Friday, May 17, 2019

Two Cheers for Lobotomy



Lobotomization is a productive therapeutic intervention, if you really want to get something accomplished. Sure if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, but there are certain things that are beyond fixing. Certain parts of the brain may be like the three notoriously bad train systems servicing the New York metropolitan area, Jersey Transit (which needs amputation), Amtrak whose high speed Acela is headed for a nervous breakdown and the MTA, which conforms to the seventh and last propostion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,  “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Treating mental illness is like one of those knock knock jokes.  “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” The problem is no one is saying “knock, knock” and there’s no one there, though you might subliminally wish  there were. You're all alone, locked in a set of repetition compulsions which infuse you with the illusion of an increasingly elusive reality. The only way to keep the world from falling apart is to increase the OCD to the point where your insides become like a particle accelerator. Now you can see a therapist and start at the beginning talking about your childhood and going as far back as the trauma of potty training while dealing with all the Winnicottian “transitional objects” you’ve taken hostage along the way. Or you can cut short the agony before you get to the famous crossroads where Oedipus brought about the very thing he was afraid of and trying to avoid by running away. Just clear the decks, stop thinking about so much courtesy of a little prefrontal lobe work and you’ll save a bundle of cash. Who says that real happiness doesn't derive from living in a vegetative state?

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