Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 03:06:02 -0400
From: dpoole@awod.com (darrellyn sue poole)
Subject: Book Review: Eccentrics
 
Lines of Demarcation: Eccentric or Mentally Ill?
 
- Sue Poole
 
"Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness" by Dr. David Weeks and Jamie
James, published in 1995 nby Random House, has some contradictions and
inconsistencies, largely because Weeks is a psychoneurologist attempting to
differentiate between so-called mental illness and the condition of being
merely eccentric.
 
The Emperor (Joshua Abraham) Norton, a 19th century San Francisco
entrepreneur whom Weeks classifies as an eccentric, gambled away a fortune
in 1853 and compensated by annexing the whole United States and declaring
himself supreme ruler.
 
"For more than 20 years, he patrolled the streets, seeing to it that the
sidewalks were unobsructed and the streetcars ran on time," Weeks says.
 
In his lifetime, this failed businessman who became a street person, was
regarded as a harmless eccentric, "a source of delight and even a sort of
strange asset to the community," Weeks notes...adding that today he would be
declared to be suffering from any number of well-defined mental illnesses,
vigorously battered with tests and physical treatments, diagnosed,
stabilized and formed to be normal, whether he wanted it or not.
 
The lines of demarcation are too fuzzy, and Weeks can't really pull off the
attempt to differeniate between the grand eccentrics of yesteryear and
today's hopeless, wretched, allegedly incurably mentally ill street person.
The eccentric people Weeks portrays in the book are only able to escape
psychiatric labels because they are accepted in their communities and valued
as colorful personalities. Norton had won the hears of the San Francisco
business community before his ruinour foray into gambling. Even in his
impoverished condition, he retained the loyalty of San Francisco's social
elite, who encouraged his delusions of empire with monetary donations and
continued friendships.
 
Weeks also mentions the guy who walked cross-country wearing his pajamas and
accompanied by his dog, a sort of contemporary Johnny Appleseed. In
addition, he cites Victoria Claflin Woodhull, a 19th century feminist and
free-lone advocate whose wealth saved her from social condemnation and a
long hitch in the loony bin; 2oth centurty concert pianist Glenn Gould,
whose recognized musical brilliance keeps him free, wealthy and independent
despite his habit of wearing fur and wool garments in 90-degree weather; and
Jack Mytton, 19th century upperclass Englishman whose love of danger once
prompted him to overturn a carriage so his friend could experience a crash
accident.
 
These folks didn't get psychiatrically labeled because 1) they had
connections to the community and received support and mentoring, not
condemnation 2) they inherited money or parlayed talents early into
financial resources to keep themselves independent and 3) they weren't
unhappy with their deviance.
 
These three elements, Weeks is saying, constitute the lines of demarcation
between so-called mental illness and a joyful eccentricity. With community
support, financial resources and a sense of joy in one's individuality, it
is possible to exhibit extreme or unusal behaviors and not get entangled in
the psychiatric system.
 
Everybody else who resists conformity is shed out of luck, it seems.
 
Weeks includes example of linguistic idiosyncrasies of persons he considers
mentally ill and compares them to language patterns of people who are
eccentric but not psychiatrically labeled. The samples from non-labeled
eccentrics are extremely disconnected and wouldn't pass mainstream
psychiatric muster. But Weeks insists the language of eccentrics is
discernible from the language of the labeled. (The difference in
interpretation boils down to whether the speaker can afford to sue the
doctors for wrongful imprisonment and...most significantly...whether the
speaker has established ties to community, money and a vast indifference to
public opinion).
 
On the whole, Weeks opposes enforced conformity and involuntary treatments
because he believes such tactics and the accompanying stimgatization rob
society of diversity, colorful characters and comic relief. His argument
that alleged mental illness and mere eccentricity can be differentiated
doesn't really hold water when you read between the lines and learn that
social status and money provide the boundary lines.
 
It is interesting to note that Weeks' study finds socioeconomic factors are
important in differentiating between eccentricity and so-called mental
illness, especially in cases of nonconforming females. It appears that
people who have money and influence are less likely to get themselves
labeled and "treated" than people of indpendent means, who can be as strange
as they like (par example, Howard Hughes, Ted Turner) without running afoul
of Third Reich psychiatry as long as they have influence in the community or
money enough to afford good legal representation.
 
There are fewer female than male eccentrics, Weeks says, because women are
still so traditionally oppressed in society they must have social status or
money (Edith Sitwell, par example) to break away and be themselves without
being punished for their deviance.
 
(Elizabeth Taylor, for instance, goes to a spa, a detox center or a "resort"
asylum when she wants a break from the crazy-making demands of life, while
your average mad housewife gets tossed into a loony bin by relatives to whom
she is inconvenient. When Elizabeth Taylor or a celebrity goes into detox,
it's fashionable, without opprobrious connotations. For those without money
or influence, it's shameful. There's definitely a socioeconomic bias at work
in differentiating between who is mentally ill and who is acceptably eccentric.)
 
Weeks profiles some eccentrics of international stature...the Emperor
Norton, William Blake (whose hallucinations, voices and visions, Weeks
contends, are not psychiatric "symptoms" because Blake supposedly exerted
control over them. The truth is that Blake had sponsors in high places and
an indulgent wife, eliminating the necessity for controlling his own
imagination), 
Thomas Spooner, Helga Schiller and others.
 
Basically, Weeks is illuminating the terrible power of cultural bias in
segregating and stigmatizing an entire population of deviant people. You can
be eccentric if you have the means and connections to be eccentric, he is
saying, and will probably end up a "chronic, career mental patient" if you
are eccentric but without a support system or financial resources.
 
It's interesting that a survey of the eccentrics interviewed displayed  a
prevalance of so-called schizophrenic symptoms..."albeit in mild form,"
Weeks notes, trying to have it both ways at once. Weeks flounders here,
trying to ascribe visionary traits to well-off eccentrics and mental disease
to the poor, disenfranchised and unsuported.
 
The message of this book: If you're wealthy or have a strong support system
or cult ties, as in the Pentecostal churches where glossalalia is practiced
and nobody blinks an eye, you can be eccentric. If you're poor and lack
strong community supports, your deviances, whether joyous or burdensome to
you, are more likely to attract the coercive attentions of mainstream
psychiatry.
 
Worth reading. Sue