Peterkin

This one of the best political speeches I've ever heard. Not because of policy or ideology statements, but because it directly - directly! and plainly! - confronts the single most important issue facing the nation. He didn't fudge and he didn't flinch and yet was positive. All-right!! Electoral reform is certainly long overdue. It's also very difficult. There has been a good deal of damage. First stabilize the structure, then start renovations.

This was a departure from the generally - and officially - held belief of his times https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#1, thus: During that period, Greek thought and literature were undergoing a shift in the conceptualization and elaboration of human nature, from a simplistic mythical narrative toward a far more nuanced and complex philosophy. Though sophisticated science was practiced in hydraulic, metallurgy and armaments, the scientific method as applied to the humanities was still a very long way in the future.

I don't think he was such a fool as to think he - and every man who heeded his advice - would actually keep on living, if only they were virtuous enough.

You mostly can't control your thoughts, but you can - presumably - direct them to a focus of attention, such as the object of desire with whom you are trying to connect, or the school subject you have to study for, or the football score on which you have a bet. You probably don't control your moves... and yet somehow find your way to the refrigerator when you're hungry and the bathroom when you feel bladder pressure, and across the street when the light is green and not when it's red, and it's nice to get credit for a clever chess move or well-played guitar solo - especially if you've spent a great many hours practicing those moves. So your movements and thoughts are being influenced, every minute, by changing circumstances in your environment, and you are responding in the present minute. If the bucket of the universe emptied all those minutes 13 billion+ years before you were in it, some very specific droplets were reserved just for you. Why not pretend you're interacting with them voluntarily? That's what most of us feel we're doing, most of the time, even if it isn't technically true.

It's one of the more ironic immortalities. Everyone remembers him for the mode of execution - not the conviction, the charge, the problem he posed to the contemporary elite of Athens. Only a few scholars remember him for the actual teaching, and that, only through Plato.

However, it does work in their favour. https://www.businessinsider.com/mar-a-lago-how-trump-special-master-request-likely-backfired-2022-8

You enter into a contract, attesting that you have read and understood its terms. You do not have the option of changing the terms, or withdrawing your signature at some later date. How can this be any more plain?

More accurately: "Do you know who my father was?"

Even better! prokaryotes https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/bacteria-archaea/prokaryote-metabolism-ecology/a/prokaryote-classification-and-diversity

There are no animals without plants.

Aw, now I get all nostalgic for those olden days when people actually composed music and wrote lyrics, rather than repeat the same bar and three syllables to an endless, boring beat.

I'm not a big jazz fan, but have always been partial to acoustic guitar. That goes back to a Segovia when I was in high school, then Narcisco Ypes, Julian Bream (my first LP, before I'd save up for a record player) John Williams, Leona Boyd... and there are some very fine youngsters still coming up. Just lately, though, I've bean learning to appreciate choral music. All sorts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inBKFMB-yPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6AxTDrthl8

I finally understand, rather than just know, what's meant by "tickling the ivories".

True. Neither does starving an entire field of medicine of funds. What might make it so is thoughtful, science-based research and triage-oriented application - and a lot of quite sound minds are being applied to both endeavours. For example, suicidal teenagers need help right now, not someday, when we've fixed all the old people's hips. Disoriented, sleep-deprived, paranoid veterans need help right now, not after they've offed their family and themselves. I'm not familiar with the statistics on that. Unless you count grief counselling, which I agree is often less effective than time. So, there was a physiological basis that should have been investigated, and wasn't? Fortunately, as long as funding for research is available, we are able to make some progress in these areas. I'm honestly not okay with shelving 12% http://who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders of the world's health problems until all the more obvious ones have been fixed. Partly because all the obvious ones will never be fixed. Can never be fixed. They'll all just keep coming around again, and they all keep needing attention. What if we divert just 50% of moneys from elective cosmetic surgery to mental health diversification? What if we also give some creative thought to alternate - less expensive - forms of emotional help? Community support groups? Non-faith-based lay counselling? Art, music, garden and forest therapy led by experts in those fields, rather than psychiatrists? Techniques borrowed from other cultures? What if we put more effort into prevention and social programs that reduce childhood harm?

At this stage, I would not bring in the adversarial justice system, which carries its own great load of baggage, independent of the psychological issues. I think it's equally possible to get two chemists or structural engineers to testify as experts on opposite sides of a lawsuit. And I do believe brain activity is less transparent than bone fractures, less readily quantifiable than toxins. If the problem of mental health and illness can enter the political arena via gun ownership, I think it must be given a legitimate role in health care, as well. People do suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD and eating disorders; those people need some help.

Good luck!

Because neither did the French Revolution.

Yes, it's likely. People who think deeply will consider difficult questions, whenever they live. It may well be both scientific and something else. There is certainly a broad scientific basis. There must also be - it's inescapable - a broad cultural basis. To what extent religion and politics imply is problematic, very difficult to determine. There are so many contributors to modern psychiatry, each with his and her own school of thought, biases, backgrounds, etc., you'd have to take that aspect case-by-case. No, I don't think think so. I absolutely do not believe that health care professionals are actively attempting to 'dehumanize' their patients or clients. I think the more valid question is: To what extent are mental health professionals influenced by the cultural norms and demands of their time and place? To what extent are they themselves convinced that adjustment to those norms is necessary to happiness. (You have to remember: every society demands a certain degree of conformity of its functional members.) Possibly. But the physiological aspect of emotional suffering cannot be ignored. This invariably happens when the helping professions gain social and economic status. A whole self-perpetuating system is set in motion, which is bound to influence the practice of those professions in a number of ways - most of those ways being opaque or completely invisible o the practitioners themselves, but felt by the clients and glaringly evident to the critics of the system. Like the young man mumbled: "....it's complicated..." There is too much material there to deal with in a forum post. In order to continue, I think it would be more productive to break down into simpler, separate questions or subject areas. And maybe - I know it's a big ask - leave the dead philosophers out of it FTM; they tend to add unnecessary complications.

I wasn't impressed by Updike; his view of teenagers was nothing like my experience. I've never had any patience with fictional adolescence, no matter how old the adolescent in question... I forgot earlier to mention [extracurricular] Trollope, Heller, all Steinbeck novels - he was my gateway to long fascination with the Arthurian legends, and via that, to Roman history. Science fiction didn't enter until my early 20's with The Martian Chronicles.

I know that. It is to that end I have studied anthropology, mythology and - to a limited degree - the history of the Christian churches. It's trying to explain what I understand about religion that leads into a quagmire. Besides understanding, there is also attitude and taste. I prefer informed cognition to befuddled 'contentment', and I do not confuse living near a cave, a dumpster and a folly with living well. Clearly, he explicitly stated that contentment had no part in the people's oppression. He did not suggest any such thing. He laid out the mechanisms of industrial capitalism, in which both government and religious institutions were instrumental in preserving the imbalance of power and material wealth and subjugating the masses through fraud and coercion. You're quite welcome to do so, but I wish it were done with sound textual and contextual understanding. In any case, neither your opinion nor mine affects what Marx wrote 180 years ago, in England. It's a reference, not a gospel. That has no bearing on Marxist analysis.

Besides assigned reading - I can't recall most of them; The Mayor of Casterbridge, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and A Tale of Two Cities - I read some very good poetry, Siddhartha, The Tontine, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Centaur, The Sun Also Rises, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Doctor Zhivago (that was a slog!) and most of Shaw (that was a ball). Some of them in math class, and I did get caught, but my math teacher understood how lousy I was at his subject.

Ceiling, cobweb, light-fixture, no God...

I didn't say I was sure; I said no known enemies. Does this have any connection to the topic?

in order to slip the punch/question perhaps = religion is not your enemy Not a translation that springs automatically to mind. Thank you. I actually knew that, back when I was attempting to explore the various sources and benefits of religious belief. Since then, the subject has shifted in several directions. In none of those areas am I directly involved with a religion, as either friend or foe, either beneficiary or victim, either advocate or denouncer. I find the phenomenon of spirituality, its historical ritualization, co-optation and institutionalization interesting, but have no personal use for it. Again with the post-cryptic! I have no known enemies.

There are a number of assumptions expressed above of which I question the practicabilty. The ideas, however, are excellent.