Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 366 Editor's Choice: 36
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To the many concerned and scared parents and others drawn to this article:
[Read the article: My beautiful, drug-addicted boy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Be sure to read the posts by Jim, moppin’thefloor, Juliebird, and especially ladyedith. Their comments align pretty well with what is known about addiction and its successful treatment (although moppin’ is a bit harsh with parents and underestimates the importance of pervasive, structural stressors outside the home that also contribute to addictive behaviors).
If you are helping someone find effective treatment, ask directly whether the program is based on the disease model, 12-Step, or requires AA/NA participation. If the answer is “yes”, keep looking. We know that this approach is at best ineffective and most likely does harm. The real function, in fact, of these programs is to keep individuals comfortably ill and dependent by disempowering, by normalizing substitute addictions (like nicotine or food) and by enabling escape from the difficult task of addressing the underlying issues driving addiction.
Ask about approaches known to be effective, like Matrix, cognitive-behavioral, motivational interviewing, and especially integrated treatment (“dual diagnosis” or “co-occurring disorder” programs), which treat the issues that addictive behaviors are secondary to.
Finally, put yourself in the addicted person’s place, and ask yourself whether it would seem helpful to be shamed, punished, or “confronted” for what you are experiencing.
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courage to change the things I can
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The forced, scripted, ritualized, disingenuous humility and acceptance; the symbiotic mutual self-delusion; the shame-for-payoff; the denial; the play acting – all aesthetically distanced and effectively conveyed by a penguin in a comic strip.
And all shot to hell by a single trigger of the fears, arrested capacity for impulse control, and unresolved underlying unmet needs that never got worked on, that are safely evaded and distracted from one day at a time.
I’d have to say Mr. Breathed nailed not only the AA/NA scam, but a big piece of the American psyche as well.
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It isn’t about housework
[Read the article: The sexual politics of household chores]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It’s about perceived power differential and autonomy in the relationship. That’s all about underlying control and dependency issues, which play into sex because sex, among other things, is very much about vulnerability and security, which are tied ultimately to sense of personal control and autonomy. That’s one reason (along with others related to the biology of mating) that sexual intimacy will inevitably suffer in any type of contractual or committed arrangement. As you know.
But the personal losses and emotional distress do generate enormous revenues and interest in doomed solutions for “putting romance back in your marriage”. That’s gotta be good for The Economy, right?
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Eliot likes sex.
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tsk, tsk. Certainly, it would be difficult to overestimate the moral import and gravity of our collective responsibility to now struggle to allocate outrage, guilt, and punishment for the naughty, naughty acts engaged in by Eliot.
Specifically, we must find a way to answer the question: from whom should Eliot get his spanking and shaming? Eliot’s mommy? Silda’s daddy? Dr.Phil, Dr. Paglia, Oprah, or Pope Benedict?
I sincerely believe if only we are able to stay focused on the naughty acts, appropriate punishment, and approved script for libidinal rehabilitation and forgiveness, that these distractions will enable us to avoid any discomfort or thoughts at all related to the pathology of marriage and associated control/repression/shaming of sexuality that led in the first place to . . . . . oops, forgot, won’t go there.
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If religion, marriage and other forms of psychological abuse and control that shame and punish safe, consensual and harm-free expression of sexuality
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]were disallowed, there would be no need or market for prostitution.
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Nailed it.
[Read the article: Dr. Laura to Silda: It's all your fault!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ms. Harding’s deconstruction of the utterances of certain status- and attention-driven females is satisfyingly accurate, useful and all the more effectively made via the tree house analogy (which reminded me of the brilliance of the Calvin and Hobbes strips).
It is all about patriarchal power, status, access to them, and the unhealthy symbioses (ironically enough, power and status leveraged through a form of prostitution) some females resort to. And this dysfunction, as astutely observed, exacerbated by current fears triggered by a female actually aspiring to the position of top crime boss . . . . er, “President”.
Let’s hope we see more in Broadsheet from Ms. Harding.
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SusanaSanJuan,
[Read the article: The difference between Jeremiah Wright and radical, white evangelical ministers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, it’s not just you. You posted:
"Is it just me?
Or is what Reverend Wright said for the most part not offensive, and arguably accurate?" [i.e. that the 9/11 attacks were significantly driven by U.S. misdeeds and misanthropy and that discrimination by a dominant culture and ruling class still exists].
Mr. Wright may engage in demagoguery and veer off into irresponsible claims, but what seems to be engaged in here are convoluted efforts (partly by the type of conflating noted by lateagain) to distract attention from the charges made by Mr. Wright, as above, that are not only no-brainers, but need to be stated plainly and should be acknowledged by any self-respecting adult. Most urgently, efforts to distract attention from the response made by Mr. Obama to Wright’s truth-telling: namely, more distancing, evasion and unprincipled posturing in his determined bid to become America’s next top crime boss (sorry, “President”).
The focus on white evangelicals, however accurate, seems little more than a ploy to avoid addressing what appears to be fear-driven political posturing by Mr. Obama. Why not acknowledge what the political process demands of any electable candidate and reframe your interests in terms of harm reduction? That might avoid some of the loss of credibility and inevitable disappointment that will come from attempting to idealize this mess.
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Another day,
[Read the article: Another day, another sex scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]another ostensibly adult commentator projecting disallowed, disowned, and shamed sexuality onto others.
It’s not about what we do or don’t need to know, it’s about what we need to pretend doesn’t exist in ourselves, and the discomfort that generates.