From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: SABOTAGE THE WAR EFFORT!
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 18:42:12 +0100



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "anthony hayes" <antyphayes-AT-yahoo.com.au>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 3. februar 2003 16.24
Subject: AUT: Re: SABOTAGE THE WAR EFFORT!



> > I also sort of wonder about the last two words in
> the
> > following: "A life of loneliness, suicide and senile
> > dementia." Why you put loneliness, suicide in there
> is
> > very clear. "Senile dementia"  -- that is old age
> > dementia -- is however far more problematic, though
> it
> > has some relation to loneliness and some times
> > causes suicide. 
> 
> yes and, er, no. Im not sure to what extent senile
> dementia is both a natural and social problem,
> particularly in regards to workers that live long
> enough being removed from direct participation in the
> work process and forced into a type of neutered
> existence vis the rest of the working class (as
> opposed to the neutering process of work). how does
> this contribute to not only isolation and despair, but
> also physiological processes like dementia.? other
> thoughts  the prevalence of aluminium in packaging,
> cooking utensils, containers etc. and its association
> with alzheimers.

No everything usually called "senile dementia" would
be a diagnosed as such by a a so-called specialist.
But isolation, lack of stimulation,  undernourishment
and medicine used, surely often also plays its part in
bringing forth senile dementia used in a broad popular
sense. As always we should be sceptical towards
the medical specialists explanations, but it is hard to wholly
rule out natural processes as well. (Of course natural
processes always gets into this if we only define the
term wide enough.) My point is however that this is too
complex and sensitive an issue to simply make grand
assertions in an anti-war leaflet. What I can say for
certain however is that very often senile dementia as
used in a broad popular sense has social causes. If this
in a somewhat different sense can also be said to apply
for Ronald Reagan's alzheimers -- that it could have
been caused by exposure to particular forms of polluttion
for instance--  I suspect none of us can know for sure
one way ot the other at this point, except that also for
people diagnosed as having alzheimers, it is possible
to make their situation worse or better..

Harald
 







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