[Psudo]

Yeah, we're always hearing liberals and conservatives claim the other side is full of madness and disconnect from reality, as nothing else could possibly explain why people disagree with our infallible selves. It's pretty ridiculous, baseless, and leads to irrational division.

But here's an odd wrinkle: a forensic psychiatrist with no history of political activism is now claiming liberals are nuts. Credentials!? How did that sneak into mindless political partisanship?

Lyle H. Rossiter Jr., M.D. -- 35-years a forensic psychiatrist and self-described moderate libertarian -- released a book entitled The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. It's the same old partisanship, except that he has the credentials to comment on the psychological and doesn't show up in the punditry world except with this one angle and since the book's publication. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. He does have an interview with a talk radio host online. (The first thing he addresses is the difference between "the benign liberal mind" who is mentally healthy and "radical liberal mind" whose beliefs are explained by psychological problems. He also verifies that there are irrationalities across the political spectrum, but that he "can only write one book at a time.")

Is this a put-on? A publicity stunt? It can't be real, yet he has the credentials and describes his logic; the only reasons I can't believe it are surprise and my automatic rejection of theories that make opposition ignorable by definition.

How does a layman discredit a specialist in that specialist's own field? How do I prove he's full of BS when he's got the credentials and I don't? Are his credentials legit? And, generally, WTF?

[Murray_Smith]

Well, if he can only write one book at a time, he'd better make it snappy with the book that describes the insanity of conservatives.

[DerbyX]

Murray_Smith wrote:

Well, if he can only write one book at a time, he'd better make it snappy with the book that describes the insanity of conservatives.

Like this study?

Quote:

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."

But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses

[CanadianJeff]

it's just another shrink putting out a book for the sheer sake of getitng people to buy it for some quick cash IMO.

Let's face it call the other side mad and make it look even half decent and people will fork out the cash to hear what they want to hear. It reminds me of a quote I saw on amazon.com on a harry potter is scarring our kids scare book. Sorry if that offends anyone but i can't stand the crowd that can't recognize fiction as fiction in the world of english litrituare but I digress.

Anyway the quote was simple and scared me shitless that someone could write it and mean it:

"Thank you, finally someone is saying what I've wanted to hear for a while now." anon

Frankly that's how these kind of books strike me. Nothing more then get quick off hate money schemes.

Hell let's say that I get my PHD in sociology in a decade and put out a book with some decent arguments as to why only a total marxist revolution could remove the hetrosexual bias in our society that keeps women bound to a minority group.

I may at that point have some hard points and the credentials to back it up. But that doesn't make it any more true or false. (personally I don't think a marxist revolution is the answer to gender inequality but I digress).

In the end when I'm reading anything I never even think about the credentials anymore. They only come into play when I'm priortizing what to read. I think about the arguments themselves.

There are plenty of liberal democratic countries in the world like Canada that are not falling into some state of madness and insanity and there's plenty of conservative countries like France that do just fine as well. Both sides arn't wrong or right really when you look at them work. They just both have a different approach to get the same basic jobs done.

It's just a quick knee jerk reaction to get some quick cash likely. I wouldn't worry too much about this guy.

[EmperorLiam]

They are generalizations, but that doesn't mean they aren't accurate generalizations.

I'd order the book, but I don't think it will teach me anything I don't already know about.


Freud said some pretty accurate things about religious people... a lot less colourful language than I would use though.



ComradeJeff: "personally I don't think a marxist revolution is the answer to gender inequality"

Let anyone wonder why I refer to Jeff as Comrade, wonder no more.


"countries like France that do just fine"

Tell that to the owners of property Muslims are destroying every single night, tell that to the people dying in the crowded emergency rooms, tell that to those that are by law forbidden to work overtime & stuck on mandatory holidays... the reason conservative American's slander France so much, is because France is about as liberal socialist as democracies come.

Both France and Canada are considered liberal democracies, and comparing those against one another, France is far more liberal. You might as well have said that Quebec is conservative... assuming your goal was to be incorrect.

The only thing I think the French are conservative about, is their dying language.

[fire_i]

Well to be fair...

I am amazed by just how splendidly accurate the study DerbyX posted is... I have yet to find a single "pure" liberal (that is, one that rarely threads in the grey zones/conservative zones and seems liberal on every issue), and yet the conservatives I know seem to never derogate from conservative thinking, although to varying extents. I'll admit I personally know far less conservatives than liberals, but still, by the bunch, it hardly could be a coincidence.

Yet, on the other hand...

It's kinda' true, left-wing beliefs can be caused by mental illnesses - if only indirectly. I mean, someone with a weird psyche might feel ostracized all the time - even if they generally actually aren't, and that could just lead them to a much more accepting philosophy since they know what it feels like to feel "out of the gang" (possibly even to a point where they're exaggeratedly tolerant ; it's not necessarilly always a good thing). That could partially explain liberality on social issues at least.

EDIT : And if you go by the definition that gray thinking = liberal, this is one damnedly liberal post.

[ziggy]

Quote:

It's kinda' true, left-wing beliefs can be caused by mental illnesses - if only indirectly. I mean, someone with a weird psyche might feel ostracized all the time - even if they generally actually aren't, and that could just lead them to a much more accepting philosophy since they know what it feels like to feel "out of the gang" (possibly even to a point where they're exaggeratedly tolerant ; it's not necessarilly always a bad thing). That could partially explain liberality on social issues at least.

Derby....I think you just got slammed.

Is this true?

[fire_i]

Now now, I wasn't aiming that at anyone. Anyway it's kinda' based on my personnal experience to tell the truth, eh.

Still, if the hat fits, wear it, as they say. And if it doesn't - then feel free to slap me across the face.

[DerbyX]

I don't think he slammed me. Its not my study and I don't believe either political side is a mental illness anymore then religious differences, food preferences, hobbies, etc.

I just wanted to make the counter point that studies exist both ways before somebody tried touse this to support their narrow-minded belief.

Its telling though that the study attacking the cons is much older and hasn't been used on this forum until somebody posted a study entailing liberalism as a disorder.

To me either idea and study is as distatesful with the idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

[xerxes]

DerbyX wrote:

I don't think he slammed me. Its not my study and I don't believe either political side is a mental illness anymore then religious differences, food preferences, hobbies, etc.

I just wanted to make the counter point that studies exist both ways before somebody tried touse this to support their narrow-minded belief.

Its telling though that the study attacking the cons is much older and hasn't been used on this forum until somebody posted a study entailing liberalism as a disorder.

To me either idea and study is as distatesful with the idea that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

Didn't you hear? Homosexuality also causes earthquakes:

Quote:

The recent earthquake that was felt across Israel was the result of the "homosexual activity practiced in the country", Knesset Member Shlomo Benizri said Wednesday.

During a special Knesset session on Israel's preparedness for the possibility of another earthquake hitting the region, the Shas member said "the Gemara refers to earthquakes as disasters, but you are searching only for the practical solutions how to prevent and repair.

"But I no of another way to prevent earthquakes; the Gemara mentions a number of causes of earthquakes, one of which is homosexuality, which the Knesset legitimizes," Benizri said.

An earthquake registering 5.3 on the Richter Scale was felt by residents across Israel at 12:36 pm Friday. The trembling lasted for 19 seconds and shook structures in many major towns and cities.

Reports of shaking were received from Nahariya in the north down to Beersheba. Magen David Adom emergency services said there were no reports of injuries, but several people suffered from shock.

Last month fellow Shas member Nissim Ze'ev stirred controversy when he referred to the local gay movement as a "plague that could destroy Jewish Israel," adding that it should be treated "just as the Health Ministry dealt with the bird flu epidemic."

Mike Hammel, chairman of the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association commented on Benizri's remarks saying "it is sad that a religious MK in Israel doesn't think earthquakes are God-made.

"On the other hand, I suppose we should be flattered he attributes us with such magical powers," he added.

"One must wonder why Shas MKs are so obsessed with the gay community… we can all recall the case of the American senator who fiercely spoke out against gays until it was found he himself was gay."

Link

[EmperorLiam]

Well sane people keep things in perspective, the feuding in politics nowadays is more fake than ever, our innocence is always gone in adulthood, unless your a flipper baby or some 'unfortuante shit' like that, but its not like they are as bad as it used to be here, and its far worse in the majority of the world and population... were 'lucky' and yet so many here waste the opportunity, thats why its hard to get suicide bombers here, not enough messed up folks... well till the Commies started exporting cheap hard drugs into America... that sure the hell didn't help, treating it as a criminal instead of medical problem of course compounded the problem, then of course The New Deal and now the Democrats are basically promising universal health-care and I don't think anyone is buying it...and of course now we have $1.2 million USD tax funded studys like in DerbyX's link.

Ramble ramble ramble....

[Thanos]

To get closer to the real truth would require the thread title to be changed to read "Ideology IS Mental Illness". This world would be a much better place for the rest of us, and many more logical and acceptable compromises could be made, if the true believers on both sides of the spectrum would quit making everything so damned difficult for everyone else.

[Murray_Smith]

Thanos wrote:

To get closer to the real truth would require the thread title to be changed to read "Ideology IS Mental Illness". This world would be a much better place for the rest of us, and many more logical and acceptable compromises could be made, if the true believers on both sides of the spectrum would quit making everything so damned difficult for everyone else.

Typical liberal...

[Psudo]

fire_i wrote:

someone with a weird psyche might feel ostracized all the time - even if they generally actually aren't, and that could just lead them to a much more accepting philosophy since they know what it feels like to feel "out of the gang"

Interesting. I spent about 20 years feeling ostracized all the time and turned out conservative. If the feelings of being left out can exaggerate tolerance and, thus, promote liberalism, what does it mean when feelings of being left out lead to conservatism? Perhaps I saw some validity to the in-crowd's view despite the personal reason to be biased.

I don't equate fuzzy thinking or tolerance with liberalism nor discrete thinking or intolerance with conservatism. These ideological terms describe the nature of one's conclusions, not one's thinking processes.

DarbyX wrote:

Its telling though that the study attacking the cons is much older and hasn't been used on this forum until somebody posted a study entailing liberalism as a disorder.

Is it? I posted the study I saw first, and as a criticism of the practice of trying to ignore the other side entirely. It's equally shaky logic for me to say "It's telling that a conservative criticized the critique of liberalism before a liberal criticized the critique of conservatism."

Quote:

Didn't you hear? Homosexuality also causes earthquakes

That group sounds like the Israeli equalivant of the Westboro Baptist Church. Bucha nuts.

Quote:

"One must wonder why Shas MKs are so obsessed with the gay community… we can all recall the case of the American senator who fiercely spoke out against gays until it was found he himself was gay."

This thinking is irrational. Not everyone who criticizes you is secretly jealous of your courage. That's absurd egotism, not logic.

[Benoit]

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a psychological personality variable or "ideological attitude" that is causing political madness.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/