On World Mental Health Day

Last year on World Mental Health Day, nearly a year after my mother's death, I wrote a letter of protest to the Deans at Plymouth University which was also a request for help.

Comment Massagement

Me, Pat and Steve on 25/09/11
Mum died on 21/10/11.

It's a long while since I've had any time for blogging.  Moving across the world gets you like that but I'm here to post a comment that was left on a blog that claims to be about humanism, although it's hard, given the vitriol and closed-mindedness in evidence there, so see what that might be that is of any use to anyone. I'm posting the comment here simply because three quarters of it was deleted, with the express intention of reputation destruction. (My comment policy is at the end of this post).

Schoolyard Critics

This post is a footnote to my review of Eugene Schwartz' short movie "Recessitation: Bullying in the Waldorf School", which inverts both joke mechanisms and definitions of play and bullying to ridicule the notion of both.

I've reviewed the movie on ANM, because it provides a lot of useful (if inverted) information about Steiner education, and this addendum examines how, in their own critiques of this movie the Steiner critics have continued and extended the inversions used by Schwartz, by which actions they reveal not only a singular lack of ability to self-scrutinise, but also a dangerous lack of awareness of the similarity of their position to the one that they are criticising.

Handy Template for Identifying a Cult

Of use to cult-busters might be this handy template, helpfully supplied by Alicia Hamberg. It originally concerned the treatment of Gregoire Perra, whose whistleblowing activities the 'critiques' talk about increasingly, by the Fédération des Ecoles Steiner en France, who are suing him.


But what I found when I looked at it (once I stopped laughing), was that it can apply to any group that mounts an aggressive attack on people with different opinions or ways of approaching matters, and which, in doing so, begins to approximate cultish behaviour.

Intimidation

When I'd published my post on Tuesday, I read it again, and although it was a relief to laugh at some of those things, about how Charlie Kingston went to the police about a six year old's play date, I realised that I had been less than honest in one important respect.

It's all very well being funny and all that, and making light of a bad situation. Finding the humour in things can literally keep you alive I've discovered, as someone living with chronic pain, and it's a habit that I've developed on and off-stage. Humour is quite simply the antidote to all life's ills.

A Skeptical Witch-Hunt

This post title should be a contradiction in terms, because skepticism claims to require proper evidence, and witch-hunts are obviously built on hearsay. But you know what folks? It isn't a contradiction at all because quite a few people who wrongly call themselves skeptics are quite prepared to indulge in witch-hunts forsaking any pretence at critical thinking when there's a chance to get at someone they 'despise', indulge their vitriol and feel part of a groovy gang all at the same time.

Does it hurt to be attacked like that on the inter-web?  Well what do you think?

PTSD and Bullying

When I left University I joined local Theatre in Education company Theatre Alibi, and toured around Devon with a show called "No Heroes No Cowards", about a soldier in the First World War, shot for desertion.  That was in the 80s but it took until 2008 for soldiers shot for "desertion" in WW1 were given a full pardon in recognition of the fact that they were, in fact, suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Even once there was an understanding that traumatic events can effect people in this way, the term PTSD was still used exclusively to refer to a single traumatising event evoking “intense fear, helplessness, or horror”, and which continues to cause distress, flashbacks and other symptoms.

Anthroposophical Plants

There's something wonderful about plants grown with the full force of life-affirming quackery running through them, they look the same, maybe a bit posher, but they taste like something can taste only when is has been thoroughly steeped in esoteric dogma.

But until now Anthroposophical Plants haven’t been flagged up as much of a problem.

welcome to anarchangel's blog

Hello world. This is my first blog post.  I've kept two blogs before.  The first one was a private blog when I was in the neo-natal intensive care unit with my extreme premie.  The second one is public and follows the story of what happened to us when we moved to New Zealand and went to a Steiner school.  Oh no! It was a horrible experience of bullying, mismanagement, dishonesty and mobbing and we're still, believe it or not, dealing with the fallout years later.