Here is the inadvertently omitted reference for my last blog entitled, "Shooting for Peace".
Myers, Neely, “The Neuroanthropology of Embodiment, Absorption and Dissociation,” Somatosphere (blog), December 1, 2011, http://somatosphere.net/2011/12/the-neuroanthropology-of-embodiment-absorption-and-dissociation.html
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Human Connection
In accordance with something I've held a strong opinion on for years, researchers at Duke University and Princeton University examined, and hold evidence of, the brain's tendency to dehumanize with the proper stimuli, possibly forestalling the social connection needed to humanize a subject. This dehumanization could lead to such heinous acts of brutality as filicide, murder and genocide. While we ostracize the actors in these horror stories, the brain can hold accountability for such thoughts and behaviors in its very essential wiring by not allowing the person to feel empathy, pity and admiration. Humans that do the unspeakable can simply have malfunctioning wires, so to speak. I don't like to throw my opinion around lavishly on the internet but since this is my blog I must say I abhor our society's vilification of who are really simply humans with malfunctioning brains.
The researchers developed a working model for dehumanizing tendencies. They supported the claim that when a person is perceived as disgusting or less than favorable, our brains may not fire up the areas that allow us to see them as thinking,feeling creatures, thus resulting in classifying them as subhuman. Researchers performed a basic procedure of showing the test subjects images of varying types of people. Some of the images intended to arouse disgust were of drug addicts and homeless people. When shown these images, the test subjects' brain's failed to activate the areas that could allow a social connection and an imagined understanding of the person's experience. Dehumanizing tends to be the result of which.
The researchers relate this lack of perceived humanness as a lack of ability to see oneself in the subjects shoes and to connect with them on a social level. Susan Fiske of Princeton states,
"We need to think about other people's experience, It's what makes them fully human to us." It is clear here that, in general, the human brain holds the potential to dehumanize a subject, which can make sense of extreme violence. With this we come a little closer to understanding the minds of killers and tyrants.
The study, "Dehumanized Perception: A Psychological Means to Facilitate Atrocities, Torture, and Genocide?", is doing what I feel is a very important venture, that of trying to better understand those that do the most harm.
Researchers:
Lasana Harris-Duke University-(919) 684-1645 or lth4@duke.edu;
Susan Fiske-Princeton University-(609) 258 0655 or sfiske@princeton.edu.
For a copy of this study contact Steve Hartsoe of Duke University at steve.hartsoe@duke.edu
Hartsoe, Steve. “A Brain's Failure to Appreciate Others May Permit Human Atrocities.” Duke Today. December 14, 2011. http://today.duke.edu/2011/12/dehumanize.
The article appeared in the Journal of Psychology, vol. 219, no. 3. pp 175-181
DOI 10.1027/2151-2604/a000065.
The researchers developed a working model for dehumanizing tendencies. They supported the claim that when a person is perceived as disgusting or less than favorable, our brains may not fire up the areas that allow us to see them as thinking,feeling creatures, thus resulting in classifying them as subhuman. Researchers performed a basic procedure of showing the test subjects images of varying types of people. Some of the images intended to arouse disgust were of drug addicts and homeless people. When shown these images, the test subjects' brain's failed to activate the areas that could allow a social connection and an imagined understanding of the person's experience. Dehumanizing tends to be the result of which.
The researchers relate this lack of perceived humanness as a lack of ability to see oneself in the subjects shoes and to connect with them on a social level. Susan Fiske of Princeton states,
"We need to think about other people's experience, It's what makes them fully human to us." It is clear here that, in general, the human brain holds the potential to dehumanize a subject, which can make sense of extreme violence. With this we come a little closer to understanding the minds of killers and tyrants.
The study, "Dehumanized Perception: A Psychological Means to Facilitate Atrocities, Torture, and Genocide?", is doing what I feel is a very important venture, that of trying to better understand those that do the most harm.
Researchers:
Lasana Harris-Duke University-(919) 684-1645 or lth4@duke.edu;
Susan Fiske-Princeton University-(609) 258 0655 or sfiske@princeton.edu.
For a copy of this study contact Steve Hartsoe of Duke University at steve.hartsoe@duke.edu
Hartsoe, Steve. “A Brain's Failure to Appreciate Others May Permit Human Atrocities.” Duke Today. December 14, 2011. http://today.duke.edu/2011/12/dehumanize.
The article appeared in the Journal of Psychology, vol. 219, no. 3. pp 175-181
DOI 10.1027/2151-2604/a000065.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Shooting for Peace
Video games have been vilified by our culture over the last decade for taking over the lives of the teens who play them. There are myriad concerns if it is healthy to spend so much time playing games and being isolated socially while placing more importance on achievements in the game than in real life. Is this typical teenage rejection of responsibility or could there be something functional about this behavior?
Colorado State's Jeffrey Snodgrass has investigated the addictive tendencies of heavy gamers and discovered an enhancement in the area of the brain that deals with addiction, the left striatal grey matter. Snodgrass used two scales, those of absorption and immersion, that were said to be in connection with the players' experience of "getting into the game". Getting into the game is something often mentioned by gamers in their discourse on experience levels and game enjoyment. These instances of being "sucked into" the game may have stress reducing effects. This way of disassociating from the real world may be justified, at least biologically, by our needs to reduce the constant stress of daily living. Teenagers transitioning into adulthood feel that stress too only are less equipped to handle it as fully fledged adults are.
Video game addiction is something of a real fear in our nation, to the extent that it was considered, but ultimately rejected, for entry in the DSM as a legitimate psychological disorder, but we may be jumping the gun in saying gaming is unhealthy for kids. The typical life of a teenager is filled with not just the deluge of information their technocratic minds crave but also thousands of nano-calculations a day that take place, layers and layers under the conscious, that equate to the navigation of the real world and the social mastery we eventually come into. Looking back, high school was the busiest my brain had ever been. All lobes were fired, all nuclei engaged in the negotiations and challenges of maturation. This is all a lot of noise our brains like to detract from; a much needed break to reset of the these systems and allow for better functioning.
Snodgrass's peer, University of Alabama's Christopher Lynn, studied similar phenomenons with christian Pentacostals who talk in "tongues" and people watching simulated fires. In both cases, these activities we are known to get lost in, much like video games, measures of stress went down as the absorption in the activity went up.
Despite numerous campaigns to incorporate more activity and face to face socializing into the teenage life, our nation's youth, and some grown ups as well, spent $650 million in less than a week on the much anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops game last fall. Game production companies have been sued over supposed deaths from exhaustion after prolonged gaming. The games themselves self promote heavy usage from within, giving gamers experience points to purchase capital in the player's life, regardless of winning or losing the game; this is simply reward for playing more. There is even a sub-culture term of "catassing" which describes someone who plays games excessively, to the extent of shucking real life responsibilities however this can be seen as good or bad among gamers, dependent upon the demographic any particular game produces.
Basically, excessive gaming is quite persistent despite media defamation and it is clear that this experience is here to stay, and possibly always existed. In the past it may have been staring into the fire telling stories, carving wood or beating drums however culture to culture, the need to get sucked in is ubiquitous.
Disassociating into the World of War Craft until 3 am can help teenage brains cope with the noise of this transitioning period in our lives. The hypnosis of the first person shooter game could be a way of turning off the noise of transitioning into adulthood in a culturally mediated way.
Colorado State's Jeffrey Snodgrass has investigated the addictive tendencies of heavy gamers and discovered an enhancement in the area of the brain that deals with addiction, the left striatal grey matter. Snodgrass used two scales, those of absorption and immersion, that were said to be in connection with the players' experience of "getting into the game". Getting into the game is something often mentioned by gamers in their discourse on experience levels and game enjoyment. These instances of being "sucked into" the game may have stress reducing effects. This way of disassociating from the real world may be justified, at least biologically, by our needs to reduce the constant stress of daily living. Teenagers transitioning into adulthood feel that stress too only are less equipped to handle it as fully fledged adults are.
Video game addiction is something of a real fear in our nation, to the extent that it was considered, but ultimately rejected, for entry in the DSM as a legitimate psychological disorder, but we may be jumping the gun in saying gaming is unhealthy for kids. The typical life of a teenager is filled with not just the deluge of information their technocratic minds crave but also thousands of nano-calculations a day that take place, layers and layers under the conscious, that equate to the navigation of the real world and the social mastery we eventually come into. Looking back, high school was the busiest my brain had ever been. All lobes were fired, all nuclei engaged in the negotiations and challenges of maturation. This is all a lot of noise our brains like to detract from; a much needed break to reset of the these systems and allow for better functioning.
Snodgrass's peer, University of Alabama's Christopher Lynn, studied similar phenomenons with christian Pentacostals who talk in "tongues" and people watching simulated fires. In both cases, these activities we are known to get lost in, much like video games, measures of stress went down as the absorption in the activity went up.
Despite numerous campaigns to incorporate more activity and face to face socializing into the teenage life, our nation's youth, and some grown ups as well, spent $650 million in less than a week on the much anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops game last fall. Game production companies have been sued over supposed deaths from exhaustion after prolonged gaming. The games themselves self promote heavy usage from within, giving gamers experience points to purchase capital in the player's life, regardless of winning or losing the game; this is simply reward for playing more. There is even a sub-culture term of "catassing" which describes someone who plays games excessively, to the extent of shucking real life responsibilities however this can be seen as good or bad among gamers, dependent upon the demographic any particular game produces.
Basically, excessive gaming is quite persistent despite media defamation and it is clear that this experience is here to stay, and possibly always existed. In the past it may have been staring into the fire telling stories, carving wood or beating drums however culture to culture, the need to get sucked in is ubiquitous.
Disassociating into the World of War Craft until 3 am can help teenage brains cope with the noise of this transitioning period in our lives. The hypnosis of the first person shooter game could be a way of turning off the noise of transitioning into adulthood in a culturally mediated way.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
the spirit of the people
To reinvestigate the word “Ethos”, I wanted to examine the spirit of the people at this ever so critical moment in time. The ideas, attitudes and beliefs of this group, the self-declared 99%, are under intense scrutiny by the public eye and are painting a valuable portrait of our nation for posterity.
Through ongoing and in-depth media coverage, a phenomenon has been revealed; socio-economic division is a natural condition in a large-scale, agricultural society. While this won’t be novel to some of you, the 99% is protesting for a undivided, egalitarian nation. Well 99%, your equality defined society just won’t work if you want your grains and corn withal. In any large "society", as they have christened themselves, division occurs. To support a society like ours, class divisions exist in a natural, almost symbiotic state. Similarly, the protest encampments have been severing off varying groups with distinct group identities, often economically bound. This is making the very inequality they are protesting a little too resemblant.
A possible antecedent for this is the charmingly patchwork groups coming together to protest, from the socio-economic layers that make up the 99%. Laughably, this is one of the most inspiring things about the protest, the myriad types of people speaking up from all sides of the country and from all classes, not just the Wall Street (or L.A. or Silicon Valley) 1%. Can we even say there is a 99%? Perhaps without criticism. Even through the strength of their argument, natural divisions exist in both the outlook and expectations of the protest as well as the background of the protesters. In actuality, 99% of the population is still going to have financial inequality even without all that wealth. There are the legitimately disadvantaged that are protesting for that visceral feeling of struggle, hardship and joblessness. There are the so-called yuppie faction who are protesting for a variety of reasons; to support the other percentage of the 99%, to make a personal statement or a public one, to appease expectations (Berkeley anyone?) or to be part of something meaningful, exciting and legendary. Keep in mind what class these are in. There are the peacekeepers that see money as the enemy and there are the politicos who are often well educated, empowered and have had more luck than the truly disadvantaged. Clearly the groups further divide past that but for brevity, this paints a pretty clear picture.
This stratigraphy of sorts is the very environment that cultured the 99/1% divide of wealth. Now I can't say with any validity that the encampments in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles are divided so severely as to mimic our nation’s hyperbolic material culture, however it would surely take the foggiest participant to overlook the irony that is screamingly apparent. They ask for a classless society. They see equality and egalitarianism as realistic goals for our nation. What they don't see is the lessening equality within their own group and the disconnects between the attitudes of the group in the drum circle and the group in the iPad circle. This microcosmic formation is uncanny in its ability to undermine the argument argued for, to weaken the solidarity, and therefore power, of the group and to take meaning away from the 99%.
Through ongoing and in-depth media coverage, a phenomenon has been revealed; socio-economic division is a natural condition in a large-scale, agricultural society. While this won’t be novel to some of you, the 99% is protesting for a undivided, egalitarian nation. Well 99%, your equality defined society just won’t work if you want your grains and corn withal. In any large "society", as they have christened themselves, division occurs. To support a society like ours, class divisions exist in a natural, almost symbiotic state. Similarly, the protest encampments have been severing off varying groups with distinct group identities, often economically bound. This is making the very inequality they are protesting a little too resemblant.
A possible antecedent for this is the charmingly patchwork groups coming together to protest, from the socio-economic layers that make up the 99%. Laughably, this is one of the most inspiring things about the protest, the myriad types of people speaking up from all sides of the country and from all classes, not just the Wall Street (or L.A. or Silicon Valley) 1%. Can we even say there is a 99%? Perhaps without criticism. Even through the strength of their argument, natural divisions exist in both the outlook and expectations of the protest as well as the background of the protesters. In actuality, 99% of the population is still going to have financial inequality even without all that wealth. There are the legitimately disadvantaged that are protesting for that visceral feeling of struggle, hardship and joblessness. There are the so-called yuppie faction who are protesting for a variety of reasons; to support the other percentage of the 99%, to make a personal statement or a public one, to appease expectations (Berkeley anyone?) or to be part of something meaningful, exciting and legendary. Keep in mind what class these are in. There are the peacekeepers that see money as the enemy and there are the politicos who are often well educated, empowered and have had more luck than the truly disadvantaged. Clearly the groups further divide past that but for brevity, this paints a pretty clear picture.
This stratigraphy of sorts is the very environment that cultured the 99/1% divide of wealth. Now I can't say with any validity that the encampments in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles are divided so severely as to mimic our nation’s hyperbolic material culture, however it would surely take the foggiest participant to overlook the irony that is screamingly apparent. They ask for a classless society. They see equality and egalitarianism as realistic goals for our nation. What they don't see is the lessening equality within their own group and the disconnects between the attitudes of the group in the drum circle and the group in the iPad circle. This microcosmic formation is uncanny in its ability to undermine the argument argued for, to weaken the solidarity, and therefore power, of the group and to take meaning away from the 99%.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Level Headed Crazy
An oxymoron? At face value, yes. Upon a second register, an examination of the structures and meanings within, this term, “the level headed crazy”, depicts nothing more than a dual rolled person, something we all are in certain contortions.
What is most problematic, and most telling, is the usage of the word crazy as a noun to the adjective level headed. Our understanding of “crazy” already takes form here. Crazy is not only something one can be, but can also be someone. You can be a crazy (such as a genius or a pessimist) or be crazy (thinking and behaving in a crazy state). The above examined term, assigning it LHC as an acronym, can be read using both these utilities of “crazy”.
My identification with these is of the roll I’ve defined as someone who is, in all technicality according to our society, crazy however lives with the consequences of being level headed. For me, this has meant getting an education, marrying my husband and having reasonable goals for my future. I trust all the above require some percent of level headedness. What conflicts here is the very definition, even the very defining factor, our society has for the term crazy. Level headedness, and in some interpretations logic and groundedness, is the crucial factor in determination of crazies. Simply put, crazy people do not make level headed decisions and often make no sense.
So to term someone a LHC is to say there is a cultural loophole. This is the oxymoron effect. Irony even. Someone can be both given the context. Traits of either identity, if not in full conflict, can coalesce in a simbioticy. Making good decisions can be an effect of the acute mental clarity those in a state of mania have. Abstaining from drugs and alcohol, while certainly not the overwhelming majority among those who are mentally ill, can be a result of being on a cocktail of psychopharmaceuticals that all increase the potency of alcohol. Having a strong, healthy marriage, when those with bipolar have a 90% divorce rate, can be the result of years of therapy and self-exploration that those with chronic mental illness sometimes go through to deal with the disorder itself.
A calm and poised demeanor under stress can be from the imbalance of neurotransmitters that can result in both depressed mood as well as composure.
This concept tarnishes the strong held idea of crazy people that are not understood and therefore one-dimensional. With this idea of LHC expanding and eventually being integrated into the re-education of the public, those one-dimensional people are more likely to be accepted, understood and approachable. This could be of huge challenge to the persistent stigma that, although lessening, continues to surround mental illness as a whole.
What is most problematic, and most telling, is the usage of the word crazy as a noun to the adjective level headed. Our understanding of “crazy” already takes form here. Crazy is not only something one can be, but can also be someone. You can be a crazy (such as a genius or a pessimist) or be crazy (thinking and behaving in a crazy state). The above examined term, assigning it LHC as an acronym, can be read using both these utilities of “crazy”.
My identification with these is of the roll I’ve defined as someone who is, in all technicality according to our society, crazy however lives with the consequences of being level headed. For me, this has meant getting an education, marrying my husband and having reasonable goals for my future. I trust all the above require some percent of level headedness. What conflicts here is the very definition, even the very defining factor, our society has for the term crazy. Level headedness, and in some interpretations logic and groundedness, is the crucial factor in determination of crazies. Simply put, crazy people do not make level headed decisions and often make no sense.
So to term someone a LHC is to say there is a cultural loophole. This is the oxymoron effect. Irony even. Someone can be both given the context. Traits of either identity, if not in full conflict, can coalesce in a simbioticy. Making good decisions can be an effect of the acute mental clarity those in a state of mania have. Abstaining from drugs and alcohol, while certainly not the overwhelming majority among those who are mentally ill, can be a result of being on a cocktail of psychopharmaceuticals that all increase the potency of alcohol. Having a strong, healthy marriage, when those with bipolar have a 90% divorce rate, can be the result of years of therapy and self-exploration that those with chronic mental illness sometimes go through to deal with the disorder itself.
A calm and poised demeanor under stress can be from the imbalance of neurotransmitters that can result in both depressed mood as well as composure.
This concept tarnishes the strong held idea of crazy people that are not understood and therefore one-dimensional. With this idea of LHC expanding and eventually being integrated into the re-education of the public, those one-dimensional people are more likely to be accepted, understood and approachable. This could be of huge challenge to the persistent stigma that, although lessening, continues to surround mental illness as a whole.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)