Movie Review: "Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso)"

Great movies are great when the people who watched them can understand and relate to them. Needless to say that “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” is a great movie, and is often applauded by critics and the masses alike because its themes and narratives reach out to the people and offers a warm and humanistic view of our human existence.

First and foremost, this movie is a movie that describes the simplest and most basic of our human emotions, love (though not in a conventional sense). It is about the love between a child and movies. It is about the love for the place in which they are born in (although this is mixed with a pinch of loathing, but hey, what is love but the most complicated of all emotions?). It is about the pure and innocent teenage love between a man and a woman. But most of all, it is about the love that sprouts like a disease between two men, one a wide-eyed and curious boy named Toto, and the other a man hardened by years upon years of work, and wise to the realities of the world, named Alfredo.

Toto (young)

Toto (old)

Alfredo

Like most epic romance movies, it is similar to “Gone With the Wind” and “The English Patient”, in that love is only a background for the main stories that take place in it. “Gone With the Wind” describes a woman’s ambivalent love towards a man, while describing the Civil War era; and “The English Patient” similarly depicts the destructive love affair between a mysterious man and a determined woman, while portraying a vivid picture of the final years before World War I and II. And like those two movies, “Cinema Paradiso” depicts a love that is all encompassing, passionate, while including detailed descriptions of culture, ideologies, and redemption.

Let us start from analyzing the love between Toto and Alfredo. The two are the most unlikely duos of all time. As one is a mischievous and “foxy” (as described by Alfredo) boy, estranged at home, and found his love for movies while watching Alfredo work in the projecting booth. The other is a wise and eccentric old man who loathes his work, yet at the same time embraced it as if he was born to do it. Together, they form a “Tom & Jerry” like relationship, in which Toto tries to elude the other’s beatings while Alfredo chases Toto away so as not to end up similarly like him, with a lonely life and a difficult lifestyle. But it is easy to see the affection both have for each other. And like many other children who lost their father, Toto discovered a haven in the projection booth and in Alfredo’s presence, forming an attachment with Alfredo that is both poignant and moving, while creating a pseudo-parent-child relationship with each other, after they decided to put away their conflicts and embrace each other’s presence (which is enhanced since Alfredo doesn't have children, and found the potential for parenthood in Toto).

In some ways, the relationship between the two reminds me of the relationship between Santiago and Manolin in “The Old Man and The Sea”. While Santiago is a romanticist and has a very positive outlook both on his life and his constant struggles with mother nature, especially the sea, Alfredo is much more critical of his time and has a much more cynical view on life, which is all the more potentiated by the difficulties he faced in life (the accident in the booth). But what is similar between the two is the touching love they have towards the children figures in their story. As demonstrated in the final scenes of “Cinema Paradiso”, Alfredo still loves Toto very much, and is all he can think of even at his deathbed.

Now we shall return to discuss Toto’s love for the movies. Maybe it is because the escapist qualities a movie has that allows people to dwell in fantasies that attracted Toto to it, or maybe it is because in a projection booth, Toto finally finds a fragment of home which he will never find in his own estranged home. Maybe. But what can be known is that Toto loves movies, and movies during those times are as rare as gems, as there were no TVs, no DVDs, and no video players that can allow a person to watch movies anytime they want. There is only one place for it, and it is through the projection of light through the hole in the wall, that people can finally witness the magical qualities of cinema. And so, all sorts of people crowded into the cinema, ranging from a priest that rings his bell at every “obscene” scene (actually, the movies only have people kissing, just imagine what he would do if he is living in this decade), to a crazy that proclaims his ownership of the city square and chases people off during midnight. There are those who sit at the upper level of the cinema (who think they are of a higher class in their bourgeois banality) who spits at the cheering crowd below, those who cheer and shout and laugh and cry at every scene of the movie, children who masturbated at beautiful women on the screen. You would think by watching this movie that every Italian is loud and boorish, and wear their emotions on their sleeves.

One other love that deserves  noting is the innocent and beautiful love between Elena and the teenage Toto. In many ways, this love reminds me of the doomed love of “Romeo and Juliet”. And ironically it is Elena’s father who separates the two apart, just because he believes that Toto doesn't deserve Elena due to his lower class birth. But the love is quite impacting because it is Toto’s first love, and it is actually quite cheesy (as with many other adolescent love). Putting aside its cheesiness, this short relationship actually affects Toto a lot, and it is actually one of the pivotal reasons that motivates Toto to move on to Rome and pursue his dreams.

But the love stories in Toto’s life only serves as a single theme, as this film also deals with the idea of sentimentality and nostalgia. In many scenes, we can observe that Toto is driven by sentimentality and lingers in the past just because he couldn't let go of it, as the past is most often than not, the most beautiful parts of our life. There is a great deal of nostalgia involved in the movie, as it seems that the director himself is nostalgic of the simple and innocent past, where everything isn't as complex as it is now (the film is actually partly autobiographic). But what Alfredo conveys to Toto is that we should crush the past and move on, to embrace a pragmatist view of life and to walk down a path that is rooted in realism. It was Alfredo that encourages Toto to go to Rome, to let go of the past, and to move on in his life so that Toto can fulfill his life’s dream, to become a director. Alfredo is not only the father figure to Toto, he is the Socrates to Toto’s Plato, the Julius Caesar to Toto’s Augustus. In one touching scene where Alfredo says his final goodbye to Toto at the train station, we can see he is as equally tortured as Toto to depart from each other. But when he whispers in Toto’s ear, “Don’t come back!” we can see his determination.

There are many poignant and moving scenes throughout the movie, and one in particular moved me to tears, which is the scene where Alfredo teaches Toto how to broadcast the movie to a crowd outside the cinema. As Alfredo slowly deflects the projector’s light to a building outside, and as the small screen slowly moves through the walls to reach the building, it is obvious that this should be one of the finest scenes in movie history. But what is all the more heartbreaking is that this momentary happiness will end as soon as it starts. And this is where the movie thrives in, as it lets us to witness the beautiful parts of our nostalgia, while forcing us to never give in to it, and face our constantly changing reality. The message is this, we should move on, and let go of the old past. This message cannot be more clear, as when the cinema (itself named “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”) is demolished to pave way for a new parking lot. And when the final scenes reveal itself, we witness Toto revel in the deepest depths of Alfredo’s love towards him, as he comes to terms with the past and tie up all loose ends, and make way for the future.

One of the most moving scenes in the history of film

This should be a movie that I find all movie-goers and cinephiles will love to see. And much like the movie “Hugo”, directed by Martin Scorsese, which features another equally mischievous boy, embarking on a journey to help one of the world’s first filmmaker, Georges Méliès, to help him regain his passion in movies, “Cinema Paradiso” is just as magical and enchanting in its narratives of hope and happiness.

But what is the most important message is seen when Toto went back to Sicily to attend Alfredo’s funeral, as when he discovers after 30 years of departure, that everything has changed.

Yet, at the same time, nothing has.

One of the finest endings ever

Book Review: "The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do & how to change."

I remember a day when I was walking in a mall, and realizing that I was hungry, I went to the "food street" section in search for something to comfort my ferocious belly. And while I was still thinking and comparing between the various choices (ah, the contemporary consumerist mentality), I suddenly realized that I was standing under a big red and yellow sign with a big "M" on it. I have unknowingly walked into McDonald's. Strange indeed that even when I haven't made up my mind on what to eat, and consciously deciding on a choice, I have "unconsciously" made up a choice. Freud might have a say on that, by hypothesizing that it is because of my libidinal instincts constructed of my unhappy childhood with McDonald's that pushed me to make this choice. But I have a better explanation: the process was automatic, because it was a habit.

In Charles Duhigg's "The Power of Habit", he wrote extensively on what it is that make us "learn" habits, how habits influenced our everyday living, and most importantly, how to make new, helpful habits, and eradicate the old, harmful ones. Ever wonder why someone can't stop shaking their legs when they should be sitting still? Or are you curious as to why smokers or even drug addicts can't stop harming themselves in search for pleasure? This book offers a glimpse as to why some habits are so hard to eradicate while others come and go. So instead of viewing all behaviors as unchangeable or fixed, we can see them as fluid and malleable habits. 

Charles Duhigg

As the avant-garde Irish novellist, Samuel Beckett, once said, "Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits." And it is somewhat true, because most of what we do in life are reinforced habits, constructed and put in place through our experiences and the passage of time. Take for example, the mall experience which I started this article with. There is a McDonald's near the university where I study at, and in the entire complex, there is not much of a choice when it comes to food; and besides, McDonald's is not that expensive, and its efficiency is admirable. So after several years of visiting McDonald's, it becomes an automatic habit, because whenever I'm hungry, I will think of McDonald's and proceed to go there and grab a burger. (Do not eat McDonald's, I'm not promoting it!)

Samuel Beckett. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature, just FYI

So, to use Duhigg's terminology, there is a "habit loop" that is constructed and constantly reinforced whenever I perform a habitual behavior. First of all, there is the "cue": which is a trigger that prompts us to act, and changes the mode of our brain into autopilot. Then, after the cue comes the "routine": which is what we go through in order to satisfy the prompting of the cue (the routine can be psychological or physical). Finally, we arrive at the "reward": which is one of the most important part in the habit loop, since it determines whether this habit is worth continuing, and if not, the habit will be changed or discarded. 

Now, what happens when I automatically walked into McDonald's is this: I received a cue from the grumbling of my stomach when I'm hungry, and so to satisfy the urge to eat, I go to McDonald's since it is one of the most practical choices at my university, thereby performing the routine. And the reward is that I am full, and I saved money and time, so in my mind, this habit is worth keeping. And after years of repeating "cue-routine-reward", it became stuck in my head. 

But that's not all! Because there is another element, and that is "craving". In order to cultivate and create a habit, one must crave a particular thing in order to sustain the entire habit loop. In my example, it is not only hunger that produces the habit of me visiting McDonald's, because if that is the case, any food will suffice. It is because I crave for McDonald's (because of its lustrous beef patty, its fizzy soft drinks, its crispy fries, ok I should stop), that I visited it in particular. Hence, I crave, I received a cue, I perform the routine, I get my reward, then I crave it again, and so it goes. 

After explicating on the model of "the habit loop", the book then explores how corporations used this insight to construct helpful habits, how unethical implications can be made based on this model (the gambling industry, or certain online shopping companies etc.). And it provides a very helpful appendix on how to eradicate certain harmful habits. 

The book itself is written in a journalistic tone, much like Malcolm Gladwell's entire ouvre, and it made it much easier for laypeople and those who are just curious about the topic of habits to digest the topic. It rarely contains technical jargon, and the hard science is dumbed down, making it much accessible for non-psychology students. However, for some, it may seem too simplistic, as the book itself is written by a non-psychologist, a journalist, to be precise. But despite its limitations, the book is a very entertaining read, and it occasionally provides very helpful insights. 

Malcolm Gladwell. Another populizer. 

In short, this is a surprising book, that may make some uncomfortable, because it is certainly surprising to find something as subtle as a habit changes our entire way of living. This is not to undermine the notion of free will, as we can, through our determination, change our habits consciously. But we often think naively of our actions and thoughts as in our complete control, but there are often times when it is our unconscious habits that determine how we act and how we think. And more often than not it is this part of our mind in which sometimes we can't voluntarily control that makes all the difference. 

(The concept of habit actually has deep roots in the psychological concept of learning, more specifically, of "conditioning". The concept of "classical conditioning" and "operant conditioning" are much too complicated and technical, and are impossible to understand unless one understands the underlying premise, which is laden with jargon. But if you are interested, you can look up the works of Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, and other behaviorists, which the links provided below will lead you to.)

Classical conditioning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning

Operant conditioning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

Ivan Pavlov

B. F. Skinner

Movie Review: "Her"

“I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. 

It's a crazy thing to do. 

It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.” 

― Amy, Her (2013)

Throughout our entire short lifetime of watching movies or reading literature or listening to music, we will always find that one film or book or song that struck a chord so deep inside us, that it resonates profoundly through our entire being, changing our perspectives, and ultimately, changes us in its entirety. One such film that manages to do so (to me at least), is Spike Jones' magnum opus from 2013, "Her". It is a film that manages to do so much in such short time, it offers so much, it is moving, and it is wise. 

In this poignant post-modern two hour science-fiction-romance movie, it tells a story, set in some not-so-distant future, of an introverted writer, who worked at a company that helps people who are unwilling to write personal letters themselves compose heartfelt and intimate letters towards their beloved others. Living a lonely life ever since his breakup with his childhood romance/wife, Theodore, the protagonist, decided to buy a newly designed talking operating system that is designed with artificial intelligence, making the OS able to talk and function like a "human-being", in order to bear with the loneliness while having a companion. 

After deciding to give the OS a female voice, and naming it Samantha in the process, Samantha surprises him by displaying high levels of intellect, showing significant sophistication in "her" computer processing levels, while demonstrating extraordinary capabilities in psychological growth through learning. And after a certain amount of closeness between the two, Theodore "naturally" falls in love with Samantha, and vice versa. Thus the story goes on. But first, let us suspend our skepticism towards the possibility and the ethical issues of developing AI in the near future, and instead consider the questions postulated below:

"Is Samantha a human?" Some might consider yes, since she displayed a high level of consciousness, even to the point of being able to discuss philosophical questions such as love and life, and she is shown in the film for being able to demonstrate empathy, and emotions, all of which are requirements in order to make us human. Samantha is creative, as shown in several scenes where she is able to compose musical compositions; Samantha is able to look at the world digitally through a camera lens; she is able to plan ahead of problems for Theodore, and solve them logically and deductively; she displayed a sophisticated control over language, while displaying a vast amount of intellect; and most importantly, she can learn, like humans, through experience. All of these are important criteria put forward by cognitive sciences and human psychology that which makes us human, and Samantha can do it at a significantly higher level, as she has constant access to the internet, making her and her kin almost omnipotent and omniscient!

But still, is she human? Because what differentiates her the most from other humans is that she lacked a body. And if English philosopher, John Locke, was right in that humans are experiential creatures that learn primarily through the shaping of external sensations and reflections, then Samantha cannot be considered a human being, because the lack of a body results in the lack of material experience. How can Samantha even determine what she perceive and feel is real if she lacked the perceptive organs that we humans have? One might argue that she has a camera for her eyes, but still, a camera doesn't equal to a human eye, as we all might already acknowledged, the eye is a far more complicated organ than a camera, and to this day, no scientist managed to replicate a human eye with its sophisticated neural networks. And if one argues that at least Samantha has human emotions, well, if humans are already confused by the question of whether our perceptions and emotions are "real", imagine how hard it would be to determine whether an AI can really have both of these! For all we know, they could just be written lines of programming codes, making Samantha believe and behave as if she has these, while she has none in reality! If Descartes was right, we humans are "ghosts in the machine", souls stuck in a body; but for Samantha, she is a ghost, but wandering without an anchor, floating endlessly in a virtual reality in the form of a code.  

But, ultimately, does these make her less "human"? 

The film ponders with such questions, and offers no answers simply by leaving the speculation up to the viewers' intentions. This is a wise move, because by answering the questions in a simplistic way, it risks becoming dogmatic and deterministic in its views. And despite these philosophical questions, the film is essentially an exposition of love, a love that crosses boundaries. Forget about interracial, transsexual or homosexual love, this is a love story between man and machine. It is a love that is no less passionate than that of a love between humans. It contains jealousy, confusion, countless hypothesizing on how the other half feels etc. And if you are wondering how they have sex, well the film does catch up with that. 

But the most intriguing aspect is this: if Samantha is an AI program that is only programmed in a way to make her appear feminine to a male user, it is essentially sexless. And this is poignant, because if humans can fall in love with an essentially sexless program, then love is something that is limitless, and can cater to all forms of love, whether it be LGBT love, interracial love etc. Why head to conflicts over what sexuality others have, when we can just let them be on their own business? This is a statement that many disagree with, but shouldn't a thing as sacred as love between individuals be out of the interference of culture or religion? And this is what the film continuously explored, as it constantly shows what matters most is the bond and relationship between people (even when the term "people" includes robots). 

And the beauty of this film is that it also discusses the theme of alienation and isolation while living in a society that is so modern, every aspect of our lives are digitalized. Take for example the opening scene, whereby row after row of Theodore's coworker sit in front of their computers in their office cubicles, narrating out the content of heartwarming letters for total strangers on the other side of the globe. The warmth is spewed out from their mouths, but none of it retains in the letters, it loses its human touch. Take another scene for example: everyone was walking on the streets, or sitting in the subways, but with an earpiece placed deep into their ears, listening to some OS droning on about unread emails, and latest news, and nobody was talking to each other anymore. Doesn't these seem familiar in our contemporary society? Everything is so categorized, so automated, nothing is humane. It may seem at first glance to be a Utopian society where everything is advanced, but in its deepest core, it is Dystopian.

At the core of this movie is the phenomenon of the unbreachable gap between us humans. The characters may seem happy when surrounded by friends or families, they may converse normally, laugh, have fun, but deep down they are lonely. We may never know how the other half is feeling even when they are our most beloved ones. How many people is she conversing with behind my back? What are they thinking? Is this love real, or is it artificial? Theodore is constantly assaulted by all these questions everyday at every moment. Because insanity is lonely, and love is insanity. Deep down, they are all lonely souls. 

And this is a lonely movie, filled with heartbreak, staccato bursts of beautiful soundtracks, masterful acting, occasional humor, dirty jokes, and transcending sexual experiences. It explores not only what it means to be human, but also a man's journey to discover his sexuality, and the ecstatic experience of love. Some may deem this movie dark, and prescient of a foreshadowed future.

But there is always hope, and hope is all we have. 

Organ Donation Drive: Do you believe that there are ANGELS in this world? (Special Article)

Let us set aside our quarrels and our fixations in the world, and contemplate these three questions, which I proposed as below:

1. "If you are given a chance, or let's say given a wish from an Angel, what would you wish for this society and for this world?"

2. "Name me three most important factors that could possibly contribute to your wish."

3. "Do you think it is possible that even without all the three factors you had mentioned just now, with just a kind heart, you could change this world?"

Hi everyone, my name is Hor Mu Yi. These are the three core questions I had created and asked in the interview which I had conducted specifically for our new video. If you haven't watch it, what are you waiting for, haha! :P The link is provided below:

To speak in honest terms and disclose myself as truthfully as possible, if someone came up upon me and asked me those three exact questions, I would definitely answer "No way!" to the third question. And so, I hypothesized that people would react in exactly the same way as I would. Because to say the truth, could anyone (including me) before watching this video imagine how we could change the world for the better with only our kind heart, without any external factors, such as money etc. ?

Well, there is an answer, actually, and we could perform this regardless if we are short of money etc. And although the answer is much disputed by many, and deemed as unorthodox by a large portion of the society, it is nevertheless a legit and very helpful contribution that we could make towards those desperately in need. The answer is (drum rolls please), Organ Donation! In fact, as statistics estimate, an organ donor would be able to save up to eight lives and improve as much as fifty lives through an act as simple as donating your organs ( 2 lungs, 2 kidneys, 1 heart, 1 liver, 1 pancreas, 1 intestines) and your tissues. What is most crucial is that almost everyone can become an organ donor despite your age, your ethnicity, or your gender.

One could easily search all the available facts about organ donation with a simple click on the internet, and the results will return within 30 seconds. And in fact, many knew about organ donation before I even revealed the answer by the end of this video. However, it is an answer that most prefer not to think about (for reasons stated below), and in the big reveal by the end of the video, most didn't even think about the possibility of such an answer. Of course, this is not to say that the only way to help others is through organ donation, as there are many ways one can contribute to society, and if any of you readers could think of such an alternative, feel free to leave your comments below. :)

But surprisingly, for the third question I received a lot of positive responses for my third question, such as: "yes", "it is possible", and "I believe it". This is definitely a moving experience, and I learnt a lot from these interviewees. For example, one interviewee taught me that it only requires a kind heart to work for a non-governmental organization or to volunteer for charity work. Some of them even enlightened me with the thought that doing one single good deed could spread goodness and it will ripple and spread out towards others like a chain reaction. I'm actually delighted to be proven wrong of my negative presumptions! Many people do believe that with small acts, one could bring big impacts to this world. Positive thinking man! :D

If small acts bring big impacts, then wouldn't a big act (such as organ donation) bring about bigger impacts? It all essentially boil down to this simple, but elegant motto: "Give Big! Get Big!"

But as it appears, the awareness towards the act of organ donation is in fact one of the lowest in our country, Malaysia. There are many myths and misleading thoughts that were spread around throughout our society, and some of which are really worth the time to discuss in full, as these myths actually had a big influence on our perception towards the act of organ donation.




Myth no.1: If I were to sign up as an organ donor, the doctor will not try their best to save me, as they will hope to acquire my organs so that they can give it to others.

Answer no.1: In actuality, the doctors would still try their best to save you. That's their job, and that's their code of ethics. In fact, they would do even more tests to ensure the organ donors' living status before they declare their death and move on to donate the dead's organs to those in crucial need.

Myth no.2 : My religion does not allowed me to become an organ donor.

Answer no.2: Well, actually most of the major religions actually support the idea of organ donation. This is because major religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, promote the idea of compassion, responsibility, and kindness. These are virtues that they absolutely adhere to. And so, we suggest those who are unsure about whether or not they wanted to donate their organs to inquire more fully about their respective religions. :)

Myth no.3: My parents would definitely disagree with me becoming an organ donor.

Answer no.3: This is actually a very legit concern, as there are many parents who are afraid of such an act, maybe because they seldom approach such a topic, and there are many who regard organ donation as a morbid act. So, make sure you collect enough information, and peacefully discuss this issue with your parents, while slowly persuading them that this is an act of kindness, and that such an act can potentially help many others in desperate need. (Perhaps you can show them our video? :D)

So, don't be afraid, be an organ donor, and raise awareness to others so that they know more about such a campaign. Because there's an angel inside all of us, and YOU or I, could be the angel to this world! :)

Book Review: "Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good?"

Paradigm shift, that's what this angsty and de-constructionist book succeeds in inducing in me --- a big shift in my own personal perspective towards one of the most controversial of medical profession in our contemporary society --- psychiatry.

Throughout the reading process, which takes about three days, there was a constant running scene of George Carlin's comedy gold that keeps on reliving at the back of my mind. In one of his finest stand-ups, he discussed about the rampant usage of euphemistic language throughout the professional communities, "We have no more stupid people, everybody has a learning disorder. Or he's minimally exceptional. How would you like to be told that about your child? 'He's minimally exceptional.' 'Ohhh, thank God for that!'"

George Carlin: The grandmaster of black comedy,
playing with language since he was in a foetus.

And although George Carlin exaggerates a great deal for comedic purposes, there is an element of truth in it, as there is a subtle but malevolent mechanism that is involved here, namely that of our blatant medicalization of almost everything that is out of the norm and appears as an outlier, and this medicalization blurs the boundaries between normality and abnormality. This is crucial, as there is no clear cut distinction between them, and to purport a categorical distinctive criteria between the two is allegorical to drawing a fine line where there is no fine line.

This tendency to medicalize and categorize our so called mental illnesses reaches its peak when the psychiatric association -- the APA -- constructed the influential DSM (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), and this manual is currently in the 5th edition. Many of the disorders listed in these manuals were considered to enter into this manual through, wait for it, voting?! And the criteria is often times constructed equally through voting, and often times single-handedly written by a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL! Now that, my dear friends, is hubristic. We know so little about the true nature of mental disorders (some may even consider them as non-existent, and are instead created cultural concepts), but we carry on believing in this faulty system precisely because there is no alternatives that are currently available.

Take for example one of the "mental disorders" that are currently listed in the latest version of the DSM (DSM-V):
Prolonged grief disorder: Diagnosed when there is a loss of a significant other which causes depressive symptoms and significant distress that result in impaired everyday functioning, after the death of the person for at least six months. (Indeed, the arbitrary criteria of six months is entirely questionable. Why can't it be five months, or one year, or two years? Why six months? There are no studies to support it, let alone be included in the "Bible" of psychiatry.)

Now, many will argue that this is valid because often times grief can cripple a person emotionally and psychologically. But the counterargument is this: A sense of distress is a very normal emotional response, and often times, the sense of loss can extend beyond years. To propose a biomedical model to explain it disrupts our very human experience, because instead of looking at this phenomenon humanistically, we are objectifying and reducing the issue into the problems in our brains (e.g. there is a lack of certain neurotransmitters, or parts of our brains are malfunctioning, which studies have often showed that there is no clear causal relations in the first place). Instead of medicalizing it, which makes the pharmaceutical companies gain a huge amount of profit, and passing out medicines that are no better than placebos, we should help these people through meaningful human connections, and helping them out when they need it. There are many implications to this disorder, as with many other controversial disorders, such as the "premenstrual dysphoric disorder" (PMDD), as these disorders are essentially a medicalization of a fairly human response, and to diagnose them in a clinical setting means to give out pharmaceutical medicines such as antidepressants that may bring about serious side effects.

There is another case that is written in the book that still give me the chills whenever I think about it. In the Western countries, there is a big pharmaceutical company named Eli Lily. What they did was they "created" a new medication for PMDD to "help" women who suffered under unstable emotional bouts two weeks before menstruation. The medicine is named "Sarafem", and they are pink pills, and the name is derived from the Hebrew word 'angel'. Now, the scary part is that the chemical ingredients of Sarafem is essentially the same with Prozac, an antidepressant, which has no part to do here because PMDD is not a depressive disorder! This is ingenious because they repackaged Prozac into a female wonder-drug, by using subliminal messages such as the pink packaging or the name itself that is imbued with stereotypic female overtones. And the worst part is, nobody knew about it!

Prozac's chemical molecules
Fluoxetine: an antidepressant of the SSRI class.

Sarafem's chemical molecules
Also...... Fluoxetine

French philosopher, Michel Foucalt, once famously (or infamously) said that madness has always existed, but madmen hasn't. Because madmen is a culturally evolved concept that is put in place in order for people with higher powers to confine them and restrict them so as not to destroy the entire structure of society into chaos. Whether that is true or not is still to be questioned. But what is true is that the psychiatric industry still has a long way to go, whether ethically or practically, as there are still many questionable flaws that are embedded in its very fabrics.

Michel Foucalt: fabulous, important,
and downright inscrutable and indecipherable.

Reading this book is like reading "Alice in Wonderland". It brings you to a place where things may appear bizarre and out-of-hand at first glance, but will soon take on a reality so startling, so unsettling, and so disturbing that it shatters your very beliefs, and lead us to question everything that we know about the psychiatric community ("To be ethical, or to profit, that is the question!") The book listed out so many other deceptions and faults of the psychiatric community, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, that it makes one shiver to think about how naive we once were to hail it as an advancing science, when it is actually moving nowhere in its inertia. It is a rabbit hole where crimes such as shadowy economic links between psychiatry and pharmacy, conjured research trial results, serious side effects of drugs, drugs that are no better than placebos, are kept silently at the vault of their secrets. But the vault is leaking.

It is a book that is rather dry and is honestly boring, and its implications are rather biased (the author is a psychotherapist, but in the book, nowhere is it to be found that psychotherapy is equally scrutinized with a critical lens, and the book neglected many other mental diseases, such as schizophrenia, or bipolar disorders). I am generally skeptical of skeptics (hah, the irony!), but this one got me sold. And although I do not enjoy it, not because it was dry (although there is an element of that), but because the truth listed inside is disturbing (as truths often are), it is an important and honest polemical work. And it not only deserves to be read widely, it demands to be.

Nothing better to end a long article than an Obama picture.

There are other books that offered a critical re-evaluation of psychiatry as a whole, that are written with a much more interesting (or "entertaining" if that is the word for it) prose, such as:
(1) Tom Burns: The Necessary Shadow
(2) Ben Goldacre: Bad Science
(3) Ben Goldacre: Bad Pharma
(4) Christine Montross: Falling into the Fire
(I absolutely recommend Ben Goldacre's two books as they are very very good, with enough anecdotes that makes the best black comedy material.)