Carrol makes some good points about depression (aka melancholia from Judith Butler's point of view).
Carrol replies to this statement from Rayrena:
Rayrena:
> -even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard
> reaction that 'depression' evokes, something akin to 'So what?' or 'You'll pull
> out of it' or 'We all have bad days.' The phrase 'nervous breakdown' seems to
> be on its way out, certainly deservedly so, owing to its insinuation of a vague
> spinelessness, but we still seem destined to be saddled with 'depression' until
> a better, sturdier name is created."
Carrol: The person who suffers from depression cannot "understand" it in the sense of "imaginatively grasp" it after a remission of two or three weeks -- so it is somewhat unreal to expect those who have never experienced it to "understand" it -- but information about it is in fact so plentiful that those who have not experienced it no longer have any excuse in not abstractly believing what they are told about it.
Doyle This brings up contemporary efforts to understand moods. For instance as Carrol writes above we experience emotions as outside consciousness. In other words the part of the mind which thinks in words can't directly control emotions. Otherwise we would consciously say to ourselves 'go away' depression. This is usually thought of with regard to feelings as the modular nature of emotions. Or that feelings are encapsulated from the rest of the mind. This is probably an evolutionary feature of feelings. In other words consciousness evolved separately from feelings.
Carrol Doyle, incidentally, is probably not quite correct in comparing "situational" with clinical depression. A psychiatrist told me of a patient, a woman in her forties, who in one week suffered the following disasters: her husband was killed and her son crippled in an accident and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. When asked how she was feeling, she said, "terrible--but pretty good." Her clinical depression was in remission.
Doyle I think there is a significant problem with relying too much on books and theory to understand depression on my part. Where possible I try to talk to people who have had different levels of depression, but fundamentally like all disabilities, going to experts to understand things can cloud the issues with a lot of theory/ideology baggage. As Carrol makes the point above we ought to go directly to people who have the life experience and learn. In that way I feel like Carrol that the use of the term melancholia seems so stilted and remote from everyday experience. A part of that is like Marta writes
Marta Russel on incivility: People used to think that disability was caused by Satan, either as possession or punishment for evil doings. Some New Age folks still believe this though they call it being controlled by "negative energy" instead.
Doyle There are some ideas in academic and expert circles about the mind such as that the mind is modular, that those parts of the mind, emotions, and consciousness are separate modules, that academically seem fruitful to me. But they need to be grounded in real peoples lives. That is why I think Doug Henwoods comment in his remarks on Judith Butler's intro is very telling. Butler does not get outside into the world to look at the class system. So her work lacks a down to earth quality. I mean when one talks about depression why not just use common ordinary speech of the times.
Doug Mentioning institutions of state and capital point to a lack in all of Butler's writing - an almost complete silence on issues of money and property (both of which grant privileged access to state power). Her approaches to real-world, big-picture politics come down to only a few specific instances - hate speech, gays in the military, the foreclosed mourning of those who die from AIDS - none of which are unimporant, but which constitute only one portion of social life. I think there's a way in which her analysis could be applied to, say, capital, which must continuously express itself in money and expand itself in contact with labor; at every stage, there's an act of submission that can potentially be refused - product boycotts, debt boycotts, strikes, sabotage. But the rarity of these ruptures suggests that there's a lot of inertia in the system. I think it's important to try to understand why.
Doyle Doug also mentions in his remarks some points about how subjugation reflects mutual relationships between oppressor and oppressed. I will bring up some points about feelings that reflect upon that issue in a subsequent posting. regards, Doyle Saylor