Editors note: The political entities that affect the national consciousness the most are Conservatism, Liberalism, and Islam. This article examines the pathological aspects of all of these paradigms. This a very important article and I encourage all people to read it. Yes, it is long by today's standards, but the subject matter influences all of us every day. Please give me feedback,
Why
I think some liberals, fewer conservatives and most Muslims are pathological.
Personality Disorders and True Believers
My purpose
here is not to persuade or debate, but to make clear my own thinking on this
subject. The very nature of the pathology I write about precludes
listening to opposing views or being rational. Another name for the
pathology I describe is “true believer”.
For a
philosophical perspective on group pathology, please familiarize your self with
Eric Hoffer and his book “The True Believer”. If you have any familiarity with
the story of Jim Jones and his Jonestown Kool-Aid mass suicide, or of the group
suicide of the members of the cult who found new meaning in the passage of the
Hale Bop comet, or of the mental make up of those who bought into the seven
seals dogma of David Koresh in the fatal Waco fiasco, then you will recognize
that which Hoffer describes. Read this book for further insight into the
fanaticism of the holy warriors of Islam, and perhaps it will steel your resolve
for the long struggle.
I hop around
the internet forums quite a bit. In fact I have taken to deliberately
provoking debates and keeping track of the irrational responses, personal
attacks, ad hominem arguments,
logical absurdities, hyperbole, extreme examples (would everybody please quit
comparing your favorite villain to Hitler,) and hard-headed, narrow-mindedness
in general.
I have been
collecting on-line responses to illustrate the premise that members of
“movements” have certain predictable responses to information that contradicts
their “faith” or “party line.” In almost any “faith group” there are
beliefs that are irrational and will not stand up to logical examination.
It is amazing how political parties, special interest groups, advocacy groups,
religions, doctors, nationalists, philosophical schools of thought, and even
scientists, are so narrow minded about information that contradicts their
particular paradigm.
If you want
to see this kind of pathology rear up in front of your own eyes, try some of
the following experiments:
1.
With
black forums: present conclusive historical documentation that the American
slave trade depended on Black African chieftains who either sold their own
tribe members into slavery or captured other tribe members and sold them as
slaves to the Arabs who controlled the slave trade. I add the historical fact that it was white
abolitionists who ran the “underground railroads” and fought slavery in America
and a Republican President ended slavery over the objection of a majority of
Democrats. This brief history of slavery
in American provoked death threats against me and my family:
Of all 1,515,605 families in the 15 slave
states in 1860, nearly 400,000 held slaves (roughly one in four),[3] amounting
to 8% of all American families. So at the apex of slavery in the United
States only 8% of American families owned staves and some of those slaves were
owned by black Americans.
So why do modern day blacks blame the entire white race for slavery when in fact it was white Americans who stopped slavery? Gee, maybe they have been brainwashed by liberal politicians for political advantage.
Black chieftains sold black slaves to Arabs. Arabs sold those slaves to slave traders. Slavery was a fact of life. Even free black Americans owned black slaves. Black Africans and Arabs made slavery possible. White Americans stopped slavery. Where is the gratitude on the part of blacks toward white abolitionists?
So why do modern day blacks blame the entire white race for slavery when in fact it was white Americans who stopped slavery? Gee, maybe they have been brainwashed by liberal politicians for political advantage.
Black chieftains sold black slaves to Arabs. Arabs sold those slaves to slave traders. Slavery was a fact of life. Even free black Americans owned black slaves. Black Africans and Arabs made slavery possible. White Americans stopped slavery. Where is the gratitude on the part of blacks toward white abolitionists?
2.
With fundamentalist Christians: present solid evidence that the Bible is not
literally true.
3.
With the NRA members: present several of the solid studies which support the
premise that having a gun in the house is more dangerous than remaining
unarmed. Statistically, the gun in your
home is more likely to shoot a family member than an intruder.
4.
With law enforcement officers and law and order advocates: I present many
studies which reveal that almost any alternative sentencing program results in
less recidivism than imprisonment or punishment.
5.
With MDs: present very well researched studies which show that orthomolecular
medicine achieves superior results over traditional medical treatments in several
areas of pathology.
6.
With mathematicians: present evidence that math is not really connected to
reality in a predictable way, but functions as a kind of “virtual reality.” “As
far
as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far
as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” Albert Einstein
7.
With homosexuals: present evidence that “gayness” is not genetic and that Dean
Hamer, a homosexual and molecular biologist, was investigated by the federal
Office of Research Integrity for fraud connected with his highly touted “gay
gene” study. I also document the mental
and physical health risks associated with homosexuality and provide evidence that
homosexual couples are the highest risk category for partner violence. Homosexual parenting results in significant
problems for their children.
8.
With feminists: present over 100 social science research studies on domestic
violence showing that women are at least as violent, if not more violent, than
men in domestic settings.
9. With
Republicans: talk about the very real accomplishments of the Clinton administration.
10. With
Democrats: point out that it was the Republican policy and Republican
leadership that won the cold war.
In our little
informal study we check for 10 standard responses and rank the willingness to
accept conflicting information accordingly.
Typically,
people have very low evidence standards for accepting the validity of things
with which they agree, and very high evidence standards for accepting things
with which they disagree. An example: Feminists seem perfectly willing to
accept law enforcement statistics as an accurate description of the domestic
violence problem (low standards for accepting.) Scientific studies
are far more reliable in presenting an accurate view of the problem.
However, the scientific studies clearly show that domestic violence is a
two-way street. Therefore, feminists clutch onto misleading Justice
Department statistics with the same obsession that Silas Marner clings to his
gold, while at the same time denying the validity of statistical evidence with
the same narrow minded belligerence of a religious fundamentalist who is
confronted with evolutionary science (high standards for accepting.)
Another
example of narrow-mindedness is a comparison of scientific thinking skills
between a group of PhD scientists and a group of Protestant Ministers.
These men were advised that “science” had already determined the “four correct”
(there were actually more than four) solutions to a given problem.
Both groups were given an ample amount of time to construct rules governing the
behavior of certain variables. The Ministers conducted three times as
many experiments before they offered an answer. The ministers were only half as
likely to return an answer that had already been disproved. The ministers
were three times slower in venturing to offer their first hypothesis. The
ministers found twice as many acceptable solutions to the problem as the
scientists. In other words, the Ministers were far more “scientific” in
their thinking than the PhD scientists. It seems the scientists were more
indoctrinated with their brand of dogma than the ministers.
The American
public is beset by a plethora of irrational delusions which are widely
believed. There is a very serious problem in this country with “advocacy
research” and “True Believers.” The public needs to be educated to know
that fanaticism and propaganda is all around us, and it is very
dangerous.
To date the
most pathological group I have yet discovered is a web site called “Democratic
Underground.” http://www.democraticunderground.com/
I see modern
liberals as far more influenced by “true believer” type pathologies than
traditional Democrats and conservatives.
Now on to the pathology of some liberals.
There is much
discussion by political sages of the Right about the roots of liberalism being
entwined with human weakness and pathology.
Some of the
issues being raised are:
1.
Guilt and self-loathing are woven into liberal philosophy and policy
2.
Dependant personality types are drawn to liberalism
3.
Marginalized groups and dysfunctional individuals are drawn to liberalism
4.
Histrionic personality types are drawn to liberalism
5.
Liberal values discourage people from acting in their own self interest
6.
Liberals think of them selves as intellectually and ethically superior to
conservatives
These are
just a few of the indicators of “character disorders” seen in liberal thinking,
feeling, and behaving. It is fascinating to me to look at “collective
personality traits” and then diagnose them as if they were individuals.
Buy yourself a DSM-IV (Diagnostic Service Manual) and have some fun.
Another excellent book on pathological personality traits is “New Personality
Self-Portrait” by John Oldham, M.D. who wrote the Personality Disorder section
of the DSM-IV and V.
Personality
disorders are different from other mental health problems. Personality
disorders are extreme examples of traits we all have. For instance, if I
carefully planned every detail of a trip I was taking and packed my suitcase in
an orderly and through manner; I would just be a conscientious person. If
I took so much time planning and packing that I missed my plane, I would be
diagnosed as having obsessive/compulsive disorder.
Those drawn
to definable political philosophies might also exhibit personality traits that
become so extreme they could be called pathologies
In general
the Liberals would represent the “weak” disorders. Liberals may be
dependant, self-defeating, avoidant or passive-aggressive.
For those of
you who care to further familiarize yourself with the “weak” disorders that
characterize liberal pathologies, here are the names and a link for more
information:
Dependent
Personality Disorder – http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe09.html
Self
Defeating Personality Disorder - http://www.psychnet-uk.com/clinical_psychology/criteria_personality_masochistic.htm
Avoidant
Personality Disorder - http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe08.html
Passive
Aggressive Personality Disorder - http://www.ptypes.com/passive-aggpd.html
One of the
significant indicators of pathology of personality is an inability to act in
one’s own self interests. This also has to do with self loathing.
You can see this manifested in liberal “hate.” A good example is the
left’s attitude toward President G. W. Bush. It seems to me that if one
hates with that much venom one must have self hatred first. I may not be
fond of the likes of Michael Moore or John Kerry, but I sure can't be bothered
working up the energy to hate them like liberals hate “W.”
Many liberals
seem to be unable to act in a clear path of self-interest, even the interest of
their own country. Guilt contains some of the main elements of the
"liberal" self loathing. I have had many clients raised in an
atmosphere heavy on guilt; they had tremendous amounts of fear (fear
of failing, fear of being found wanting, etc.) always a sort of low-level,
non-specific sense of guilt. These are the perfect specimens to become
card-carrying "liberals." I should feel guilty because there
are others in need, I should feel guilty because my country is so much more
prosperous than anyone else's, I should feel guilty because my army can beat up
their army, etc. (The CIA sucks, we are stupid, we are evil, we are
greedy.)
The liberals
are a good example of insular thinking. They reinforce each other
constantly, and instantly crush any idea competing with their “party
line.” All “movements” do this, including the extreme right wing.
This is another symptom of the “True Believers” pathology. This is one of
the things that make political groups so dangerous. “All movements go too
far.” Bertrand
Russell. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Now for the pathology of conservatives
Conservatives
would represent the “strong” disorders. Conservatives may be paranoid,
anti-social, narcissistic or sadistic. For those of you who care to
further familiarize yourself with the “strong” disorders that characterize
conservative pathologies, here are the names and a link for more information:
Paranoid
Personality Disorder - http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe01.html
Anti-social
Personality Disorder - http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe04.html
Narcissistic
Personality Disorder - http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe07.html
Sadistic
Personality Disorder - http://www.ptypes.com/sadisticpd.html
Please keep
in mind that these diagnostic criteria represent the extreme ends of the
spectrum for both liberal and conservative pathologies. Also, it is
important to remember that these two types of pathologies represent the
opposite ends of the spectrum, one being “weak” and the other being “strong.”
One way of
illustrating these opposite natures is to compare attitudes toward national
defense as expressed by two very different leaders.
George McGovern, ultra–liberal, failed Presidential candidate, when asked in
1972 how he would get our POWs back after withdrawing our troops, replied,
"I would go to Hanoi on my
knees." Compare that to General Curtis LeMay, whose critics
have characterized him as a belligerent, warmonger (even nicknaming him
"Bombs Away LeMay".) General LeMay was cold warrior, who was portrayed in
the satirical film Dr. Strangelove in the dual roles as the trigger-happy
General Jack D. Ripper, played by sterling Hayden and Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson
played by George C. Scott, who also played another “strong” man, General George
Patton. General LeMay is credited with coining the phrase “Nuke ‘em ‘til
they glow.”
All these
conditions for extreme liberals and conservatives have specific definitions in
the DSM-IV and usually occur in clusters; if you have one you probably have
several. Most, if not all of them, are available on the internet, so
please don’t start making comments or disagreeing with me until you familiarize
yourself with the actual diagnostic protocol.
It is
important to remember that we all have traits that tend toward disorders.
It is only when the traits become extreme that it is accurate to think of them
as pathologies. Without being so technical, most of us can discern the
difference between an ordinary liberal and an extreme liberal. This is likewise
true for conservatives.
However, I
will dare to conclude that liberals in general will err on the side of
weakness, and conservatives will err on the side of strength.
Pathological Islam
No matter how
pathological American liberals and conservatives become, I doubt they will ever
be as dangerous to mankind as the radical Islamic sect. I believe that the majority
expression of today’s Islam is pathological. There are also notable
and noble exceptions to that majority. Muslims are people. Islam is
a multifaceted thought paradigm. Individual Muslim people exposed to the larger
religious pathology are not all going to get sick, any more than everyone in an
epidemic dies. In fact, one of the most important fields of research in
epidemiology, the study of disease, is to study those who do not get sick when
exposed. Maybe there is a clue there for us in dealing with Islam.
Next, it
isn’t just Islam. Those of us who study religion as a sociological
phenomenon see religions as divided into different categories than do the
practitioners of religion. For instance Confucianism and Judaism are both
“wisdom” religions. Old Testament Judaism was a ritualistic/legalistic
religion. When the temple was destroyed, it was impossible to observe
temple rituals, so ritualistic Judaism morphed into a wisdom religion.
Today’s leaders of Judaism have the title Rabbi, “teacher” rather than
“priest.”
“Fundamentalism”
is a specific sect that shows up from time to time in all the major
religions.
The main characteristics
of fundamentalism are:
1.
Selective/Narrow - Fundamentalist religions are very selective about what they
embrace and accept from the main stream of their religion.
Christian fundamentalists are ignorant of most Christian tradition, and
are very selective about which scriptures they read or quote. Trained
theologians call this “proof-texting,” meaning they find a text to “prove”
what they already believe. Non-fundamentalist Christians use a different
yardstick for scriptural interpretation. Intellectually-honest Christians
will ask, “What is the full testimony of the scriptures?” What is the message
of the entire body of scripture verses relevant to a particular subject?
Islamic fundamentalists ignore classical Islam and the traditions of
Islam. They focus on those passages in the Koran that talk about
infidels, and ignore the passages about compassion.
2.
Static/Entropic - Fundamentalist religions are very reactive to
change. They want things to stay the same. They fear modernity and
they can not be comfortable with ambiguity. They must slow the world down
and simplify thinking to the point where it will fit on a bumper sticker.
Fundamentalists are not sophisticated thinkers. They have primal anxiety
reactions to change and to complicated, uncertain thinking. By contrast,
Paul Tillich, the preeminent protestant theologian of the twentieth century,
became known as the ‘Apostle to the Intellectuals’ because his intellectual
quest was to communicate the Christian faith to humanistically educated
skeptics. To quote Paul Tillich, “Doubt is not the antithesis of faith.
Doubt is an essential element of faith. Without doubt there is no faith,
there is only dogma.” That describes a living faith, and is the opposite
of an entropic religion.
3.
Supramoral/Anti-social – This is the aspect of fundamentalism that is criminal
and psychotic. The fundamentalist Christian who decides his “morality” is
so important and right that it is ok to kill abortion doctors is close kin to
the guys who flew airliners into the WTC. Entropy is just another name
for death. Fundamentalists are anti-life. Wait, you say,
fundamentalists are opposed to abortion. Yes, but they are praying for
the end of time when all mankind will die and a select few will become
spiritual beings, very similar to Islamic fundamentalists. This
anti-materialism is a left-over heresy from the early church. Main stream
Christians are more likely to say “It is more important to be loving than it is
to be right.” Maybe they would say, “People are more important than
ideas.”
So here is
the gist of my thinking. Islam is a “Poster Child” for a desperately-needed,
twelve-step program called “Fundamentalist’s Anonymous.” The big problem
is that Islam is about one thousand years behind the development of other world
religions. Hundreds of years ago Christians were doing the same things
that Islam is doing now. When any selective/narrow, static/entropic,
supramoral/anti-social group is so sure that their idea is so important that
they are willing to kill everybody who does not agree, they are of mortal
danger to our planet. The Islam of today is dangerously fundamentalist. Most
people do not understand the high degree of danger the world is exposed to by
Islam.
When the practitioners
of Islam start cleaning up their own religion, I will believe that Islam has
turned the corner and is reversing its destructive trend toward pathology.
That is a
perfect segue to my next major point. I find it predictable that Dr Wafa
Sultan, a psychiatrist from the Middle East http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
would accurately see the symptoms of a sick Islamic religion.
Keep in mind
that a diagnosis does not require that the person be completely sick.
When it comes to individual humans, they only need to be “significantly”
dysfunctional to accurately be assigned a diagnostic code. “The murderer,
when he is not a murdering, walks through the meadow with his daughter and
picks flowers for her.” Hitler was kind to his dogs. What? Am
I supposed to believe that Hamas is moral because they do charity work?
As I understand it, Ted Bundy was charming, socially appropriate, and had many
friends.
So, we do not
need to decide that all Islam is sick. We need to determine if Islam is
significantly dysfunctional. My definitive diagnosis is: Islam is
significantly dysfunctional to an extreme degree and is a danger to all
mankind.
My next door
neighbor who lives in this “up-scale” neighborhood was stabbed in the stomach
and his wife was slashed in the breast by a person with the same mind set as
fundamentalism. “Whatever I want is more important than you and
yours.” How would you respond to a psychotic invading your bedroom?
I wish I
could remember the spiritual teacher’s name who, after a long sermon on
non-violence and peace, was asked how he would respond to a robber in his
home. He responded, “I would beat the crap out of him and call 911. If
that didn’t work I would kill him, if I could.”
Well
said! I suggest the same policy toward Islamic fundamentalism, before it
is too late.
Sam Sewell
Rev.
Sam Sewell is an ordained Christian clergyman,
a psychotherapist, a member of Mensa, a U.S. Navy Veteran, and a Member of the
Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is a frequent commentator
on religious and political issues.
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