Glenn Beck explained
Category: Politics
Posted on: May 31, 2007 12:56 PM, by PZ Myers
Suddenly, it makes sense. Schizophrenia is a methodology. Now we also know who is watching.
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Comments
Interesting. I was at a talk on delusions last week, and in discussion someone asked whether there were any people who fit the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia but were living reasonably happily, untreated. One suggestion that I made was that conspiracy theorists exhibit many of the symptoms of people with some sorts of delusions: paranoid delusions and delusions of reference. They have the same 'search for meaning', the same tendency to think that everyday occurrences are 'signs', the same tendency to think that everything is connected, the same resistance to evidence contrary to their belief(s), etc...
Posted by: iain | May 31, 2007 1:10 PM
Beck is a Mormon... case closed.
Posted by: Rienk | May 31, 2007 1:29 PM
Good grief, John Nash's schizophrenia is irrelevant to the imagery that Beck was trying to invoke, why even bring it up? There's enough wrong with Beck's point of view that can and should be intelligently addressed without resorting to just trying to score points. That's a creationist tactic and we should be better than that.
Posted by: Nathan Parker | May 31, 2007 1:32 PM
"You call me a victim of insanity, whilst you claim to be an authority governed by the hand of God. The main difference between you and I is that I don't promote my illness.
"
Elias Nichols 1821 (Nichols was imprisoned in a mental institution after he was caught desecrating a Christian monument. Upon his arrest, he claimed he was being harrassed by Christian zealots who tried to convert him on a number of occasions.)
From the Random Quote on the left hand. neeato
Posted by: garth | May 31, 2007 1:35 PM
Becks a perv....there are ways to flirt with the ladies and then there are ways to completely creep them out. Here Beck demonstrates that technique:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uTPfTfgT-Vo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RmHOGYZbhfs
Posted by: JD | May 31, 2007 2:00 PM
Oh no, do not argue with Beck... I think he might be on to something... specifically, my plan for world domination. But he won't be able to stop me, my evil hordes are bearing down on him as we speak MUAHAHAHA
-> Sorry, it's got to be in the genes
Posted by: TheJerrylander | May 31, 2007 2:21 PM
I saw the movie "Bug" last weekend, and I bet I was the only person there who loved it. There is a scene at the end of it that is exactly like this, with paranoid schizophrenia turned into a sort of methodology. I spent some time as a mental health worker, specifically with schizophrenics, and I thought the scene was brilliant--the main character's delusional "blood aphids," given to him by the government, were used as a launching pad to explain everything in both of the key characters' lives. Everything that had ever happened to them could be reinterpreted through the lens of this delusion. The movie was based on a play, and I'm not sure if the playwright had this in mind, but the blood aphids reminded me a lot of fundamentalist religion.
Posted by: Greg Peterson | May 31, 2007 2:31 PM
I'm a big believer in synthesis and creating narratives out of a whole lot of fragmentary evidence (I'm a bloody historian, or a pro-am one, anyhow), which could be described as a "schizophrenic methodology," but not, I think, in any meaningful clinical sense. I can kind of get what Beck is (I think) getting at, but he definitely has a piss-poor sense of analogy. That's not surprising in a right-winger, the obstinately literal-minded lot they tend to be.
The major flaw in his analogy is that schizophrenics tend to see connections where they don't really exist (unlike historians, who like to try to find evidence of such connections), but again, that's actually par for the winger mentality: "Make shit up" seems to be a large part of their modus vivendi.
Posted by: Interrobang | May 31, 2007 2:52 PM
How stupid do you have to be to CONVERT to Mormonism?
Beck seems paranoid as well as stupid. Here is what he thinks of Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEeRY_07EzY&mode=related&search=
He speaks of "muslim neighborhoods" in France, of which there are none. For him, Europe is on the verge of civil war! Paris is literally on fire!
CNN should be ashamed to put this ignorant wanker on the air.
Posted by: bernarda | May 31, 2007 3:04 PM
As grand a political analyst and geostrategist as Beck is, he apparently is also a major expert on French social customs ;) It always seemed to me, from a rather German perspective, that the politial discourse in France has always been a bit rougher than elsewhere. Try cutting farming subsidies in France, sit back, and wait for the protest to turn into slugging matches with the police.
But if that constitutes a civil war, I would not even dare set a foot into any major US city, be it LA, NYC, Chicago or Detroit... oh boy, America is on the verge of total break-down. Just look what happened in LA in 1992. This country will collapse in a matter of weeks... and they have got fire-arms on the street.
Beck propagates total BS, just one more advocate of that "fright-culture" that seems to be running rampant in the conservative circles of US society.
Posted by: TheJerrylander | May 31, 2007 3:20 PM
At risk of being damned to be Cthulu's first and last victim by this horde, I am schizophrenic and I frequently use it as a part of my methodology. It really does help make obscure connections that a rational person would not make. The trick is, after these connections are made, to get back on my medication and separate the wheat from the chaff. Most of it is chaff.
Mike Fox
P.S. Dr. Myer's beard is where the Flying Spaghetti Monster hides.
Posted by: Mike Fox | May 31, 2007 3:21 PM
Well, almost...
As if we'd bother.
I am in Paris right now, with the Seine in front of the window.
Incidentally, France managed to raise its birth rate to 2.1 children per woman -- by the use of the occult, ungodly practices of *horror* socialism.
Posted by: David Marjanović | May 31, 2007 3:32 PM
I stopped watching CNN when they put Nancy Grace up as their leader in inane controversy-creating. At least, I stopped watching when I couldn't laugh at it anymore.
Posted by: Mike Saelim | May 31, 2007 3:39 PM
In Austria, the Austrian Association of Unions and the Economy Association etc. sit together and negotiate the wages for the next year. That's called the paragovernment. Average strike duration per year: a couple of seconds. Seems to be similar in Germany (keyword: Metaller), though less extreme.
In France, the bosses negotiate with the government, then the workers go on strike, and then they start negotiating. I know people living here who avoid flying by Air France at any cost...
Well, whatever the reasons, the French will step on the lawn. My mom says they probably elected Sarkozy so they can have a revolution... they haven't had any for so long...
It's always the same: ignorance produces fear, and fear produces conservativism.
I bought the book "The Age of Anxiety" two years ago. I still haven't read it...
Posted by: David Marjanović | May 31, 2007 3:45 PM
Mike Fox said: I am schizophrenic and I frequently use it as a part of my methodology. It really does help make obscure connections that a rational person would not make. The trick is, after these connections are made, to get back on my medication and separate the wheat from the chaff. Most of it is chaff.
We used to perform experiments with a bong and a tape recorder in college, and with similar results. I wonder if Beck makes more sense after 4:20.
Posted by: Science Avenger | May 31, 2007 5:28 PM
IT'S BETTER TO DIE BELIEVING IN GOD AND BE RIGHT THAN TO DIE NOT BELIEVING IN GOD OF WHICH YOU SHALL SURELY BE WRONG. LOVE GLENN BECK AND DON'T MISS HIM ON THE RADIO AND TRY TO CATCH HIM IN THE EVENING.
PROUD TO BE A CHRISTIAN AND A SICK TWISTED FREAK HATE MONGER GLENN BECK FAN.
Posted by: Deanna | May 31, 2007 6:48 PM
Some of us are unfortunate enough to be coprophiliacs, but it takes a special kind of coprophiliac to BOAST ABOUT IT IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
Posted by: dzd | May 31, 2007 7:06 PM
Hey #14, was #15 one of your recordings?
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 31, 2007 7:08 PM
YOU REMIND ME OF GLEN BECK BECAUSE YOU'RE SHOUTING AT ME AS IF I WERE RETARDED
Posted by: Rey Fox | May 31, 2007 7:20 PM
"Hey #14, was #15 one of your recordings?"
Ack! what happened? As pertains to what is now #18 (my earlier post) make the relevant numbers #15 and #16. Or just Deep #6 it. Whatever.
Posted by: RamblinDude | May 31, 2007 9:00 PM
Yes, remember it was CNN that fired Aaron Brown and hired Glenn Beck.
Posted by: KevPod | May 31, 2007 11:02 PM
I wrote something about Glenn Beck's craziness waaaaay back on April 21, 2004:
Whew. I've read (most) of the bible. Where the hell does this stuff come from?Posted by: corsair the rational pirate | June 1, 2007 2:50 PM