I heard the rumblings of political psychiatry recently on
National Public Radio. Now political psychiatry is nothing new in the world, or
even in the United States. The old Soviet Union slapped a "crazy"
label on political dissidents and sent them away to psychiatric prisons. And
the so-called "Siberia Bill" of 1956 would have established a
million-acre psychiatric reservation in Alaska with less restrictive commitment
procedures.
Every dictator or crackpot ruler who wishes to invalidate his
opposition will claim said opposition is psychotic. Why would anyone of sound
mind seek to undermine such a workers' paradise and such a benevolent and
caring Dear Leader?
The NPR Morning
Edition segment titled "Hidden Factors in your Brain Help to Shape Beliefs
on Income Inequality" http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/461997711/hidden-factors-in-your-brain-help-to-shape-beliefs-on-income-inequality
cited some research studies that purport
to show opinions are simply a matter of brain function. It is a rather short
leap from that statement to "The people who believe X are crazy. The people
who believe Y are sane."
So according to this research, opinions are the result of
brain function. The study compares "egalitarian thinking" (which is
good) with "hierarchical thinking" (which is bad.) Drunks like
hierarchical thinking, according to the story, and the drunker they are the
more hierarchical they are. The more evolved they are, the more egalitarian (which is good, remember) and thus more sane. So
people with hierarchical opinions – Republicans for example – are apelike
cretins which is proved by research, remember, and only Democrats are highly
evolved and caring.
So the conclusions one is left with, is that people who tolerate
income inequality – where productive people can become wealthy providing useful
products and services while bums who produce nothing of value stay relatively poor– are
insane and have something wrong with their brains.
Now that we have established a "brain based" cause-and-effect relationship for political opinion, we can
perhaps begin to "normalize" those hierarchical brains out there for
their own good, give them pharmaceuticals and mental health "treatments."
NPR is on the bandwagon publicizing this stupid research, and as usual the
socialist agenda keeps chipping away at sanity, but that's only a hierarchical
opinion barking away at the moon.
