Are Marxists Mental? Are Lefties Loony? Are Anarchists Addled? Are Socialists Psychotic? Are Pinkos Peculiar?
In December 2006 I posed the question-are socialists psychos?
My arguement was that socialists are not simply wrong-headed, they are soft-headed as well.
Now a US psychiatrist has given a scientific underpinning to my ground-breaking thesis.
Dr Lyle Rossiter has written a book confirming what many of us have long suspected.
Socialists, Dr Rossiter confirms, are sick.
Using the US term "Liberal" (not to be confused with the ACT Party small l "liberal" which is a synonym for political sanity), Dr Rossiter explains that socialists do not simply profess foolish political opinions, but actually suffer from psychological illness.
"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."
Check out this review
Are Liberals Out of Their Minds? Why do modern liberals think and act as they do? The radical left's politics and its destructive effects on our basic freedoms have provoked many to speculate on what makes these people tick. "The Liberal Mind" answers these questions. This book is the first systematic analysis of the political madness that now threatens to destroy the West's greatest achievement: the American dream of civilized liberty.
In his penetrating analysis, Dr. Rossiter reveals modern liberalism's assaults on:
The freedom of adults to make good lives for themselves by cooperating with others
The ability of families to raise children to be self-reliant and mutual
The morals, rights and laws that protect our freedoms
"Modern liberalism's irrationality can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche." "The Liberal Mind" reveals the madness of the modern liberal for what it is: a massive transference neurosis acted out in the world's political arenas, with devastating effects on the institutions of liberty.
The author is an MD who received his medical and psychiatric training at the UNiversity of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army. He is currently in private practice in Chicago.
Dr. Rossiter is board certified in both general and forensic psychiatry and has diagnosed and treated mental disorders for more than 40 years. He has been retained by numerous public offices, courts and private attorneys as a forensic psychiatrist and has consultted in more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases in both state and federal jurisdictions.
Hat Tip The Autonomist
My arguement was that socialists are not simply wrong-headed, they are soft-headed as well.
Now a US psychiatrist has given a scientific underpinning to my ground-breaking thesis.
Dr Lyle Rossiter has written a book confirming what many of us have long suspected.
Socialists, Dr Rossiter confirms, are sick.
Using the US term "Liberal" (not to be confused with the ACT Party small l "liberal" which is a synonym for political sanity), Dr Rossiter explains that socialists do not simply profess foolish political opinions, but actually suffer from psychological illness.
"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."
Check out this review
Are Liberals Out of Their Minds? Why do modern liberals think and act as they do? The radical left's politics and its destructive effects on our basic freedoms have provoked many to speculate on what makes these people tick. "The Liberal Mind" answers these questions. This book is the first systematic analysis of the political madness that now threatens to destroy the West's greatest achievement: the American dream of civilized liberty.
In his penetrating analysis, Dr. Rossiter reveals modern liberalism's assaults on:
The freedom of adults to make good lives for themselves by cooperating with others
The ability of families to raise children to be self-reliant and mutual
The morals, rights and laws that protect our freedoms
"Modern liberalism's irrationality can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche." "The Liberal Mind" reveals the madness of the modern liberal for what it is: a massive transference neurosis acted out in the world's political arenas, with devastating effects on the institutions of liberty.
The author is an MD who received his medical and psychiatric training at the UNiversity of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army. He is currently in private practice in Chicago.
Dr. Rossiter is board certified in both general and forensic psychiatry and has diagnosed and treated mental disorders for more than 40 years. He has been retained by numerous public offices, courts and private attorneys as a forensic psychiatrist and has consultted in more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases in both state and federal jurisdictions.
Hat Tip The Autonomist
posted by Trevor Loudon at
2/25/2008 09:18:00 PM
10 Comments:
Are capitalists crackers? Are free-marketeers fruit loops?
Alliteration aside, while Rossiter sounds a bit batty, he does have a point. As the anarchist activist Mikhail Bakunin noted:
"The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good. But in its essence it remains just as baneful, and it becomes even more so when, with the application of science, it extends its scope and intensifies the power of its action. If there is a devil in history, it is this power principle."
The difference is that Bakunin doesn’t resort to Rossiter’s infantile reasoning that people he disagrees with are insane – Bakunin cites the desire to rule over others not as an aberration, but as a part of the human mind that needs to be overcome.
It’s hard to believe that people believe in the things they do - Stalinists went so far as to declare their opponents insane! The reality is that people do genuinely believe in all sorts of ridiculous and dangerous things, from ghosts and little green men to unrestrained ownership of property, while being perfectly sane.
- Sam Buchanan
Oh Trev, you really do scrape the bottom of the "idiot" barrel.
"So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving....." says your "expert".
Sounds very much like you and various contributors to your blog.....Mah 90210, Reid of America, and miscellaneous "anonymouses"..... remember the sex freak nutter who spewed on about the "animal coupling" of Maori ?
Reality check. Who was that fulla Dalrymple or Dalgleish or something ? Unabashedly went by another name as well. Into "EVIL" in his lessers. Brought Down Under by ACT or somebody.....versed in the psychobabble.....a "corrections officer" at some stage.
Phew.....!
Yep Trev
I am sure I am loony!?! Mad as .... hello?
Mah is really mad...mad as.
Huhana
The odd thing is that it is the Bush government that has eroded civil liberties over the years since 9/11. Liberals haven't been in power. But calling your political opponents insane, whether they be on the right or the left, is a childish and destructive tactic - as bad as likening one's opponents to fascists, when the word should oly be used for a tiny minority.
Anyone who has heard the discourse of a florid victim of a genuine mental illness knows how different, how much less rational such discourse is compared to even the most extreme arguments of the far left and far right.
Far better to respect your opponents in political debate and engage on the terrain of ideas. We've seen repressive regimes use mental illness as an excuse to imprison dissidents. The Soviet Union did it, putting its political critics in loony asylums. The US punished cultural dissenters in the '50s and '60s by calling homosexuality a disease, and locking up gays. Let's learn from history.
I. REVOLUTIONARY
Let us win the Revolution!
A war may be lost. The most ill-fated war is never irretrievable. The worst peace is never final.
But a Revolution must be won.
A revolution occurs once only. It is not a matter which a nation negotiates with other nations. It is the most private, intimate concern of a people, which that people must handle for itself and by itself. According to the direction in which the people voluntarily guides a revolution, its outcome determines that people’s future fate...
II. SOCIALIST
Each People has its own Socialism
The whole error of socialism is latent in one sentence of Karl Marx: "Hence men set themselves only such tasks as they can fulfil."
This is untrue. Men set themselves only such tasks as they cannot fulfil. It is their genius who inspired them. It is their daimón who spurs them on...
III. LIBERAL
Liberalism is the Death of Nations
...The principle of liberalism is to have no fixed principle and to contend that this is in itself a principle...
IV. DEMOCRAT
Democracy exists where the people take a share in determining their own Fate
Democracy discloses whether a people knows its own mind or not.
V. PROLETARIAN
The Proletarian is such by his own desire
The problem of the masses grows urgent...
The masses continue to envisage the whole problem as an economic one. The proletarian does not dream of a higher, more spiritual standpoint.
VI. REACTIONARY
A Policy may be reversed: History cannot
The revolutionary concludes overhastily that the world will now for all time be guided by the political principles which governed him in overthrowing it.
The reactionary takes the diametrically opposite line: he seriously considers it possible to delete the Revolution from the page of history as if it had never been.
VII. CONSERVATIVE
Conservatism has Eternity on its side
We live in order to bequeath.
The conservative is the man who refuses to believe that the aim of our existence is fulfilled in one short span; the man who believe that our existence only carries on an aim.
He sees that one life is not enough to create the things which a man’s mind and a man’s will design. He sees that we as men are born each in a given age, but that we only continue what other men have begun, and that others again take over where we leave off. He sees individuals perish while the Whole continues; series of generations employed in the traditional service of a single thought; nations busy in building up their history.
The conservative ponders on what is ephemeral, and ,obsolete and unworthy; he ponders also on what is enduring and what is worthy to endure. He recognizes the power that links past and future; he recognizes the enduring element in the transitory present.
His far-seeing eye ranges through space beyond the limits of the temporary horizon.
VIII. THE THIRD EMPIRE
We must have the strength to live in antitheses.
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/moeller/index.html
Trevor,
Your blog reporting on Obama is having an effect. According to the latest polls Obama's negatives are surging. As he is locking up the Democratic nomination he is alienating mainstream voters. It is happening just as I suspected except it is happening very early on. Hillary still has a chance if Obama stumbles badly between now and the August convention time.
As for leftists being mental cases, I believe the main difference between left and right is idealism versus realism.
Oh dear - seems like you still live in the US times of McCarthy - hey: communism is dead - you are seeing ghosts at broad daylight. Wake up.
Oh my God Trev the world is going crazy, communist, anarquists, anticapitalists everywhere and soon that black Obama will become President of the USA, what can we do??? is there anywhere safe apart from little backward Chistchurch??
please respond, or I will shot myself and few other bastards before we ALL DIEEEEEEEEEEEE
This comment has been removed by the author.
I am simultaneously drawn to "Libertarianism" as well as "Communism" - as well as being repulsed by both of them. Why? How is this possible you ask (by the way, I live in the States)? Both ideologies claim to be antifascist (which I am) but if you adopt the platform of the "Libertarians" you get - fascism and if you adopt the platform of the "Communists" you get - fascism. How is that possible? The reason why that's possible is that both of these ideologies are imbalanced and irrational extremes based on faulty logic and reasoning and a simplistic, false understanding of reality. Basically, individualism and collectivism are both ridiculous - they both have positives and negatives and the rational thing to do is to find a balance (which emphasizes the positives of both while avoiding the negatives). "Communism" and "Libertarianism" actually end up creating the conditions which they claim to be fighting against.
You can't just have one primary value in society like "freedom", "justice", "safety", etc. For example, you can't have freedom without justice and you can't have justice without freedom. Also, you need to have a balance between idealistic thoughts and pragmatic reality. For example, I'm strongly attracted to Anarchism but I find it to be unrealistic (maybe I'm wrong).
Human society has become so imbalanced and artificial that people have actually forgotten how to just be humans. Think outside of the box, my friends - "isms" only imprison your mind and political parties don't help.
Basically, "Libertarianism" is liberty for the few over the many - i.e. social darwinsim (fascism) and "Communism" is liberty for the few over the many - i.e. social darwinism (fascism). It's the equivalent of saying "You can either drink three fifths of alcohol a day or you can totally abstain from alcohol - there is NO inbetween."
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