Le livre noir
If you read French, do explore the website for le livre noir de la psychanalyse. It’s highly interesting. There is this page where Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen answers ‘internautes’ for instance. Maybe I can translate a little…
Internaute: Can one say that religion, psychoanalysis, and Coke are products that work and that sell well? MB-J: Thomas Szasz wrote a luminous, decisive book on that question. in which he compares the marketing of psychoanlysis to that of Coca-Cola. I’m entirely in agreement with his analysis.
Religion, psychoanalysis, and Coke – I like that. (Appropriate, too, since Siggy was a coker.)
This is off topic, but it is something I have been thinking of for some time, so here goes.
I enjoy much of B&W greatly. The articles are stimulating and always worth reading and thinking on.
The blog – notes and comments – bothers me.
The common pattern is that Ophelia files a usually thoughtful, often insightful and sometimes discussible observation. Then commentators join, usually in violent agreement and often taking OB’s point to great heights
(“yea, verily” or “right on, sister” depending on your provenance).
If anyone raises doubts or qualifications, they are fallen upon and pummelled to the gound. It is not pretty to watch. Usually he or she wanders off to more congenial company.
That is a pity.
Wisdom comes from debate: “yes, but”, “on the other hand”, “up to a point”. Not usually “and what’s more…”
Anyhow, this site is as you all want it, so I guess it will stay this way. I only raise these points because, compared with much on the Net, it showed so much promise. It is nearly excellent.
I await the inevitable rejoinder from ‘sycophantic Karl’
You ready to be pummelled into the ground ken?
While such a pattern may exist in some cases, I think the criticism is only valid where it is actually sycophancy and not content-driven agreement. As to the pummelling, I think it also depends on what’s been said. For an example of how quite a few contributors felt OB was overreacting and didn’t hesitate to say so, look back a couple of entries to “Carping.” Part of what you perceive may come from simple appreciation and admiration that OB is out there publicly and not at all anonymously attacking things that badly need to be attacked and some of what you’ve taken as sycophantic cheerleading may also be intended as reassurance that she is not a lone voice howling in the wilderness. I daresay say several of those who might not object to being termed B&W partisans are that way because it makes them feel their views are largely well-represented by the site (and hardly at all elsewhere).
And none of this is designed by a higher power; it gives the impression it does because a variety of different voices, some more frequent than others, are all having their say.
There’s a great deal in what you say, Ken. The truth is it bothers me too, and has for some time.
“If anyone raises doubts or qualifications, they are fallen upon and pummelled to the gound.”
Or their arguments are – no?
B&W needs better opponents. Really. I’ve been wishing for better opponents for a couple of years, I think.
But on the bright side – N&C is only one, back of the shop part of B&W, and comments are only part of that. The important parts of B&W are the articles and the links – the front page.
Just to add my ha’penny’s worth….
I do often see some quite bitter arguments on B&W. (My longest one was on the minimum wage a couple of months back). However these are serious issues which sometimes need thrashing out.
I think that part of the problem may be that the B&W “loyalists” tend to be in the majority at any one point in time so anyone with another point of view may get jumped on.
From a personal point of view it may be in my training. I’m an academic and academics are trained to argue. WE tend to be thick-skinned if someone attacks us and don’t mind being quite blunt in return. I don’t know how many academics there are at this site……
Wait – that sounds as if I don’t like N&C. Obviously I do! But – for those who think it’s terrible and reflects badly on B&W – it’s easy to ignore.
I crossed with MKJ – the ‘that’ referred to my post, not MKJ’s.
” think that part of the problem may be that the B&W “loyalists” tend to be in the majority at any one point in time”
Loyalism itself is a problem. We can’t be acting like the ‘Freud is sacred’ crowd here!
Maybe I’ll make a new rule. No loyalty. Loyalty not allowed. Loyalty right out. Disagreement encouraged.
But make it stick. Good disagreement encouraged. Not disagreement that relies on translation, or ground-shifting, or subject-changing, or shifty vocabulary. That’s permitted, of course, but don’t expect me to stand back and admire it.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it.
Ken makes a good point, although ‘pummelled’ is a shade harsh.
I guess many of the regulars feel surrounded by the encroaching forces of unreason and develop a kind of stockade mentality. As MKJ points out, there can be strenuous disagreements when the issue does not involve invoking the supernatural or the anti-rational. But when that particular serpent slithers into our B&W Eden, its snake-whackin’ time.
It enhances the site when someone disagrees and is prepared to stand their ground rationally – I doubt if ChrisPer feels particularly pummelled -but it is true that that is relatively seldom.
On the other hand, maybe we’re just right about everything.
Well, that is the most obvious explanation, of course.
snerk snicker
Thanks all. I withdraw “pummelled”. And I did not use “sycophancy”. That suggests insincerity – I am sure all are sincere – just too much in agreement for my taste. “Violent agreement” was my term.
“On the other hand, maybe we’re just right about everything”. It’s because OB and friends are usually at least almost right on most things that I read N&C.
It’s the nuances, qualifications, slight modifications that makes debate interesting (for me).
OB: add to your sweatshirt order: “I WANT MORE NUANCES”.
Everything! Everything! Everything! I’m right about everything!
[pounds floor frantically]
Well, here goes. I think Ken has a point in relation to *some* of the threads, when I sense a tendency to self-congratulation that “we” all have incontrovertibly correct views. Maybe items on religion are a case in point. I’m utterly irreligious, and always have been (even in my past lives!). I think it amazing that many people believe the particular brand of mythology that goes along with their beliefs. For the life of me, I can’t see why Mohammed [PBOH] is a better guide than Joseph Smith. They both had similar visitations from above:
http://www.mormon.org/learn/0,8672,1293-1,00.html
But (if my recollection is not at fault) there’s a tendency for B&W posters to give the impression that they take as a given that anyone who professes a religious belief is self-evidently a fool. There are too many non-foolish people who profess religious beliefs (generally without the trappings of orthodox literal belief) for me to dismiss *all* religious beliefs tout court, even though I can’t entertain even the more sophisticated versions myself.
Yes – I agree about the self-congratulatory note. (Though I have to admit I would hate to lose the religion-mocking note, at a time when there is so very very much of the other thing.) I think we need to change that to a brutal self-mocking note for awhile. Say five years or so.
Of course, that means you’re supposed to mock each other – not me. Glad we got that straight.
Contrary to what that fool Stewart thinks, the mocking religion thing on this site is clear evidence of intelligent design.
Hey, Allen,
What’s with the [PBOH]crap? Either you are mocking a sincerely held belief or knuckling under to an aggressive superstition.
MKJ,
You got your ass whupped on minimum wage. I suprised you have the gall to bring it up.
OB,
Ayaan is a babe. Get over it.
MikeS
Who are you to call Karl a sycophant? That man has brought me back from the brink. Watching his daily routine is all that keeps me sane.
I know where you live.
>Hey, Allen,
>What’s with the [PBOH]crap? Either you are mocking a sincerely held belief or knuckling under to an aggressive superstition.< Hey, Don: I’ll let you work it out, along with my allusion to my past lives. I can’t quite make out if you’re going along with me, or challenging me (or both!) Anyway, I always say it’s better to play safe. We never know when the Caliphate may call upon us to answer for our previous sinful behaviour. If Don thinks (which I suppose is the point he is getting at) that the alleged mockery is at variance to what I wrote before, I didn’t say I thought religious beliefs of the conventional kind (ie., the absurd myths I alluded to before that are taken as historical facts by the faithful of all religions) shouldn’t occasionally be mocked. If you read what I wrote before carefully you’ll see no contradiction between that and the mocking of specific religious beliefs of the more unlikely kind. Personally Joseph Smith is one of my favorites. I mean, the guy has a dream, and in next to no time he gets tens of thousands of followers to head out into the wilderness of the West. Now if that ain’t a miracle…
And another thing. What has all this to do with Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and *Le livre noir de la psychoanalyse*? I reckon it’s a diversion to hide the fact that most of us have forgotten the bulk of the French we once knew.
Allen,
‘specific religious beliefs of the more unlikely kind’
And on what grounds is one religious belief more likely than another?
>Allen,
>’specific religious beliefs of the more unlikely kind’
>And on what grounds is one religious belief more likely than another?< Well, pretty unlikely is turning fishes into loaves (or was it vice versa, I’m not too strong on my miracles), resurrecting on the third day, receiving messages from an entity on high, believing that your particular messiah, prophet, whatever, is the real thing (but not the others), you know, the usual kind of stuff. On the other hand is a belief that there is an intelligence (let’s call it “God”) at the root of the Universe (or whatever the terms that non-sectarian deists may express it in – it’s getting a bit late at the moment, so I may not have formulated that very well).
‘On the other hand is a belief …’
So belief is a grounds for distinguishing the believable from the unbelievable?
Yeah, Joseph Smith is a good one. I mean, the Angel Moroni – I ask you…
>So belief is a grounds for distinguishing the believable from the unbelievable?< I’ve carefully re-read what I wrote a couple of times and still can’t figure out how this follows from it. Or even what it’s supposed to mean.
Don
“You got your ass whupped on minimum wage. I suprised you have the gall to bring it up.”
Really? Want another round? ;-)
I suspect many of us here will continue to agree on a lot of things as long as items like the following can appear:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4427144.stm
Good old Pat. Some things you can always rely on.
I have often wondered if Armady Gard has a sliding scale in these cases. Countenance sodomy and you get a major hurricane, sack a school board and it’s a plague of frogs, Rowan Atkinson does a comedy vicar and a Test match gets rained off.
Go ahead. Take it a step further. What possible scenarios could there be, if one’s given is that this is all divine and intentional? The first three that come to mind are:
a) god has a kind of price list, in which these things are fixed;
b) god reacts as the mood takes him, so your sin mightn’t’ve been that great, but god was in a foul mood that day for other reasons, but, don’t you know it, you’re the one that copped the shit, instead of what caused him to be so pissed off in the first place;
c) god has designed (intelligently, of course) a randomiser, so that you’ll always be hit with something, but not at all necessarily in proportion to what you did (has the advantage of keeping you on your toes, because maybe the whole country, women, children and all, will be swept away in a hurricane just because you spoke disrespectfully to your mother, so better keep your nose real, real clean).
Yes, and thanks very much for the link, Stewart.
Good old Pat. No feathers on him.
Or d)
‘Don’t you know there ain’t no Devil
That’s just God when he’s drunk.
(Tom Waites)
Oops, overlooked Stewart’s last. Or e) God’s just a cheat and should be hauled into court. Except, as the Rumanian court pointed out, how do you serve the subpoena? (And where do you put the handcuffs, and how big does the patrol car have to be, and what kind of locks do you use, and how do you furnish the cell?)
Come to think of it, though, why is Pat so pissed off? It was ID the voters in Dover rejected, not his beloved Creationism, wasn’t it? And hasn’t there just been a court case in which the ID side has been vigorously protesting that ID is not Creationism? Or is it just that outside the courtroom nobody bothers with the pretense?
Of course, Walczak beat me to that observation, too:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13137318.htm