David Bellamy left the following curious link:
A leading neurologist at the University of Oxford said this week that recent developments meant that science may one day be able to identify religious fundamentalism as a “mental illness” and a cure it.
During a talk at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales on Wednesday, Kathleen Taylor was asked what positive developments she anticipated in neuroscience in the next 60 years.
“One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated,” she explained, according to The Times of London. “Somebody who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology – we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance. I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical Islam or some of the more extreme cults,” she explained. “I am talking about things like the belief that it is OK to beat your children. These beliefs are very harmful but are not normally categorized as mental illness.”
Yes, let’s all get lobotomized and have “correct” thoughts implanted into our brains. It surely is an attractive idea: anybody who disagrees with me must be sick and needs to be cured. Of course, it is only attractive for as long as my disagreement with Kathleen Taylors of this world doesn’t mark me as diseased.
This was actually the idea behind the persecution of Soviet dissidents in the 1970s. Anybody who didn’t believe that the Soviet system was the best in the world was considered insane. Dissidents were put into psychiatric facilities and subjected to enormous doses of psychotropic drugs. As a result of such “treatments”, many would, indeed, become disturbed. This allowed the authorities to take the triumphant “We told you so, they are crazy!” position. So this approach to dissent is anything but new.
Clarissa's Blog 
That was my reaction also at first, but I thought you might have a different take on it. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Xtian environment, I will argue that it is dangerous to children; but this seems a bad way to go.
LikeLike
I thought the whole “they are strange, let’s cut out a part of the brain” crowd died off long ago in disgrace. All the people inventing new ways to “improve” our way of thinking should be aware their inventions can be used against them. I bet all the NKVD officers “fighting for the people” by terrorizing the population weren’t so happy when they themselves faced the firing squad (if they were lucky) or were sent to gulags (if they weren’t).
LikeLike
Heh, curious to see what they’ll begin to define as “cult ideologies”.
LikeLike
“Anything we don’t like and isn’t us”
LikeLike
And it is very easy to declare anything a cult at any given moment.
LikeLike
I see it as just another typical example of the ever-ongoing disrespect for individuality prevalent among the “average” and “normal”.
People are natural-born xenophobes, in my opinion
LikeLike
The medical definition of a mental illness is a psychological condition that disrupts the normal processes of life. That’s not what fundamentalism or extremism is. Someone might have ideas that are stupid or dangerous, but that doesn’t prevent them from enjoying human relations or having a productive career.
LikeLike
If the DSM keeps expanding, I suspect we will see absolutely everything pathologized and assigned a drug. Or probably several.
LikeLike
I keep expecting ODS (Oxygen Dependency Syndrome) to be declared a severe disorder that can finally be treated though a rigorous (and expensive) regiment of counselling and prescription drugs.
LikeLike
“I keep expecting ODS (Oxygen Dependency Syndrome) to be declared a severe disorder that can finally be treated though a rigorous (and expensive) regiment of counselling and prescription drugs.”
– You mock but this is a very serious condition! The afflicted suffer from the delusion that without oxygen they will DIE! That’s paranoid and schizoid.
🙂 🙂
LikeLike
A comment you made about ADHD a while ago reminded me of the way Jon Ronson calls it a “diagnosis epidemic” in his book The Psychopath Test. I think that’s a really good way of phrasing it.
LikeLike
Maybe I should read it.
LikeLike
Speaking of ADHD, I am wondering what you will do if your son is “diagnosed’ with it and forbidden to attend school until he is medicated. This happens often, and is horrifying.
I hope it never happens to your son.
LikeLike
If this happens, then, of course, I will contact a mental health professional and solve my psychological problems.
LikeLike
“I will contact a mental health professional and solve my psychological problems”
Wouldn’t addressing the problems of the freak(s) who diagnose(s) your son make more sense?
Avoiding the medication regime built around the idea that normal childhood is a severe disorder is actually one of the better arguments for homeschooling (when other options aren’t feasible).
LikeLike
If I don’t manage to establish a dialogue with my own colleagues, what use am I? 🙂
The approach where teachers are the enemy is very alien to me.
LikeLike
I’m assuming that teachers can’t prescribe medication themselves and the person wanting to forcibly drug children are phsyicians.
Presumably you can deal with a teacher, but doctors are another whole (much weirder and ornery) species.
LikeLike
Presumably, doctors down chase anybody down the street trying to prescribe stuff. 🙂 One has to contact them first.
LikeLike
” doctors (don’t) chase anybody down the street trying to prescribe stuff”
Give ’em time…
LikeLike
I’m assuming that teachers can’t prescribe medication themselves and the person wanting to forcibly drug children are phsyicians.
What typically happens, as I understand it, is that a principal says the child cannot attend school unless he (usually) is evaluated by a psychaitrist. When (not if) the psychiatrist prescribes Adderol or some such toxic substance, the principal has the authority to forbid the child’s continued attendance at school unless and until the drug regimen is followed.
LikeLike
And this is the time for the parents to evaluate what they are doing to make the kid so unbalanced.
LikeLike
And this is the time for the parents to evaluate what they are doing to make the kid so unbalanced.
I don’t think it means that the child is unbalanced, at all. It just means that some teachers and principals do not want to bother with actual children who have not been zombified by drugs.
LikeLike
If a child can’t behave at school in a socialized way, this means there is a problem. The problem is not medical but it exists nonetheless.
LikeLike
“If a child can’t behave at school in a socialized way, this means there is a problem. The problem is not medical but it exists nonetheless”
I sort of agree, but from all reports the American school system now equates “in a socialized way” with “like an obedient little zombie 24/7”.
I shudder to think of what would have happened to my little asocial, messy, obsessive and daydreaming ass if it were forced to sit in what passes for school in the US now (rather than a time that knew how to deal with children).
LikeLike
“I shudder to think of what would have happened to my little asocial, messy, obsessive and daydreaming ass if it were forced to sit in what passes for school in the US now (rather than a time that knew how to deal with children).”
– I don;t know much about the US schools right now but keep reading my blog and I promise a lot of interesting stories. This is my little attempt at self-promotion. 🙂
LikeLike
Pretty sure the whole ADHD tomfoolery showed up because there isn’t enough recess time in American schools. In the school system I was educated in, we got 10 minutes recess every hour and twenty in the middle of the day and we had most classes in the same classroom so we ran around like maniacs for 10 minutes every hour and then we could concentrate for 50 minutes straight. From what I understand, however, American recess is 5 minutes and you spend that moving from class to class. Many perfectly healthy children will find it impossible to concentrate for more than 1 hour at a time without a break in which they get to do the opposite of what they had been doing until then, and since boys tend to mature slower than girls, you’ll get more misbehaving boys than girls in a certain age group subjected to this foolishness of a schedule, and that’s only one leap of lack of logic away from an ADHD epidemic. Then if you dose perfectly normal kids with speed during the time their brain is developing you get adults that will need medication to be able to focus for their whole lives.
LikeLike
I’ve seen these ADD kids and they are just as agitated at home as they are at school. During the long summer vacations, the problem doesn’t subside. It is easy to blame schools for messing a kid up to this extent, but we all know that this is not the approach I’m likely to take.
LikeLike
I’m mostly freaked out because most of the symptoms would have applied to me when I was in school (and I did piss off my teachers quite a bit), even if the symptoms only applied to schoolwork. I was bored out of my gourd in primary school because I already knew everything they taught in grades 1-4 except handwriting, so I’d have hit all the criteria to an observer that only saw me in school:
” Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another”
Yes, I was bored out of my gourd because I already knew how to do the activities and didn’t see the point in repeating them.
“Have difficulty maintaining focus on one task”
Yes, because I couldn’t maintain focus on one really boring task for long. I could maintain focus for 8 straight hours on something interesting, even as young as 6, but not if that task was enumerating the parts of a plant when I had learned to read on (among others) a junior high biology manual.
“Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something enjoyable”
I may not be a psychologist, but I’d guess it’s more a sign of mental problems if you don’t feel bored when you have to do unenjoyable stuff. Boredom is there so you know to spend your effort on more useful tasks instead of eternally reinventing the wheel.
“Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new or trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities”
This is an “or” sentence, and I definitely had trouble completing or turning in homework assignments. Because they were boring and stupid.
“Not seem to listen when spoken to”
Of course I didn’t listen to people telling me stuff that I already knew. Especially when those people wouldn’t listen to me when I told them I already knew that. Politeness must be reciprocated, you know.
“Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly”
I daydreamed a lot, I was easily confused when interrupted (the aforementioned ability to focus meant I could easily zone out the rest of the classroom) and I was physically clumsy.
“Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others”
Nope, but I often didn’t listen, so it might have looked that way.
“Struggle to follow instructions.”
Struggle, no. Not want to, yes. Not when the instructions seem useless.
And that’s all the innatentive sort symptoms, There are also the hyperactive and impulsive ones, but I didn’t hit each and every one of those when I was a kid so not going to list them.
LikeLike
Heh, sorry for the wall-o-text. But the medicalization of anything non-average in childhood freaks me out, as do the increasing restrictions on what children are allowed in modern-day America. My mother was considered paranoid because she didn’t allow me to walk home after school (3 miles, crossing multiple high-traffic streets) until I was 9 and wouldn’t let me play unsupervised anywhere except the park behind our apartment block until I was 7-8. In America (according to some of her immigrant friends), it is illegal for a child under 16 to be left home alone unsupervised (this happened in Oregon btw). Which would be fine, ultimately, if this stuff stayed in America, but large parts of the rest of the world tends to import American childhood rearing habits with about 1 decade delay. 7 years ago, I regularly saw 7-year-olds returning home from school alone. Nowadays, the crime rate has drastically dropped, but I rarely see unaccompanied 7-year-olds anymore.
LikeLike
I agree completely. This is all completely idiotic. A person who is never left alone until the age of 16 grows out to be helpless to the point of disability and addled with physchological problems. In the country where beating children is completely legal, this way of “protecting” them is bizarre. It only exists to justify parental policing and abuse. And also housewifery.
LikeLike
“During the long summer vacations, the problem doesn’t subside. ”
Do these kids get to play outside, away from the watchful eyes of their parents, much? Or do they sit around and watch tv/play computer games all day? Maybe get to hang out in a tiny, boring yard full of tiny, boring grass and not much else? Children need unregulated physical activity to thrive. Climb trees, jump out of trees, climb higher, jump from higher, land badly and scrape your knees bloody, get told by another kid that you don’t need to bother an adult about an injury you didn’t get from rusty metal and that that weed with the yellow flowers has antiseptic, coagulant sap, put some sap on the wounds and try to jump again, this time with more care when you’re landing. Then at home or at school where the adults can see you you don’t look agitated, because you got to spend your energy where there was no grownup you could annoy with it.
LikeLike
I couldn’t agree more! When I see the lifestyles some of these kids lead, I have no idea how they don’t go completely crazy.
LikeLike
// In America (according to some of her immigrant friends), it is illegal for a child under 16 to be left home alone unsupervised
Under 6, not 16, right? In Israel too.
LikeLike
Under 16. Was quite a shock to said immigrant friend, who came to America with her 12-year-old son in tow and quickly found out her neighbours would call the CPS if she left a teenaged boy alone in a house.
LikeLike
If the DSM gets any more wide-ranging and obsessive about medicalizing every last “deviant” or “abnormal” behaviour, every one of us might end up being considered worthy of curing something, anything, everything.
If they never find a “cure” (hah) for autism, maybe they’ll be happy if they can find a cure for my left-wing politics instead? 🙂
LikeLike
Just now heard what is going in Turkey:
Turkey protests spread after violence in Istanbul over park demolition
Demonstrations against Erdogan government in several cities as riot officers use tear gas to control protesters in Istanbul
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/31/istanbul-protesters-violent-clashes-police
Also, Russia talks of sending planes to Assad:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Russian-papers-S-300-delivery-to-Syria-not-before-2014-315006
LikeLike
Also saw this:
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Belgian-students-vote-in-favor-of-Israel-boycott-315057
Look at the two “Related:” links at the beginning of the article.
Btw, do you think it really matters? I don’t talk on the level of Ideas, but on the level of my day-to-day life. It’s like a constant small current out there, but it doesn’t seem to really affect anything. There are much bigger problems both to Israel and to Europe, so …
LikeLike
I’m sure you understand that this is not in the least about Israel and is not aimed to be. Belgium is going nuts because of its badly handled ( to put it very mildly) immigration policies. This is one of the countries in Europe that is ghettoized to an incredible degree, neo-fascism is becoming more and more attractive to many, people are freaking out. This is one of the multitude of ways they are venting their numerous aggressions.
LikeLike
I didn’t know it, thanks. Isn’t it strange that the direction is against Jews in Israel and not against Muslim Palestinians, who are much closer to their immigrants, the latter being the real source of aggression according to you?
LikeLike
Belgians have their own Muslims to hate right there within the country. There is a huge Muslim diaspora in the country and the anti-Muslim sentiment is profound. Then they accomplish this neat psychological trick of convincing themselves they are not really anti-Muslim by engaging in these symbolic repudiations of Israel. This gives them a chance to say, “Look, I’m not anti-Muslim at all. See how I valiantly defend Palestinians?” Of course, that is much easier than trying to alleviate the anti-Muslim tensions within your own country.
Do you remember this great moment in Bulgakov’s The Heart of the Dog when Professor Preobrazhensky says, “Невозможно в одно и то же время подметать трамвайные пути и устраивать судьбы каких-то германских оборванцев!” This is precisely what is happening here.
LikeLike
“There is a huge Muslim diaspora in the country and the anti-Muslim sentiment is profound”
From a week I spent in Brussels a few years ago (on the edge of a Moroccan neightborhood) the local muslims certainly don’t do anything to counter that. There’s almost no recognition of the fact that they’re no longer in Morocco (including leaving trashbags on the sidwalk everyday rather than just before collection) making muslim neighborhoods look like garbage dumps.
Also, IIRC muslims are way overrepresented in violent crime.
Again, stupid (or downright malevolent*) immigration policies are responsible. I can’t blame the immigrants who were not remotely psychological or educationally or socially ready for the kind of disruption that moving from the Maghreb to the heart of Europe would bring about. But the people that should have realized that either were stupid or taking advantage of the fact…
*I’m assuming an agenda among the elite of Europe to break down social cohesion as much as possible and North African muslims are very good at doing that…..
LikeLike
Last link (in Russian) – look at the 1st comment too, sounds frightening:
http://scholar-vit.livejournal.com/326982.html
LikeLike
For many people, immigration is extremely traumatic. This is why I don’t spend time in the Russian-speaking community: most people are frankly disturbed.
LikeLike
// Under 16. Was quite a shock to said immigrant friend, who came to America with her 12-year-old son in tow and quickly found out her neighbours would call the CPS if she left a teenaged boy alone in a house.
Has she checked laws? Talked with neighbors? How can anybody manage not to leave alone till 16 in RL? Are all women housewives in this alternative universe? Or hire costly nannies for teens? 🙂 It’s impossibl.
LikeLike
Costly nannies for teens + tons of after-school activities is the method she chose. Since obviously, as the sole breadwinner, she couldn’t become a housewife.
LikeLike
Poland here, was left alone in a house for a few hours when I was above ten years old. Anybody who would call the police because of that would be declared a persona non grata in most houses.
LikeLike
I was left to mind my newborn sister since I was 6. Everybody is perfectly fine and thriving. 🙂 Both my sister and I have been completely independent and self-reliant from a very early age.
LikeLike
Same in Romania, plus the police would probably chew the caller out for wasting their time.
LikeLike
Here is the law in my state: “Illinois law defines a neglected minor, in part, as “any minor under the age of 14 years whose parent or other person responsible for the minor’s welfare leaves the minor without supervision for an unreasonable period of time without regard for the mental or physical health, safety or welfare of that minor.”
“Parents are legally responsible for their children’s welfare until they reach adulthood. Part of caring for children is providing adequate supervision. Under some circumstances a parent can be charged with neglect for leaving children unattended.
The children may also be removed from their home and placed into the state’s care for their protection, until a judge decides that the home is safe for the children to return to.” http://ccrs.illinois.edu/parents/childrenathomealone.html
The wording is vague enough to leave room for anybody to be considered either guilty or innocent depending on the mood of the evaluator.
LikeLike
I guess it strongly depends on the community. As far as I know, in Iowa the age was 12. But it did not occur to anybody to enforce it. Even when the manager accused our daughter and her friend, a son of Chinese professor, of “vandalizing the cars” 🙂 :), she did not mention anything about them being alone and unsupervised and under 12 being against the law.
I suspect though that in some middle class communities mothers indeed engage in policing each other along those lines… But it is not about children, it is about being holier than thou…
LikeLike
I read somewhere that the most common time for teen pregnancy is 3-5pm. I wonder why…………… 😉
LikeLike
If only parents were home at that time… 🙂 🙂
But I am glad someone developed the method of determining the time of conception with 2 hour precision, I was not aware of that… 🙂
LikeLike
It doesn’t take much to know when you had sex and if your contraception(or lack there of) is working or not. 😉
I know the exact moment of conception of my daughter.
True or not, the point is obvious, hence the reason for the certain houses we liked to frequent after school. 🙂
LikeLike
“It doesn’t take much to know when you had sex and if your contraception(or lack there of) is working or not. ”
– Some people have sex more often than once a month. 🙂
LikeLike
Some people have sex more often than once a month.(Clarissa)
Lmao. 🙂
And unfortunately most people don’t. 😉
LikeLike
“I read somewhere that the most common time for teen pregnancy is 3-5pm. I wonder why…………… ;)”
Does this make any sense at all??
LikeLike