Anti-Depressants

Rob Schaap rws at comedu.canberra.edu.au
Tue Aug 29 17:01:28 PDT 2000


G'day Ted,


>No, he doesn't. That comment of Reese's was obnoxious, and if Carrol hadn't
>said something, then I or somebody else would have.

Fair enough. Someone says something that hurts, so tell 'em it hurts and why it hurts.


>Reese was simply repeating the classic ignorant insult that people who
>think >they're depressed need to get more active and stop whining. He's
>an asshole.

No, that's what you're now being. It doesn't follow that Reese is an arsehole, a malignant idiot or an ignorant shit. Reese was right about some people, and wrong about others. This he needed to be told. So he was, in part ignorant, and as a consequence of that ignorance he was being insensitive. Doth not an arsehole make.


>When you say things like that, you get called an asshole because you're
>causing
>people pain for no good reason. It's not as if we're learning anything from
>what the asshole emits.

Well, as Kelley pointed out, she didn't know about the role of physical activity. And she wiouldn't have learned but for Reese's partially correct observation. And she could have learned it without the kind of shit Carrol was laying on Reese. There's manic depression, and there's narcissistic one-upmanship. Carrol was displaying the latter.


>He's not saying it for edification (though he might
>believe this himself). He's saying it to have an effect on our affect, to
>reach into our minds and give it a nasty pinch. Presumably he does this
>because he's not paying attention. He knows not of what he tweaks. Perhaps
>it's not characteristic of Reese to engage in this kind of activity. On the
>other hand, why doesn't he apologize?

Apologiosing to people who call you ghastly names, and assume themselves to be the knowers of all things and the only sufferer beneath an all-too-common tyrant, does not come easy.


>Oh, the poor victim. Amazing, isn't it, how the vicitimizer points at the
>victim and makes out like *this terrible person is hurting me*.

Two different acts were perpetuated. Any desire I'd have had to apologise would have been squashed by Carrol's disgusting rejoinder.


>> it's how groups maintain their coherence and sense of common identity,
>even
>> when they are rather diverse internally. it's an unavoidable process and
>> all newbies have to go through the portal and learn how to do so.
>
>Good point. But again out of context. Carroll's response to Reese was
>specific to the incident at hand.

Had that response come from someone else, that'd be a more telling point, Ted.


>Of course not. You're a narcissist.

A big call on too little evidence.


>So do I. (Just look at my socialism, with "state" in place of "drugs").
>Yet there are many more with this attitude who aren't themselves mentally
>ill but who nonetheless apprehend perfectly clearly that mental illness is
>not just a function of the imagination (mind as content rather than reality)
>but is somehow mentally real.

Physically, autonomously, and all-consumingly real at times.


>He's saying that those of us who get "clinically" depressed are simply too
>lazy to overcome it. The implication is that he doesn't see the profound
>difference between his mind and the chronically or episodically depressed
>mind. It makes you wish he could feel what it's actually like so if he has
>anything more to say on this matter, it will be an apology.

So help him out, Ted! You've helped him out a lot here. But you started it all by calling him an arsehole. Kinda lessens the effect, I reckon.

Cheers, Rob.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list