".... Gordon Brown ... if he wants to put this 10p tax debacle right, ... should reverse the decision he made and pay for it by taxing the extremely wealthy.
In this country at the moment.... Alan Sugar and Roman Abramovich pay a lower proportion of ... taxes than their secretaries, that is a disgrace. 74% of UK people think this country's too unequal. ..."
Johann Hari.
EXEMPLAR HUMANAE VITAE - SPECIMEN OF A HUMAN LIFE. I am not really a sofa. But I try to be a filosofa. This is the parent blog of my other blogs which all began here, and which in totality constitute the views of an urban peasant living in London. Including some thoughts on politics, psychology, religion, employment and education. And a little humour. I am a rationalist, a humanist and an atheist and I write from a green/socialist/libertarian perspective.
28 May 2008
23 May 2008
Back from Wales. - A very good book: "Coercion as Cure"
Back from a little jaunt in Wales.
Took down this blog which made me feel a bit more relaxed.
But I'm putting it back up as I can't see anything too bad about putting it up.
I have a right to my views and reflections.
Wales was great. Lovely to get out of London.
Interesting that a government with Plaid Cymru in it seems to be closing schools against the wishes of the locals. Seems odd.
Read a book on holiday: "Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry" (2007) by Thomas Szasz.
A very fine book.
Oddly, I don't recall seeing any reviews of it in the newspapers.
"Let Wisdom Guide".
In this book there is an interesting discussion of the shameful "1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine" which was awarded to Egas Moniz for "discovering" the lobotomy.
I didn't know it was possible to win a Nobel Prize for mutilation.
Took down this blog which made me feel a bit more relaxed.
But I'm putting it back up as I can't see anything too bad about putting it up.
I have a right to my views and reflections.
Wales was great. Lovely to get out of London.
Interesting that a government with Plaid Cymru in it seems to be closing schools against the wishes of the locals. Seems odd.
Read a book on holiday: "Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry" (2007) by Thomas Szasz.
A very fine book.
Oddly, I don't recall seeing any reviews of it in the newspapers.
"Let Wisdom Guide".
In this book there is an interesting discussion of the shameful "1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine" which was awarded to Egas Moniz for "discovering" the lobotomy.
I didn't know it was possible to win a Nobel Prize for mutilation.
18 May 2008
It is right to protest
"To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men."
Ella Wilcox.
Ella Wilcox.
15 May 2008
I disagree about "manic depression"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/dec/11/medicineandhealth.lifeandhealth
With full and due respect to the writers, I have read this and I disagree with some of what is written in it.
I believe that there is no such thing as "manic depression"; and further that there is no such thing as mental illness.
From the actual words of the woman who eventually took her own life, you can I think see that it may be the case that at least an aspect of what upset the woman was her treatment by the mental health system, the role in life she was being forced to take on by the mental health system and her incarceration by the mental health system.
Pyschiatry is fundamentally a fraud and a crime.
The parents think that it was unawareness of the "illness" and its characteristics that prevented proper so-called "treatment" and help.
Could it not possibly be the belief that there was an illness at all, and what that belief entailed that was part of the problem?
----
"Bipolar affective disorder, as the ancient illness is now called, has been associated down the ages with originality and charisma, often with genius: Byron, Coleridge, Melville, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, Strindberg, Spike Milligan, Louis Althusser, Otto Klemperer, Stephen Fry, Vivien Leigh, Kurt Cobain, Francis Ford Coppola...
The illness is now regarded as a genetic neurobiological brain disease that affects one in 100 people to some degree."
An "ancient illness"? Would malaria be called an "ancient illness"? What an odd phrase!
I don't know of any Ancient Greek or Latin texts that refer to "manic depression"....
How do we know that all these people had this so-called "disease"?
Have we examined all of their brains?
Case not proven.
[Even if it were possible to examine all the brains of all the above-mentioned people and they were all found to have the same "brain lesion "X"" how could that prove that everyone who had severe highs and lows had the "disease"?
.....
Behaviour can be surely entirely determined by the (normal) functioning of the cortex or upper brain and surely any behaviour can be "generated" by this part of the brain without disease being present. ]
The illness is now "regarded" as "a brain disease"?
Would lung cancer come to be "regarded" as a lung disease?
Lung cancer woud surely be proven to be a lung disease.
Again this is an odd word - "regarded" - to use. Either it's a brain disease or it isn't.
Surely you can't "regard" it as one until you know it is one.
"Regard" implies an opinion.
It affects 1 in 100 "to some degree" - either it affects them or it doesn't. Strange.
Also, in this extract it is called a "disorder", an "illness" and a "disease" - which is it?
All three?
Also Byron may have had "manic depression" but he didn't spend his life being forced to take bullshit drugs, in and out of pysch wards against his will, on benefits etc...
He probably would do if he was around today!
These points reveal that what is being discussed is a social construct not a proven disease.
.....
"So, brainwashed, we didn't think of manic depression when she punched her elder sister in a quarrel (Zoë was very strong) and, in another quarrel, bit through her younger brother's sweater and into his chest."
What does the above extract imply? That violence is a symptom of so-called "manic depression".
How can that possibly be the case when it has been said that manic depression means "highs and lows in mood"?
???
If she had been violent and not had severe ups and downs in mood what would have been blamed then?
Violence is not itself a mental illness. It's a behaviour.
Who is really being "brain-washed" here?
Where is the evidence for what is being said?
" ...a terrifying place... very difficult to describe, which makes it harder for others to understand. The stigma is hard, too. It's hard to imagine being out of it... you feel you've gone mad even when you're lucid. Don't know what to do with myself. What to think? Where to start? Cannot envisage improvement in the future. Everything is quite frightening."
Does this refer to imprisonment on a psychiatric ward?
Is the stigma referred to the stigma of being labelled mentally ill?
"I love you all but I can't live like this."
Like what exactly?
Does she mean she can't live the life of a psychiatric patient?
She may have been very depressed but is psychiatry giving her the right help for this?
"her treatable but incurable illness."
Is there really an illness?
Where is the evidence that she was suffering from an illness of any kind?
"I'm living behind a glass wall." She contemplated a future on medication. In her last diary entry, she wrote: " ...if I don't get better, I will most probably have to accept a more humble job and more humble living arrangements than I would like. But make the most of things: I can work my way up... have to accept that at 27 I am not 'set up' job/house/relationship-wise.
The lifestyle she is being forced into and that she finds hard to accept is one that is perhaps determined by the fact that she is in the "mental health system."
One of her friends said that it was her "pride" that killed her.
Is pride a "mental illness'?
------
All these things are just observations on the article. They are just a view. I don't pretend that they are anything more than observations.
I am sorry if they offend. They are not meant to.
They are meant to question things that I think need questioning.
------
OK. It is one thing to say there are loads of creative people who suffer very severe mood swings and patterns of behaviour and mood that are very similar.
It is another thing to say "therefore they must all have a brain disease xyz and need drugs xyz"
when there is no evidence for this.
It does not follow. Non sequitur.
------
"Bipolar disorder is not a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders...."
Wikipedia, May 2008...
....
------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7GmeSAxXo
----
The mental health system is a trap!
And there is no escape without assistance.
With full and due respect to the writers, I have read this and I disagree with some of what is written in it.
I believe that there is no such thing as "manic depression"; and further that there is no such thing as mental illness.
From the actual words of the woman who eventually took her own life, you can I think see that it may be the case that at least an aspect of what upset the woman was her treatment by the mental health system, the role in life she was being forced to take on by the mental health system and her incarceration by the mental health system.
Pyschiatry is fundamentally a fraud and a crime.
The parents think that it was unawareness of the "illness" and its characteristics that prevented proper so-called "treatment" and help.
Could it not possibly be the belief that there was an illness at all, and what that belief entailed that was part of the problem?
----
"Bipolar affective disorder, as the ancient illness is now called, has been associated down the ages with originality and charisma, often with genius: Byron, Coleridge, Melville, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, Strindberg, Spike Milligan, Louis Althusser, Otto Klemperer, Stephen Fry, Vivien Leigh, Kurt Cobain, Francis Ford Coppola...
The illness is now regarded as a genetic neurobiological brain disease that affects one in 100 people to some degree."
An "ancient illness"? Would malaria be called an "ancient illness"? What an odd phrase!
I don't know of any Ancient Greek or Latin texts that refer to "manic depression"....
How do we know that all these people had this so-called "disease"?
Have we examined all of their brains?
Case not proven.
[Even if it were possible to examine all the brains of all the above-mentioned people and they were all found to have the same "brain lesion "X"" how could that prove that everyone who had severe highs and lows had the "disease"?
.....
Behaviour can be surely entirely determined by the (normal) functioning of the cortex or upper brain and surely any behaviour can be "generated" by this part of the brain without disease being present. ]
The illness is now "regarded" as "a brain disease"?
Would lung cancer come to be "regarded" as a lung disease?
Lung cancer woud surely be proven to be a lung disease.
Again this is an odd word - "regarded" - to use. Either it's a brain disease or it isn't.
Surely you can't "regard" it as one until you know it is one.
"Regard" implies an opinion.
It affects 1 in 100 "to some degree" - either it affects them or it doesn't. Strange.
Also, in this extract it is called a "disorder", an "illness" and a "disease" - which is it?
All three?
Also Byron may have had "manic depression" but he didn't spend his life being forced to take bullshit drugs, in and out of pysch wards against his will, on benefits etc...
He probably would do if he was around today!
These points reveal that what is being discussed is a social construct not a proven disease.
.....
"So, brainwashed, we didn't think of manic depression when she punched her elder sister in a quarrel (Zoë was very strong) and, in another quarrel, bit through her younger brother's sweater and into his chest."
What does the above extract imply? That violence is a symptom of so-called "manic depression".
How can that possibly be the case when it has been said that manic depression means "highs and lows in mood"?
???
If she had been violent and not had severe ups and downs in mood what would have been blamed then?
Violence is not itself a mental illness. It's a behaviour.
Who is really being "brain-washed" here?
Where is the evidence for what is being said?
" ...a terrifying place... very difficult to describe, which makes it harder for others to understand. The stigma is hard, too. It's hard to imagine being out of it... you feel you've gone mad even when you're lucid. Don't know what to do with myself. What to think? Where to start? Cannot envisage improvement in the future. Everything is quite frightening."
Does this refer to imprisonment on a psychiatric ward?
Is the stigma referred to the stigma of being labelled mentally ill?
"I love you all but I can't live like this."
Like what exactly?
Does she mean she can't live the life of a psychiatric patient?
She may have been very depressed but is psychiatry giving her the right help for this?
"her treatable but incurable illness."
Is there really an illness?
Where is the evidence that she was suffering from an illness of any kind?
"I'm living behind a glass wall." She contemplated a future on medication. In her last diary entry, she wrote: " ...if I don't get better, I will most probably have to accept a more humble job and more humble living arrangements than I would like. But make the most of things: I can work my way up... have to accept that at 27 I am not 'set up' job/house/relationship-wise.
The lifestyle she is being forced into and that she finds hard to accept is one that is perhaps determined by the fact that she is in the "mental health system."
One of her friends said that it was her "pride" that killed her.
Is pride a "mental illness'?
------
All these things are just observations on the article. They are just a view. I don't pretend that they are anything more than observations.
I am sorry if they offend. They are not meant to.
They are meant to question things that I think need questioning.
------
OK. It is one thing to say there are loads of creative people who suffer very severe mood swings and patterns of behaviour and mood that are very similar.
It is another thing to say "therefore they must all have a brain disease xyz and need drugs xyz"
when there is no evidence for this.
It does not follow. Non sequitur.
------
"Bipolar disorder is not a single disorder, but a category of mood disorders...."
Wikipedia, May 2008...
....
------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7GmeSAxXo
----
The mental health system is a trap!
And there is no escape without assistance.
14 May 2008
Conundrums
Is evil something you are or something you do?
Something you do.
Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?
The mind rules the body.
Something you do.
Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?
The mind rules the body.
11 May 2008
Genes predisposing to depression?
Died of "clinical depression"?:
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1114
Genes predisposing to depression?
There is no evidence that "depression" or severe unhappiness is either biological or genetic in origin.
....
---
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1114
Genes predisposing to depression?
There is no evidence that "depression" or severe unhappiness is either biological or genetic in origin.
....
---
8 May 2008
Mental stuff - Psychiatrists in US and England
I may have said this elsewhere but I'll say it again.
Most so-called "mental illnesses" are nothing more than reactions to adverse life events.
In my own extensive years-long experience of people in the "mental health system" there are not many exceptions to this.
---
In the USA a psychiatrist does what a psychologist does in the UK - talk to you about your problems.
In England it was and still is possible to go for decades through the entire "mental health" process and not have a chat with someone about what it is that is upsetting you.
Psychiatrists in England are possibly the most pointless and useless people ever to have existed in the history of human employment.
All UK psychiatrists are trained physicians, they have all done several years of medical training.
The big question is - WHY?
Why did they waste all those years learning skills at great expense that they will never need for a job that consists of next to nothing except poisoning and imprisoning?
They poison and imprison and do not care about you as long as you cause no trouble.
In England, the recent emergence of psychologists - someone who might possibly help you rather than punish you - is still only in its infancy.
----
Most so-called "mental illnesses" are nothing more than reactions to adverse life events.
In my own extensive years-long experience of people in the "mental health system" there are not many exceptions to this.
---
In the USA a psychiatrist does what a psychologist does in the UK - talk to you about your problems.
In England it was and still is possible to go for decades through the entire "mental health" process and not have a chat with someone about what it is that is upsetting you.
Psychiatrists in England are possibly the most pointless and useless people ever to have existed in the history of human employment.
All UK psychiatrists are trained physicians, they have all done several years of medical training.
The big question is - WHY?
Why did they waste all those years learning skills at great expense that they will never need for a job that consists of next to nothing except poisoning and imprisoning?
They poison and imprison and do not care about you as long as you cause no trouble.
In England, the recent emergence of psychologists - someone who might possibly help you rather than punish you - is still only in its infancy.
----
What happened to Philanthropists?
Entrpreneurs are the order of the day.
Whatever happened to philanthropists?
Whatever happened to philanthropists?
7 May 2008
Taking Liberties
Saw "Taking Liberties" last night on More 4.
Really good film.
Surprisingly for me, it included Boris speaking up in favour of civil liberties. Spiffing!
I hadn't realised the invidious role of The Sun in ending our country's 800-year principle of habeas corpus.
Really good film.
Surprisingly for me, it included Boris speaking up in favour of civil liberties. Spiffing!
I hadn't realised the invidious role of The Sun in ending our country's 800-year principle of habeas corpus.
2 May 2008
Humans can be stupid
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Behaviour
I was speaking to a friend, a fellow comrade and victim in the "mental health system" and I found out that he had once upon a time cut his wrists very deeply. I asked him why he had done it. What had been his thinking? What led him to do this?
He said the real reason he had done it was because he had thought that the "doctors" would put him in a strait jacket and that he didn't think he'd be able to cope with this.
I heard of another case where someone was incapacitated by fear because he had heard of other people with "mental health problems" ending up in police cells.
How much behaviour of the so-called "mentally ill" is caused by their treatment at the hands of the "mental health professionals" who treat/persecute them?
---
"trust the ocean you'll never drown".
He said the real reason he had done it was because he had thought that the "doctors" would put him in a strait jacket and that he didn't think he'd be able to cope with this.
I heard of another case where someone was incapacitated by fear because he had heard of other people with "mental health problems" ending up in police cells.
How much behaviour of the so-called "mentally ill" is caused by their treatment at the hands of the "mental health professionals" who treat/persecute them?
---
"trust the ocean you'll never drown".
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