Click here to read: The Mystery of Sacrifice or Man is what he eats by Ludwig Feuerbach translated by Cyril Levitt.
The Sins of the Father: Decoding Syriana
Syriana confuses the viewer. In the opening scenes, we move rapidly from the middle of the desert, to a Teheran nightclub, to a Georgetown garden, to a board room, to a family breakfast table in Geneva, Switzerland; from a bus loading workmen, to a missile sale, to a man cutting flowers while explaining oil deals, to a corporate argument over a merger, to a young American family eating breakfast. We are continually given snippets of conversation, passed off rapidly. We are introduced to multiple characters, with names thrown around like a juggler’s batons. We struggle in each scene to understand what is going on and in most cases can’t complete the task before we are in the next scene, having to re-assimilate. We are left with an impressionistic flow of visual and auditory stimuli. We can make some sense of it, but are at the same time aware that we are missing important details. One of the film’s earlier titles was “See No Evil”. In fact, we often are not sure what we are seeing.
This is no accident of editing. Continue reading The Sins of the Father: Decoding Syriana
Paul Mosher and Arnold Richards’s Paper “The History of Membership/Certification in the APsaA: Old Demons, New Debates”
Andrew Morrison’s Paper from Symposium 2006: On Shame
Joseph Lichtenberg’s Paper from Symposium 2006: On Shame
Psychologists Aiding and Abetting Torture By Deborah Kory
Psychologists Aiding and Abetting Torture By Deborah Kory.
In August, the American Psychological Association (APA) will hold its annual convention in San Francisco. Notably absent from the program: the application of psychology to current world events. War, terror, genocide. “Our War on Terror that has led to the Deaths of Hundreds of Thousands of People”—how about that for a plenary session? Of course there are divisions inside the APA organizing against the Bush Administration’s policies and trying to have an impact on public discourse about the war in Iraq, but they are marginalized and fighting an uphill battle in a professional organization whose adherence to the status quo allows it continued legitimacy and access to power.
Continue reading Psychologists Aiding and Abetting Torture By Deborah Kory
Bertram Rosen on Two Books about the Sopranos
Getting From Here to There by Sheldon Bach reviewed by Jay Frankel
The Canary in the Coal Mine by Prudence Gourguechon
Martin E.P. Seligman on “Crazy or Evil: Classing the Virginia Tech killer among them is an insult to the insane”
Crazy or Evil?
Classing the Virginia Tech killer among them is an insult to the insane.
By Martin E.P. Seligman (with the permission of the author). | In the wake of the Blacksburg massacre, we are once again hearing the chorus of crazy. Seung-Hui Cho had an imaginary girlfriend, Jelly. He said he was from Mars en route to Jupiter. He was withdrawn, bashful to the point of mute, and delusional. He is headlined as a “madman.” This does not, to my way of thinking, remotely explain what happened. It neither mitigates his responsibility, nor will it help to prevent such awful events. Even worse, it is a callous and egregious insult to all the wonderful, humane “crazy” people that psychologists and psychiatrists routinely treat. Continue reading Martin E.P. Seligman on “Crazy or Evil: Classing the Virginia Tech killer among them is an insult to the insane”