Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>
>
>
> reflection of Gates' goals and preoccupations, may not
> be psychopathological in the strictest sense but it is
> something other than healthy.
I think if we go back to the origins of this thread (or this stretch of it) in Ted's post & Ian's response, we have to use a definition of "unhealthy" which implies the subject to be unhappy. Are the activities of Buffet, Gates, other members of the core ruling class such as to suggest that they are unhappy? They (as a group) might make us unhappy -- but that's what capitalists are, as capitalists, supposed to do, is it not?
It may be comfortable to believe that the slaveowner is as unhappy as the slave, but I don't believe it. I think most arguments as to the mental "health" (or lack thereof) of ruling classes presupposes some platonic form of "happiness." Only the "virtuous" man/woman can be "truly" happy or healthy.
And as Miles argues: "What's the point of speculating about people's psychological health on the basis of mass media accounts of behavioral patterns?"
Carrol