Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Is there any validity in the "Men's Movement"?

I'm not making any appeal to authority. I'm trying to clarify some ground. You initially gave the impression of being a health care worker, but you're an IT worker. That clarifies to me where the confusion is. You're not familiar with arguments around models of health and sociology of health.

Yep, no appeals to authority to be seen there.

But you're correct if what you're fumbling towards that what I do does not fit well on the 'computer programmer===addiction nurse' spectrum.
 
Yep, no appeals to authority to be seen there.

But you're correct if what you're fumbling towards that what I do does not fit well on the 'computer programmer===addiction nurse' spectrum.

Not, it's not an appeal to authority, although you'd like it to be because then you can discount what I say.

I'm pointing out that the common ground I thought we had isn't what I thought it was and that's the source of the misunderstanding. From my pov, natch.
 
I haven't discounted what you said, once you actually said. I was just surprised there was so little of it.
 
"Health is political"
"We don't have the common ground I thought we did."

Very profound.
Cheers then.
 
"Health is political"
"We don't have the common ground I thought we did."

Very profound.
Cheers then.

Tbf, I've been posting from the bus for most of the afternoon. As I've pointed out, I didn't think I had to post in detail about models of health care because I assumed you were a health professional and had some familiarity with the arguments. Now I know you're an IT professional, you're insistence on going on about strict definitions and codings as opposed to the more ill defined, fuzzy and up for grabs messy human stuff, makes more sense.
 
:facepalm: On one side I have women and gay men telling me whats wrong with me(practically everything) ,And, then I have the MRA movement. Nothing of value here at all.

frankly,

hmm.jpg

While there are no doubt some loons in all categories of people, I'm not convinced that all that many people (either gay men or women or feminists) are saying "being a heterosexual man is wrong" any more than many people are saying "being a white person is wrong" in the field of race relations.

this here gay man (for the avoidance of any confusion) isn't.

What some people are saying (and I'm don't think I disagree) is that the stereotypical model of heterosexual man as emotionally illiterate, sexist, prone to violence dickhead (and i choose the word with care) is wrong.

Likewise, the white, heterosexual, able bodied male who thinks he's being discriminated against because modern society / political correctness is saying he's no longer entitled to be at the front of the queue for everything, is also kinda questionable...
 
Tbf, I've been posting from the bus for most of the afternoon. As I've pointed out, I didn't think I had to post in detail about models of health care because I assumed you were a health professional and had some familiarity with the arguments. Now I know you're an IT professional, you're insistence on going on about strict definitions and codings as opposed to the more ill defined, fuzzy and up for grabs messy human stuff, makes more sense.

Well if those 'Doctor' bastards and their 'researcher' and 'scientist' chums hadn't come up with all that categorisation it would make my job a lot easier and theirs too since we could just cure everything with leeches.

Although things might get a bit confusing at your addiction clinic, what with all the people looking for new contact lenses and sofas getting in the way while we argued over terms.

More seriously - it's a long time since I've been involved with medical coding. They evolve, things change. What you don't do is mess with things /change diagnostic categories etc. without telling anyone. I really don't think this is controversial and it doesn't mean things are set in stone forever. It also doesn't mean none of this is fuzzy and messy.

And yes, my knowledge of the sociology of health doesn't extend any further than what you get on a Pharmacy degree course (which was a long time ago), but where I did it is the same as what the nurses did.
 
I take what you mean, though - my job is all concerned with precision, logic and accuracy rather than the messy stuff I guess you have to deal with.
 
Can you expand on that essential distinction? Right-wing concerns seem quite keen on certain kinds of collective actions. And some left-wing concerns are fiercely protective of various personal rights in cases where right-wing concerns feel there are dangers for social cohesion.
I think there are limits to the analysis, tbf. It's a feeling more than anything. But if I say that I think of myself as left wing to you, it tells you something about the kinds of causes that I'm likely to attach myself to and the kinds of solutions I'm likely to prefer. There might be bits of what I think that coincide with what a right-winger thinks, and saying that I'm left wing doesn't tell you what I think about specific things, but taken as a whole, there will be a general thrust to where my sympathies are likely to lie, what I think a good society is, and indeed to the importance I'm likely to attach to that idea of a good society. And taking this back to the discussion about health, what role I see for wider society in tackling various health problems. (A right-winger may also talk about a good society, as Cameron does, but his idea of a good society is not mine.)

It's not prescriptive, in other words, but it is indicative.
 
frankly,
While there are no doubt some loons in all categories of people, I'm not convinced that all that many people (either gay men or women or feminists) are saying "being a heterosexual man is wrong" any more than many people are saying "being a white person is wrong" in the field of race relations.

this here gay man (for the avoidance of any confusion) isn't.

What some people are saying (and I'm don't think I disagree) is that the stereotypical model of heterosexual man as emotionally illiterate, sexist, prone to violence dickhead (and i choose the word with care) is wrong.

Likewise, the white, heterosexual, able bodied male who thinks he's being discriminated against because modern society / political correctness is saying he's no longer entitled to be at the front of the queue for everything, is also kinda questionable...

Good post. That last paragraph is quite mildly worded considering what complete and utter rubbish about 'PC', 'feminazis' :mad: etc gets spouted by some of the loudest-mouthed 'Mens Rights' advocates.

Of course there are other and better and more civilised and less confrontational ways of articulating male concerns and so there should be, but as has been posted earlier, dialogue between everyone who has an interest in all this is surely the best way forward.

ETA : But tossers who loudly bang on about how feminism has 'gone too far' and all that bollocks, just drown out any proper room for debate and discussion, when they're around.
 
Last edited:
8ball said:
I suspect in this case it's more that groups with particular agendas have been jostling for ownership of terms.

Not really.
It's more of a jostle between fairly basic philosophical approaches. A fully-"medical model" approach to medicine achieves the goals of the medical model (treatment decided by a doctor) from a "top-down" perspective, primarily treating a specific ailment, not the person. It's a very individualist way of treating illness - it sees both practioner and patient as individuals, although in an asymmetric power-relationship whereby the practitioner inscribes their will on the patient.
A "social model" approach is broader. It looks at the person to see whether there are environmental factors that cause or affect the health issue, it looks to wider society to see if social practices are implicated, and it tries to change those, as well as the patient's condition, if necessary. Remember Blair's boast of "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"? If he'd ever bothered to make that a reality, he would have been addressing a social model of crime - one that looks at the above issues and attempts to change them - as it was, like most of what came out of his gob, he was talking shit and gulling the voters.
 
Hang on, let me qualify that. Primary malnutrition is a social problem. Malnutrition secondary to something like diabetes is a medical problem.

Then again, I find purely medical models of health far too individualist for my liking.

TBF, medical models can only ever be "individualist", as long as they see "the patient" as only that - a singular problem or complex of problems to be treated/acted upon, rather than a person among other people.
 
Been trying to remember this since the thread began:

Is it any wonder women have lost trust in men’s expression of their core male values?

But what excites me is that over the last 50 years, a radical shift in maleness has been emerging. There has been a whole new wave of softer men, relating to their wives and lovers more, connecting more presently with their kids, and actively trying to cultivate this by attending deepening workshops, for example.

This has awakened the vital feminine-in-the-male quality. But it has only brought us so far. It is a long way from the re-emergence of the powerful, unwavering male that the planet and the human species so badly needs today. Cultivating the feminine qualities in the modern man is just a stepping stone to a deeper re-awakening, and that’s the male-in-the-male.

http://positivenews.org.uk/2012/community/9997/leading-men-women/
 
So is cell biology especially right-wing, since it's looking at tiny bits of an individual? :confused:

Ascribing political leanings to particular medical disciplines is a bit daft, but it's certainly the case that certain disciplines are more amenable (in the sense that their findings are more "accessible" in line with the common-sense narratives that politicians often employ) to their work being co-opted by authoritarian politics (of right and left) in order to make political points.
 
8ball said:
Both of those just look like approaches to treating a particular individual.

The former addresses an issue from a single frame of reference (a practitioner using chemicals to "stop the voices"). The latter attempts to see whether the issue has a broader basis. Both treat the particular individual, but the latter provides a greater basis for discovering alternative solutions or treatments than the former does., by seeking to establish what factors external to the individual might be acting upon the individual.
 
The former addresses an issue from a single frame of reference (a practitioner using chemicals to "stop the voices"). The latter attempts to see whether the issue has a broader basis. Both treat the particular individual, but the latter provides a greater basis for discovering alternative solutions or treatments than the former does., by seeking to establish what factors external to the individual might be acting upon the individual.
I've linked to this book before.
51AQNV63D3L.jpg


It was given to me by a friend to help me with a person close to me, and makes what to me is a massively important point that I try always to bear in mind:

It is not what the doctor/therapist thinks is going on that matters. It is what the person hearing the voices thinks that matters. The book details various case studies in which people who were deeply troubled by their voices reached very different conclusions about what was happening to them, and used those conclusions to help them to manage the voices. One found that Julian Jaynes's ideas about fractured consciousness made sense to her, several others thought that they were in contact with a spirit world and liked that they had this contact.

That I might dispute the idea that the voices are messages from angels is neither here nor there if I am trying to help a person lead a better life with their voices. Certain versions of the medical model simply don't leave room for this kind of analysis as they have a preconceived idea of what 'mentally well' looks like.

In the 90s, I was involved in a group called Mad Pride, and this was one of their central themes - Give us space to be 'mad', please. That's what we want.
 
I've linked to this book before.
51AQNV63D3L.jpg


It was given to me by a friend to help me with a person close to me, and makes what to me is a massively important point that I try always to bear in mind:

It is not what the doctor/therapist thinks is going on that matters. It is what the person hearing the voices thinks that matters. The book details various case studies in which people who were deeply troubled by their voices reached very different conclusions about what was happening to them, and used those conclusions to help them to manage the voices. One found that Julian Jaynes's ideas about fractured consciousness made sense to her, several others thought that they were in contact with a spirit world and liked that they had this contact.

That I might dispute the idea that the voices are messages from angels is neither here nor there if I am trying to help a person lead a better life with their voices. Certain versions of the medical model simply don't leave room for this kind of analysis as they have a preconceived idea of what 'mentally well' looks like.

In the 90s, I was involved in a group called Mad Pride, and this was one of their central themes - Give us space to be 'mad', please. That's what we want.

This is all very well as far as it goes, but as someone who has been taking anti-depressants for many years, and who has become suicidal again after attempting to reduce them (and also knowing some people who become so distressed by hearing voices when not on suitable medication that they are unable to function at the most basic level, far less engage in the therapy which might help them to come to terms with their illness), I'd be as much against any approach which domatically refused to use medication when appropriate as part of treatment as I would one which claimed that just medication and nothing else was an appropriate treatment.

The Mad Pride approach may work for some people, but they are not representative of anyone other than themselves - they certainly don't speak for all with mental ill health.
 
This approach does not dogmatically refuse to use medication. There will be very few people who've worked with people suffering from psychoses who would disagree that medication can be the only option. But it is an approach that kicks against the dogmatic application of medication, and disputes what exactly the final desired outcome ought to be. And it is an approach that shows results for many people. Long-term dependence on anti-psychotic drugs also fucks many people up and diminishes their lives.
 
This approach does not dogmatically refuse to use medication...

Good. One of your previous posts seemed* to be suggesting that a medical approach to mental health issues would use medication and nothing else, whereas a social approach would rule out medication and depend only on talking/therapeutic approaches. The reality is that many people need the two together.

...Long-term dependence on anti-psychotic drugs also fucks many people up and diminishes their lives.

No argument there.

*to me at least. I accept that may not be what you meant.
 
It is not what the doctor/therapist thinks is going on that matters. It is what the person hearing the voices thinks that matters.

Definitely.

I sometimes think I'm a little more 'bicameral' than average, but the pointless jibber-jabber I sometimes hear is something that rarely bothers me and I certainly wouldn't want to deal with drug side effects in order to silence it.

I've no idea whether in reality it is something a psychiatrist would want to 'correct', though. When I take meds for other things I usually have a pretty frank talk with the Doc about benefits vs. side effects but I can see why there might be more of a 'Doctor knows best' vibe when 'madness' is involved.

The one exception to the rule re: the collaborative approach in my experience is surgeons, who almost always are domineering and lacking in empathy.

I think you want someone who is sure of themselves and cold-hearted when they're going to be cutting you up, though.
 
Far higher-than-average incidence of psychopathy among surgeons. ;)

Yeah, so I hear.

The 'coldness' is very important, I think - I was listening to something the other day about how lots of surgeons have real difficulty being their usual ruthlessly decisive selves when they have to operate on someone they know personally.
 
Hmmm. That article makes a lot of questionable assumptions. The monetary value given to clinical depression is rather bizarre and misses various points, imo. But the biggest problem with it is the identity of suicide with depression.

Even if you accept (which I don't really) that suicide indicates depression, more women attempt suicide than men. It's not a straightforward picture.
 
Back
Top Bottom