Damon G LaBarbera

 I was musing, eating three tacos, good but expensive, as is everything these days, about what author, or at least what author I am familiar with, would render the modern world best at the moment. F Scott Fitzgerald comes to mind with his depiction of the Jazz Age, that bubbly time full of social activity and unrest. It would be hard to imagine what sort of romance he might superimpose on today's polemic environment--some woke version of the Daisy-Tom romance, perhaps with an added nonbinary transgender figure. Nabokov might be a candidate as today's chronicler. But with his loquacious wit and wordplay, he might be too internalized, and indeed, possibly the more quiet 1950s was a better backdrop for his narration, the campuses of today are nothing like the genteel quiet, and easily scoffable campuses of Lolita or Pnin. But he certainly knew Ithaca, lately in the news a nice setting for a contemporary story. What would Philip Roth do with these times? His stories seem to show ch...

The novel  Eyeless in Gaza Damon LaBarbera Eyeless in Gaza  was written by the English scribe Aldous Huxley in 1936 and describes, in achronological chapters, the interacting lives of a privileged cohort over decades. Although it may not be Huxley's best-known book and is somewhat obscure nowadays, I very much value the book.  Some readers opine, and I am inclined to agree, that this book is equal to  or superior to his more famous books, including  Brave New World or Doors of Perception.   Eyeless in Gaza is  written in that style which Huxley so masters--detachedly humorous, perceptive, and funny--and, strangely enough, spiritual. The prose gives us entry to the inner monologue, sometimes wickedly depicted, of his protagonists (assuming a book can have more than one protagonist).  The characters are finely tuned, struggling with ethical issues and living the extraordinarily free and thoughtful lives of well-to-do intellectuals of that day. T his...

  A psychiatrist in Panama City, Florida, recently died, I was very sorry to hear. I was an intimate part of the mental health community in Panama City from the mid-eighties to 2020. Attrition of old friends and mentors and acquaintances proceeds at an accelerated pace after 60, and the normalcy of the subjective experience, over time, if that is what it is, rather than a sort of numbing, is one of the strangest adaptive qualities of older age. The world's structures, rules, and mores stay roughly the same, but it is peopled with a new set of actors. In any case, I was very sorry to hear of Dr. Zumarraga's death. He was a kind and competent individual from the Philippines, and one aspect of our friendship was that my Dad had served in Manilla during the forties, during the conflagration of that city. At the same time, Dr. Zumaragga was a youngster there. I first met Dr. Zumarraga at the Life Management Center in 1986. He attended weekly meetings to provide psychiatric coverage....

Short videos of the tic-tic variety have become popular though much maligned. They have been said to   shorten attention span and create further degradation of general thinking. This sort of pop humor, a mixture of vulgarity, stupidity and stereotypes actually has a long history. George Orwell described the artist Donald McGill who produced postcards in the twenties, usually having a salacious, double entendre style of humor, with oversexualized women, acting out and feckless males, and much innuendo. Harmless enough in small doses, they do provide some low-brow entertainment, in the same way as modern tic toc videos. They were the humor of the working class then, and probably now as well trying to show as much intellectual noblesse oblige as possible.

Over the course of my intensive study of psychology for over 50 years, I have encountered a multitude of concepts that have emerged and faded away. Descriptors of personality functioning and psychological traits are vast and diverse, and promulgated in the popular media as well as academia. Human taxonomic categories can include vaguer dimensions such as introversion and extroversion, neuroticism, resilience, dependency, inhibition, acting out tendencies, addiction proneness, lability, self-centeredness, thrill seeking, narcissism, asceticism, imperturbability, intellectual level, sociability, cognitive flexibility, perseverative tendency, perceptual accuracy, and countless others—perhaps even a few hundred more. In addition to these existing terms, another descriptor can be considered: the degree of immersion in the cyber world, which somewhat might whimsically call "cyberism." Some individuals find themselves deeply immersed in the cyber world, while others do not. Altho...

Christopher Isherwood was an excellent writer--urbane, warm, witty, with appealing characters who interact in marvelously warm and interesting way. He began writing in the 1920s, with an autobiographical style that showed his disjuncture from the older generations, characters who were fatuous and entertaining, and certain not part of Christopher's new, modernist world. The stories possess a happy and adventuresome quality in the urban setting of Europe where most take place. While many people today may know Isherwood as a canonized gay advocate, it's important to recognize his highly erudite past. In "A Single Man," which was adapted into a film, he vividly portrays the gay life of a bygone era when being gay was deeply taboo. However, one of my personal favorites among his works is an earlier book titled "Down There on a Visit." This novel retains the style of his earlier prose when, as a Bohemian in his twenties, Isherwood dropped out of medical school an...

  From Dr. Gene Schulz T o my erudite colleagues: I sure hope you are finding ways to pass on your knowledge to the next generations of Psychologists beyond this listserve. The best treatise I have found for "Intelligent Design" is "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel, a journalist who interviewed some leading scientists in several different scientific fields. He acknowledges change over time (which I would call evolution) but attacks Darwinism as the ultimate theory on the development of the human race. Unlike the Creationists who take the Bible literally (and can't explain how the kangaroos got from Australia to Noah's Ark in time to be saved from the flood), Strobel does not claim that it all happened a few thousand years ago. Strobel "evolved" from skepticism to Christianity and has written several books defending the faith. My own interest has been in the question of the evolution of human and animal consciousness, and the ongoing source of...

  My mother, Gloria LaBarbera who died recently, and the writer and cultural commentator Ben Demott forged an affectionate friendship over many years-. The relationship was largely epistolary as they grew older,  though very personal as children walking to Hewitt school from the Nottingham area. I was very proud of the relationship--my mother knew quality, and intellectually, Demott was about the best Rockville Centre has put out, esteemed as a cultural contributor and one of the most respected public intellectuals of his day.  Now gone, my mother at age 99 and Demott at age 81, some 18 years ago, since they were contemporaneous, I am able to write about them more intimately than I would have during either of ther lifetimes. I also have inherited many letters from Demott, as well as some other luminaries. In any case, the friendship sparked about 1929, even though Demott did not exude immense charisma during his gradeschool days. While others strove to show athletic prowe...

Nostalgia can be a deceptively entertaining pursuit. It can be the Baby Boomer's substitute for video gaming--time consuming, entertaining, but nothing that puts dollars in the bank or results in anything gainful. One can be nostalgic en masse, as on a nostolgia facebook page, hearkening back to better days, palmier times, or youth when all was fresh and lively. The lure to nostalgia all around us, and it is easy to sink into reminiscence about the past, breaking the surface tension of time into the watery abyss of yesteryear. Not only is it a waste of time, though, but also a way or rehearsing outdated attitudes, or norms that no longer exist. Recognizing the lure of nostalgia and breaking away from the clutches of old memories we carry around is essential for progess. the allure of old memories offers little of actual substance. As youngsters we were warned of the dangers of TV and now that warning might best be expressed in a warning against oo much nostalgia.

  "Devils of Loudon" by Aldous Huxley is a complicated book, and written on a fairly high plateu of erudition. It probably has to be read several times to understand. Some notion and appreciation of Aldous Huxley's view on spirituality and religion also enrich the reading experience. Not a book for everyone,  some readers complain that there are too many digressions from the riveting plot into Huxley's pet philosophical interests.  If one is willing to put in the time and effort this is truly a "great book."  The prose style is insidious and elegant. Reading DOL from beginning to end is the equivalent , in terms of processed knowledge, of earning an MA in French 17th-century history.  This is not just a book about a demonic possession, it is also a statement of philosophy, politics, propaganda, psychological theory, and a critique of the habit of religious persecution into varied non-secular domains.. The plot involves the life and death of Father Urbain Gra...

A lesser-known or lesser-discussed diagnosis is Aggressive-Sadistic Personality Disorder. This diagnosis helps conceptualize certain personalities with distinct features that don't fit neatly into other descriptions. Often, these individuals are mistaken for having narcissistic or antisocial personalities. Theodore Millon's conceptualization of Aggressive-Sadistic Personality is rooted in older ideas of sadism and masochism. Once explained, the features of this personality are easily recognized, especially by those who have lived with such individuals, as they are toxic both in the short term and particularly over time. The diagnosis of Aggressive-Sadistic Personality is not currently included in the DSM psychiatric nomenclature. It was included at one time but later removed, much to the dismay of prominent psychologists. One reason for its removal was to prevent it from being used to justify bad behavior. While it falls under the broad category of personality disorders, it rem...