Bruce Levine

Malcolm X was far more deeply involved with a sexual predator—his superior, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI)—than Noam Chomsky was involved with Jeffrey Epstein. However, Malcolm X’s association with Muhammad has had virtually no effect on Malcolm’s legacy, which has skyrocketed among the general public since his death.

Until recently, the predominant life pains that I have long seen in my psychologist day job include: abusive and neglectful parents, dysfunctional families, loveless marriages, lifelong loneliness, soul-crushing jobs, oppressive bosses, dehumanizing bureaucracies, and a variety of losses. However, the rise to power in the U.S. of an authoritarian demagogue has resulted in another major source of pain created not only by his actions but by his very being. From what I gather, many other mental health professionals are also hearing about the pains generated by him.

Myths include unfounded beliefs and fictional narratives used to explain frightening natural phenomena. Those of us who agree with Szasz that “mental illness” is a myth will often put quotes around the term to bring attention to its problematic nature. Should we also be bringing attention to the problematic nature of the term “mental health”?

In the last century, whether the brand of the autonomy-stripping megamachine has been German Nazi fascism, Soviet totalitarian communism, or U.S. corporate capitalism, psychiatry has been an enabler of the megamachine—more later on psychiatry’s role in each of these systems.

At the time of his death, Bruce was blacklisted by almost every venue in the United States, as owners feared that they too would be arrested for obscenity. One of the New York district attorneys who prosecuted Bruce’s last 1964 obscenity case, Assistant District Attorney Vincent Cuccia, later admitted, “We drove him into poverty and bankruptcy and then murdered him. I watched him gradually fall apart. . . . We all knew what we were doing. We used the law to kill him.”