Is Ideological Bias a Form of Mental Illness?

[Mal12345]

When I say "ideological bias" I'm talking about a belief system held usually without the aid of logic or common sense, but only on the basis of psychological material. For example, someone may have lost self-confidence in life and is attempting to regain it via a group membership maintained within a commonly-held system of black-and-white absolutes.

This phenomenon is normally found among our youth who have issues that need to be addressed by a mental health counselor or perhaps even a short stay in a mental institution. Political protesting is a particularly visible form of psychological imbalance.

But I shouldn't go so far as to say that ideological bias is mental illness, that's why I put the thread title in the form of a question. It may be the font of attitudinal/behavioral phenomena, or it may be the end result; either the product or the source, cause or effect.

As our youth mature, assuming they survive the catastrophic mental illness which led to forming bands of like-minded individuals hell-bent on revolution or, which is perhaps worse, the dull sameness of a society that never changes (evolves), they begin to find out that civilization isn't really about black-and-white absolutes; and similarly, that social problems that exist don't have to be solved *today*. And in fact it is only superficial emotional outburst that presents such an idea, not reason or logic.

An ideological absolutist on the inside is just the opposite on the outside. Their external lives tend to be based on impulsiveness and poor decision-making, failure to think in terms of consequences or to think very far ahead at all in terms of their own lives. Stability that exists inside of the person, mentally, in the form of ideas clutched onto like a desperate drowning person, is not to be found on the outside. Assuming this person is not eventually killed or incarcerated for decades (symbolizing the "martyr"), maturity eventually settles in and life truly begins to happen - not the life of an animal/child with a big brain capable of retaining concepts, but the life of an adult man or woman.

 

[Lark]

I'd say that fascists are mentally ill.

Not like there's not a lot of evidence for that too.

 

[Mal12345]

I'd say that fascists are mentally ill.

Not like there's not a lot of evidence for that too.

Fascists, Communists, extremists, people who want change for change's sake; people who fear change because fear.

 

[Jaguar]

Political protesting is a particularly visible form of psychological imbalance.

What's with the trolling? Cut it out.

 

[Mal12345]

I should state that I am relating all this from the perspective of an individual (myself) who went through an extremist period in life. In function terms, I would say that my Inferior-Fe was getting the best of me at that time. Also, that the lower end of my 4-wing was overpowering my primary type. This lasted until I was 29 years old, when I put a stop to it.

Ideology clung to me still for a few years. But the ideas contradicted reality in certain key ways, so I eventually dropped it.

My idea now is to seek the good in whatever bad exists anywhere.

 

[Qlip]

Ideological bias is always present, it comes with being human and having values, but if you can't recognize that you have a bias, that's definitely an opening for mental illness under extreme conditions.

 

[magpie]

When I say "ideological bias" I'm talking about a belief system held usually without the aid of logic or common sense, but only on the basis of psychological material. For example, someone may have lost self-confidence in life and is attempting to regain it via a group membership maintained within a commonly-held system of black-and-white absolutes.

The level of projection here is unreal.

 

[Mal12345]

The level of projection here is unreal.

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

 

[Lark]

What's with the trolling? Cut it out.

Trolls be trolling.

Or you know, mental illness.

 

[Mal12345]

Ideological bias is always present, it comes with being human and having values, but if you can't recognize that you have a bias, that's definitely an opening for mental illness under extreme conditions.

The difficulty with removing bias is that it is loaded down with negative emotions which like to take cognitive control. Negative emotions cause the people having them to suffer. They blame someone outside of them. They try to change the alleged source of the emotion. The real cause is never addressed. Considering that there is a "real" cause, one that is not external, is met with contempt or simply a stone wall. We watch videos of people spazzing out on the streets because they are upset about something. They have to figure out on their own that they are simply acting stupid. A few years behind bars sometimes helps with that.

 

[Lark]

Ideological bias is always present, it comes with being human and having values, but if you can't recognize that you have a bias, that's definitely an opening for mental illness under extreme conditions.

I personally think that the illness precedes the ideology most of the time, there's lots of crackpots who use ideology as a flag of convenience, always has been and some ideologies really lend themselves to it.

To be honest I think confirmation bias is what's really being discussed here and it can be wedded to ideology easily, though it can be wedded to a lot of things, racism, sexism, sectarianism, any sort of prejudice you care to mention, including all the paranoid anti-liberalism which is popular in the US.

 

[Lark]

The difficulty with removing bias is that it is loaded down with negative emotions which like to take cognitive control. Negative emotions cause the people having them to suffer. They blame someone outside of them. They try to change the alleged source of the emotion. The real cause is never addressed. Considering that there is a "real" cause, one that is not external, is met with contempt or simply a stone wall. We watch videos of people spazzing out on the streets because they are upset about something. They have to figure out on their own that they are simply acting stupid. A few years behind bars sometimes helps with that.

Everyone loves a bit of positivity sometimes but the whole idea that there's nothing good or bad in life but thinking it makes it so seems really misguided to me, sometimes things really are good or bad regardless of peoples thinking it so, there are objective laws its been the job of science, different scientific disciplines to try and discover them or better understand them and not to suggest its all a matter of how you first think about them.

 

[Jaguar]

Trolls be trolling.

Or you know, mental illness.

Next, someone will claim changing usernames is a form of mental illness.

 

[Qlip]

The difficulty with removing bias is that it is loaded down with negative emotions which like to take cognitive control. Negative emotions cause the people having them to suffer. They blame someone outside of them. They try to change the alleged source of the emotion. The real cause is never addressed. Considering that there is a "real" cause, one that is not external, is met with contempt or simply a stone wall. We watch videos of people spazzing out on the streets because they are upset about something. They have to figure out on their own that they are simply acting stupid. A few years behind bars sometimes helps with that.

The difficulty with removing bias is that you can't, without erasing personality, bias exists because of the subjectivity of being human. What you can do is work on is limiting bias from obscuring truth, or understanding the scope of a problem. If you are, say, a supporter of social justice, and a president gets elected for a large part with the support of white nationalists, this is fact and this is worrying. Or if a great amount of fear in life is informed by the experience of 911, border security and Islamist extremism is worrying. There are, probably, healthy and unhealthy ways to proceed from there, but it's all starts from bias. There is no objectivity.

The thing Disco had right is that he spent very little time on the subject of bias, who's right, because that ultimately can't be answered, but then again, using the power of bias as a method of influence was a tool of his. Which isn't to say there aren't plenty of people using that tool for their own purposes on any given side. The conflict of values is real, though artificially inflated.

 

[Mal12345]

I guess I sound like that guy in a way? Or do you just like what he's saying.

 

[Qlip]

I personally think that the illness precedes the ideology most of the time, there's lots of crackpots who use ideology as a flag of convenience, always has been and some ideologies really lend themselves to it.

To be honest I think confirmation bias is what's really being discussed here and it can be wedded to ideology easily, though it can be wedded to a lot of things, racism, sexism, sectarianism, any sort of prejudice you care to mention, including all the paranoid anti-liberalism which is popular in the US.

I feel the scope is much bigger than confirmation bias, though it's part of it. It's about what's true and what isn't, but also what's important and what isn't.

 

[Mal12345]

The difficulty with removing bias is that you can't, without erasing personality, bias exists because of the subjectivity of being human. What you can do is work on is limiting bias from obscuring truth, or understanding the scope of a problem. If you are, say, a supporter of social justice, and a president gets elected for a large part with the support of white nationalists, this is fact and this is worrying. Or if a great amount of fear in life is informed by the experience of 911, border security and Islamist extremism is worrying. There are, probably, healthy and unhealthy ways to proceed from there, but it's all starts from bias. There is no objectivity.

The thing Disco had right is that he spent very little time on the subject of bias, who's right, because that ultimately can't be answered, but then again, using the power of bias as a method of influence was a tool of his. Which isn't to say there aren't plenty of people using that tool for their own purposes on any given side. The conflict of values is real, though artificially inflated.

I think the values conflict is innate. The problem is, everybody is biased so there is no person who can act as a go-between and ultimate conflict solver. The conflict is named by the Jamesian distinction between the tender-minded and tough-minded. A rational ("sane") society needs a little of both, wherever appropriate. A system set up to apply tender-minded or tough-minded judgments has to be based on principles that are above both. Such a system can't spring from out of nowhere, but it has to start with those principles as ideals and then evolve toward them.

 

[Lark]

Next, someone will claim changing usernames is a form of mental illness.

Only if it actually happens.

 

[Mal12345]

Everyone loves a bit of positivity sometimes but the whole idea that there's nothing good or bad in life but thinking it makes it so seems really misguided to me, sometimes things really are good or bad regardless of peoples thinking it so, there are objective laws its been the job of science, different scientific disciplines to try and discover them or better understand them and not to suggest its all a matter of how you first think about them.

I'm not saying there is no good or bad, but that there is no "all-good" or "all-bad." The latter terms are reserved for ideologies, and religions that believe in the existence of God and Satan.