The Independent (London)
August 3, 1997
Get off the Couch and Think
We are rather weary of being
told that our marital problems are rooted in our unresolved
feelings towards our mothers and fathers. And that Prozac
is the answer to our perceived dysfunctional behavior.
So we are delighted to hear that New Yorkers, after
fruitless decades on the psychiatrist's couch, have
had enough of Freud and Jung and are turning to Plato
and Kant instead. According to Lou Marinoff, a New York
professor of philosophy and a pioneer of the new treatment,
Woody Allen-style angst about mid-life crises is distinctly
passé. What we are all really suffering from
is a "crisis of values".
Exploring this to its logical
conclusion (and logic is paramount for a philosopher),
we find thinker for almost every ill. Feeling depressed?
Turn to JS Mill and become a follower of the Utilitarian
doctrine of "the greatest happiness for the greatest
number". Always bickering with your loved ones?
Pursue reason and moderation in all things, as advocated
by Aristotle. Those niggling male problems? As Bishop
Berkeley might have said: "The physical world doesn't
exist anyway." And don't sublimate those urges
to run naked through the park. Rousseau's "noble
savage" is right behind you. As for EastEnders'
Patsy Palmer, who spent a week in a clinic recovering
from the ending of a two-year relationship with her
Nick love, she could do worse than read Plato on the
subject of amorous friendship.
But maybe the most
in need of a bit of philosophising right now is Tony
Blair. He's sounding increasing authoritarian. Our suggestion:
anything but Nietzsche.
