Belindi wrote: ↑October 4th, 2021, 11:26 am
I only vaguely remember reading Huxley --did he argue rather like Thomas Szasz?
I don't see the connection. Nothing I've read from Huxley had much to say about psychiatry or mental illness. I don't see Huxley worrying about deviant behavior or whether or not we treat it with drugs or therapy or in some other way. Szasz has a valid point about the old ways of diagnosing and treating mental illness, and about ways we treat it with medication nowadays. But, I don't know that his criticisms are so valid when it comes to modern methods of therapy. (Maybe he would be in favor of some of them (?); I only know a bit about his views)
Huxley was just very concerned with our limiting of our own potential to see and understand the world, our ability to mindlessly join groups and follow along to avoid thinking for ourselves. He recognized the power of language and all sorts of political and social systems to box in our thoughts and effectively limit our universe of possibilities. He wanted to prompt us to view life from all sides to get a better look, to look from both left and right brain, from both east and west perspectives.
"Island" is an interesting read, a sort of counter to "Brave New World", where he spells it all out through the story he is telling. The people on the island removed fear and anger and greed from their lives by looking at things honestly without conceit or dogma. They studied science, but also philosophy and techniques to promote tranquility. They had a healthy, open attitude about sex, family, everything. They had all sorts of tricks to remind themselves to be happy and enjoy whatever they were doing, even those things we might call drudgery.
The people on the island took a sort of mind expanding drug, but not in the way the people in "Brave New World" did, as a frequent escape from reality. They took the drug the way Huxley took mescaline, about once a year, just to open up his mind, to try to view the world once in a while without the goggles of religion, politics, social customs and all the baggage we all carry with us in every interaction with the world.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."