SMC3 - California and the Health of a Society: A Historical and Theoretical Diagnosis

Or ... California Health for Beginners: An Undergraduate’s Guide to Evaluating the Health of California Throughout Its History

Course Areas: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, History of Ideas, Political Economy, Health Humanities, and California Studies

Course Description

How do we determine the health of a society? What frameworks—philosophical, psychoanalytic, political, economic, and environmental—allow us to assess whether a society is thriving, stagnating, or in decline? This course takes California as a case study for evaluating societal health, examining its history, institutions, and crises through a broad theoretical and historical lens.

Drawing from political theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis, urban studies, and environmental history, students will engage with thinkers who have sought to define the markers of a flourishing or failing society. Mike Davis’s work on urban decline and environmental precarity in California will serve as a central text, complemented by classical and contemporary perspectives on social and political health. Texts by Plato, Aristotle, Marx, Weber, Freud, Adorno, Foucault, and contemporary critical theorists will provide competing frameworks for evaluating California’s structural and ideological conditions.

We will ask:

• What criteria determine a society’s health? Political stability? Economic equality? Psychological well-being? Environmental sustainability? Cultural dynamism?

• What historical events have strengthened or weakened California as a functioning society?

• How do power, ideology, capitalism, and colonial histories shape the metrics we use to evaluate societal health?

• Can psychoanalysis offer insights into the unconscious pathologies of a state like California?

• How does urban design, environmental policy, and housing accessibility factor into the vitality or decline of a state?

By the end of the course, students will develop their own interdisciplinary framework for diagnosing the health of a society, using California as a case study and applying these insights to broader global concerns.

Key Theoretical Texts on the Health of a Society

Foundational Works on Societal Flourishing & Decay

• Plato, The Republic – Justice as the foundation of a healthy state.

• Aristotle, Politics & Nicomachean Ethics – Eudaimonia (human flourishing) and the political conditions for a good life.

• Karl Marx, Capital & The Communist Manifesto – The role of economic structures in societal crises and health.

• Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – How ideology and economics shape social well-being.

• Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment – The pathologies of modern capitalist societies.

• Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish & The Birth of Biopolitics – How power structures regulate social and bodily health.

Psychoanalysis & the Psychological Health of a Society

• Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents – The tension between individual desire and societal order.

• Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism – The psychological structures that produce authoritarianism.

• Jacques Lacan, The Seminar (Selections on Capitalism and Subjectivity) – The unconscious formations of power and economy.

Contemporary & Critical Approaches to Societal Health

• Mike Davis, City of Quartz & Ecology of Fear – Urban decay, environmental collapse, and inequality in California.

• David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity – Capitalism’s role in shaping contemporary crises.

• Loïc Wacquant, Punishing the Poor – Mass incarceration and the deterioration of social health.

• Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics – Who is allowed to live and thrive under neoliberalism?

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine – How crises are manipulated to enforce social and economic policies that benefit elites.

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag – The prison industrial complex as a measure of societal health.

Course Themes & Weekly Breakdown

Week 1: What Does It Mean for a Society to Be Healthy?

• Classical and contemporary definitions of societal well-being.

• Competing metrics: political stability, economic equality, environmental sustainability, cultural production, psychological health.

Readings: Plato, Aristotle, Freud (Civilization and Its Discontents), Mike Davis (City of Quartz Preface)

Week 2: The City as a Symptom—Urbanization & Social Health

• Cities as centers of innovation or sites of inequality?

• Gentrification, homelessness, and urban planning as measures of a society’s function.

Readings: Mike Davis (City of Quartz), David Harvey (Rebel Cities), Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)

Week 3: Economic Systems & Their Pathologies

• Capitalism, neoliberalism, and the structure of social collapse.

• Labor exploitation, automation, and the gig economy as markers of societal unhealth.

Readings: Marx (Capital selections), Weber (The Protestant Ethic), Klein (The Shock Doctrine)

Week 4: Environmental Health as Social Health

• Climate change, wildfires, and resource depletion as existential threats to societal stability.

Readings: Mike Davis (Ecology of Fear), Achille Mbembe (Necropolitics on environmental collapse), selections from Jason Moore (Capitalism in the Web of Life)

Week 5: The Psychology of Societal Decline

• Can a society suffer from collective mental illness?

• Authoritarianism, anxiety, and the politics of fear.

Readings: Freud (Civilization and Its Discontents), Reich (Mass Psychology of Fascism), Loïc Wacquant (Punishing the Poor)

Week 6: Prisons, Borders, and the Carceral State

• Incarceration, police violence, and systemic inequality as indicators of social breakdown.

Readings: Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Golden Gulag), Foucault (Discipline and Punish), Wacquant (Punishing the Poor)

Week 7: Midterm Reflection—Diagnosing California’s Health

• Students present a preliminary diagnosis of California’s societal health based on themes covered so far.

Week 8: Race, Power, and the Unequal Distribution of Health

• Who benefits from societal “progress,” and who is left behind?

• Structural racism, environmental racism, and inequality.

Readings: Mbembe (Necropolitics), Cedric Robinson (Black Marxism), selections from bell hooks

Week 9: The Role of Culture—Media, Art, and Propaganda

• Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the production of ideology.

• The role of culture in maintaining or challenging power structures.

Readings: Adorno (Culture Industry), Naomi Klein (No Logo), Mike Davis (City of Quartz on Hollywood)

Week 10: The Future of Societal Health—AI, Automation, and Political Extremism

• Will automation and AI exacerbate inequality?

• Political polarization and the rise of authoritarian movements.

Readings: Harari (Homo Deus on AI and the future), Davis (Old Gods, New Enigmas on contemporary capitalism)

Weeks 11-13: Student Research & Final Projects

• Students develop their own diagnostic model for assessing societal health.

• Case studies: students apply this framework to California, another U.S. state, or an international case study.

Week 14: Final Presentations & Conclusions

• Students present their final analyses of California’s health.

• Discussion on potential interventions and future directions for societal well-being.

Final Assessment:

• Midterm Reflective Paper (30%) – A preliminary analysis of California’s health based on course themes.

• Final Project (40%) – A comprehensive diagnosis of a society’s health using interdisciplinary methods.

• Participation & Weekly Reflections (30%) – Engaged discussion and written responses.

Conclusion

This course provides students with a robust theoretical foundation for evaluating the health of a society, using California as an ongoing case study. By integrating philosophy, political economy, psychoanalysis, and environmental analysis, students will leave with a critical framework for assessing the sustainability and well-being of any social system.