Re: terms

Sylvia T. Paldhan (pald1208@tao.sosc.osshe.edu)
Tue, 01 Oct 1996 16:35:53 -0700

> To say there are no crazy people begging on the streets is itself
> crazy -- though the "problem in living" this time is a gullible
> acceptance of rightwing ideology.

Nobody said there weren't. The definition disputed is
mental "illness" as an objective reality - in the sense that the
bodily illness of pneumonia is- rather than a subjective label for
difficulties people suffer.

> Szasz did fine work in fighting the incarceration of the mentally ill,
> but

If you can't refute, damn with faint praise, to dissuade others from
reading?

>the fact remains that many of them surive,

In what condition? Is there no better than survival to be found?
Would they not have had mere survival with any assistance?

> even survive on the
> streets, because of daily medical treatment which makes it possible
> for them to function.

By whose definition? To what degree of their choice? Where is it shown
that teaching them how dysfunction develops and so how to get out of it,
with no drugging involved, wouldn't do at least as well?

Liberty for the individual is the foundation of all liberty. Read
Szasz again, to see the point of that. 

-- 

  "Truth is mighty and will prevail."