1 ebruary Il/, 1971 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Fiv Death of the David Cooper, THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY, Pantheon. $5.95. By SID SCHNEIDER When R.D. Laing wrote The Divided Self, a movement was born. Phenomenology, existen- tialism, anti-psychiatry and revo- lution fused. Psychotherapy now means political change. Organiz- ations such as Psychologists for a Democratic Society and the Radical Therapist Commune in Minot, North Dakota w e r e formed. Dr. Laing's associates have recently been turning out books which have bsen gaining much popularity. One of the most important of these works is David Cooper's The Death of the Family. David Cooper came to England from Capetown, South Africa, where he was born and educated. With R.D.. Laing he wrote Reason, and Violence, a book which ex- plores the psychological signiCi- cance of Sartre's philosophies, and established a mental hospital *at Kingsley Hall in East London. At that hospital, there was no diagnosis, no one called thera- pist, and no one labelled "pa- tient." Kingsley Hall was a non- hierarchical institution where persons could voyage through madness with the encouragement and guidance of others. Cooper helped Fidel Castro institute re- forms in mental treatment m Cuba. He is now politically ac- tive in England and is gaining attention for his radical ideas in many fields in psychology. Cooper calls for the abolition *of the nuclear family structure. He claims, no member of a nu- clear family can feel a sense of autonomy. The mother glues her son to herself, in Cooper's words, to replace what she feels is miss- ing in her; the son, in turn, feels incomplete and like an appen- dage to his mother. For a love relationship to exist between per- sons, all the persons must under- stand their own autonomy and the autonomy of others. The fam- ily destroys the separateness, alone-ness that one must under- stand and respect. It is impossi- ble to- get a nobjective, unt- tached understanding of the world with familial' social izers gluing themselves to the child. The family does not allow the child to freely find his identity. family: dysfunctional. Socialization has come to mean the imposition of a. role on the child. This role may be discordant with the child's ex- perience of reality. The child's experience may be negated in the socialization process, and leave him alienated. The family and the school are the prima: y agents of negation. What is the alternative? In the third chapter of this book, en- titled "The Two Faces of Revolu- tion," Cooper writes that 3ne ex- ample of a revolutionary alterna- better way? tions. It may be that Cubans. be- cause they will be living in an industrialized nation, vill be as greedy as Americans. Cooper goes on to explore the relationship of sex and attitudes about death to revolution. It is unfortunate, however, that he leaves some very relevant areas unexplored. Most obviously, he never mentions the nuclear fami- ly is an institution that oppresses women. If the family is objection- able because of the manner in which it delegates roles to the child, it is twice as objectionable for the manner in which it as- signs roles to the wife. It is men- tioned that the family "suppres- ses extrafamilial social effective- ness in women," and, in Cooper's mind, teaches girls that they are inadequate for lacking penises. It is not mentioned that the nu- clear fahiily as it is now set up inevitably deprives the wife to do what she wants if the husband objects, and leaves to her all the unpleasant, meaningless work of the family. The oppression of women as instituted by the nu- clear family has damaging psy- chological effects to half the population, but Cooper devotes only a few by-the-way comments to it. Neither does Cooper explore the possibility that the non-hierarchi- cal schools he proposes, as well as the Revolutionary Centers of Consciousness might wIl soen become hierarchical and impose their own set of roles and expec- tations on those who join them. iThe communes in America tend to be very disciplined and run in an authoritarian way. Stephen's caravan, which was on cairpus several months ago, was just like the nuclear family because it im- posed roles, albeit new, non-e.- tablishment roles, on its mem- bers. Throughout history, suc- cessful revolutions have allowed little room for individual free- will. Above all, revolutionaries must not let their institutions be as oppressive as those they are fighting. Recently, I attended the Student and Youth Conference on a People's Peace. Many of the people there displayed intoler- ance toward people with differ- ing ideologies: they hissed and booed some speakers who were only expressing how they experi- enced the reality of America. To people they agreed with, ihey yelled, "Right on, brother!" In the Old Left, 'the word is "com- rade." It is strange that revolu- tionaries today use a word that echoes a familial relationship. Laing and Cooper established the Philadelphia Association-"Phil- adelphia" means "brotherly love"! Today's revolutionaries are at their worst when they bor- row concepts from the culture they are fighting. This book is an important book to the growing number of radical psychotherapists and all those who are determined to create a new, more humanist society. --Kell Hv mau. They Became Wha~t They Beheld -Ken Heyman, They Became What They Beheld books books books books Instead, it imposes a set of roles on him. It would be better, claims Cooper, if the child were given enough autonomy to break out of the "bringing him up" situa- tion and was given more room for introspection. The family forces the child to submit to so- ciety, when it should teach him how to deal with it. R.D. Laing has pointed out that in England a child has a ten times greater chance to be ad- mitted to a mental hospital than to a university. Perhaps the pro- cess of socialization has become Those who do Erich Goode, THE MARI- JUANA SMOKERS, Basic Books, $10.00. By MICHAEL SPIERER In The Marijuana Smokers, Erich Goode has attempted a dispassionate presentation of the characteristics of the more than six m ill i o n Americans thought to be regular users of marijuana. A sociologist, Goode has based his findings on a survey of more than 200 regu- lar users of the drug who shared -through survey, personal in- terview, and friendly conversa- tion - their moods, ideas, and ideologies. The author never quite achieves complete objec- tivity. "The central point of the book," he explains, ". . . is that we all view reality subjectively. We notice that which verifies ,ur point of view, and ignore that which does not. We accept a 'world taken for granted,' and an exposure to contrary worlds does little to shake our faith in our own." Goode h i m s e I f clearly evi- dences this foible. His writing is saturated with his belief in the innocuousness of the drug and the depravity of a cultural en- vironment which criminalizes its users. One cannot, perhaps, help but be sympathetic to such a position; at the same time one feels cheated, for though Goode is obviously a very sensitive, temotive writer and listener, whose gentle anger must have greatly enhanced his ability to elicit honest responses from the people he interviewed, one is nevertheless left with an uncer- tain feeling about what testi- mony came from the inter- O'iewees and what came from Goode himself. The validity of the author's findings are subject to the usual criticisms of survey research in general, but by and large the study stands in overall quality among the better works on the subject. The principle problem, as Goode carefully notes, is in the applicability of his findings to other groups of people. Ac- cording to the survey, the "typi- cal smoker" is in his late teens or early twenties, male, living in or near an urban environ- ment. He is generally of higher social class than the typical non-smoker and is highly un- likely to be religious in the tra- ditional sense. He is more likely to hold what are considered to be liberal or radical views in terms of both politics and sex- uality, and it is this generally liberal attitude, rather than po- litical ideology, that contributes to his experimentation with marijuana. The greatest contribution of Goode's book lies not in the presentation of his findings, but rather in the new models for the consideration of the use of mar- ijuana. Decrying Jekyll - Hyde pathology a n d escape - from - reality concepts, he proposes considering marijuana use on a linear continum from the non- user, through the potential con- vert, the experimenter, and the occasional user up to the daily committed smoker who is "high" all the time. Only with such an approach can one begin to ex- plore styles and degrees of in- volevement. T h i s notion sug- gests thatnmarijuana use could not only not detract from but could also actually be associated with an improved volume and quality of behavior generally con-' sidered desireable: social activi- ty, aesthetic appreciation and creation, political activism and altruistic gestures. tive to the nuclear family is Kingsley Hall. At Kingsley Hall there was a freedom for every member of the Hall to find others and say what precisely was on his mind. All members strictly avoided rewarding the behavicr of another ,ust because it was socially desirable; everyone's in- dividual experiences were given full expression. A revolution takes place in the individual in such a situation. Expressica, reality, and truth, overthrow repression and social condition- ing. Revolutionary Centers of Con.. sciousness could be spontaneous- ly set up, where individuals could go through this microso- cial revolution. Cooper calls for a Madness Revolution, so that all individuals can reinvent them- selves, and dissociate from their conditioning. One must be one- self-not a conditioned role-and in harmony with oneself before one can love another. Che was right when he said a revolution- ary is motivated by great feel- ings of love. Along with the Madness Revo- lution will come a macrosocial revolution aimed at destroying capitalist institutions, claims Cooper. Capitalist institutions, without exception, have all thec faults of the nuclear family. Cooper argues, under capitalism, people are conditioned to take and consume beyond their true appetites, even if this entails the exploitation of the third world Cuba, he says, aims to abolish money within ten years. There, he adds, people will consume ac- cording to their true appetites. Cooper writes, "We have to para- lyze the functioning of each fani- ly, school, university, factory, business, corporation, television company, film industry segment -and then, having stopped it, in- vent mobile, non-hierarchical structures that distribute the ac- cumulated possessions over the whole world." The typical response to this is, "things are no better under so- cialism," but Cooper does not answer this argument. It may be that it is the industrialization and computerization of our society that is causing a vast discrep- ancy between what we experi- ence and what is expected of us by massive anonymous institu- Dylan: Bob Dylan, TARANTULA, Dylan Liberation Front, $1.00. By MICHAEL LEE PARSONS People love to build idols. Per- haps it is reassuring to know there is someone more import- ant than oneself. More likely, it is a case of greatness by associa- tion (or worship). To what ex- tent any particular reason holds is of little importance; people build idols. Even our precious counter-culture has this nasty habit. In fact, wa may have tak- en it to its greatest heights since the Pharohs. From the very start, we have been busy making stars and superstars. At the top of the god-heap are Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. They are revered as the first voices of youth culture, our prophets. They are followed in importance by a whole mass of lesser lights (Hendrix, Joplin, Clapton, Cocker, etc.). And at the very top, the pinnacle, Dylan - our first seer, the first poet uniquely ours, Bob Dylan, poet- musician-spiritual leader-Super- star. That was Dylan's posi- tion at the time he wrote Tar- antula. He was at the top, ac- claimed by straight and h i p worlds alike, the Superstar. We made him something bigger than life, something to be look- Today's writers-... Sid Schneider, a senior, teaches the Course Mart course, Problems in Counter- culture. Michael Lee Parsons is a sophomore in the Residential College. Michael Spierer, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, is working on a degree in clinical psychology. ed at from a distance. Greater- than-human demands were made of him, and greater-than- human importance was attach- ed to his words. He was to prove he was more than a singer, the poet of our generation. He would write a book, to prove himself a poet to all (and so make us bigger). So Dylan wrote a book, Tarantula, in 1965. But before it could be published, he had the famous motorcycle ac- cident, and stopped being a Supperstar, and began to write simple songs, and Tarantula was never published. But now, six years later, the ever-present bootleggers h a v e succeeded in providing us with the book (in loose-sheet, Xerox form). So the eyes of 1971 can have a new look at that old Dy- yan when he was still our Sup- erstar, and make some judg- ments. But we won't be looking at Dylan only. He will force us to look at ourselves, collec- tively and separately, as well. After all, it was we who made him into a god (with some media help). And if he was foolish enough to believe us for awhile, he was also smart enough to wake up a long time before the rest of us. The book functions well as a look at the time of his change, A great part of the book is self- indulgent, cute, meaningless words. The Superstar at w o r k, grinding out pablum for the masses (and himself): plenty of obscure metaphor, and hum- ourous juxtaposition of person- alities and ideas. In 1965, we surely would have found realms of meaning for every phrase. We might have found ourselves with a new T. S. Eliot. in a sunburned land sleeps with a snowy head at the west of the bed/ madonna, Mary of the Temple. Jane Russell. Angelina the whore, all these women, their tears could make oceans/in a deserted refrigerator carton, little boys on Ash Wednesday make ready for war and genius ... Much of the book is filled with that; the workings of the poet- god we wanted. But in places, enough places, Bob Dylan comes out, without his Superstar clothes. So that, instead of an Eliot, we find ourselves with a. Dylan (much to our gain). Dylan didn't get to be a Sup- erstar by being a Superstar; he started out a singer, a sensitive, articulate human being. There is a real Bob Dylan, and a far better one than the Superstar. When that comes to the surface in Tarantula, popping up in the middle of pretensions, and the pains and angers of the mid- 60's, things change. Dylan knew the sham of superstardom, and saw through all of it. "There lies bob dylan demolished by Vienna politness- which will now claim to have invented him the cool people can now write Fugues about him & Cupid can kick over his Kerosene lamp Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin stand as testimonial to the im- possibility of living the life de- manded of a Superstar. John Lennon, who was a Superstar, at the top with Dylan, saw through it in his last album, the dream is over once I was Beatles, but now I'm John the dream is over-... In 1965, at the height of his stardom, Dylan saw, and said in Tarantula nearly the same Sham of the Superstar thing, though we can only read it today. All the better, could we have even understood such a thing in 1965?. To not be kill- ed by his worshippers, he sim- ply warned them, and walked away, into his own life. this is my last letter-iv'e tried to please you, but i see now that you have too much on your mind-what you need is someone to flatter you - I would do that, but what would bethenworth? after all i need nothing from you - you are so much tied up in, though, that you have turned into a piece of hunger - while the mystics of the world jump in the sun, you have turned into a lampshade - if youre going to think, dont think about why people dont love each other think about why they dont love themselves - maybe then, you will begin to love them - if you ha ve something to say, let me know as i said, there's simply nothing i can give you ex- cept a simply -- there is noth- ing i can take from you except a guilty conscience - i cant give nor take any habit - see you at the masquerade ball..." There is more to the book than I have talked about here, but I think you'd be better off reading it yourself to discover your own favorite episodes, and lines, and thoughts. There is a great deal to be found in Tarantula, bullshit and all. It is something of a testimonial to Dylan that such a book, written in many ways as a hype six years ago, holds so much great- ness today. I know that Dylan makes a great deal more sense to me now. In fact, I think Ill end it here and go listen to Self-Portrait... -Ken Heyman. The Became What They Beheld Cooper's ideas for a Madness Revolution should be read and discussed by all revolutionaries in the overdeveloped -)uniries like our own. Revolutionaries must learn to understand their own separateness and autonomy, and the separateness of others. They must understand how the family and all bourgeois institu- tions are delegating to them roles which they must not accept (Cooper claims Cuba still has families because of interference from Russia, which is counter- revolutionary in this respect). 1 U-M Hispanic Society presents "THE BLACK LEGEND" Varieties of Criticism against Spain a lecture by CHARLES GIBSON Ph.D. WEDNESDAY, Feb. 17, 1971-8 p.m. RACKHAM EAST Conference Room INTERGOVERNMENT SYMPOSIUM SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 FACULTY CLUB LOUNGE, MICHIGAN UNION, FIRST FLOOR An Inter-Government Symposium will be held Saturday, Feb. 20, 1971 to provide an exchange of information in order to develop working models for student governments at all levels. The Symposium is designed to produce an evaluation of the student government interaction between governments, the University, and the student body at large. All Student governments, the students and the faculty of the University are invited to participate. The Sym- posium will be centered around a pre-established agenda. Plan on being there for part or all of the day but be there. -AGENDA- 9 a.m. 10 a.m. Sharing Our Ultimate Concerns An informal seminar designed to help participants discover, express, and share their attitudes, feeling, Define-Representative Government What Is the Role and What Are the Responsibilities of a Govt. Within the College from Which It Generated 2:00 How Should Questions Be Handled That Are of Mutual Interest to a Number of Governments on Campus? If There Are Any Problems with Over-Lapping Representation, How Should They Be Handled? (i.e., an Engineer Is "Represented" in Both Engineering Council and in Student Government Council.) 10:40 Comments from Gallery 11:00 How Can a Government Be Effectively Renresentntive If o Goernment Does Not and doubts about God, themselves, religion, and life Onen to oil interested nersons. I i III