Comments | miss_breeziness: How to offend libertarians and the mentally ill in one breath.

miss_breeziness

How to offend libertarians and the mentally ill in one breath.

Mar 01, 2009 19:46

babydoc3 talks about a Harvard study asking: "Is libertarianism a sign of mental illness"?

Call me crazy, but it seems the charge of insanity or mental illness has always been used to marginalize people disliked by the group doing the marginalizing. It was like that in Soviet Russia, with gay people in the USA in the 60s, and now...with people who don't ( Read more... )

rant, politics, psychology

Comments 6

(The comment has been removed)

miss_breeziness March 1 2009, 08:22:51 UTC

Good point. Although what I'm against is pointlessly throwing the label around, and covering a huge group with it. There certainly is real mental illness, for instance, but calling everyone who's slightly different "mentally ill" cheapens the meaning of the term.

As for insanity...I'd say there are loads of examples from both left and right here.

babydoc3 March 5 2009, 01:53:01 UTC

First, thanks for calling attention to my post.

I agree with you about cheapening the meaning of the term mental illness. The definition of mental illness has been broadened too much, and it has negative consequences. One consequence is excusing bad behavior (especially when you get to talking about personality disorders) or to demonize people you disagree with (as I pointed out in my article.)

boffo March 1 2009, 18:08:13 UTC

Dismissing people who disagree with you as stupid or insane is so much easier than thinking.

miss_breeziness March 2 2009, 09:12:58 UTC

That is indeed so! Which is why I think it's especially infuriating when intelligent people do it. Or people who should be using their intelligence...like university professors. Sigh.

babydoc3 March 5 2009, 01:54:59 UTC

And it's not just that they are university professors who should be smart enough to know better. They are producing papers which (possibly) move us closer to putting libertarianism in the DSM as a mental disorder. That's what worries me. A lot more than someone just telling me I'm crazy in the middle of a heated conversation.

miss_breeziness March 5 2009, 06:50:58 UTC

I see where you're coming from...but I wonder how many people would take that study seriously. Probably more than a few, given that it's from Harvard, but there's been a lot of nonsense coming from universities lately which is not taken seriously by the public.

Then again, I wonder if Harvard university professors have influence on lawmakers, which would be a problem in this case...