Catharsis

Catharsis

Catharsis: 3. Psychiatry. Psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable behavior.

The other day I was wheeling my Japanese chariot down to the local Wally World to get some cheap stuff and enrich the Chinese economy. I pulled up to an intersection that was a four way stop and because the car to my left had gotten to the intersection a tad earlier than me, I waited my turn until the car on the left cleared the intersection. As the car on the left started to pull into the intersection, I noticed that a car coming from in front of me was speeding into the intersection. It at once became obvious that the oncoming car was not going to stop. The car on my left slammed on the brakes and the oncoming car almost lost control as it tried to avoid the crash. A crash was narrowly adverted, primarily because the car on my left was manned by a defensive driver and had stopped in time to avoid the smash. The oncoming car slid to a halt and the driver began to yell and scream obscenities at the car on the left. The outraged driver then got out of his car and began to make menacing advances to the person in the car on the left. He said he was going to kill the @$%#*@# that had gotten in his way. In other words, the oncoming driver had no intention of stopping at the intersection and was going to cause harm to anyone that got in his way. The menacing driver eventually got back into his car and with a departing third finger salute to everyone present, gunned his car, and went speeding back on his way. I will wager AIG’s contribution to Obama’s election campaign that you have witnessed something similar to what I have just described in that there are some people who believe they are not required to live by the rules like everyone else. In fact, the stop sign running, and other uncivil persons, can only flaunt society’s rules and get by with it because most of us do live by the rules. In other words, if we all did not behave in a civil manner, we all would be engaged in constant confrontation with everyone else, uncivil slugs included. The outcome at the intersection would have been quite different if no one bothered to obey the stop sign. Chaos and personal confrontation would most likely result and a lot of people would probably get hurt. The uncivil slugs in our society would not be able to enjoy the same carefree life afforded to them by virtue of everyone else behaving in a civil manner and obeying society’s rules. Rather simple stuff we all learned in kindergarten, right? All of this got me to thinking about a paragraph I had read awhile back about this rather simple subject, and after a search, I found what I was looking for. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote the paragraph in question and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I shared it with you.
“A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the needs of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse is the code of politeness and fine manners.”
For some reason or another, the escalading lack of civility (including the lack of politeness and fine manners) that the intersection incident dramatized, has rapidly become the norm rather than the exception in our society. Most of the readers of this piece, who happen to have sprouted a fine crop of gray hair, can fondly remember our earlier days when people went to great lengths to be polite, non-confrontational and civil to one another. I bet that you, as well as I, have speculated about the reason why this decent into uncivil social behavior began in the first place and when it all got started in the second place. I searched my memory about when this change began to occur and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the uncivil change in social behavior happened to coincide with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At first blush, the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to correct the perceived injustice that some members of society were suffering at the hands of other members of society. Indeed, a noble cause. However, opposition to the legislating of new rights that was not in the Constitution cautioned that the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to legislate morality. Indeed, the Civil Rights Act was passed under, of all things, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to circumvent limitations on congressional power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause. A clear case of the end justifying the means because what a tortured streach of reasoning that the blocking of commerce between the states could occcur because of various kinds of social discrimination that the Civil Rights Act would correct. Of course the dissenters were sweep away with a wave of an enlightened hand that reasoned that the Civil Rights Act would be a necessary Catharsis that would allow pent-up emotions about a wide range of perceived social injustices to be released after the socially downtrodden saw that it was now against the law to perpetrate all such social injustices. After the Catharsis that the Civil Rights Act enabled, voila, peace and tranquility within the body social. (Brothers and Sisters, this was the beginning of (Gasp) Political Correctness.) However, upon the second blush of cynical reality, the Civil Rights Act was, after all, an attempt to legislate morality even though morality is indeed the exclusive property of the body social, regardless if the enlightened think so or not. Consider the possibility that the Civil Rights Act formalized by law what a free civil society normally does, thus, removing the obligation from society to teach its young about the importance of politeness and civility in social behavior because the law now tends to such things. So feel free to socially misbehave all you want unless a cop stops you for violating another person’s legislated civil rights, that is. You can socially misbehave regardless of what society thinks or requires because your uncivil social behavior is merely a sanctioned Catharsis occurring. What an outstanding example of unintended consequences causing a counterproductive effect. What a cornucopia of opportunity for the scumbag lawyers.