OCD & Philosophy

Being genuinely self-contained is about balance. It is about being given—or having been given—the right level, and the right kind of emotional sustenance from others and, on that basis, being able, like a dolphin that has taken in enough air or a camel that has taken in enough water, to go out on one’s own. This is not what the autistic person is doing. Autism is a way of being damaged. True independence is about the opposite of being damaged. And a sign of true independence is flexibility, and rigidity is a sign of damage-based pseudo-independence.

Some remarks on gender and on the differences between the genders.

Oftentimes extreme, and extremely politically incorrect views, are simply foils, ways of drawing a line in the sand that the rest of society is not to cross, ways---effective, if not very intelligent ways—of resisting the absorption of one’s identity into an amorphous mass of invidious conformism.

Straight male serial killers often wear the underwear of their female victims. This practice of their is not about being gay. It is about the opposite; it is about wanting to invade the women---to be insider her, in the most total, totally sexual and totally aggressive way possible.

When fantasies initiate action---when they are themselves the very beginnings of action—the objective in question is real and therefore should be sought: indeed, it is already being sought. And when fantasies delay action—when they are retreats from reality, not initial forays into it—the objective in question is not real and is not to be pursued.

Neurotic fears are often conscious proxies for non-neurotic negative intentions—non-neurotic negative desires---with which one, for whatever reason, one will not permit oneself to consciously identify. ‘One neurotically fears that such and such won’t pan out’ equals ‘one unconsciously, non-neurotically wants such and such not to happen.’

Granting that there is more substance to the idea that we lack freedom than there is to the idea we know nothing about the external world, neither idea has much substance; and the appeal of both ideas, especially of the latter—and especially of two taken in conjunction---is that they give bureaucrats an excuse to be bureaucrats—to be people who do not know anything are therefore under no obligation to do anything.

In their attempt to make philosophy engage the world, Locke and Hume empiricized philosophy. But in empiricizing philosophy, Locke and Hume made philosophy collapse into pure skepticism, pure skepticism being the most compete conceivable autistic withdrawal from reality into one’s own mind. And what this shows is that, even when philosophers try to make philosophy not be an autistic retreat, it ends up being precisely that. Which does rather confirm my conception of philosophy as autistic retreat.

Some similarities between the philosopher and the obsessive-compulsive are identified.

Some signs of OCD in children are identified.