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A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

bbc.co.uk

101–110 of 201 posts

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#101
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) She was still a child. B) She was imprisoned, repeatedly, and tortured, as the article discusses. C) Is it your opinion that everyone was "lucky" to live in 1968 Spain under Franco. Or just her?

Nobody wanted her tortured except the criminals torturing her. Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal offense. OP is making it clear that framing it as she was a “free spirit” is ridiculous.

> Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal offense.

This is a protest against a fascist regime we're talking about. I don't know the exact context of any of this because I'm not Spanish, don't speak the language, and don't really know all that much about the nuance of 1968 Spain. I'm fairly sure you're just as ignorant of this as I am but the difference is that I'm withholding strong judgement one way or the other instead of jumping on one detail.

I do know that throwing a bunch of tea you don't own in the sea is also trivially a criminal offence. Kicking the shit out of an SS-officer is also trivially a criminal offence. etc. etc. You can have a long discussion about when violence is or isn't justified. I don't know enough about this specific situation to have a strong opinion. But pretty much everyone agrees that at some point you need to look beyond the law and trying to reduce this to just a matter of the law is massively naïve at best.

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#102
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are points on both sides. I think you're right that the BBC is being irresponsible in putting "my mum was a 17-year-old free spirit" in the headline -- even though it's a quote, it does imply a level of BBC editorial agreement with the characterization. It makes her sound like she was just an innocent hippie or something. On the other hand, this wasn't vandalism for vandalism's sake. It was political pr…

Violence isn’t speech. Calling Molotov cocktailing a street “protest” is absurd. It’s effectively armed conflict.

> It’s effectively armed conflict.

How do you think Franco got in power? By peacefully using his free speech rights and persuasive speeches? How do you think he stayed in power for all those decades? Do you think some people's free speech rights and avenues of protest might have been a teensy tiny bit curtailed?

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#104
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) She was still a child. B) She was imprisoned, repeatedly, and tortured, as the article discusses. C) Is it your opinion that everyone was "lucky" to live in 1968 Spain under Franco. Or just her?

Nobody wanted her tortured except the criminals torturing her. Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal offense. OP is making it clear that framing it as she was a “free spirit” is ridiculous.

| Nobody wanted her tortured except the criminals torturing her.

Oh, word? It's dope you know the inner thoughts of everyone involved.

| Throwing Molotov cocktail is trivially an criminal offense.

Article didn't say she threw them herself, 'a few' of a group she was part of did. Glad you're taking the maximalist, guilty until proven innocent, position on conviction by association in the Franco Regime.

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#105
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an obvious quote, unless you think people are going to misunderstand and think that the BBC as a publication is talking about it's mother somehow. Quotes are generally well understood to be the view of the person giving it, not the publication.

I think people are going to expect the BBC to validate the correctness of quotes that they elevate into headlines. The interviewee didn't decide that that quote should be a headline, that's a creative choice by the BBC. By putting it there, they are implying that it is an accurate description of the story that follows. Is that incorrect?

The quote:

1. Indicates this a human interest story

2. Is by definition of an accurate representation of the words of the person they are quoting

3. Is a reasonable overview of a complex story, given we understand that "free-spirited" is subjective and that, again, this is a human interest story and conveying the feelings of the people involved is part of the point.

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#106
post #97
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A) She was still a child. Please don't call a 17-year old person a child. It's not as if on the night between 17 years, 11 months and 30 days, and 18 years humans undergo some sort of metamorphosis.

Yes I agree, which is probably why we should treat 18-year olds more as children than adults (although obviously they are in-between the two). Brains continue to develop to the age of about 25.

Brains continue to develop through our whole lives.

The study that appeared to show them stopping development at 25 did not have any participants older than 25.

The difference between an 18-year-old and a 24-year-old is much more comparable to the difference between a 24-year-old and a 30-year-old.

We should be treating teenagers much more as adults-in-training, in the sense of meaningfully giving them the tools to succeed as adults, rather than treating them like pure innocent children who must be sheltered from absolutely everything hard, scary, or taboo.

However, as it stands we generally do not do that—hence, in this case, she was indeed a child, and should have been given compassion, better tools, and better chances, not locked up.

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#107
post #85
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) She was still a child. B) She was imprisoned, repeatedly, and tortured, as the article discusses. C) Is it your opinion that everyone was "lucky" to live in 1968 Spain under Franco. Or just her?

> A) She was still a child. Please don't call a 17-year old person a child. It's not as if on the night between 17 years, 11 months and 30 days, and 18 years humans undergo some sort of metamorphosis.

[flagged]

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't think anyone thinks this was a good program, but saying someone performing acts of terrorism is just 'a free spirit' is a bit... BBC of them.

One person's terrorist against the Franco government is another person's freedom fighter against the Franco regime.

"Mr Bin Laden was just a bit of a free spirit, until the Americans decided to kill him in the middle of the night"

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#109
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like either someone with very young kids or else someone with a dismissive/naive parenting style. For kids born since the mid-80s “hiding the porn” has been a lot harder than locking magazines in a closet. It’s not a matter of if, but when. And however you feel about porn, it’s infinitely more important to help your kids feel safe talking to you about it than to try and prevent them ever seeing it. Kids who do…

>Sounds like either someone with very young kids or else someone with a dismissive/naive parenting style. Increasingly this is what the tyranny of the majority is in the western world. People who don't have kids, or only limited experience with kids, declaring that parents are neglecting or abusing their children because they don't behave the way the hypothetical ideologically pure parent would. Almost every single o…

> People who don't have kids, or only limited experience with kids, declaring that parents are neglecting or abusing their children because they don't behave the way the hypothetical ideologically pure parent would.

From what I've witnessed, the most common complainants were authoritarian mothers who treat their own child(ren) as helpless irrespective of biological age, and teachers, usually with families of their own, who treat non-violent "quirks" beyond their comprehension as a sign of malfeasance. In both cases, lack of familiarity with children is not the issue. Instead, their previous "successes" with raising/teaching children cement a narrow and selective expectation for how children must or must be made to behave. The motivation in either case is a desire for control. The ideological/cultural angle is, at best, a sincerely held rationalization, but is more likely an instinctual employment of thought-terminating cliches/kafkatraps to justify getting their way or make dissenters look/feel unreasonable.

Re: A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

#110
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comic and there's a documentary about that place. Very messed up that's it's a whole child abuse industry.

Might take a karma hit for this, but whatever. Its the truth. Christians are more concerned about *causing* extreme child abuse, and then turning around and claiming its to "save them", so the abuse isnt reallllly abuse. Most of these camps cited are christian. And the people running them? Dogmatic christian fundamentalists. And these are the same types that run "pray the gay away" camps too. And my inflammatory, alb…

> When are we going to actually look at these issues dispassionately and realize that religion itself is the problem?

Because it's not.

I've been interrogating this sort of question for most of my life. I am a queer agnostic who grew up in a religious part of the South and saw shades of this kind of abuse firsthand, mostly around queerness.

At first, I did blame religion, but with the benefit of hindsight, I realized something. In the context of queerness, almost nobody I ran into growing up hated queer people because they heard their preacher say so and thought it must be true. They hated them because they were massively insecure. They were terrified of being labeled gay. They were terrified of guys hitting on them. They were terrified of hitting on a woman who turned out to have been born as a man.

Religion isn't the problem. Instead, religion gives these sorts of insecure people a trump card that requires very little interrogation. However, if these folks weren't Christian or weren't even religious, I have no doubt that the underlying insecurities would remain, and simply manifest in a different way.

Once I realized this, it was actually a massive weight lifted off my shoulders. In particular, I was no longer confused as to why my friend groups that were majority Christian continued to be nice to me and treated me with respect, despite me being a atheist queer at the time. It opened the door to connecting with them on a deeper level of understanding, as well as leading to me dabbling with my own forms of non-Christian spirituality.

So yeah, religion isn't the problem. It's merely a mechanism that allows shitty people to be shitty.

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