The Author
Giovanni Vidotto: therapist, educator, poet
I’m an Italo-Canadian living in Canada. My home lies at the extreme northern end of the Sonoran desert which stretches from Mexico to British Columbia, the province in which I live. Believe it or not, we have desert, cacti, black widow spiders and rattle snakes here.
I work in a residential treatment centre where I am a group therapist for clients who are in recovery from addiction. One of the principles that governs my work is “Reality…accept no substitute.”
I have an interest in interviewing ordinary people and writing about their uncommon lives. Literature, biography, diaries, letters and personal papers, men’s issues and the drama of civilizations in collision stimulate me. I like conversation and spirited debate about social issues.
If you are a kindred spirit and would like to link your web log to mine, please feel free to do so. My e-mail address is gvidotto@shaw.ca . I look forward to hearing from you.
Roger said
I am a kindred spirit. Let me explain.
I’m an Italo-Canadian living in Canada.
PM. And I am Franco-American living in New Zealand.
My home lies at the extreme northern end of the Sonoran desert which stretches from Mexico to British Columbia, the province in which I live. Believe it or not, we have desert, cacti, black widow spiders and rattle snakes here.
PM. Black widow spiders in Canada!?!? My spouse hails from Coeur d’Alene. Deserts are emotionally very special. We all descend ultimately from semi-arid East Africa. I also like the writings of Edward Abbey.
One of the principles that governs my work is “Reality…accept no substitute.”
PM. I like that motto. On therapy and clinical psychology, I am highly sympathetic to the standpoint of Thomas Szasz.
I have an interest in interviewing ordinary people and writing about their uncommon lives.
PM. Do you know of the writings of Studs Terkel?
Literature, biography, diaries, letters and personal papers, men’s issues
PM. Our gender has yet to enjoy the thoughtful examination the feminine condition has enjoyed since Betty Friedan in 1962. I also believe that the male gender is the more troubled and threatened one. It is true that the top dogs of our civilisation
are alpha males. But the average man isn’t all that much to write home about, and the situation is rapidly growing worse. The reason
is the growing male indifference to serious education. Universities are becoming strongly feminine environments.
and the drama of civilizations in collision stimulate me.
PM. Of course! These collisions are threatening because potentially very destructive. But they are also opportunities, because on the margins where civilisations interact, hybrid vigour
can emerge. William McNeill’s magisterial Rise of the West proposes this as an organising theme.
I like conversation and spirited debate about social issues.
PM. Because you are Italian! I too share your tastes. But I live in a society that dreads verbal conflict, the clash of visions. Hence a lot of dullness and hypocrisy.
I note that your blog contains an anti-circ page. Circ is very alien to Italians (curiously, some French who are neither Jews nor Moslems have been cut in recent years). I have thought a lot
about the American (and formerly Canadian as well) obsession with removing the foreskin. Please note that I am not gay, and I much
prefer the writings of common-sensical women to those of angry men and of gay foreskin fetishists. Suffice to say that to grow up intact in the USA or Canada before 1980 or so could be, how shall I put it, a serious test of one’s mettle. Those days are past, because North America is now willing to converse (at least in cyberspace) about the foreskin and its removal, and because many American boys are now intact. Foreskins no longer feel lonely and misunderstood…
yzed said
Sorry I haven’t been able to answer your great post. I’ve been preoccupied with several issues over the past month or so, and will get back to posting shortly. This week I’ll answer some of your interesting thoughts. I can see that you are an intelligent and thoughtful person. Glad to have had you post on my blog.