Psychiatric Analysis of Political Foes

Researchers in Berkely California have published a paper on "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." It was recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

Basically examines the reasons why conservatives may be crazy or otherwise not quite right. It almost reads like an anthropologists report of a lost tribe out of the Amazon Forest. Note the Berkely California is a stronghold of liberalism.

John Goldberg in the National Review has a few words on this.

The idea that the psychiatric-therapeutic establishment is politically biased is hardly new. In 1964, 1,189 psychiatrists asserted that even though they'd never met Barry Goldwater, never mind diagnosed him, he was still so mentally unstable and paranoid that in their scientific opinion he could not be trusted with the power of the presidency. So outrageous was this "petition" of psychiatrists launched by Fact magazine, that Goldwater actually won a libel suit, which is almost impossible for a politician.

[...]

The justification for this sort of thing is not merely that the "conservatives" who are broadly defined to include anyone not up-to-speed on what constitutes insensitive language need to get right in the head, but that the liberal young men and women who feel "oppressed" by contrary views, nasty-sounding words, nude pictures in the classroom, "hate" words, etc. are right in the head. In other words, it's "normal" according to the reigning authorities of academia to have the self-esteem of a delicate souffle, prone to imploding at the slightest discordant vibration, but it is abnormal to disagree with the prevailing worldview.

And that gets us to the heart of why this study is more bogus than a $6 dollar Rolex. Virtually all of the characteristics the authors attribute to the right can be equally laid at the feet of the left. [...]

An interesting note in a long standing debate.