06/03/2009
Guatemelan immigrant Constantino Diaz-Duran has an article in the Daily Beast about new diagnoses available in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, [DSM-V] 8 New Ways You Might Be Insane. The new ways of going officially crazy are based on various modern obsessions:(1. Binge-Eating Disorder 2. Night-Eating Syndrome 3. Internet Addiction 4. Sex Addiction 5. Compulsive Shopping 6. Embitterment Disorder 7. Pathological Hoarding) but the one that’s worrisome is this one:8. Pathological Bias In layman’s terms, this is nothing more than an extreme form of racism, homophobia, or other prejudices. Dr. Makari [Dr. George Makari, Director of the Institute for the History of Psychiatry at Cornell University] warns that “the idea of making a social ill a pathological mental illness is very dangerous. It misdirects us by biologizing something that is social.” Still, if bigotry makes the cut for the new DSM, it could have profound implications for our justice system, sparking more defense-attorney tactics that begin with, "Your Honor, my client suffers from … "It’s interesting that he thinks that this diagnosis is likely to be used by "racists" and "homophobes" as a defense, but it’s more likely to be used against anyone with heterodox opinions about race or orthodox opinions about homosexuality in all sorts of court proceedings.
As for the homophobia thing, it’s worth noting that in the first edition of DSM, published in 1952, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness, which was what most people thought at the time. The various changes in the DSM over the years have been the result of activism, not science.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.