[WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back

Sun Feb 16 23:46:58 UTC 2003

Reply way down at the bottom.

|From: Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
|Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 06:53:20 -0800 (PST)
|
|Note: forwarded message attached.
|
|
|__________________________________________________
|
|Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 06:49:35 -0800 (PST)
|From: Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com>
|Subject: [WikiEN-l] The MIT vandal is back
|  
|To: wikien-l at wikipedia.com
|
|On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 12:32:27PM -0800, Zoe wrote:
|>>   It's the exact same wording as the text inserted
|by the MIT >>vandal.  I asked the person inserting it
|to give us some >>information to prove the assertion,
|and I asked if it was true >>for the entire world, or
|only certain cultures.  The person >>declined to do
|so.
|
|>The information is not misogynistic, it is true. 
|Labelling >this person a vandal does a disservice to
|the Wikipedia.  The >traditional treatment in the West
|for hysteria was for the >doctor to massage a womans
|genitals by hand until she got some >relief.  The most
|extreme forms of hysteria are not seen very >much in
|modern times; some attribute this to a greater
|interest >in giving sexual satisfaction to women.  The
|milder forms of
|>hysteria still abound; if males have a propensity for
|hysteria, >it is socialized out of them at a very
|young age.
|
|>Jonathan
|
|Interesting comment Jonathan
|
|Made me think of what Clement Rosset says about
|passion and hysteria...
|
|He usually approaches notions by paradox, and studied
|fallacious causes of suffering, in particular the
|generally accepted idea by which love is the main
|passion. He says love becomes a passion only when it
|ceases aiming at a real person, but rather toward an
|person or an object absent or unreal. Becoming a
|passion makes it cease being love. Passion would be
|the stuborn research of misfortune (or unhappiness),
|and as such be related to hysteria.
|
|It's interesting Zoe is fighting so much against the
|addition ''more women than men suffer from
|[[hysteria]]''...There's no article on hysteria on
|wikipedia by the way.
|

If we had an article on hysteria it would be described as a
discredited 19th century diagnosis closely tied to the sexual
repression of women that nonetheless was a major stimulus to Sigmund
Freud's thinking.  No one is diagnosed as hysterical today and much of
Freud's thinking is regarded as historically important but
non-scientific at this point.

It's interesting that when people want to slip in something dubious,
they start with the phrase "It's interesting . . . "  If you want to
state that someone is being hysterical here, say so and take the
consequences.

The other disputed diagnoses, histrionic personality disorder, etc.,
are more common among women (in the west), just as antisocial
personality disorder is more common among men, but the diagnosis of
hysteria is simply not given to either men or women.  

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88