MetaFilter posts tagged with hysteria

Dancing Manias and Mass Hysteria

homunculus — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:36:22 -0800

Dancing plagues and mass hysteria: how distress and pious fear have led to bizarre outbreaks across the ages. [Via]

Male mental illness in History

Kattullus — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:37:26 -0800

No matter their approach, the typical French physician who accepted the notion of male hysteria continued to think that its victims were in some way sexually abnormal: "Thus, despite Charcot's innovative work, the male victim of hysteria in late-nineteenth century French medical imagination was still frequently envisioned as an effeminate heterosexual, an overt homosexual, or a physical or emotional hermaphrodite." If not different sexually, male hysterics were said to be different in other ways, such as race or nationality, among whom African, African-American, south Asian, Arab, or Eastern European Jewish men predominated. Outside of France, other methods of denial appeared, such as the suggestion that male hysteria was restricted to Frenchmen. The medical literature of the time is full of evasions and denials and contradictions of the truths that Charcot had quite obviously demonstrated.

- Macho Misery, an extensive and interesting review of Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness. Hysterical Men is by Professor Mark S. Micale and the review is by surgeon Sherwin B. Nuland who gave this interesting TEDTalk on electroshock therapy.

Wreckers of civilization

debord — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:44:30 -0800

Who's wrecked Britain? A three part list from the Daily Mail. Here's the whole 50 in full if you don't want to plough through... Jeffrey Archer ("scandal-flecked clown") Richard Beeching ("short-termist dunderhead") Howard Schultz ("king of the caramel macchiatos") James Callaghan ("sly and matey, bespectacled yet glinty of eye") Diana, Princess of Wales ("false harbinger of egalitarianism") Greg Dyke ("the man who invented Roland Rat") Charles Saatchi ("responsible for a demoralising infection of our national aesthetic") Graham Kelly ("gormless and inadequate") Anthony Crosland ("driven by a vindictive hatred of elitism") John McEnroe ("helped spread bad sportmanship") Stpehen Marks ("encouraged a generation of Britons to think lightly about foul language") John Prescott ("gormless and ineloquent") Frank Blackmore ("mini roundabouts are the very opposite of democratic") Sir Jimmy Savile ("epitomised a breed of shallow show-offs") Edward Heath ("yielded to the sorry creed of multi-culturalism") Janet Street-Porter ("ageing non-revolutionary") Margaret Thatcher ("her radicalism had an ugly, vengeful side") Alan Titchmarsh ("that chirpy smile, those practised Yorkshire vowels") Topsy and Tim ("lead lives of blameless, centre-Left orthodoxy") Tim Westwood ("an emblem of cultural defeatism") Tony Blair ("a selfish w*****") Richard Brunstrom ("swivel-eyed evangelist") Paul Burrell ("soapy-mannered little podge") Sir Alex Ferguson ("bloated egotist") Kenneth Baker ("ill-considered changes to our law") The Very Rev. Ronald Jasper ("bloody fool") Sir Denys Lasdun ("popular ideas of beauty were treated with contempt") Helen Willetts ("pushy moderniser", "northern-accented show-off", "geeky-smiled creature") Dame Suzi Leather ("hard-boiled state meddler") Richard Dawkins ("merciless demander of provable fact") Geoffrey Rippon ("responsible for handing over our fishing rights to the EEC") Julia Smith ("EastEnders bastes Britain in the juices of misery, violence and nostalgia") 'Webonymous' ("content to hurl vitriol and hide from proper argument") Michael Martin ("as thick as cold custard") Harold Wilson ("Thanks, Harold. Thanks a bunch.") John Birt ("plodding windbag") Ed Balls ("an insufferable and dangerous menace") John Scarlett ("his conduct left open questions about his impartiality") Graham Kendrick ("pre-eminent churner-outer of evangelical bilge") Gordon Brown ("Prime Minister? Prime culprit, more like.") Tony Greig ("feels driven to infect others with his rage and itchy anxiety") Maurice 'Maus' Gatsonides ("invented the speed camera") David Blunkett ("Immigration, law enforcement, education. In a rare triple whammy, Blunkett helped cock them all up") Peter Bazalgette ("in it for the money") Alastair Campbell ("a deeply unBritish character") Harold Walker ("grandfather of the Health And Safety At Work Act") Rupert Murdoch ("crushed the elegance of the letters page") Nicholas Ridley ("We will live with his mistakes until the weeds of Doomsday lift their tendrils and bring man's uugly brickwork cascading back down to earth") Rhodes Boyson ("take him down") Alun Michael ("miserable, mangy, weak")

The Beatles Are Your Old Bicycle

Poolio — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:34:36 -0800

Before Obamania, there was Beatlemania ☺ Washington Coliseum (02/11/64) Melbourne (06/17/64) Hollywood Bowl (08/24/64) Wembley Stadium (04/11/65) Paris (06/20/65) Barcelona (07/03/65) Shea Stadium (08/15/65) Munich (06/24/66) Tokyo (07/01/66) Dodger Stadium (08/28/66)

Saving Justin Berry

Locative — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:17:10 -0800

Journalist's efforts to rescue teen from porn questioned. Kurt Eichenwald, author and NYT journalist discovered teen Justin Berry prostituting himself online and intervened, financially and legally. Eichenwald even appeared with Berry on Oprah. Two years after his initial expose was published, his life is in ruins. At issue: the $2,000 payment/loan that he made to Berry and other payments under false names. Eichenwald blames his debilitating epilepsy. Eichenwald vs. Debbie Nathan. Berry's website. Free Casey. (Previously).

You got your drugs in my candy!

Joakim Ziegler — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:22:28 -0800

Meth Candy! The media are reporting that meth is being mixed with candy to "make it more appealing to younger users". But drug candy is not new, although it's more likely accidentally given to kids, or maybe it's mostly speculation , hysteria and urban legends? Of course, there's always candy flipping, or chocolate pills. Just remember that chocolate is not an antidepressant.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one

blahblahblah — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:17:10 -0800

Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, Charles McKay's 1841 classic work on mass hysteria and national crazes, still surprisingly readable and engaging. Among the classic examples in McKay's book are the South Sea Bubble, one of the earliest and largest financial bubbles, and the witch hunts of Europe (related: try the 1628 Witch Hunt simulation). Most people remember him best for his history of Tulipmania, the Dutch flower-speculation explosion of 1647 and 1648... except that it may not have been a delusion at all, but rather a rational response to changes in regulation.

James Yee - An American In Chains

y2karl — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:46:47 -0800

My cell was 8 ft by 6 ft, the same size as the detainees’ cages at Guantanamo. It was my turn to be humiliated every time I was taken to have a shower. Naked, I had to run my hands through my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon in it. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside. Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera was displaying my naked image as male and female guards watched. It didn’t matter that I was an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite US military academy. It didn’t matter that my religious beliefs prohibited me from being fully naked in front of strangers. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been charged with a crime. It didn’t matter that my wife and daughter had no idea where I was. And it certainly didn’t matter that I was a loyal American citizen and, above all, innocent... I knew why I had been arrested: it was because I am a Muslim.

James Yee: An American in chains It's OK to demonize the 'Other' if the Other is a Muslim.

Suffer not a witch to live.

archimago — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:10:50 -0800

You dangle in agony. You clutch your faith. You fight for breath. You surrender your spirit. Nineteen “witches” were hanged at Gallows Hill in 1692, and one defendant, Giles Cory, was tortured to death for refusing to enter a plea at his trial. Five others, including an infant, died in prison.

bargle — Thu, 13 Sep 2001 01:33:50 -0800

Plane crashes in Mexico, killing 19. Despite a few early misleading reports, foul play is NOT suspected.

Mocata — Thu, 19 Jul 2001 04:34:38 -0800

Contrary to what you may have heard, the new Brass Eye is indeed about paedophiles. And it's got Phil Collins wearing a "Nonce Sense" t-shirt.

holloway — Sun, 17 Dec 2000 17:25:12 -0800

Council bans anyone recording school children ...due to possible paedophilia. AHAHAHAaaa hahahahaahaaa haa. Oh where was I? Oh that's right [more inside]