‘Curing’ unpopular beliefs through psychiatry is throwback to ugly past

By David McElroy · June 3, 2013

In 1851, a southern physician named Samuel A. Cartwright concluded that many black slaves suffered from a mental condition which he called drapetomania. Those slaves afflicted by this malady had the desire to run away from their masters. Cartwright even prescribed whipping slaves as a “preventative measure.”

In the 1960s, some black men who were sent to mental hospitals for evaluation were disproportionately classified as schizophrenic. Why? Because they were involved in civil rights protests — which were said to make them fall victim to schizophrenia.

In the aftermath of World War II, doctors believed that fascist political beliefs were mentally disordered. There was even something call the “F scale,” which purported to test whether someone has fascist beliefs that need to be corrected.

Those are all ugly parts of the past for medical research and psychiatry, but we live in a more enlightened time when none of that could ever happen. Right? Well, maybe not.

Kathleen Taylor is an Oxford University researcher specializing in neuroscience. She suggested last week that religious fundamentalism might be treated as a mental illness soon.

“Someone 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,” Taylor told the Times of London (subscription required). “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage.”

If that doesn’t scare you, you’re not thinking very clearly about the implications.

Taylor is talking in this instance about Islamic fundamentalism, but couldn’t that be extended to any belief which “society” isn’t comfortable with? Is it a mental illness for a Muslim to believe in a literal view of his faith? Is it a mental illness for a Christian to take the Bible literally? What about those crazy people who believe that individuals have the natural right to their own freedom from being controlled by governments selected by other people?

Taylor says that religious fundamentalists have been “brainwashed,” but it’s probably a safe bet that she wouldn’t call the nationalistic teaching that American children get about the state — starting at a very early age — the same thing. But what’s the difference? Clearly, the difference is in whether she and others approve of the outcome.

I have quite a number of unpopular beliefs, so this line of thinking scares me. As more people decide they’re atheists and assert that atheism is the only rational belief, will the government enlist the psychiatric industry to neutralize my religious beliefs?

The new version of the psychiatric community’s bible — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual — just came out. The DSM 5 is a massive update to the previous edition. Certain diagnoses have disappeared and new ones have shown up. Will religious belief be seen as mental illness by the time of the DSM 6 or 7? Up until 1973, the DSM listed homosexuality as a mental illness. Are people with my religious or political beliefs likely to be treated as mentally ill in the future? It seems that cultural fashion dictates much of what’s mental illness and what’s not.

I’m a big believer in the ability of psychological counseling to help many people. (I also believe that it pays to find an excellent therapist, because many of them are crazier than their clients, but that’s another issue.) However, the psychiatric model is entirely different. Psychiatrists want to treat most psychological issues as medical matters which can be fixed through drugs or some physical treatment. Although some people have found relief through psychiatry, I think the field has done much harm, too.

Whether you like what modern psychiatry is doing otherwise or not, there are serious reasons to be scared about the idea that science can “cure” people of certain beliefs.

It’s perfectly reasonable to hold people responsible for their actions. It’s monstrous to forcibly change what people believe. Although there are times when it would probably result in a better world for everyone, the danger of taking it to its logical conclusion is terrifying.

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Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

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