Madness and Mass Society (164-171)
Interview with Bruce E. Levine who thinks that many mental disorders are profit driven fabrications. The most extreme example is probably ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder). According to the DSM, this is a legitimate disease. ADD or ADHD is also a diagnosis that is easy to pick on. The first DSM came out in 1952 (166).
Levine thinks that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is a pseudo-science (165). Levine points out that a movie like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest would probably never come out today. Because so many people have "legitimate" mental disorders now, the whole issue is offensive, not to mention drug companies exercise a lot more political and legal power over society now.
Levine says that for 99% of human history people have been living in non-mass societies (168). He suggests that many mental disorders have their roots in the society arrangement instead of something that is defective with the individual. If so many individuals are being affected, should the individuals change to fit into the standardized order, or should the society change? Levine thinks that part of the problem is a dissolution of community and points out that if you take a name like Oakland, it is really a location and less of a community (168). In a functioning community, people decided what the problems are, generate solutions and do not hand these issues over to distant authorities (168). MT: Maybe this is how companies should be looked at, as being pro-community or anti-community. My guess is that the a company with a strong PR image reminding people all of the time that the company is pro-community, is really just compensating for a lack of community, possibly they are destroying the community in some way. This is also the main issue between the middle class and the working class. If you are working class, you really need your community, that is what you have to get through the tough times. If you are middle class, you don't really need community, if there is loneliness, there is always the possibility of relief. The middle class holds a powerful remote control and can change the channel whenever they please through things like travel and mini-vacations. Middle class people are always flitting around, "tasting the local flavors." If you are poor, you are the local flavor, there's nothing charming about it.
Levine says that the current atomized society is bad for many people. Specifically the lack of community and the breakdown of extended families are what he thinks are hurting people (171). He thinks a bigger part of the emotional and behavioral problems have to do with a very real sense of both being disconnected and powerless.
Common Uprisings: From the Great Mexican land Grab to the Reclaiming of Everything (87-95)
The Zapatista's rose up in Chipas on January 1, 1994, the night that NAFTA was scheduled to go into effect. Why were they so mad? Because the traditional campensino law that had protected the commons had been done away with when NAFTA was signed into law. NAFTA is evidence that traditional nation-states are no longer capable of satisfying the growth required to sate the machine of liberalism (92). Article 27 (the Ejido law) of the Mexican Constitution had been amended originally to allow for the commons resulting from Emiliano Zapata's Plan de Ayala in 1911. Article 27 had called for at least 1/2 of the land in Mexico to be placed outside of private hands. The land was to be outside of the marketplace altogether (88). Zapata had the notion of tierra y libertad —"the land is for the people who work it..." (88). With the stroke of the NAFTA pen, Mexico's century of agrarian reform ended. The system had not been perfect, it was at times corrupt and never was complete, but legally the land was protected (88).
Modern capitalism was a cluter of causes, but one contributing factor that led to its rise was the enclosure of the commons in England in the 16th century (91). Prior to that, people were not allowed to turn more cattle out to the common patures as they could stable in winter. This served as a check on overgrazing. One religious group, a group of freethinkers known as the Diggers were strongly opposed. The Diggers held that the earth was a common treasurey for all (90).
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