Urban Predators Speak Out

  F or a sick society to thrive it needs slightly touched citizens. To be blame free it needs to allow and use several neurotic behaviors: Sado-Masochism (to master and be mastered), Narcissism (to be self-absorbed), and Hedonism (excessive pleasure seeking) are perfect lubricants to sustain the wheels of the present socio-economic system. It needs the American dream to be like the roadrunner, always fleeting while leaving the coyote, and its traditions, in the dust of decay. But you are not like the coyote. Unlike the old slaves, you are a very resilient Automaton ; you’re stronger than a locomotive full of back breaking disappointments and demands, you’re running faster than the lethal bullets of progress, and are able to leap tall buildings of accumulated debt in a single bound. What you can’t handle is admitting that you are tied to the ball and chain of capital gain … It Terrifies You ! The fact that you’re wrestling with feeling helpless and powerless is compounded by the ...

   Pioneers in the mental health industry like Hobbes, Reich, Adler, Horney, Freud, and Fromm have long contributed precautionary insights into not only the social environment capitalism needs to flourish but also the effects it has on the human condition; the slave, the automaton, you. Fasten your seatbelts and let’s go for a ride down the rabbit hole to where the mad hatters wait. Being part of nature and yet able to transcend it, “ Man is born a freak of nature …  He must fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane (Erich Fromm).” As one learns the social process of becoming a citizen, one trades the spontaneous acts of instincts for institutionalized “Roberts rules of Order” and, as Hobbes points out, one’s selfish nature for power begins to conflict with the herd mentality of sharing. But by becoming part of society, a power felt as unshakably strong, e...