ABSTRACT
The perverse state of mind acknowledges reality, but also denies it. Reality threatens self-interest or previous certainty. The perverse state of mind engages others as accomplices—conscious or unconscious—in the perversion. The accomplice is treated as an extension of self. At a social systems level, the perverse state of mind may flourish where instrumental relations have dominance in the society. Psychoanalysis has explored the ways mind is related to pleasure and to reality. The neurotic/normal position primarily employs repression, that is, active forgetting and removal from conscious thought. The perverse state of mind is not simply a deviation from normative morality. It has to do with individual pleasure at the expense of a more general good. Distinctions need be drawn between corruption, immorality, deviancy and perversion. A form of organisation increasingly favoured in the global economy requires loosely coupled semi-autonomous business units themselves broadly accountable to large multinational conglomerates.
