San Franciso Examiner
Sunday, August 22, 1999 p.D7
Try a Little INSENSITIVITY Training
Edvins Beitiks, Examiner Staff
Philosophy, not psychology,
is the key to improving our lives, Dr. Lou Marinoff
argues
The word "philosophy"
tends to conjure up images of a face lost in contemplation,
one hand cupped under the chin, eyes glazed over with
trouble in mind. It is an image that doesn't fit Dr.
Lou Marinoff at all.
Marinoff, 47, a professor
of philosophy at City College of New York, talks in
an ambush of words, firing from behind bushes and trees,
grabbing deep thoughts by the throat and wrestling them
into the middle of a sawdust ring, roping them and jumping
up with both arms in the air, yelling, "Time!"
Philosophy, to him, is the Lava bar of intellect - meant
to be used everyday, down to the nub. No cologne or
after-shave, if you please, just the stoneground pumice
that gets to the heart of the dirt that's muddling your
mind.
Marinoff, a native of Montreal,
is a pioneer in philosophical - not psychological counseling.
He has written a book, published by HarperCollins, called
"Plato, Not Prozac!: Applying Philosophy to Everyday
Problems." His premise is that it's a straight
line from the philosophical counseling of Socrates to
the therapy of this day and age - it's been a long time
coming, and it's been gone for far too long.
"You think Socrates
had a job?" Marinoff asked, talking about his book
over a SoMa lunch. "What he did was help people
with the art of living. How to live, as opposed to how
to think about things that have nothing to do with the
way we live at all."
Philosophy is 2500 year sold,
while psychology and psychiatry are intellectual infants,
said Marinoff. People turn to psychiatry when faced
with problems of the mind, yet philosophy has answers
"we don't have to get DEA approval for. But over
the last 30 years, society's problems have been usurped
by medicine. You end up going to a psychiatrist, a psychologist.
And in psychology, people are always victims of forces
beyond their control."
"Which is what we're
getting from Hillary right now...saying (Bill Clinton)
is not a philanderer, he's just suffering from Clintonitis.
Tell you what, Clintonitis is not a disease. You have
a say in how you're going to govern yourself. You have
to be willing to take responsibility."
To Marinoff, "We're
a nation of whiners. We've made camp. We're a colony
of whiners...we invent more problems for ourselves.
If you didn't complain, a psychologist would probably
say you're not normal, diagnose you with Problem Deficiency
Disorder or something."
"Are you unhappy? Here's
a pill," said Marinoff. "The president of
the American Psychiatric Association accused me, in
print, of practicing medicine without a license. Well,
I accuse them of practicing non-medicine with a license,
which is worse."
Marinoff rapped the top of
the patio table and people at surrounding tables turned
to look, having already heard a great deal of the professor's
views on the world we live in. He seemed not to notice,
leaning forward to talk about the application of philosophy
to everyday problems.
"The (psychiatric) theory
is that every problem is an emotional one, which is
not true. It is simply not true," said Marinoff.
"In the long run, reason is what governs us."
In "Plato, Not Prozac!"
Marinoff tells of a patient who felt put-upon because
a co-worker, offended by a Guaguin painting of seminude
Tahitian women, demanded it be removed from his office.
Pressured by his supervisor the patient removed the
print, but remained angry. In talking with psychologist
about the case, said Marinoff, they told him "without
exception" that they would focus on the patient's
emotions - anger was not going to solve that sense of
injustice.
Instead, Marinoff counseled
the patient on the difference between offense and harm,
citing Marcus Aurelius and underlining that "this
kind of injustice was systemic and not directed at him
personally. His accuser and his supervisor were just
pawns in a larger game that they didn't even understand."
Society coddles those who
need to be offended, said Marinoff, at the cost of everyday
decency and common sense. "People looking to take
offense will always find something to take it at,"
he said, adding that his patient's problem was that
he "inadvertently got in the way of someone else's
need."
"People confuse offense
and harm, and it costs us a lot of money each year in
lawsuits, in muzzling free speech. We've got an army
permanently in a state of taking offense, and we're
telling these people, "The more you're offended,
the more we're going to reward you.'"
The best way to deal with
that, said Marinoff, is not to take offense yourself,
which is what he counseled in the Gauguin case. Marinoff
told his patient to make a list of paintings he admired
and present the offended party with that list, asking
which ones she would find suitable. With the new painting
in place, they could go about their business without
argument.
"Nobody can offend you
unless you're willing to take offense," Marinoff
said. "I don't incite people to take offense because
you don't want what the Middle East has, which is a
circle of revenge. This solution - 'Can you tell me
what painting I can hang up there?' - is called social
judo. It's sort of insensitivity training against political
correctness."
The solution came about in
a single session, said Marinoff: "At no time did
we discuss his childhood, his sexual fantasies, his
dreams, his Oedipus complex, or a prescription to improve
his mood. The moral: Psychology and psychiatry have
nothing to say about injustice. If you want to resolve
a philosophical problem, seek philosophical help."
To facilitate that, Marinoff
has included a "Hit Parade of Philosophers"
in the appendix of his book, offering thumbnail sketches
of more than 60 philosophers. That doesn't sit well
with some of his contemporaries, but Marinoff said that's
OK with him: "They're cloistered like monks. Let
them grumble. They need something to grumble about."
Trying to find his own philosophical
mean, Marinoff said, "I'm a classical liberal,
like (John Stuart) Mill. But the leftists have moved
so far left in the last 30 years that I look like a
conservative, like an extreme centrist, which doesn't
exist."
Legislating against failure
is a mistake, said Marinoff. "Equal opportunity
does not mean equal outcome. You let everyone run in
a race, everybody is not going to finish first. The
other side can't see that. They cannot tolerate it.
To them, everyone must finish first - self-esteem is
more important than fleetness of foot. This is a disaster
in the making."
"How did this idea take
hold in America? Well, something notorious happened
in the 1960s. All these people had good intentions,
but, of course, the road to Hell is pave with good intentions.
And this turned out not to just be a road, but a four-lane
highway."
Marinoff blamed universities
for the new imbalance, citing the way they revamped
academic programs in the wake of '60s protests. He pointed
to Bertrand Russell's interview with Lenin as the communists
came to power in Russia, quoting Russell as saying that
"in every 100 Bolsheviks there are 60 fools, 39
criminals and one Bolshevik." Those following the
red flag were "rank opportunists," said Marinoff,
whose power came after they seized barracks and radio
stations in Russia's major cities.
"Here, all they had
to take over was the universities," he said. "That
way they could indoctrinate anybody." That indoctrination,
said Marinoff, says "if you beat me in a foot race,
we don't have social justice. We'll have to cut your
leg off to make it even, or society will have to give
me money to make up for losing."
A solution lies in the philosophy
of Immanuel Kant, said Marinoff. "Kant says 1+1=2
may not be provable, but you can build with it. You
can build bridges, you can fly an airplane. But deconstructionists
say 1+1=2 can be anything...whatever makes you feel
good today.
"This general feel-good,
know-nothingness is not taking us anywhere. That America
has succumbed to this totalitarian state of mind is
a tragedy."
Marinoff's arms flew out,
making exclamation points in the air. "So you're
put off by the smell of your neighbor cooking burgers
and you call the Vegan Police to come stop the barbecue.
It's lunacy!" he said. "You let that happen,
then this is not America. This is just another totalitarian
state." Then he fell silent, for one long second.
