1 To disqualify Trump as a racist, sexist, reckless, authoritarian ignoramus a critic need only quote him or run the tape.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) August 6, 2016
2 But to disqualify him as "crazy" critics smear him with stereotypes the recourse to which harms vulnerable people who aren't Trump.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) August 6, 2016
3 I'm certainly not happy about the sexist pathologizations of HRC that substitute for deliberation about her fitness for the presidency...
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) August 6, 2016
4 ...but recognition and resistance to this pathologization demands its consistent application.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) August 6, 2016
ADDED: None of this is to deny that Trump (or me, for that matter) is clinically diagnosable nor that were he so diagnosed this would be relevant to his professional qualification for the presidency (that would depend on the diagnosis), but only to notice that nobody diagnosing Trump to disqualify him has, as far as I can see, both the qualifications and the therapeutic context to be doing so. Also, I do think that there are character, temperament, and moral standard tests for the presidency that are actually being expressed through some of these pathologizations and I may agree with the substance of those assessments were they translated back into terms of character, temperament, and moral standards. It is hard to say because the discourse of pathologization itself muddied the assessments, even while the scientificity and clinical neutrality of the form of the discourse is deployed precisely to produce an aura of clarity and objectivity where contestation and subjectivity are palpably in play. One thing that is clear is that there are lots of people living with diagnosed conditions who are widely misunderstood and vulnerable to mistreatment and it is easy to see how they are hurt by a national dialogue ridiculing Donald Trump as a crazy man when it should be quite enough to point out instead that he is a bigoted, belligerent, bullying, breathtakingly ignorant man incapable of doing the difficult job he is applying for and in fact actively disdainful of most of the people in whose name he would be doing that job.5 I see now I've long been too glib allowing figures of pathology to carry weight in my polemics and analyses of political life: It's wrong.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) August 6, 2016
> [N]obody diagnosing Trump to disqualify him has, as far as I can see,
ReplyDelete> both the qualifications and the therapeutic context to be doing so.
That is, of course, technically quite true. There are several reasons
for this:
1. The fact that people with so-called "Cluster B" personality
disorders typically do not seek professional diagnosis.
They have "alloplastic defenses" -- "I'm fine -- it's the **rest**
of the world that's fucked up."
2. Real psychiatrists are forbidden to "diagnose" a public
figure, because:
2a. If the person were a patient, it would be a violation of
professional ethics (at the very least) to reveal the
diagnosis to a third party, and
2b. If the person isn't a patient, it's a violation
of the so-called "Goldwater Rule", also a standard of
professional ethics, for a psychiatrist to
talk about a public figure in that way (which apparently hasn't
stopped a few from doing so in any case, with Trump).
So insisting that anybody providing such a diagnosis
have "both the qualifications and the therapeutic context"
is a Catch 22.
This leaves the "amateur" psychiatrists. Should they keep
their mouths shut? Look, I know that psychiatric-sounding
diagnoses **could** be used to harass and oppress people who are
unpopular for one reason or another (and **have** been so used,
on a very large scale, in the past -- as in the old Soviet Union, to
suppress dissidents and justify locking them up in mental hospitals;
though in that case it was indeed professionals colluding
with a repressive regime). I've seen _Suddenly Last Summer_ ;->
But do I think talk about "narcissists", "psychopaths" and "sociopaths"
is too fraught with the potential for abuse to be kept out of
the ears of the unwashed public? On balance, I'd have to say
no (I've also seen _The Bad Seed_ ;-> ).
Look, it's possible that somebody like Sam Vaknin (a diagnosed
victim of Narcissistic Personality Disorder himself, or so he
claims, but strictly an autodidact -- though apparently a
well-read one indeed -- when it comes to psychiatry) is
merely getting off by stirring up mischief and paranoia among
his readers and listeners. You'd have to decide that for yourself.
But I don't think so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITAR_CS1_L4
Introducing this Channel: Narcissists, Psychopaths, Abuse
In any case, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Fifteen years ago,
there was **very** little information publicly available (even
on the Web) about the so-called Cluster B personality disorders,
including Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality
Disorder. This is majorly no longer the case! Vaknin himself
has deplored some of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzNLVLXHt0
Trump, Clinton - Narcissists? "Experts" Spew NONSENSE!
You are, of course, entitled to police such discourse on your
own blog. I know that I myself have stretched the limits of your
tolerance in the past by bring up NPD and/or Autistic Spectrum
Disorder in discussions about the transhumanist community, and
even particular figures in that community, on this blog. ;->
I am going to make what has historically been a conservative suggestion that a return to character discourse may be more useful than disease discourse, at any rate among non-professionals. I do not intend to censor or police such discourse here, however, in part because I think I still indulge in it myself and would rather have it exposed and disagreed with so I can understand it better and address its limitations and think through better alternatives (assuming they exist). I think there is surely space to talk about narcissism as a cards-on-the-table moralist rather than as someone who plays a clinician on the internet.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/stasi-dictator-donald-trump-crazy-article-1.2736353
ReplyDelete-------------
Dictator Donald Trump has gone crazy, and we’re crazy for allowing him to get so far
Linda Stasi
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Is Donald Trump crazy? No, I mean really crazy. Not as in
“what-a-fun-crazy-guy-he-is” crazy, but as in
“he’s-got-a-classified-mental-disorder” crazy? . . .
So how, if he’s nuts, did he get this far? It’s so simple
it’s crazy. He figured out that the most-ignored group for
pols is the legions of hateful, white bigots who shamelessly
spew this stuff publicly. But what even Donald didn’t count
on were all those secret hateful, white bigots who disguise
themselves as liberals but will vote Trump in the end.
A hairdresser pal just told me he can’t even count the number
of white guys who’ve sat in his chair and told him that
they’re voting for Donald. But then they always add,
“But don’t you dare tell my wife.” How crazy is that?
====
Only the hairdresser knows for sure. ;->
More from the trenches (no Times for me today, which is
ReplyDeletekind of unusual for a Sunday).
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/politics/wire/military-community-split-over-trump-s-feud-with-khans/article_906598ef-071a-5ce5-ae7e-1dd7ce80775d.html
----------------
Military community split over Trump's feud with Khans
by Ben Finley
The Associated Press
August 6, 2016
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Robin Starck is a retired submarine commander who
still lives in the shadow of America's largest naval base, and he's
heard all the shouting about Donald Trump and his tangle with the
parents of a U.S. Army officer killed in Iraq.
Doesn't matter. He's still for Trump.
"Trump goes to the extreme," said Starck, 79. "Sometimes he
goes off the wall." But he added, "I don't see myself
changing my mind." . . .
[S]everal interviewed. . . this past week. . . said they have
other concerns that are keeping them loyal to Trump, among them
picking a conservative Supreme Court justice to replace the
late Antonin Scalia and getting rid of President Barack Obama's
health care law, which Hillary Clinton pledges to defend. . .
Jacob Jeske, 28, a commercial diver from Portsmouth, said the
episode was not a "big deal to me."
"He means well," Jeske said. "He's just going by his emotions. He's not
sitting there and thinking about it."
Jeske believes a Trump presidency would mean more work for him, given the
candidate's promises to invest deeply in the military. As a diver,
Jeske often makes his living by helping to maintain Navy ships.
"Trump knows that the military comes first, before any refugees or
anyone else," he said.
Richard Cormier, 61, a civilian doctor on a Navy supply ship, agrees.
"If he's going to build a strong military, all the other issues go away,"
said Cormier, who is stationed in Norfolk. "That directly bears on my
job. I don't even watch the news anymore, because it's all mudslinging
and people getting shot." . . .
====
;->
And speaking of psychotherapists:
Loc. cit.
----------------
Carolyn Hersh, 52, a psychotherapist from Portsmouth, said she
can no longer vote for Trump after the Khan controversy.
"He shouldn't have taken it personally," said Hersh, whose husband
is a former Navy doctor. "Coming from a military community, that was
just (too much)."
But voting for Clinton is not an option for Hersh. She said she has
too many concerns about the economy, which include government spending
on entitlement programs, to cast her ballot for the Democratic nominee.
"I would have voted for him a couple weeks ago — not happily, but I
would have," Hersh said of Trump. "I've never not voted. But that's
something that's on the table."
====
Why em em vee?
> [T]o disqualify [Trump] as "crazy" critics smear him with
ReplyDelete> stereotypes the recourse to which harms vulnerable people
> who aren't Trump. . .
>
> [T]here are lots of people living with diagnosed conditions
> who are widely misunderstood and vulnerable to mistreatment
> and it is easy to see how they are hurt by a national dialogue
> ridiculing Donald Trump as a crazy man. . .
This **sounds** very compassionate, and socially progressive,
and standardly left-wing.
It has been pointed out, however, that Cluster Bs **take
advantage** of this kind of rhetoric in some rather unsavory
ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gS7OLRJ_Bw
----------------
Going Mental: Dangerous Personality Disorders (Borderlines and Narcissists)
Shrink4Men
Sep 10, 2015
(10:18/1:07:36)
Dr. Tara Palmatier: I want to go back a little bit and add another
dimension to why guys question. . . some of what you or I or many people
looking at [the situation] objectively would say "Yes, this person is
a dangerous lunatic and you should look for the nearest exit
sign and run as if your butt was on fire." But a lot of the guys
I work with have gone to couples counselling, or individual
counselling with therapists. . . [and have been told to
extend more] understanding to their abusers and work harder
at not triggering their abusers. I had a session with a
gentleman just this morning and he gave me permission to share
this. He. . . [has engaged] DBT -- Dialectical Behavior Therapy
practitioners for his wife. . . other individual therapists
that they've worked with have said they **won't** diagnose her,
but they have told him, privately, that yes, she is most
likely [Borderline Personality], yet they won't diagnose her,
which is part of the problem. He had a session with a female
DBT practitioner, and I gave him some tips on screening, like
(1) find out if she's a feminist, (2) find out if she believes
that women are capable of abusing men. So he asked her some very
pointed questions. She was a bit defensive. . . [He asked] "So,
if I were to start yelling at my wife in session with you,
would you qualify that as abusive?" And she said "Yes."
"And if she did that to me in session?" And she's like, "Well,
I would tell her that that isn't an effective communication
technique." Not abusive, just "poor communication skills".
And this is a fucking DBT practitioner! And then he came to
find out. . . her undergraduate degree was in gender studies.
Paul Elam: I'm so surprised.
Tara Palmatier: Yeah. And she believes in the Duluth Model.
Which is an interesting conundrum. So, if your ideology. . .
If you're a therapist, a psychologist, a social worker, a practitioner
of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline individuals, many
of whom are women, and your ideology tells you that men are **always**
the primary aggressors, and if women are behaving in an abusive
fashion it's because of patriarchy, and they're reacting to the
oppression of men, how the **fuck** do you treat somebody with
BPD who is abusing their husband, boyfriend, and children? If
the BPD individual is a woman? Isn't that a conflict?
====
All this stuff is **heavily** politicized. And for a "civilian"
to just defer to his or her preferred ideological bromides as
the paradigm for "right thinking" on these topics -- well, that's hardly
doing anybody any good, but if you're lucky you can probably get away
with it for a lifetime because it doesn't concern you directly
(as with so many other things).
God help you, though, if you get sucked into one of these relationships
**personally**.
ReplyDelete> [T]here are lots of people living with diagnosed conditions
> who are widely misunderstood and vulnerable to mistreatment
> and it is easy to see how they are hurt by a national dialogue
> ridiculing. . . crazy. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgrfeRVRH1E
-------------
What Part of 'Borderlines are Crazy and Dangerous' Do You Not Understand?
Paul Elam
Sep 24, 2014
(33:56/1:07:36)
Dr. Tara Palmatier: Look, somebody doesn't have to qualify for a full
diagnosis to still be a nightmare and an abusive mess. And at the
end of the day, I think the diagnostic label is helpful, because
you can research it, you can study it, you can learn what signs
to look out for, but at the end of the day, whether or not the person
actually receives an official diagnosis, in my opinion, doesn't
matter. What matters are the behaviors. . .
====
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN6nkRzHDSU
-------------
Will Our Next President Be a Psychopath?
TheLipTV
Mar 3, 2016
(45:39/53:12)
James Fallon: Allison, the first person I worked with when
I came out to UC San Diego was a pediatric endocrinologist
who did some really fundamental research. This was back in
the late 70s. But he told me something that was really curious
at the time. He said, "You know, this kid I just saw this
morning is three years old, and I know he's going to be a
psychopath when he grows up." And I said, "Did you tell the
mother?" He said, "Absolutely not!" He said "I'd lose my
license, I'd have people beating down the door, I'd probably
be shot. I'm not going to tell anybody this!" And up until
a couple of years ago he said he'd **never** admit to the media
or anything that he knew these kids, at three years old, are
going to be psychopaths. He could **see** it. And, he says,
even when he's hinted at that serious a problem, the parents
would be in denial. Especially. . . usually the mother. . .
naturally, would be in denial. And it's a very natural response
to think, first of all, that babies are born a blank slate --
tabula rasa -- and that we mold them as parents. And we're
the ones who are going to make this person good. And
therefore **I** know what this person is, and they're just
rambunctious, right, at three years old, but I'm going to make
a good person. Religions do the same thing, and so do
governments -- they think they're going to mold somebody,
and this turns out to be -- as we've found out in the last
ten years or so -- **not** true. . .
====
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html
-------------
Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?
By JENNIFER KAHN
MAY 11, 2012
. . .
By the time he turned 5, Michael had developed an uncanny ability to
switch from full-blown anger to moments of pure rationality or
calculated charm —- a facility that Anne describes as deeply
unsettling. “You never know when you’re going to see a proper emotion,”
she said. She recalled one argument, over a homework assignment,
when Michael shrieked and wept as she tried to reason with him.
“I said: ‘Michael, remember the brainstorming we did yesterday?
All you have to do is take your thoughts from that and turn them
into sentences, and you’re done!’ He’s still screaming bloody murder,
so I say, ‘Michael, I thought we brainstormed so we could avoid
all this drama today.’ He stopped dead, in the middle of the screaming,
turned to me and said in this flat, adult voice, ‘Well, you didn’t
think that through very clearly then, did you?’ ” . . .
====
Very, very politicized. (And yes, I know what P. Z. Myers thinks of
Paul Elam. ;-> )
> > > [T]here are lots of people living with diagnosed conditions
ReplyDelete> > > who are widely misunderstood and vulnerable to mistreatment
> > > and it is easy to see how they are hurt by a national dialogue
> > > ridiculing. . . ["]crazy["]. . .
> >
> It has been pointed out. . . that Cluster Bs **take
> advantage** of this kind of rhetoric in some rather unsavory
> ways. [I.e., hide behind any reluctance to diagnose them]
I was trying to find this quote the other day, but only
just stumbled on it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdwFINCrlw0
-------------
Going Mental: You Might as Well Face it, You're Addicted to Borderline
Paul Elam
Aug 27, 2014
(8:48/1:05:11)
Paul Elam: Having a mental disorder, or disease, or mental illness,
or whatever you want to call it, depending on what it is, does
not guarantee my sympathies. I don't have sympathies, for instance,
for serial killers, which are obviously very mentally sick people. . .
So at some point, in pathology, my take on it is that I don't
care. I don't care much about sociopaths, whether they're the kind
that go in and out of prison or whether they're the kind that
end up in Congress because they're so good at exploiting and
manipulating people. . . Because there are so many biases against
men in the mental health system. . . as a matter of fact, somebody
just e-mailed me yesterday. . . the Good Men Project published an
article telling men that were victims of physical abuse in relationships
that they needed to learn how to "deal with it" and have
compassion for the women who were beating on them. . .
I know that borderlines are very unhappy people most of the time,
I know they have a lot of pain, I know they suffer, I know that
they have emotional lability and really do have a hard time.
But. . . they destroy people. They don't look at themselves and
repair and fix. . . There may be some that do as they get older. . .
if they're not so severe [then] age takes care of part of it.
But. . . we're talking about people that cause a wake of destruction
through the lives of one person after another. . . and I don't
feel compassion for that. . . So, for the borderlines out there
who are offended by what I have to say, all I can say is
"It's too bad". . .
Dr. Tara Palmatier: I've seen this on my site. I've quit allowing
comments, because borderlines have more than enough forums on
the internet where they go and get support and milk and cookies
and "Oh yes, it must be so hard having to live with yourself after
abusing people and pushing them away from you." And I get it.
That's a shitty existence. But they're the architects of their
own misery, ultimately. And I'm sorry for them. And if they're
sincerely trying to get help [to] stop the abuses that they
perpetrate on others and themselves, then that's great. I wish
you the very best. But what I also see. . . is that the diagnosis
is used as an excuse to abuse carte blanche and to expect
pity and sympathy from their victims. And that does not fly,
as far as I'm concerned. . .
====
It is interesting that Cluster B diagnoses tend to be "gendered".
Far more men than women are diagnosed with "Narcissistic
Personality Disorder", and far more women than men are
diagnosed with "Borderline Personality Disorder". It's quite
conceivable that there are similar underlying propensities
(culminating in "gendered" presenting behaviors) that have been
divergently shaped by the cultural milieu and gender
expectations.
So P. Z. Myers has weighed in on the "diagnosing Donald Trump" issue.
ReplyDeletehttp://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/08/07/it-works-both-ways/
------------
Martin Shkreli, the repellent pharma-bro, is now publicly diagnosing
Hillary Clinton with Parkinson’s Disease. . .
He has no qualifications at all for offering medical advice. . .
If you find this as revolting and inappropriate as I do, I’ll
just mention…do you feel the same way about all the non-psychiatrists
claiming that Donald Trump, or his mobs of cheering fans,
are mentally ill?
Don’t be like Martin Shkreli.
====
I can see the analogy he's trying to make, but I don't buy it.
Look, as Sam Vaknin has pointed out, even the CIA "profiles" foreign
leaders these days according to these recognized DSM diagnostic
criteria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzNLVLXHt0
------------
Trump, Clinton - Narcissists? "Experts" Spew NONSENSE!
Sam Vaknin
Mar 24, 2016
(3:15/22:40)
Can we "remote diagnose" a politician, or any other person. . .?
The answer is, of course, no. Proper diagnosis requires a set
of tests, structured interviews, and face-to-face meetings
where the diagnostician, who is a very experienced mental health
practitioner, is able to observe present signs, body language,
and other parameters. . . But there is a big difference between
diagnosis and evaluation. We can and do evaluate politicians
on a constant basis. The CIA has a department dedicated to
"remote diagnosing" world leaders. The predecessor of the
CIA, the OSS, constructed a wonderful psychological profile
of Adolf Hitler, which is now available on-line.
Saddam Hussein's psychological profile, written by Dr. Post,
is also available on-line. And what is psychological profiling
of serial killers if not remote evaluation? So we regularly
remote evaluate people with public exposure. Actually, there
is a thriving scholarly literature which tries to "remote diagnose"
living and dead world leaders. . .
====
Hey if it's good enough for the CIA, then surely it's good enough
for public thrashing out for the sake of an informed electorate.
We can only hope that idiosyncratic and poorly-supporter outliers,
like Shkreli's (non-psychological) "diagnosis" of Hillary Clinton
will be subject to the critical scrutiny and skepticism they
deserver. That's all you can do, in the public forum of ideas.
Declaring the whole subject "out of bounds", and shutting it down
in the name of politeness, or "political correctness", or
ideological squeamishness, isn't going to make the world a better
place, IMHO.
The risks of putting a madman into a position of power are too
great, don't you think?
ReplyDelete> The risks of putting a madman into a position of power are too
> great, don't you think?
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/10/todays-random-wilde.html
------------
From _Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed,
and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend_ by Barbara Oakley
http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/159102580X
Chapter 9, "The Perfect 'Borderpath': Chairman Mao"
pp. 216 et seq.
Mao [Zedong] was the most Machiavellian leader of the
many Machiavellian leaders of the twentieth century.
For three decades, he held absolute power over the lives
of one-quarter of the world's population. As historian
R. J. Rummel writes: 'For perspective on Mao's most bloody
rule, all wars [worldwide] 1900-1987 cost in combat dead
34,021,000 -- including WWI and II, Vietnam, Korea, and
the Mexican and Russian Revolutions. Mao alone murdered
over twice as many as were killed in combat in all those
wars. He also killed nearly four times as many as are
thought to have died in **four hundred years** of the
African slave trade, from capture to sale in Arab, Oriental,
or New World markets.
Therefore it is perhaps surprising to find that psychologists,
psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists of the time, and even
today, rarely make serious efforts to address the possibility
of serious mental illness in motivating Mao's behavior. But
MIT political scientist Lucian Pye, who published an early
biography of Mao in 1976, the year of Mao's death, provides
a lucid explanation for the reticence: '[B]ecause I knew that
I was already going out onto thin ice by psychologically
interpreting the near-sacred Mao, I decided that it would not
be prudent, indeed that it would be counter-productive, to use
any technical terminology. Therefore, I did not go public
in announcing that Mao Zedong was probably a narcissist with
a borderline personality, a combination that is not rare.
I suspect that if I had stated that this was the case, it would
have brought many people's blood to the boiling point. . .
Mao's general reaction to the devastating
effects of his policies was to pretend that they weren't happening.
His staff, all too aware of what could happen to them if they
revealed the truth, served to insulate him even further. But the
situation deteriorated so drastically that the truth could not
be hidden. Dr. Li [Zhisui, Mao's personal physician,] describes
the insider's perspective on Mao's reactions.
'Mao . . . seemed psychologically incapable of confronting the effects
of the famine. When I told him that edema and hepatitis were
everywhere, he accused me of inventing trouble. "You physicians
have nothing better to do than scare people," he snapped. "You're
just out looking for disease. If no one were sick, you'd all
be unemployed." . . . I thought Mao was ruthless to close his eyes
to the illness that was everywhere around him. But I allowed him
his illusions and never mentioned the subject again, behaving
in his presence as though hunger and disease had miraculously
disappeared.'
Dr. Li notes: 'Mao was loath to admit his mistakes. His was a life
with no regrets . . . I am convinced Mao never really believed
he had done anything wrong.' . . .
As Dr. Li notes, 'To this day, ruthless though he was, I believe
Mao launched the Great Leap Forward to bring good to China. . . .
The twentieth century was marching forward and Mao was stuck
in the nineteenth, unable to lead his country. Now he was in
retreat, trying to figure out what to do. Tragically, the
cognitive equipment Mao was using to do his 'figuring' with was --
**different**. . .
====
Sound like anybody you know?
The risks of putting a madman into a position of power are too
ReplyDeletegreat, don't you think?
As I said at the beginning, Trump is demonstrably and repeatedly deceitful, uninformed, reckless, and bigoted. I think the risks of putting a serially lying, intemperate, bigoted ignoramus into a position of power are too great. I don't see how anything is gained by non-experts "diagnosing" him from a distance as a "madman." Again, as I said at the beginning, I have been convinced by reading and hearing from folks who have diagnosed conditions that the many stereotypes and errors circulating make glib recourse to the topic in discussing public figures contributes to their precarity. I guess I see why this seems like "political correctness" since it is about treating vulnerable people as actually real and their concerns as actually shared by us all, but it also seems one could frame this as an effort at straightforward correctness. By the way, I am not too keen on the popular mythology of "profiling" as criminological typologies of The Criminal Mind... which seems to me to justify rather reactionary monsterization of menacing criminals as crime rates descend and is often stratified by racist and sexist prejudices that enable and rationalize police abuses. Again, I do think there are moral judgments to be made about character in our politicians and in the upbringing of children and so on... I just think they should not masquerade as scientific or clinical diagnoses when they are not made by those with the credentials and context to offer them up. When it comes to the pathologization of public figures by non-experts who don't have relevant personal knowledge, I certainly have not "shut it down" or declared the topic "out of bounds" ...I have simply declared it a practice I long engaged in myself and have come to see as erroneous and damaging to vulnerable people who are already dealing with enough. I don't mean to seem disrespectful or judgmental about it, I've indulged in this sort of thing here over the years all too often, I've called the GOP and the Robot Cult "crazytown" and "batshit crazy" and all the rest more times than I care to recall for all the good it did my arguments against them.
> Mao's general reaction to the devastating
ReplyDelete> effects of his policies was to pretend that
> they weren't happening.
If this is indeed a qualification for a head of state, then I'm prepared
to admit that Donald Trump is **the** most qualified candidate
for the job.
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21701790-unflattering-light-day-cost-truth
-------------
The cost of truth
The unflattering light of day
Jul 9th 2016
BUENOS AIRES
DURING her eight years as Argentina’s president,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had a way of dealing
with nasty facts: denying them. When annual inflation
reached 27%, she said the number was wrong. “If it were
as high as they say it is,” she scoffed in September 2012,
“the country would explode.” But truth will out: by
the time she left office last year, a 100-peso note -- the most
valuable -- fetched just $10, less than a third of its level
when she took office. Unwilling to admit this plunge,
Ms Fernández. . . refused to issue bigger bills. Queues
formed at ATMs; . . . some machines had to be refilled twice
daily and repaired monthly.
Mauricio Macri, the country’s president since December, prefers
to cast a colder eye on reality. On June 30th a 500-peso note
appeared at his government’s behest. . . [O]n the streets of
Buenos Aires, the note is welcome. . . “Hopefully it will cut
queues,” sighed Mariela, a hospital worker, as she waited
with 28 others to use a newly-replenished cash dispenser.
“This is a waste of time.”
====
> I've indulged in this sort of thing here over the years all
> too often, I've called the GOP and the Robot Cult "crazytown"
> and "batshit crazy" and all the rest more times than I care
> to recall for all the good it did my arguments against them.
Well, I myself have never, as far as I can recall, used the
word "crazy". I prefer to use the precise clinical categories,
and only when I really think they're applicable (rather than
as a form of rhetorical hyperbole).
Psychologists and psychiatrists do not use the word "crazy",
at least not in their professional roles. ;-> And if "crazy"
is to be interpreted as a colloquial synonym for the more
technical term "psychotic", then it is worth pointing out that
the so-called "Axis II personality disorders" are certainly **not**
forms of psychosis. Whatever disturbances they may create in
the lives of their "sufferers" (or their "victims"), they do
not entail a complete break with reality, or an inability
to distinguish right from wrong.
Now that you're retired you should go back to school and become a psychologist... I could use an analyst.
ReplyDelete> I do think there are moral judgments to be made about
ReplyDelete> character in our politicians and in the upbringing of
> children and so on... I just think they should not
> masquerade as scientific or clinical diagnoses when they
> are not made by those with the credentials and context to
> offer them up.
Well, clearly I don't agree with you here, so I guess we'll
have to "agree to disagree" -- I doubt if either of us is
going to change the other's point of view.
As I mentioned earlier, though, the toothpaste is completely
out of the tube on this (just search "narcissistic" or "borderline"
on Google or YouTube). You may deplore this; I think it's
a **good thing**, for people who need to know what the hell is
going on with the difficult people they have to deal with
(or even, for that matter, the politicians they may or may not vote for),
and who aren't likely to get straight answers from professionals.
This is actually a facet of a bigger issue -- the "democratization"
of what, until the Web came into existence, were "professional secrets".
(Some) doctors also deplore the easy availability of medical information
on the Web. The excuse is that people will misinterpret or misuse
the information, or not know how to distinguish reliable from
unreliable information. But part of the disapproval (whether or not
it's admitted) is the diminishment of professional authority, and the
unpleasant prospect of being challenged by a client.
> Now that you're retired you should go back to school and become a psychologist...
ReplyDeleteMy major (at NYU) was computer science, and my minor **was**
psychology. ;->
The last Abnormal Psych course I took, though, was in the summer
of 1973 at the University of Delaware. The professor was the
classic TV/movie psychoanalyst, complete with German
accent. ;->
(I just tried to find a YouTube clip of the old _Twilight Zone_
episode "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" with Marilyn being
interviewed by "Professor Sigmund Friend", but alas, I couldn't
find one.)
the toothpaste is completely out of the tube on this (just search "narcissistic" or "borderline" on Google or YouTube). You may deplore this; I think it's a **good thing**, for people who need to know what the hell is going on with the difficult people they have to deal with
ReplyDeleteWell, clearly part of our dispute is the question whether amateur diagnoses of actually unknown celebrities helps anyone know "what the hell is going on" as a matter of fact -- and there are good reasons to think this enables some to abuse vulnerable people they think of as "difficult" when in fact that may simply be different in ways that should not matter or are better dealt with through good manners and a professional HR department in an organized workplace.
This is actually a facet of a bigger issue -- the "democratization" of what, until the Web came into existence, were "professional secrets".
In terms of "toothpaste out of the tube" I agree this is a different and important issue. I personally think the democratization of expertise should be about making access to training and credentialization equitable and then assuring the exercise of expert authority is accountable rather than insulated from consequence. I think the wikileakification of resistance discourse overgeneralizes secrecy as the problem of power -- a view consistent with anarchist attitudes and principles actually avowed by many of the participants and admirers of these Anonymous-to-Assange would-be insurgents. I don't want to seem to deny the importance of anti-secrecy -- black budgets are unconstitutional for a reason (though few seem to care in practice) and proprietary knowledge production in the academy has facilitated its demolition (ditto) -- but just as I don't want to smash the state but to democratize it, I do not wish to smash expertise but make it accessible and accountable. I'm such a square.