Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

In Ann Cvetkovich’s new “critical memoir,” Depression: A Public Feeling, the University of Texas professor seeks to “defamiliarize” depression within a genealogy of spiritual despair, while attending to the relationship of the psyche to the soma as illustrated by how different cultures or the working class are more likely to somatize their depression. Can we, Cvetkovich asks at the book’s beginning, engage with depression as the “product of a sick culture”?

Years back, in CS Lewis’ essay ‘On The Reading of Old Books,’ I encountered a suggestion that has stuck with me ever since. Lewis posited that each generation of humanity takes certain things for granted: assumptions that go unexamined and unquestioned because they are commonly held by all. It was Lewis’ opinion that reading books written by prior generations would help us to see around these generational blind spots.

In her new book, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything, FS Michaels suggests that just such a blind spot has, over the course of generations, come to dominate the narrative and values that our society lives by. From education and the arts to how we eat, think, and play, Michaels asserts that we have been steeped in a single point of view, the economic, where value is reduced to what can be sold and worth is determined by financial expediency. Michael’s writing is clear and sharp as she brings the impact of this pervasive global philosophy down to the personal level, showing how it affects our lives in the everyday.

In a time of seemingly constant budget cuts and belt-tightening, this book is a valuable tool in provoking thought and discussion about how we as a society value the arts, education, and health.

In our wildest madness we dream of an equilibrium we have lost.-Albert Camus

The other day at the doctor's office, I picked up a typical fashion magazine left opened on the coffee table for something to do.  The cover highlighted a young actress half-naked and doing her best to look sexy, which is not unusual in a commercial society that promotes women as sex objects. 

It is also considered normal by today's standards for an eleven-year-old girl to believe that the sexier she is-the more valued and appreciated she will be in our society. As for the boys, they're occupied for hours playing violent video games that give them the thrill of exploding humans with powerful weapons in the pursuit of joyful killing.