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Hi Tina, 

I don't know about poetry education in the UK, though
probably someone on this list does!

> I think the danger is in the notion that there is a
> search for something
> real at the end of it - some pot of gold at the end
> of the rainbow.  If a
> scientist believes that they are tentatively
> exploring the world and seeking
> to re-arrange understandings of that world then this
> can only be positive...

I'm not sure what you mean by this 'the notion that
there is a search for something real at the end of
it'. It's certainly true that, given the funding of
science research, etc, that there is a 'pot of gold'
thinking that often drives research or decides which
research will be conducted. But, on the other hand, I
would feel that understandings of the world are real,
that for instance, our sense of the solar system via
Galileo or Ptolemy is real and that it was probably
driven by a sense of exploration, not without risks,
but that it wouldn't likely have occurred if they had
merely effected to find evidence for what was already
thought or if it had to result in a pot of gold or
some benefit to oneself. I'm not sure what you're
saying in part because science does result in various
truths, like water being H2O, and I'm not sure how
that is connected to arrogance? I mean, certainly
scientists can be arrogant, like anyone, and arrogance
often attaches to one's work, but perhaps I'm not
following you here. I was thinking of eyesight, for
instance, how the perception of reality, of what
constitutes the real, would be most different in
someone whose vision fluxes in and out of focus, how
sometimes the room would appear full of edges and
other times, soft floating shapes and colors, and how
this would translate into one's sense. I was thinking
of this because I've always had 20/20  and it occurred
to me that, while I was glad for it, in some cases, as
when it enabled me to spot a bighorn sheep and her two
kids headbutting in the shadows of a hill a mile away,
that it was also a limitation, that it created perhaps
a sense of reality as real, of the world as full of an
unvarying clarity, edges independent of my feelings or
times of day, of reality as a hard and definable edge
that I could only close my eyes to rest from. And how
this translates into 'sense' in the sense of thinking
and also memory, for instance. Now that I'm older and
need reading glasses, I sometimes take them off not in
order not to see but to see differently, and, without
that experience of needing glasses, I might always
have thought of the world as definite.

> I have some related experiences from my family and
> my husband's family.
> More extreme in the case of my in-laws where fear of
> 'what people will
> think' or 'what the doctor's will do' was/still is
> quite rampant.  I don't
> consider the basis of the fear to be illogical
> though.  Turning control of
> your body over to others should not be something
> that is done lightly or
> without some caution/fear.  I think it is perfectly
> reasonable to assume
> that others do not necessarily know what is best in
> a given situation.

Yes, I think so too, that 'turning control of your
body over to others' is not to be done lightly. It
should be  viewed with caution/fear and it is
reasonable to assume that others do not necessarily
know what is best in a given situation.  I don't know,
I wasn't recommending  turning control of my body over
to others when I mentioned that therapy can have
benefits. I was thinking just of talking to someone,
more of the situation of walking into someone's
office, being able to leave, find another therapist,
etc, and having a great many choices (for instance,
here to go to a psychiatrist is usually, implicitly, a
choice for medication) and that this would have been
much more help to my brother, for instance, though it
would have meant doing it much sooner. One of the
troubles with his crisis was that it had reached the
point where it was turning over, in part anyway,
control of his body. But the other issue, and this
ties in with secrecy, and I'm sorry to hear about your
husband's uncle and the role secrecy seems to have
played in his death, is that control is always being
exerted. One exerts control over oneself, and then
often the family members etc are exerting control,
trying to proceed on what's best in a given situation,
and I think I've said enough about the situation in my
family to give some idea of how there were all these
other drives, conscious or not. Secrecy is convenient,
it allows the person who's suffering a way to hide the
shame of his or her suffering, and it allows those who
know to have a sort of free hand to do and proceed on
what they think best and often do the very things that
are reinflictions, and sometimes, just an external
view, that cares but isn't involved, can help.

>This is a wonderful story.  
>Connections
>like the one you describe are very rare.  And as you
say, the many >and
>various ways of dismissing someone whilst appearing
to care are >many 
>and
>often subtle.  A lot to think about...

Well, yes, such connections where it's possible to be
in another's madness and clearly love them are very
rare. In part I'd guess because we all think each
other mad when we get down to it and are quite adept
at summing up how others are from a sort of external
commentator view. I was thinking about this too and
realized that I could have taken the drops from some
meadow flowers extract as a sort of long distance
variant of the edible flower from the tree, that same
sort of gesture, and that I probably did take it in
that way, except for the language in which it was
framed, so who knows, and I guess I should say that
that is the implied context of everything I've said
here, just unknowing, not some definite argument.

Best,

Rebecca

-- Tina Bass <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello again.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 9:21 PM
> Subject: Re: Feminism: a psychology aside
> 
> 
> > Tina,
> >
> > Thanks for your post,
> > > Not just psychology either.  The western
> 'approach'
> > > to education seems to be
> > > about teaching others to label/group/classify in
> the
> > > textbook fashion.  Any
> > > leaps of imagination are curbed (until at least
> PhD
> > > level and sometimes even
> > > then) by asking for reference points 'where is
> your
> > > evidence?'  - and so the
> > > system supports and reinforces itself.
> > >
> >
> > I agree with this in many respects, but, on the
> other
> > hand, I've always liked science because in actual
> > practice it depends upon making endless precise
> > observations and distinctions. There is a way in
> which
> > in public education and perhaps in popular
> thinking
> > that science is connected with categorizing and
> > labelling, which is definitely an aspect of it,
> and
> > perhaps the emphasis is skewed that way in public
> > education. But that's probably no more than the
> way in
> > which poetry is taught in many classrooms, for
> > instance the ubiqutuous presence of Shel
> Silverstein
> > in elementary schools.
> 
> I'm not even sure that poetry is taught or
> introduced at all at elementary
> level in Britain.  This may not be a bad thing I
> suppose.  I will soon find
> out as I have two four-year olds due to start formal
> schooling in September.
> 
> >And in the practice of science,
> > it seems to me that the emphasis upon evidence is
> > precisely so that the eye of the scientist is
> forever
> > drawn back to the facts and made to question
> whatever
> > assumption or hypothesis or overarching theory
> with
> > which she began.
> 
> I think the danger is in the notion that there is a
> search for something
> real at the end of it - some pot of gold at the end
> of the rainbow.  If a
> scientist believes that they are tentatively
> exploring the world and seeking
> to re-arrange understandings of that world then this
> can only be positive...
> 
> 
> >In those few scientists that I know
> > well, it seems to me that this capacity for making
> > intellectual distinctions which always lead to
> more
> > distinctions is combined with a kind of freeing of
> the
> > creative imagination.
> 
> 
> ..  however, I have a mixed experience of scientists
> and some do (the
> majority?) proceed with the assumption that they are
> seeking some absolute
> unshakeable truth/facts that are universal.  That
> arrogance is a problem I
> think.
> 
> > Well, I found myself thinking afterwards that I
> hoped
> > I hadn't seemed 'anti-' therapy from the accounts
> of
> > the failed treatments of my brother and my uncle.
> > Since I do feel it can make a great difference, as
> it
> > has with my children and myself, individually and
> also
> > in our relationships with ourselves and others. I
> grew
> > up in a house where what I can only call a fear of
> > being labelled crazy, a fear of seeking help, a
> fear
> > of psychiatrists was instilled.
> 
> 
> I have some related experiences from my family and
> my husband's family.
> More extreme in the case of my in-laws where fear of
> 'what people will
> think' or 'what the doctor's will do' was/still is
> quite rampant.  I don't
> consider the basis of the fear to be illogical
> though.  Turning control of
> your body over to others should not be something
> that is done lightly or
> without some caution/fear.  I think it is perfectly
> reasonable to assume
> that others do not necessarily know what is best in
> a given situation.
> 
> 
> 
> > Basically the dynamic
> > was that all sorts of injuries would occur,
> control
> > and manipulation, in which one would try and
> maintain
> > a sort of calm or quietly taking it, and then at a
> > point, after several months usually get upset,
> showing
> > some of the emotional consequences or responses
> that
> > had been buried,  at which point all of the
> attention
> > would be rivetted on the 'problem' of that person
> who
> > would be subjected to what was something like a
> > psychological assault of what was wrong with her
> or
> > him, the result of which was usually the person
> would
> > go from being upset to blowing up, which was taken
> as
> > evidence of the problem he or she had in the first
> > place. There was always a point at which the
> ultimate
> > threat was 'you're crazy and you need a shrink" or
> 'to
> > be committed.' This technique originated with my
> > father, for my mother was the first 'nutcase' and
> then
> > it went sort of down the line of the kids. So,
> really,
> > when my brother had a crisis, this was the view he
> had
> > of any help, which meant he postponed getting any
> help
> > or talking to anyone, and furthermore, he was
> mostly
> > looking for help from my family, these people who
> > still had the same views, for whom a dominating
> > concern was that no one should know (including me
> > until three days before his death because I would
> have
> > made 'trouble') and that help was a last,
> shameful,
> > resort, and who were so in denial that the
> slightest
> > improvement from the medication was taken as his
> being
> > 'fine' enough to be left alone and with his guns.
> It's
> > very complicated, of course, as all such things
> are,
> > but the treatment he received was probably the
> least
> > of these failures of care.
> 
> 
> One of my husband's uncles was being treated for
> auditory and visual
> hallucinations and no-one but his partner knew. 
> When he hung himself
> (following an improvement in his condition) it was a
> huge shock for his
> relatives and the questions were asked 'why didn't
> we know?' 'why weren't we
> told?' etc. etc.  I'm sure it was shame of being
> seen as 'mad' or weak in
> some way that led to the secrecy - and the hope that
> at some point it was
> going to all go away.
> 
> 
> 
> > or so later when some friends came to visit, Wayne
> was
> > so freaked by the appearance of other people he
> went
> 
=== message truncated ===



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