Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Ronnie Raygun...and a link

My two cents added to the Reagan nonsense:
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mickeyz06082004/

Also, you’ll find a new “links” section in the right column. (I will be adding lots of suggestions over time.) First up is Christine Hamm’s blog...a mixture of poetic brilliance, cynical observation, and magical revelation.

Posted on 06/08 at 05:25 AM
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Sunday, June 06, 2004

Reagan: "brain-damaged or has something to conceal"

In Oliver Sacks’ remarkable book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales,” Dr. Sacks detailed the reactions of people with aphasia as they viewed a televised speech by President Ronald Reagan. While the multiple language and speech problems of aphasia can be caused by any disease or injury to the brain, the most common cause is stroke. Since this condition can often be masked and difficult to diagnose, Sacks found that some people with aphasia, when addressed “naturally,” could grasp some or most of the meaning of one’s words. Thus, he was compelled to utilize an unusual approach in his treatment. In order to satisfactorily confirm their condition as aphasia, Dr. Sacks stated that he had to go to “extraordinary lengths, as a neurologist, to speak and behave un-naturally, to remove all the extra-verbal clues-tone of voice, intonation, suggestive emphasis or inflection, as well as all visual cues (one’s gestures, one’s entirely unconscious, personal repertoire and posture).” Such de-personalizing of voice renders speech devoid of tone or color. It is this machine-like way of talking that will usually be unrecognizable to people with aphasia and quite possibly cause them to laugh at the incomprehensible sounds being uttered. The words mean nothing, it is the way they are spoken that matters. Through such unusual treatment, Sacks was able to truly demonstrate his patients’ aphasia. Quite unexpectedly, this peculiar method exposed a rather fascinating side-effect: political savvy. In the mid-eighties, Sacks studied the reaction of people with aphasia as they watched a televised speech by the former-actor-turned-president. Despite being unable to grasp the skillful politician’s words, the patients were convulsed in laughter.

“One cannot lie to an aphasiac,” Dr. Sacks noted. “He cannot grasp your words, and so cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps, he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, that total spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, all too easily.” So, why did those patients with aphasia cackle at Reagan’s speech? “It was the grimaces, the histrionics, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice which rang false for these wordless but immensely sensitive patients,” explained Sacks. Conversely, Sacks remarked on a woman with tonal agnosia who was also watching the address-stony-faced. Emily D., a former English teacher and poet, was deprived of any emotional reaction to the speech but was able to judge it in the opposite way the patients with aphasia did. Her response? “He does not speak good prose,” Emily D. told Sacks. “His word-use is improper. Either he is brain-damaged or he has something to conceal.”

“We normals,” concluded Dr. Sacks, “aided, doubtless, by our wish to be fooled, were indeed well and truly fooled. And so cunningly was deceptive word-use combined with deceptive tone, that only the brain-damaged remained intact, undeceived.”

Posted on 06/06 at 08:14 AM
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Saturday, June 05, 2004

"Back" to the Future

I often hear phrases like: “Take back our democracy,” “take back our streets,” take back our media,” and “take back our country.” What I’m wondering is this: Precisely when was it that “we” had control of all this? The “take back” approach gives the false impression that past U.S. leaders were more fair and that we must look backwards for solutions.

Sure, we can learn from the past...but the lessons are usually what NOT to do.

Posted on 06/05 at 10:43 AM
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