I would tend to disagree. Racism, anti-Semitism, nativism and homophobia contain all the classical symptoms of mental illness:
Paranoia:
“Black men will do anything to ‘get’ a white woman.”
“Homosexuals are out to ‘recruit’ young children into their lifestyle.”
“Mexico is out to ‘take over’ the Southwest of the United States.”
Incoherent reasoning:
“The Holocaust is a myth invented to gain sympathy for the state of Israel. If the Jews keep in up in this country by their ‘actions’, they will ‘bring on’ another Holocaust.”
Outrageous conspiracy theories:
“The Jews created communism.”
The Jews either had advance warning of 9-11 or may have even had a hand in it."
**Projection: **
“The Jews are taking over” (While the racists themselves talk about what they will do when they ‘come to power’).
You can control a “clearly-planned illusion”; you cannot control a collective psychosis.
So everyone with a belief system is suffering from mental illness? That’s certainly what you’re implying there. Bad raising, bad logic and bad choices do not mean mental illness necessarily.
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while after the SFers came by.
Is no one going to admit that they see the attraction of the neo-nazis?
If you can’t imagine it, here it is, from someone who’s seen the attractive side:
I feel oppressed and cut down by society as a whole. There’s a sub-society that will accept me almost without question. I’ll have instant backup, friends, everyone will know we’re not to be messed with, and together we can tell the world it can shove it. I’ll enjoy having everyone against me, because they already are, but then I’ll have something to shove right back in their face.
I’ve felt all that a number of times. It’s the bad logic, God and history that kept me from ever really considering it. I just wanted the things above that I said without the racism.
I’m also going to need a cite for the term “collective psychosis”. Hippies thought they could trip together, but it never worked.
Are you going to actually say that the tens of millions of Germans, Czechs, Poles, Austrians, etc who subscribed to Nazi beliefs were ALL psychotic at the same time for over a decade?
I think you’re just throwing around a term.
This also brings up the bigger issue of trying to make it sound like people with evil beliefs are in some sense not really people. The Nazis have for many years been treated as though they were not mostly relatively normal people who participated in one of the worst collective acts ever. It very pointedly raises the question of some people being so uncomfortable with the idea of sane people doing these things that they will come up with dozens of explanations as to how those other people are not like themselves.
“They thought they were doing good.”
“They were nuts.”
“They were brainwashed.” (OK, so that one’s got to be somewhat true)
And before that, they were conspiring to eat my homework!
I’ve got undeniable proof of it. Or would have, if the Mexicans hadn’t stolen it to help their sinister plans to change the name of the capital of my home state to Aztlanta!
Nazis are stupid, thats all there is to it. Always trying to blame their lack of skill or innovation on others. Hell, I am more “white” then most of the dipsticks that post on stormfront.
I dunno. In my world, mental illness and psychosis bring in decisions of “not guilty by reason of insanity” and “not competent to stand trial.”
Do you really want to say that no one should bear responsibility for the horrors of WWII (Jim Crow lynchings, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Sand Creek Massacre, and many other events ranging from hours to years) because the perpetrators were sick?
The whole idea with treating mental illness is you institutionalize these people to prevent them from harming society in the first place. Matthew Shepard might still be alive today if the extreme homophobic tendencies of his attackers were subsequently identified and treated early on.
This is a straw man argument. No one would argue that the perpetrators of heinous crimes should not be brought to justice. Whether a person is “just following orders” from a failed Austrian painter-turned dictator with a pathological hatred of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, the physically disabled, etc. or whether those marching orders originate from voices heard deep inside the twisted brain of the racist psychopath, people should be held accountable for their actions just the same.
It’s not a straw man. A few posts earlier, you said that the ENTIRE POPULATIONS of those countries were suffering from psychosis, not just the leaders.
Do you actually have the slightest fucking clue what psychosis actually is?
No straw man, at all. I find it morally repugnant to punish a person who cannot control his or her actions. If the perpetrators of these crimes (from the leaders down to the minions and lackeys) are truly psychotic, they cannot be held accountable.
I find it rather more likely that humans are capable of great evil than that whole peoples become sick (and, thus, removed from liability).
As a metaphor, one may choose to use illness to describe the depth of evil. (although that has its own problems). However, to actually claim that evil actions were committed by people who could not control themselves (which is the logical conclusion of ascribing their actions to psychosis), is to absolve those people of their guilt.
I’m sorry, but I consider that an evil in itself. “This person had no control of his actions, but everyone should, so let’s punish him.” I would suggest that you have been lucky enough to have never associated with a truly psychotic person. It is the only way I could explain an approach that allows us to inflict punishment on people for actions which they could not control.
Basic mistake you’re making - psychosis is characterised by distorted thinking, but that does not mean that all examples of distorted thinking are psychotic.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with making an example of racists who commit terrible crimes regardless of how often they may wish to invoke the “insanity” defense or even if some taxpayer-funded “psychiatrist” declares them nuts.
For one, it shows that we as a society have little tolerance for racism and discrimination. More importantly, however, is that by making an example of them, we may discourage other, shall we say borderline-types, from sliding into that especially virulent form of dementia …
This discussion has nothing to do with defense procedures in criminal trials. Your claim was that the people under discussion were “mentally ill” and “psychotic.” Such people do not control their actions. If you are willing to punish a person for an act that they could not control, I find your action more morally reprehensible than theirs. It is rather like spanking an infant for crying in public because the child is hungry.
I suspect that you truly do not understand the meaning of the terms “mental illness” and “psychosis,” so, barring new input, I will not pursue this further.
Perhaps you are correct. If I see I man walking around in a Napoleon outfit saying his is Napoleon, he is not necessarily crazy. He is merely expressing a “difference of opinion.”
When 20,000 Stormfronters share the same view that there are “too many” Latinos, African Americans, homosexuals, Asian Americans, or whatever other “bad” or “inferior” group and that all the problems in the world are attributable to a “vast , monolithic Jewish conspiracy” then they are not merely harboring a delusion that borders on sheer madness; they are merely expressing a “difference of opinion” …
