Re: Making people passive

Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Sun, 03 Oct 1999 15:01:28 +0000

At 02:30 PM 30/09/99 -0700, Cynthia wrote:

>What we need to do is increase their
>mental capibility so that they can control themselves.

>And who can object to making people smarter???

Not Hannibal Lecter.

Just kidding. Years ago I was rather attracted to Hans Eysenck's notion that much bad behaviour was a side consequence of some people having unusually high limbic thresholds, so they needed to SCREAM AND SHOUT AND SMASH to get the same neurochemical hit that sensitive nellies like me derive from bathing in asses' milk and reading Proust. Presumably a generation of Ritalin prescriptions for ADD and other naughty kids was the practical outcome of such theories. Not all that successful, I gather, but maybe that's because the instrument was too blunt to test/implement the theory. I guess Tim or Anders could say something salient here.

Damien Broderick (in the tub)