A Critique of R. D. Laing’s Social Philosophy (Part 1)

Introduction
No-one is an expert on the question as to what madness is, nor on its significance. This is a baffling yet fundamental field not just in theory but in relation to our very lives. Men like R D Laing have attacked the inhumanity of the conventional “illness-entity” models of schizophrenia, which are based on an unspecified variant of the identity-theory of the person (there is, of course, all the difference in the world between “of mind” and “of the person”). This has in practice led to the idea of supplanting the normal ‘mental’ hospital kind of treatment for disturbed people, with the quite different prospect of trying to meet such people as fellow human beings and so confront their actual life-situation. Such an idea does not commit one to not forcibly restraining a man who is dangerously going to rum amok. I mention this latter point just to prevent an unreal objection.

That Laing has been an incredibly valuable and important influence, none can reasonably deny. However, there is a prominent strain of absolutization of the importance of certain experiences, especially of away-out kind, which militates against Laing’s social views being acceptable as a progressive force. The point, as always of course, is not to chuck the baby out with the bath-water. I hope to avoid this in what follows which is an attempt (1) to give a brief résumé of Laing’s familial theory of schizophrenia, (2) to connect this with the manner in which the family should be seen as a microcosm of society, and (3) to show that Laing’s romanticization of madness is essentially a reactionary stance. Specifically, in relation to the last part, whilst labelling and stigmatism play a large and mystifying part in the plight of a schizophrenic, I do not regard madness as being merely a label. I would also object, for many cases, to the tendency to always isolate a victim inside the family of a schizophrenic. This attitude can notoriously lead to witch-hunting for “schizogenetic mothers” etc … This may sometimes be understandable but often it is heartless and counter-productive.

In a second part, I would like to examine Laing’s methodology, especially in relation to Sartre. I would have to use more books than have been relied upon here, but those which have been used for the purposes of this article are, I think, sufficient.

The title is almost certainly too ambitious. We really need a project here, e.g. on the whole history of the concept of alienation from Hegel to (at least) Sartre.

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