hings are com es in t his way act ually t o const it ut e how t hey are ‘in fact ’. The t radit ional st ruggle t o represent t he world in words is replaced by a st ruggle t o creat e a world in words. The success or ot herwise of t his proj ect is m easured in t erm s of ‘credibilit y’. This is t he universe of discourse where t he spin- doct ors dwell, but t he world in which it places us is a st rangely fragile one. For alt hough t he m edia and m arket ing t echnocrat s vie wit h each ot her t o foist upon us t hat ‘realit y’ m ost profit able t o t hem selves and t o t he influences which cont rol t hem , it becom es pret t y obvious t hat we are not t alking here about what m ost people t hink of as realit y, but about m ake- believe of differing degrees of credibilit y. At t he heart of t his whole ent erprise, t hen, t here is a cont radict ion: ‘credibilit y’ – what people can be persuaded t o believe – is t he ult im at e goal of ‘spin’, but in t he popular m ind t heir rem ains an indissoluble, t hough inart iculat e, link bet ween what is believable and what is real or t rue. Credible worlds, in ot her words, are not t he sam e as real ones. Business fakes a world which it sells us as t he t rut h, but is fat ally underm ined by t he t rut h t hat lies beyond it . For language need not be sim ply t he m eans whereby we creat e an infinit y of relat ive worlds ( t hat is t o say, a snare and delusion) . On t he cont rary, it m ay be used in t he st ruggle t o decode our experience of realit y, t o give us a sense of what is act ually happening in t he world. Precisely t he point of t he Business t ake- over of language, of t he frenet ic collect ive voice of t he m edia, is t o drown out t he possibilit y of our art iculat ing t o ourselves t he nat ure of t he realit y in which we are caught up. The first t ask of any oppressive power is t o st rip t he subj ect ive voice, t he languaged sensibilit y of t he em bodied person, of aut horit y. I f you are t o be gulled by t he m ake- believe of t he public relat ions world, t he last t hing you m ust be perm it t ed t o credit is t he evidence of your own senses ( who do you t hink you are – an expert or som et hing?) . This is because t he abilit y of t he individual em bodied subj ect t o evaluat e t he evidence of his or her experience is t he ult im at e defence against illusion. This is very far from saying t hat our subj ect ive experience is infallible. The vulnerabilit y of personal experience t o error – i.e., of being wrongly int erpret ed in words – m eans t hat we need t o t ake great care t o check on it s validit y before we act on it in any irret rievable way ( t his process, in fact , const it ut es t he heart of scient ific m et hod) . The subj ect ive perspect ive needs t o be evaluat ed int ersubj ect ively ( which brings it as near as possible t o being obj ect ive) but t here is st ill, ult im at ely, no aut horit y beyond it . Furt herm ore, t he represent at ion t o ourselves of our own experience, and t he processes of checking it against t he experience of ot hers, all t ake place in t he m edium of language. The fallibilit y of words gives us plent y of reason for being

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careful wit h how we use t hem , but no reason at all for abandoning our proj ect of t rying t o underst and t he world.

A w a lk r ou n d N ot t in gh a m cit y ce n t r e I haven’t been here for a while. They’ve now unveiled t he huge new st ruct ure replacing t he Vict orian buildings t hey knocked down at t he very cent re of t he cit y. I diot ically, I ’d been hoping it would be a bit like t he new building in London or Berlin, energet ic and im pressive even if all about corporat e power. But it ’s alm ost indescribably horrible, a t ot al disappoint m ent : t acky and garish. For som e reason it rem inds m e of an inflat ed version of flaking 1950s st ruct ures you used t o see at French Channel resort s. Over- lit eral, as if it ’s m eant t o look like a boat : incongruous st reak of blue punct ured by port holes ( pict ure) . I t looks cheap, and falsely cheerful. I n effect , t hey’ve wrecked t he heart of t he t own. The shops have slid furt her int o barely disguised penury. Cut down on st aff even furt her, dirt ier t han t hey used t o be – t here’s a sense of econom ic desolat ion about . And t hat ’s reflect ed in t he shoppers t oo, harassed wom en laden wit h plast ic bags, at t he end of t heir t et her, yelling at t heir children. Young, equally harassed fam ily m en, drawn and defeat ed, not at work t oday, not at work any day. Junk food, j unk clot hes, j unk com m odit ies. Junked youngst ers bunking off school prowling rest lessly in t he shabby m obile phone shops. I t feels as if we’re get t ing nearer and nearer t o t he edge of a disast er. The people, t he com m ercial st ruct ure, t he very fabric of t he cit y cannot , surely, t ake m uch m ore. Alm ost everyt hing, alm ost everybody is being squeezed dry; you can hear t he pips squeaking. I t ’s all about m oney, t he desperat ion for it , t he panic as it siphons off out of sight , sucked up int o som e social st rat um j ust not visible here. I wonder if t he ot her people walking round here int erpret all t his. Could t hey art iculat e t he cont rast bet ween t his realit y and t he ‘hyperrealit y’ of t he glam orous celebrit y world t hrough which t hey’re induced t o run int o debt ? Do t hey account for t heir sit uat ion in t erm s of anyt hing ot her t han personal failure? Or is t his j ust t he way t hings are, t o be lived only wit h resignat ion or in t he hope of winning t he lot t ery? There has, over decades, been an unrem it t ing onslaught against t he art and science of int erpret ing one’s own experience, t o such an ext ent t hat m any people – consciously or unconsciously – find it im possible t o have an opinion wit hout t he prost heses of t he m edia or t he prescript ions of one or ot her of our m odern doct ors of m eaning. The first t ask of any rebellion against Business dom inance is t o reest ablish t he int egrit y of t he universe of discourse; t hat is t o say, t o ret urn t o t he search for words t hat describe t he world as accurat ely as possible.

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I I . Ou t side - I n I n order t o m axim ize it s effect iveness, consum er capit alism , t he engine of profit , needs t o det ach individuals from an accurat e underst anding of, and significant influence wit hin, t he social and m at erial environm ent t hey occupy. The ideal unit of consum pt ion ( i.e. person) , ut t erly vulnerable t o t he int erest s and influences of ‘t he m arket ’, is: a) dissocia t e d – unable t o form solidarit y wit h ot hers, and hence b) dise m pow e r e d c) disloca t e d from any reliable anchorage in t he m at erial environm ent from where resist ance could be m ount ed. d) dise m bodie d - e.g., psychologically ‘freed’ from t he lim it at ions which em bodim ent places on his or her abilit y t o consum e. Social space- t im e m ust becom e so blurred, so insubst ant ial, t hat t he person becom es ent irely dependent , m at erially and psychologically, on t he realit y which is offered him or her t hrough t he m anufact ories of m ake- believe which we recognize collect ively as ‘t he m edia’. Apart from est ablishing cont rol over language, and hence what I have called ‘com m ent ary’ ( and so t hought it self) , a prim ary aim of econom ic exploit at ion is t o collapse t he dist inct ion bet ween inside and out side. The necessit y of bending realit y t o essent ially com m ercial ends is widely evident t hroughout t he m edia. The exploit at ion of ‘virt ualit y’ in video gam es, t he obsession wit h t he supernat ural and fant ast ic in popular cinem a and fict ion, what ever t hey m ay say about our t ast e for violence and pornography, at least have t he m erit of being reasonably clear about where t hey st and ( i.e. ‘inside’ rat her t han ‘out side’) . There is however, an alt oget her m ore subt le and disorient at ing fusion of fact and fict ion, realit y and m ake- believe which has in recent years increasingly infect ed t he m edium t hrough which it m ight be hoped t hat we have readiest access t o accurat e dist al inform at ion – t elevision. ‘Real’ figures ( m inor governm ent m inist ers, ‘celebrit ies’) m ake appearances as t hem selves in fict ional dram as; public figures ( e.g. t he prim e m inist er) offer ‘privat e’ revelat ions in chat show appearances. Not hing m ore t han publicit y- seeking perhaps. But beyond t his are t he endless ‘fly- on- t he wall’ ‘docu- soaps’ which present a kind of dram at ised banalit y of everyday life in which viewers m ay ent er doct ored worlds m ade excit ing, presum ably, only by t he rest rict iveness and im poverishm ent of t heir own realit y. ‘Realit y’ t hus becom es an obj ect of fascinat ion for t hose denied a life in public. Where necessary, furt herm ore, realit y m ust be deliberat ely dist ort ed t o conform wit h t he ‘t rut h’ t hat t he program m e m akers have decided t o present . Act ors are hired t o play out t he lucrat ive fant asies of ‘invest igat ive j ournalist s’ in docum ent aries screened as in deadly earnest ( as opposed t o t he consciously spiced 'dram a- docs') , or t o pass t hem selves off as m em bers of t he public in revelat ory t alk shows.

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Out side is t he real world in which we are em bodied and live our lives wit h ot hers. I nside is t he psychologically m anipulable world of im aginat ion where we can be m ade t o believe, but where also, it is im port ant t o not e, we host personal powers and resources which ( t hough originat ing from wit hout ) can be seen as in a sense our individual ‘propert y’. Thus, on t he one hand, t he pot ent ialit ies of im aginat ion m ay be recruit ed t o m ask t he realit ies of our exist ence, while, on t he ot her, t hose personal powers and resources which we m ight pot ent ially be able t o develop t o our advant age and ( in t he broadest sense) enrichm ent m ust be ext ract ed from us and sold back t o us as com m odit ies. I n t his way, t he world is t urned out side- in such t hat , am ong ot her t hings, real exploit at ion and deprivat ion are represent ed and experienced as essent ially psychological failures. Correspondingly, people are t urned inside- out such t hat , am ong ot her t hings, any real ( em bodied) powers or abilit ies t hey m ay have acquired are ext ernalized, com m odified and m arket ed.

M a k in g t h e pu blic pr iva t e Psychology is t he principal t ool which has been used t o privat ize t he public world in which act ions really count . Alm ost by definit ion, t he focus of psychology is on what goes on, supposedly, inside t he isolat ed individual. The privat e world of beliefs, desires, disem bodied t hought s and ‘cognit ions’ becom es t he arena in which we believe we have t o operat e in order t o change our lives. This is indist inguishable from belief in m agic, for it places us in an im m at erial, int erior world whose m ain cont act s wit h ext ernal realit y are wishful rat her t han act ual. I t is absolut ely no accident t hat t here has in recent years been a resurgence in frankly m agical and religious syst em s of belief and t hat t hese have becom e increasingly int erwoven ( as in ‘alt ernat ive m edicine’) wit h popular concept ions of science. What we fail t o recognize is t hat , cert ainly in t he psychological sphere, what we t ake t o be ‘scient ific’ is for t he m ost part m agic. The prevent ion of individual cit izens’ part icipat ion in public space is t he cent ral st rat egy of a program of syst em at ic disem powerm ent which leaves t he resources of t he m at erial world exposed unresist ingly t o corporat e plunder. Polit ics is virt ually eradicat ed – t he ‘t hird way’ announces an end t o conflict of int erest , and in a sense t his is all t oo t rue: t he only int erest s left are t hose of big business, which rules largely undist urbed by t he opposit ion of t hose ( t he vast m aj orit y) whom it dam ages. As I shall elaborat e when I com e t o consider t he concept of ‘responsibilit y’, t he social havoc t hat is wreaked by unfet t ered econom ic greed com es t o be int eriorized as t he personal weakness and irresponsibilit y of t hose principally affect ed. The st ruggle of ordinary people t o ret ain t he com m ons – lost over cent uries of land enclosure – has now shift ed ont o psychological grounds. The individual is driven out of public space in count less, alm ost im percept ible st eps, m any of which are m yst ified as som ehow ‘person- friendly’. Not e, for exam ple, t he disappearing use of surnam es

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in Brit ish cult ure. This is part of a process of ‘im personalizat ion’ in which t hat elem ent t hat gives t o anyone a public role is eradicat ed. The t elephone sales m an or wom an, t he funct ionary who fields your enquiry or com plaint has no ident it y beyond t he anonym ous first nam e t hat goes wit h t he parrot ed ‘how m ay I help?’ – not only is t here no space in which t hey can be locat ed and held account able, t here is nowhere for t hem t o signify, t o be agent s in public space. This is j ust about t he purest oblit erat ion of t he dist inct ion bet ween inside and out side, for j ust as one is robbed of public dignit y, so also t he best owal of int im acy which use of t he first nam e gives is t ipped out int o a world of universal indifference. To have a surnam e and t it le is now no longer accorded as of right t o all, but has becom e a prerogat ive of t he relat ively powerful, t hat is t hose who can lay som e claim t o be influent ial in public space. The rest of us will be known only by our first nam es, very m uch as plant at ion slaves used t o be: not as an indicat ion of t he privat e affect ion in which we are held, but as a sign of cont em pt for our insignificance. For m ost of us, real life By happy coincidence, t he very day is experienced as a kind of aft er I writ e t his, a schem e is frust rat ing barrier to announced on BBC Television News adm ission t o t he 'hyperrealit y' wherein a range of fem ale held before us by t he m edia, celebrit ies, including t he Prim e t he heaven- on- eart h where Minist er's wife, have donat ed cast t he rich and fam ous, t he off clot hing which m ay be borrowed celebrit ies and t he lot t ery- rich by penurious j ob applicant s t o enj oy t he rewards of t heir increase t heir chances of success at virt ue, t heir t alent and t heir int erview. luck. Where form erly people Rat her like eart hworm s having slid were pacified wit h a prospect int o a cobra's skin, t hese poor of paradise, t he m odern m ass wom en will presum ably be t hought consum er is m esm erized by t o have had best owed upon t hem t he out side chance of for a m om ent a kind of hyperreal adm ission t o t he real Olym pus ident it y t hat will fort ify t hem in where t he m odern t heir vent ure int o public space. incarnat ions of t he old gods dwell and disport t hem selves, som et im es indeed crossing it s fort ified barriers t o allow us t o t ouch or be t ouched by t hem . Apart from t he sm all but undying hope t hat good fort une m ay gain us ent ry, t he m ost t he rest of us can hope for is t o live vicariously on t he cont rolled visit s allowed us by t he celebs int o t heir world. We m ay, for exam ple, st and on t he out side looking in, like t he crowds at t he crush barriers of a film prem iere, and we will be drip- fed a cert ain degree of m anufact ured int im acy wit h t hem as t he beaut iful people confess t heir secret s on t he t alk- shows and invoke ( or fall vict im t o) t he public relat ions m achinery t hat surrounds t hem . We are not readily invit ed t o go behind t he scenes of t his t heat re in order t o observe how and by whom it s world is creat ed and populat ed, it s players cast , t heir m asks select ed. St ill less are we allowed a glim pse int o t he real halls of power where t he big deals are st ruck and t he big m oney m ade, nor int o t he haunt s and hom es of t hose who m ake it . For t he glam orous world of celebrit y is t he principal

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vehicle of an ideology of int eriorit y which would becom e rapidly called int o quest ion if t he general populace got t oo clear a view of how t hings really work. Alt hough, of course, t he ephem eralit y of fashion cannot be disguised, we st ill believe t hat t he celebrit y, t he fam ous 'personalit y', som ehow deserves his or her elevat ion by virt ue of individual qualit ies ( even if only physical beaut y) which are som ehow t o his or her personal credit . Celebrit y, in ot her words, is present ed as personal achievem ent , t hus m aking t he rest of us look like - if not failures people who have not got what it t akes t o m ake it past t he boundaries of ordinary life. However, what looks like personal 'charism a', 'st ar qualit y', et c., is on t he whole t he capricious gift of a publicit y m achine t hat runs on energy supplied by a far m ore sordid world. Though, of course, som e occupant s of hyperrealit y have been const ruct ed on t he basis of a degree of em bodied t alent ( e.g. sport ing st ars) , t his quickly becom es inflat ed and exploit ed far beyond any reasonable assessm ent of it s original significance or t rue social wort h. For t he m ost part , celebrit y is t he creat ion of a m edia indust ry built t o uphold an ideology, and it is t he ideology t hat m at t ers, not it s creat ures. 'Charism a' is but t he visible aspect of a power which does not originat e wit hin t he individual celebrit y, but is accorded him or her by t he puppet eers of t he m edia world; and it can, of course, be inst ant ly wit hdrawn, t he st ar eclipsed. ( Media people know well enough t heir st rengt h, as anyone who has encount ered t he arrogant , blasé exercise of t heir dom inion will be able t o affirm .) I am not , of course, saying anyt hing here which is not already well known and widely discussed. What I t hink we do not see so clearly, however, is t he degree t o which t his faked world t hat lies beyond our act ual lives really does pollut e our exist ence. Despit e it s shoddiness and insubst ant ialit y it really is a vast const it uent of our environm ent , and inevit ably flows t hrough us such t hat we com e t o accept t he prem ises on which it is built even if we react against som e of t he crudit y of it s expression. Not only does it serve t o blunt our crit ical facult ies, t o 'dum b us down' and divert our energy inward t o t he sat isfact ion of art ificially creat ed needs, not only does it reinforce a m yt hology of personal wort h based on t he individual exercise of int erior powers, but it places us wit hin an inescapably and unrem it t ingly painful sit uat ion where t he act ualit y of our lives is const ant ly underm ined. We are, t hat is t o say, t hrown int o a st at e of pervasive uncert aint y and insecurit y over how far we are from com ing up t o scrat ch, from breaking out of t he grey lim bo t hat is our exist ence int o t he bright world t he ot her side of t he t elevision screen. There are ot her ways t oo in which we are induced t o host as our personal failings t he iniquit ies of t he out side world. I n his m ast erly analysis of t he effect s of French colonial rule in Nort h Africa, Frant z Fanon dem onst rat ed how t he im press of dist al power can end up as hat red and st rife am ong t he oppressed groups t hem selves, t hus apparent ly legit im izing concept ions of t he ruled by t he rulers as, for exam ple, genet ically t aint ed, psychologically inferior or 'm ent ally ill' 4 . A sim ilar process is in m y view involved in som e

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aspect s of what has com e t o be known as 'polit ical correct ness', t he t ypically Orwellian irony of which is t hat t hey are neit her polit ical nor correct . There is of course no disput ing t hat in m odern West ern societ y whit es oft en oppress blacks and m en oft en oppress wom en. This is bound t o be t he case in a social cont ext in which people are forced t o com pet e for scarce resources and t o different iat e t hem selves from each ot her in any way which will accord t hem great er power, however illusory t hat power m ay be ( not hing, aft er all, could be m ore pat het ic t han t he belief t hat 'whit eness' confers personal superiorit y or t hat m en are in som e way t o be valued m ore highly t han wom en) . However, it is a concept ual m ist ake of t he first m agnit ude t o at t ribut e t he causes of such oppression t o int ernal charact erist ics or t rait s of t hose involved. So long as sexism and racism are seen as personal at t it udes which t he individual sinner m ust , so t o speak, ident ify in and root out of his or her soul, we are dist ract ed from locat ing t he causes of int erpersonal st rife in t he m at erial operat ion of power at m ore dist al levels5 . Furt herm ore, solidarit y against oppressive dist al power is effect ively prevent ed from developing wit hin t he oppressed groups, who, successfully divided, are left by t heir rulers t o squabble am ongst t hem selves, exact ly as Fanon det ailed in t he case of Algerians im poverished and em bit t ered by t heir French colonial m ast ers. I t is not t hat racist or sexist at t it udes do not exist - t hey m ay indeed be feat ures of t he com m ent ary of t hose who exercise or seek t o exercise oppressive, possibly brut al proxim al power. But t hat com m ent ary is not t he cause of t he process t hat result s in such proxim al oppression and it is as fut ile t o t ackle t he problem at t hat level as it is t o t ry t o cure 'neurosis' by t inkering wit h so- called 'cognit ions' or 'unconscious m ot ivat ion'. This, I t hink, explains t he ot herwise puzzling success of 'polit ical correct ness' at a t im e when corporat e power ext ended it s influence over global societ y on an unprecedent ed scale. For t his success was in fact no t rium ph of liberal t hought or et hics, but rat her t he 'int eriorizing', t he t urning out side- in of form s of dom inat ion which are real enough. The best - int ent ioned am ong us becom e absorbed in a kind of int erior wit ch- hunt in which we t ry t o t rack down non- exist ent dem ons wit hin our 'inner worlds', while in t he world out side t he exploit at ion of t he poor by t he rich ( correlat ing, of course, very m uch wit h black and whit e respect ively) and t he m orale- sapping st rife bet ween m en and wom en rage unabat ed. Once again, we are st uck wit h t he im m at erial processes of 'psychology', unable t o t hink beyond t hose aspect s of com m ent ary we t ake t o indicat e, for exam ple, 'at t it udes' or 'int ent ions'. The hist ory of t he t went iet h cent ury should have t aught us t hat anyone will be racist in t he appropriat e set of circum st ances. What is im port ant for our underst anding is an analysis of t hose circum st ances, not an orgy of right eous accusat ion and agonised soul- searching.

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I I I . I n side - Ou t What m akes t he 'inner world' so im port ant t o us is t hat t hat is were we experience our lives. There is, of course, no 'world' t here at all, but a wonderful confusion of feeling and im aginat ion, t hinking, dream ing and m em ory t hat furnishes our personal idea of what it is t o be hum an and t o be alive. I t const it ut es our subj ect ivit y. I t is, I believe, a profoundly ironic paradox t hat m odern psychology has done m ore t han anyt hing else t o divert us from an underst anding and appreciat ion of t he subj ect ive experience of self. I nst ead of a delicat e, m odest , t ent at ive, respect ful considerat ion of t he unfat hom ably chaot ic, som et im es ext raordinarily beaut iful, som et im es horrifically fright ening, always wildly idiosyncrat ic int erior which is t o be found wit hin each one of us, psychology has t ried t o unpick us wit h a kind of fast idious dist ast e t hat has not hing t o do wit h love and everyt hing t o do wit h discipline. At least in part because of t he success of t he psychological ent erprise, we are as individuals largely unable t o celebrat e and rej oice in t he experience of self, but rat her, when we have t o, t urn our gaze inward wit h deep apprehension for what we m ay find t here. What we find, cert ainly, is a person like no ot her - and t hat is one of t he principal causes of our m isery. For psychology has im posed on our subj ect ivit y an ent irely inappropriat e norm at iveness, a narrow set of m oral and aest het ic prescript ions which t urns each one of us int o a kind of self- diagnosing psychiat ric inquisit or, ready t o infer from t he recognit ion of each new feeling pat hological deviance from an ideal we t hink we see em bodied in everyone else. I can t hink of no approach t o psychological t herapy which doesn't harbour at it s core a hum ourless aut horit arianism , a m oralist ic urge t o cont rol, t hat has t he ult im at e effect of causing infinit ely m ore pain t han it could ever conceivably hope t o cure. I nvest ed wit h t he aut horit y our social inst it ut ions accord it , psychology pokes it s fingers int o our souls and, pronouncing disapprovingly on what it t hinks it reveals, spreads dism ay and despondency am ong t he populace. For you don't have t o have been near a psychologist or psychiat rist t o have been infect ed wit h t he cult ural dread of being different . Far from having support ed t he individual's sense of subj ect ivit y, psychology has assist ed in t hrowing it int o quest ion t o t he point t hat t he principal concern of m any of us is t o hide from ot hers what we fear t o be inside ourselves. What we t hink should be inside ourselves seem s t o be a kind of anodyne past iche of t he m odel of hum anit y fed us by t he advert ising indust ry, or possibly t he kind of cold, confident Überm ensch of t he TV fant asy hero or heroine - calculat ed, cont rolled, super- com pet ent in m oney, war and sex. I n cont rast t o t his, however, what resides wit hin is t he t angle of sensit ivit y and eccent ricit y t hat t ruly reflect s our individualit y. I t couldn't really be ot herwise: we are all different because we have com e from different places at different t im es wit h different people. No t wo people have t he sam e experience of t he world. I t is im possible t o

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overest im at e t he im port The privilege of having been able ance of t his diversit y; t o t alk t o t housands of people over inst ead of at t em pt ing t o t he years in a set t ing t hat discipline our subj ect ive m inim izes t hreat ( and so t he need individualit y, t o iron out for self- defence) m eans t hat I int erior differences in know one or t wo secret s about accordance wit h a regulhum an beings t hat com e in pret t y at ory ideal of 'norm alit y', handy. They are j ust about as we should appreciat e t his close t o 'psychological laws' as inner chaos as reflect ing anyt hing you are likely to t he raw m at erial of our encount er. For exam ple: significance as hum an Absolut ely everybody want s t o beings. be liked ( law 1) . However, t he m at erEveryone feels different inside ial of subj ect ivit y is indeed ( less confident , less able, et c.) raw, and it s significance is from how t hey infer ot her people lost wit hout a public world t o feel ( law 2) . t hat can st ruct ure it and Few honest and courageous give it expression. For our people who have achieved privat e experience t o m ean anyt hing of real value in life do not anyt hing, for it s value t o be feel a fraud m uch of t he t im e ( law realized, it has t o be 3) . accom m odat ed wit hin a Accept ance of t hese t hree 'laws' 'com m ons' - wit hin public alone would save an awful lot of space - t hat recognizes it people an awful lot of grief! as a cont ribut ion. I n order for t his t o happen, public space has t o be sufficient ly st ruct ured, sufficient ly at t uned t o t he enorm ously wide scale of hum an experience and t he ways of hum an em bodim ent , t o receive, m ake sense of and use const ruct ively what each of us has t o offer. A life is given m eaning and value not by being 'enj oyed' in privat e, but by being lived and appreciat ed in public. Even t he m ost t ort ured privat e experience can find dignit y as well as wort h if t here exist s t o receive it a convivial social world where hum an beings act wit h and for each ot her. This is not what happens when t he overriding principle of social life is profit . Rat her t han validat ing privat e experience, consum erist societ y exploit s it . I n t his sit uat ion we are not able t o use what ever we know of life t o cont ribut e t o t he well- funct ioning of t he whole, but have such knowledge ext ract ed from us and sold back t o us in t he form of com m odit ies. Just about any kind of hum an act ivit y, any form of spont aneous or creat ive act ion, can be analysed int o it s const it uent part s and synt hesized int o a saleable obj ect . Any even rem ot ely ident ifiable hum an experience or feeling is dragged out of t he m ost int im at e recesses of t he soul, graft ed t o consum er goods of one kind or anot her ( if only in t he form of an im age) and offered back t o us as som et hing we could only hope t o acquire com m ercially from out side. This is psychological privat izat ion - a kind of econom y of spirit laundering in which t he advert ising indust ry and t he m edia appropriat e t hose int erior const it uent s of ourselves of which ( not least because of a

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disciplinary 'psychology') we have grown deeply m ist rust ful, st am p upon t hem t heir com m ercial legit im at ion, and sell t hem back t o us. We are in t his way offered for our personal consum pt ion a t oxic adult erat ion of spirit ual sust enance which had in it s original form been perfect ly nut rit ious, even if we had oft en been largely unaware of it s role and funct ion wit hin us. I n an excellent art icle in New I nt ernat ionalist 6 , Jonat han Rowe uses alm ost ident ical words and ideas t o reinforce t he case: I n econom ics t here is no concept of enough: j ust a chronic yearning for m ore, a hunger t hat cannot be filled. This requires t hat all life m ust be convert ed int o a com m odit y for sale. The result is a relent less process of enclosure. I t st art ed cent uries ago wit h land. Today it is encroaching upon every aspect of our individual and collect ive beings. Think about t he growt h indust ries t oday. We buy looks from plast ic surgeons, m ent al out looks from pharm aceut ical com panies, t he act ivit y of our bodies from ‘healt h’ clubs, int eract ion wit h friends from t elecom m unicat ions firm s, and on and on. Securit y com es from police depart m ent s, insurance com panies and privat ized prisons. Transport com es from oil and aut om obile com panies. Virt ually every life funct ion and process is t urning int o som et hing we have t o buy. And lest anyone suspect a t ired ideological sht ick, let ’s say right here t hat t he governm ent is a culprit t oo. I t t urns educat ion int o schooling and com m unit y int o bureaucracy – m uch as t he m arket t urns childhood int o a pet ri dish of nagging. Eit her way, what t he econom ist s call growt h becom es a process of cannibalizat ion. The form al econom y, privat e and public sect ors alike, t akes us apart piece by piece and t hen sells us back t o ourselves. We m ust becom e less so t hat t he econom y can becom e m ore. Lit t le wonder we feel drained and st ressed. We becom e t he biological count erpart s of t he oil wells and t oxic dum ps, bot h t he raw m at erial of t he econom y and t he recept acles of it s wast e. Meanwhile, m illions don’t have enough t o begin wit h.

Consum erism exploit s int eriorit y t o t he point t hat people are alm ost t ot ally drained of it . I nst ead of our privacy being honoured and our individualit y being endorsed, our innerm ost feelings, hopes and fears are t ipped out int o t he open and picked over for t heir com m ercial pot ent ial. There is no secret desire, no haunt ing fear, no t rem ulous shred of anxiet y, no fragm ent of t enderness t hat will not be exposed t o t he j aded inspect ion of t he m arket , worked over and placed on t he j unk st all for m ass consum pt ion. When what was inside is relent lessly exposed t o public view in t his way, it is robbed of all it s sust aining power, and t here is left wit hin us not hing but an em pt ied- out husk of im pulse. Unable t o draw wit h confidence on t he wealt h of our privat e resources - a confidence born of t he fait h t hat it is all right t o be chaot ically hum an - we are reduced

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t o put t ing on a lifeless show of passion t hat has lost all personal m eaning. People brought up in t his cult ure have no endorsed experience of inside, but can only im it at e t he m edia st ereot ypes harnessed t o consum pt ion. I nt eriorit y becom es a sim ulacrum of com m ercially creat ed im age; a puzzle; a source of anxiet y. What we are t ruly left wit h inside is t hose aspect s of subj ect ivit y in which t he m arket has no int erest : an inart iculat e sense of fut ilit y, drudgery and loss. One sees t he result s of all t his part icularly clearly in t he psychological m aladies of t he young - m aladies not of t heir personal being, but form s of social sickness arising out of t he lack of fit bet ween t he subj ect ive experience of em bodied self on t he one hand and t he public vehicles available for giving t hem expression on t he ot her. Hum an bodies do not in fact change in accordance wit h m edia ideals ( hence perhaps t he increasing need for t he creat ion of fant asy worlds in which t o accom m odat e t he dem ands of t he lat t er) . I f t he int ernal requirem ent s and prom pt ings of t he body are t o be underst ood, t hey need a public cult ure t hat recognizes and gives t hem m eanings which are bot h com m on and adequat e. That is t o say, we need not only t o be able t o refer t o and enact our privat e experiences and im pulses in ways t hat will be recognized and underst ood by ot hers, but t hese public recognit ions and underst andings need t o accom m odat e such experiences and im pulses accurat ely, com fort ably and product ively. People brought up in t he capit alist revival of t he 1980s and 90s, even t hough - m any of t hem - except ionally well provided for m at erially and m ore t han adequat ely t rained in t he m anagem ent of com m odified relat ionships, oft en received pract ically no educat ion at all in what it is t o be hum an. Their parent s, preoccupied wit h a scram ble for securit y in a heart less and brut ally com pet it ive econom ic world, were happy enough if t hey could provide t he requisit e consum er goods and ot herwise leave t heir children's educat ion t o 'expert s'. This generat ion t hus depended for it s underst anding of it self on an unprecedent edly shallow business cult ure t hat dealt alm ost exclusively in com m ercial st ereot ypes and im ages. Em ot ional relat ionships were m ore likely t o be form ed wit h gam es consoles, com put ers and fant asy role- play figures t han wit h people who were able t o acknowledge, explain and int erpret what goes on inside hum an beings wit h any degree of honest y. Quit e apart from being officially devoid of com passion and alt ruism , t he 'That cherist ' cult ure ignores any kind of hum an em ot ion or im pulse t hat falls out side t he business regist er. That is t o say, anyt hing inside t hat cannot be t urned out side as a com m odit y, t hat cannot be hooked int o a disciplinary econom ic anxiet y; anyt hing t hat is vague, com plex, t ender, or t hat binds people in solidarit y rat her t han pit t ing t hem against each ot her in com pet it ion - anyt hing like t hat is sim ply left in an incoherent , inexpressible, m yst erious lum p wit hin, like a large indigest ible m eal t hat t he subj ect cannot rem em ber having consum ed. The result of t his is t o be seen as a new form of 'anxiet y' in t he young. The t ypical 'case' is a young m an ( m en are, I suspect ,

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m arginally m ore vulnerable t han Many young people t hese days wom en) who has perhaps been seem not t o expect t o be quit e successful at school, is em bodied. Since t he m arkers socially quit e com pet ent and available t o t hem of what is well int egrat ed ( t hough friendhum an derive m ainly from ships m ay be m ore superficial advert ising and t he m edia, or t han profound) , doing pret t y from t heir own experience of t he well in his j ob or course of binary world of a m echanized st udy, yet assailed periodically virt ualit y, t hey are oft en not by anxiet y t hat , t hough experprepared for t he signals t hey ienced as overwhelm ing, receive viscerally of what t heir displays lit t le out ward sign of world is doing t o t hem . Their dist ress. What usually underlies anxiet y st em s essent ially from t his form of anxiet y seem oft en t heir being unable t o int erpret t o be alm ost banal fears, som e t heir own feelings. of which are in fact t he lot of all One suggest ion som et im es but t he m ost fort unat e hum an found helpful by a few such beings and som e sim ply sufferers is t o read ninet eent h unavoidable em ot ional react ions cent ury lit erat ure - t his m ay rewhich at ot her t im es m ight even int roduce a cult ure in which have been regarded as a 'int eriorit y' was not regarded as a blessing. neurot ic condit ion and where a For exam ple, selfperson could, for exam ple, die of consciousness in publicly a broken heart . conspicuous sit uat ions, discom fort at public speaking, et c., m ay be experienced as som et hing t ot ally alien and incom prehensible, such t hat t he individual cannot m ake a connexion bet ween t he sit uat ion and his feelings: over and over again he m ay put him self int o such sit uat ions in t he expect at ion t hat t here should be 'no problem s', only t o find yet again t hat problem s t here are indeed. Confusion over em ot ional at t achm ent s can lead t o sim ilar uncom prehending panic: falling in love seem s t o be som et hing for which m any young m en possess no fram ework of underst anding. The psychologist 's j ob at t his - and, I believe, at any ot her t im e is not t o diagnose t he 'inner person' but t o explicat e his or her relat ionship wit h t he out side world. This is t o swit ch 'professional' at t ent ion from discipline and conform it y t o a libert arian concern wit h underst anding subj ect ive dist ress as a funct ion of t he personal ( and ult im at ely, of course, wider) environm ent . While t his m ay, I suppose, be viewed as a valuable form of 't herapy', t here is a far m ore im port ant t ask, and one which reaches well beyond t he m ere pract ice of psychology. This is t he t ask which faces all of us of rebuilding a public world t hat accom m odat es t he hum an subj ect s who go t o m ake it up.

1. This phenom enon is encount ered in pur e form in t he volum e edit ed ( in ut t er ly good fait h but w it h dism aying result s) by Colin Felt ham : Cont roversies in Psychot herapy and Counselling, Sage Publicat ions, 1999. For a powerful crit ique of t he corrupt ion of t he psychology indust ry see Tana Dineen's Manufact uring Vict im s, Const able, 1999.

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2. George Monbiot . Capt iv e St at e. The Corporat e Takeover of Brit ain. Macm illan, 2000. 3. Naom i Klein. No Logo. Flam ingo, 2001. 4. See in part icular Chapt er 5 in Frant z Fanon, The Wret ched of t he Eart h, Penguin Books, 1967. 5. A persuasive st at em ent of a very sim ilar view is t o be found in Paul Farm er , On suffering and st ruct ural violence, I n A. Kleinm an, V. Das & M. Lock ( eds) , 1997, Social Suffering, Univ . California Press.

6. Rowe, Jonathan. 2000. Eat, sleep, buy, die. New Internationalist, 329, November 2000.

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5 Re spon sibilit y Ever since I first st art ed t o t hink about t he processes involved in t he origins and experience of psychological dist ress, t he quest ion of responsibilit y has over and over again forced it self upon m e. I n t his way, t he view put forward here seem s t o have evolved t hrough a kind of dialect ical process, it self shaped by changes and developm ent s in t he socio- polit ical cont ext in which t he phenom ena of and explanat ions for 'm ent al disorder' have been set . At first , in t he early 1960s ( in Brit ain) , t he dom inant philosophy in bot h psychiat ric and psychological spheres was crudely m echanist ic and 'obj ect ive' in t he sense beloved of behaviourist s. 'Ment al illnesses' were illnesses like any ot her, im posed on t he hapless vict im t hrough event s beyond his or her cont rol and largely devoid of m eaning as far as his or her personal life was concerned; or else t hey were t he result of 'm aladapt ive' habit s acquired t hrough m ore or less accident al processes of condit ioning. Alt ernat ive views ( as for exam ple psychoanalyt ic ones) were m arginal and largely discredit ed, and t reat m ent approaches relied on t he applicat ion of m edical or psychological t echniques based on biological or behavioural assum pt ions which paid no at t ent ion at all t o t he pat ient 's subj ect ivit y. I n t his set t ing, cert ainly, pat ient s were not held officially account able for t heir difficult ies ( t hough t he various form s of 't reat m ent ' m et ed out oft en cont ained a dist inct ly punit ive elem ent t hat , t o t he reflect ive onlooker, belied t he m orally neut ral st ance of t he pract it ioners) . As responsible agent and subj ect , t he individual person was sim ply an irrelevance. When, t herefore, t heoret ical innovat ors arrived on t he scene such as R.D. Laing in psychiat ry and Carl Rogers and George Kelly in clinical psychology, t heir int roduct ion int o t he pict ure of not ions like m eaning, subj ect ivit y and responsibilit y ( oft en borrowed from European phenom enology and exist ent ialism ) brought fresh, new perspect ives which m any of us seized on wit h relief and ent husiasm . The 'organism ' t hat had been t he obj ect of t he clinical gaze becam e a hum an being whose t roubles were t o be underst ood as t he product of a part icular life. This new 'hum anizat ion' was reflect ed clearly enough in m y own t hinking and writ ing, and m y first solo effort - Psychot herapy: A Personal Approach - duly cont ained a chapt er on freedom and responsibilit y which draws heavily on Sart rean ideas. My concern in t hat book was t o elaborat e a view t hat t ries t o acknowledge t he person's subj ect ivit y and agency while rej ect ing any elem ent of blam e. These are t hem es which I have com e back t o again and again in m y writ ing, and while I would st ill not repudiat e t he view put forward in t hat early work, it has since becom e m odified t o an ext ent which renders it , I t hink, m ore or less obsolet e.

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For what seem s t o m e t o have happened over t he years is t hat a m echanist ic and obj ect ivist approach t o people's dist ress t hat , while it didn't overt ly blam e t hem , dehum anized t hem , has been replaced by a 'hum anist ' and 'post m odernist ' one t hat int eriorizes t he phenom ena of dist ress and - oft en explicit ly and nearly always t acit ly - holds people responsible for t hem . Even t hough t he pendulum seem s t o have swung from an alm ost ent irely ext erior approach t o an alm ost ent irely int erior one, t he problem of responsibilt y has not been solved: form erly we had people for whose condit ion nobody was responsible while now we have people whose condit ion is largely if not solely t heir own responsibilit y. The reason for t his is t o be found in what t hese t wo ext rem e posit ions have in com m on: a st udied avoidance of t he social dim ension. I t is t rue t hat , as t he pendulum began t o swing ( for exam ple wit h Laing's work) , t he social power- st ruct ure did indeed becom e visible for a m om ent , even t o t he ext ent of spawning 'radical psychology' m ovem ent s. However, as far as t he m ainst ream is concerned, t he possibilit y t hat em ot ional dist ress is t he upshot of t he way we organize our societ y has never been seriously ent ert ained and at t he present t im e is if anyt hing furt her t han ever from any kind of official recognit ion. The im put at ion of responsibilit y is absolut ely cent ral t o t his st at e of affairs. 'Responsibilit y' is, however, not a unit ary concept , and is in fact used in a confusing num ber of overlapping senses, usually depending for t heir int erpret at ion on t he rhet orical ploy t he ut t erer is seeking t o adopt . The m ost frequent everyday use is t hat of responsibilit y as blam e: 'who is responsible?' is equivalent t o 'who is t o blam e?'. This is t he sense in which people suffering em ot ional dist ress usually underst and 'responsibilit y', and I would m aint ain t hat for t he m ost part t hey are not m ist aken in t heir ant icipat ion t hat t his is how societ y also underst ands it in relat ion t o 'psychological disorder'. Once t he concept of responsibilit y is invoked in t his sphere it raises t he quest ion of who is t o blam e for m y suffering - I , or som eone else? The m essage of t he t herapeut ic indust ry has been t hat t he blam e lies wit h t he sufferer; it is of course not st at ed as crudely as t his, but is im plied in t he not ion t hat som ehow t he individual lacks t he m oral fibre t o face up t o his or her difficult ies and m obilize t he necessary int ernal resources t o deal wit h t hem . Most sufferers feel t his keenly wit hout any overt prom pt ing from t hose around t hem : a guilt y sense of weakness and m oral inadequacy is one of t he m ost frequent and uncom fort able accom panim ent s of dist ress. Wit h t he except ion of legal responsibilit y, which largely concerns t he ext ernal im posit ion of clearly defined and codified rules and obligat ions t hat , it is assum ed, t he individual m ay choose t o observe or t ransgress, 'responsibilit y' is usually seen as a kind of praisewort hy m oral facult y int ernally available t o everyone who is not in som e way except ionally dam aged, as for exam ple by brain inj ury or m adness. 'Responsibilit y' is t hus a kind of virt ue ( closely relat ed t o 'will power') which m ay be appealed t o, a 'sense' which m ay when necessary be st ernly invoked, or a capacit y for resolve which m ay be st iffened t hrough t herapeut ic int ervent ion.

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I t is im port ant t o not e t his virt uous qualit y of responsibilit y, for while it m ay const it ut e a m ark of m at urit y and an index of m ent al 'wellness', it is not usually seen as som et hing beyond t he person's power t o sum m on up if absolut ely necessary. Only in t he m ost except ional circum st ances will a healt hy adult be considered 'not responsible' for his or her act ions. The exercise of t his kind of virt uous, m orally loaded responsibilit y is oft en seen as burdensom e. To act responsibly is t o act wit h considerat ion and rest raint ; t o act irresponsibly is t o be selfish, disobedient , disloyal. There is enorm ous pot ent ial here for hypocrisy, sanct im ony and m anipulat ion. For when 'responsibilit y' of t he m orally virt uous kind is m ost earnest ly advocat ed, it is usually by t he advant aged for t he disadvant aged. To say t hat som eone is irresponsible, 'has no willpower', et c., is not t o com m iserat e wit h t hem as having been som ehow deprived of virt ue, but at least t acit ly t o accuse t hem of wilfully wit holding conduct t hat t hey could enact if t hey chose. There is, I suggest , a st rong posit ive correlat ion bet ween a) t he height of t he rung occupied on t he ladder of power, b) t he st rengt h of a sense of personal virt ue, and c) t he firm ness of t he convict ion t hat t hose lower down should act m ore responsibly. The sense in which t herapist s and counsellors advocat e responsibilit y for t heir client s probably derives from t he exist ent ial view t hat , t o achieve 'aut hent icit y', a person m ust em brace t he inevit abilit y of t heir own choice of act ion: your fat e is t o be free and no one perform s your act ions but you. While t his view does have t he m erit of escaping t he blind m echanism of ort hodox ( m edical and behavioural) approaches, it rarely m anages t o avoid t he m oralism which so easily at t ends t he not ion of responsibilit y, and t herapeut ic pract it ioners quickly find t hem selves in a fam iliar paradox. For while t hey exhort t heir client s t o 't ake responsibilit y' for t heir lives, t hey concurrent ly assure t hem t hat t hey know t hat 'pull yourself t oget her' is a popular prescript ion t hat doesn't work. The t herapeut ic not ion of responsibilit y, it is im plied, is alt oget her different , m ore subt le, t han crude advice about pulling selves t oget her. The t rouble is, t hough, t hat in pract ice t here is very lit t le difference bet ween t hese t wo approaches, and indeed as far as client s experience t hem t hey are virt ually ident ical. A furt her uncom fort able aspect of t his paradox is t hat t he role of qualified, t rained professional usually im plies t hat a skill is being offered which does not place t he onus for it s effect iveness on t he client . Reasonably enough, in consult ing a t herapist or counsellor, client s expect t o be cured, not t o find t hat cure is a m at t er of t heir own responsibilt y. Psychot herapy m ust surely be t he only profession t o posit fundam ent al principles such as client 'resist ance' t o account for it s inabilit y t o deliver t he goods. To underst and why t herapist s and counsellors have been locked in t his cont radict ion for so long one need look no furt her t han t heir int erest s. Quit e obviously, t hey are unable t o claim t hat t heir influence can reach in any significant way beyond t he consult ing room , and if t hey are t o j ust ify t aking fees for t heir act ivit ies, it sim ply m ust be t he case t hat client s harbour wit hin t hem t he possibilit y of change.

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Therapy creat es t he crucible in which it is forced t hereaft er t o work it s m agic, and any t heoret ical considerat ion of responsibilit y is inexorably lim it ed t o t he ( supposed) m oral resources of t he client . But t he paradox of responsibilit y is escaped easily enough, I believe, if one ext ends t he analysis beyond t he walls of t he consult ing room . For responsibilit y is inext ricably bound up wit h power, and power is accorded from wit hout , not from wit hin. People cannot 'pull t hem selves t oget her' not out of any wilful reluct ance t o do so but because t he power t o do so is not available t o t hem . Exact ly t he sam e applies t o 'responsibilit y. I can only be held responsible for what I have t he power t o do, and if I do indeed have t he power t o choose, only t hen can I reasonably be said t o be responsible for m y choices. No responsibilit y wit hout power; no power wit hout responsibilit y. And we are not t alking here about 'will- power': t he exercise of reponsibilit y in no way depends on t he applicat ion of any such m yst erious int ernal facult y ( see above, 'The Experience of Self') but rat her on t he availablit y of ext ernal powers and resources. Our 'self- as- cent re' cult ure m akes it very difficult for us t o conceive of responsibilit y as anyt hing ot her t han t he applicat ion of personal influence which has it s origin ent irely wit hin t he individual agent . I t t akes quit e an effort of im aginat ion t o see t he person - as I suggest we should - as a point in social space- t im e t hrough which powers flow. Though, as an individual, I am indeed t hat point t hrough which what ever powers and resources available t o m e m ay be, so t o speak, refract ed back int o t he social world, I cert ainly did not personally creat e t hem out of not hing. Quit e apart from our st ar- st ruck adm irat ion of celebrit y, we have an enduring cult ural t radit ion of fascinat ion wit h and deference t o power which induces us t o see it as an individual qualit y - even, as I have already suggest ed, a virt ue. We see 'great m en' ( and som et im es wom en) as preciously rare phenom ena, best owed upon t he world by som e nam eless providence, and we honour t heir occurrence wit h a special kind of awed respect . While t here are clearly aspect s of em bodim ent t hat cont ribut e t o som e kinds of except ional abilit y - not everyone can be an Olym pic at hlet e - it is alt oget her an open quest ion whet her t he kind of adm irat ion we are ready all t oo oft en t o accord people who find t hem selves in t he posit ion of wielding social power is j ust ified by t heir personal qualit ies. I t t akes a Tolst oy ( in War and Peace) t o see t hrough t he m yt h surrounding Napoleon and it is only in ret rospect t hat t he absurdit y of Hit ler's st at us is revealed. 'The psychology of leaders,' Chom sky writ es, 'is a t opic of lit t le int erest . The inst it ut ional fact ors t hat const rain t heir act ions and beliefs are what m erit at t ent ion.' 1 And t hat is precisely t he point : circum st ances choose t he person, not vice- versa. Since circum st ances decree t hat t here can be only one leader, we m ake t he m ist ake of concluding t hat t he leader who em erges - Hit ler, say - is unique, eit her ( at t he t im e we adulat e him ) in his virt ue or ( aft er his fall from grace) in his evil. I t is, however, t he office ( and what sust ains it ) t hat is unique, not t he person. Just look at t he polit ician who is vot ed from power or t he pop st ar who falls out of t he chart s - vict im s of inst ant

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ordinariness! Here, before our very eyes, we observe what happens when social power ceases t o flow t hrough t he em bodied locus which const it ut es our individualit y. I n fact , as t he cynical m anipulat ors of t he popular cult ure indust ries well recognize, t he 'unique st ar' can be elevat ed from a very wide range of very ordinary people, but , having been select ed, it t akes a rare and except ionally balanced head for t he m anufact ured celebrit y not t o believe in his or her own im age. The not ion of As I writ e t his, an out cry rages in t he 'responsibilit y' lies at t he m edia about a lit t le girl who is brut ally heart of what one m ight abused and finally killed by her well call our suppression of deranged carers. Yet anot her exam ple t he social. What ever it is of official failure, apparent ly. Who's t o we seek t o underst and blam e here? The doct or who ranging from t he reasons m isdiagnosed her inj uries? The child's for personal dist ress t o t he social worker? The social worker's 'evil' of spect acular crim e m anagers? The police? Dism ay is or t he failure of public widespread t hat 't he syst em ' st ill fails servant s t o avert som e aft er all t he previous enquiries and social disast er - it is always report s following sim ilar inst ances. t o an unanalysed and Absolut ely nowhere have I seen in unanalysable individual, t his discussion a cool appraisal of t he int ernal world ( where societ y in which t his fam ily was 'blam e' is harboured) t hat locat ed, of t he sheer weight and we t urn our gaze. This num ber of desperat e circum st ances evasion of t he obvious like t hese, of t he fat igue and t hat it is t he way our overwork of t hose st ruggling t o societ y is organized and operat e t he under- funded and underst ruct ured t hat const it ut es valued public services. No one draws t he m ain source of our t he obvious inference from t he dreary difficult ies - is underst andrepet it ion of such cases t hat t hey are able only in t erm s of t he bound t o be a regular feat ure of a ext ent of t he powers which societ y which t olerat es such high are deployed t o m aint ain it . levels of deprivat ion. Books like Nick This can be seen very Davies's Dark Heart 2 are vanishingly clearly in current polit ical rare, and when t hey do appear seem discourse. hardly t o be not iced. As essent ial cogs in t he vast econom ic m achine designed t o ext ract profit for t he m inorit y at t he t op of t he social pyram id, polit icians have an im port ant role in represent ing disadvant age as personal m oral failure. How wit t ingly t hey perform t his role is open t o quest ion but , as a m at t er of 'com m ent ary', is a quest ion of lit t le int erest . The dist al pressures on t he advocat es of t he 't hird way' t o reinforce an int eriorized view of responsibilit y are enorm ous. Policies of 'nam ing and sham ing', t he im put at ion t hat inadequacies in healt h and educat ion are som ehow due t o t he unwillingness of individual t eachers, doct ors, nurses, social workers, et c., t o apply t hem selves t o t he full, linkage of 'right s' wit h 'responsibilit ies', and so on, all help t o const it ut e t he polit ical paradox t hat t hose in t he posit ion ( or so it would seem ) of being m ost able t o

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shape dist al influences, expend t he great est energy in represent ing t hem as proxim al ( indeed int ernal) . I n fact , of course, I n t ypically Orwellian m anner, t he nat ional polit ics does not so condit ions in which responsibilit y m uch exercise power as serve can and should be exercised it . Where m ult inat ional capit al becom e invert ed, and 't hird way' dom inat es, t he local polit ical polit icians preach responsibilit y for role becom es t hat of obscuring t hose who have no power while t he t rue sources of power and ut t erly disregarding t he dut ies t o t he effect s t hese have on t he societ y of t hose who have. Ent ire obj ect ive and subj ect ive com m unit ies ( m iners, st eel wellbeing of t he cit izenry. workers) can be t hrown on t he 'Polit ics' has becom e a form of social scrapheap in t he int erest s of m anagem ent t hat it self profit , and t he only official t alk of act ually dest roys t he public 'responsibilit y' is for t hose whose space in which polit ical act ivit y lives have been shat t ered t o can t ake place. Our possibilit y accept what ever scraps are t hrown of playing an act ive part in t o t hem and sort t hem selves out influencing t hose social as best t hey can wit hout st ruct ures t hat ult im at ely dist urbing t he peace. im pinge int im at ely on our lives is whit t led away t o not hing, while our relat ive im m iserat ion becom es int ernalized as personal fault . Povert y, for exam ple, is represent ed in 't hird way' polit ics not as an evil t hat causes social disint egrat ion and personal em ot ional dam age, but as an unwarrant able 'excuse' for individual m oral failure. The crum bling of public services, increase in crim e, et c., are represent ed as t he result of t he incom pet ence, int ransigence and irresponsibilit y of public sphere workers and of t he 'evil' apparent ly endem ic in t he 'crim inal elem ent ' of societ y. When it com es t o t rying t o decide what people can be held account able for and what not , t he subj ect ive sense of 'responsibilit y' is alm ost ent irely unreliable. Everyone is fam iliar wit h liars and selfdeceivers who claim t hat som et hing was not t heir fault when it obviously was. What present s m ore of a challenge t o psychological underst anding is t hose people who claim and feel responsibilit y for t hings t hat are in fact obviously out side t heir cont rol. Perhaps it is t he great er aut hent icit y of t he over- conscient ious person com pared wit h t he deceiver t hat gives us a clue as t o why any 'int ernal' account of responsibilit y is invalid. The conscience, aft er all, does not lie: it report s ( com m ent at es) fait hfully enough on how it feels t o be t he inst rum ent of wrong- doing. But , as is clearly dem onst rat ed by t hose in whom it is over- developed, t he conscience can be m ist aken. What it is m ist aken about is not t he feeling of responsibilit y, but t he origins ( or possibly t he definit ion) of t he 'wrong- doing'. I t is t he feeling of responsibilit y ( conscience) t hat t he powerful seek t o exploit in ot hers in order t o divert at t ent ion from t he act ual ( dist al) causes of t heir discom fort . I am host t o t he powers t hat flow t hrough m e and, if I 'm honest ( aut hent ic) , I cannot deny t he sense of ownership t hat t hey creat e in t heir passage. The person who does seek t o deny t his sense of ownership, possibly by claim ing 'it wasn't m e', or

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'it 's not m y fault , I had a t errible childhood', et c., is indeed being inaut hent ic. But not necessarily inaccurat e from a causal perspect ive. As a societ y we at t ach, in t his inst ance, m uch great er weight t o aut hent icit y t han t o accuracy. For t he purposes of underst anding how and why people experience and act in t he world as t hey do, and what freedom t hey m ay have t o act ot herwise, t he concept of 'responsibilit y' has becom e virt ually useless. What we need is a psychology t hat swit ches it s at t ent ion from a m et aphorical 'inner world' t o t ry inst ead t o elaborat e t he ways in which powerful influences in t he ext ernal environm ent of social space- t im e serve t o liberat e or enslave us as well as t o shape our consciousness of ourselves. As t hings are, it is not at all clear how far individuals are able t o m arshal and cont rol t he influences t hat flow t hrough t hem . Furt herm ore, in our at t em pt t o underst and t he processes involved we are const ant ly m isled by t he assum pt ion t hat our com m ent ary refers direct ly t o t hem .

1. Chom sky, Noam . 1989. Necessary I llusions. Plut o Pr ess, p. 19. 2. Davies, Nick. 1998. Dark Heart . The Shocking Trut h About Hidden Brit ain. Vint age.

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6 W h a t Th e n M u st W e D o? That is t he quest ion t hat Leo Tolst oy, having surveyed t he m isery of t he ordinary Russian people, t ried t o answer in 1886. I t is also t he quest ion t hat people pose – oft en som ewhat resent fully – when confront ed by t he kind of obj ect ions t o t he social and psychological st at us quo t hat I have raised in t hese pages. ‘I t ’s all very well t o crit icize, but have you got any bet t er ideas…?’ The role of social crit ic is t hese days not a com fort able one, and t ends t o invit e various dism issive diagnoses from t hose who seem t o feel affront ed: ‘pessim ist ’, ‘depressive’, ‘arrogant ’, ‘cynic’, and so on. I t is not t o avoid t hese diagnoses t hat I at t em pt an answer t o t he ‘what m ust we do?’ quest ion here: t hey will be pinned on m e anyway, as sure as fat e. I m erely want t o dem onst rat e t hat , as I suggest ed at t he beginning of t his short work, an answer is not difficult t o find. The difficult y, as t he oblivion int o which Tolst oy’s wonderful book has sunk dem onst rat es so well, is in put t ing any answer int o pract ice. We are faced at t he societ al level wit h exact ly t he sam e problem t hat faces t he client of well conduct ed psychot herapy: we can see clearly enough t he event s – am ong t hem our own act ions – t hat have led t o our predicam ent , but t he m eans of rect ifying t hem are st ill beyond our reach. As I have argued elsewhere, t ragedy offers a far bet t er m odel for hum an dist ress t han does psychot herapy: alt hough we can envisage rem edies for our condit ion, we are at a loss t o know how t o put t hem int o effect . And so t he ‘answers’ t hat I t ry t o sket ch out below are not given in t he expect at ion t hat t hey are t o be easily achieved, or indeed achieved at all. Perhaps, at m ost , t hey m ay help t o ret ain a kind of hope. I n keeping wit h t he ‘proxim al- dist al’ dim ension t hat I have used t o consider t he causes of dist ress, so also t he im plicat ions for what we should do m ay be cat egorised according t o t he readiness of t heir availabilit y t o us as individuals. There are, it seem s t o m e, four spheres in which act ion necessary t o redress t he difficult ies ident ified in t he previous pages of t his work m ay conceivably be t aken. Ranging from t he proxim al t o t he dist al, t hey are t he clinical, scient ific, philosophical and polit ical spheres. I hope it goes wit hout saying t hat in what follows I am not pret ending t o offer an exhaust ive analysis of what m ay be possible, but m erely picking out som e of t he m ore im port ant issues t hat suggest t hem selves for our at t ent ion. I m plica t ion s for ‘clinica l’ pr a ct ice We cannot , I t hink, escape t he clinic. Alt hough it is alm ost cert ainly not t he m ost appropriat e sit e in which t o address t he kinds of psychological dist ress and suffering t hat afflict people in present day

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societ y, t here is no ot her which is obviously m ore appropriat e. Alt hough t he long- t erm answers t o t hose of our woes t hat are pot ent ially am enable t o influence m ay lie m uch m ore at t he dist al reaches of social organizat ion, it is ( as clinicians are t he first t o point out ) st ill individuals who suffer and seek som e rem edy t o t heir pain. I t would be a callous societ y indeed t hat st ood back and offered t hem not hing j ust because not hing m uch is likely t o provide any real ‘cure’ at t he personal level. I t is incum bent on us t o do what we can, even if we cannot do m uch. I n a fract ured, largely urban societ y in which, t hankfully, religion no longer plays a significant role, t he clinic, in one form or anot her, is t he place people will t urn t o when in difficult y, and it is for t he foreseeable fut ure in t he clinic t hat we shall probably be doing t he lit t le t hat we can. As it is, however, t he clinic is profoundly inadequat e for t he t ask at hand. No one is m ore aware of t his inadequacy t han t hose who encount er t he clinic – whet her as pract it ioners, consum ers or sim ply observers – and are able and willing t o reflect on t heir experience of and role wit hin it . The kinds of quest ions t o which such experience gives rise are clearly reflect ed in t he discussion t aking place on t he forum at t ached t o t his websit e, where people cont em plat ing, or having j ust em barked upon, a t herapeut ic career are part icularly open t o t he inevit able inconsist encies and dilem m as inherent in t he role. I n his cont ribut ion, for exam ple, Paul Moloney ( 12/ 4/ 01) faces squarely t he lim it at ions of t he t herapeut ic role while acknowledging t he alm ost irresist ible pressures on clinicians t o disregard t hem . Penny Priest ( 12.14.010) asks whet her t he whole t herapy business should be scrapped. Jim Keys ( 12/ 3/ 01) suggest s a part ial rescue of t herapeut ic int egrit y by charact erising it as a ‘radical dialogue’ rat her t han a quasim edical t reat m ent . Kam illa Vaski ( 11/ 15/ 01; 11/ 21/ 01) encourages us t o have t he confidence t o ‘re- im agine’ t he role of t herapist such t hat t he lim it at ions described by Paul ( and indeed m yself) are accept ed in fact as st rengt hs. All t hese, and ot her, cont ribut ions wrest le wit h t he recognit ion t hat , t hough not hing like what it is convent ionally cracked up t o be, t here is som et hing about t he t herapeut ic role t hat is indeed valuable. Kam illa’s invit at ion t o re- im aginat ion of what t herapy m ay be about suggest s t o m e a posit ive em phasis on a num ber of t hem es: •

D e m yst ifica t ion . Alt hough it self not a concept t aken up by counsellors and psychot herapist s in t heir t heoret ical reflect ions, ‘dem yst ificat ion’ describes quit e well what t he best of t hem spend m uch of t heir t im e doing in pract ice. For it is indeed t he case t hat people seeking t herapy oft en st art out wit h very lit t le idea about what is causing t heir t roubles. Convent ional t herapies spend a great deal of t im e in what one m ight call t he dem yst ificat ion of t he proxim al sphere, i.e. unpicking wit h client s t he event s and relat ionships in t heir im m ediat e experience which give rise t o all t he phenom ena of psychological dist ress, self- accusat ion and self- decept ion t hat are fam iliar t o m ost pract it ioners ( I have t ried t o describe t he How t o Survive Wit hout forem ost am ong t hese in Psychot herapy) . Elsewhere I have called t his process

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‘clarificat ion’, and it is perhaps t he m ost developed of t he t hree principal planks of t herapy ( t he ot her t wo being ‘com fort ’ and ‘encouragem ent ’) ; t hat is t o say, it is t he process t hat t herapist s of all schools spend m ost t im e t hinking and writ ing about , and at t em pt ing t o t each. I nsofar as t here can be said t o be ‘skills’ of t herapy and counselling, t he art s of list ening carefully and helping t o clear ways t hrough people’s confusion can probably be developed t hrough guided pract ice, and hence t end t o form t he core of m ost schem es of ‘t raining’. However, having, so t o speak, cleared t he concept ual undergrowt h obscuring t he client ’s view of his or her im m ediat e predicam ent ( so as t o achieve ‘insight ’) , m ost approaches t o t herapy consider t hat t he work of clarificat ion is done and t hat it is now up t o t he client s t hem selves t o swit ch on t heir ‘responsibilit y’ and put m at t ers right in ways t hat I have suggest ed in earlier pages are quit e likely im possible. The not ion t hat a ‘clinical’ predicam ent could be dem yst ified t o t he point of showing t hat t here is not hing a client could do about it precisely because it is not his or her fault , but t he out com e of dist al influences over which s/ he can have no cont rol, is unaccept able t o m ost t herapist s not because it is unreasonable but because it is, from a professional point of view, ext rem ely inconvenient . From t he client ’s point of view, however, it need not be inconvenient at all, but const it ut e rat her t he lift ing of a heavy burden of m oral apprehension, if not out right guilt , t hat was com plet ely unm erit ed. The aim of t herapy t hen becom es t o clarify what it is not as well as what it is possible for individuals t o do t o influence t heir circum st ances, and, given t he lim it ed powers available t o m ost of us t o act upon our world, t he m ost ‘t herapeut ic’ out com e m ay well be achieved by t he form er. Such an undert aking leads t o a very different kind of dialogue from t hat charact erist ic of convent ional t herapy. Rat her t han t here being a progressive em phasis on t he ‘inside’, culm inat ing in t he pat ient ’s assum pt ion of responsibilit y for a m oral universe of which s/ he is supposedly t he aut hor, t here is likely t o be a lit eral process of ‘enlight enm ent ’ in which t he person is released from all kinds of m yst ified responsibilit ies and helped t o see him or herself as em bodied and locat ed wit hin an ext ernal realit y highly resist ant t o individual influence and t ot ally im pervious t o wishfulness. The im plicat ions of such a dialogue are indeed radical - even, given t he nat ure of current West ern societ y, subversive – but t hey m ay st ill be t herapeut ic. •

Re scu in g su bj e ct ivit y. Each of us lives at t he cent re of a privat e world of t hought s, feelings and experiences which is quit e unique as well as exquisit ely vulnerable. When, as inevit ably we m ust , we com pare t his world wit h t he world in which t hose around us appear t o live t heir lives, our sense of our own vulnerabilit y m ay becom e so acut e as t o be alm ost unbearable, for t heir world m ay seem t o reflect a cert aint y and solidit y which is ent irely lacking in ours. Wit hin t he secret

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dept hs of our personal experience are packed a seem ingly infinit e range of hopes, fears and fant asies, desires we hardly dare t o recognize and sham es t hat are anguish t o cont em plat e. From t he m om ent of birt h, and indeed before, we are exposed t o an unrem it t ing t em pest of sensat ion – pleasures as well as pains - t o which, as we m at ure, becom es at t ached a fram ework of j udgem ent t hat buzzes wit h j ust ificat ions, condem nat ions and self- decept ions t o t he point where any kind of self- cert aint y seem s im possible. What gives form t o t his subj ect ive world, m akes it int elligible and bearable, is t he social space in which we find ourselves locat ed and which confers m eaning on our experience. Subj ect ivit y is born of em bodim ent but achieves coherent underst anding t hrough social int eract ion. Our bodies, t o be sure, give us knowledge of t he world, but we can only t ruly m ake sense of t hat knowledge t hrough t he st ruct ures of m eaning which are provided t hrough our congress wit h ot hers. But t hat does not m ean t hat our em bodied knowledge of t he world is infinit ely m alleable, can be shaped int o what ever st ories people choose t o t ell us. Those st ories m ay be t rue or t hey m ay be false; t hey m ay guide us t owards an int elligible world which answers fait hfully t o our em bodied underst anding, or t hey m ay obscure it from us in a blanket of m yst ery t hat renders our act ions t ent at ive, fearful, dangerous. Where t he public world is painst akingly shaped t o accom m odat e, appreciat e, elaborat e and civilize our privat e experience, a kind of harm ony m ay be given t o our lives t hat , while cert ainly not erasing all possibilit y of t ragedy, at least gives us a chance t o live, as selves, in accord wit h ot hers about t he nat ure of t he world int o which we have been t hrown. There com es t o be a kind of sat isfact ion in being a subj ect in social space. Where, on t he ot her hand, t he public world is shaped t o exploit our subj ect ivit y, t o m yst ify, obscure or dist ort t he wordless knowledge our bodies give us of t he world, no such harm ony will be possible. Eit her we m ay accept and at t em pt t o live w it hin t he dist ort ions, surrendering t o ort hodoxy at t he cost of our souls, or we m ay be driven t o live out our subj ect ivit y in a const ant st at e of confusion and apprehension, scurrying in t he cracks which show t hrough m ake- believe like woodlice in a rot t en wall. Very rarely, som e people seem t o have from t he st art a confidence in t heir em bodied experience t hat no am ount of adversit y can shake, but even so t hey nearly always find t hem selves in a revolut ionary m inorit y split off in m any ways from t he social m ainst ream . I n com parison wit h t he cent uries of art , lit erat ure, philosophy, religion and science t hat have st rained t o dignify our subj ect ive experience of life by building a wort hy public fram ework for it , t he st ance t aken by psychot herapy has been deeply am bivalent and for t he m ost part ext rem ely superficial. I ndeed, it ’s hard t o avoid t he j udgem ent t hat , in m ost of it s

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official t heorizing, t herapy has been one of t he principal m eans of discipline whereby t he subj ect if forced int o line wit h t he ruling dogm as of power. Very few approaches t o t herapy explicit ly rej ect at least a covert form of ‘norm at iveness’ in which cert ain m oral and/ or aest het ic st andards of hum an being are specified not in t he subj ect ’s int erest s, but in t he int erest s of power. I n t his kind of approach subj ect ivit y is const rained rat her t han liberat ed, and pat ient s’ fearful expect at ions of being j udged are only t oo quickly confirm ed. However, t here are som e except ions t o t his t endency ( see for exam ple Reading Psychot herapy) and I suspect t hat in pract ice ( as opposed t o t heir official pronouncem ent s) m any counsellors and t herapist s adopt an approach t o t heir client s which affirm s rat her t han subvert s t heir vulnerable subj ect ivit y ( t his, no doubt is why t herapy is so oft en seen as a preferable alt ernat ive t o t he ‘m edical m odel’ of psychiat ry) . Nevert heless, t his is not a securely est ablished aspect of t herapy in general, and far t oo m any client s will have experienced an increasing rat her t han a lessening st rain on t heir subj ect ive experience of self as t he result of t herapy. But what does it m ean t o ‘affirm vulnerable subj ect ivit y’? •

Th e r e ha bilit a t ion of ch a r a ct e r . The not ion of ‘change’ lies at t he heart of virt ually all approaches t o psychot herapy and counselling. At first glance it seem s, furt herm ore, self- evident t hat it should. Asked what it is t hat should change as t he result of t herapy, m ost pract it ioners would, I suspect , refer t o som e aspect of t he client ’s ‘self’, i.e., som et hing inside t he person. At one ext rem e t his m ight be, for exam ple, aspect s of a hypot het ical const ruct like ‘t he unconscious’, at t he ot her t he int ernal cognit ive processes t hat are t aken t o cont rol behaviour. I t is t his insist ence on change t hat in m y view t ends t o cancel out m any of t he ot herwise valuable insight s t hat t herapist s have art iculat ed over t he years. People are not allowed t o be t hem selves. Take as an inst ance of t his t he ‘client - cent red’ approach of Carl Rogers. As Rogers’s work gained in influence at about t he m iddle of t he t went iet h cent ury, it did indeed bring wit h it a great sense of liberat ion: m uch of t he grim m oralism of ‘dynam ic’ psychot herapy seem ed t o fall away, and t he em phasis Rogers placed on ‘uncondit ional posit ive regard’ and ‘em pat hy’ seem ed t o allow subj ect s t o escape t he yoke of t herapeut ic discipline and, precisely, com e t o be t hem selves. But , as t he professions of t herapy and counselling burgeoned, ‘posit ive regard’ t urned out not t o be uncondit ional, and em pat hy t o be not so m uch an end as a m eans. For t hese const ruct s were t reat ed as m erely inst rum ent al in t he alt oget her superordinat e t ask of bringing about change. The upshot of t his is t o place a new burden on pat ient s, for t hey are freed from an ext ernal t herapeut ic discipline ( m ediat ed by ‘int erpret at ion’, ‘t he ‘analysis of t he t ransference’, et c.) only t o

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have t o repay t he warm t h and em pat hy of t heir t herapist by successfully changing t hem selves. The Rogerian counsellor is not j ust warm and em pat hic: t he warm t h and em pat hy carries wit h it an expect at ion – all t oo easily t urning t o an obligat ion – t o change. Much of t he t im e, however, for reasons dealt wit h at lengt h in earlier pages, change is precisely what client s cannot do, not because of incom pet ence or ill will, but because t he powers by which change could be effect ed are, quit e lit erally, beyond t hem . To all t he ot her senses of inadequacy and guilt t hat t hey m ay be carrying, t hen, is added t he guilt of being unable t o reward t heir counsellor’s kindness wit h an appropriat e t herapeut ic adj ust m ent of self. The answer t o t his dilem m a, I believe, is t o rem ove from an ot herwise benign em phasis on accept ance and em pat hy t heir elem ent of inst rum ent alit y. They should be, sim ply, ends in t hem selves. The best word I can t hink of for an appropriat e, non- inst rum ent al approach for t herapist s and counsellors t o t ake t o t heir client s is com passion: not so different from ‘em pat hy’, perhaps, but a lit t le warm er, recognizing not so m uch t hat it is necessary t o st and in t he ot her’s shoes, but t hat we already are in each ot her’s shoes. I f you prick us, do we not bleed? What client s have t o change, if t hey can, is not t heir selves, but t heir world, and in t heir at t em pt s t o do t hat bot h t hey and we have no realist ic alt ernat ive t o accept ing t hat t hey are who t hey are. I , you, everybody is not so m uch a ‘personalit y’, wit h all t he assum pt ions t hat t ends t o bring of a m odular self t o which pot ent ial st ruct ural adj ust m ent s of various kinds m ay be m ade, as a charact er, a body inscribed by it s experience of t he world, indelibly expert in it s own idiosyncrasy. We m ay feel wit h ot hers whose predicam ent s form no part of our own experience, but such com passion need bring wit h it neit her t he wish nor t he hope t hat t hey should change. I m ages of suffering dem and not t hat t he sufferer changes him or herself, but t hat t he suffering should be relieved. The st arving child needs food, not m oral uplift . The appropriat e role for t herapeut ic psychology is t o record, celebrat e and wonder at t he ext raordinary diversit y of hum an charact er and t o rej ect im m ediat ely any not ion it m ay be t em pt ed t o conceive of m aking m oulds for people. We are really not t here t o j udge or shape people, and we need nurse no secret agenda for change. Such change as t herapist s and t heir client s m ay pursue t oget her has no need of m yst ery, nor even delicacy, but is a down- t o- eart h m at t er of what powers are available t o t he person t o m ake a difference. And if t he person, as is oft en t he case, can do not hing, t he com passionat e accept ance of who t hey are m ay st ill be a com fort . •

Re in st a t ing t h e e nvir on m e n t . There is no reason why ‘clinical’ psychology should be seen as synonym ous wit h

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t herapy. I ndeed, it is only in relat ively recent t im es – part icularly wit h t he rise of t he ‘dynam ic’ t herapies of t he t went iet h cent ury – t hat t he doct oring of t he self has com e t o be seen as t he principal business of psychology. The focal concern of psychology wit h t he m aking of individual subj ect ivit y in no way im plies t hat subj ect ivit y is necessarily self- m ade. Personhood, along wit h t he subj ect ive awareness of it , is t he out com e of an int eract ion of a body wit h a world, and it t herefore behoves t he psychologist t o pay careful at t ent ion t o t he const raint s and influences of bot h . As is t he case wit h t he em erging discipline of ‘com m unit y psychology’ 1 , it m akes as m uch sense now as it did t o Plat o t o consider t he ways in which individuals are shaped by t heir environm ent s, and t o dist inguish environm ent al influences t hat are benign from t hose t hat are m align. I f t his seem s ent irely obvious, it is salut ary t o rem em ber t hat t he whole t hrust of ‘t herapy’, and m uch of t he weight of ‘evidence’ from social psychology, has been t o suggest t hat t he environm ent does not have a defining influence on individual psychology and t hat not only can people som ehow choose whet her t o be influenced by it or not , but t hat pret t y well any dam age done can be repaired. Earnest debat es t ake place as t o whet her, for exam ple, povert y and unem ploym ent , loss, brut alit y and violence cont ribut e t o m ent al disorder, crim e, and so on. The fact t hat hum an beings are com plex, resourceful and resilient m eans t hat sim ple cause- and- effect answers t o such quest ions are not unequivocally dem onst rable, and so it is easy t o conclude t hat t he pain and havoc wreaked by t he ills of societ y are act ually fact ors of, for inst ance, weak or vulnerable ‘personalit ies’ rat her t han of t he ills t hem selves. This answer is of course exact ly what is required by a global corporat e plut ocracy t hat depends for it s survival on t he unrem it t ing exploit at ion of a m ass of ‘consum ers’ who m ust a) be st uffed t o burst ing point wit h rubbish, and b) be rendered as far as possible incapable of accurat ely crit icizing t heir condit ion. But t he relat ion bet ween environm ent al influence and personal psychology is com plex not because it is m ediat ed by som e indefinable aspect of t he ‘hum an spirit ’, but because environm ent al influence is in it self far m ore com plex t han we have hit hert o considered. Because psychology ( and especially t herapeut ic psychology) has been so preoccupied wit h supposedly int erior fact ors of m ot ivat ion and cognit ion, et c., it s considerat ions of environm ent al influences has frequent ly been ext raordinarily crude and casual – t o t he ext ent t hat it could be argued, for exam ple, t hat siblings share a ‘sim ilar environm ent ’ or t hat t he influence of TV violence could be m easured by showing violent cart oons t o t oddlers. I n fact , of course, people know perfect ly well t hat huge advant ages are t o be gained from occupancy of favourable environm ent s, and t he m ore t hey have been beneficiaries of such environm ent s, t he bet t er t hey know it . Moralist ic hom ilies

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and visions of a com pensat ory aft er- life are st rict ly for t he m asses. The occupant s of corporat e boardroom s and big count ry m ansions pay unwavering at t ent ion t o t he kinds educat ional est ablishm ent at t ended by t heir offspring and t he qualit y of ‘lifest yle’ t hey subm it t hem selves t o. How environm ent al influence works, how it int eract s wit h em bodim ent , how som e social relat ions becom e crucial while ot hers glance off apparent ly unnot iced, const it ut e quest ions of enorm ous subt let y and difficult y and provide m at erial for generat ions of st udy. This is, furt herm ore, a perfect ly proper st udy for clinicians. Rat her t han at t em pt ing t o peer int o t he m urky dept hs of a m et aphorical psychic int erior, populat ed only by t he hypot het ical const ruct s of our own im aginat ion, we need t o get down t o t he m uch m ore difficult and dem anding t ask of t rying t o t ease out t he ways in which environm ent al influences com bine and int eract t o shape our subj ect ivit y. Scie n t ific im plica t ions I don’t want t o get int o an argum ent about what does and does not const it ut e ‘science’, and I cert ainly don’t want t o align m yself wit h t he narrow Anglo- Am erican scient ist ic ort hodoxy t hat t ends t o get dism issed by it s opponent s as ‘posit ivist ic’. But neit her do I want t o subscribe t o t he neo- Rom ant ic posit ion oft en t aken up by ant i- science, in which rhym e is preferred t o reason. What seem s t o m e im port ant , for ‘clinical’ psychology anyway, is what I t ake t o be t he broad proj ect of science rat her t han t he part icular cont ent of it s m et hodology. By t his I m ean a com m it m ent t o achieving and com m unicat ing an underst anding of t he world and it s occupant s t hat is based on experience, reasoned argum ent , painst aking and scept ical checking and, ult im at ely, an appropriat e ( t hough very rarely t ot al) degree of consensus. I t seem s t o m e t hat t his process is likely t o be essent ially m at erialist and realist , t hough of course crit ically so. The int egrit y and value of science in t his sense depends on it s being unconst rained and un- pervert ed by special int erest s or by t he kind of Aut horit y t hat form s it self int o a dogm at ic ruling ort hodoxy. And t hat kind of freedom is of course precisely what , in our neck of t he social- scient ific woods, we have not got . What has com e t o be put forward as ‘scient ific’ in clinical psychology and psychot herapy is a set of dogm as t hat is shaped and m aint ained alm ost exclusively by int erest and aim ed resolut ely at obscuring t he causes and consequences of em ot ional and psychological dist ress. There are at least t wo m ain sources of int erest involved in t his st at e of affairs. The first is t he proxim al int erest of clinicians who, whet her consciously or not , perceive t heir livelihood t o depend ult im at ely on t heir personal abilit y t o bring about cure ( t hough t hey m ay find a m ore int ellect ually diplom at ic word for it ) . This is t he source of int erest t hat guides m uch of t he research act ivit y and clinical case discussion in t he lit erat ure on t herapy and counselling. I t m akes sure t hat only cert ain kinds of quest ions are asked and only cert ain kinds of ‘findings’ considered relevant : quest ions about t herapeut ic t echnique

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presuppose clear- cut answers t hat , when t hey are not fort hcom ing, are t aken t o indicat e sim ply t he need for m ore research. The second, m ore dist al, influence is broadly polit ical, and seeks t o m aint ain a fict ion of personal psychopat hology as t he explanat ion for m ent al ‘disorders’. The drive, for exam ple, for ‘evidence- based pract ice’ in ‘m ent al healt h’ services is im posed by cent ral Dikt at and count enances only research proj ect s t hat conform t o a prim it ive set of quasi- m edical assum pt ions dressed up as ‘science’. I nspired by Fordist and Taylorist principles ( i.e. t he conveyor- belt , deliberat ely depersonalized and m anagerially cont rolled m et hods of product ion developed t owards t he beginning of t he 20 t h cent ury) , t he Business m odel of knowledge which has com e t o prevail in t he last t went y years is t echnicist and crudely pragm at ic. I t assum es t hat knowledgeproduct ion is achieved by posing appropriat e set s of designer quest ions and m ust be direct ed and cont rolled by m anagem ent . Once produced, knowledge is t o be t ransm it t ed t hereaft er by m eans of off- t he- shelf ‘t raining’ m odules. This approach t o t he m anagerially direct ed division of labour in ‘science’, whereby cent rally det erm ined quest ions are farm ed out t o t echnicians for a kind of algorit hm ic ‘research’ process yielding packaged knowledge t hat , in t urn, is furt her dissem inat ed by operat ives versed in t he t echniques of t raining, rules out j ust about everyt hing t hat is creat ive, int elligent and wort hwhile in scient ific discovery and t eaching. For t hese lat t er are processes t hat t ake place at t he very forefront of hum an endeavour ( i.e. are not m anageable ‘skills’) and depend for t heir significance and fruit fulness on qualit ies of underst anding and enquiry t hat are not specifiable t echnically in advance. The kinds of flexibilit y and resourcefulness, sensit ivit y and int elligence t hat are t he hallm arks of, for exam ple, good scient ist s and t eachers cannot be cont ained wit hin a packaged ‘spec’ of t he kind so beloved of business m anagers ( t he m yt h of specifiabilit y is a core feat ure of Business cult ure) , but are t he result of a kind of nurt uring husbandry of inquisit iveness and creat ivit y whose result s can only be hoped for, not guarant eed. By deliberat ely excluding t he kind of int ellect ual originalit y and advent urousness t hat is charact erist ic of real achievem ent in t he sciences as m uch as t he art s, Business m ay well prot ect it self from unwant ed surprises, but it does so at t he expense of producing a dum bed- down, uncrit ical environm ent t hat is deadeningly t hird rat e, uncreat ive, and ult im at ely ( because essent ially st upefied and im percept ive) profoundly ineffect ive. As far as research in ‘clinical’ psychology is concerned, we need t o recognize t hat ( as, no doubt , in m any ot her areas) no furt her progress will be m ade unt il we have re- est ablished an environm ent for t heoret ical speculat ion and pract ical enquiry t hat is bot h independent and secure. That is t o say, t he discovery and developm ent of knowledge ( recognizing and com m unicat ing what is t rue about t he world) is com plet ely inim ical t o t he play of int erest and m ust , as far as is hum anly possible, be separat ed from it . The one- dim ensional cult ure of t he corporat e plut ocracy, int erest ed only in profit , is incapable of producing t he condit ions in which int ellect ual pursuit s flourish. For t he

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kinds of uncondit ional The corrupt ion of science by pat ronage and guarant eed business int erest in t he independence necessary will pharm aceut ical indust ry const it not only be seen ideologically ut es a m icrocosm of our societ y. as needlessly wast eful and I m pecunious scient ist s whose unaccept ably out of m anagpublic funding has been wit hdrawn erial cont rol, but would in fact are induced t o have art icles inevit ably const it ut e a t hreat published in learned j ournals under t o t he corporat e regim e it self. t heir nam e, but which have in fact As soon as t he cult ural been writ t en by ghost writ ers in unidim ensionalit y of Business t he pay of t he drug com panies ( all is shat t ered by t he t his docum ent ed in The Guardian, int roduct ion of non- bot t om 7.2.02) . I n t his way an appearance line dim ensions, it finds it self of independent evidence is used t o vulnerable to orders of creat e a spurious aut horit y t o crit icism t hat t hreat en it s very underpin m ake- believe. survival. Business is definit ely not int erest ed in t he disint erest ed pursuit of scient ific evidence. The principal alt ernat ive open t o it is, as we have seen, t he developm ent of increasingly convolut ed syst em s of m akebelieve t o run alongside t he ext rem ely banal t echnological processes of knowledge- product ion t hat are m anagerially cont rollable. Ph ilosoph ica l im plica t ion s Paradoxically perhaps, t he exist ence of m ake- believe proclaim s t he im port ance of t rut h. Not wit hst anding t he best argum ent s of t he ‘const ruct ivist s’, m ake- believe is not t he out com e of an ult im at e relat ivit y, but derives it s im port ance from it s abilit y t o be t aken for t he t rut h. The possibilit y of t rut h lies behind m ake- believe, j ust as a covert t rut h- claim lies behind every avowedly relat ivist account of how t hings are. I n t his way m ake- believe is subservient t o t rut h; it seeks t o st and in for t rut h, but is always at risk of being dispelled by it . Make- believe ( spin) is essent ial t o polit ics precisely because polit ics is so vulnerable, even in t oday’s deplet ed dem ocracy, t o dreaded ‘public opinion’. For public opinion is what people believe t o be t rue, and as long as polit ical pow er is cont ingent on what people t hink, it will be essent ial t o cont rol what t hey t hink. Hence t he enorm ous effort t hat is put polit ically int o m aint aining ideological power, t o cont rolling t he form at ion and recept ion of m eaning in every sphere and at every level. But t rut h is st ill not sovereign, for behind t rut h lies power. I t really doesn’t m at t er t o polit icians how blat ant and absurd ( t o t he m ore discerning consum ers of t he ‘safet y- valve’ m edia) t he ( m is) represent at ion of t rut h becom es j ust so long as m ass opinion cont inues t o be cont rolled. This is because what people t ake t o be t rue st ill, j ust , has t he propensit y t o underm ine power. I f power should ever m anage t o find a way of subvert ing t his last vest ige of dem ocrat ic influence, it will cease im m ediat ely t o bot her wit h spin and abandon wit h huge relief all t he apparat us of m ake- believe, for t rut h will no longer be im port ant .

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Corporat e plut ocracy st ill depends t o an ext ent on a deplet ed dem ocracy and m ust t herefor sust ain a not ion of t he ‘t rut h’, but t his is a severely debased form of t rut h, i.e. t rut h as virt ually synonym ous wit h public opinion and purveyed by t he public relat ions and advert ising indust ries. Precisely because it has becom e so debased, so t ransparent ly fabricat ed and m anipulat ed, ‘t rut h’ m ay be m ist akenly represent ed ( perhaps, indeed, in good fait h) by t he int ellect uals of ‘post m odernit y’ as an out m oded const ruct ion of t he discredit ed ‘grand narrat ives’ of form er t im es. But rat her t han t he exposure of t he, so t o speak, concept ual im possibilit y of t rut h, what we are wit nessing is t he disem powerm ent of t rut h, it s cynical reduct ion t o t echnologies of spin in which t here is a t acit acknowledgem ent t hat t rut h is on t he way t o not m at t ering at all. Trut h, and it s parasit e m ake- believe, t hus only m at t er as long as t here is a possibilit y of popular solidarit y form ing around a com m on underst anding of what is t he case ( e.g. how t he world works t o im m iserat e us) and dest abilizing t he st ruct ures of global corporat e plut ocracy. I n t his st at e of affairs t he philosophical t ask becom es t hat of rehabilit at ing t he concept of t rut h, which in t urn m eans deconst ruct ing const ruct ivism ! There can be no doubt t hat language is of t he first im port ance in t he form at ion of hum an conduct and societ y. But t his does not m ean t hat language is generat ive of realit y it self. The over- excit ed em brace ( and oft en only rudim ent ary underst anding) in broadly ‘t herapeut ic’ circles of not ions of ‘discourse’, ‘narrat ive’, et c. having t heir origin m ainly in t he writ ings of French post - st ruct uralist s such as Foucault , Derrida and Lyot ard, has result ed in an alm ost psychot ic disregard of t he real circum st ances of people’s lives. Of course words do not direct ly reflect an incont rovert ible realit y or ‘hold a m irror up t o Nat ure’; of course language can never give direct access t o Trut h. And of course language is absolut ely essent ial t o our underst anding of and int eract ion wit h t he world and each ot her. But t his does not invest language wit h som e kind of m agical power of creat ion in which it brings worlds int o being. Cert ainly language is t he principal m edium of persuasion, but it persuades by point ing t o som et hing ot her t han it self, som et hing t hat is t he case rat her t han som et hing t hat is m erely said 2 . I t is easy t o see how we can be m isled by our linguist ic abilit y int o invest ing it wit h m agical power, but only t he m achinat ions of power, surely, can explain t he ext ent t o which t he world has com e t o be present ed as de- m at erialized at t he highest int ellect ual levels. Foucault spoke, aft er all, of t he ‘discourse of power’, not t he power of discourse, and yet it is t his m isconst ruct ion which seem s t o have gripped t he im aginat ion of t he ‘const ruct ivist s’. Language does not describe realit y, t hey say, in cont em pt uous dism issal of t he ‘grand narrat ives of t he past ’. No, but neit her does it bring it int o being. Language allows us t o place our experience at a dist ance from us, t o hypost at ize and m anipulat e it . Ot herwise, we could only live our experience – or be lived by it , rat her in t he m anner of dream ing. I nevit ably, we are const ant ly t em pt ed t o believe in t he act ualit y of our

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im aginings ( which is why scient ific enquiry has t o be so scept ical and so painst aking) , but when we t ake im aginat ion as definit ive of realit y ( or alt ernat ive realit ies) , we have sunk int o collect ive m adness. I t is in t he int erest of any powerful m inorit y t hat has been able t o shape societ y t o it s own considerable m at erial benefit , and at t he cost of depriving t he m aj orit y, t o obscure not only t he processes by which it has achieved it s posit ion but also t he very nat ure of realit y it self, part icularly t he significance of people’s experience of pain. There is enorm ous scope for such obfuscat ion in t he t im e- honoured and ent irely fam iliar ideological and rhet orical m anoeuvres ( ‘spin’ and PR) t hat aim at convincing us t hat black is whit e. But t o insert at t he highest levels of philosophical t hought t he prem ise t hat t here is no such t hing as realit y is a coup indeed. While we m ay agree t hat in t he past a t oo heavy- handed posit ivist aut horit y at t em pt ed t o claim a special relat ionship wit h Trut h t hat allowed no use of linguist ic concept s ot her t han it s own ( i.e. t hat language could indeed be used t o describe an independent realit y) , we need t o recapt ure a view of language as art iculat ing our relat ions wit h t he world as best we can. We can in t his was acknowledge t hat any form of ‘ult im at e’ realt y m ust always rem ain a m yst ery beyond our grasp, but t hat t hat does not m ean t here is no such t hing as realit y. Som e t hings are m ore real, som e st at em ent s m ore t rue, t han ot hers. Realit y is sensed in em bodied experience before it is art iculat ed in words, and what we say needs always t o be checked against ot her kinds of evidence, including where necessary every ot her possible int im at ion we m ay have of our living exist ence in m at erial realit y. Polit ica l im plica t ions Let us not m ince m at t ers. The following speaks for it self. I t is t he St at em ent of t he Cent re for Research in Globalisat ion, as set out in t heir websit e: -

CRG Statement The Cent re's obj ect ive is t o unveil t he workings of t he New World Order. War and globalisat ion go hand in hand, leading, in t he post Cold War era, t o t he dest ruct ion of count ries and t he im poverishm ent of hundreds of m illions of people. I n t urn, t his global econom ic syst em is m arked by an unprecedent ed concent rat ion of privat e wealt h. The inst it ut ions of war, police repression and econom ic m anagem ent int erface wit h one anot her. NATO is not only in liaison wit h t he Pent agon and t he CI A, it also has cont act s wit h t he I MF and t he World Bank. I n t urn, t he Washingt on based int ernat ional financial bureaucracy, responsible for im posing deadly " econom ic m edicine" on developing count ries has close t ies t o t he Wall St reet financial est ablishm ent . The powers behind t his syst em are t hose of t he global banks and financial inst it ut ions, t he m ilit aryindust rial com plex, t he oil and energy giant s, t he

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biot ech conglom erat es and t he powerful m edia and com m unicat ions giant s, which fabricat e t he news and overt ly dist ort t he course of world event s. I n t urn, t he police apparat us represses, in t he nam e of " West ern dem ocracy" , all form s of dissent and crit ique of t he dom inant neoliberal ideology. This " false consciousness" which pervades our societ ies, prevent s crit ical debat e and m asks t he t rut h. Ult im at ely, t his false consciousness precludes a collect ive underst anding of t he workings of a World econom ic and polit ical syst em , which dest roys people's lives. The only prom ise of global capit alism is a World of landless farm ers, shut t ered fact ories, j obless workers and gut t ed social program s wit h " bit t er econom ic m edicine" under t he WTO and t he I MF const it ut ing t he only prescript ion. The New World Order is based on t he " false consensus" of Washingt on and Wall St reet , which ordains t he " free m arket syst em " as t he only possible choice on t he fat ed road t o a " global prosperit y" . The GRG purport s t o reveal t he t rut h and disarm t he falsehoods conveyed by t he cont rolled corporat e m edia. Michel Chossudovsky, Edit or 29 August 2001

This seem s t o m e about as succinct a sum m ary of t he st at e of affairs confront ing us as one is likely t o find. Not hing could suit corporat e plut ocracy m ore t han for people t o believe t hat t he real sat isfact ions of life st em ult im at ely from t he cult ivat ion of privacy: t hat subj ect ive well- being, t hat is t o say, is a m at t er of ‘personal growt h’ from t he inside. One- dim ensional Business cult ure in fact closes down public space such t hat t he ‘real’ world’ ( i.e. t he world of t he m arket econom y) becom es sim ply a given t hat people have t o accept wit hout quest ion: ‘resist ance is useless’. I f t he m any can be persuaded t hat t hey have no say in t he shaping of m at erial realit y, and t hat personal sat isfact ion is purely a m at t er of selfdoct oring and privat e consum pt ion, t he world is left wide open for exploit at ion by t he few. When t he only public m eanings available are t he grim and unassailable ‘realit ies’ of t he m arket , people are left t o scrabble t oget her for t hem selves m ake- shift ways of sharing experiences t hat act ually cannot be accom m odat ed wit hin t he Business m odel ( an exam ple w ould be t he rit uals of grief t hat have developed rapidly in recent t im es – im prom pt u roadside shrines, great er em ot ional dem onst rat iveness, et c.) . Quit e apart from feeling polit ically im pot ent ( and dem onst rat ing our alienat ion by shunning t he ‘dem ocrat ic’ process in unprecedent ed num bers) we have t o cast around for ways of m aking com m unal sense of experiences t hat inevit ably arise from our exist ence as em bodied beings but are no longer served by abandoned – and oft en discredit ed - t radit ions.

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However, because we are social beings, individual subj ect ivit y cannot develop and flourish in a virt ual vacuum . The st ruct ures of public space necessarily supply a kind of exoskelet on for our feeling and underst anding of what it is t o be hum an, and where t hose st ruct ures are drast ically reduced, our subj ect ivit y becom es fract ured and incom plet e. At it s m ost grot esque, people m ay becom e st ripped of public ident it y alt oget her: nam eless aut om at a at t he end of a t elephone wit hout powers of reason or j udgem ent , able only t o reit erat e a handful of st ock phrases. I t is of course underst andable for people t o feel t hat one answer t o t he heart lessness of t he out side world is t o ret ire int o t he realm , if not of t he inner self, at least of t he privat e life of hom e and fam ily, et c. However, I suspect t hat t his kind of st rat egy is built on t he false prem ise t hat inner space, privacy, is som ehow independent of public st ruct ure. I n fact , if anyt hing, t he opposit e seem s t o m e t o be t he case. For individual people, hell is m ore oft en t o be experienced wit hin t he confines of t he fam ily ( or indeed t he agonies of int rospect ion) t han it is in t he spaces beyond, and public st ruct ures of m eaning – what one m ight broadly call cult ures - t hat have evolved over t im e t o accom m odat e t he concerns of em bodied hum an beings m ay offer an escape from privacy t hat act ually lends m eaning and significance t o once privat e suffering. A decent , caring, m ult i- dim ensional public world m akes use as well as sense of privat e pain and confusion. One of t he m ost t orm ent ed and abused ( and adm irable) people I ever m et was rescued as child from t ot al perdit ion by film s and books, which, am ong ot her t hings, uncovered, t o her am azem ent , t he possibilit y of love. The way t o rescue subj ect ivit y is, t hen, not t o sink furt her int o our ‘inner worlds’, but t o st ruggle t o open up public space and build wit hin it st ruct ures t hat are adequat e t o giving m eaning and purpose t o our lives. The relent less Business onslaught over t he last couple of decades has st ripped away pract ically every way we had of underst anding ourselves ot her t han t he st upefying m ant ras of t he m arket econom y. Deeply host ile t o social, int ellect ual, art ist ic, spirit ual and what I van I llich called convivial ways of t hinking, being and experiencing ( not least because t hey give subj ect s t he possibilit y of crit icizing t heir condit ion) , Business, where it cannot underm ine t hem direct ly, invades t hem parasit ically, like one of t hose wasps t hat lays it s eggs on t he pupae of ot her creat ures. I nt ellect ual life gives way t o a kind of m anagerially aut horized post uring, int elligence t o t he bureaucrat ized applicat ion of m indless rules, hist ory t o fashion. Even ordinary conversat ion, via t he m edia, t akes on t he t ones of hyperbolic advert ising gibberish. Every nook and cranny of exist ence is t urned t o com m ercial use and t he apparat us of consum erism is everywhere. Taxat ion is replaced by sponsorship. Every art icle for sale is laden wit h t he ‘added value’ of ever m ore cont rived and crazy exercises in branding. Sport becom es big business. Thought , feeling, relat ing and underst anding becom e prescribed, it erat ive rit uals in which people no longer know what t hey t hink, or what t o t hink, unless it is prescribed by com m ercial logic, or t he crude dogm as of polit ical correct ness t hat have com e t o replace m oralit y.

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And all t he inart iculat e confusion and despair t hat t his st at e of affairs generat es is t o be soaked up by ‘counselling’. There can be no doubt t hat t his Business t ake- over of j ust about every aspect of life has been successful alm ost beyond belief, so m uch so t hat it is virt ually im possible t o envisage how t he process m ight be eit her reversed or overt hrown. There was, t o be sure, a great deal t hat was unsat isfact ory about t he t radit ional ort hodoxies t hat prevailed before t he t ake- over, and t o at t em pt t o ret urn t o t he int ellect ual, m oral and spirit ual inst it ut ions we used t o know would indeed be ret rograde in t he worst sense. We need t o recover t he m ult idim ensionalit y of public space t hat we have lost , but wit hout t he st uffy aut horit arianism and ent renched inequalit ies t hat oft en went wit h it s principal feat ures. There are st ill t hose who hope t hat som et hing like t his m ight be achieved by exist ing polit ical organizat ions. I n an excellent art icle in t he Guardian ( 20.3.01) David Marquand offers a percept ive analysis of t he social ills t hat beset us and t he need for a ‘renewal of t he public services and t he cult ure t hat sust ains t hem ’, and hopes t hat t his m ay yet form a real ( as opposed t o virt ual) part of New Labour’s proj ect in Brit ain. However, not hing has occurred since t he re- elect ion of New Labour t hat t ook place a couple of m ont hs lat er t o inspire confidence t hat t hat m ay be t he case – ot her, of course, t han copious am ount s of verbal m ake- believe. A rat her less opt im ist ic perspect ive is gained from a re- reading of C. Wright Mills’s brilliant book The Power Elit e, writ t en alm ost fift y years ago. I n it , he docum ent ed t he processes t hat closed down and com m ercialized public space in t he USA, replaced it s civil service wit h

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agent s of t he corporat e plut ocracy, and so on - t he developm ent of t he very processes, indeed, t hat so dom inat e us now and t o which t here seem s t o be no organized and publicly endorsed opposit ion. There is, t hankfully, an unofficial and unendorsed opposit ion t hat from t im e t o t im e m akes it self felt in no uncert ain m anner ( as it did, for exam ple at Seat t le and Genoa) , but it is not yet clear how or whet her t his could becom e a polit ical fact or in t he consciousness of t he vast m ass of t he public who are current ly firm ly in t he grip of t he convent ional m edia. Consider for a m om ent t he ( highly over- sim plified) diagram above of how a convent ionally left - wing polit ical syst em m ight t heoret ically be aim ed at creat ing t he kind of personal environm ent where individuals could flourish as bot h public and privat e beings. I t is sobering t o reflect t hat even t his relat ively m odest ideal has becom e so far out of reach as t o as t o appear sim ply absurd. For nat ional governm ent s no longer det erm ine t heir own policies, and t he influences of global corporat e plut ocracy int rude at every level of social organizat ion t o furt her t heir own int erest s. I n t he absence of any organized opposit ion, all we can do is resist as best we can. I t is vain t o expect , t hough, t hat t he piecem eal dissent of scat t ered individuals is going t o m ake m uch of an im pact . The apparat us of power is t oo well developed for t hat . But not hing last s for ever, and unt ram m elled greed has it s blind- spot s. Maybe t he best we can hope for is t o have som e idea of what t o do when t he apparat us collapses.

1. A good account can be found in Orford, J. Com m unit y Psy chology: Theory and Pract ice, Wiley , 1992. 2. An excellent crit ique of ‘post m odernist ’ overst at em ent s of t he power of words m ay be found in Mar garet S. Archer, Being Hum an. The Pr oblem of Agency, Cam br idge Universit y Press, 2000. One does not have t o concur wit h t he aut hor’s religious inclinat ion t o appreciat e t he passionat e lucidit y of her defence of realit y.

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