When you ‘know’ that
one political ideology, or one system of government, or even just one political
leader is so perfect as to be beyond any rational criticism, it’s easy to see
that any opposition must be based on some sort of insanity. That was close to
being the official doctrine of the former Soviet Union, in which the science of
psychiatry
was misused to institutionalise anyone mad enough to dissent. On the other
hand, maybe the Soviet authorities had a point – it isn’t wholly unreasonable
to regard anyone dissenting from the government line in a society where justice is both arbitrary and violent as possibly being a little mad.
There was news
yesterday that Republican law-makers in Minnesota have introduced a new bill
proposing that ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ be officially classified as a
mental illness. The reports don’t tell us what treatment is proposed for this
new illness, but it’s doubtful that they have any intention of extending the
already limited US healthcare system to include medication for a disease which
may afflict up to half the population. The prisons probably don’t have enough
spaces either.
It couldn’t happen
here of course. In the UK, government politicians are more interested in abolishing
categories of mental illness than inventing new ones. It does remind us,
though, that politicians deciding what is or isn’t a mental illness is a very
poor approach to a serious issue.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment