Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 319 Editor's Choice: 34
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family reunions
[Read the article: The "jungle girl"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This story seems the perfect companion to that of Shawn Hornbeck (the Missouri boy who spent four years with alleged kidnapper Michael Devlin) – in both cases cultural constructivists (the press) involuntarily, immediately and persistently created a tragic tale of a child unwillingly separated from a loving family.
But wait! Maybe asking some questions (remember those?) would be a good idea now, now that created explanations have become part of the public’s knowledge and the appropriate outrage and sympathies have been drummed up.
In the Hornbeck case, for example, questions about the remarkable discrepancy in early footage of relatives between their affect and their utterances. Questions around the purely speculative explanation of Stockholm syndrome without any evidence that Shawn was either traumatized or experienced his life as being threatened. Around the maybe-a-bit-too-eager willingness of the parents to point to assumed sexual abuse. Around the possibly Freudian slip made by one relative, who worried aloud about someone “asking [Shawn] the wrong questions”.
Perhaps most troubling was the trotting out of “expert” psychologists to assert Stockholm syndrome before facts around the case had even been established, professionals eager to pathologize a 15 year old without the benefit of even a clinical interview, all in order to support the a priori creation of a boy so traumatized and psychologically distressed that he would not take advantage of unlimited opportunities to return to his loving family.
After all, what other possible explanation could there be for this touching, fairy-tale account of a boy’s reunion with a caring, loving family? That’s what “family” in our culture is all about, right?
The Hornbeck story, like that of the jungle girl, needs a Jonathon Watts, and a Carol Lloyd, willing to deconstruct what may well turn out to be another case of “fairy-tale speculation and…media frenzy”.
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Darfur
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are neither explanations nor solutions for Darfur and Iraq apparent to us within our constructed reality because the frame we view these problems from - nations, governments, diplomacy, etc., all symptomatic expressions of in-group/out-group psychology underlying fear, aggression, and tribalism – this frame which we unquestioningly live with and accept as given, or doxa, is the very cause of the Darfurs and Iraqs.
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the business of treatment
[Read the article: Welcome to celebrehab]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some valid points, tom, although in my experience competent therapy can be remarkably effective in helping people improve their lives, and needing help isn’t so much about being guilty as about individuals struggling to adjust to pathological environments.
The APA doesn’t benefit so much from treatment per se, but from the medical (or “disease”) model of psychological distress which establishes a power and monetary monopoly around prescription of psychopharmacological agents. That’s trivial compared to the APA’s main prerogative of constructing who in this culture is “sick” and who is mentally healthy, as embodied in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Example: until a few years ago homosexuality was included as a psychiatric disorder, while homophobia has yet to be recognized as such.
But back to celebs and the big business of treatment: Lohan had been in AA for some time and Gibson, like thousands of others each week, was mandated to 12-step treatment, a feature of almost every addiction program in this country, and one we know to be at best ineffective and likely countertherapeutic.
But follow the money and ideology. Many clients love 12-step because it provides escape from the discomfort of facing issues underlying addictive behavior and it enables them to substitute replacement addictive behaviors (e.g. nicotine, food, advice-giving) for another (typically alcohol) while claiming to be effectively treated. System loves the protective mask of “faith-based”. And the business of treatment loves to hire indoctrinated and uneducated ex-addicts as treatment staff, for pennies.
Yes, it’s a scam, and yes the losers are those sincerely seeking change, no doubt including some celebs.
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peer review
[Read the article: Science publishers get stupid]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let’s be real for a moment. The publishers may be driven by money, but scientific careerism isn’t – it’s about ideology, stability, influence and ultimately status. The currency is the publication, or citation, which is scaled in value (why journals advertise exposure ratings) and bartered and traded (through unearned multiple authorships).
The formal mechanism by which this currency is controlled is the peer review process, which is less about quality and intellectual honesty than about controlling the current value of types of currency (maintaining current orthodoxy).
There have been some histories of fraud in science over the years (all that fudging and cheating through undergrad and the learned prostitution to a committee through grad school – did you think that somehow stopped once the research positions were awarded?). I believe a review would reveal that in those rare cases when incompetence or counterfeiting is exposed, it’s not generally to the credit of the peer review process, but in spite of it.
But perhaps I’m unfair.
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snarky bitch
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is it that we love (or alternatively love to hate) so much about the snarky female? Isn’t it that a “she” has integrated, in her assertive, intelligent and deft use of irony and humor, traits usually protected as the domain of males? Those who are not threatened by, or overly envious of, the audacity of a woman achieving an integrated self seem to find it entirely appealing.
But the opposite response is also elicited and not only by disempowered, frightened males. The snarky female is potentially even more problematic for the male who hates – because he fears and disallows in himself – that snarky, appealingly bitchy, female part of self that he never quite integrates and owns, because that is not allowed. We often hate what we disown in our selves, and it always shows as a persistent, projected, angry signal for change.