The NET Interview Cycle Helpline

[Griffin NoName]

If you have any concerns relating to the Never Ending Toadfish Interview Cycle, or simply want to continue a particular theme, just ring this helpline. Someone will be here to talk to you. Don't suffer alone.

For example, worried that Joe Bloggs is off his head. Tell us and we can re-assure you.

To kick things off we'll start with a couple of easy ones.

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2. Was R.D.Laing a good thing?

My ability to comment intelligently on this issue is best demonstrated by the fact I thought R.D.Laing was an American singer. What's the correct answer?

This guy had a radically different approach to psychiatry than his peers. Many people consider him brilliant but others sneer. Usual divisive stuff in any profession. However, the BBC appear to be trying to hang the whole post-war decay of society on him (and John Nash) in their program The Trap – What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom? - see "radical psychiatrists" - linked with the apparently shocking effects of Game Theory on our mindset.


3. What do you consider your greatest contribution to humanity?

A C++ memory manager written about 1995. Its day will come.

I believe several of our oldies could do with this. Could you liaise with a neurosurgeon?

[beagle]

I thought we'd established post war decay is entirely due to unmarried mothers (Tories), Hedge Funds (Labour), or lack of proportional representation and free pot (Lib Dems).
I'd be impressed if I thought John Prescott was keeping us in our place by means of Game Theory.

[Sibling Chatty]

I have always liked Laing's approach.

Especially when my college psychology course was taught by a Skinnerian.

Think about it. The Skinner Box. He even tried to raise his children in one! I would MUCH rather have to live in a Laing Box!

Then again, my concept of pretty good psychology that of Fritz Perls's student, Barry Stevens.

[Griffin NoName]

The Skinner Box. He even tried to raise his children in one! I would MUCH rather have to live in a Laing Box!

That touches on precisely why I value Laing. He is inclusive. No boxes. All mental health (including what others call mental ill health) is merely a point on a continuum. When I first read Laing, many years ago, it was the first time I saw that which others call madness as entirely normal. For all that society tries to control, an approach that has the property of removing the fear of mental states has the promise of being beneficial. 

[Sibling Chatty]

200 years ago, if you believed that long metal tubes could move people from one side of the ocean to the other, you were obviously mentally ill.

Now, if you do NOT believe that air travel is available, and desirable, you're mentally ill.

The continuum is not only there, but flexible, and changeable. And the fact that at any point, one may be considered 'sane' if he behaves according to generally expected standards SHOULD be a problem. (To wit: Bush, Cheney.)

I'd like to see mental health care work more on functionality and ability to not cause harm than some arbitrarily set standards that supposedly equal 'mentally healthy'.

I'm functional, and I am not harmful. I am not presumptuous enough to think that I'm a paragon of mental health.

Too many people don't have the needed resources to burn playing "relive all your hurts and discouragements" and I am not sure that THAT approach is really beneficial anyway. There are those that cherish those hurts and slights, and actually revel in dragging them up again and again, picking off the scabs and relishing the same hurt all over again. They are the Martyrs. (See also: Kellie, My Mother.)

Of all the crazy people that make me crazy, it's The Martyrs. (GWB's a Martyr. He wasn't good enough. Wasn't smart enough, wasn't going to amount to anything because he wasn't able to control his 'demons'--drink, drugs, etc. Jeb was the fair-haired son. Look at what it's cost this entire planet to pretend that he's on the functional end of the spectrum.)

[Griffin NoName]

3   Why does Tony Blair let bad things happen?

Because when he wrote to Isiah Berlin, Berlin was on his death bed and never replied?

Having implicated Nash and R.D.Laing as the cause of all modern world woes in his BBC2 programme The Trap, this week Adam Curtis decided it was Isiah Berlin's turn.

Having made out what seemed a confused and unconvincing case for Isiah Berlin's theories having caused all the mayhem since the 50's, he then ended by saying Isiah Berlin was wrong, not all attempts to free the world end in tyranny. No idea where that gem sprang from. All there was to back it up was a women jogging under a blue sky.

Poor misguided TBliar came lately to the table, persuading the Americans to do all sorts of odd things. Er? Pardon? What?

This series of three programmes was most peculiar.

Anyone else see it?

[beagle]

No, I wimped out having read the Torygraph preview. Rather than blaming Isaiah Berlin that implied the programme was going to pin the blame on Sartre, in that he encouraged Pol Pot to wipe out the entire Cambodian middle class in an attempt to free society from the bourgeoisie (thus leaving more black coffee, rain coats and Gauloises for everyone else).

I refuse to believe Berlin was one of the bad guys. Apart from his work there's that wonderful Churchill anecdote. Churchill thought he was having lunch with Isaiah Berlin (whom he hadn't met) but in fact it was Irving Berlin. Churchill was surprised when the answer to "what do you consider to be your most important work" was "White Christmas".

[Griffin NoName]

Yeh and Irving Berlin had a much better voice too 

It did blame Sartre for Pol Pot, but that was a mere three minutes worth of blame. It also blamed a few others for a few others (all monsters of history seem to have been very highly educated..... and unable to act alone without a major work under their beds). But they were all in cahoots with Berlin anyway. So they said.

There's already a wiki on The Trap. What it fails to show is the number of times Nash and Berlin were flashed on the screen and linked with each part of the "storyline".

[beagle]

I was getting cynical about any program offering a "radical new view" or "exciting new disclosals" anyway, but after "The History Boys" my immediate reaction now is to wonder what's on the other channel.
As with a lot of modern art the word "controversial" has become synonymous in my mind with the phrase "crass marketing attempt".

Mind you even that play is a little disingenuous, in my opinion, putting the blame for this technique and marketing spin on the Thatcher years whereas I'd give Blair/Campbell the credit for that one. I remember the 80s as a time of blunt politicians and public life (stand up Mrs T and Norman), not spin. Maybe it was already there in the History departments, just waiting to unleash itself on the world at large.

[Griffin NoName]

Mind you even that play is a little disingenuous, in my opinion, putting the blame for this technique and marketing spin on the Thatcher years whereas I'd give Blair/Campbell the credit for that one. I remember the 80s as a time of blunt politicians and public life (stand up Mrs T and Norman), not spin. Maybe it was already there in the History departments, just waiting to unleash itself on the world at large.

I agree with you there. Thatcher just told big whoppers without spinning them. The voice work ensured it all sounded over-ernest but everyone knew it was just voice work. Presumably TBliar learnt from this that spin was required.

(The Trap mererly blamed Thatcher for three minutes. TBlair got the full works.)

[beagle]

Had a brief look at the web site. At least it had a soundtrack from "New Order" (not unlike Wayne's World 2).

[Griffin NoName]

Was wondering which website you looked at and stumbled on:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10542&sid=aa455bc11450b535961964bec9b2dd2f

Martha sounds familiar.  (Bluenose - Marginal Mutterings)

[beagle]

You'll be in trouble, invoking the spirit of R.D. in these hallowed cloisters.
It was the Wikipedia site I looked at.

I'm still on the side (unsurprisingly) of the negative libertarians, for two reasons. First, because when the state imposes it's will "in a good cause" it has far more capability of doing great harm, and secondly because I have more faith than the producer seems to have that individuals will use their negative liberty in an altruistic way in the right circumstances; i.e. when they are convinced. If you're trying to convince people of something that is fundamentally opposed to human nature to prop up your government or good ideals then you're doomed anyway.

Also (after Berlin) I'm inclined to think that if you have to force people to act in a certain way then you are both building up dangerous societal pressures, and are more likely to slip into the "end justifying the means" mindset.

Why did they have TB down as a negative Libertarian? His proposed policy on detention without trial was enough to scare any one with a suntan and a rucksack; he doesn't strike me as a natural heir to Isaiah Berlin. Much more along the lines of "we are the good guys making everything better, and everything possible, so anything we do is justified".

[Griffin NoName]

I didn't think they did. I merely watched the programme (hadn't read the wiki) and I could swear they had TB down as a positive Libertarian

When will they make a program about neutral libertarianism, infinite libertarianism, etc?

[Bluenose]

Was wondering which website you looked at and stumbled on:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10542&sid=aa455bc11450b535961964bec9b2dd2f

Martha sounds familiar.  (Bluenose - Marginal Mutterings)

Not this little black duck.  I would not have put things the way that they have been in that discussion thread.  I guess some of the concepts are similar, but as I said in Marginal Mutterings the whole issue of what we can or indeed should do about the raising of our children and the "conditioning" that religion provides is very probematic to say the least.

I think that maintining the quality of our education system and not allowing sectional interests, especially fundamental religious groups of all suasions, to insert misinformation into the school curriculum is probably the best way to go.  It may take a long time for change to occur but there will not be problems of one group forcing their ideas on the rest.  After all, my atheistic outlook can be considered to be the product of the Australian Catholic education system - I went to Catholic primary and secondary schools.  One thing I will say for the brothers was that they did not try to infiltrate the science curriculum at all, religion was taught, but in a class explicitly called "Religion".  In science there was no confusion about the geological record and indeed we had an excellent collection of fossils at the school.  (I later donated to the school a 280 Million year old inner and outer cast fossil of a brachiopod shell I had found, which fit right in with the collection.)  The thing is religion and science and indeed all other areas of the curriculum were kept separate.  I wonder whether this is true in so-called "Christian Schools" especially since they seem to produce so many of their graduates believing in young Earth creationism as a scientific fact.

Sibling Bluenose.