[ExI] Reinforcing our Prejudices

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/04/2008, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
>  >  Perhaps reinforcing the researchers' own biases? At least
>  >  things along the lines of counting the political opposition
>  >  as retarded or mentally ill are less prevalent today. A huge
>  >  number of psychiatrists in the 1960s were willing to affirm
>  >  that Barry Goldwater was mentally ill for spouting his
>  >  "nonsense".
>
>  Mental illness is not a social construct any more than hepatitis or
>  renal failure is a social construct.
>
### Aside from schizophrenia, bipolar and a couple others, there is a
whole huge gray area, somewhere between barking mad and re-born Xian,
that is very much subject to a lot of social construction of ever new
nosological entities. Is "oppositional personality disorder" a mental
illness or just bad manners? Reasonable people could differ here.

Rafal