And this is just a fancy, bullshitty way of saying that schizophrenics aren’t ill, just endowed with special ways of knowing. Which, as I keep asserting, is simply not true. Schizophrenia is a disease associated with chronic health problems and mental deterioration. It does not make one more enlightened or enhanced with super powers. It robs an individual of self-control and self-awareness. They have a problem with self-expression, yes, but also processing and perceiving information. Their brains are all kinds of fucked up. The OP is no different than people who play up the “wonders” of autism. Yeah, a schizophrenic may hear voices that no one else hears, but if those voices are screaming “cheeburger cheeburger CHEEBURGER!” 24/7, and compelling that person to verbigerate instead of speaking intelligently, then we aren’t talking about the next Nat Turner or Joan of Arc. We’re talking about a very sick person.
Now, at the milder end of the schizo spectrum (which includes a number of disorders) you may find folks who are able to strike a beautiful balance between their weaknesses (inability to communicate effectively, emotional instability, bizarre behaviors) and strengths (creativity, nonconformity, high intelligence, self-reliance). But these people are NOT schizophrenic, at least not unmedicated schizophrenic. And though it’s true that these people are often unfairly marginalized by Western society, that doesn’t mean they are any more insightful than anyone else.
Our high-pressured society certainly doesn’t help separating “unusual but functional” from “wackjob/nutjob”, but full-blown schizophrenia is not a social construct. And it’s not just another way of knowing and perceiving. Just like clinical depression isn’t just another way of feeling.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that shamanism is science. This whole debate started whenSmash said the schizophrenia was not a mental illness and that it was instead just a difference mental/perceptual functioning (he contended it was a superior mode of functioning). It is the familiar Neurodiversity Thesis, which I was really surprised to see occasion as much of a visceral reaction as it did.
Now, people can hold differences of opinion on whether this thesis is true or perhaps even better, understand that the thesis requires a great deal of unpacking and cannot be subjected to the mere boo/hurrah division that so often passes for “great debates” on this board. I recommend AHunter3’s posts in that thread as a important and unique perspective congenial to my own and Smash’s.
But what people cannot say is that “Condition X is an illness” is a question that belongs to science. This is, first and foremost, a political question. Political because the decision to call something an illness is to exercise and legitimate power of the subset of individuals with that condition. This should be well-known, we used to say “Homosexuality is an illness” and “Hysteria is a female condition.” Furthermore, any evaluation of the alleged impairment must of course take into account the fact that some of this impairment is an artifact of the social opprobrium attaching to the condition.
But let’s close with this: Thanks to Smash’s provocative post, a thread that would otherwise have been destined to produce nothing more than “David Icke is stoopid. PALATR! We’re Dopers and we’re so smart and we never fall for the woo” instead gave us, albeit with a lot smug, philistinic dismissals, an interesting thread about different ideas and AHunter3’s terrific narrative about the condition.
Etymologically speaking, the term “woo” or its more elaborate brother, “woo-woo” has been around quite a long time. One of the posters on the JREF forums had this analysis*:
*"A few of the theories:
It’s from Daffy Duck, in his early, zany incarnation. “I’m a looney toon Woo-woowoowoowooowoo!”
It’s a variation on ‘coo-coo’ and was used on early bulletin boards to avoid the moderators who would ban a skeptic in a heartbeat for anything resembling an insult. Woo-woo apparently flew under the radar.
Loosely based on a correlation between USENET nut Earl Curley and the three stooges (“wooo-woo-woo-woo”) (Unlikely)
Based on the schlockey theremin music that played in cheesey sci-fi films of the 50’s.
It appeared, as if in a dream
The term appears starting somewhere in 1997, it would seem."*
Anti-medical/scientific quackery advocates and skeptics in general have been using the term “woo” for long before Mythbusters appeared on the scene (hmm, seems like that show has really gotten under the skin of some woo-meisters).
Anyway, feel free to engage in zen-babbling and philosophical pretension all you like, unmolested by me. Start applying your fuzzy-brained “revelations” to matters of science and medicine and implying your thought processes are valid in that arena, and painful debunkings and horselaughs will ensue. I cleaned up his grammar and spelling a bit. Sue me*.
**Inevitable confirmations of Gaudere’s Law are not the responsibility of the editors of this post.
If a condition robs someone of their ability to reasonably care for themselves (keep a job, maintain hygiene, and stay out of danger) and effectively communicate wants and needs, then what is it if not an illness? How could we possibly socially construct something like catatonic stupor or word salad?
Schizophrenia, or a schizophrenic-like disorder, may be the reason why that mother killed her baby and ate its brains. Question: Should that woman’s perception of the world be treated as just a different way of knowing? Or should she be treated as someone suffering from a mental illness?
I know I’m just another neckbeard, but I’d appreciate an answer from you.
It’s been around a lot longer than that. I first heard the term “woo-woo” used to describe new age/Rainbow Family type beliefs back in the late '70s or very early '80s.
You really don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. You don’t really know anything Buddhism, Nietzsche, Picasso, the Spanish Civil War, or, for that matter, much of anything. You might know something about Mythbusters, I guess. You’ve not engaged the world, humanity, and its ideas any more than you’ve managed to gather from some bullshit message boards. My guess is you’re a basement nerd.
I bet the Discovery Channel has a message board. Go bitch about the Mythbusters there. Please.
Here’s my question, and it’s probably in the wrong thread but what are you gonna do? Your rules don’t apply to me, man! By saying that today’s delusional schizophrenic* is yesteryear’s shaman, aren’t we really saying, yesteryear’s shaman was crazy as a shithouse rat, hence the crazy-as-a-shit-house-rat hokum he peddled? Now we know; he wasn’t a huckster, just nuts. I mean that’s my take away. Then again, I’m all possessed with materialism and probably blind to the revelation. I am failry confident that Kimmy Gibbler has read more than I, maybe Smash, too, though it’s hard to tell if he just has a well worn Bartlett’s.
*Say what you will about differing perceptions, the Hamburglar is NOT out to kill anyone. He’s nonviolent.
How is the claim that “schizophrenia is a mental illness” is not a scientific assertion but one belonging to a field that does not admit scientific investigation anything at all like claiming there is a grand conspiracy at work? How is it anti-medicine?
When gay rights activists protested that the APA should remove homosexuality from the DSM, was that an anti-scientific move? What science experiment would confirm or disprove the Neurodiversity Thesis?
Why do you lay scientists refuse to answer these questions instead preferring to build up elaborate strawmen? It is by now clear that you haven’t even considered the conceptual foundations of your supposed “science” claims, which the above shows are anything but. Rather, your visceral reaction is motivated by cultural critique, an instinctual unease at anything that suggests that the armamentarium of modern industrialized science might be displaced, and along with it your privileged position within that system as technicians.
In all seriousness, how is same-sex attraction akin to an unfounded fear of the Hamburglar? One of these is grounded in the psychological and physiological reality of sexual attraction. The other is a delusion. Yes, yes, I think it’s interesting to challenge conceptions of reality, but at some point it’s time to take down the pillow fort and climb back into bed.
I assume you’ve read AHunter3’s series of posts. If not, I think you should. While you have seen some cases of sad ends for schizophrenics, that is not by any means the necessary consequence of that condition.
As far as functioning, this concept itself is bundled up with notions of normality. The schizophrenic will lead a life different from yours or mine, he may have objectives that you or I might never contemplate, but this alone doesn’t mean that they cannot function, only that they function differently from us. Moreover, we would want to look at how much of the impairment comes from societal pressures imposed on the schizophrenic because of their differences.
Enough brutal crimes have been committed by non-schizophrenics that it’s curious you would single out schizophrenia here in this crime. Nearly every brutal crime that has occurred in the last ten years has been committed by a male, but we don’t classify maleness as an impairment or a disease. Ask yourself why we sieze on schizophrenia when it is coincidentally present during the commission of a crime.
Could you repeat this question in some sort of intelligible form?
This is a typical lame tu quoque argument, and one whose lack of validity was demonstrated in the Icke thread. To repeat: science has a self-correcting mechanism based on introduction of valid evidence. Woo is self-perpetuating blather. Come on back when you’ve got facts.
Your assumption is incorrect. I’m a physician who’s had articles published in peer-reviewed medical publications. I have a reasonable familiarity with the scientific method, which you evidently do not.
My “instinctual unease”, as you put it, is at contemplating the abandonment of millions of mentally impaired and disabled people on the grounds that their illnesses are actually privileges.
For those playing at home, you might be interested in reading Foucault’s Madness and Civilization*. He is far more interesting, polemical, and articulate than the SDMB’s homegrown *Kimmy_Gibbler. Kimmy preaches with the fanaticism of the recently converted.