![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Saturday was spent
sebastianne and Luke and took them on a tour of our home's environs, the Kew Asylum and nearby grounds, including the bat colony by the river. It had been some months since we'd spent time in each other's company and it's always a great pleasure to engage with such a witty mind. I must think of some cunning plan to get her involved in politics and secularism again.
Following day I presented at a meeting of The Philosophy Forum on The Epistemology of Madness. Meeting went extremely well, very well attended and with excellent discussion. Those in attendence certainly seemed agreeable to notions that insanity cannot be equated with mere deviance, and that forms of incarceration is only justified under circumstances where it is causing harm. Also, as a matter of administrivia, the group unanimously decided not to be a subcommittee of the Unitarian church where we meet. Said organisation will kill themselves through bureaucracy.
After philosophy was a different sort of madness, this time in space via the game Eclipse Phase. I'd played in a session on Friday night where we continued our escapes outside the Mars TITAN Quarantine Zone. To up the ante I took the players in my game to the Jovian asteroids where they encountered the remains of a TITAN system along with (taking an old tip from
cheshirenoir, "stainless steel rats". The next step for the characters in my game will be the Jovian Republic, a sort of combination of North and South American conservativism - played with a nuanced view of the problems of posthuman and augmented intelligences, they certainly make a good argument.
Last night caught up with Jo H., and friends from Perth and went to see The Jesus and Mary Chain perform the thirtieth anniversary of their debut album Psychocandy (youtube) at The Forum, a particularly beautiful late noveau building with a fascinating history. In the near future I'll put a review up at Rocknerd, along with a planned review of Central Belters, a best-of album by Mogwai. Funk-punk political radicals, The Gang of Four are also playing at the same location in a few weeks, so I might end up there as well.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Following day I presented at a meeting of The Philosophy Forum on The Epistemology of Madness. Meeting went extremely well, very well attended and with excellent discussion. Those in attendence certainly seemed agreeable to notions that insanity cannot be equated with mere deviance, and that forms of incarceration is only justified under circumstances where it is causing harm. Also, as a matter of administrivia, the group unanimously decided not to be a subcommittee of the Unitarian church where we meet. Said organisation will kill themselves through bureaucracy.
After philosophy was a different sort of madness, this time in space via the game Eclipse Phase. I'd played in a session on Friday night where we continued our escapes outside the Mars TITAN Quarantine Zone. To up the ante I took the players in my game to the Jovian asteroids where they encountered the remains of a TITAN system along with (taking an old tip from
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Last night caught up with Jo H., and friends from Perth and went to see The Jesus and Mary Chain perform the thirtieth anniversary of their debut album Psychocandy (youtube) at The Forum, a particularly beautiful late noveau building with a fascinating history. In the near future I'll put a review up at Rocknerd, along with a planned review of Central Belters, a best-of album by Mogwai. Funk-punk political radicals, The Gang of Four are also playing at the same location in a few weeks, so I might end up there as well.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-09 04:58 pm (UTC)The US deinstitutionalized heavily in the 70s, and that's had a complex set of outcomes.
One of the big problems in Seattle, where I live now, is a huge population of homeless on the street. It's understood that of that population, the long term homeless are _typically_ suffering from mental health issues. Contact with them often suggests that some of these people are simply not interacting with the reality we interact with daily. Mental hospitals are rather awful places; not as bad as jails, but not exactly great, either. Especially the public ones.
So I wonder: wouldn't it be better to have a - possibly literal - farm which would serve as sanitarium, but with controlled exits. Large, pleasant space, not a jail or a hospital, but with medical staff and controlled exit. I don't know. But seeing these poor people who can't put two words together makes me wonder.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-09 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-29 02:40 am (UTC)Interesting.
One thing I was musing on recently was the historic question of 'homelessness'. We recognize it as a condition in America today, but I am wondering if it was as significant of an issue in a previous time. I really don't know; my understanding of pre-industrial cultures suggests that people had a much stronger social fabric. Unfortunately, my "serious reading" stack is far too deep in "where did Trump come from" to push more reading on.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-29 10:52 pm (UTC)I think you're right there, which would of course change the concept of homelessness a great deal. The industrial revolution was in many ways such a dislocating period that it virtually created homelessness in a Dickensian sense (itself, of course, building upon the destruction of the commons etc)
no subject
Date: 2016-03-08 04:25 pm (UTC)I've only seen The Jesus and Mary Chain once, and that was at the 1992 Lollapoollza. They seemed out of place in the sunlight, and just did their set and left. I was a bit disappointed.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-08 11:13 pm (UTC)Oddly, when Psychocandy came out is was played on the local popular music station (96fm) which certainly extended their reach.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-12 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-13 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-13 05:55 am (UTC)