T. S Eliot - The Waste Land

This poem is seen as one of the greatest contributions of Modernist literature in 20th century. When I first read it what struck out to mea was the incoherant structure of the poem, their seem to be a plurality of voices juxtaposed in a choatic narrativeless poem. There seems to be no grand metanarrative that underlies the whole poem, we never get to see the big picture but we get a mosaic of glimpses that seem to be worlds apart. THe fact that their is no grand unifying story behind the incoherant voices, is often taken to reflect Eliot’s belief that modernity had lost a unifying meaning itself. Throughout the poem is contradictions this invite the reader to try and reconcile them in a paradoxical world that fails to make sense of itself. The opening section introduces this with its reconfiguration of April as not a month of regeneration, but instead a painful period in which old memories are brought back. In this state, even the cold winter is preferred to remembering, the snow bringing a blanket of forgetfullness that is able to eclipse the world in white. The current political turmoil that Marie recollects is juxtaposed on her childhood memory of sledding. She claims that through escape into the mountains freedom is possible. Eliot thus sees the need to try and escape from the troubles of the past, this fleeing to the mountains is why winter is preferred. Yet the idealisation of winter is undermined in the next line when Marie says that she reads through the winter, escaping once more into a literary world where the narrative is clear, and the world makes sense, and heads south. It is almost a message that saying the refuge that the winter offered from remembering the dire condition she is in, is not even as much of a refuge, that she has to keep heading further out in order to find the same solace from the world.

I find it interesting that the whole text is a giant palimpsest. It is a giant collage of quotes, allusions and references. It invokes myths, legends, and archetypal figures to both try and oriantate and disoriantate. Because of the multiplictity of refereences all going on at once, it opens up so many readings and ways to interpret the dots, yet the dots are their to draw attention and give a series of hints into the meaning of the text. It is almost like no matter how much you try and find meaning in the world in the end, the real meaning of the text is always going to escape you. This resounds with the lines “I can connect/ Nothing with nothing” THe whole poem is about trying to connect the nothing sto try and make something. In the end we should humble ourselves and letgo of our presumptions that the world can all be explained by some grand theory and expect nothing as the people on Margate sand expect. THe broken fingernails and dirty hands of people who have waded through the pile of broken images to find that such an attempt to reconstruct the images is futile and that in the end they hold nothing.

Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead

This play is really really good. It takes place in the midst of Hamlet and brings two characters from the edge intp the forefront of th eaction. Whilst also blurring the roles that they both have. I love the themes of uncertainty and the vivid images, like th start with them tossing the coin and speculating the meaning of an chain of heads a row and the final scene which alters the way in which hamlet can be read an understood. I love the way questions are used in a game, how in the choas of the juxtaposistion of the two characters they enact. I love how they are so preoccupied with trying to find meaning that they often miss the real meaning and significance of what is happening around them. I love the post-modern way in which it fragments before all coming back together again. The way in which it explores profound questions in a midst of what seems like chaotic questions, the witty ramblings that go on between them, that expose philosophical issues.

“All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque.”

“If this is our destiny, then that was his, and if there are no explanations for us, let there be none for him.”

Plato -Euthyphro

I have decided to read plato, partly as I think that the neo-platonists from the seventeenth century were fascinating and I think that in order to understand them that I need to be able to know a little about what plato said initially to see ho wthey reinterpreted him in their time. Euthyphro also interests me theologically, however much i may disagree due to the metaphysical background that informs plato’s, or Socrates thought, as represented by Plato. The core of this text is the question of holiness. What is the standard by which one can determine if one is being Holy. It starts of with a mythcal exlaination, whereby Euthyphro uses Zeus to show how what he is doing is holy as it is what the Gods have done, but the Gods have contradicted each other, this is where I lose a bit of PLato. as he is working from a polytheiestic context rather then a montheism such as Christianity, this makes his points not so pertinant to a western christian reader, such as myself, as they would have in Greece in his time. For instance his point about the agreement of the Gods, doesn’t really work outside of the greek deities. However this is not to say the work is not without merit due to its context, as it brings the problems of finding the essence of holiness to the mind of the reader, and fails to come to a satisfactory conclusion, leaving the reader to decide and make their own decision over what holiness is comprised of, wether it is what God says is holy, whether it is a form of justice or if it is what brings divine approval. Plato at points says that things are both holy and unholy depending upon the God, I would say that this point could be applied to context and circumstance, what was right once, is not right always, and what is right most of the time may be wrong in others. This makes holiness and piety a complicated and difficult problem.

Other ways of solving it are holiness as a form of knowledge, or a science of prayer and sacrifice, the ability to understand and know how to communicate with the gods. The issues seem to revolve around where holiness originates and for what purpose does it serve. Does it benefit the gods, and if so how, and if not then why do we have it? Further, hoe can we be sure that what we decide is holy, is in fact holy? These questions which the work provokes is far more powerfull then the unsatisfactory conclusion that it arrives at, with Euthyphro walking away without satisfying Socrates initial question to provide the standard whereby we can know what is holy and unholy.

existentialism and humanism - Jean Paul Sartre

This book is Jean Paul Sartre’s manifesto of what he saw existentialism as being. THe broader implications of what he saw existentialism had to other areas. In it he refers to phenomenology and Edmond Husserl and the concept that what is perceived is not an objective reality duplicated by the mind but a subjective experience that is the result of our minds own percipient activity. He argues for a very atheistic form of existentialism over Kierkegaard’s more christian form of it. The crux of it is that existence preceeds essence, rather then the ideal providing existence. But what does Sartre mean when he says existence preceeds essence, he argues that man exists and prior to existence there is nothing that defines who he is, dictates his character, goals, aspirations and personality.

“Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterwards’

Thus, the defing of the self is something that is always done in retrospect. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. This is a very liberating doctrine, one however that I think places a huge burden upon the individual to be a judge of their own self and the responsibility for them to live and be the correct person, as they bear the whole burdon for who they are, they have nothing to blame for what they are. Yet, this for me whilst I think is true to some extent, I think Sartre over states the role it plays, as we are not fully free, as he would have us to believe, to become who we want to be. His paper-knife theory holds that an object is created in essence as a theoretical entity prior to its construction, this he says is reversed for man. Man is created and then constructs his meaning. A point that I am struggling to comprehend is what he means when he says that what he chooses for himself he chooses for all mankind. I think that this refers to the concept that we can only be sure of our own existence and thus we project ourselves into the rest of mankind, so what we chose for ourselves in turn becomes our template for mankind. Sartre thus thinks that in fashioning himself he is fashioning the world, or at least, mankind. We therefore have responsibility not just for ourselves but for all mankind. This seems very similiar to Kants univseral ethics, what we choose must be what could be chosen universally in our situation. However this could be the point he makes later using Descartes cogito which is the initial stage for self awareness of our abandonment. I think therfore I am is the absulate truth of conciousness, and ones sense of self

Sartre quotes Dosteivosky when he said that “if God did not exist everything would be permitted.” THis statement is erronous as it assumes that mrality is derived only from God, and that it is God that imposes restrictions upon mankind, I would argue that Man imposes upon themselves their own limitations and prisons of their own perceptions. We want to limit ourselves through constructs and restrictions as it justifies us not acting to a fullness of our potential. As I was reading this it mad me think of Plato’s Euthyphro and his attempt to discover what holiness is and how one becomes holy. However Sartre uses the concept that man devoid of divinity finds himself with nothing to depend upon but himself and is confronted with an infinite number of choices through which he has to decide. It is this anguish of being confronted with so many choices of which we bear sole responsibility for the repercussions that he sees as the essence of existentialism, if essence could be used, perhaps the word core or fundamental feature would be more fitting.

Another term he tries to define in an existential context is abandonment. We alone our the judges that interpret the meaning of the events of our life. He uses the examples of a jesuit who interprets his life as a divine message being unraveled in front of his eyes, and the Kierkgaardian ‘Anguish of abraham’ to demonstrate this concept. This made me thing of the difficulty that we have in identfying the spirit in our own lives. I love his phrase Manpaints his own portrait and that is all he has. In the end who we are is all that we take with us, and in being.It is in in creating and inventing that man becomes as their is no pre-existing image of what man can become, or so Sartre says. Yet, in the light of the gospel we can see that this is not the case, we know both what the meaning of man is, and what he is to become, the image is given yet the practical way in which we become that is existential. I think that existential ideas work in light of our mortal existence but crumble in the eternal light of the gospel. The best thing about the book is the doctrine of freedom, action, and choice. It is these three areas which are its strengths its flaws are in the consistency and way in which they are applied and understood, the premises are true, but the conclusion is flawed.

“Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yourss to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing but the sense that you choose.” (p. 54)

The name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco is the master of intertextuality, the depth of his reading and knowledge exudes from every page of this work. The influences so vast as the library in which it is based, the text reflects the fragmented narrative that it gives a palimpsest of texts, myths, and ideas woven together in a narrative that is original in its hybridity and synthesis of influences yet has borrowed its imagery and symbolism from other sources. As I read it I was profoundly moved and made to consider th function of a text and an author. What is the purpose of a book and library, is it to preserve knowledge or is it to reatrict and moderate the way in which we have access to knowledge. This book for me is like a collection of glimpses of textx from the past, present and future fused together and woven into an incredibe story that makes you think about the relationship between symbols, books and explaination. The allussions to William Ockham I found most interesting, the concept that the simplest solution more often then not is the best solution. The use of scholasticism and reason is fascinating and the way that William has to balance the semiotics and reason of the event and happeneings that mist be placed into the releveant contexts, the narrative itself fits into multiple contexts as it is Adso’s narrative of his growing understanding of the mystery as it is revealed to him through William. The text has multiple layers that over a plethora of interpretations that spiral into the depths of both scripture and literary theory. The text reveals an complex internal structure comprised of many elements fused together which all in turn reflect out into a broader context. The murder mystery itself becomes a metaphor of the readers journey into the text. The imposition of their own meaning on the ambiguity that confronts them as they read the text. "books always speak of other books, and every story tells a story that has already been told." This refers to a postmodern ideal that all texts perpetually refer to other texts, rather than external reality. I love the book in its post modern semiotic glory that as a reader causes one to construct meaning, i love the way in which as various meanings are attached to events they become the driving force for events, whilst the truth escapes all those that are involved in the mystery. The very murder mystery becomes truth which is always beyod humans grasp we try to discover it using reason but in the end the only order to the world is beyond our ability to understand and in the end we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that their is no order so to speak. It also explores the role of theories in describing the world, they may not be true to reality but if they fit reality if not the true way then pragmatically speaking they are true.

Joseph Smith as Scientist - John A Widstoe

This book was fascionating for the way in which it tried to reconcile theology with science. I loved the way in which he compared the two and demonstrated that both were reliant upon faith. He looks at the teachings of Joseph Smith regarding the eternal nature of matter, energy which he sees as coming from the Holy Spirit, which he likens to the great ether, which was a dominent scientific idea during his time, which states that the universe is permeated in a ether that peervades through everything, this he says is the Holy Spirit that supplies life, light and governs the world, it is God’s presence through all of creation. An interesting chapter is when he talks about plato’s cave and how all we see is the shadows of the reality as nature in its ultimate form is unknowable; our minds cannot comprehend the relation of cause and effect, this makes me think of David Hume who looked at this fact and the limitations of the human mind in what we can know. “Laws of Nature are, therefore, man’s simplest and most comprehensive expression of his knowledge of certain groups of natural phenomena.” (p.34)

Two chapters I really enjoyed were the ones in which he talks about geological time and evolution. Two areas I have been pondering recently. The first he points out the fact that nature is a means through which God can speak to us, it is the second book of scripture, the stars, clouds, mountains and soil are a form of divine revelation of the history of the world. He reconciles this to an interpretation of the creation whereby the days are symbolic of periods of unspecified time, not literal 24 hour periods. He as part of this looks at organised intellgences and that eternity of life, is the eternity of organisation, which is intellegience.

Another great section is the one in which he applies the gospel to science, thereby showing that the gospel is scientific, or science derives from eternal rinciples of the gospel. He starts of with Faith. People often when they lose faith or start to doubt turn to science as a more sure form of knowledge due to its derivation from experiements which comes from the senses and s more tangible and thus has no need for faith. Yet, Widtsoe shows that faith is needed in science, for much of science speaks of worlds far removed from our senses and is beyond that which we can know. He cites molecules and atoms, as an example of that, things which we cannot obersve with our own eyes. They are far removed from the real world, yet, we believe in their existence, despite the fact that most of us have never seen them, and that they seem to contradict our own personal experience. He then points out that as faith in a scientific practice grows it causes scientist to repent, to alter theories and practices to be in harmony with the new principle, such as antiseptic surgery. “In the spiritual life, it is impossible for the person who desires the greatest joy to remain passive in the presence of new principles. He must embrace them; live them; make them his own.” (p. 81) This he says brings obedience to law which he likens to baptism, which is obedience to spiritual law although we may not understand why it is baptism and not anything else. Likewise we may not understand why a coil of wire must be coiled to emit light. “All theoloy and all science contain laws that must be obeyed in order to obtain certain results, although the full reasons for the required combinations are not understood.” If scientists exert faith, change ways, and obey laws then they recieve knowledge or intellegience, which Jospeh Smith said is what the holy ghost is. “the holy ghost has no other effect than pure intelligence it is powerfull in expanding the mind, enlightening understanding, and storing the intellect with present knowledge.” Thus, a sciemtist recieves a gift from the holy ghost as a reward for their obedience.

In the section on the theory of evolution he uses Herbert Spencer to guide his thinking. “ Man seeks the law of laws, by the operation of which, things have become what they are, and by which their destiny is controlled.” Spencer says that everything is in a state of flux and changes from instant to instant. Everything is either progressing or regressing as it is changing in one direction or the other. This is the law of evolution that things are evolving into a progressive state. The next move hemakes is to draw ths distinction between natural selection and evolution. Darwinian notions of the struggle for existence he rejects and states evolution is true but natural selection does not, and may not be true. He states that one form of life can not change into another form of life but remains in the sphere in which God has created it.

A brief history of Madness - Roy Porter

This very short book gives a glance into the changing perspective on madness. The product of a lifelong of study it demonstrates a vast body of knowledge in the history of science.

To ‘define true madness, is’t but to be nothing else but mad’ Insanity then seems to be the mysteries of mysteries. Szasz controversiallu claimed that ‘there is no such thing as mental illness’ and that it is a myth fabricated by psychiatrists to consolidate their professional posistion, and sanction and legitimize easy solutions for problem people. This was the manufacture of madness through psychiatric labels to social pests, odd or challanging members of society. Along with Szasz, Michel Foucault argues that mental illness is not a natural fact but a cultural construct, madness is a disease of society, sustained by the mental medico-psychiatric infrastructure. The history of madness is not a story of diseas but manipulation of reason, power, freedom and control. In contrast Martin Roth argued that the stability and prevelence of mental illness shows that it is not merely a scape goating device, but a real psychopathological entity, with an organic basis.

Religious Madness

Porter first treats the biblical understanding of madness, wherby madness is seen as punishment from God, as seen in Deut 6:5. The greek tragedies feature madness as the result of the conflict between man and the gods. Shakespeare saw madness as a path of resolution, the madness of king leah and his self-alienation in the end lead to self-knowledge. Madness was a pathway to understanding the self. Christian Madness revolved around the fact that reason was the essence of man, in apocolyptic narrative in which mankind is outnumbered by supernatural beings, the Holy Spirit and devil battling for possession of the soul. This view is seen in the Anatomy of Melancholy, and Richard Napier who saw those of ‘unquiet mind’ were the result of religious despair. Diabolical possession was the sign of a lost soul. Reason was in harmony with God, failure to conform was unreasonable and lead to derengement, madness was a phase in redemption, bringing the sinner to a state of crisis, and preclude to recovery. This also saw the rise of demonic possession and witchcraft with Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft and King James’ Daemonologie. Anglicans were cautious about labeling demonic possession for fear of playing into the hands of papists and puritans, and said that they were self-deluding fancies of zealots, who had unhinged their own mind.

The shift in opinion occured after the thirty year war. This was intense religio-political division and as a result the extrem puritans and fringe movements such as Anabaptists, and Ranters were denounced as being brain-sick puffed-up prophets. Doctors started to point out the fact that reigious fringe and lunatics had an affinity; both displayed glossolalia (tongues), convulsions, weepings and wailing. ‘Enthusiasm’ was seen as psychological dillusions. Thomas Willis coined the phrase ‘neurologie’ this excluded the devil, possession now was defects of the brain and nerves. The pathologisation of religious madness lead ENlightenment thinkers to pathologise religiosity as a whole.

Madness Rationalised

Plato and the greek philosophies polarised rationality and irrationality, enshrining the mind over matter. Hippocratic medicine aimed to aid nature in creating and preserving a healthy mind in a healthy body. The galenic theory of humours meant that health was an equilibrium between extremes. Mania was opposed to melancholy. The first work on Melancholy was Timothy Bright, yet it was Robert Burton who provided the conclusive study, which demonstrated that there are as many theories of insanity as there are mad people. The next step in Porter is the role of Descartes, and his glorification of rationality. It was reason alone that would redeem and save mankind from ignorance, confusion and error. Descartes equated mind with incorporeal spirit, he had the problem with locating the mind in space and had to use the pineal gland which linked the body and mind

. Mental disorder accordingly was a problem between the interaction of mind and body. The result was that mental illness was now safely removed from religion and an object for philosophy and medicine

Fools and Folly

All societies judge people as mad, irrespective of any clinical judgement distinguished for devience or danger. This stigmatizing of those who are disqualified from social acceptance, projects social values. This demonised them, whilst excluding any demonic influence. It possible that this demarcation comes from a deep anthropological desire to order the world by catagorising the world and sepereting the self from others. The construction of ‘them and us’ reinforces our fragile sense of self-identity, and self-worth. Thus the creation of the insane at the same time constructs what it is to be sane, the two concepts reinforce each other in mutrally exclusive catagories. It also saw the depiction of madness as a part of genius, it was an attribute and natural part of poet. John Evelyn in his diary saw an inmate of Bedlam reciting verse. Porter observes that ‘ Madness thus donned many disguises and acted out a bewildering multiplicity of parts in early modern times: moral and medical, negative and positive, religious and secular. Bedlam was the new hospital for the mentally ill, that brought the sane and insane into great proximity. ‘the world is a great Bedlam, where those who are more mad, lock up those that are less.’ Folly started to be medicalised. the mad poet or artist was no longer romanticised. Swift saw lunacy as something that could infect dissenters and free-thinkers.

Edward Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition, saw creativity as part of a healthy psyche. This was the Romanticised version where the poet was not pyschologically peculiar but the embodiment of health. The avent-garde of Baudelaire, Flaubert saw that the works of genius were hammered out of the anvil of pain, and the sickness of madness. Likewise, Mary Wollstonecraft depicted the gothic image of the mad, with the popularised image of Ophelia.

Locking up the mad

In this chapter Porter looks at the way in which the mad moved from being treated at home, to religious institutions, through to the creation of Asylums to house the mentally ill. First Plato had said that the mad were the responsibility of the family, this was deeply shamefull due to its diabolical connotations. Michel Foucault argued that the 1660’s in Paris saw the start of the great confinement, and the locking up of the insane in asylums such as Paris’ Hopital General. This was both therapeautic and police oriantated. It cured both the patient and society of the burdon of the mentally ill. A consequence of this Foucault said was that MAdness loss its humanity. It placed the mad poor into bourgeois work ethic. Foucault over simplifies when he casts the rise of psychiatry in functional power relationships, the new witch-hunt for the social deviants. The drive to confine was not the mechanisms of power, or the sovereign, but families and local bodies all sent them to the Asylum. Why did people send patients to Asylums? I think this would be interesting, to study the reasons for confinement.

Psychiatry did not pre-exist Asylums but was instituted in order to manage its inmates. The rise of psychiatry classified insanity into original and consequential, that which was incurable and innate, and that which was triggered by events, this was curable. In the cure most famous was the reforms in Bicetre and Salpetriere by Dr Philippe PInel. He took upon him Enlightenment ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity, and unshackled the inmates, mentally illness was to be relived through mental approaches not physical restraint. A lot of Asylums were criticized, Bedlam was notorious for the treatment, and abuse of its inmates, with many inmates releasing expose’s of malpractice. This criticism did not abolish but reformed the Asylum. These reforms were seen to be through arcitecture. The correct building was a way to reform the mind of the patients, the buildings were in countryside, in order to help reconfigure their natural mental state. Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. The new reforms meant meticulous classification of the inmates into levels and types of madness.

In sum Porter gives an excellent overview of major elements in psychiatry, in a thematic way that shows the changes. It is an excellent, well written spring board into the vibrant and disturbing history of psychiatry.