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Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

madinamerica.com

121–130 of 211 posts

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#121
post #106
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many people want to keep firearms to keep the power of the government in check," Really? Are you sure its not just a case of guns being ingrained in American culture and make the owners feel all macho and strong, and that any old excuse is good enough to argue that they should be allowed to keep huge pointless arsenals of weaponry? I mean, from what I can tell, such people are generally on the right of politics, and…

> Shouldn't they have been using their arsenals to protect America? Rebellion is a last resort. Things haven't gotten bad enough yet. > when in the last, say, 100 years This number is conveniently chosen to be just below the Civil War. > they'd just find another excuse Self defense? If we were some European country that's historically always had only a few gun owners and tight control of guns since firearms were inve…

> > when in the last, say 1-- years > > This number is conveniently chosen to be just below the Civil War

Which was 150% the original number, not "just" below the Civil War. The Civil Wars was closer to the signing of the Declaration than today.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#122

I have a 13-year-old brother with ODD. And let me tell you, there is more to it than a healthy does of anti-authoritarianism. We adopted my brother when he was 15 months old, and in his first year of life we suspect he was frequently neglected, leading to attachment issues. Basically, when an infant's needs are not met, they get distressed, and the more often this occurs, the more those neurological pathways become i…

Attachment and insecurity issues can be greatly improved with psychedelic induced trips (with safe setting). If mushrooms, ayahuasca or similars are very hard to get(in my country it's hard) holotropic breathwork is reported to have similar effect, although can't reinforce that.

This message is more like to anyone with attachment issues, I've just read your brother is 13 years old so mehh, don't know.. Safe bet that he is not mature enough, haven't read anything about what are the hazards when adolescents take it.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#124
post #88
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so let's go down that line a little bit more. In a species (alongside a whole host of other species) that depended on rape for survival, how is an inability to rape not a mental illness? [1] In a species that depended on rigidly defined gender roles of women child rearing and men being hunters, how is aberrant behavior not a mental illness? I think what's happening is you're falling prey to appeal to nature fal…

The rape analogy is misplaced because humans, unlike say ducks, do not primarily reproduce through rape. Also, appeal to nature fallacy is not applicable because I'm not making a "good" versus "bad" conclusion. I'm thinking of "mental illness" in terms of whether it's an evolutionary mal-adaptation, not in moral terms. And while it is true that loners, outliers, and dropouts often contribute great value to society, i…

Appeal to nature fallacy, not moralistic fallacy:

Appeal to nature: an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'" -- the word 'natural' here has no notion of morality

Moralistic fallacy: a fallacy of assuming that what is desirable is found or inherent in nature. It presumes that what ought to be—something deemed preferable—corresponds with what is or what naturally occurs. What should be moral is assumed a priori to also be naturally occurring.

Though, you may also be confusing appeal to nature fallacy with the naturalistic fallacy (I made that mistake myself, and corrected it in an edit 3-4 minutes of my having posted the above comment).

Anyway though, getting back to the topic at hand: is it really a worthwhile exercise identifying these non-severe mental disorders as a real problem? The latest revision of DSM identifies a good few many hundred disorders, the average individual has 5-20 mental disorders as they would be identified by the DSM. At this point an individual with no disorders at all whatsoever is the strange individual ('in a world where everyone is special, no-one is').

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#125
post #122

I have a 13-year-old brother with ODD. And let me tell you, there is more to it than a healthy does of anti-authoritarianism. We adopted my brother when he was 15 months old, and in his first year of life we suspect he was frequently neglected, leading to attachment issues. Basically, when an infant's needs are not met, they get distressed, and the more often this occurs, the more those neurological pathways become i…

Attachment and insecurity issues can be greatly improved with psychedelic induced trips (with safe setting). If mushrooms, ayahuasca or similars are very hard to get(in my country it's hard) holotropic breathwork is reported to have similar effect, although can't reinforce that. This message is more like to anyone with attachment issues, I've just read your brother is 13 years old so mehh, don't know.. Safe bet that…

I'll get right on that and recommend that to my parents. :P It is interesting the recent research on psychotropics, though.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We depend on cooperation to survive/thrive. Authority is neither necessary nor sufficient for cooperation.

I used the terms "tribes" and "packs" for a reason, namely because they more appropriate describe the structure of human societies since time immemorial much more accurately than the more abstract concept of "cooperation." Pack and tribal structures do depend on authority.

No, they frequently don't. They depend on trust, not authority. People respect leaders because they demonstrate good leadership. Not because they arbitrarily claim authority.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#127
post #88
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so let's go down that line a little bit more. In a species (alongside a whole host of other species) that depended on rape for survival, how is an inability to rape not a mental illness? [1] In a species that depended on rigidly defined gender roles of women child rearing and men being hunters, how is aberrant behavior not a mental illness? I think what's happening is you're falling prey to appeal to nature fal…

The rape analogy is misplaced because humans, unlike say ducks, do not primarily reproduce through rape. Also, appeal to nature fallacy is not applicable because I'm not making a "good" versus "bad" conclusion. I'm thinking of "mental illness" in terms of whether it's an evolutionary mal-adaptation, not in moral terms. And while it is true that loners, outliers, and dropouts often contribute great value to society, i…

"...the bulk of collective social value is produced by people following the pack/tribe"

This is stated as fact, but is the most contentious statement you could possibly make. In fact, I would argue that nearly every 'hero' character from both real history and mythology/fiction (which speaks to our cultural 'beliefs' sometimes better than our actions which are as guided by fear as belief) are quite the antithesis. Our heroes are heroes because it takes something more to innovate than it does to join.

You also use the hyperbolic phrase 'loners, outliers, and dropouts', well if we're playing the word game, I say that what happens to the total productivity of society if everyone acts like an 'innovator, an inventor, an individual' is that we have a lot less waste, and we have people who move things forward rather than fill seats.

The thing that kills me about the path-followers isn't that they don't offer value, because they do, especially the smart ones. But most of the path followers aren't happy just following the path, they angrily defend the path as the 'one and only true way'. The rest of us are just 'doing something wrong'

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#128

It truly help a lot when you read things like this. I'm 36 years old now, and have learned to live pretty successfully in society. But as a child that wants to explore and innovate (or for that matter just understand the rules I'm following), it often feels impossible to live in a society that has a rigid set of expectations. One common refrain from childhood: "If only he would apply himself..." well, of course, I ac…

I'd be curious to hear about your experiences in the Corps as an anti-authoritarian sort. I nearly joined the Marines myself out of college but decided that I was not well suited for it.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#129
post #124
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rape analogy is misplaced because humans, unlike say ducks, do not primarily reproduce through rape. Also, appeal to nature fallacy is not applicable because I'm not making a "good" versus "bad" conclusion. I'm thinking of "mental illness" in terms of whether it's an evolutionary mal-adaptation, not in moral terms. And while it is true that loners, outliers, and dropouts often contribute great value to society, i…

Appeal to nature fallacy, not moralistic fallacy: Appeal to nature: an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'" -- the word 'natural' here has no notion of morality Moralistic fallacy: a fallacy of assuming that what is desirable is found or inherent in nature. It presumes that what ought to be—something deemed preferable—co…

> the word 'natural' here has no notion of morality

But the words "good" and "bad" do. Appeal to nature would be if I said: "following the pack is good because that's what happens in nature." What I said was: "in a species that depends on pack behavior to survive, being unable to follow the pack is a maladaptation." Not that it's "bad" but that one would imagine that 5,000 years ago if in a tribe that became the modal outlook, the tribe would quickly die out.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#130
I had a teacher in High School who was a genius. He wanted us to think independently. One time he assigned a homework to the class where each of us had to study a mental illness of our choice. Mine was narcissism. And we had to go to a psychologist or psychiatrist, pretend that we have the disease and the task was to be convincing enough to get diagnosis.

More than 80% of students passed. We were all officialy crazy now, lol.

Now, try pulling it off with pneumonia or flu.

That's the problem with psychology or psychiatry. They can pretend all day long they are real sciences, but I'm sorry as long as a band of kids can pull off stuff like this it's not science. It's a complete and total joke.

Parent who have no time for their kids medicating them, so they can rest after work. Teachers who can't handle the class, so any kid who isn't complete vegetable must have ADHD, ODD, or whatever. Joke, joke, joke, joke.

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