From carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Tue Sep 7 15:04:27 2004 From: carrie at stayfreemagazine.org (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 15:04:27 -0400 Subject: Stay F---! | 7 September Message-ID: Hello, I just added a few articles from Stay F---! issue #21 to the web site: PROZAC NATIONS: HOW DOES MENTAL ILLNESS DIFFER CROSS-CULTURALLY? An interview with LAWRENCE KIRMAYER http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/lawrence_kirmayer.html Ever have the nagging feeling that our celebrity-driven, sound bite society is making us into a stupid, cynical, shallow people? Well, look to Oliver James, author of a May 2000 article in The Ecologist titled "Consuming Misery: Across the World, the Richer a Nation Gets, the More Unhappy Its People Become." As a critic of consumer culture, I did a double take when I saw that headline--evidence at last! In his book Britain on the Couch, James purports that our way of wealth lowers our levels of serotonin--which he calls the happiness brain chemical--thereby making us depressed. James is far from alone in equating advanced capitalism with mental illness. Here in the United States, a growing movement of therapist-activists battles "affluenza," defined as a debilitating mental state caused by having too much money. While much of the affluenza literature makes a certain kind of sense, all it takes is a cross-cultural perspective to see the problem with arguing that affluence causes depression--namely, it's not true. continued at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/lawrence_kirmayer.html :::: CURIOUS MENTAL ILLNESSES AROUND THE WORLD http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/mental_illness.html These days, Western science takes it as a given that mental illness is rooted in biology. But this approach ignores culture's role in shaping health: simply put, different social environments create different mental health problems. Psychiatrists used to call ailments limited to particular environs "exotic psychotic syndromes" until it dawned on them that Western culture has its syndromes, too--namely, anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Now they refer to "culture-bound syndromes," though this name, too, is a bit misleading. Culture-bound syndromes are not linked to a particular culture in a particular time and place so much as to a prominent cultural emphasis. Cultures that place high importance on fertility, for example, may fuel fears of semen loss. continued at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/mental_illness.html :::: BUYER BEWARE How do supermarket shopppers react when you place foreign objects in their baskets? GAYLORD FIELDS experiments. http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/gaylord_fields.html Several recently published studies conclude that supermarkets are geared to lull the average shopper into a trancelike state and that this glassy-eyed mesmerization makes the customer purchase more goods. This comes as no surprise to this writer, as these results parallel my findings of thirty years ago when I undertook several experiments in social psychology under the guise of adolescent pranksterism. continued at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/gaylord_fields.html :::: OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST MOVEON's "REAL PEOPLE" SPOTS Errol Morris's commercials for MoveOn are worth checking out if you haven't already. As chronicled in the New Yorker, Morris (The Fog of War, Thin Blue Line, etc.) rounded up disaffected Republicans and recorded them sounding off on President Bush. Since the subjects aren't actors and aren't scripted, the commercials (more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry) are a lot more pointed than the crap the Democrat Party is turning out. On the downside, Morris's inimitable style--think: jumpy camera, overlapping dialogue, and stark white backdrops--sacrifices some of the candor for a layer of artiface. Hip? Yes. Effective? We'll see. Methinks educated, urban liberals should stop making spots for other educated, urban liberals. https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040823fa_fact "THE YES MEN" DOCUMENTARY Consider this an enthusiastic plug (all thumbs up!) for the new documentary about the THE YES MEN. These guys have toured the world masquerading as members of the World Trade Organization, and are, simply said, brilliant. Directed by the folks who did American Movie, THE YES MEN opens in theaters on September 24. Watch the trailer if you must, but you're better off just taking my word for it. http://theyesmen.org/movie/ ADVERTISE IN THE NEXT STAY F---! Beginning with the next issue, Stay F---! will be (nearly) doubling our circulation and distributing the magazine f--- in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Ad rates and deadlines here: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/adrates.pdf UPCOMING STAY F---! EVENT New York: Sat, Sept. 24: IFP and WIRED MAGAZINE PRESENT a SYMPOSIUM ON COPYRIGHT AND INDEPENDENT FILM Panelists include yours truly, John Perry Barlow, Siva Vaidhyanthan, Dan Glickman (CEO of the MPAA), Hal Hartley. At the Puck Building on Lafayette and Houston. Details TBA. From stay.free at verizon.net Mon Sep 27 20:25:00 2004 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 20:25:00 -0400 Subject: Stay F---! | 28 September Message-ID: Hey folks, Some new old stuff is now on the website. From issue #21, the psychology issue: BORDERLINE HYSTERIA: THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOSOMATIC ILLNESS An interview with Edward Shorter In _Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era_, Edward Shorter sets out to illustrate a few simple ideas. Most of the medical symptoms your typical American suffers from are psychosomatic--in other words, they can't be traced to any organic cause but are rather the result of some mind-body interaction. The symptoms may be real, but the cause is psychological, stemming from depression, anxiety, or stress. While exploring the history of psychosomatic illness, Shorter looks at how the symptoms have changed over time and at the forces behind those changes. His thesis is that psychosomatic symptoms change with the culture--meaning that they evolve to match the prevailing medical diagnoses of the day. In the early 1800s, for example, doctors talked about "spinal irritation," believing that when a certain point along the spine was pressed or hurt, it created peripheral pains and other motor (muscular) system problems. Conse-quently, doctors increasingly began seeing patients whose problems conveniently fitted the diagnosis. These patients--usually women--complained of temporary blindness, paralysis, and other ills. Some couldn't walk, others couldn't move their arms, many remained paralyzed for months in bed. Doctors would come across patients so catatonic that it was impossible to tell whether they were alive. Unable to detect pulses or respiration, doctors found that the only sure sign of death was when the body emitted a "cadaverous smell." Continued at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/edward_shorter.html SICK IN THE HEAD Stay Free! asked our readers and contributors to tell us about their psychosomatic complaints. Here's what they said. "Several years ago my longtime boyfriend and I got engaged. The ring was a sterling silver band engraved with the words vous et nul autre (French for "you and no other"). It was a long engagement, and I wore the ring for at least two years, never removing it. After wearing the ring for so long without incident, all of a sudden it began to irritate my finger. I developed a painful, itchy rash and had to stop wearing the ring. It turned out that my fiance was cheating on me at the time--my subconscious was trying to tell me so!" --Victoria Sweat "Over the past year or so I have been hearing voices that aren't there, usually as I'm waking up. I can hear them trail off as I look around to see who's there. The strangest occurrence was at a friend's barbecue. I heard someone scream, "Hey!" in my right ear, but everyone was just sitting around eating and drinking beer. When I asked if anyone had just yelled "Hey!" they cautiously replied that they hadn't. I'm not overly worried, since the voices only seem to want to get my attention at this point. Also, it could have been someone yelling on the street that no one else noticed. But it's odd that this only started happening when I moved into my new apartment, which used to be a public school. Am I haunted by a dead, disgruntled vice principal? I don't know. However, I promise to get help when the voices start bossing me around." --Chris Karwowski Continued at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/21/psychosomatic_illness.html CALLING ALL ARTISTS! Stay F---! is looking for a few more works to include in the Illegal Art Exhibit when it opens in Portland, Oregon, in March 2005. If you or someone you know has created exceptional works that appropriate copyrighted or trademarked material without permission, please get in touch. We're especially interested in hearing about artists who have run into legal trouble or other roadblocks due to intellectual property law. Send URLs with examples of your work to stay.free at verizon.net; or send video (VHS, DVD) to Stay Free! 390 Butler Street, Brooklyn NY 11217. (For your own good as well as mine, please do NOT send anything that needs to be returned.) Works in all media will be included in the show. For more information on Illegal Art Exhibit, visit http://www.illegal-art.org or contact Carrie McLaren (stay.free at verizon.net). Deadline: December 1.