Well, we now see the practical applicability of diagnosing paranoid schizophrenia. The shooter, Jared L. Loughner, was kicked out of college for being psychotic: “on the first day of the term, the instructor in Jared L. Loughner’s basic algebra class, Ben McGahee, posed what he thought was a simple arithmetic question to his students. He was not prepared for the explosive response – how can you deny math instead of accepting it?” Mr. Loughner asked, after blurting out a random number, according to Mr. McGahee. (KIRK JOHNSON, SERGE F. KOVALESKI, DAN FROSCH and ERIC LIPTON Published: January 9, 2011,NYT.) Let’s just say the number was far from random?

His Facebook posting also reveal his belief that grammar is real, and his delusion that he could control through grammar.

One wonders about the diagnostic abilities of our psychiatrists. It’s possible to differentiate between psychosis, neurological problems, and hysteric madness, and it isn’t all that hard. And it’s also possible to predict violence, as Vicktor Tausk wrote more than one hundred years ago in his paper on ‘influencing machines.’ Those paranoids who believe they can be ‘controlled’ by some malevolent outside force are far more likely to act out violently than those whose delusions aren’t so persecutory.

This suffering man should have been hospitalized, and his parents should have have received services to help them get him the treatment he needed, and to take the medication that could have calmed him. Now people have died, and this man is in the criminal justice system, not in a locked ward receiving treatment I’ve heard politicians call him evil, to which I call them medieval.

Anna Shane

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Perhaps the first on this blog should speak to our Society and membership/participation. We have new officers, I’m back as president, Michael Brown is vice-president, and Cristella Castro, a real CPA, is our treasurer. But, there are several Lacanian groups in this area, and in fact we get most interest from outside our area, other states and other countries. All our time is volunteered, and in the past we used to do more presentations, for example the last time Slavoj Zizek was in the area we sponsored his talk.

I’d like to think that we’re an international organization, regardless of our name, as we have cosponsored events elsewhere. Our past art editor, Scott Henstrand, lives in Brooklyn, and we co-sponsored a talk he organized at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and sent Janet Thormann, who spoke on drives.

I know there are students of Lacanian theory who’d like to meet up with some others, and start study groups or cartels, and this would be a place to identify yourselves and your interests. Why not internet cartels? Goodness knows there are few enough to make distance hardly the most daunting obstacle.

It’s easy to join the society, it’s fifty tax-deductible bucks for professionals and thirty for students, and most of our services are free, even for non-members. Maybe there is someone who’d like to do something for our journal, perhaps a potential poetry editor with time and talent and some ideas about the objet a ? Anyway, we invite all of you to post something here and let us know who you are and how our organization may serve your interests.

Anna Shane

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