Memo to Dr. Chuck: It’s not BDS — the problem is RWA.
by shep
[Note: this is the second article by long-time commenter shep.]
Charles Krauthammer uses his extraordinary powers of clinical psychiatry to determine (from reading Michelle Cottle’s article in the New Republic about Dick Cheney’s mental health) that she is not only wrong but that she must surely suffer from, “a condition that addles the brain of otherwise normal journalists.”
In his ever so scientific opinion, Mr. Krauthammer brags about this disease of the mind that “I have been credited with identifying, ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome, Cheney Variant.”
This condition, which “can strike without warning,” is apparently characterized by an extreme inability to rationally analyze the world around you, resulting in blinding hatred of George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney.
In other words:
Dick Cheney is not the most power-hungry, secretive, manipulative, war-mongering, partisan, anti-democratic Vice President in the history of the republic — rather it is the 150 -200 million Americans who disapprove of the way Cheney has acted on the job that are addled of brain.
I can agree with one of Krauthammer’s conclusions — it may not be Cheney’s heart problems that have led to his mental condition. But that wouldn’t explain Krauthammer and the people who agree with him.
In fact, a researcher in Manitoba has identified a surprisingly common condition that sounds quite a bit like Dr. Krauthammer’s derangement syndrome in which the afflicted, “drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and – to top it all off – a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.”
Dr. Bob Altemeyer has developed the study of this frighteningly common condition called, “RWA,” which, unfortunately for Dr. Chuck, seems unlikely to describe liberal critics of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Dr. Bob explains:
“I’m sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However, I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians [RWAs] in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades.”
Oddly, Dr. Altemeyer’s research shows that it is probably not the majority of people in the United States and the rest of the world who can’t effectively parse observable reality pretty much like everyone else. He believes they are much more likely to be the, “36 percent [of Americans who] said the [Bush] administration had not purposely misled the public about evidence to build support for the [Iraq] war,” as well as the “[t]hirty-seven percent [who] even thought the U.S. military effort was going ‘well’ (either ‘fairly’ or ‘very’),” and the “35 to 37 percent [who] approved of how Bush was doing his job in general, while 35 percent also were satisfied with the way things were going in the country.”
Go figure.
Go check out Dr. Bob’s research (I recommend chapters 3 and 7, in particular, for those who won’t read the whole book – though it really is a pleasure to read). But first take the test in Chapter 1 to find your RWA score.
After all, Michelle Cottle has the New Republic in which to practice medicine without a license and Dr. Krauthammer has his syndicated columns, talking-head shows and a small army of RWAs to peddle his “peer-reviewed” condition.
Was anyone else thinking that Chuckles went to the Bill Frist School of Remote Diagnosis when reading his screed?
What a malignant cancer sore he is.
Altemeyer’s research shows something even scarier. Krauthammer, and millions like him, suffer from a mental deficiency that obscures understanding of observable reality and makes their subsequent ability to change their minds through additional information, almost impossible (remind you of anyone you know?).
This is the crux of the biscuit we (and the entire world) have been fed for the past six years and, probably, at every moment of authoritarian power in history. Dr. Bob suggests that we had better take RWA seriously…and soon. He also suggests how its effects can be mitigated in existing RWAs (Ch. 7).
I’d suggest that we look at ways to prevent future generations from becoming quite so over-populated with mentally deficient people with bad attitudes. RWA appears to be only partially hereditary, so we do have the ability to attack it.