Posts Tagged ‘Judgment’

Tolerance and Intolerance in Psychiatry

Monday, May 8th, 2023

Our reference here is the book Tolerance – The Liberation of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, originally published in 1925. The volume we have was independently published on June 12, 2021, by an unnamed source. As the book says, it is “The history of Tolerance (or the lack thereof) in the history of man as described by one of the best popular historians of all time.”

The book introduces the word by saying, “I refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica. There on page 1052 of volume XXVI stands written: ‘Tolerance (from Latin tolerare — to endure): – The allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people, the patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from one’s own or the generally received course or view.'”

Some additional dictionary definitions are:
— capacity to endure pain, hardship, harm, or unpleasantness
— a permissive attitude toward beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own
— the allowable deviation from a standard
— the diminished effect of a drug over time with its regular use.

One colloquial phrase representing tolerance is “live and let live.”

The book is basically a history of the world from the viewpoints of tolerance and intolerance. (Mostly intolerance, as the case may be.)

Tolerance and Racism

In the U.S., one generally thinks of intolerance as black/white racism or religious intolerance, with anti-semitism rising rapidly alongside. It isn’t necessarily the same in other countries or times. For example, in Belgium intolerance also exists between white Flemish speakers and white French speakers.

Tolerance and Psychiatry

It should be plain to see that psychiatry cannot tolerate any deviance from what they imagine is normal behavior, and seeks to compulsively and coercively “treat” it. Since psychiatry has never been able to understand, control or successfully cure such deviance, their efforts lead to continual failure.

When we speak of “coercive psychiatry” we mean that psychiatry is used as a means of social control against which one has no recourse and cannot fight back, which is destructive of one’s self-determinism, causing distrust instead of faith. Psychiatry intends to substitute their own vision of “normal” for any individual beliefs one may hold; which fits the definition of intolerance pretty closely.

The literature abounds with scholarly articles about tolerance and mental health, often involving exhortations to accept others’ differences. This corresponds with psychiatry’s insistence that one must adapt to one’s environment rather than control one’s environment.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders revision 5 (DSM-5) deals with tolerance only in the sense of Substance Use Disorders, when an individual requires increasingly higher doses of a substance to achieve the desired effect, or the usual dose has a reduced effect. Such tolerance as one criteria for a Substance Use Disorder does not apply in the case of a prescription drug used in the context of appropriate medical treatment (i.e. “generally accepted practices”).

One example of psychiatry dealing with tolerance/intolerance in patients is called the “Intolerance of Uncertainty;” the conjecture is that such individuals tend to be less tolerant of ambiguity, uncertainty, and unpredictability in their lives, and that this is a mental disorder. These individuals can then be labeled with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (or any one of several other diagnoses from the DSM) and prescribed harmful psychiatric drugs to suppress their anxiety. In particular, we noticed a number of psychiatric research articles examining this issue in relation to COVID-19, pregnancy, education, stress and burnout, autism, pain, religion, depression, vaccination, … in other words, pretty much in all areas of life.

The Root of Intolerance

Whenever there is so much unresolved discussion over a topic, we can be sure that there is a general lack of understanding about it. There is certainly an excessively long historical preoccupation with intolerance. Perhaps one can observe that intolerance of uncertainty is not really a psychiatric condition to be treated with drugs, but an expression of a human aberration which should be treated by increasing one’s ability to observe and confront different, unknown, confusing, or uncomfortable conditions.

This basic characteristic about tolerance is the ability to tolerate views; that is, the ability to look, to know by looking. Thus intolerance is an inability to tolerate views, viewpoints, or looking; it’s a decision to refuse to observe.

Intolerance as discussed in the cited Tolerance book is essentially concerned with a dismissive, antagonistic or hostile attitude toward others’ different beliefs, leading toward repeated attempts to suppress or eliminate those other beliefs. These beliefs run the gamut from political, economic, religious, racist, to just plain cussedness; and the political and economic conditions often seem to be behind a lot of the intolerance.

While many have perished for their contrary beliefs, we observe that there is a general failure to permanently stamp these out. We make no judgments here about the truth or falsity of any particular beliefs.

Consider what happens when one tries to control another person or situation, but fails to do so. One then attempts to justify one’s failure. One way to justify such a failure is to attack the other and make less of them. One way to attack another is to say oneself is right and they are wrong.

Thus we see a definite relation between tolerance/intolerance and the human condition which causes an individual to make oneself right by making another wrong.

The book reaches its final conclusion about tolerance by saying that “fear … is at the bottom of all intolerance.” This can be fear of another’s politics, economics, religion, race, or just plain fear of difference. It’s actually an inability to recognize similarities, and observing (and misunderstanding) only differences. Both sanity and intelligence are intimately related to one’s ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities.

How to Overcome Intolerance

The solution to tolerance should be fairly obvious: rehabilitate and enhance one’s ability to observe and recognize differences, similarities and identities. Find out how to identify what makes something logical or illogical by taking this short, free online course: “The Investigations Course“. We trust you understand that psychiatric labels install fear of behavior; and that psychiatric drugs or other treatments can only suppress the fear and not eliminate it.

It should also be obvious that psychiatry is not your friend when it comes to tolerance. Contact your local, state and federal officials and representatives and urge them to stop funding psychiatry.

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Common Sense May Not Be All That Common

Monday, May 10th, 2021

We found a number of useful definitions for the phrase “common sense.”

– Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.
– An ability to reach intelligent conclusions.
– A reliable ability to judge and decide with soundness, prudence, and intelligence.
– The ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions.
– Good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.
– Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.
– The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way.
– Agreement with those perceptions, associations and judgments possessed of the generality of mankind. With respect to this definition, some have said that common sense implies something everyone knows; if that is the case, then what appears to be common sense is often common nonsense, given the level of disagreements showing up on current social media.

In Latin, sensus communis means “common feelings of humanity.”

Sometimes the phrase is found hyphenated: “common-sense” — something which reflects common sense, as in “a common-sense approach.”

Discussion

We wondered if it is possible to teach common sense, or if it is an innate (although not always evident) characteristic of humanity.

If anyone can have an instance or episode of common sense, perhaps we should also examine how this ability can be compromised.

In the past, some religious scholars have posited the negative influence of Satan as the mechanism of compromise. Others have attributed common sense, or lack of it, to one’s maturity level.

One place where common sense fails is in superstition. We have discussed superstition previously; it might be helpful to review it here.

We see many scholarly articles whose premise is that psychology and psychiatry are “scientific” and thus not matters of common sense. We tried reading a paper about psychiatry and common sense; frankly, making any sense of it without falling asleep was a challenge. It propagates the idea that “common sense rests on judgments of the probable rather than what we can directly ascertain as true” — which we think, from the definitions above, is directly contrary to the idea that common sense depends on the perception and observation of reality. Perhaps, though, that is precisely where common sense leaves off and superstition begins.

The True Basis For Common Sense

So we come to what we think is the true basis for common sense, which is “obnosis” — the observation of the obvious, on which all good judgment is based.

Observation is not passive, it is very much an active process, involving the closest possible study of what one is observing. Thus we see that the most important thing which hinders or gets in the way of one’s common sense is anything which blocks or hinders close observation. Truth or falsity, while relevant, is not even close in importance to the actual observation of what is there in front of you.

And yes, you can indeed teach someone to observe. You can also rehabilitate this ability in someone whose common sense has been compromised by a too heavy dependence on belief as a replacement for certainty.

One other thing that aids in the exercise of common sense would be the ability to imagine the consequences of one’s actions. This provides a predictive quality so important to good judgment.

How Does Psychiatry Compromise Common Sense?

Having an unobstructed view of the world, as we have just observed, is of paramount importance. This viewpoint, as far as the physical perceptions provided by one’s body goes, depends upon the proper functioning of one’s nerves and the nervous system. Yet the primary “treatments” of psychiatry are drug-based, with neuroleptic (“nerve-seizing”) drugs a chief offender. And lately there is a heavy psychiatric emphasis on psychedelic drugs, known primarily for their interference with such perceptions.

Need we even mention the harm that psychiatric Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) does — a direct attack on the brain, the center of the body’s nerve system.

Can you imagine how these might compromise one’s common sense? There are harmful consequences for psychiatric treatment.

The Bottom Line

A Truly Common Sense Approach would be banning ECT, banning psychiatric drugs, in fact defunding and banning psychiatry.

Contact your local, state, and federal officials and representatives and let them know what you think about this.

In Memory of Common Sense & Courtesy
In Memory of Common Sense & Courtesy

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Here Come The Judgment

Monday, July 27th, 2020

We keep coming across the subject of Judgment. So many news articles and social media posts deal, directly or indirectly, with good or bad judgment.

We see so many people asking “How do I deal with this or that situation?” where the only truly comprehensive response should be “use good judgment.”

Of course, then they want to know what is good judgment? And while there is a good answer, it isn’t easy to give this a short answer. So we decided to address it here. We’ll give an example from which we hope one can make some useful generalizations.

There is no shortage of advice, aphorisms and quotes about judgment; and when there is so much discussion around a topic one can be sure it is generally not well understood, not the least of which is exactly how to spell the word. “Judgment” and “judgement” are alternate spellings of the same word. They are both common in British English, although only one, judgment, is acceptable in American English.

Not even to mention the religious overtones of Judgment, with which we respectfully leave to other experts.

Definitions

Just as a simple word, there are a number of dictionary meanings to fit different circumstances. Here are some common definitions:
— the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing
— the cognitive process of reaching a decision or drawing conclusions
— a formal utterance of an authoritative opinion
— a formal decision given by a court
— good sense

[Ultimately from Latin judicare, from judic-, judex judge, from jus right, law + dicere to decide]

How Does One Make A Judgment?

Judgment is measured by the ability to evaluate relative importances. One must be able to evaluate what is important or unimportant in order to make a judgment. Yet this still does not fully answer the question of how to do this, since one must still recognize what is or is not important in the situation under consideration.

Motivation

There are several areas of Life along which one either survives or succumbs. One can be relatively constructive or destructive along each area of Life. One is motivated by these impulses.

Let’s say one has to make a decision that impacts not only oneself but also one’s family. Should I take this new job in another city? On the one hand, it surely benefits my own career and income; on the other hand it uproots my family which is comfortable where it is. How do I decide? It’s constructive for me myself, but destructive for my family. There isn’t a hard and fast rule about which is better or worse; but there is judgment.

Judgment

Judgment is how many of these motivational impulses can one evaluate instantly, and whether these impulses are constructive or destructive. Looking at all sides, all the facts, each area-of-life impulse, its importance or unimportance, its constructive or destructive nature.

You can see there isn’t a fixed answer; there is an evaluation of importances. What are the consequences? How is the survival of both myself and my family benefited or harmed by each different decision?

Good judgment then is dependent on recognizing benefit and harm along every area of Life touched by the situation at hand. How fast can you reach a decision given all the facts? What’s best for me and my family may not be best for you and your family.

The Psychiatric Connection

Given this knowledge about judgment, how does all this relate to psychiatric fraud and abuse?

One obvious connection is psychiatry’s corruption of justice. Psychiatry’s influence has eroded the once-firm basis of justice: the differentiation of right and wrong, compromising the ability of justice systems to reach sane judgments. And everyone knows that both the prosecution and the defense hire psychiatrists to testify on opposite sides of a judgment.

Studies also show that professional clinicians do not in fact make more accurate clinical judgments than lay persons. The fraudulent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the basis of psychiatric diagnoses, skews and subverts the judgment of what is sane or insane, benign or harmful, behavior.

The huge and growing variety of mind-altering psychiatric drugs impair one’s ability to make correct judgments. Side effects include many things which can interfere with one’s ability to make judgments, such as hallucinations, aggression, irritation, mood swings, psychosis, abnormal thoughts, anxiety, delusions, forgetfulness, panic attacks, confusion, poor concentration, fear, and just simply trouble with judgment. The consumption of these drugs can cause loss of judgment and self-control leading to increased violence and suicidal impulses.

Involuntary Commitment, euphemistically called “civil commitment”, is a tool psychiatrists use to coerce treatment and collect insurance money, not to mention its use as a political tool to suppress dissent. Who judges someone to be a danger to themselves or others as a criterion for this unconstitutional practice? Why, the psychiatrists of course. They say they are the only ones qualified to make such judgments. Yet psychiatrists themselves admit that they cannot predict violence.

The Bottom Line

Where judgment is concerned, psychiatry is not your friend. Beware, judgment may be in short supply when under the influence of psychiatry.

The psychiatric Community Chest Get Out of Jail, Free

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