LET TERS
A SYSTEM THAT WORKS
The media generally goes for the
sensational on any topic, but there was a
good balance in the EW articles on mental
health in Lane County as far as the articles
went. However, mental health is much
more than schizophrenia and commitment
in psychiatric hospitals, and mental health
is not just an adult issue.
Despite the quote in the article, “Our
system … is pretty broken,” the fact is that
our mental health system in Lane County is
exemplary and one of the best in the nation.
We are very fortunate in Lane County to
have a mental health infrastructure of 17
private organizations helping children
and adults with national model programs
addressing all levels of mental health needs
around the clock and every day of the year.
Perhaps the next mental health article
can focus on the many ways we keep
people, particularly children, out of
hospitals and out of the criminal justice
system. Our local mental health system is
a community treasure and does its job very
well and with little fanfare.
Dave Ziegler, Ph.D.
Jasper Mountain
DUBIOUS DIAGNOSIS
This is in regards to the two articles
addressing “mental illness” in the Sept. 24
issue.
VIEWPOINT
I have learned several things in my
life, and one is that no article of any
length that doesn’t discuss trauma when
looking at emotional distress is going to be
misleading, and trauma wasn’t mentioned
in either article. Another thing is that
when people use the term “mental illness”
and toss around dubious labels, they are
invariably going to sound as if they were
coached by Big Nurse herself.
Truth is, while there are many thousands
of emotionally disabled people in Lane
County, few if any have an illness that can
be defi ned by a medical test. None have
an imbalance that requires some powerful
mind-control drug, and one huge truth is
that there are thousands of us “psychiatric
survivors” out here who remember our
treatment at the hands of psychiatry and
fear for those still lost and vulnerable.
I challenge a Lane County psychiatrist
to say that there is a medical test for this
thing “mental illness.” You will notice that
they don’t. Instead, they rely on family and
others to do that. So how can they say that
a quarter of us have it? I suggest wandering
over to madinamerica.com and look at all
the recent studies that show the dangers
of the wonder drugs and criminalizing
emotionally distressed people.
That “future crimes” criminalization
really is frightening. If we had enough
housing and decent mental health care,
as well as counseling in schools and
prisons, we wouldn’t have so many out-of-
control fellow humans. Lane County has
no public shelter system, so where are the
lost to go? We live in an insane culture, so
of course many of us are messed up. But if
there is no defi nition of “mental illness,”
stop using those two words.
Hugh Massengill
Eugene
MEASURING PROGRESS
As a teacher with 40 years of experience,
I administered my share of standardized
tests not only because I had to, but also
because I fi gured that they were useful. I
discovered the results of those tests did not
help me at all to improve my instruction
— because they aren’t designed to do that.
Geoff Barrett’s Sept. 24 Viewpoint
“Judging the Quality of Instruction” lays
out the three reasons typically given to
support the use of standardized tests, and
then he expertly debunks them.
A far better way to measure student
progress is classroom-based performance
assessment where the teacher, in concert
with colleagues, designs a task in reading,
writing, math, etc. that connects to the unit
of study and allows each student to reveal
what she or he knows and can do. This
informs the student, the teacher and the
parent what needs to be done next.
A great opportunity for learning
about authentic, appropriate assessment
is this week when a teacher from Seattle
and a vice principal from Beaverton
will be speaking at the Community
Alliance for Public Education’s event on
“Appropriate Assessment: There Is Life
After High Stakes Standardized Tests” at
7 pm Thursday, Oct. 1, at Eugene Friends
Church, 3495 W. 18th Ave. Free with
childcare provided.
Larry Lewin
Eugene
ILLUSION OF INPUT
It’s tragically obvious that public input
is nothing but a token bone thrown to the
people to create some illusion that they
have a voice. As one can see by looking
at the monstrosity that now resides across
from the library, by viewing the EmX
killing fi eld of 6th and 7th avenues, or by
visiting the meadow where the next fi asco
is intended by the Oakleigh Meadow
Cohousing entitled yuppies who wouldn’t
know green if they drowned in it, the
wishes of the majority are not remotely
considered, and after the public meetings
occur, the controllers do what they
intended all along. For this reason I’d like
to suggest that, should it become necessary,
no less than 30,000 of us reverently set up
camp amidst the trees that the “Friends” of
BY SA M P OR TER
Apocalypse Now?
AN ANSWER TO GUY MCPHERSON’S PREDICTIONS
Y
ou don’t have to be a fundamentalist,
evangelical, Catholic Christian or an
ancient Jew to wonder whether we’re
in a “culture of death,” “the sixth
extinction” or some kind of universal
cataclysm.
Historically, in the apocalyptic literature fl ourishing
in Judaism between 175 BCE and 135 CE, the present
world age, dominated by the forces of death and evil,
is distinguished from the expected future age, prior to
which dramatic divine intervention defeats death and
evil and establishes a radically new world order. This
literature depicts the transition from the Present Age to
the Age to Come as a universal cataclysm. The Christian
tradition claims the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ marks the beginning of the Age to Come, but the
New Age awaits complete realization.
Teachings about the end of the Present Age and the
ultimate destiny of humanity include the belief that
eschatological expectations are in part already fulfi lled
in the life of Christ. Apocalypse comes from the Greek
word for “unveiling” or “revelation,” and specifi cally
refers to the unveiling of the secrets of the end of the
Present Age and the inauguration of the Age to Come.
Emeritus natural resources professor Guy
McPherson, who spoke recently in Eugene, is certainly
not talking about an Age to Come. On the contrary,
according to Eugene Weekly’s cover story July 16, with
admirable honesty and yet an attitude of paralyzing
4
OCTOBER 1, 2015 • EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
pessimism — in spite of
his vague push for simple
living and action — he has
some sobering things to say
about human extinction.
According to McPherson, it
is much worse than we ever
imagined.
Shortly
before
the
unexpected death of leading
UC Berkeley sociologist
Robert Bellah in 2013
(robertbellah.com), he sent
an email to some friends
reporting his response to the
German philosopher Peter
Sloterdijk’s 2013 book, You
Must Change Your Life (the
title is a phrase he took from
one of Rilke’s poems):
I liked the book though
remained ambivalent until the
last chapter, containing 10 pages beginning at p. 442. But
when I read those 10 pages they descended on me like
tongues of fi re. The last two pages swept me completely
away and it took me nearly an hour to recover. I just
sat there overcome. I see now that the whole book was
leading up to those last pages, yet I didn’t expect them.
Those pages express exactly what I want to do in my next
book [The Modern Project in
Light of Human Evolution,
which Bellah was working on
at his death], though giving
me lots more ammunition.
Sloterdijk talks about the
PRACTICES we will need
to meet the ecological
Armageddon, about how they
are impossible, but the whole
of human history is about
attaining the impossible.
We should not dwell on
doom and gloom but on
the greatest challenge our
species has ever met and
how tremendously exciting it
will be to meet it. It was like
a giant explosion for me, but
not a destructive one, rather
a global fi reworks display
that suddenly shed light on
everything. So defi nitely not a Jeremiad, not denouncing
any one, but calling the best in us to rise to the critical
occasion.
Bellah provides, I think, a kind of answer to
McPherson. ■
Sam Porter is a Eugene native and social researcher. He received a
Ph.D. from Emory University’s Religion, Ethics and Society program.