Please help.

[IdleRich]

"I'm still amused by the fact you think internet affect is any way to judge someone (ie- HMLT's occasional net-belligerence means he must be mentally ill... "

The obvious response there is, how do you know I really think that?
But I accept, you would have to guess (or at least hope) that HMLT would come across very differently in life to on dissensus. Obviously, in at least one sense the whole talking on the internet thing limits your judgments to that sphere but I think that you can only take someone to be as how they appear to be. You judge people on the internet by their intereactions with you and others, same as in the flesh... would you argue that meeting someone in the flesh wasn't necessarily a guide to how they really are, perhaps you would? Of course it's entirely possible that HMLT simply pretents to be a permanently annoyed and deliberately obtuse parody and Vimothy (for example) is really a communist having a laugh but in some way the characters that they have created are real and exist in cyberspace don't they? I only interact with the online creations and that's effectively what I take to be real.
A guestion for you Gek, suppose that you were to meet HMLT in the flesh and he was exactly as he was on the internet, do you think that you would leave that meeting thinking something along the lines of "blimey!"?
Dunno what you mean by this bit though

....can be used to contain almost anything dislikable or antithetical to the hegemony of the day, or as you put it Rich- "fun"

Can be used to contain fun? Or are you saying I described the hegemony of the day as fun? Because I certainly didn't describe it as anything, I was just repeating a conversation between two other people.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I don't think that proves your point at all. However nuts one guy is you can't generalise to the whole left.

No - I just meant my point re HTML's enthusiastic posts. Twas badly put - my bad.

In this one case I guess it is interesting to speculate as to whether the kooky far-left pseudo-intellectual nonsense broke his brain or whether a broken brain lead to his obsession with that nonsense. What was symptom and what was cause we'll never really know but personally I'd go for the latter way round. One thing is obvious, for someone with those kind of problems reading too much of that stuff is not going to help and the results are unfortunately rather plain to see: seeing racists that aren't there, repetitive use of meaningless phrases as though they win an argument, frustration when somehow someone fails to see his point of view, threats and - arguably saddest of all - the description of "fun" as "conformist capitalist nonsense".

Tee hee.

 

[Mr. Tea]

If I may interject here, I'd guess what Gek is getting at is the enshrinement of 'fun' as the object of highest aspiration in much of contemporary popular culture, and the inevitable vacuity of having that kind of outlook on the world (or something like that, anyway). While I think there is something in this, you can certainly go much too far the other way as well, and end up as a spluttering, gibbering, ultra-critical, hyper-cum-pseudo-intellectual miseryguts. Of course it doesn't make you 'mad' just because you espouse left-wing views - and let's remember that political positions are somewhat relative, in that I've been called a 'communist' by Vimothy on the same day I was called a 'fascist' by HMLT - but at the same time, isn't anhedonia symptomatic of a range of psychological disorders?

 

[gek-opel]

There's all kinds of jouissance external to mere "fun" of course.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well yes, but to dismiss the entire concept as some sort of "conformist capitalist nonsense" does sound a bit sad, doesn't it?

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Well yes, but to dismiss the entire concept as some sort of "conformist capitalist nonsense" does sound a bit sad, doesn't it?

Dismissing concepts is fun.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Dismissing concepts is fun.

I'll dismiss you in a minute!

(Chance'd be a fine thing, etc. etc. )

 

[Slothrop]

While I think there is something in this, you can certainly go much too far the other way as well, and end up as a spluttering, gibbering, ultra-critical, hyper-cum-pseudo-intellectual miseryguts.

"If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!" - Emma Goldman.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Surely this post just proves my point?

Is that a fun question or just yet further confirmation that your ideas are even more mixed-up and crumblier than your biscuits as to now be a mountain of pulverized quick-sand? Maybe you'd be on safer ground by sticking to the football, but, alas ...

Of course nobody watched Scotland-Georgia.

As if anybody in England is interested in football per se.

... breathless, unblinking insularity.

I'm still amused by the fact you think internet affect is any way to judge someone (ie- HMLT's occasional net-belligerence means he must be mentally ill... which actually entirely proves the point he has been making on this thread- that mental illness as category under capitalism can be used to contain almost anything dislikable or antithetical to the hegemony of the day, or as you put it Rich- "fun")

What's also of interest here is how the concept of racism becomes so disavowed and muddled as to be completely spirited out of existence, every instance rationalized as its anti-thesis, much like we'll once again see Richard Dawkins coming to the 'defence' of James Watson's latest outbursts: It's elementary, my dear Watson.

seeing racists that aren't there

What, they've scarpered? The drawing attention to the repeated expression of racist sentiments by particular posters can of course be attributed to delusion in idlerich's quaintly paranoid universe.

 

[Mr. Tea]

"If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!" - Emma Goldman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_dance_revolution ???

 

[nomadologist]

With the proviso that I am always extremely cautious when it comes to making diagnoses or arbitrary recommendations via an internet forum based on minimal evidence [we've had posters here in the past cluelessly rushing forth (suggesting an anti-social neurosis on their part) 'recommending' the most violent and extreme courses of action, everything from 'sectioning' to electro-convulsive-therapy on the basis of the most minimal and deeply suspicious accounts of someone's behaviour) with suggestions as if they had such vast authoritative knowledge both of the ailment and of the 'patient' when in fact all they are doing is revealing their own innate, socially-hostile intolerances for what they don't understand [and don't want to understand], coming across as having the same secretly-vicious retro-sensibility as a News of the World hack. [And to be honest, I'd be much more worried about posters like Vim or Mixed-biscuits, whose warped ideologies have seriously destructive social effects on the wider society].

Gek's 'ailment' sounds perfectly harmless and probably has fairly reasonable psychic, social and physical explanations, nothing to get over-anxious about, or resort to self-reflexively instant 'symptom-diagnoses mapping' from the latest edition of the DSM manual. The level of radical mis-diagnosis [and dismissive non-diagnosis - M.E. for instance] of assorted posited illnesses and behavioural idiosyncracies is so unbelievably vast in a society so crippled by vested financial-social-political interests that it becomes so easy - effortless even - to become part of the problem oneself [And related to the inheritance tax thread, I'm sickened by the number of people I come across who actively transform and medicalise their elderly parent(s) into non-compus-mentus incompetents ("She's getting a bit forgetful, obviously it's Altzheimers, maybe it's best if we put her in a home") just after the Will has been finalised, shunting them off into a nursing home in full knowledge that it will kill them within a few months (who hasn't an elderly relative to whom this hasn't happened?), dying of chronic social dislocation, abandonment, isolation and loneliness, so that they can quickly and greedily get their hands on their parent's house and assets. This practice is so widespread as to be almost invisible. Who is the genuinely sick, psychologically damaged party here? And what underlying socio-economic structures are directly implicated?]

[BTW, Akathisia is not a 'natural' condition, it is a term attributed purely to certain auto-manic side-effects of particular psychotropic drugs, though it may indeed exhibit symptoms indistinguishable from other conditions].

That said, if I were living in Britain, and it were a psycho-socially civilized society, I would not hesitate to have the Vims of that world summarily 'sectioned' ...

These are all important disclaimers. I am not a doctor (though I'd like to be), I'm just comparing symptoms to people I know who have similar symptoms and have been through the ENTIRE BATTERY of psychiatric tests for bipolar I/bipolar II, ADD, etc.

While I think you're correct about many societies here, on this side of the Atlantic we've come full-circle--we're in the "backlash to the backlash" stages in terms of psychotherapy and psycho-pharmacology. Where in the 90s every child who was from a "bad home" who had behavior problems was instantly labelled ADD and put on ritalin from age 5 on up [switched at puberty to adderall, of course), now there's a whole lot of scepticism over here about psychiatric treatments and being "labelled" with a mental illness (the Dr. Philification of America) and I think people with real problems are needlessly suffering.

Of course, misdiagnosis/overdiagnoses is/are a danger, but I think it's a WHOLE LOT MORE IRRESPONSIBLE to trivialize anyone's psychologically uncomfortable symptoms or experiences. I would rather err on the side of caution, knowing how the failure to treat serious mental illness tends to accelerate its effects, and recommend checking in with a doctor or psychiatrist on an internet forum. People need to realize that should they be properly diagnosed, they fucking DESERVE TO FEEL BETTER IF THEY CAN.

 

[nomadologist]

I'm still amused by the fact you think internet affect is any way to judge someone (ie- HMLT's occasional net-belligerence means he must be mentally ill... which actually entirely proves the point he has been making on this thread- that mental illness as category under capitalism can be used to contain almost anything dislikable or antithetical to the hegemony of the day, or as you put it Rich- "fun")

This was my actual reaction to mixed_biscuits, but I decided being self-deprecating would work better here.

Is there anything that scares the "normals" more than someone who isn't afraid to admit that they have been through hellish psychological problems? Nope. I'm used to it now. Usually if you throw them a bone (looks at HMTL) they go away and leave you alone.

 

[gek-opel]

These are all important disclaimers. I am not a doctor (though I'd like to be), I'm just comparing symptoms to people I know who have similar symptoms and have been through the ENTIRE BATTERY of psychiatric tests for bipolar I/bipolar II, ADD, etc.

While I think you're correct about many societies here, on this side of the Atlantic we've come full-circle--we're in the "backlash to the backlash" stages in terms of psychotherapy and psycho-pharmacology. Where in the 90s every child who was from a "bad home" who had behavior problems was instantly labelled ADD and put on ritalin from age 5 on up [switched at puberty to adderall, of course), now there's a whole lot of scepticism over here about psychiatric treatments and being "labelled" with a mental illness (the Dr. Philification of America) and I think people with real problems are needlessly suffering.

Of course, misdiagnosis/overdiagnoses is/are a danger, but I think it's a WHOLE LOT MORE IRRESPONSIBLE to trivialize anyone's psychologically uncomfortable symptoms or experiences. I would rather err on the side of caution, knowing how the failure to treat serious mental illness tends to accelerate its effects, and recommend checking in with a doctor or psychiatrist on an internet forum. People need to realize that should they be properly diagnosed, they fucking DESERVE TO FEEL BETTER IF THEY CAN.

I feel quite glad that my parents took an extremely anti-psychiatric line in my childhood when my behaviour was ridiculously bad... And also I found psychotherapy to be probably the worst possible thing, it served to amplify rather than address my issues!

 

[Mr. Tea]

(who hasn't an elderly relative to whom this hasn't happened?)

Me, for one. Bizarre as it may sound to you, not everyone in our society - pathalogically self-disavowedly psycho-kapitalistically racist as it is - is an absolute cunt.

That said, if I were living in Britain, and it were a psycho-socially civilized society, I would not hesitate to have the Vims of that world summarily 'sectioned' ...

Which raises the question: are you still a fascist if you've convinced yourself the people you wish to treat fascistically are themselves 'fascists'? Would you define 'irony' as "a bit like coppery or silvery, but harder and greyer"?

 

[Mr. Tea]

This was my actual reaction to mixed_biscuits, but I decided being self-deprecating would work better here.

Is there anything that scares the "normals" more than someone who isn't afraid to admit that they have been through hellish psychological problems? Nope. I'm used to it now. Usually if you throw them a bone (looks at HMTL) they go away and leave you alone.

Replace scares with bores and admit with bang on about at great length and you're pretty much there.

 

[nomadologist]

Replace scares with bores and admit with bang on about at great length and you're pretty much there.

I am honored to bore you, Mr. Tea.

Your tepid [and often mal-informed] views on just about everything are hardly enthralling, hon.

 

[nomadologist]

Replace scares with bores and admit with bang on about at great length and you're pretty much there.

When I read your posts, I see a huge black hole of aesthetic non-existence, as if you have no real interests or values. That typical 'centrist' who only believes that "the truth is in the middle" in the most rhetorically bankrupt fashion imaginable.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yup, that's right, you're the only one with views on anything.

 

[nomadologist]

I feel quite glad that my parents took an extremely anti-psychiatric line in my childhood when my behaviour was ridiculously bad... And also I found psychotherapy to be probably the worst possible thing, it served to amplify rather than address my issues!

Yeah, this happens. I call them "Park Avenue" shrinks. They spend so much time treating those who can best afford it but [often] need it least, that they become obvious racketeers. I can't say I blame them.

 

[nomadologist]

Yup, that's right, you're the only one with views on anything.

Yup, that's what I said, isn't it?