On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, David Honig wrote:
At 05:51 PM 3/12/01 -0800, Eric Cordian wrote:
"Medicalizing" your opponent's argument, instead of responding to it, is a tactic of police states, religious nuts, controlling relatives, and idiots.
Which one are you?
Do you deny that there are clusters of mental symptoms which seem empirically to have organic causes?
Sure, such symptoms exist. Hell, if you define "Normal" narrowly enough, ninety-nine percent plus of the population has 'em. Including you. Wouldn't you rather allow a pretty broad definition of normalcy rather than start on the thorny issues resulting from allowing *ANY* group of people to start making definitions of normalcy which, sooner or later, may not include you? In fact, a lot of traits that are maladaptive on an individual level (such as paranoia and being fat) are actually beneficial on a larger scale -- a certain number of paranoids will always survive the 'unexpected' (to others) betrayals, and a certain number of fat people will always survive the next famine. Extreme personalities (and physiognomies) are just nature's way of keeping the species alive, by pre-adapting a small percentage of us to survive the hardships and reverses that may challenge the 'normal' population on any given day. Please don't start in with a line that says "it isn't average and therefore it isn't legitimate." Bear