Thoughts on Psychosis and the Conservative Mind

I will preface by saying when i mention conservative, it is in the vein of social conservatives primarily and to a lesser extent social/economic conservatives.

Also, i wrote this a few years ago and i still feel it is valid.


Thoughts on Psychosis:

Introduction:
So, i was thinking about the nature of the mind and what makes someone a liberal and someone a conservative. One of the things that i usually think about when it comes to this subject is that liberals are known for humanitarian efforts and conservatives for their militaristic endeavors. This led me down the road of thinking about other violent people, which led me to psychopaths. Psychopaths act out with anti-social behaviors and as i see it behaviors that would reduce the viability of continuing and enhancing the human race would be deemed as anti-social. I can't think of anything that seems more like reducing the viability of the human race from continuing than trying to go to war against other humans, or placing economic systems over other humans that reduces some humans to slaves, either wage or traditionally. These are the two main proponents of conservative politicians, that and religion, which is used in most of the world as an exclusionary device to designate some groups "better" than others, or to identify "god's chosen people", and/or country. These are all manifestations of anti-social behavior. In trying to learn more about psychopaths i looked up the signs and symptoms of psychosis. And now more than ever i see that i was right to think that the conservative mind is at least subject to mild psychosis at best and many conservatives have a much higher degree of psychosis than most would think. Four of the over-arching symptoms of psychosis are hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and lack of insight.

Hallucinations: A hallucination is sensory perception when there is a lack of external stimulation. Hallucinations can occur in any of the five senses; they can be auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory.

Auditory:
Many conservatives believe that they talk to and hear the voice of god. Whether or not this should be listed under auditory hallucinations, delusions, or thought disorder i do not know. Conservatives have an amazing ability to hear something and then bend it into something that was never said at all. I do not know if this is an auditory hallucination or just a case of “hearing what you want to hear” even though the words they hear were never even said.
Visual:
In addition to belief of being godspoken many conservatives have visions or prophecies that they believe are given to them by god.


Delusions: For a thought to be considered delusional there are three main criteria it must follow. First there must be a certainty by the person with the belief, the belief is held with absolute conviction. Secondly, the belief is incorrigible, meaning that it can not be changed by compelling argument or proof of the opposing idea. Thirdly, there is a falsity of the content, meaning that the belief is completely untrue or there is no way it could be possible.

There are far too many delusions to even cite here but one of the most prevalent beliefs of conservatives is that there is a liberal conspiracy in the media. No matter how much evidence to the contrary of this opinion is discovered conservatives continue to believe it. It does not matter that there is actual proof of conservative influence on the media, i.e. Fox News, and the fact that talk radio has always leaned more conservative than liberal. As well as there being a conservative group that posts the day’s talking points for all conservative to spout each day, so when you turn on the news you can hear them all saying the same thing with the same words. In addition to this belief conservatives have problems accepting scientific conclusions even when those conclusions have a scientific consensus in the appropriate fields and is documented in the appropriate peer-reviewed journals. This tendency to reject science has been in the minds of conservatives for centuries if not millennia. The most well-known historical case would probably be that of Galileo’s house arrest and banning of discussing and writing about a heliocentric model of the solar system. It took hundreds of years of scientific measurement and proof to change the stance of the catholic church and to this day the current pope still thinks what the church did to Galileo was just and right. Today’s conservative science rejections are the fact that humans are influencing global climate change and the 149 year old debate on whether evolution is fact or not, of which the catholic church is ahead of the curve this time and accepts evolution and human induced global climate change.


Formal Thought Disorder: Thought disorder is described as a pattern of disorder used in language which reflects disordered thinking, primarily shown in speech or writings. Some symptoms include: pressure of speech (speaking hurriedly and continually, more spontaneous speech than normal), distractible speech (subject changes mid-sentence in response to external stimuli), derailment or flight of ideas (switching topics inappropriately or in mid-sentence), thought blocking (regular interruptions in the train of thought), intrusive thinking (inappropriate aggressive, sexual, or religious thoughts), tangentiality (replies to questions in a tangential or unrelated way), loss of goal (person can not follow a train of thought to a natural conclusion), illogicality (faulty conclusion are reached using faulty logic), circumstantiality (answers to questions or statements include information that has nothing to do with the topic being discussed, excessive long windedness).

The thought disorders that i have listed above are only those that i have noticed in my interactions with conservatives. Often i will be around conservatives and most of the above listed symptoms will be exhibited multiple times per day.

Pressure of Speech:
Often i will be in the presence of conservatives and they will just start telling me their opinions without any prompting from me to do so. Frequently, i will be the only other person around and i will be reading a book or doing work and be listening to music with headphones on. Despite the fact that i am obviously busy, a conservative will require that i take off my headphones and stop working or reading so that they may say something to me or ask me a question that i have nothing to do with, do not know the answer, or actually care to hear. Incidents such as this happen multiple times per day every day that i spend around conservatives.
Distractible Speech:
This conservative trait is irritating but at the same time useful. It is frustrating when you are trying to have a conversation with someone about how to complete a task or about a job that needs to be done, and the person is constantly being distracted by the slightest background stimulation. This is especially bothersome when in an environment such as a construction site of where much of my work is done. While one is trying to get work done this trait is quite inconvenient, it can also be used for your benefit. A great time this trait can help you out is when a conservative has come up to you and started talking to you about something that you don’t want to hear about, such as how liberals hate America or whatever their daily talking point is, you can usually easily distract them by pointing at some object or happening going on in the distance and make some comment about it. If that doesn’t work just ask them a question about a completely different subject usually this distracts them enough to lose their train of thought and then they forget what they were talking about, unless they haven’t already gotten themselves incredibly angry over it.
Derailment or Flight of Ideas:
The act of switching topics mid-sentence or interjecting some unrelated topic into sentences is another bothersome trait of many conservatives. Many times i’ll be discussing something work-related and then something will trigger in their minds and then we’ll be on some topic that has nothing to do with work. One of the most extreme examples of this was one time when i was driving with a conservative and we were discussing a dilapidated building that we saw on the side of the road something triggered him to start talking about how in the 1970’s there was a black Marxist woman who went to Zimbabwe to help throw out or kill all the white people that owned property there. Then he talked about how that was terrible and about how all those “niggers” were stupid to throw out the people who knew how to grow the food and now they are starving because of it. What this has to do with dilapidated buildings I don’t think I will ever know.
Thought Blocking:
A few of the conservatives I’ve been around will start sentences and then trail off into murmuring or just plain stop talking halfway through a sentence. Oh how i only wish that all of their speech was interrupted by thought blocks. It would save me many countless hours of frustration and i’d probably get a lot more work done in spite of it.
Intrusive Thinking:
Most of the inappropriate aggressive and sexual thoughts I’ve recognized in conservative is due to them acting on their thoughts or verbalizing them because they suffer from pressure of speech. The acting on inappropriate aggressive thoughts is exhibited in the constant yelling at other people, verbal abuse, and verbal threats of physical harm to others. The inappropriate sexual thoughts are also verbalized due to the curse of pressure of speech. Conservatives that I’ve had the misfortune of being around usually feel the need to make constant crass sexual remarks about women, which isn’t in itself exhibited exclusively in conservatives. But there is also the inappropriate sexual remarks about girls who are obviously underage, as well as remarks in the presence of co-workers, out in public places, and over communication radios. Another display of inappropriate aggressive and sexual thoughts are those directed to homosexual individuals. I’ve not met one conservative yet who doesn’t have anything negative to say about homosexuals. Much of the time the talk about homosexuals and other people with gender identity issues is violent, saying things such as they are wrong, should be beaten, should be jailed or even killed. I myself have not noted any blasphemous religious speech but that I think would be rare in conservatives as most of their identity revolves around their “faith” in god. Although, I would not rule them out as I know how tremendously hypocritical most conservatives are.
Logicality:
Conservatives are known for following their “gut” and not reacting well to scientific thought or logic. Many times have I witnessed conservatives hearing an argument for or against something in which logically you can see that the answer is the opposite of what they believe but they still can not come to the same conclusion as the logic would lead one to accept as true or false. Whether this is due to the fact that they just can’t follow logic, or they are delusional, or they just are to stubborn to concede to others when they are wrong, I do not know.
Tangentiality, Circumstaintiality, and Loss of Goal:
When i am at work and trying to get something done this can really be an inconvenient trait. Sometimes i’ll ask why we don’t carry out a particular task in this way which seems easier and more efficient. Lots of the time i’ll get the answer of because then we would get too much work done. But many times i’ll get told a really long story about the history of some aspect of work that doesn’t have anything to do with the question i asked in the first place. Frequently the story will switch completely off of work topics into a personal story or into another political rant of some kind due to the conservatives flight of ideas. I don’t even know how many times I’ve asked a question and been told a long winding story that didn’t even answer my question in the beginning. What’s even funnier is sometimes, rarely, but sometimes the conservative has recognized that they lost sight of what they were trying to tell me and ask me to state my question over again.
Lack of Insight: People who do not understand the reasoning or logic behind why others choose to act, think, or behave a certain way are said to suffer from a lack of insight. Lack of insight is also exhibited when people don’t recognize that their hallucinations, delusions, or thought impairments are unrealistic or illogical.

I don’t even know how many times i’ve had to explain the reasoning behind why some decisions are made to conservatives. They just don’t seem to understand logic or reason very well. One of the most difficult to deal with things that i won’t even try to explain to one of the conservatives i work with is that his wife is depressed. He doesn’t believe in depression and just complains about her all the time but if he actually listened to her problems he could come to understand her and then his marriage wouldn’t be falling apart. If i as someone who has never even met his wife can tell by the way he describes her action can tell she is depressed how can he not accept it when he has to deal with it the majority of his life? It’s completely beyond me. I don’t think that it’s just a lack of insight that conservatives suffer from, but also a lack of empathy. Spending your life always worrying about the self instead of others will probably do that to you. As for beliefs that are unrealistic a major belief of conservatives is that prayers to god can heal them. What’s humorous to me about this is that there was a scientific study about prayer and healing. The study showed that prayer did not help the sick get better but in fact the people who were prayed for were worse than those not prayed for, with a slight statistical significance. Among other delusions that are unrealistic and illogical are the conservative beliefs that: liberals and homosexuals are out to destroy America and marriage, communists want to enslave everyone, scientists are trying to destroy god, trickle-down economics works, corporeal punishment deters crime, and many other things that are ridiculous sounding and that logical scientific studies have shown to be false.


Conclusion:
The majority of conservatives exhibit many traits of psychosis and will these traits are not solely limited to those that would profess to be or be labeled as conservatives they seem to be more endemic to the conservative mind. Many scientific studies have shown that liberals and conservatives think, behave, and emote differently. I expect this to continue to be shown in future studies. I wonder whether there have been studies on people diagnosed with psychosis showing if they are conservative or liberal. What is even more of interest to me is a study of which group, liberal or conservative, diagnosed psychopaths would self-identify as or be scientifically labeled.