Greetings Economists, JKS writes, Brecht, another Commie, thought hell must be like Los Angeles.
Doyle, Brecht also wrote the 'Three Penny Opera' which used the mass of beggars (mostly disabled people) as a major social factor in the play. As an artist I like Brecht's work. In some limited senses Brecht was ahead of most culture in giving credit to disability as a big political factor in social movements. JKS, That's the nature of mental illness. Be that as it may, "loose marblesa," and even the colloquial "crazy" or "nuts" as applied to Californias doesn't suggest mental illness, just wierdness. Doyle, All this denigration of California has a little or nothing to do with the reality of the working class in California. You seem to be making your points though in a good humored sense. Have fun, but over time the technology will gradually supplant your views about 'crazy' or 'nut' issues in California with more realistic processes of how people can connect to each other socially. How does one deal with being called crazy which is a typical political charge? Especially if one is really mentally ill? Doesn't a depressed person have rights? Both Lincoln, and Churchill were severe depressives. Lenin was supposed to have had serious bouts of depression also. There is no automatic about mental illness means you can't do a job and I am including Schizophrenia since many schizophrenics are merely episodically having symptoms. Once you allow real mental illness into the movement as a rights issue for working class people what about all the people you call crazy who aren't crazy? No substance. The issue is ripe for serious change and substantial impact upon what the left thinks society is about. JKS, And Doyle, while I share your Guthriesque affection for the the odd and peculiar, they are not a revolutionary class. Doyle I take the Marxist view that the revolutionary class is the working class. But the whole class. Not the white segment, men only part of the working class. How do we build a mass movement? I want a movement full of women, minorities, disabled people, etc. I don't think you disagree with this thought. JKS, As I've explained before, I think it's nuts to go ballistic over the colloquial use of "insane" and similar terms as if they were the equivalent of racial epithets Doyle Surely you recognize the weakness of what you are trying to say. It is what disabled people feel that matter here at any rate. I see a deeper structure that could be articulated around emotion production in our capitalist system than what you tend to characterize as crazy or weird. Emotion production has economic implications (for example in IPR with respect to file sharing see the Supreme Court case brought by Lawrence Lessig) and substantial intellectual support from a variety of serious resources. Emotion production would clarify precisely those areas you and others out of habit tend to call crazy when you have to conjure up some reference to what are essentially emotional structure in human lives. The Enlightenment view that passions are crazy is what you are talking about in my view to the extent there is substance to saying for example, California is nuts. If I were to respond to you with an alternative I would write: There is a definite lack of emotion structure in writing appropriate to ordinary human needs. About a hundred years ago a huge increase in the emotional content of media arose with first movies and later television. This media has always been restricted about what could be done because of the lack of ability on the masses part to share movie pictures in daily life. Interactive media like Sim City the video game, open up the possibility of 'sharing' emotions on a mass scale through media. Of more consequence in a political sense than in a game sense in my view. A good example is Electronic Arts that is putting Sim City on line at 10,000 people per server with a goal of having a functioning 100,000 people on-line at once in the game. Compare that to how many people contribute to left email lists. People like the games because it engages their emotional systems better than writing email. I submitted to PEN-L list a specific resource (Face Blindness - http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pen-l/2002IV/msg02603.html) to help understand what is the linkage writing systems lack in regard to emotion structure that helps one understand what shapes the economic success of video games. Thanks, Doyle Saylor
