The psychiatric community is gearing up for a new edition of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual – the last word on disorders of the mind, and an example of the extent to which a book becomes an unimpeachable source. Like how I used to regard How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive or today esteem the Tao Te Ching.
Along the same line, in the original Star Trek series there was an episode called “A Piece of the Action.” The crew of the Enterprise encountered a planetary culture that had adopted the customs of early twentieth century American gangsters – all because a previous starship had left behind a book called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. People of that planet designated it a sacred book and proceeded to build their society around it. They justified their lifestyle by claiming they simply did what was written in “the book.” What resulted was merely what evolved between starship visits – but that’s nothing compared to what we’ve managed to convince ourselves of over the course of two millennia.
To gauge the disproportionate impact of the written word, consider just one bit from the Bible. The story of the Fall in the third chapter of Genesis has shaped western civilization’s attitudes toward nature, evil, gender relations, and man’s relation with divinity, all within the context of that one supposed event on which it centers. And somewhere along the line in the development of Christianity, early Church fathers found it convenient to infer from this myth that Adam’s punishment imposed the stigma of sin on all of his descendents.
But viewed purely as fable, the Eden story simply explains why we have to work for a living: because our ancestors were kicked out of Paradise. Doesn’t it sound like a tale likely to have been told by primitive peoples around a campfire? “Once upon a time people didn’t have to hunt animals or till fields, all they had to do was reach up and pick fruit from trees; then one day somebody disobeyed God and picked the wrong fruit. Now stop kvetching and thresh that wheat.”
This is what mythology is all about. The Hebrews were no different from the Greeks or American Indians or any preliterate people – they invented explanations for their reality. Unfortunately, a lot of people today take this fable as gospel just because it’s in the Bible. (Yeah, I remember that Sunday School song: “How do I know? The Bible tells me so.” Nowadays I prefer Ira Gershwin’s take: “The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so.”) But as if literal interpretations of myth weren’t bad enough, some conservatives are now pressing for their own version of the Bible. It’s like with TTC translations: it’s a question of what it actually says vs. what some interpreters want it to say.
So the new DSM will be the bible of mental health care for another 10+ years, and we can assume that it’s authoritatively based on clinical practice and research. But I’ll bet it doesn’t have a classification for this other prevailing form of insanity, because belief in the unquestionable truth of holy books continues to promote narrow-mindedness and repressive attitudes.
Islamic jihadists who justify their actions on promises of rewards in the afterlife are bad enough. As long as American fundamentalists press their worldview – scaring believers with talk about sin and hellfire, teaching creationism instead of science, taking Adam’s dominion over Creation (and over Eve) as a cue to public policy, even promoting a “young earth” theory on the rim of the Grand Canyon – we’re living in a Star Trek reality. Beam me up, Scotty, it’s crazy down here.
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Note: Some of this post was paraphrased from another blog that appears to be defunct. For its more nuanced argument of the Eden fable, click here.
Along the same line, in the original Star Trek series there was an episode called “A Piece of the Action.” The crew of the Enterprise encountered a planetary culture that had adopted the customs of early twentieth century American gangsters – all because a previous starship had left behind a book called Chicago Mobs of the Twenties. People of that planet designated it a sacred book and proceeded to build their society around it. They justified their lifestyle by claiming they simply did what was written in “the book.” What resulted was merely what evolved between starship visits – but that’s nothing compared to what we’ve managed to convince ourselves of over the course of two millennia.
But viewed purely as fable, the Eden story simply explains why we have to work for a living: because our ancestors were kicked out of Paradise. Doesn’t it sound like a tale likely to have been told by primitive peoples around a campfire? “Once upon a time people didn’t have to hunt animals or till fields, all they had to do was reach up and pick fruit from trees; then one day somebody disobeyed God and picked the wrong fruit. Now stop kvetching and thresh that wheat.”
This is what mythology is all about. The Hebrews were no different from the Greeks or American Indians or any preliterate people – they invented explanations for their reality. Unfortunately, a lot of people today take this fable as gospel just because it’s in the Bible. (Yeah, I remember that Sunday School song: “How do I know? The Bible tells me so.” Nowadays I prefer Ira Gershwin’s take: “The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, it ain’t necessarily so.”) But as if literal interpretations of myth weren’t bad enough, some conservatives are now pressing for their own version of the Bible. It’s like with TTC translations: it’s a question of what it actually says vs. what some interpreters want it to say.
So the new DSM will be the bible of mental health care for another 10+ years, and we can assume that it’s authoritatively based on clinical practice and research. But I’ll bet it doesn’t have a classification for this other prevailing form of insanity, because belief in the unquestionable truth of holy books continues to promote narrow-mindedness and repressive attitudes.
Islamic jihadists who justify their actions on promises of rewards in the afterlife are bad enough. As long as American fundamentalists press their worldview – scaring believers with talk about sin and hellfire, teaching creationism instead of science, taking Adam’s dominion over Creation (and over Eve) as a cue to public policy, even promoting a “young earth” theory on the rim of the Grand Canyon – we’re living in a Star Trek reality. Beam me up, Scotty, it’s crazy down here.
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Note: Some of this post was paraphrased from another blog that appears to be defunct. For its more nuanced argument of the Eden fable, click here.
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