Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness

[_ludwigm]

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

One could say you're the mentally disturbed because you call good evil and evil good.

"democrat"


...

[_Droopy]

Every time Droopy meets with something doesn't fit to his skimpy worldview, he shouts "leftist" or "democrat".

Or communist, usually with a small 'c' but not infrequently (especially within American academia) of the traditional large 'c' variety.

One can't miss it as the main symptom of that illness mentioned in the OP...

That's right comrade, principled dissent from leftist ideology is prima facie evidence of mental illness or clinical personality disorder.

You would have fit right in, in another time and place, ludwigm.

[_Droopy]

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

One could say you're the mentally disturbed because you call good evil and evil good.

Excellent point. The Book of Mormon calls this "wicked" but concepts such as irrationality and "neurotic" could both certainly be deployed in defining modes of thought that do not comport with external realities outside the subjective thought world of the individual mind.

[_Tarski]

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

It is important to recognize todays wacky tea-bagger conservatism as evil and wrong 9not to mention stupid).

[_ludwigm]

I am breaking my eternal law here and now... (only)

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

One could say you're the mentally disturbed because you call good evil and evil good.

- [#img] http://batyar.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... mal-37.jpg[/img] -
The god dog did it!

[_Res Ipsa]

I am breaking my eternal law here and now... (only)

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

One could say you're the mentally disturbed because you call good evil and evil good.

- -
The god dog did it!

[_The CCC]

Show me what you do, and I'll know what you believe.

[_Res Ipsa]

Calling fundamentalism a mental illness sounds a little 1984 to me. However, maybe thinking about violence arising from fundamentalism as a mental illness could lead to some productive strategies to reduce it. It seems to me to be worth studying the phenomena from a neurological and biological perspective to see what happens in a person's brain when they cross over into being willing to kill for their beliefs.

[_Some Schmo]

Calling fundamentalism a mental illness sounds a little 1984 to me. However, maybe thinking about violence arising from fundamentalism as a mental illness could lead to some productive strategies to reduce it. It seems to me to be worth studying the phenomena from a neurological and biological perspective to see what happens in a person's brain when they cross over into being willing to kill for their beliefs.

I obviously haven't done this research, but I suspect there would be no discernible difference at all. I can't see a rational difference between acting on a belief to do something good and to do something harmful (if you ultimately think you're doing it for a greater good). If you truly believe something, it's rational to act on that belief.

[_Res Ipsa]

I obviously haven't done this research, but I suspect there would be no discernible difference at all. I can't see a rational difference between acting on a belief to do something good and to do something harmful (if you ultimately think you're doing it for a greater good). If you truly believe something, it's rational to act on that belief.

That's possible. I don't know. I listened to a podcast interview of Robert Sapolsky recently. I was struck by one of the things he talked about. He described studies where the participants were given a test with the opportunity to cheat in some manner. They weren't told that cheating was an option or that cheating was part of the study. What they saw was that the people who cheated made heavy use of their pre-frontal cortex, while the honest subjects did not. His implication was that, as others have claimed, moral behavior is hardwired while immoral behavior requires conscious thought.

If that's true, I wonder how much the frontal cortex is involved in (1) becoming a fundamentalist and (2) becoming willing to kill other humans as a result. If it's not, appeals to logic and reason aren't going to be of much help. Knowing how the process works may help us address it.

I'm not sure how we get suicide bombers hooked up to fMRI's, but those are experimental details I'll leave to researchers.