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"SOCIAL MADNESS:" Click the link then scroll down the page and/or download to read the entire article by Ronald Aronson
EXCERPT FROM ARONSON'S ARTICLE IS DIRECTLY BELOW
Comment by Koenigsberg directly below the excerpt
The rigorous use of ‘madness’ (to describe a political policy) is deeply disturbing, which is perhaps one reason why it has been so conspicuously avoided in a century rife with madness. The functionalist bias of most systematic thought assumes that there is a reason for every societal act, a more or less rational intention behind political action.
It offends the intellect to suggest that there is no reason behind a major policy — or that indeed its reason is profoundly and systematically irrational. ‘Madness’ is even more unsettling in suggesting that we may be living amidst a profound and destructive irrationality.
Comment by Richard Koenigsberg: Yes, the 20th century was a century of madness. Yet the nonsense of political science textbooks that suggest each social institution has a "function," which accounts for the existence and persistence of each institution.
Two-hundred-million people killed in the 20th Century as a result of political violence (a low estimate). The idea that there is a "more or less rational intention behind political action." Delusional.
Aronson says that it "offends the intellect" to suggest that there is "no reason" behind a major policy or that its reason is "profoundly and systematically irrational." Why should our intellects te "offended?" One-hundred years of Freud, we are certainly aware that many forms of behavior are generated by motives that are "profoundly and systematically irrational?"
Why should we not assume that social behavior is generated by the same unconscious phantasies and desires that are the source of the thinking and behavior of individuals. Why difficult to embrace the fundamental irrationality of political and social life.
Mass-murders like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. It's written up in the history books. Yes we have been living amidst a "profound and destructive irrationality" for the last one-hundred years. But we prefer not to call the madness, madness.
The existence of Donald Trump will help generate this "revolution in human thought" that I support. It's happening right before our eyes. Statements and political events that are bizarre, crazy, insane. Occurring endlessly, right in front of our eyes. The MADNESS of politics and political discourse.
If we can perceive the madness of Donald Trump, can't we perceive the madness of the other political leaders I've mentioned above. Rewritethe history books. Look at what occurred, and think of it in a different way: Madness on a level that Donald Trump can only dream about.
RICHARD KOENIGSBERG
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