'We're not facing our problems. We've got Prozac politics'

[katty]

Philosopher John Gray: 'We're not facing our problems. We've got Prozac politics'

The philosopher John Gray is riding high as one of the few thinkers to have predicted the current economic chaos. Here, he tells Deborah Orr how we got into this mess – and how we might get out of it

Interview by Deborah Orr

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/philosopher-john-gray-were-not-facing-our-problems-weve-got-prozac-politics-1666033.html

EXCERPT: "Cohn argued that all of the great political movements of the 20th century, including Nazism, were at least partly pathological versions of western religious traditions, in particular apocalypticism. If you talk to most centre-left people, these happy meliorists, these so-called inch-by-inch meliorists, they will say: 'That may be true of the 20th century and of the extremes of politics but not of us.' But I always believed that utopian or millenarian or, let's just say, irrational politics, could break out in democracies as well." His 2007 book, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, explains how the war in Iraq was one such nightmarish manifestation.

Crucially, Gray considers that one of the signals of incipient pathology is the advent of hubris. Hubris, he points out, entered the Thatcher project when communism collapsed. It was then that it came widely to be dubbed as "Thatcherism" and then that Gray judged it to have disconnected from reality. He recalls seeing Thatcher on television saying, "We are a grandmother," and thinking: "That's it, then..."

"One of my recurring tests of political reality and of political fantasy is when hubris penetrates not just leaders but an entire organisation," he explains. "Then it's over. That happened with Thatcher, and it happened with Bush. The key phrase with him was the famous: 'Are you part of the reality community?' "

[Grinchie]

1. Hubris hit Microsoft as well. I knew then it was over for them too.

Hubris at G.M., when they discontinued the EV-1 and introduced the Hummer to great fanfare. It was over then.

Hubris from the Republicans, we all know it's over for them.

Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, the list goes on and on.

Prozac must be wonderful in masking any ethical misgivings or shame, because it would certainly explain the behavior of all of these crooks and liars.