The Universe Turned Upside-down: The Critical Form and its Impact on Mental Health
PART 1
It is interesting how one is never supposed to have simple answers. In fact, in our day, it is looked down upon nearly as unethical, often as a sign of having low intelligence, definitely lacking in sophistication. The sign of intelligence nowadays is acknowledged by being critical—in-the-tool-use sense, not the grumpy sense.
Of course, I concur that we should not over-simplify things, especially in the social world, because it leads to authoritarianism, hate, and violence.
But similarly, we should recognize that from a social standpoint (I mean political), the critical ideal has led to an over-complication of everything—and this has resulted in an ideological form.
The implication and message of this critical ideology is that reality is made of complex things, that you should recognize the complexity of things, and if you don’t, you are not only misinformed but ethically compromised.
At first—say, 10 years ago—this message was also: if you don’t think critically, then you are dumb. But then mental health started taking over the social discourse and people began to, at least, be a little more understanding and compassionate of the reactivity against the critical-liberal ideology. Since then, it seems, things take a little less judgmental stance.
The Trump–Harris election campaign in the U.S. was an example of this. But I think the big guy was already off the diving board for the cannonball into the pool by the time people started trying to take back the blunder of assuming people who don’t think critically are dumb.
If we could lasso the group: the conservatives were already offended and circling their ethical wagons, so to speak. The liberals were pushed into their ideological camp—even while they tried to stay on the ‘higher ground’. But the higher ground now was just a reaction to the assertion of the now more defined and intentional ideological camp: the right-wingers, the Christians, the racists, the groups that have more interest in ‘simple, non-critical, consolidated ethics’ (for the long term) versions of reality.
Admittedly, the conservative camp, I feel, is still trying to sort out the good from the bad from the quick reactionary party of ‘being great again’. They do have a point: the greatness of America is in recognizing that being simple-minded and having simple, strong ethics does not mean they are dumb—or even not considerate of complex issues.
The greatness of American democracy is in the ability of our system to hold and allow the movement of all ideologies—even the ones that might not agree or understand what an ideology is or how it functions.
This is not really a political statement.
It is a mental health statement.
Politics is part of mental health; the reverse is problematic, that is, a sort of misunderstanding of the order of operations.
Discover more about Mental Health Philosophy in the upcoming book. coming 2025
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