In Two Minds

Criminals have their activities described as 'a career crime', and Dr. R. D. Laing has spoken of 'madness j*s a career'. Large industries have been created around careers: police, prisons, mental hospitals, psychiatrists, welfare and so on. The productive aim of oese industries is rehabilitated persons?i.e. people jfl whom the tendency to mad or criminal behaviour been eliminated. The criterion of achievement is bat these people have ceased to be what they were, ^'hich really means they have become what somebody ^.5 Wanted them to be. Given certain necessary conrtions, anyone who steals what he wants, kills or J^aims those who stand in the way, rapes little girls, kinks he is persecuted?any such person will soon qualify for being the object of someone's ambition him to stop it and change. y^here someone's behaviour is not unequivocally etermined by physical damage or malfunctioning, we Seem to be less concerned with understanding his e*perience than restoring him to 'normality'. We are is? humane?insane people suffer, they are often grossly incapacitated, and we think it self-evident that ^ Would be better if they didn't suffer. From there, by series of logical steps, we are committed to salvaging th e.rrate^ individuals from their loneliness and terror, Heir withdrawal, their 'false' ideas about the world nd so on.