Month: February 2013

Joy this side of pain is fragile; joy that side of pain is priceless.

Adapted from a quote from Oliver Wendall Holmes on a different topic.

 I have not posted on there in a while, but I feel I had a comment or two not make it through a while back, so I’m cross posting here.  Here is the original link: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/chris-kyle-navy-seal-murdered-some-thoughts.htm

Overall, this is a thoughtful piece.  You are trying to walk the line between those who want to blame PTSD for everything, and those who want to pretend it is just a species of moral weakness.

As I think most reflective people will realize, all of us are some combination of our heritage, our history–genetic and sociopsychological–and our individual wills.  I think all of us are born with predispositions, which are further shaped by our decisions, which I tend to term “non-statistical coherence”.  By that, I mean that individual agency can disrupt otherwise dominant patterns in ways which are greatly muted in lower animals like dogs, and absent entirely in animals like insects.

In this particular case, we need to understand that PTSD is not a single, unitary disorder, but a complex of tendencies created in a normally much more pronounced way in vulnerable individuals via combat than many other sources.  Being the son of an abusive alcoholic is not fundamentally different than going through tough combat situations, but if you combine the two, the net effect will no doubt be larger.

In my considered view, we need to increase the mental health of our nation across the board.  This would include work–such as the meditation exercises the Marines have been experimenting with–that works to inoculate against the accumulation of stress.  As a nation, we need to learn how to relax deeply.  Virtually our entire culture works against this currently.

Finally–and yes I grant this is a bit meandering since I am thinking out loud–I would submit that the shooter, who according to reports I read was a Marine, did also at one point in his life sign a contract to protect and defend the Constitution, with the understanding that it might cost his life.

We don’t know who he is, or what makes him tick, but we DO know that a common outcome of prolonged combat is increased issues with anger.  Yes, they may be increased relative to preexisting issues with anger–combat seems to find character flaws and amplify them–but this shooting would likely not have happened had this man never signed that contract.  That is speculation, but likely in my view accurate speculation.

His life is over too.  If he goes the Timothy McVeigh route, he will be executed in relatively short order.  Certainly, he will be behind bars the rest of his life.  I do not think it is pushing my logic too far to call him a combat casualty too, although of course I am open to further information.

Actually, one more note: if you have not read it, I suggest you read Judith Herman’s “Trauma and Recovery”.  It was very eye-opening to me.  A case can be made that exposure to combat is not all that different than exposure to rape.  It is a trauma; some people deal with it without issue, but others don’t.  A variety of factors affect what that outcome is, and some of them can be named and measured.

There are several excerpts from books I have been meaning to transcribe for some time.  Here is one, from Judith Hermann’s excellent “Trauma and Recovery”


Pages 11-14.  There is much to ponder here, and many insights to win.

The ambition of Charcot’s followers was to surpass his work by demonstrating the causes of hysteria.  Each wanted to be the first to make the great discovery.  In pursuit of their goal, these investigators found that it was not sufficient to observe and classify hysterics.  It was necessary to talk with them.  For a brief decade men of science listened to women with a devotion and a respect unparalleled before or since.

These investigations bore fruit.  By the mid 1890’s both Janet in France and Freud in Vienna had arrived independently at strikingly similar formulations: hysteria was a condition caused by psychological trauma.  Unbearable emotional reactions to traumatic events produced an altered state of consciousness, which in turn induced the hysterical symptoms.  Janet called this alteration in consciousness “dissociation” and Freud and Breuer “double consciousness.”

Both Janet and Freud recognized the essential similarity of altered states of consciousness induced by psychological trauma and those induced by hypnosis. Janet believed that the capacity for dissociation or hypnotic trance was a sign of psychological weakness and suggestibility.  Breuer and Freud argued, on the contary, that hysteria, with its associated alterations of consciousness, could be found among “people of the clearest intellect, strongest will, greatest character, and highest critical power”.

Both Freud and Janet recognized that the somatic symptoms of hysteria represented disguised representations of intensely distressing events which had been banished from memory. Janet described his hysterical patients as governed by “subconscious fixed ideas”, the memories of traumatic events.  Breuer and Freud, in an immortal summation, wrote that “hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences.”

By the mid 1890’s these investigators had also discovered that hysterical symptoms could be alleviated when traumatic memories, as well as the intense feelings that accompanied them, were recovered and put into words.  This method of treatment became the basis of modern psychotherapy.. .

In spite of an ancient clinical tradition that recognized the association of hysterical symptoms with female sexuality, Freud’s mentors, Charcot and Breuer, had been highly skeptical about the role of sexuality in the origins of hysteria.  Freud himself was initially resistant to the idea: “When I began to analyze the second patient . . .the expectation of a sexual neurosis being the basis of hysteria was fairly remote from my mind.  I had come fresh from the school of Charcot, and I regarded the linking of hysteria with the topic of sexuality as a sort of insult–just as the women patients themselves do.

This empathic identification with his patients reactions is characteristic of Freud’s early writings on hysteria.  His case studies reveal a man possessed of such passionate curiosity that he was willing to overcome his own defensiveness, and willing to listen.  What he heard was appalling. Repeatedly his patients told him of sexual assault, abuse, and incest.  Following back the thread of memory, Freud and his patients uncovered major traumatic events of childhood concealed beneath the more recent, often relatively trivial experiences that had triggered the onset of hysterical symptoms.  By 1896 Freud believed he had found the source.  In a report on on 18 case studies, entitled “The Aetiology of Hysteria”, he made a dramatic claim: “I therefore put forward the thesis that at the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experience, occurences which belong to the earliest years of childhood, but which can be reproduced through the work of psycho-analysis in spite of the intervening decades.  I believe that this is an important finding, the discoverty of a caput Nili in neuropathology.”

A century later, this paper still rivals contemporary clinical descriptions of the effects of childhood sexual abuse.  It is brilliant, compassionate, eloquently argued, closely reasoned document.  Its triumphant title and exultant tone suggest Freud viewed his contribution as the crowning achievement in the field.

Instead, the publication of “The Aetiology of hysteria” marked the end of this line of inquiry.  Within a year, Freud had privately repudiated the traumatic theory of the origins of hysteria.  His correspondance makes clear that he was increasingly troubled by the radical social implications of his hypothesis.  Hysteria was so common among women that if his patients stories were true, and if his theory were correct, he would be forced to conclude that what he called “perverted acts against children” were endemic, not only among the proletariat of Paris, where he had studied hysteria, but also among the respectable bourgeois families of Vienna, where he had established his practice.  This idea was simply unacceptable.  It was beyond credulity.

Faced with this dilemna, Freud stopped listening to his female patients.  The turning point is documented in the famous case of Dora. This, the last of Freud’s case studies on hysteria, reads more like a battle of wits than a cooperative venture.  The interaction between Freud and Dora has been described as “emotional combat”.  In this case, Freud still acknowledged the reality of his patient’s experience: the adolescent Dora was being used as a pawn in her father’s elaborate sexual intrigues.  Her father had essentially offered her to his friends as a sexual toy.  Freud refused, however, to validate Dora’s feelings of outrage and humilitation.  Instead he insisted on exploring her feelings of erotic excitement, as if the exploitative situation were a fulfillment of her desire.  In an act that Freud viewed as revenge, Dora broke off treatment.

The breach of their alliance marked the bitter end of an era of collaboration between ambitious investigators and hysterical patients. For close to a century these patients would again be scorned and silenced.  Freud’s followers held a particular grudge against the rebellious Dora, who was later described by a disciple as “one of the most repulsive hysterics he had ever met”.

Out of the ruins of the traumatic theory of hysteria, Freud created psychoanalysis.  The dominant theory of the next century was founded in the denial of women’s reality. [emphasis mine]

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

John Lott, 1998 interview.  Two excepts:

The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places
where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating
situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad
ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United
States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or
more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to
focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the
byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect
of “shall-issue” laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states
passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by
84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90
percent, and injuries by 82 percent. 

and

The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and
each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age
and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be
put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite
over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the
children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle
accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to
die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns. 

 From here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/what-is-skepticism-anyway_b_2581917.html


I will add that Shermer apparently had the hots for some hippy chick back in the day.  She dumped him, and he has acted like somebody crapped in his corn flakes ever since.  NONE of these people are scientifically credible. They simply ignore what they don’t like.  You want a dragon in a garage?  Then come look in the fucking garage, instead of running away at top speed.

True science–not what you practice–is value free.  The word “extraordinary” connotes value, which means that it HAS NO PLACE in scientific discussion.  There are two possible conditions: observable, and not observable.  If it is observable, it belongs in science.  If it is not observable, it is either irrelevant or wrong.

Culturally, what is wrong with you people–and there is clearly a cultish group calling themselves “skeptics” to which one might properly refer in this sense–is that you only apply “reason and empiricism” to claims you already support.  What does not support your claims–most notably that materialism is even REMOTELY a consistent position with respect to the best data we have as to how the universe works–you ignore.

True, scientific skepticism is equidistance from both belief and disbelief.  True skeptics do not ask “is this claim extraordinary?”, but simply “what is the data?”

To take one obvious example, the work of Cleve Backster is CLEARLY not explainable within a materialistic, mainstream paradigm.  Yet he has been ignored for 40 or so years, despite replicating his own work MANY times, and having written a book on it, published some 9 years ago.  I researched this the other day and was only able to find ONE effort at replicating his work, and at that by a self acknowledged skeptic.  All has to know about skeptical self reporting is that James Randi is the final judge as to whether or not he will give HIS money to someone he hates.

Like all his ilk, Shermer is an angry man dedicated to ideas which are both pernicious and wrong.  For actual skeptics, I will suggest watching this video: https://moderatesunitedblog.com//2013/01/cleve-backster.html

Then this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fStmk7e9lJo

That is DATA. 

You can have a name without an experience, and an experience without a name.  One obvious example: you can know what saffron IS without knowing what it TASTES like.  Conversely, you can sense a familiar taste in your food, but be utterly unable to name it.

I have a note to discuss the Ethiopian famine.  The short version–which by the way I have verified in personal conversation with people from Ethiopia–is that Communists took over and tried to collectivize farming.  This meant highly stupid policies in which people were moved at the point of guns from farms which were working and feeding people to places chosen nearly at random by people who did not understand farming, but who wanted it all to happen in one place and in a certain way.  This is what provoked the need for Bob Geldof to create an international aid blitz.  Many, many people died quite simply as a result of the accession to power of people who were arrogant, ignorant, and indifferent to human suffering.

I will note that virtually no one realized–at the time, or now–that this famine was artificial and brought about by policies that in general are supported by New York and California elites and their ilk.

Persevere in what you want to define you.

Attention is a scarce resource with alternative uses (borrowing from Sowell’s definition of economics).  Wealth is meaning and engagement.  A meaning system allocates attention.  So does a truth system.  A meaning system is true if it works.

Ref: previous quote: all life is economics.

Economic growth is mixing chemicals together that take time to react.

Think of profit as a tip for service.

There will be more tomorrow. I  am organizing and want to get rid of this pile.

I sometimes keep the pages on my planner that have quotes I like on them.  I’m going to record some here without comment:

Where is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.  John Milton

Discovery consists in seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.  Albert Szent-Gyurgyi

Conspiracy is paradigmatic thinking.  Me.  That should be a note, but I have a pile to get through.

Costs are foregone opportunities.  Me again, on the costs of taxes and meeting regulation.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.  Thomas Jefferson.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that, while all politicians lie, Republicans have an alternative.  Me.

It seems to me we lack identities until we choose them, as what we are willing to limit our freedom of movement for.  Given this, the development of psychological health is a function of consciously choosing one thing and not another, and not regretting the choice.  Me.

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.  Thomas Paine.

Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world.  Thomas Moore.

For man’s greatest actions are performed in minor struggles.  Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes–obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes.  Victor Hugo

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.  Goethe.

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.  Whitehead.

90% of all those who fail are not actually defeated.  They simply quit.  Paul Meyer.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.  Disraeli.

Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.  Jane Addams.

[note to self: can Arabic distinguish linguistically between law and principle?]

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.  My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.  Helen Keller.

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.  Jacob Bronowski.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.  G.K. Chesterton.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.  Henry Brooke Adams

Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused.  Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models.  Daniel Boorstin.

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.  John Dalberg.

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.  Amos Bronson Alcott

To live life well is to express is poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.  Gaston Bachelard. (I cannot resist speculating that he was a bit rotund)

The inevitability of gradualness cannot fail to be appreciated.  Sidney Webb (founding member of the Fabian Society).

Poorly done is still better than well said.