Behaviorism is Evil.

June 12, 2009 at 4:16 P.M. I am unable to access the Internet from my home computer because my Internet signal is blocked or obstructed. I will try to repair this harm. In the event that I am unable to regain access to these blogs, any alterations or damage to these writings will be against my will and without my consent. I am never certain whether I will be able to continue writing. I will always try to write somehow and somewhere.

June 27, 2009 at 2:57 P.M. A wave of attacks against essays has resulted in the reinsertion of previously corrected "errors" with the goal of maximizing the frustration effect on me resulting from these defacements of my writings.

David W. Chen, "New Jersey Passes Budget Fueled by $1 Billion in Tax Increases," in The New York Times, June 26, 2009, at p. A18. (The most corrupt politicians in America need more money to steal.)

Ms. Poritz and Mr. Cohen, no matter how often "errors" are inserted in this essay, I will insist that child molesters be punished in New Jersey regardless of how powerful they may be and whatever their ethnicity or sexual-orientation. Only one new "error" inserted since yesterday. Perhaps Kelly Anne Michaels should be appointed to a committee of inquiry concerning child molestation and the explosion of child porn in New Jersey. ("Jay Romano and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

Scott Shane & David Johnston, "Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic," in The New York Times, June 7, 2009, at p. A1. (Lawyers, law professors, judges are complicit in hideous tortures and enslavement policies of the U.S. government. I am sure that many are members of American Bar Association Ethics Committees while others are found in the federal judiciary.)
Jane Mayer, "The Torture Reckoning," in The New Yorker, June 22, 2009, at p. 50.
Seth Mydans, "Legal Strategy Fails to Hide Pride a Khmer Rouge Torturer Took in His Job," in The New York Times, June 21, 2009, at p. 12. (Alex, Terry, Diana -- recognize yourselves?)
Rebeca Lemov, World as Laboratory: Experiments With Mice, Mazes, and Men (New York: Hill & Wang, 2006).
Noam Chomsky, "Psychology and Ideology," (1972) in James Peck, ed., The Noam Chomsky Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1987), pp. 157-182.
"Human Behavior," in The New York Times, Book Review, Sunday, February 12, 2006, at p. 9.
Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Henry Holt, 2006).
R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (London: Pantheon, 1967).
Juan Galis-Menendez, "Magic, Technology, and the Self," http://www.geocities.com/newyearswithjuangm/philosophy.html
Juan Galis-Menendez, Audietur et Altera Pars, http://laingsociety.org/colloquia/polofdiagnosis/etaltera.htm

After North Korea's "brain washing" of American prisoners in the 1950s, the U.S. embarked on its own project of remolding human beings "for their own good" in accordance with scientists' determinations concerning the so-called "general welfare." Developing behaviorist theories dating from well before the turn of the twentieth century, an effort was made to reshape the human psyche on the basis of external stimuli, so as to make people "better," to improve them or "adjust" them, as needed, to their "social realities."

The goal of these efforts, undertaken in violation of America's own Nuremberg Code, was to compete with the Communists in mind control and interrogation efforts making use of hypnosis and drugging, leading to "programming" or "conditioning" of subjects, often persons selected secretly -- and illegally -- under the CIA's MKultra and Bluebird as well as other programs. Terry, did you really work for the CIA, as you claimed? Did you really "know" Woody Allen, Terry? Mossad? Similar efforts are still a part of secret government torture programs within the US and globally.

African-Americans and other members of the so-called "lower orders" selected for such treatment may never know of the tactics used against them. Inmates in many prisons have been victims of unspeakably cruel and sadistic tactics of "behavior modification." Women inmates are usually subjected to sexual assaults in addition to such psychological tortures. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

Unrecognized philosophical assumptions concerning the essence (or lack of one) of human beings were part of this so-called scientific project from the beginning. These philosophical assumptions were taken for granted, usually, and were not seen to be deeply flawed. For instance, the failure to appreciate the role of moral motivation and choice in response to stimuli, the ways that persons may "choose themselves" for reasons that are far from self-interested, in any environments, defying techniques for inducing "aversion reactions" -- as an affirmation of freedom or out of concern and love for another human being -- to mention only two examples. These possibilities may exist regardless of the environments in which persons are placed. ("Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet!" and "Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!")

Persons may act for reasons other than "rational self-interest" (suicide bombers), which baffles the conventional American middle-brow student of "human behavior" basing his or her efforts on observations of markets in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The usual response to a "lack of cooperation" from subjects in their own enslavement and torment is increasing "negative reinforcement of stimuli" (more torture) in order to produce "desired behavior" (obedience). The long term harm or lethal effects of such tactics are considered incidental to the fun that social scientists can have "hurting" people by using these techniques. (Contrast "Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory" with "Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")

It may be time to delete another letter from one of my words, again. I am unable to sign out of this blog because an advertisement for an "Adobe Reader." Essays continue to be vandalized through the use of government technology.

The meaning of behavior is never discussed among torturers. It never occurs to "researchers" (torturers) that a person may produce desired behavior "for" torturers -- for the opposite of the desired reasons -- as a form of subtle resistance and continued struggle. Prostitutes may be instructive in dealing with this issue. Do you really believe that you can ever "own" or possess another human being against her will? I doubt it. It is beyond my comprehension that anyone can believe that destruction of relationships of trust, heightened anxiety, disconfirmation of identity, induced frustration and despair, induced sense of hopelessness could be beneficial or anything other than a brutal form of control. These tactics will only produce hatred and identical strategies as the response from victims who will always be harmed by them. But then, torturers will also be harmed by such methods. More noise as I write these sentences is purely coincidental. ("Captured American Prisoner Tortured on Video by Taliban" and "More Torture of American Prisoner Captured by Taliban.")

The most flawed assumption of this research is a moral one: that scientists or anyone has the right to act upon others, to create devastating suffering for fellow human beings, so as to "learn from them" or to alter them on the basis of a "therapist's" notion of what is best for them. To do such a thing, clandestinely, then lie about it is even worse. Terry Tuchin in Ridgwood, N.J. and Diana Lisa Riccioli in Clifton, (Paramus?), New Jersey -- when last I saw them -- were (probably, they still are) two torturers seemingly affiliated with Garden State governmental agencies. Both should be arrested and charged with crimes.

Hey, Diana, do you still claim to be "tight" with Deborah T. Poritz? Is it true that Diana is a racist? Diana, did you graduate from medical school or any university? Diana, did you have a "relationship" with Deborah T. Poritz when Ms. Poritz served as New Jersey's Chief Justice? Diana, did you "introduce" young women to Ms. Poritz while she served as New Jersey's Chief Justice? If so, did you receive "compensation" (in any form) for this "service"? Ethics? Did you two gals attend ... "parties" together? Do you comment on my ethics, Ms. Poritz? Did you, Ms. Poritz, share in the money stolen from my office? Nydia, Anne, Louisa, Mary Anne -- this is quite a lesbian love-fest. ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

The idea that such cruelty takes place in the United States and is greeted with indifference by courts is mind-boggling, although it is very true. A useful rule might be to subject a scientist's family members, even him- or herself, to the same "stimuli" to which the scientist's subjects are exposed, often unwillingly. Let us try these techniques, including censorship, on judges and their family members or even a very mild version of these tactics. This may lead to greater sensitivity on the part of behaviorists and others to the feelings of "subjects." My reservation, however, is that we must never become what torturers are. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "One of New Jersey's Highly Ethical Attorneys Has a Problem" as well as "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")

The horrors detailed in Professor Lemov's book make for grim reading. One shifts between fury and awe at the level of these psychologists' stupidity and arrogance, at their disdain for the dignity of persons, at their cruelty and inhumanity, at their smug and blissful forms of evil. For Jewish persons to be a part of such horror when the tortures and experiments in the death camps are still fresh in living memory is unbearably sad. Is Gaza today's version of the Warsaw Ghetto under the Nazis? The lack of compassion and charity among these so-called "therapists" is enough to set one's teeth on edge. The indifference of American courts is even more disturbing. ("Psychological Torture in the American Legal System.")

"Mr. Levin, [an attorney in the Bush White House] now in private practice, won praise with a 2004 memorandum that opened by declaring 'torture is abhorrent.' But he also wrote a letter to the C.I.A. that specifically APPROVED waterboarding in August, 2004, and he drafted much of Mr. Bradbury's lengthy May 2005 opinion authorizing the 13 methods [of torture]." (New York Times, June 7, 2009, at p. A19.)

Mr. Rabner, did you APPROVE of tortures making use of these psychological techniques to be used secretly, unconstitutionally, on unsuspecting and unconsenting American citizens in an American jurisdiction -- citizens who have committed no crimes -- over a period of years? How does any Jew become Dr. Mengele? Mr. Rabner, do you claim to be unaware of this daily censorship and destruction of writings emanating from New Jersey's legal system? What did you know, Mr. Rabner, and when did you know it? Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner? ("Organized Crime in New Jersey's State Police" and "Law is Dead in New Jersey.")

Perhaps Mr. Margolis at the Justice Department will exonerate Mr. Rabner and Mr. Levin of any ethics lapses. ("New Jersey's Crimes Against Humanity" and "New Jersey Court Clerk Charged in Bribery Case" then "New Jersey is the Home of Child Molesters.")

The ethnicity or race of these lawyers "rationalizing and facilitating" torture and other atrocities should be irrelevant to the forces shaping this blindness to the moral reality created by their own legal reasoning and so-called "psychology." Legal culture has shaped the minds of these lawyers in good and terrible ways. The impact of legal training and the ethos of advocacy in this nightmare of torture and murder at Abu Ghraib as well as Guantanamo has not been explored by commentators. I may say something about this issue in reviewing a favorite film or two dealing with the law, if I have the time and breathing room to write. The war against N.J.'s protected cybercriminals is a daily one. I can never be sure from one day to the next of whether I will be able to continue writing. ("The Long Goodbye.")

Particularly loathsome has been the American Psychological Association's (APA) participation in this barbarism. The role of such "players" as former APA President Joseph Matarazzo, consulting firm James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen Associates, C.I.A. "experts" Deuce Martinez and Kirk Hubbard -- probably pseudonyms -- as well as others is shameful for themselves and much more for America. ("More Crooked Politicians, Judges and Child Molesters in New Jersey" and "Kickbacks and Theft in New Jersey.")

"The recently released Justice Department memos, he noted, contain numerous references to C.I.A. MEDICAL personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. 'They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,' Raymond said. 'This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.' ..." (Mayer, p. 57.)

The role of American lawyers in this Nazi-like evil is worse: David Cole, "The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers," in The New York Review of Books, October 8, 2009, at p. 14:

"Justice Department lawyers were inextricably involved in justifying every aspect of the CIA program." -- Do you speak to me of legal ethics at the OAE? -- "They wrote memo after memo over a five-year period, from 2002 to 2007, [1988-2013] all maintaining that any interrogation methods the CIA was planning to use were legal." ("America's Unethical Medical Torturers" and "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?")

It may be that someone like Mr. Levin at The Nation magazine will be less offended by these tortures than by the use of the word "chic" in conversation by a male person. However, most of the world regards the rape and torture of "detainees" as a crime against humanity and regards a nation doing such things systematically as less than inspiring on human rights issues, even if the torture is described as "behavior modification." This torture policy is not who we are. I hope. Robot bombs may be worse. ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")

Insulting me, describing my books and me as "shit," does not undermine these claims. I will do my best to convey to New Jersey's legal system the experience of being described in such terms, as billions of persons in the world -- who are also deprived of power, as I am -- wish to communicate to American courts why rape, theft, torture and denials of self-determination are a tad offensive even to "little brown persons." The continuing attacks against my computer, as I keep insisting, may preclude further writing from me at any time. I will always struggle to find new places to do my writing. Essays posted at blogger may be altered or destroyed by hackers at any time, as my television signal is regularly obstructed, strangely enough. ("News From the War on Terror.")

The offensiveness of our torture policies is felt by persons in parts of the world that are not in the United States of America where people have different religious beliefs and languages from those persons fortunate enough to call "Moonakie," New Jersey home, sweet home. Many Americans are also disgusted by torture and, understandably, by New Jersey. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")

Millions of us have been subjected to embargos and conditioning by persons convinced that they are our "superiors." In my opinion, all persons doing such things (providing undesired "instruction") to other human beings are morally inferior to their victims. ("Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

The experiments described in Lemov's disturbing book are based on a theory that is still popular among American psychologists -- as evidenced by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, together with the latest marketing and advertising ploys -- a theory which must be appreciated in its full and grotesque details:

"Dr. Ewen Cameron, a researcher at McGill University [developing techniques created by a Dr. Wolf at Cornell University] ... managed to erase much of the memories of 53 psychiatric patients. Cameron used a variety of methods to reformat his patients' brains. He prescribed drugs like LSD and administered frequent shock therapy. He induced comas (without patients' or their families' permission or knowledge). He would pipe messages like 'You killed your mother' (followed by positive messages) into patients' ears through a loudspeaker placed under their pillows, repeating them as many as 250,000 times. The patients were in some sense cured. A woman who had suffered from a mild case of depression found her former malady had gone away -- along with any memory of her three children."

There is more:

"Lemov, an anthropologist, describes a long train of scientific research: the scientist who scrambled a dog's brain to show how its mental network would adapt; the researchers who spent decades running rats through mazes in hopes of finding ways to understand human behavior; the fellow who slammed a hammer down on a metal rod just behind a baby's head every time the baby reached out for a furry white rabbit. (He was hoping to condition a fear of furry white things.)"

Many persons in America have been victimized by these monsters in lab coats, who usually operate with the consent or secret authorization of corrupt legal authorities -- authorities who are, evidently, concerned not to fall behind in the cruelty competition. Sexual exploitation has become an increasingly common feature of these tactics. Rape and assaults of victims are common. We are no longer concerned to be the first on the moon, the challenge now seems to be: Who can design the best torture chambers? Americans seem to be winning that race. On the basis of this book, it appears that the largest number of victims are also Americans. Many are children. (See "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Jaynee LaVecchia and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

The incompatibility of this totalitarian ambition to "control" others with the vision of human autonomy and equality underlying the U.S. Constitution seems not to concern state courts and agencies (like New Jersey's tainted OAE) making use of secret "expert" testimony, as they wink at the torture that provides such testimony in contempt for their Constitutional responsibilities or maybe out of overwhelming stupidity. Probably it is a little of both. You may wish to consider the fact that the actions of all conspirators (like rape, theft, assault) may be attributed to each member of a conspiracy to violate civil rights. Family courts and social services offices have become a psychobabbler's paradise. Here is Noam Chomsky's bitter summary of Skinner's nightmarish vision of "adjustment":

" ... consider a well-run concentration camp with inmates spying on one another [preferably family members may be used for this purpose] and the gas ovens smoking in the distance, and perhaps an occasional verbal hint as a reminder of the meaning of this reinforcer. It would appear to be an almost perfect world. Skinner claims the totalitarian state is morally wrong because of its deferred aversive consequences, ... Unwanted behavior will be eliminated from the start by the threat of the crematoria and the all-seeing spies. Thus all behavior would be automatically 'good,' as required. There would be no punishment. Everyone would be reinforced -- differentially, of course, in accordance with ability to obey rules. Within Skinner's scheme, there is no objection to this social order. Rather it seems close to ideal."

Panopticism? Attempts to remake people in accordance with the convenience of the State is not so different from what Stalin or Hitler tried to do. Skinner's paradise looks like Dachau. It is no coincidence that the first societies to try these techniques were totalitarian States, whether of the Left or Right, in the twentieth century and beyond. These hideous methods reached a kind of apotheosis in the experiments of Dr. Mengele and his Nazi colleagues at places like Dachau and Auschwitz, also in the Gulags of the former Soviet Union, and "elsewhere." New Jersey?

September 16, 2009 at 10:10 A.M. A UN report finds Israel responsible for war crimes in Gaza, also for possible "crimes against humanity." This story has received scant attention in America's "free" press. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.") The true number of hits at this blog cannot be determined. The numbers should not be measured in increments of one hundred. Estimates are that between 25,000 to 50,000 hits have been received, so far, at my blogs. I cannot say whether my books still exist or are available. I do not accept that the cybercrime I struggle against, publicly, is a coincidence.

October 9, 2009 at 1:53 P.M. A letter was deleted from a word in the foregoing paragraph. I have now restored that letter. Obstructions and intrusions into my computer make it likely that other writings at these blogs have been vandalized or damaged.

Terry and Diana in New Jersey would fit right in with Dr. Mengele. Terry claimed that he was a Jew. How does a Jew become Mengele? Someday, I will receive a convincing answer to that question from my "friend" in New Jersey. ("I'll go to bat for you!") Were Anne Milgram, Diana Lisa Riccioli, Debbie Poritz and others "cruising partners" sharing a fondness for the ladies? Perhaps such distressing "associations" and "liasons" explain this nightmare.

This is about the twentieth time that the same "errors" have been inserted and corrected in this essay. The goal of New Jersey's mafia-Cubanoid hackers is to induce frustration, despair, collapse. They will not succeed. However, they have succeeded in defecating on the U.S. Constitution, publicly. This should anger and concern you. ("Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless.")

Behaviorist methods and techniques are based on philosophical assumptions which are rarely articulated or defended publicly. They are based on the idea that people are like machines, so that their "behaviors" -- as opposed to freely chosen actions -- are merely a response to stimuli, which determines them. "Soft variables" like human autonomy, privacy, dignity, respect, freedom may be ignored as unscientific "obstructions" to progress.

"Behaviorism works," Terry Tuchin said. Torture works. In fact, murder works. If you kill someone, then you have solved any emotional issues in that person's life. Since behaviorists are willing to dispense with consideration of my privacy rights, I need not be troubled by their privacy rights. ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Neil M. Cohen and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey.") Hide your kids when you meet a New Jersey lawyer.

You (as a happy behaviorist-torturer) can decide what a person will do or be. You can make people into whatever you wish, based on your definition of what people are or what it is good for them to be, by controlling the stimuli to which they will respond. This is the real appeal of these methods, a foul and frightening "will to power" in otherwise mild-mannered therapists, dressed in non-threatening gray and white coats along with their enablers in black robes, who long for the sadistic thrill of supremacy over others. Scratch the surface of the behaviorist and you will find a happy sadist underneath. Tuchin? Justice Brandeis warned us to be most aware and skeptical of government when it claims a paternalistic motive for action.

Psychobabblers say that "it is a real job to torture children into adopting the right values." The first victims of such methods have been (and will be) minorities. Accordingly, I have a question for the Jew who becomes Mengele: "Who do think will be next if these tortures are adopted by governments?" For whom are these methods being developed by governments and "others"? Take a wild guess.

An image in the media yesterday of a young Jewish man throwing a glass of wine at the face of an old Palestinian woman was nearly identical to images of similar cruelties by Nazis against Jews in Germany during the thirties. I do not believe that this is a coincidence.

It may be possible to condition the rejection of conditioning into psychologists -- without resorting to the tortures which they favor -- by having them read good books by genuine psychologists and philosophers, or by other real thinkers and artists, or just their Bibles, other scriptures, or copies of the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps a course dealing with basic ethics would help them. Maybe some Prozac and a little Mozart playing softly in the background will do the trick. Behaviorists may be required to work while being surrounded by photographs of Dr. King and Ghandi. We might flash a message written in neon before them that says: "You should respect people." It couldn't hurt. ("What is it like to be tortured?")

The "philosophy" of behaviorism -- I hesitate to dignify this ideology with the name "philosophy" -- is derived in the twentieth century from the writings of Watson and Skinner, through the Soviet psychologists who found dissidents' nonconformity sufficient grounds for commitment to mental institutions, to our own behaviorist psychologists happily advising the military on interrogation methods, while conducting illicit experiments in prisons and institutions, or possibly on unsuspecting friends and neighbors. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

No doubt, even now, there are shrinks doing similar terrible things to American citizens, secretly, "so they can learn from" their victims. Every torturer with a Ph.D. or M.D. has the tacit approval and financing of some government agencies, thanks to the indifference of courts in the darkest corners of the country, like New Jersey, where every Turnpike exit is said to contain some of the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. Ask New Jersey's Supreme Court, for example, why they allow such horrors, secretly:

http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/images/lon.jpg (What do you have to say for yourself, Virginia?)

What is nefarious is the assumption -- and this is where the tradition Lemov describes is indeed very much alive -- that in the most important realms of life, human beings respond in uniform ways to material "stimuli." In this view, humans are not the authors of their own lives, or are not influenced by mystical and unknowable forces, which we call the soul or free will.

A human being is a "freedom in the world." When that freedom is denied, you may expect rebellion and resistance -- even the choice of personal destruction -- rather than a continued existence as a "meat puppet" or "slave," right Alex Booth?, who is denied the dignity that makes self-respect and love, meaning the moral status of a person, possible. I thought slavery was illegal in America? Patrick Henry said: "Give me liberty or give me death!" Behaviorists would give him death -- "for his own good," of course, so they might observe the result. Are you learning from me, Terry?

I choose to remain human. I will continue to love, even at the cost of my life. The existence of a sub-human, the condition of a semi-person or a laboratory animal -- like Winston Smith in 1984 -- does not interest me. It does not interest me, even if it comes with black robes and power over others. Keep it. I will keep my freedom and dignity, along with the truth about my life, which I demand, as my right under that Constitution which is systematically violated by America's torturers and their friends in the cancerous cranberry fields of New Jersey. Care for a Jersey tomato?

I have discussed the notion of the soul (which is not necessarily "mystical" or "magical"), as an abstract concept for the unity of the multiplicity that is human being-in-the-world. Aldous Huxley and Eric Fromm have commented on the consequences of the rejection of such traditional religious concepts:

"Science may be defined as [one] reduction of multiplicity to unity. It seeks to explain the endlessly diverse phenomena of nature by ignoring the uniqueness of particular events, concentrating on what they have in common and finally abstracting some kind of 'law,' in terms of which they make sense and can be effectively dealt with."

A human being cannot be reduced to a general scientific category or law. No, this has nothing to do with whether ethical principles to guide conduct can be formulated as laws. It means that persons (think about what the word "person" means, then rent Invasion of the Body Snatchers) are not "objects" for manipulation or control, in accordance with anybody's general notions of what is for their own good. The synthesis of all aspects of human beings designated by the word "soul" has nothing to do with this sort of scientific reduction of what is concrete to an abstraction, since it is always individual. My subjectivity is not something generic, but a unique form of participation (instantiation) in the objective or universal. Some people can grasp this paradox; many cannot understand this philosophical insight. ("'The Prisoner': A Review of the AMC Television Series.")

"A feature of the interplay between psychiatrist and patient is that if the patient's part is taken out of context, as is done in the clinical description, it might seem very odd. The psychiatrist's part, however, is taken to be the very touchstone for our common sense view of normality. The psychiatrist, as ipso facto sane, shows that the patient is out of contact with him. The fact that he [psychiatric professional, state torturer] is out of contact with the patient shows [in this ideology] that there is something wrong with the patient, but not with the psychiatrist."

R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (London: Pantheon, 1967), p. 108 (emphasis added).

Laing would have regarded any unconsented application of behaviorist techniques or secret "modifications" of persons as torture. To look at me and see only a symptom or a label, mere "behaviors," a racial or ethnic category, or gender, in isolation from other persons -- especially from those I love and my larger community -- or from the choices about values and goals that I have made is not to see me at all. It is to be trapped within banalities and platitudes, jargon, politically correct nonsense, or as Professor Frankfurt might say, "bullshit."

Great art (brush up your Shakespeare) is always the best psychology because it is a depiction of human beings in the full horror and nobility of their pain and suffering, in a heroic and doomed struggle against mortality, loneliness, and loss. The great philosophers and artists have not been surpassed in the understanding of human nature. A liberal education may be more beneficial to the student of human behavior than years playing with rats in laboratories. Choosing to love others as a way of asserting their freedom against the silence of a cold universe and with the hope that something in that infinite universe may love them back, human beings always remain sources of dignity and pride. "I am a man [person,]" writes Camus, "so I shake my fist at the universe." I prefer to be understood by any artist than by a behaviorist psychologist.

A person who commits a crime and is proven to have done so, should be punished without being tortured. Persons innocent of any crime must not be reshaped by some shrink to fit a conformist notion of what is "for their own good" or how they should live, because they "may" commit a crime in the future. Anybody may commit a crime, especially those who want to tell others how to live. To do such a thing -- to condition others -- is for the psychologist to commit a crime, to become something evil, the opposite of a healing professional. It is also for judges that condone such evil to abdicate their responsibilities by becoming "unethical" lackeys to power. Take another look at the link provided above. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")

To separate persons whose mutual love is life-sustaining and who provide healing to one another, is an act of wanton, vicious malice and cruelty, which is usually recognized as such by the "therapist" or envious judges responsible for it. I have seen such things done by "psychologists" and also the secret smile that hovers on their lips as they inflict such pain. You like power, don't you? Of course, you do. I like freedom. Do Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Deborah T. Poritz, Esq. share a "curious" interest in very "young" girls? Do these exalted persons symbolize "normality" or "ethics" in New Jersey? ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey.")

"The trouble with modern theories of behaviorism," Hannah Arendt writes, "is not that they are wrong but that they could become true, that they actually are the best conceptualizations of certain [evil] trends in modern society."