Timecube

nomadthethird said:

Aren't comic book people and sci-fi people sort of legendarily obsessive-compulsive/autistic? I mean isn't that a prerequisite to really enjoying comic books or am I being mean right now? I have no idea. I like the pictures but I don't own any.

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I loved sci-fi as a teenager (still do a bit), but I was more interested in the "big ideas" than pursuing every last thing in a particular series/genre or collating tons of nose-picking trivia. I couldn't imagine sitting down to read the legions of crummy William Gibson copyists just because I liked Cyberpunk as a concept.

nomadthethird said:

What are you talking about here?

Yes, psychiatrists and psychologists "systematically evaluate" their own biases using the null hypothesis and huge data sets. It's called the scientific method, and at the moment, there are MOUNTAINS of data supporting a correlation between early childhood trauma and the early onset of certain types of mental illness. That, and a huge amount of evidence for hardwired genetic markers/genetic susceptibility.

What exactly here looks like it's a product of my personal biases and not simply the application of a set of principles from a discipline that have very little to do with me personally?

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hey hey, just making conversation here, none of it is about you. and i never said childhood trauman and mental illness are not linked? wha?

swears said:

I loved sci-fi as a teenager (still do a bit), but I was more interested in the "big ideas" than pursuing every last thing in a particular series/genre or collating tons of nose-picking trivia. I couldn't imagine sitting down to read the legions of crummy William Gibson copyists just because I liked Cyberpunk as a concept.

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I really like sci-fi in theory but in practice I'm usually disappointed by the caliber of the writing, and the high faluting stuff other people pull out of it is not what I usually read on the page. (I feel the same way about jungle, fwiw--I like what everyone says they hear in it conceptually, I just don't hear that same thing when I listen.)

As for psychologizing others...we all play that game. (Lacan called this the realm of fantasy [essentially a form of projection], but I don't agree with him here since we actually have access to the real world and we can test hypotheses.) It's just that some of us have more (and more reliable) data than others to work with.

luka said:

although possibly slightly reductive...

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You're saying that because you're afraid you don't live up to your father's expectations, aren't you?

I just know these things.

nomadthethird said:

Schizophrenics are good at resisting Oedipalization.

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Hey nomad, this is probably tiresome but out of interest could you say at all what for you is meant by this? In relatively simple terms?

Or anyone with an interpretation of course.

First of all what does 'oedipalization' entail? Presumably there is a value judgement involved, i.e. oedipalizaton = not so good, resistance = desirable. So what is it and how is it resisted by schizophrenia? What can be learned from that, how can it be applied? I guess that's what those books are about eh? But if it's a useful idea can it at least be concisely stated why and in what way without resort to too much specialised language?

Thanx.

I think I found some OK links to make start so not to worry. Seems fairly central to a lot of stuff that floats around from various bloggers etc. Almost articles of faith among some.

nomadthethird said:

Graphomania general is common in the advanced stages of schizophrenia

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http://www.dissensus.com/showpost.php?p=201775&postcount=773

massrock said:

Hey nomad, this is probably tiresome but out of interest could you say at all what for you is meant by this? In relatively simple terms?

Or anyone with an interpretation of course.

First of all what does 'oedipalization' entail? Presumably there is a value judgement involved, i.e. oedipalizaton = not so good, resistance = desirable. So what is it and how is it resisted by schizophrenia? What can be learned from that, how can it be applied? I guess that's what those books are about eh? But if it's a useful idea can it at least be concisely stated why and in what way without resort to too much specialised language?

Thanx.

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"Value judgments" are made all the time, everyday, in every discipline, in every walk of life, in minds, everywhere, all the time. I'm impatient with anyone who pretends that they somehow avoid making these.

Oedipalization is the process through which a child enters into "adulthood"--i.e. heterosexual genital sexual-orientation--by means of slow inculcation via interaction with the parents in a society where the family unit (the most basic unit of social organization) is based on a system of legal, patriarchical "monogamous" marriage. [There are plenty of societies that don't follow this model. Most of them are non-western bands or tribes.]

And no, nobody says Oedipalization is simply "not so good", but that it's an apparatus of domination in a particular culture. Basically, according to certain psychoanalysts, schizophrenics are one particular group with "pathological" condition in this culture who seem to be a resistant to growing into what Freud calls the "genital" stage of psychosexual development.

Beyond this you'd have to do some reading.

Mr. Tea said:

You're saying that because you're afraid you don't live up to your father's expectations, aren't you?

I just know these things.

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Search schizophrenia and childhood trauma on pubmed. I dare you.

For that matter, search google in general, you'll find plenty of studies and literature. You'd probably have to pay for the better stuff, but there are abstracts floating around.

I like how your reaction to Luka's "reductive" charges was to basically flip the script and claim that psychiatry/psychology are inexact sciences, which they aren't. Unless medicine itself is inexact, by some definition of inexact that varies pretty drastically from mine.

OK, so Oedipus killed his dad and screwed (married, in fact) his mum, amirite? So Freud had this theory of the Oedipal complex that boys supposedly go through as they grow up. AFAIR there's an analogous complex for girls (the Elektra complex, IIRC). So far, so (reasonably) common knowledge. But what I don't get is how 'Oedipal' seems to have become, in psychoanalysis circles, synonymous with 'anything to do with the traditional family'. At least, that seems to be the way you use it. I'm just kind of curious as to how this usage came about.

Mr. Tea said:

OK, so Oedipus killed his dad and screwed (married, in fact) his mum, amirite? So Freud had this theory of the Oedipal complex that boys supposedly go through as they grow up. AFAIR there's an analogous complex for girls (the Elektra complex, is that right?). So far, so (reasonably) common knowledge. But what I don't get is how 'Oedipal' seems to have become, in psychoanalysis circles, synonymous with 'anything to do with the traditional family'. At least, that seems to be the way you use it. I'm just kind of curious as to how this usage came about.

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Yeah, the Freudian idea is that the original cathected object (or object of libidinal desire) for an infant is the mother (or the mother's body), and that it's a long slow process to go from "I'm the center of the universe, mom is magic and makes everything all better" to full-fledged adulthoood, where you're expected to take up a mate and reproduce and start this process over again. Personally, I think the idea that Freud intended something literal with the Oedipus complex and thought that children fantasized about intercourse with their parents is a slight distortion and confusion of the Oedipus complex with the incest taboo--Freud didn't even believe infants/children had "genital" sexuality yet, so he must not have thought they'd direct their libidos toward intercourse.

Basically, today Freud's theory has been generalized to include a lot of things. Now "Oedipal" is shorthand for anything that relates to the ways in which motherhood and fatherhood are endcoded in the broader context of our social institutions-- the strict Freudian interpretation has gone out of favor. Freud did make really good local observations about Vienna at the turn of the century, but nobody thinks we're still living in Victorian Austria.

I will really do anything to procrastinate, won't I?

Here's an interesting fact: neurologists recently observed infant brains reaching orgasm.

Freud was scientifically right on at least one thing (and many others), then. Before him, nobody believed children felt sexual pleasure or arousal/stimulation.

Another good one: an infant male produces as much testosterone as an adult male.

Thanks nomad.

I will do some reading and don't mean to impose on you unduly.

Re - value judgements, I wasn't making a negative value judgement about value judgements, merely asking if there were intended implied values attached to the notions of 'resistance' and 'oedipalization'.

Mr. Tea said:

'Oedipal' seems to have become, in psychoanalysis circles, synonymous with 'anything to do with the traditional family'.

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Right, that's partly what I wanted to clarify, thanks.

Can I use this as an opportunity to say most of the people who call themselves 'Lacanians' online are sorely misguided, entirely ignorant of the past hundred years of scientific discovery, and basically stuck in an impenetrable bubble of stupid that's outright dangerous from a medical standpoint?

Edit: Larval Subjects blogger excluded.

i also think ALL artists and creative people are obsessive compulsive to a degree.

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I am quite creative.
i am not remotely obsessive. in fact i am the most well balanced sane person i have ever met. this is a fact.

i think what you mean is you are obsessive. i know you are cos i know how much music you download!

nomad, you aren't trying to say its not reductive are you? i mean, we agree i'd asusme. i think everything you said is almost certainly right as far as it goes.

All artists and creative individuals are coprophiliac, to some degree...

theres certanly some truth in that

i mean
in as far as we're able to generalise

Also: nomad's psychological profile of Timecube guy = Driving instructor in "Happy-go-lucky".

I attribute my deep psychological scarring to the fact I was raised by Calvinist wolves.