Only Your Shitty Kid Can Stop City-Fires

I.

Perusing my Facebook newsfeed I was astonished to find that the deadheads had broken free from their Cosmos binge long enough to update their feedback loop with a new (see: 2 years old) article by The Mind Unleashed. I could just plaster atop the whole site a [citation needed] and call it a day, but the content is so lysergically absurd that I'm already seeing fractals. Let's ride this one out:

The article is titled Nonconformity and Freethinking Now Considered Mental Illnesses, which is your first clue that maybe these clickbaiters have a bit of a bias. Rule #1 of media: always read with the consideration of what the author wants to be true. The medium is the message. Luckily for you, I'm just looking to fund another refill of my rum-pitcher. But unlike me, The Mind Unleashed knows how to work an audience, so applying the rules of cult leadership, first on the agenda is to convince the reader that everyone else is lying to them. 

Today's edition of everyone else = psychology, which to a Mind Unleashed reader implicitly translates to Big Pharma.

The article ham-fistedly outlines several additions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which they erroneously describe as extensions of the DSM-IV (1). As they glibly decry, the DSM has added to the roster of diagnoses Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), which the APA characterizes as patterns of defiance, irritability, and opposition to authority, and which TMU mistranslates as the creative pathfinders of our doomed future. They go on to extrapolate their misunderstanding, saying that the addition of the diagnosis "should give any freethinking American reason to worry".

Let me stop you there, Nostromo, how the Hell do you think these psychological evaluations are playing out?

"Could you tell me about your family?"
"I don't wanna"
"Jesus, get this fucking wildling some Zyprexa, pronto"

ODD isn't some diagnosis Big Pharma is using to drown your little insurgent in meds and Newspeak, it's reserved for kids that are screaming for hours on end just to make sure Mom has to go to work with a purse full of 5 Hour Energys. Treatment isn't a pack of neuroleptic pacifiers, it's psychoanalytic therapy; it's discerning the cause of this child's trauma and stress, and helping to alleviate the distress of both the child and its caregivers. But that doesn't fit your narrative, so you retcon it in real-time, adjusting reality until it does; overdiagnosis, Big Pharma looking for another pretty penny, the "wussification" of America -- doesn't matter your bias, you'll find a way to spin things in your direction. Oh wait, you don't have to, Higher Perspective is willing to do it for you, and they'll even cull it down to 5 paragraphs. If you want the whole story, here's the Director's Cut.

TMU opts for Red Herring #1, and accredits the diagnosis to a perennial "over-diagnosing and over-medicating culture". Oh, get a new bit. They explain that the DSM-IV has, in the last 50 years, increased the number of diagnoses from 130 to 357. Technically true, though that edition of the DSM is 35 years old, but I'm not grading you on your understanding of the manual's history. But let's offer a counterpoint: would you rather we work backward? That sounds like hysteria to me, off to the menses hut with you, wench.

Gotta love the classics.

Here's the thing: the DSM isn't a fucking spellbook, and it's not "the bible of psychology", it's a dictionary; a compendium of psychological heuristics and suggestions so when some "freethinking American" comes kicking down the door of an Arby's with his pants down, firing all cylinders on the ironically-placed Wet Floor sign, we can say "might have some Antisocial symptoms in there, let's keep an eye on those".

And so completely neglecting the fact that the majority of these diagnoses are purely "she gets anxious around people, so let's talk her through that", when the article notes that "narcissism" and "antisocial behavior" are now considered mental disorders -- nevermind that Narcissistic Personality Disorder was in fact proposed to be removed from the DSM with this edition, wrongfully, I'll strongly posit -- mind that these are words by and for psychologists. If I tell the mechanic my car's flux capacitor needs an oil change, he's going to laugh in my face, stand idly at my hood with a wrench for 15 minutes and charge me double-price like the rube I am, so what makes people think they have the knowledge necessary to adopt "narcissism" as a colloquialism -- they don't even know what it means, and the misuse is now so frequent, and so mistranslated that even some modern psychologists get it wrong (2). If Toyota starts throwing V-tech in their Camrys you won't flinch, so why is it that when the APA decides to update their terminology you think you're in-the-know about their ploy to crush your freedom?

Narcissistic and Antisocial Personality Disorders are both diagnoses of a pathological incapability to empathize with others, such that their behavior is severely distressing to those around them, and in severe cases even result in such sociopathic understanding of morality and others that they'll straight-up fucking murder you. They're not just confident, or shy, but because TMU refuses to do their homework, people are picketing the system because they think the fucking psychopath getting tied down with maximum-strength Seroquel is being "overdiagnosed". You ever hear the statistic that 1% of the population is psychopathic? It sure is a good thing most of them have therapists, don't you agree? "That can't be true, I never see them acting out." Don't you agree?

II.
  
There's one portion of the narrative that these people get right, but they still point in the wrong direction. Is psychology a tool of the government? God damned right it is. But Big Pharma isn't responsible for it, and it's not by choice; psychology is just a government excuse. People love the notion of the greedy therapist, throwing Ritalin at healthy kids for a bonus check from Mallinckrodt, but they're not profiting from ODD, nor from NPD, neither are medicated unless there's an additional cause. But let's play pretend and trace the steps:

You're the US Government, hold on, leave the imperialism for later, we've got some poor people looking for a living wage.

And a refund on their Liberal Arts degrees.

 You suggest the minimum wage be raised to $15 an hour. 

Upper-crust conservatives stop paying for you.

Alright, then let's just leave it where it is.

Inner-city liberals burn down a block in protest.

Fuck, okay then, so you're stuck. Unless you've got a ruse.

So you redistribute that wealth through a separate system: healthcare and Social Security. No, it's not Socialism, we didn't GIVE it to them -- they need to apply. They need uh...a medical condition or something. See, they can't work. And so to convince the conservatives, you call in your buddy Inner City Psychiatry. "Yeah, he's got a disorder, he can't hold a job due to it. Also his kid's got ODD", and the conservatives begrudgingly agree, "Okay, we don't like it, but here's the money. But we WILL complain about it on Facebook." Deal.

So it's no $15 an hour, but you've struck a deal behind closed doors and now no one's happy, but no one's rioting. How much does it cost to keep the population in check? About $600 a month plus health insurance.

Sound too complicated? TMU agrees, and they prefer their own narrative. So back to spinning reality.

So complain about it on Facebook, it's very fulfilling, and more than enough to get your emotion out. And that's emotion that won't be expended on changing the system. Ah, you feel that? It's resignation. Feels good doesn't it? Here's a Mind Unleashed article so you can seethe about Big Pharma -- but not too much, we don't want you burning down any corporations. Not tickling you? Here's another on FOX about how liberals are leeches on the system. That's the good stuff.

Got it all out of your system?

Good. Now you don't have to get anything out of theirs.

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(1). To the discredit of the article's author, the changes mentioned are facets of the DSM-V, a complete revision of the manual; not the DSM-IV. This differentiation is not pedantic; the author's failure to recognize this makes blaringly clear not a misunderstanding of the manual, but rather a lack of any understanding at all. From 1978 to 2013 the DSM-IV was the reigning edition, thus he was familiar with the terminology, had heard the acronym in passing, and had come to associate it negatively with the field of psychology, but at no point put in even enough research to understand what it was. The DSM is referred to as the "bible of psychology", but this is a ruse, the term is not meant to be literal but persuasive; it's meant to polarize the reader against it. "How audacious are these fucking shrinks, how infallible do they think they are, that they can call it that?". You don't hear this term from people who have read the manual, and you certainly don't hear it from psychologists. "What makes you think I haven't read it?" I said READ it, not Google it -- that's what you do with the King James when you need to whip out some on-the-go piety. 

I don't care if you're tired of hearing this reprise: it's a third-party rebranding; a tacit smear-campaign. The Mind Unleashed isn't going to make any coin tossing you Risperdal, so they'll make you so paranoid of Big Pharma that you stop taking your god damned Risperdal. Turns out schizophrenics are easy marks. "By the way, it turns out Magic Mushrooms are good for your brain!" Too fucking easy.

(2). As I've stated before, narcissism as a pathology is not grandiosity; not thinking you are better than everyone else, in fact, it's often the opposite. Narcissism is an excessive fixation on the self, and a necessitation of identity affirmation. A narcissist doesn't have a concrete sense of self, doesn't know what to think of himself, who he is, what he should do, and so he outsources his identity to an audience; it's an act. Whereas some append to their identity a certain role, the narcissist wholly becomes this role, and his #1 priority becomes its defense. As he sees it, he is only himself insofar as he can convince others. Maybe he sees himself as a tough guy, and so he takes every opportunity to prove this, to affirm to others and so by proxy to himself, "I am a tough guy", by doing only what he feels a "tough guy" would do, against all other urges. Or maybe he sees himself as a successful businessman, garbed in business casual at his laziest, and must affirm his wealth and success, even though he was laid off.

"But everyone does that."

I know, isn't it terrifying?

It's the American pathology, and it rules your life, not just your self, but your world. And when a narcissistic injury occurs? When you're discovered not to be who you say you are? When the narcissist is faced with that realization -- that he believes he wholly is this person, maybe not right now, but knows deep down that IS him -- but someone now has objective, unquestionable evidence that it's not?

Then things get real ugly.

God Isn't Dead, He's Just Spiritual™

I.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, religion is on the way out, and making way for the encroaching "nones". No surprise there; it's four millennia late on its rent and cedar don't grow on trees.

The article explains that the distribution of U.S. adults who claim to be religiously affiliated has dropped from 83% to 77% since 2007. Not to be confused with the following statistic, which states that those who claim to be unaffiliated has risen from 16% to 23%. Don't worry about the redundancy, they've got a point to make, just have a little faith. They continue to measure that of those who identify as "unaffiliated", 61% claim to believe in God (from 70% in 2007).

Seems off, doesn't it? I'd wager 100%.

I know, over at Reddit an antitheist just grew his neckbeard, and I can feel your resistance already, but don't you hang up on me.

It doesn't matter if you think you believe in God or not -- you wouldn't see me lined up for the communion wine unless it was an open bar -- but his omnipresence is hardwired whether you like it or not. He's not just a part of your culture, he's in your brain, in your actions, and in your porn. "I like older men." Gross. God is a social construct, not of proxy but of necessity, and in a nation of branding and appearance you better thank him for his audience.

He's your conscience, your guilt, your hope, your morality, and even your paranoia; every action you make and every thought you have is altered by your subconscious understanding that God is watching, whether he's a Platonic Santa or your "higher consciousness", depending on how much acid your generation had to dole out. Don't misunderstand me; he's only the image of man insofar as he's a reflection of yourself, but his mere notion is evidence of his tangibility in your life. But Christianity is no longer en vogue, "God is watching" used to result in chastity, but now it's just exhibitionism, and that loving paternal gaze suddenly feels a lot more judgy. This isn't a loss of faith, it's poor advertising. Someone should sack Yahweh's PR guy, it's 2015 and they're still trying to connect with the youth using MC Kosher.

"The study also suggests that in some ways Americans are becoming more spiritual. About six-in-ten adults now say they regularly feel a deep sense of “spiritual peace and well-being,” up 7 percentage points since 2007. And 46% of Americans say they experience a deep sense of “wonder about the universe” at least once a week, also up 7 points over the same period."

So what you're seeing isn't a deflation of religious devotion, it's a rebranding of the self. "Piety is SO pre-Enlightenment, you should read this Spirit Science article. "

And there stands the harbinger of the ever-shuffling zeitgeist: no one can buy that content on its own [ostensible] merits, so we recruit science, the unwilling but inevitable agent of our own self-aggrandization. The very word "science" connotes infallibility, and note well that it never suggests change, only justifies it. "Experts have proven the existence of a soul". An expert of what, mescaline?

"I'm spiritual, but not religious" is only a gradual sublimation of that omnipresence from manual to automatic -- we get the gist, and the purpose is self-perpetuating, so let's lose the dead weight, reinvent the brand and move on to New Religion™.

Catch the Wave.

This modern responsibility of science is not its natural trajectory; it's our natural reallocation of our faith. Faith and religion were historically the means by which we justified our actions, our thoughts, our beliefs, and there's no room for that in our progressive new world -- but stop. Our skepticism is no greater, our faith no lesser; we've only depersonified our God -- indeed we've regressed, assured that our new provider of omnipotent confirmation is infallible. We outsource our beliefs and our morality for the approval of an anonymous greater intelligence, and this much has not changed -- this is the very reason we can't change.

II.

I'll risk the blowback and use the example of the body-positive plus-sized woman. The sentiment of comfort in one's own skin is, itself, laudable, true, but I'm going to say something that'll have the Tumblr deathsquads on my porch by midnight: no woman that identifies as "plus-sized" is comfortable in her own body. 

This is not because overweight women cannot, but because she will not, her sense of self is not her own; she's surrendered it to The Other, to Science, to God. In exchange for its approval of her self, she exchanges to it that power. Insisted by the culture in which she was raised, she is not able to make this decision, it belongs to the societal collective, and thus her confidence needs to cite its sources. Historically, it was God, "he loves me no matter what", "only God can judge me", "the pastor didn't seem to mind", etc. Now that's no longer cutting it, but don't worry, because Pop Science is here to help her reinvent her brand too: she's not fat, she's Plus Size™. And this comforting new study says that real men prefer "curves". She doesn't develop self-confidence; she garbs herself with a brand connoting to others the trappings of self-confidence.

We are tacitly aware of this need, and we crave not self-confidence, but external affirmation. We think that we're learning to love ourselves, but what we're really doing is learning to believe everyone loves us, which is all we really wanted. But we expend our energy assuring ourselves that we are good, and science has become an agent of the ego, echoing only what we want to be true -- tantamount to cherry-picking your favorite bible verses.

And like the bible, it's probably best science leaves out some of the cruder early years.

"But I don't search for these articles, they just wind up on my Facebook feed."

And there's how you know it's a cultural pathology. So massive and so ingrained is this outsourcing of our ego that it finds you. Whether it's a Facebook post, or suggested article, or a concerned mother, it finds its way to its demographic, to assure you, and comfort you, and from there it breeds until it's Common Knowledge™: You're Probably Right. And with our self affirmed externally, our confidence atrophies, and our sense of self becomes dependent on The Other, on Science, on God.


III.


"You're getting side-tracked"


You sit back down, or I'll derail this fucker entirely. Did you know they'll just let anyone drive these blogs?


My point, and the problem with this line of thinking, is that it further perpetuates the culture of narcissism so paramount to the American way of life. You're not an individual, and your thoughts are not your own. Politics, social policy, self-image -- all of these things are reliant on the options of identification provided to you, and your behavior adjusts accordingly. You aren't labelled for who you are, you become your label, and you choose to do this. Nevermind the false dichotomy of Democrat and Republican, now you're a walking advertisement for them, and you better behave in-line with that brand, not for them, but for yourself.


How will the world know who you are if you don't?

So the prime directive of the self is no longer to change, no longer to improve. It doesn't matter what constitutes it, it matters what it appears to be. At your fundamental level, you don't exist as a person but as a series of identifiers, descriptors, brands, the molds of which you retroactively fill to convince the world who you are. So pick your side, democrat or republican, religious or spiritual, feminist or meninist, Coke or Pepsi, happy or sad, but you've been taught by the very system you compose , and indeed taught yourself not to fight to change, or to succeed, or to improve, or to be happy, but to affirm to anyone, any entity capable of assuring you:

"I am me, and I am good."

Brought to you by the makers of God.