more 'whole sick crew'

[Paul Mackin]

Has anyone besides me been laboring under the misapprehension that the
'whole' in the phrase refers to entire? As in, the whole shmir, or whole
hog, or whole lot of ?  Suddenly the word seems to make more sense as
the wholeness of health and well-being. In other words the 'whole sick
crew' might be thought of as an outright contradiction or oxymoron.
Except of course it's a contraction that a few writers of the last
couple centuries have insisted must be factored into our social
existence. One such writer much in the news at the time V. was being
written. would have been R. D. Laing. Laing was dealing with insanity
not soical alienation as such. But there was much crossover in his
thinking. Never quite said insanity is health. Wish I could find my copy
of The Divided Self so I could quote something. Anyway I feel I must
personally go through some minor reevalutation of my V.

                    P.