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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd
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Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:
"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"
For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.
If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:
totally oblivious of cases like this
https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko
being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.
You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
Unfortunately, yes, some of the right-wingers have the right instincts but are profoundly ignorant about the actual facts and events, especially about places like Russian and Ukraine. So they choose on the basis of "if Biden says Putin is bad, then Putin must be awesome based dude, let's worship him". And "if Biden says there's war in Ukraine, it's all fake and there's no war at all". It is a very sad reality. I hope these stupid guys are a minority, because otherwise the US politics would be completely depressing sight for a foreseeable future.
It's oppositional defiant disorder spreading to older whites. While ODD is something that is, from time to time, provided as a cause for black youth underperformance in schools, it's not something you've seen attributed to older whites. The perception of mistreatment by authority creates a permanent attitude of anger and defiance.
This can sometimes feel like just part and parcel of the way modern society seems to outright encourage mental illness in the general population. Attitudes and outlooks that, given time to fester, can develop into something almost clinical are celebrated and spread far and wide, coping mechanisms and other attempts to deal with mental health issues like this are denigrated and people are exhorted to reject them.
I don't really know what should be done about it. It has kind of metastasized into a pan-social malady that can't be addressed entirely because it's distributed and deeply entrenched.
Well, let me count the options. 24/7 "sky is falling" doom cycle on the news. Constant gaslighting about almost every significant topic, where you are supposed to "trust the experts" and abandon your own judgement. Massive propaganda effort to paint groups of people - especially older white males - as toxic irredeemable bearers of evil, and responsible for all evils starting with Hammurabi times. Obvious contradiction between assumed social contract and the actual reality on the ground. Demonstrative distain by the kakistocracy to every law and moral foundation. Growing atomization of the society. Almost complete destruction of the culture of public debate and civil disagreement. Stigmatization and largely unavailability of low-level low cost mental healthcare (beyond "take this pill and stop wasting my time"). And probably a dozen or so other factors. It's no wonder some people spring a leak upstairs.
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Interesting. Oppositional defiant disorder sounds like the opposite of "mass formation psychosis." Pathological consensus versus pathological anti-consensus.
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An adult who switches from ambivalence to extreme hostility to authority as a result of an external event doesn't have a mental illness. That's the normal affect for perceived wrongs from authority.
I guess the problem with this is that it treats "authority" as a singular entity, and not as a blob with a million arms that don't talk to each other.
For example, let's say I am the victim of "authority" when a university racially discriminates against me in admissions. A common story. But that doesn't mean my boss, landlord, or local hospital are also out to get me. They are different forms of authority, not closely related to the other.
I don't think it's a mental illness necessarily. It's just that people who are low IQ or agency might have trouble with these distinctions and adopt a suboptimal "everyone's out to get me" mentality that doesn't square with reality.
Then why do they all start repeating the same mantras at the same time?
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If everything is a mental health disorder; then, nothing is. I find these claims absurd; but, I wouldn't call these people mentally ill. The very idea that personality disorders are real mental illnesses is nonsense to me.
Someone being a dick or a bitch doesn't make them mentally ill. They are just a dick or a bitch. Don't medicalise ordinary human personality variation. If you hate them so much just argue against them and their positions without weaponizing the bureaucracy.
this gets into the scott vs caplan debate about what is a mental illness versus a personality trait.
No, because, I readily agree that schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are clearly mental illnesses. Caplan doesn't. It's just personality disorders that I have an issue with. Especially, because, there are no drugs that treat them and therapy is iffy at best. Depression and Anxiety disorders are a middle ground I have no comment on.
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Oppositional defiant disorder is a completely BS disorder that is just medicalizing opposition to authority. It's "sluggish schizophrenia" for the modern West
Mental health in general is almost entirely about whether something substantially prevents someone from functioning normally.
So you agree that opposing the Soviet state was ipso facto insane?
Yes, it's how psychiatry works.
And Soviet state was dismantled from inside by CPSU members not activists spreading leaflets.
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Amusing aside but I remember reading about pre-revolution Russia and the anti-Czar fever pitch leading up to his deposing.
At one point it was so extreme that during a medical conference, the presiding doctors came to the conclusion that the Czar was directly responsible for the outbreak of syphillis and that the panel’s primary recommendation for responding to the public health crisis is getting rid of the Czar.
Look how well that turned out for them.
Kind of reminds me of BLM in 2020. Rly makes u think.
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