Monday 20 June 2011: Messages on Walls

A day off today...well sort of off...more out volunteering in the morning and then extracting and unpacking thoughts from the last few days of brain work. I want a penseive like Dumbledore.

One of the things i've always struggled with as a third sector devotee of a leftward persuasion is the idea of for-profit activities, and paywalls for access, especially when the end user is subject to inequality or poverty. I'm improving mind. I'm going to have to because the income gap is only going to widen.

I've seen this graffiti on the sea wall may times...it has always said "CAPITALISM DOESN'T WORK"...now someone has added 'for everyone'...which gave me the answer for a conundrum.

Here's another... I am reading Jon Ronson's book The Psychopath Test. I like his previous work (men who stare at goats etc), and I like that style of writing. But the synopsis, tone, even the book's URL is very reinforcing of stigma.

I am trying to see beyond, to understand what lies beneath. So far the book is interesting, addressing head on the Church of Scientology and it's more extreme beliefs about mental health and psychiatry. Odd because up to a point what they say is true...there is a pharma industry hegemony, there have been horrific abuses of power, and there still are in many EU countries. Yet there is also good and malicious targeting of psychiatrists, and vulnerable people for ridicule and threat is sinister.

Ronson is a bit hung up by the danger, and doesn't (so far) differentiate dangerous and severe personality disorders from mental health more widely...but it's interesting enough to keep reading. He is on the Edinburgh International Book Festival Programme, so I may go nd ask any questions I have...

Night!

• Canon EOS 7D:
• f/7.1:
• 1/125":
• 28mm:
• ISO 100

• viewed 245 times :
• 0 comments :
• show tags

• about acronymphomania :
• view blipfolio