The Connection between Creativity and Mental Illness
"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box." Fredrik Ullén
We gotta get outta this place, if it's the last thing we ever do …
"Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box." Fredrik Ullén
We gotta get outta this place, if it's the last thing we ever do …
The problem, he says, is that stress hormones actually make it less likely that someone subject to abuse can accurately recall information, so that such abuse ends up "destroying the very memories they're supposed to recover." And it can even result in false memories taking the place of real memories - and the person being abused not being able to distinguish between them.
Just like I have trouble believing that the economics of death row vs. life imprisonment aren't going to abolish the death penalty, I have little hope that science will be persuasive enough to convince torture fans that it doesn't work, is never a good idea and is, in fact, a moral corrosive.
If objectivity means journalists not having opinions, it’s obviously neither possible nor desirable. If it means not twisting the facts to support those opinions, it is possible and desirable.
Today seems to be a good day for people saying smart things about journalism.
So the school called and said Laura was in the nurse’s office complaining of body aches and having a 102° fever. She sees the doctor at nine tomorrow. Now I just have to find a hazmat suit on the way home. Can’t miss my final week temping! Gotta bring home what cash I can!
Over at True/Slant, Rolling Stone political reporter Matt Taibbi not only defends Zero Hedge but gives what I think is an excellent argument as to why journalists should, by and large, be assholes, at least from the perspective of those we cover. Not to mention why a percentage of them should be, in fact, stone cold crazy. (Which some would argue you have to be anyway to pursue such a frustrating career, even when the main industry isn’t cratering.) And really, it’s not about style: I can look “aggressive” and never come close to challenging the status quo and its enforcers, or I can be polite, courteous and mild and eviscerate those who do evil in this world. Think of Stephen Colbert: he never once left character as a slightly manic right-wing ideologue, and he managed to slaughter the Bush hypocrisy—mere feet from the president himself. If a comedian has that kind of cojones, what about those of us supposedly dedicated to afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted?
I’ve also recently read Stowe Boyd’s takedown of the Washington Post’s new social media rules (which are horrible) and made a comment on how journalists have turned objectivity, the act of at least trying not to let your biases control your coverage, into a simpering refusal to take any stand on the facts and instead produce copy where somehow the truth becomes a political football to be kicked around by partisans who care mostly about keeping facts from ruining whatever scheme they’re running right now. And yes, there are people like this on all sides (I adamantly refuse to reduce politics, culture, etc. to the simplistic two sides).
