I’ve been pretty busy lately editing an old Greek textbook, plodding through some rather unrewarding research, and getting caught up on some reading I’ve put off too long. Of course, that’s all meant that I’ve neglected Classical Values. I’d first like to apologize to Eric, but second and most importantly to those few rabid commenters whose days I sometimes invigorate with opportunities for dismissive displays of half-cocked wit and tilts at their own straw men.
I’ve missed you.
Moving on, I continually find Arts & Letters Daily a boon, chock full of good links and subtle yet insightful comments.
Today you can find links to reviews of two intriguing books:
1) Kevin Anderson and Janet Afary’s “Foucault and the Iranian Revolution” (University of Chicago)
and
2) “Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics,” edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler (Open Court).
The first offers Michel Foucault’s journalistic coverage of the the Iranian revolution in which he described the ayatollah Khomeini as ‘the perfectly unified collective will’ and praised this rise of radical Islam as ‘the first great insurrection against global systems.’
The second concerns a collection of critiques of and responses by Thomas Szasz, a professor of psychiatry who argues for the abolition of the insanity defense and myth of mental illness (‘typically … identified by observing the patient?s verbal pronouncements’) as opposed to actual diseases of the brain (for which there are ‘objective, physical-chemical markers’).
Interestingly, the review opens with a 1980 case in which a white woman murdered a black child claiming it to be the duty of every white woman; the defense argued against a motive of racism in favor of insanity.
A question for the lawyers: How would this have been handled in the era of hate crimes legislation?
Summer reading
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7 responses to “Summer reading”
Thomas Szasz has long been one of my heroes, a consistent defender of individual rights and responsibility (the two are inseparable).
I’m against the insanity defense, a.k.a., the “Twinkie defense”. That woman who murdered the black child sounds like Mrs. Haight. She is a racist murderess, and that’s all she is, like any other Nazi. In my opinion, she deserves the death penalty.
Editing an old Greek textbook sounds like devotion to Classical Values to me.
Thanks for the comments, Steven. I agree on every count.
I suppose I should’ve apologized to you, too, though my absence just means more posts from Eric: something none of us can be sorry about.
Mrs. Haight: an old enemy of Dawn and Norma
Dennis, there is no need to apologize for failing to post to a Republican propaganda mill which is financed by Karl Rove!
You might consider an apology for slavery, though.
And lynching.
And fascism!
Yes, you better apologize for slavery. The Greeks had slavery. Lynching? Hmmm…. No, but they did invent ostracism*. Fascism? Hmmmm…. Sparta? Hmmm….
(*I liked the way that guy calling in on Peikoff’s show pronounced “ostracism”. That always cracks me up. I wish Peikoff still had his show on the radio. He had style!)
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