Some argue that one of the evolutionary purposes of consciousness is to create order from the ‘chaos’ of an unconscious nature. Conversely, we also know that nature contains a different (though often opposed) and more diffuse order which modern psychology has been attempting to describe since at least the advent of chemically-based anti-perspirants. That there might possibly be some confusion or conflict between the two, like perhaps an implicit order in the disorder, may depend on your viewpoint. With that in mind, let’s take a critical look at some of the less publicized disorders of contemporary man:
1. Object-Worship Syndrome.
This insidious atrophy of the religious function is characterized by the irrational and compulsive desire for objects far exceeding need or practicality. Once known euphemistically as “shopaholism”, it has recently burgeoned into a form of self-rejection so prevalent, some fear it may now be a general condition.
Symptoms include manic glee over the acquisition of the most banal material possessions, lesser forms of hoarding such as too many doilies, over-full storage areas etc., the planning of holiday dinners around sales events, the continual re-purchase of utilitarian tools you know you already have three or four of but can’t find, and “the bull in the china shop” effect in which a thing is knocked over amid the frustrated search for misplaced or forgotten items. In advanced cases, this leads to the domino effect of each of an array of carefully-placed knick-knacks toppling the next as the hapless victim looks on.
Some suggest the new criteria are far too nebulous; that, under its guidelines, the psychiatric community would itself qualify for treatment if its fixation on the assumed material causation of the unconscious emotional conflicts called life were understood as actual psychic phenomena which compensate the conscious viewpoint.
2. Intuitional Inhibition Disorder.
Otherwise known as the “live-each-day-as-if-it-were-your-last” complex, this debilitating condition, left untreated, soon progresses into a complete incapacity to foresee the painful consequences of repetitive past behaviors.
Symptoms include an obsession with novelty and progress as a compensation for reflection, in turn leading to the gradual retardation of inner valuation and the contrived fabrication of crises as psychological responses to the stagnation of natural processes and the piling-up of unused unconscious energy, facilitating the misapplication of fantasy-content vis-a-vis ‘reality’.
Critics cite the behavior of Congress as clear evidence of normalcy, in addition to the precedents established by our entire civilized history from Nebuchadnezzar to Napoleon to behaviorism to the habitual over-consumption of fried foods and the steady sales of one-ply toilet paper.
3. Oughtism.
This psychosomatic form of derangement describes the reflexive responses of the autonomic nervous system to the unconscious emotional effects of commercial advertising. The FDA acquiescence to pharmaceutical lobbies in the form of televised ads aimed at the general public for prescription drugs which yet require medical diagnosis and dispensation has been seen by some as the uber-reach of an unregulated free market and its zeal to mass-manipulate a paranoid mistrust of the body as an exploitable hangover of historical religious conditioning for the purposes of increased sales.
Medical practitioners, however, have seen such a dramatic rise in office visits owing to public demands to cure them of the perceived burden of their bodies, they offered no objection to “treating” them for the contrived conditions instilled in them through the manufactured fears of being sick and the placebo effects of medical attention.
Even the open admission of documented side-effects of the drugs themselves, which are often more dangerous than the conditions they are designed to treat, failed to dissuade the average consumer when said side-effects were recited by a pleasant but authoritative voice as an incidental aside at the end of the ads.
To the targeted consumer, they appeared as smart alternatives to the irrational dread of the possibility of the probability of disease which had been subliminally inculcated via repressed religious ideas symbolic of an inherited disgust by the human head of its animal body except when eating, having sex, and in some cases going to the bathroom.
4. Bipolar Sit-Com Syndrome.
Here, we plunge into the very bases of the split personality. Trivial as they may appear on the surface, television sit-coms reflect a human condition which is indiscernible to all but the most disciplined, professional eye.
The enhancing effects of laugh-tracks, regardless of program quality, have long been substantiated. Recent studies, however, reveal an extraordinary insight into the infectious nature of base collective behavior. When sit-coms were viewed by subjects without laugh-tracks, no signs of amusement were registered. When responses to “dry” sit-coms were compared with those viewing popular horror films, many were practically identical. Gesticulations of disgust and expressions of repugnance occurred with the same frequency in both groups. But — there’s more:
When laugh-tracks were added to horror films, subjects reacted with outbursts of hilarity at the same rate as sit-com viewers, though tachycardial measurements recorded fear-responses comparable with witnessing a gruesome car accident. The more pronounced the laugh-track, the more vociferous the subjects’ fits of levity, despite the grisly blood-letting in the scenes they watched.
Sometimes known as “laughing out the other side of your face”, the paradoxical production of elevated dopamine levels significant enough to induce euphoria when viewing sadistic acts of brutality have led some to theorize a connection between aggression and religious zeal, though others contend that history does not bear the conjecture out.
5. Depression Du Jour:
This ambiguous, catch-all condition denotes the displacement of happy feelings by sad ones. Often accompanied by a process of disillusionment similar to that experienced in childhood upon the discovery of Santa’s mythical nature, research has tied it to the dissolution of projections and the sudden influx of psychological “downers” significant of reality-recognition.
What were once considered evolutionary stages of consciousness are now seen as crippling impediments to socialization, as the uneven development of individuals heightens feelings of alienation in increasingly anonymous aggregates of ever more diverse populations over-spilling crowded city centers into cramped and congested urban sprawls and their mixed-use zoning of multi-purpose dwellings stuck incongruously amid a dizzying maze of parking lots and strip malls.
Psychologists cite this trend as a major factor in the meteoric rise in popularity of such anonymous and blatantly self-advertising social sites as Faceblurb, Metime, and Instablab…
Or — depending on how much bullshit you’ve ingested — maybe you’d prefer to cut through the double-talk and read a more serious assessment of our modern predicament.