Those of you who have read my diaries, and comments, probably know that I was trained as a Cognitive Psychologist. Unfortunately, a great many people do not know what that means.
I am not a clinician. I do not diagnose, treat, or research the various behaviorial and social maladjustments that people can display. I'm not a shrink.
A Cognitive Psychologist that many of you may be familiar with is George Lakoff, one of the founders of the field, along with a number of neurologists, geneticists, linguists, and others who are interested in the way the human brain is structured to deal with information.
We deal with perception and its various distortions. We deal with cellular level chemical reactions. We model brain functions to attempt to duplicate outputs to increase our understanding of the normal operating parameters of human thinking.
We like looking at brains in MRI's, and CAT scans to see activation patterns in various structures and how those activiations can be corrolated with the stimulus presented during trials. We do a lot of things designed to move the line between guessing about why people behave in the ways in which they do, and the underlying chemical and structural mechanisms that create and store our information about the world.
In order to do these things we tend to be generalists. Social behavior, anthropology, political structures, financial and resource management strategies, religions, history, game theory, geography and the limitations it places on populations, linguistics, all feed into our need to know about the environments in which people learn about their world, and how they use that knowledge to navigate complexity.
With that in mind, I would like to make a point. Not in anger, and certainly not in defense of myself, but in an effort to extend and expand the debate I have found myself embroiled in on several occasions.
It began a couple of years ago when I made a common comment about some public figure "needing to adjust their meds".
That joking comment drew every single self-diagnosed, hypersensitive, obsessive/compulsive, manic/depressive, and pharmacologically controlled psychotic on the list to me like a magnet. They all choose to take offense at that throw away line as though I was personally insulting them.
Now, I confess, this has been bothering me for some time. For one thing, I couldn't be either diagnosing, or insulting anyone given that I don't know them, had no idea of their current psychological state, or any treatments they were currently receiving, until they took me to task as a psychologist, for making light of their condition. Whoops! I'm not that kind of Psychologist..
Then there were a couple of episodes, including one diary, in which I defined public figures as "insane" or "mentally ill", based on the public behaviors and clearly irrational positions they took on the major issues of the day. Even the Blessed MB, as sane a writer as I have encountered, took me to task for that! It seemes as though "as a professional" I was not to be permitted to use those terms. Why?
Language has tremendous power to lable and organize our perceptions of the world. Some language, although attempts have been made to modify it in the name of political correctness, carries such power in our culture as to determine the judgement of the entire society on the most powerful among us. The little boy who pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes, lives as a sterling example of how simple phrases, and observations, can snap the public back to reality with great effectiveness. Was every nude male in the kingdom outraged at the insult to their lack of satorial splendor?
Political leaders at the highest levels lable one and other as "evil". Religious leaders create group cohesiveness by labeling those outside the group as "sinners". Wall Street Gurus lable efforts to control growth and regulate commerce "protectionist". All of these words serve to build a perception in the mind of the listener, or reader, that can be controlled by the speaker. They effectively dismiss the counter arguments as unworthy of consideration, and claim the center stage in the model of the world we construct. They become the status quo against which we must struggle to be heard.
Under the defination of "insane" in the American Heritage Dictionary, the 3rd meaning given is:
"Very foolish; Rash; Wild."
"Crazy" is defined in the same volume as:
"Informal Departing from proportion or moderation: Not sensible or impractical."
These are respectable words with a long history in the language, of bringing strong social condemnation to the actions of others. They are not a diagnosis. They do not carry medical, or psychological weight. They are terms that can and should be used to point out that the Emperor has no clothes in ways that belittle, and deride the ideas of the TARGET of the label. They should not arouse fear, discomfort, or a highly defensive posture in the casual listener.
They also serve to frame, and dismiss as not worthy of consideration, some of the more complex nonsense in which we have found our culture embroiled in recent years.
So. Call 'em crazy. Call ideas insane when they bear no relation to reality. When those ideas are distorting the information chain and perceptual structures of an entire segment of the population there is no way to construct arguments that will carry the same weight as the distainful dismissal of a hearty, "That's just Crazy!!"
And I can say all this because I'm not that kind of Psychologist!!