max_freakout
Nothing matters
never seen it
Epistemology
- Thread starter bodach
- Start date
Nor I.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Poor John Clare, he was extremely depressed. His story is incredibly tragic. He was sectioned for being a working class person who wrote poetry - this was seen as a sign of delusion. He'd previously been adopted by middle class literati and basically exhibited as an oddity in all the fashionable places.
That poem is about his depression eating away at him in the asylum, yearning to escape and see his beloved countryside again.
That poem is about his depression eating away at him in the asylum, yearning to escape and see his beloved countryside again.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
He escaped and walked a few hundreds miles home didn't he?
Jonti
what the dormouse said
It is ... significant that Clare's poetry, although he wrote less while institutionalized, showed no decline in creativity. One of his most often anthologized poems, "I Am," dated from 1841, the last year of his first term in the asylum. "I am: yet what I am none cares or knows," Clare wrote. "My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes."
In the summer of that year, Clare escaped from the asylum and walked the approximately one hundred miles to Northborough, recording his experiences in a manuscript titled Journey Out of Essex. He spent about five months with his family and was then taken to the Northamptonshire General Lunatic Asylum, where he spent the rest of his life.
source
In the summer of that year, Clare escaped from the asylum and walked the approximately one hundred miles to Northborough, recording his experiences in a manuscript titled Journey Out of Essex. He spent about five months with his family and was then taken to the Northamptonshire General Lunatic Asylum, where he spent the rest of his life.
source
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Modern observers have disagreed as to the precise nature of Clare's illness; speculation about schizophrenia gave way to those involving more contemporary maladies. Some argued that Clare was not mentally ill at all. They found support in the fact that even Clare's most deranged communications seemed to make a kind of symbolic sense; Clare's illusion of being a boxer might have been intended as a way of saying he felt at odds with the world.
same source as above
same source as above
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Yes, IIRC to return to his wife. Who had left him.
Hmm, maybe that last bit was wrong.
He definitely wasn't mad though, he wrote romantic and symbolic poetry without a classical education. A social crime.
max_freakout
Nothing matters
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I agree with you there, max. There is a lot of stuff made medical and clinical that doesn't need to be, to sell pills.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
It's an amazing poem -- hard not to believe the poet had not experienced madness himself, there's a complete loss of meaning and coherence in the world ...
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
The living sea of waking dream -- such an elegant and beautiful expression of Cartesian doubt, and so succinct!
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
he means it in a completely different way. He believes that there is no such thing as mental illness. Don't mistake the two issues.
max_freakout
Nothing matters
max_freakout
Nothing matters
i meant what i said, that the concept is highly dubious
saying there is "no such thing as mental illness is a bit like saying there's no such thing as unicorns
but this particular issue has very deep implications imo
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
So you don't believe that there is such thing as Mental Illness. Or that there might be, but no-one's ever seen it? Or that there can't be any Mental Illness because there is no such thing as reality? Is this another one of those things that the onus is on me to prove the existence of rather than you? And when I do you deny I do it, or claim that my evidence can't exist because there is no reality? etc etc.
max_freakout
Nothing matters
in what sense is mental illness and physical illness the same, so that they are both called 'illness'?
in other words, what does 'illness' mean? (specifically, what does it mean such that it can be applied to both physical, and mental, conditions)
in other words, what does 'illness' mean? (specifically, what does it mean such that it can be applied to both physical, and mental, conditions)
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Yes, I know, it doesn't really exist. you can play with words all you like, but whether things like schizophrenia, dissassociative disorders, psychosis, self-harm compulsions are caused by environmental concerns or genetics these things are at odds with the well-being of the sufferer and can be considered illness.
If you don't understand the definition of "mental" as it refers to in mental health that isn 't your problem.
You're a follower of Zsasz (or however you spell it), aren't you?
If you don't understand the definition of "mental" as it refers to in mental health that isn 't your problem.
You're a follower of Zsasz (or however you spell it), aren't you?
max_freakout
Nothing matters
max_freakout
Nothing matters
I assume you're allowed more than one.
You're allowed to collect as many as you like. But you can only have one. Yours.
I'll take the epistemolgical one then.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
The ending of empathy.You're allowed to collect as many as you like. But you can only have one. Yours.
