Definitely a confirmation bias issue here, but this does fit my experience of the people I have personally known who partake in this stuff.
One ought always to be suspicious of attempts to psychoanalyze people who have not actually been examined in person, or to apply psychoanalysis [apparently I was not using the right term; see comments. -Grim] not to individuals but groups. Combining that with my own confirmation bias issues on the subject, I can't actually place any confidence in these conclusions; but I forward them for discussion by those of you who might feel competent to do so.
I resent how the technical terminology of medicine and psychiatry is applied to the general public and to healthy individuals. Once "moron" and "idiot" were precise medical diagnostic classification. Once, "mental trauma" was a specific problem, and those suffering from such conditions were treated to avoid, or re-interpret, events that might "trigger" memories of trauma. Once a "phobia" was a debilitating and irrational fear.
ReplyDeleteNowadays the idiots protesting against free speech claim that opinions differing from their own trigger violent "episodes" and are evidence of structural and systemic "X-phobia" (homo- or trans- or xeno- ...)
I've been on the internet and blogs long enough to remember efforts to organize an "anti-idiotarian" movement. I'd like to bring it back.
Yes, there's been a general collapse of standards in both directions: many things we would have regarded as clearly insane a little while ago are now upheld as healthy, even vibrant expressions of individuality and identity. I'm trying not to contribute to that while still raising the issue that unhealthy behaviors happen to align with this movement.
ReplyDeleteOh. Also. "Psychoanalysis" is actually the treatment of a person via a specific talking therapy, if we are being strict. It does not mean "Analyzing a person's behavior in psychological frameworks," even though by construction, that's what it looks like it should mean.
ReplyDeleteI see. I understood it to mean something broader; but terms of art are sometimes opaque. Just today I was explaining that the term "air assault" actually is just the current name for air mobile infantry operations. It sounds like it might be an aerial bombardment, but it's really the transportation of troops by helicopter for a military operation.
ReplyDeleteJust "analyze" would be fine.
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