Pathologizing Dissent
No, someone with an opposing view is not "mentally ill" (for that reason)
Image by Gilbatree Art Designer based on the text of the article
As with everything else, I am seeing this from both sides. I recently saw a recommendation for a DSM entry for “the woke” from someone I feel should know better. Shit like that leads to dangerous places.
I asked ChatGPT:
What is it called when people who insist those with different beliefs are mentally ill?
When someone insists that those with different beliefs are mentally ill, it is often referred to as "pathologizing dissent"or "psychologizing" a disagreement. This involves framing opposing viewpoints or beliefs as symptoms of a mental disorder rather than as legitimate differences in opinion.
This approach can also be associated with "gaslighting," where a person manipulates another into questioning their own reality or sanity. Additionally, if it's used to discredit or silence opposing views, it may be considered a form of "intellectual authoritarianism" or "thought policing."
These terms reflect a dismissal of differing beliefs by attributing them to psychological issues rather than engaging with the beliefs themselves.
From what I’m seeing, both sides believe there will be a civil war. We saw the right’s poorly executed coup attempt January 6, but they are now insisting running Kamala without anyone voting for her (not sure how?) is also a coup. Of course they do, working off different meanings for the same terms. Oh look, our friend gaslighting!
They feel Walz is somewhere between Biden and Bernie, and a socialist. Dangerous commies, the lot of them, lol. Aside from Bernie, the left has floated a lot of moderates and air biscuits. We’ve moved so far right that seems left of center when there is no “left” left, really.
The right cited things like the Floyd protests, as an example of how the [me: generally toothless and ineffective] left is not able to control their violence and suppression. Never mind that cities get trashed after sportsball events, which have all the military pomp and circumstance. Group-think is why I think huge stadiums full of people have a creepy vibe. I felt it at Seahawks Games, Sounders Games, Microsoft Company Meetings, Mega Churches, and a smaller Scientology meeting featuring L Ron’s head on a platter. It feels culty because it is. People aren’t using their own minds; they are swept into the frenzy.
The scene in 1984 where Winston is looking around, realizing he was the only one not performing as expected during their moments of hate, fairly demonstrates the experience of people like me and probably you, who aren’t controlled so easily. It took the personal effort of a covert manipulator weaponizing my personal trauma to get me twisted. Recognizing that has made even this more difficult to accomplish. Some people will camp out all night and wait in line all day for a new iPhone. The sheeple are among us. It’s funny they consider us the “black” sheep. We “must” be “evil” or “crazy” not to see things just as they do.
Telling others what they must think and believe and which words they must never use. They are codifying it into law, and that is freaking the right out. They have a point. If what I saw was true, the UK, which does not hold public court hearings or typically allow cameras, broadcast (I watched that) a man being sentenced to 20 months for a social media post made about 3 days earlier. What due process could have possibly occurred in that time? What change to court procedure to televise it? It’s meant to set an example. Seems a little Orwellian to me.
Do I think “hate speech” is okay? No, I don’t think, “Hey everyone meet me here and we’ll go kick [some “them”] ass” is ok. I don’t think yelling “fire” in a crowded venue (where there is not one) is okay, either. But if inciting panic and violence are not okay, please explain to me what in the actual fuck our media is up to?!
Freedom of speech is a thing we are supposed to have too. Expressing concerns with unequal distribution of law, or pointing out something seems very wrong with Biden’s mental acuity should be protected, not silenced and not counteracted with data driven algorithmic propaganda to falsely imply virility; dude fell off his bike and up the Airforce One stairs thrice in the footage I saw.
I OFTEN mention the unfair application of laws, such as the disproportionate number of black men in prison. How long before that is considered “hateful” no notice or comment on? How long before it is an “anti-white” or “unpatriotic” sentiment? It’s worth noting a fair number of poor of all races with few other choices are also in jail. The other choice is often homelessness, especially once they’ve been to jail, complicating employment and rent applications. Do I have to worry about being seen as “anti-rich” in a government they own? It is a slippery slope. Are we not also entitled to freedom of thought?
There is a difference between having a clinically diagnosed mental disorder and making choices based on the entirety of your life’s programming, which we can only guess at and unravel the best we can; if we care to make the effort instead of getting stuck blaming others for the influence we allow it to have in our lives. It is a choice to face and dissect vs ignore and blame. Neither right nor left is great with personal accountability. Lefties have told me I was abusive for suggesting boundaries, and like to tell me which words to use and which issues to care about or ignore. The right mainly just accuses me of being a lefty for suggesting people to be decent to each other; live, and let live stuff I kinda of thought Jesus was on-board with.
The right provides key factors for identifying “crazy” (a talking point they love; it was on a flyer that got left at work, too) “ultra-woke” lefties, which include tattoos, technicolor hair, and reliance on food stamps. I’ve known veterans who fit that description. Single mothers leaving abuse. It sounds to me like they feel the non-conforming povs should be deemed “insane,” just in case. How that is defined at any given time is subject to change.
If it’s not “you” now, it could be in January or a decade. Don’t forget that whole “when they came for…” bit. If you don’t think it applies to you, your privilege is showing, and you have failed to recognize how many isms we’ve been divided into and that YOUR meaning for that ism means nothing to the person using it to hurt you.
I unpaywalled this, about that:
It seems strange to name body adornment. I have pink hair, which I have had on and off since the 90s. Not once has anyone tried to institutionalize or medicate me for it or my MSN butterfly tattoo. Sorority girls have Tweetie Birds for days.
I don’t tell people how to live their lives, as both sides seem to believe they have the right to. We cannot ignore OUR role in what the world has become. Like our religion or whether or not we eat meat, our political parties and beliefs are something we HAVE A RIGHT to participate in, or not. It is not something we can compel others to practice or adhere to.
Our freedoms are ours by default. We cannot impede the freedoms of one group we’ve deemed oppressive without becoming oppressors ourselves. It is bullshit to play the victim when someone defends their rights and boundaries simply because we don’t like or agree with them.
We are in charge of ourselves. If you think your way is best, live it, and people who agree will find it. Nobody has the right to order us around, categorize, judge, and prescribe our values, morals, views, and leanings. Nobody knows “what’s best”, “what path”, “what lessons”, “what teachers/students” anyone else has. There is no “one path” that fits all. One might argue it is “crazy” to assume the entire planet's population would believe the same things or that everyone attending a mega-church has the same life lessons to learn. It’s lazy to outsource our spirituality. Do people really have to be told not to be greedy or go around killing each other? Yikes!
One source suggested that if the Trump assassination had succeeded, we would already be in a Civil War. She does not believe “the left” will win fairly and alluded to the same. She’s also clear that finding common ground is off the table because good and evil don’t mix. I’ve read and in the past said some of these things about “the right” and specifically Trump followers, which, as polarized as we are, maybe nearly synonymous at this point.
In November, someone will be declared a winner, and the “loser” will not be happy. Further, the Christian Right is motivated by “rapture” to get some holy war shit going and find out they misunderstood the assignment. So I’m sure there will be NO agitators at all trying to make one side or the other look like the instigator and aggressor to justify their “defense”, however it goes down. If someone wants a fight badly enough, they will keep pushing until they get it.
I’ve said it before if we don’t have a boundary, a line that we won’t be pushed beyond, we stand for nothing. We may as well be NPCs.
We’re all mad here, but not all clinically. The world is fucked up. Not noticing doesn’t make it “normal.” Attacking someone’s mental health for any reason is a pretty low blow. It is also dehumanizing and dangerous, “us and theming,” I have discussed before. We used to just lock “crazy” people up, those with other conditions we better understand today, like Autism and chromosomal conditions. We are dealing with people a little too eager to lock citizens up for my comfort, with our private prisons/modern slavery filled to the brim on the one hand and no accountability or enforcement of the law or upholding of rights on the other.
Murders in Seattle went up 71% in 2020. Portlands went up 30 something %. Just living in my janky little apartment I am aware how much sketchier it is here. Gunshots, police rolling through, no way that ice cream truck sells ice cream at 8p in November. One of the Taco Trucks deals pot, too. I am not anti-homeless; I am anti-letting gangs take over greenspaces (now under construction, but police would not even enter the area when overrun), hotels (homeless took over the Pacific Hotel in the 90s. My first husband worked security, in this case the residents ran a tight ship, they were organized and policed themselves), entire city blocks (Tacoma, includes a motel, police won’t or wouldn’t enter, it was a while ago) or set up chop shops under the first street bridge (Seattle, saw the drone footage myself). Trafficking is BAD on the West Coast. My partner saw someone had hung himself under an overpass (I didn’t notice, thankfully). There is a space overrun by vagrants, mostly fentanyl users, at the end of the next apartment complex. Car break-ins (I guess they ran out of catalytic converters?), pot shops getting hit, carjackings. People shooting up or smoking fentanyl at public bus stops openly. Paraphanelia, beer bottles, furniture, graffiti, and one hateful, bigoted sticker I scraped off with my keys before children of the targeted race walked by to their school next door as they do every morning at the bus stop my 8-year-old uses when we meet her special ed bus. In my old home, a registered sex offender was living in a pickup across the street from our home for a week before he was asked to move along. He reappeared a few days later. It was less than 500 yards from a Middle School. I measured for my (ex) protection order filing when two of our children attended that school.
I don’t feel like these things would happen if we were communities. If we got to know and trust each other a bit. We have been systematically isolated, literally with Covid, but also in our sometimes estranged nuclear families with no real “village,” perhaps a self-made family of friends, children, those with shared interests, and any decent blood relatives you may have been born into like me. There has been an ongoing campaign by the elite and powerful to divide factions of the poors and make them feel antagonistic toward each other.
While we bicker over some bullshit, they keep sucking us all dry. We are all cogs, mate, more alike than not. We need to be looking up at the Scrooge McDucks and Montgomery Burns running this game (Ferengi Voice) “For-profit.” They control wages, the cost of everything, and, most importantly, our government. Whatever a Robber Baron is in today’s terms: Those fuckers, in particular.
Take a look at TheyRule.Net. It is a data-driven tool that maps how many connect in a web: Board Members of Corporations and Banks, and Elected Officials. The revolving door. Like a bunch of spiders [my interpretation —on the site, they just get fatter if more connected; no spiders!].
The candidate on the right is vengeful and constantly threatening to “lock people up.” He feels, and his stacked Supreme Court confirms, that he is above the law. He’s a convicted felon and rapist allowed to run for our highest office. Before the election cycle, I’d noted we didn’t hear much from Kamala. Great, you are the nominee of the dog and pony show; get to your actual job we are already paying you to do, and tell Biden to stop arming Israel, please?
Evil is evil. Whatever faction of fuckery (religion, politics, whatever) they align with or toxic personality type they may demonstrate doesn’t really matter. Shitty people cut across every conceivable demographic. We can’t generalize that way because it is intellectually disingenuous, and we know better. If a nasty has latched onto a cause you care about, they will hurt that cause, no matter how well-meaning, which will make everyone they encounter while representing your cause come away with a very different idea about it.
The only real way to judge someone is by their actions. People can and do call themselves anything and often believe it. Pay attention to who they really are.
Not all, ever. Ego can make us feel so sure we know. It is a dirty liar. Increasingly, it is important to confirm meanings, not just terms, because we are not even speaking the same language. It is not an accident we are in this situation. It benefits someone always. Follow the money.
very well done… thank you.