The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [0]
CLASSICS
THE THREE CHRISTS OF YPSILANTI
MILTON ROKEACH (1918–1988) was born in Hrubieszów, Poland, and at the age of seven moved with his family to Brooklyn. He received his BA from Brooklyn College in 1941. In the same year he began in the fledgling social psychology program at the University of California at Berkeley, but his studies were interrupted by a stint in the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Psychology Program. He returned to Berkeley in 1946 and received his PhD in 1947. Rokeach became a professor of psychology at Michigan State University and subsequently taught at the University of Western Ontario, Washington State University, and the University of Southern California. His famous psychological study The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (1964) has been made into a screenplay, a stage play, and two operas. His other major books are The Open and Closed Mind (1960), Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values (1968), and The Nature of Human Values (1973). Rokeach received the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in 1984 and the Harold Lasswell Award from the International Society of Political Psychology in 1988.
RICK MOODY was born in New York City in 1961. He is the author of five novels, three collections of stories, and a memoir, The Black Veil. His work has been widely anthologized. He has taught at Bennington College, SUNY Purchase, New York University, and the New School for Social Research. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
THE THREE CHRISTS OF YPSILANTI
A Psychological Study
MILTON ROKEACH
Introduction by
RICK MOODY
NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
New York
Contents
Cover
Biographical Notes
Title Page
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
THE THREE CHRISTS OF YPSILANTI
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE The Encounter
PART ONE
CHAPTER I The Problem of Identity
CHAPTER II Who They Were
CHAPTER III “That’s Your Belief, Sir”
CHAPTER IV Through the Looking Glass
CHAPTER V Days and Nights at Ypsilanti
CHAPTER VI The Rotating Chairmanship
CHAPTER VII Exit Dr. Rex
CHAPTER VIII R.I.D.
CHAPTER IX Protecting the Stronghold
CHAPTER X The Flora and Fauna Commission
PART TWO
CHAPTER XI The Problem of Authority
CHAPTER XII Enter Madame Dung
CHAPTER XIII Madame God Makes a Few Suggestions
CHAPTER XIV A Research Assistant Becomes God
CHAPTER XV The Lonely Duel
CHAPTER XVI Dad Makes a Few Suggestions
CHAPTER XVII The Loyalty Test
CHAPTER XVIII Reports to Nobody
PART THREE
CHAPTER XIX The Striving for Goodness and for Greatness
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
INDEX
Copyright and More Information
Introduction
THIS INTRODUCTION takes as its presupposition the idea that the treatment of chronic mental health problems in the United States of America is disgraceful. Insofar as there is a policy here, the policy dates back to 1955, give or take, the year in which the removal of mentally ill persons from state-run psychiatric facilities first commenced: a policy known as deinstitutionalization.
Deinstitutionalization wore a humane face, in theory. The majority of the publicly funded psychiatric hospitals had had their budgets crimped over the years by budget balancers and psychiatric nonbelievers. Deinstitutionalization was born in the belief (incorrect, as it turned out) that community-based mental health care would serve as an alternative. It would be cheaper, not to mention less stigmatized and incompetent, than institutional care. The government, it was imagined, didn’t belong in this business.
And yet, after half a century of deinstitutionalization, a process much expanded over the years and particularly favored under the administration of Ronald Reagan, the government now finds itself back in the mental health business, whether the public is aware of it or not, in that the jails and prisons of the nation, beloved of the tough-on-crime set, now house a significant and growing number of troubled persons who, in these state-sponsored settings, receive little or no treatment. Many other sufferers live on the streets of our cities. The police, agents of local