The Doctor Who Hears Voices, once more, and humanity's eternal quest for perfection

I've wanted to write a review of Leo Regan's The Doctor Who Hears Voices at its IMDb-page ever since I'd seen the film and read the, at that time, only and rather negative - indeed society's prejudice against people who experience or have experienced extreme states of mind confirming - review of it at IMDb.

Eventually, last night I did write it, so, here it is.

It goes a little more into detail than my previous review here on my blog, which actually is more a short announcement than a review, while it, admittedly, still struggles very hard not to become too much of a reply to the mentioned, negative review alone.

Of course, in as far as I identify as one of the people shes_dead in line with society in general obviously holds rather strong prejudice against, I felt offended by his/her review. Why I decided it wouldn't be wise, to try and write a review of my own back in November last year, but wait until I'd hopefully cooled a bit down, managed to distance myself somewhat from the identification as the discriminated against, and the resulting anger. Well, I still didn't manage to be compassionate altogether - that discrimination usually isn't due to viciousness but to ignorance, a lack of ability to see beyond the end of one's nose, becomes evident alone from the fact, that shes_dead confuses Rufus May with a psychiatrist, while the film explicitly points out, that he is a psychologist, a fact, that hardly would have escaped the truly attentive, open-minded, and unprejudiced viewer - and still had to fight some feeling offended, and angry. Which sabotaged my quest to write the perfect review to a certain extent.

So, no, it certainly isn't the perfect review. But well, let the one who wrote the perfect review throw the first stone!

Spring Tide - new post

I've revived Spring Tide, which most of you certainly thought, I'd abandoned for good since I didn't post anything there for months. Well, I posted a piece yesterday.

Not sure, if I should say 'enjoy!' or 'beware!'...

Simple and clear cut

"Outsideren - looking at the mental health system from the inside" -Outsideren's motto

"As long as both sides deny to go beyond their own safe language, where which you believe in is well-established, alternatives won't come into being." -Outsideren about the ECT-debate (and about the psychiatry-debate in general)

"Risks are part of the territory; if you don't take chances nothing ever happens." -Loren Mosher

Put the two first quotes in connection with each other, and see Outsideren's flaw appear - simply and clear cut. The very same flaw, that characterizes the mental illness system, which Outsideren, in it's own words, looks at from the inside, i.e. from the point of it's own safe language, where which it believes in is well-established - by a system, that indeed has "the same kind of problems that its clients do" have, and whose actions manifest the very same safety behavior its clients, for safety reasons kept prisoners of their unconscious minds, are expected to manifest.

Achieving the freedom of thought and conscious language necessary to imagine alternatives from this prison of unconsciousness would presuppose Outsideren to take the risk of having a look at the mental health system from somewhere else than the inside of this prison.

Still not simple and clear cut enough? Then, compare Outsiderens above quoted motto to Madness Radio's intro: "...voices and visions from outside mental health...".

In my own words II

The discussion between Outsideren and me was, of course, not finished after I'd made the statement, I quoted here. Outsideren's following argument, in short, was, that it would need a simple and clear cut language, hitting a greatest possible common denominator, in order to get one's message through. And that this message would need to be simple and clear cut in itself in order to get through.

To me the term "message", used in this sense, is already problematic in itself. Can there be any other "message" in a text than that, which takes shape in the reader's thoughts while reading the text? Or: Can there be an overall message in a text, independent from the reader, at all?

To assume an overall, independent message to exist, implies an overall, independent mindset to exist. independent from individual diversities and personal development. A rather static, rigid, common denominator.

It is exactly this conception, I oppose. Writing, to me, is a process, a consciousness raising process. Just as reading is. While conscience never is a static, rigid, state of mind, but in itself a process, subject to constant change, a constant to and fro between death and renewed coming into existence.

The 40-year-old, white man's discourse, the greatest possible common denominator's discourse, is a static, rigid one. A discourse frozen in between death and coming into existence. Thus the process of becoming aware is frozen at the very same, unconscious point of stagnation. Moving only in circles, getting nowhere: "We'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment."- "Why would we need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment?" - "Because Søren jumped into the sea and died." - "Why did Søren jump into the sea and die?" - "Because we'd need easier and faster procedures to employ coerced treatment." - "Why would we need...?" and so on, and so on, eternally. While the answers to both questions lie far beyond of, what the greatest possible common denominator ever could explore. Laurence Simon has some more interesting observations on this kind of empty, and blocking any understanding, discourse on his radioblog here.

And, by the way, I think, I don't need to say more about what I think of the latest issue of Outsideren... The 40-year-old, white man won, once again. Here in the shape of a blazing speech of defence in favour of involuntary treatment, that in itself is a manifestation of the worse than murderous point of stagnation between death and possible life. While the individual, consciousness raising process, which not only characterizes writing and reading, but life as a whole, lost. Once again.

Did my message get through?...

In my own words

For almost a year by now, I've been writing articles for a Danish user's magazine, Outsideren. Virtually for each article, I've felt some obscure, though nevertheless strong, dislike watching my writing getting edited to an extent, that almost turned it into someone else's (the editor's) writing. Both in regard to style and content - which, in my opinion can't be separated from each other.

Yesterday, the editor asked me, which were most important to me, my message or my style. Today, he got the answer*:

God created man in His image. - Man created God in the image of "the 40-year-old, white male/man".

Is it my message, or my style, that is most important to me?

Which is "my syle"? My style is my words is my discourse is myself. If I have a message, that is mine, I only can communicate it in my own words. The message becomes another, if I make use of another person's words.

Example: Karin Garde** tries to break with psychiatry's (science's, society's) paradigm of "the 40-year-old, white male/man". Using the 40-year-old, white man's (psychiatry's, science's, society's) discourse (categorizations, diagnoses). Doomed to failure right from the start.

Now, the 40-year-old, white man doesn't only dominate psychiatry, science, politics, society. He also dominates journalism, the media. Of course. Women, humans are far from as liberated, come into their own, as most people think. Because it isn't about replacing "the 40-year-old, white man" with "the 35-year-old, black woman". Such a misconception turned for example Laing's efforts into their contrary.

If it isn't about replacing one stereotype with another, what then is it about? The answer lies in the question. It is about replacing stereotypes, images, with alive individuals.

For all my life, I've been trapped in, oppressed, discriminated and almost killed by "the 40-year-old, white man"-stereotype (family, school, university, politics, society, media...). I couldn't identify with any of the available, 40-year-old, white man stereotypes. Marian was trapped in them to the extent, that she didn't even have the chance to protest in a creative, constructive way, but had to resort to which society's representatives of the 40-year-old, white man term self-/destructive, psychotic behavior, but which in fact is nothing but a Marian'ic protest.

Three categories: Objectivity (scientific, political, journalistic... "But this is completely diabetic/democratic/editorial!" ???), poetic creativity ("But this is completely Orwellian!" Ah, now it starts to make sense...), psychotic destructivity ("But this is completely crazy/insane/schizophrenic!" Bingo, that goes home!)

I'm about to move further and further away from categories - toward "Marian". Can Outsideren hold the Marian'ic? Or: Can any mainstream media hold the individual? (This is not an attack against Outsideren in itself. It is an attack against the discourse, that dominates our age - which Outsideren happens to be a part of - in general.

For now, I need to get this at a distance. It is just too destructive. (Sorry! Not an attack against Outsideren in itself!) As said, I'll provide you with news from abroad. No problem. In regard to articles, I will help as much as I can. With the research.

I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
- Sinéad O'Connor
(Sad, that she eventually anyway became a victim of which she protested against... Good though, that it didn't happen earlier!)


*This is a slightly shortened version of it.

**Karin Garde is a Danish psychiatrist who has written a book on how to break with psychiatry's norm for normality, which is based on "the 40-year-old, white male/man" - by adding a female version of this norm.
___________________

Arrogant? Self-centred? Crazy? Yah, in the eyes of the 40-year-old, white man any attempt to create oneself in one's own image certainly is...

I want to add, that which made the reason for me feeling an obscure, though strong, dislike, become clear to me was that I recently read a text written by Karen Henninger on categorization, stereotypes and discrimination, that led my thoughts back to when I studied, among others, Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva etc. (Karen Henninger's text is not freely available on the net).