Posted by dj on June 18, 2000, at 10:29:10
In reply to Re: On the razor's edge, posted by JohnL on June 18, 2000, at 5:55:16
> DJ,
>
> I was deeply moved by your descriptions and observations. You drew me into it like a novel. Very heartfelt.
>JohnL,
I wish I could take credit for writing that eloquent and insightful article. However, it was written for the Toronto-based Globe and Mail (one of Canada's two self-proclaimed National Newspapers) by Prof. Thomas Homer-Dixon who has written brilliantly about the international impacts of enviromental issues in his book: "Environment, Scarcity, and Violence".
I too found Prof. Dixon's writing moving and agree very much with his thesis, which I've seen touched on equally eloquently in a local alternative newspaper a year or so ago. And as I know most P.B.ers are from the U.S. and wouldn't come across the Globe and Mail or even know of it I thought it was an article worth sharing.
Thanks for your insightful and thoughtful comments, as always, on it. As for the link with earlier generations and genes there is no question that has always been an element. Our hyper-active societal model just seems to speed up the dis-ease process in it's many expressions.
In case you haven't come across any of her writings you might find Dr. Kay Redfield-Jamison's writings of interest. She wrote the DMS description of manic-depression, is an academic and personal authority on the effects, having grappled with it and described her experience brilliantly in her book: "An Unquiet Mind".
In her books "Touched With Fire : Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament"
she focuses on the prevelance of manic depression in some writers, and their familes, of recent and earlier generations - Tennyson, Sylvia Plath, Melville, Coleridge, Hemingway, etc...
poster:dj
thread:37668
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000610/msgs/37687.html