#how do i explain all of this to someone who thinks im relatively sane

[fairycosmos]

hey, i have a sister who struggles with addiction. she moved out from our parents to my place when she turned 18, so that she could have some space and that her highs and lows wouldnt affect our younger siblings that much. but shes been going through a hard time for quite long now, which causes her to treat us around her like complete shit. her behaviour led into a pretty bad argument, which led to me driving her to our parents in the middle of the night cause i couldnt mentally or physically handle the shit she was giving me anymore. after that night, she never returned to mine and told our parents to pick her stuff and move it into a new apartment that she got for herself (which locates in the same building as her friends who she uses substances with). she hasnt reached out to me at all, even though we have been around each other and i cant bare to approach her either, cause im still upset and hurt. my mom said that shes already prepared to lose her. i heard from her friends that shes told them that if she goes unconscious, theyre not allowed to call the ambulance or try to help her. i am worried sick to my stomach everytime i think about her and i feel so powerless. my parents just say that theres nothing more we can do, she goes to psychotherapy and shes under the social services but still i feel like we should do something more to help her or to stop her from destroying herself. im so sorry if this message makes you feel uncomfortable, but since ive followed you for quite awhile and i know your experiences with these things, i would appreciate if you could help me with this situation or at least try to give me some advice, how to cope with these feelings that come from loving your sister that struggles. i dont want to lose her.

hey, i am so sorry to hear this. there's a lot i could say and a lot i want to say but can't really articulate. i don't think there's any one size fits all advice for such a complex and heartbreaking situation. i guess i'll begin with what i'm sure of, and that is that your boundaries and feelings are justified. addiction literally rewires your brain and perception of the world beyond recognition, to the point where the only thing the person cares about is their vice. it's just total tunnel vision, selfishness denial and violence on top of selfishness denial and violence. being around ppl like that, especially a loved one, is beyond exhausting, it's its own special kind of hell. like screaming at a brick wall. it's totally understandable that you had to take a step back after falling victim to her erratic, manipulative and abusive behaviour. the drug use explains it but it absolutely does not excuse it. you're really brave for putting your foot down and prioritizing your own mental stability when it all got to be too much. know you never have to regret that. having said that, it's possible for two conflicting feelings to coexist and for them both to be (for lack of a better word) valid. she's your sister - of course you're worried, of course you're terrified for her. of course you love her even while feeling like you hate her, at times. it's alright to let your emotions be illogical, to just weather the storm and let them pass through you. write it down, talk to your loved ones, maybe consider speaking to a therapist or hotline over it. it's perfectly normal to need that support and talking through your circumstances may be illuminating/lead to some personal revelations regarding how you want to approach this. ultimately, you're angry because you care. after a while i was like that too, with my sister. although i tried to let her know that i was more worried than frustrated during our conversations, sometimes i still couldn't help the internal rage. all because i wanted her to wake up to reality and for her to be okay - i didn't get her thought process at all, didn't get her version of the world. and i felt so fucking powerless because she just strayed so quickly from her path, despite what she was telling me, despite her being relatively fine mere months prior. despite us being best friends and on good terms. it's a headfuck, and you don't have to know what to do, you don't have to have anything figured out. just try to focus on what you need, today.

the hardest thing to accept is the fundamental truth of the situation, and that is that you can't fix this for her. can't love her out of it, can't enable her out of it, can't fight her out of it. all you can do is be there for her emotionally while still maintaining the appropriate boundaries necessary to preserve ur own mental wellbeing. it's completely okay if you need more time - i know you said you cant bear to reach out to her at the moment, which makes total sense. but since you sent this message and i can still see that you're beyond concerned and it's only getting worse, maybe you could consider calling her or sending her a text or meeting her for coffee when you're ready. just to let her know you haven't stopped thinking of her. and that you care about her so much, that when/if she's ready to get help you will be with her every step of the way. even if shes battling addiction for the rest of her life. if she screams at you, if she breaks down, if she ignores you for what you say - fine. but at least she'll know on some level that she is not alone, and at least you'll know you did what you could with what was in your control. also about her being under social services - is there any way you could get in touch with them, maybe explain that youre still worried about her and that you think she needs a higher level of care, maybe ask them if theres anything proactive you can do in collaboration with them to maximize the help shes getting? i dont know how it works where you are, that might be a no go, but i just thought i'd mention it. i'm sorry, i know it's a disappointing answer, but i really don't realistically think there's any other. there's only so much of this that is in your hands and so far it sounds like you've done and are doing everything possible to stay sane while looking out for her. i really really hope something clicks for her and that she starts to listen to you and her loved ones soon, that she begins to approach recovery out of the genuine need to get better. but it really does have to come from within her, all you can do is encourage it. im sending you both so much love. i know more than anyone how fucking stressful it is to have to wake up to this every day, and i'm so sorry. if you need someone to talk to, my inbox will always be open. you deserve peace in your own life, too. take care x

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[obsidianfr3sk]

The Origins (Chapter 4)

Summary: Before the Renegades put an end to the Age of Anarchy, they were six kids trying to survive day by day in a city ruled by chaos and desolation. Is there a space for hope and kindness somewhere in Gatlon City? Maybe.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25123756/chapters/62248708

Translating it’s so exhausting. Especially when you have that bitch (Grammarly) constantly telling you “oh ur wrong” and you ask “where?” and the bitch responds “oh im not gonna tell you u r not premium”. So fuck it. Here it is. This was supposed to be Evander’s chapter, but I decided give this one to Tamaya instead, just for the fun. He can wait, he’s fine. 

As you can see, I started to title my chapters. I already did it on AO3, but not on tumblr. The other three posts have their titles too. If you guess what song are the titles from, you get a cookie (?

I want to start doing a tag list but I don’t know who to tag. So if you want in, just tell me. I’m too shy to tag you if you don’t tell me to do it because I feel like I’m bothering you.

Also, trigger warning for domestic violence. I tried to keep it as low as possible and it’s a small scene, but I understand if there are people who still can’t handle it, and I’m no one to judge. I will take TW more seriously from now on. If you think I should tag any other of my work, feel free to DM me or send me an ask, even if it’s anonymus. Seriously, feel free to correct me. I’m a big girl, I can handle it;)

Running away from the world that we designed

Age of Anarchy

Year 8

Tamaya had gone three weeks without human contact. Her parents did not talk to her and she did not talk to her parents. Her mother sent the only remaining servant to bring her food twice a day. Every time he entered the room, Tamaya turned around to avoid making eye contact, because if she did, she would start crying. No one else was going to see her cry ever again.

It all started when Tamaya was flying in her room when her father came in without knocking first. The man was paralyzed and gaped, at the same time that Tamaya lost her concentration and plummeted onto her bed.

Then, her father started yelling at her. Marcus Rae had never been known to be particularly friendly in the way he spoke to other people. She had never heard that man say "thank you" or "please." However, Tamaya had not seen him scream either. At least, not at her. And that was enough to make her cry.

Not only because she was scared, but also because she felt dumb. She had managed to hide her abilities for five years and she had been caught in such a stupid way. Tamaya believed she was smarter, but she was not.

Her father took her by the arm and lifted her from the bed with such abruptness that Tamaya accidentally knocked over a porcelain figure that was resting on her nightstand. His shouting was already so unbearable that she could only make out a few words.

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

Her mother ran into the room and asked what was going on.

“Your daughter can fly!" yelled Marcus. "How the fuck did she learn to do it!?”

And so it went on. Her father kept shaking her like she was a rag doll, while the woman begged her husband to calm down, with a trembling voice full of terror.

But he wouldn't stop. Nothing made him stop.

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

“Please control yourself!” her mother cried.

In response, her father slapped her on the floor.

"ANSWER MY QUESTION, MELISSA!”

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

Melissa lay there, sobbing and holding her cheek. Seeing that his wife was not going to answer him in any way, his father refocused his attention on her. He turned her around and held her tightly by the arms. Then he forced her to walk to the wall and stamped her face against it. With one hand she crushed the back of Tamaya's neck and with the other, he scratched his chin.

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

Before she could react, her father tugged on one of her wings, as if he was going to pluck it apart. Tamaya screamed and broke down in tears again.

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

Did he hate her that much? Was Tamaya that disgusting to him?

Freak. Bounder. Idiot.

How could someone do that to their daughter? How ruthless do you have to be?

Was she a monster? Was his father a monster?

Were the two of them monsters?

An electric current ran through her body. Adrenaline seized her veins, giving her the strength to push her father away from her and scream:

“Enough!”

With a wave of her hand, Tamaya fired a bolt of lightning at one of her bookshelves, setting it fire. Her mother reacted and ran to the kitchen for a bucket of water to put the fire out. Her father was not even able to move, nor did Tamaya. She was not concerned about the accident she had caused. Her gaze was fixed on Marcus, and her contempt for him was stronger than any pain and fear she had left.

She wiped one last tear that ran down her cheek.

She may be a freak and she may be a bounder. But she made a promise to herself that she would never be an idiot again.

Melissa quickly put out the fire. They were very lucky that it did not spread to the rest of the room. After the initial impact, her parents stared at her as if they didn't know her. Their eyes seemed to say: “How is it that such a dangerous and violent creature our daughter?”

It is because you are creatures as dangerous and violent as me.

Now it was Saturday night. Tamaya was sitting on the carpet, surrounded by her dolls. When Georgia asked why she didn't get rid of them, she always blamed her mother, saying she would be very upset if Tamaya threw away such expensive toys.

However, Tamaya did not throw them away because, unlike Georgia, she did keep playing with her dolls. She had conversations with them, brushed their hair, and if her mother managed to get yarn, she would embroider their skirts with details of flowers or birds. In winter, she had even gone as far as to make sweaters for them.

It was a childish hobby for a seventeen-year-old girl, but it was also the only thing that kept her sane. 

Knock. Knock.

Tamaya looked up at the light catcher. She flew to see who it was.

Georgia.

“What are you doing here?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Surprise!”

“Lower your voice,” she scolded her. “My parents could hear you.”

Georgia put a fake padlock over her mouth and made a pleading gesture as she pointed to the latch on the catch. Tamaya rolled her eyes and let her in.

“My mom doesn't know I'm here, but she told me everything,” Georgia explained sitting on the bed. “Which wing was it?”

“This one,” she replied pointing to her right wing, “but it's nothing. It practically healed itself.”

Georgia looked at the circle of dolls on the carpet, stifling a giggle.

“What party are you having?” she asked teasingly.

Tamaya was silent. Georgia realized that her friend was in no mood for jokes and looked down, with a serious expression on her face.

“My mom also told me about your other power,” Georgia whispered.

The blood went to her feet.

“What power?”

“The lighting thing.”

Then, silence. That reunion was nothing like Tamaya expected. She believed Georgia was going to have hundreds of questions and was not going to stop talking. Georgia always had a lot of things to say to her. Most of the time, she did not talk about important issues. It was always about discussions with her mother, gossips going around her school, or about a new book that she had found and that she recommended.

Tamaya was glad Georgia knew how to start conversations. She had no idea.

How her mother had been able to talk about Tamaya's powers with Mrs. Rawle was a mystery to her. Melissa Rae was very concerned with what other people would think of her, something that had never made sense to Tamaya. Was there someone left in that damn city who kept worrying about something as stupid as status?

“Is it true that you almost hit your dad with one? With lighting?”

Tamaya did not want to lie to Georgia. Lying was not her thing. However, she wasn't quite sure about what to tell her exactly. Should it be something like “Yes, I did it, so what?” or something less violent? Something between the lines of: “Yes ... and I regret it.”

The thing was, Tamaya had no regrets. She had a lot of time to think about it those past few days and she could never force herself to feel a single shred of regret for her actions. Not even when her mom begged her to apologize to her dad. She just couldn't.

However, it was not until that moment that she realized she wasn't proud of it either. If it had been for her, Georgia would never have known about that little detail of the fight and her powers.

Tamaya already knew that she could control lightning and storms. She had discovered it relatively recently when she was flying and accidentally shot lightning at the ground. It was small and just left a black stain on the fine wood flooring, nothing a rug couldn't hide.

But lighting should not be near people, and Tamaya knew it.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Tamaya turned to see her. “Pardon me?”

Georgia was frowning and arms crossed. There was reproach in each of the words that came out of her mouth.

“Why didn't you tell me you had more powers?” she asked. “Why didn't you trust me? I thought we were friends.”

“Woah, wait, Georgia,” she interrupted her. “How exactly is this about you?”

“Friends are supposed to talk to each other,” Georgia said. “I always tell you everything that happens to me and you know every last detail about my life. Why don't you tell me what's wrong with you? How many other things do you hide from me? Is our friendship based on lies? Is your name even Tamaya?”

Tamaya was so shocked by Georgia's reaction, she thought she was hallucinating. She noticed each gesture her friend's face made and each movement of her eyes. And she wasn't kidding. Tamaya was not hallucinating. Georgia was seriously mad at her.

“Really?” she asked her. “After everything that's happened to me, somehow I'm the bad guy to you?”

“Yes.”

The audacity of this bitch.

“How the hell can you be so self-centered, Georgia?” she asked with flushed cheeks. “Do you think this is because I didn't trust you? Did you ever stop to think about how I felt? Doesn't it occur to you that the reason I hid it from you is that I wanted to protect you?”

“Protect me?” Georgia laughed. “Don't be ridiculous, what would you be protecting me from?”

“From myself!”

And Georgia laughed again.

“I was protecting you from myself!” Tamaya insisted. “Stop laughing!”

But she ignored her. Georgia kept on laughing as if it was the funniest joke she had ever heard. It was clear as day that Georgia didn’t care anymore if the whole neighborhood heard her. She didn’t care if they got into trouble.

And she does not care about you, Tamaya.

Tears welled up in her eyes.

No, no one else was going to see her cry ever again. Not even Georgia.

Without thinking, Tamaya lunged for her friend. She grabbed the collar of her blouse, lifted her ten feet above the ground, and stamped her against the wall. She could feel the electricity on her fingertips, and she was sure Georgia felt it too.

She was no longer laughing.

“Look me in the eyes, Georgia,” she whispered. “Look me in the eyes!”

“I'm doing it,” she replied quietly.

“What do you see?”

“That you have beautiful eyes.”

Tamaya held her tighter. “Aren't you afraid of me? Aren't you afraid of monsters?”

Tears began to flow from Georgia's dark eyes. She put a hand to her mouth and a faint smile of pity appeared on her lips.

“Oh, Tamaya. You are not a monster.”

She had no qualms with people seeing her cry. How pathetic.

She released her.

“Yes I am,” she hissed.

Georgia fell to her feet.

“No, people have convinced you that you are,” she exclaimed, approaching her. “That's what they always say about all of us.”

She reached out to take her hand. Tamaya rose a few inches to not be within her reach. Georgia did not insist.

“And the worst thing is that,” she continued saying, “there are some people who believe them and become monsters. You know, like a certain person who starts with Ace and ends with Anarchy.”

Oh. Him.

“You know, I think he hates himself. A person who loves themselves would never do the things he does.”

“I don't blame him.”

Georgia pursed her lips. “Why not?”

“If you spend your entire life calling someone a monster, what do you expect them to become?”

Silence appeared again. For a second, Tamaya was pleased with herself for making Georgia run out of arguments.

But Georgia was never run out of arguments.

“That still doesn't excuse it,” Georgia replied. “You are constantly calling yourself a monster inside your head, and you had not become one.”

Tamaya looked at the mirror. Her reflection looked back at her.

“Would you still be my friend if I were a monster?”

“Uh, I don't know,” Georgia shrugged. “But I don't have to worry about it. You will never become a monster.”

“How are you so sure?” she asked defiantly.

“Because you are too strong to become one.”

She wished she could believe her.

No, Tamaya wasn't strong. That room was driving her crazy. She heard no other voice than her own, telling her the most horrible things she could hear every day. The world had never called her a monster because Tamaya's world were those four walls. Those four walls too similar to—

Oh, God.

Too similar to a monster's cage.

“I have to go,” Tamaya blurted out.

“Go?” Georgia asked in dismay. “But where?"

“I don’t know, but I have to go. Right now.”

Georgia asked no questions when she was helping Tamaya find a backpack, or when she packed Molly away before she began to look for clothes. She didn't even ask questions when Tamaya didn't dare go through the skylight, because she thought she heard her parents asking her not to leave.

However, when she turned around, she realized that no one was there.

She came out.

The air in the outside world smelled like gasoline and rain. The higher she flew, the smaller her house looked. Her neighborhood was the only point of light in that dull city. The buildings looked abandoned and lonely even from that distance.

It was horrible. But it was the world. A new world.

Tamaya allowed herself to laugh. She was so happy that she even dared to flip in the air.

Then, she realized that Georgia was not flying next to her. She was standing on the ceiling of her room, looking at her with teary eyes.

A crazy idea came to her mind.

“You come?” she asked her.

Georgia shook her head. She reached into her pants pockets and pulled out a torn locket. Tamaya reached out to look at it better. It had a missing part, was slightly rusty, and was not made of real gold, but the chain and clasp were intact.

“I found it in the market,” she told her, “with a lady who sold fish.”

“Why would a fisherwoman be selling lockets?” Tamaya asked raising an eyebrow.

“I do not know. It was from her husband, according to her,” Georgia explained. “But now it’s yours."

Tamaya had not worn any jewelry for a long time.

“It looks tragic,” she said.

“It combines with the city,” Georgia replied. Tamaya put on the locket. “Would you forgive me?” she asked. “I was selfish and I shouldn't have blamed you for not telling me. You had your reasons for keeping the secret. I understand if you don't want to talk to me—”

“Stop,” Tamaya ordered. “I'll come looking for you in a couple of days,” she assured her. “If you haven't heard from me by then, I'm dead.”

Her friend shuddered. She didn't know if from the cold or the fear.

“Any advice for the outside world?”

Georgia approached her with a smile and held her hand. “When in doubt, fly.”

Tamaya looked towards the horizon. The doubts did not take long to arise.

“Fine.”

Then, Tamaya flew. And she didn't look back.

[tumblunni]

Rambling about my new watchholder oc Mallory

* absolute gremlin child. Eats dirt. Probably more of a monster than most of the yokai.

* at the same time tho, she is like super sunshine friend! She looks kinda gloomy ominous but her personality is actually super bubbly and her biggest priority in life is making new yokai friends and loving them forever. Like, creepy in a wholesome way? She does indeed love horror movies and creepy crawlies and could probably fistfight god, but that doesnt mean she's evil!

* kinda always bored but also easily exciteable? One of her biggest recurring jokes is just ignoring the normal or sane solution to a thing and doing something more fun even if its more difficult or dangerous. Actually i guess its more "fearless" than bored? Or bored of fear, lol. Fearless and doesnt really give a shit about any rules. But again not in a mean way, she doesnt break rules because she wants to piss people off, just like "im not gonna believe this if nobody bothers explaining why its supposed to be so important". But not exactly phrased like that cos that would be rude, lol. So uhh more like just relateable autism feel of not grasping social cues but mixed with a personality thats quite outgoing and uncaring of being judged poorly for not being normal, as opposed to me who's always worried about what people think.

* oh wait thats the word for it!! Free-spirited! Trickster! Like a peter pan type of trickster tho, more than loki. Like just "i am naturally outside the obligations of normalcy" rather than "i am intentionally trying to prank/illusion/manipulate people cos its funny". Or uhh i guess "manic pixie dream girl" but without all the stupid shit that trope has got associated with.

* pretty much just wish fullfillment of "what if i was confident enough to not care what people think and just act like myself no matter what"

* anyway in summary she likes to climb trees n stuff and her reaction to yokai being real is "yay" and her reaction to seeing an undefeatable giant kaiju is to run at it and try and suplex it with her bare hands. She's kind of a badass! Tho lol also her biggest character flaw is her badassness, cos she can be reckless due to the lack of fear. But then also sometimes when everyone is hopeless she really does manage to save the day no matter what, and help inspire everyone else to be brave too!

* though i'm thinking of maybe a character arc where she starts off seeing this as just a fun adventure with no stakes, and it doesnt matter if you take risks cos nobody's gonna get hurt anyway. Like a "this isnt really real, its just my hero's story" sort of thing? When things start getting more dark and she faces things she cant just defeat with simple optimism, it kinda stops being fun anymore. And she has to realize that even if she doesnt care about her own self preservation there's consequences that could happen to her friends and family. And maybe she's already made mistakes that she can't take back, and now she's neck deep in a conflict thats a lot bigger and more insurmountable than she thought. You can't just fistfight something like the abstract concept of hatred for humanity which will continue to be perpetuated as long as the idea keeps taking root. And maybe even yokai you befriended could start to believe it too, after all you've kinda been treating them as just fun toys and sidekicks on a story that's all about you, and dragging them into danger with your recklessness. Even though you're fighting the villains, are you really doing it because you actually care about saving the day? Do you even know what you're saving it from...?

* and similar to her unflappable victoryness being shaken, i think her fearlessness and confidence could also be deeper than they look on the surface. I feel like maybe as the story goes on it could be revealed that its less being fearless and more just not caring about her own safety. You start to see her get more actual consequences from her fights, and it starts to become sort of concerning that she keeps brushing it off as no big deal. Laughing it off. Wondering why her friends are even sad that she got hurt. And maybe she isnt really happy all the time and 100% secure in who she is, she just tries to hide any signs of doubt because she feels like nobody would care. And that she has to always be the funny class clown or else nobody would want to be her friend. And like.. She doesnt even really believe that she's great, believe that she's fine as she is. She's more aware of her weirdness than she lets on. She's constantly, paralyzingly aware that everyone thinks she's a freak. She did use to try and change herself to fit in, but she kept failing at it and it never helped her get any friends. Or when she did think she made a friend they'd turn on her whenever she slipped up and showed a crack in her mask of the perfect normal person. The perfect normal person they wanted her to be.. Constantly changing into WHATEVER anyone wanted her to be. The only reason she doesnt do that anymore is that she lost all hope in it working, not that she actually gained confidence in her true self. And even when she's npt conciously doing it she's still subconciously trying to be what people want her to be. She has to always be funny, always be fearless, she has to cling to the few parts of her weirdness that people dont seem to hate. And now she has to be the hero. She has to carry all the dreams of everyone she's met along the way, while never letting them know when she's scared she wont be able to help make them come true. She's always just laughing it off and never being fully open with any of her friends, because she's scared they'll hate her. ..

* so uhh.. Yeah. Personal experience of that. Personal experience of trying to fit into negative stereotypes of autism because thats what everyone saw me as no matter how hard i tried, and also it was the only form of autism theyd treat positively, somehow. Like just be the "funny one" and dont challenge any of their assumptions ans they'll leave you in relative peace. Put up with some degree of degredation to avoid the even worse version. And i was doing all of this at a very youbg age before i even knew i was autistic or what autism was, but i could still feel how people treated me differently and how i had to friggin agree with it or else they'd never let it go. Gahhh.. It was all way too complicated and dark for a kid to understand!

* so yeah anyway her story arc is going from being a badass funny to being a funny badass? Like she just becomes more genuinely tough and cool when she's not always winning and the stakes dont seem so low and comical AND most importantly you know her real feelings and see that she will indeed continue fighting even when she's scared. And she doesnt try so hard to be cool all the time so it just lets her be more genuine. And form actual relationships with everyone with genuine feelings. So its less "she is badass because its funny" and more "she is a badass because she's a badass". But she's still funny, just in more varied ways than simply "the only reason she won this fight so fast is because jokes". Fighting legit threatening enemies in fights that arent over in five seconds. So they can contain... SEVERAL joke..!!! And also some actual fighting for once!!

* hhh i dunno i am very tired im probably not explaining this well

* oh and i think possibly she has a bit of a complex of feeling she's nothing without her yokai watch? Like the yokai are her first friends who never abandoned her. And she always felt like she was useless and it was her own fault that she didnt have any friends. She first started off being all irreverent and goofy when she got the yokai watch cos she was well into her "i dont care anymore" phase of depression and felt certain these new friends would all realise she was awful eventually and leave, so like.. Why get attatched? Just have fun while it lasts. So maybe actually she shows early signs of her depression by trying harder to be normal whenever anyone shows her friendship. Maybe something where she starts straigjtening her hair or dressing more feminine and then you just see this look on her face like her heart has shattered when someone agrees that she does look better now. (Maybe a new yokai she recently caught who was like super cool and she wanted to impress them?) And she gets compulsively obsessed with it, exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree and starting to change other parts of her appearance and everyone goes from giggling about this weird circumstance to getting REALLY DAMN CONCERNED! And in the end something something the yokai who was an asshole abput her needing to be more feminine slips up and shows his true assy colours to the other yokai and theyre like IT WAS YOU and he's like "what? You should be thanking me for fixing your shitty trainer!" And Then Everyone Beats Him Up Forever. Etc etc moral that real friends accept you for who you are and anyone who tells you you have to change to impress them is not worth impressing. Also maybe some aspect where the yokai dude thinks that mallory is trying to impress him cos she has a crush on him, and thats the moment that manages to snap her out of her depressive funk. Self hate overrided by sheer EWW NO IM A LESBIAN, DUDE i just liked ur cool hat, geez. (Wait was that entire plot idea just an excuse to find a way to foreshadow her getting a crush on hailey in yw3...?)

* and maybe i dunno some sort of dramatic episode where she loses the ability to use the yokai watch and is faced with her self worth issues all at once and its super fuckin sad and we all know eventually she will get to see all her yokai friends again cos the plots not gonna end before finishing all the games but still MEGA SUPER SAD MOMENT ANYWAY (also tearful reunions!)

* also i just heard theres a yokai called furgus thats a big adorable hairball that gives people big hair. So maybe that could be one of the comically easy victory episodes? He uses his power on mallory but her hair is already too fluffy to be floofed! Maybe it backfires and turns his own hair into a boring bowl cut, lol? And then maybe a sequel where he returns for revenge a million episodes later but it just so happens to be during the maddiman boss fight and he accidentally cures his balding. "Noooo dont thank me nooooo" *is forced against his will to become a popular advertosing mascot for hair cream* *like straight up just gets sucked into the nearest bottle and sealed like a genie* *cursed forever to fame and fortune and a million dollar salary*

* lol i dont think im as funny as the actual yokai watch writers but i have a few ideas at least. This will be fun to draw!

[prairiesongserial]

5.6

The truck bounced and ambled its way down the dust-covered road, tossing its passengers gently from side to side like they were in a ship on a particularly stormy ocean. Cody’s stomach turned over, and he tore his gaze away from the window to look at John and Sailor, who shared the backseat with him.

“Are we sure about this?”

“No,” Sailor growled under her breath. She was hunched over in her seat, gently rubbing her leg where her knee joint met her new prosthetic. “It’s a bad plan. Not enough people, and not enough guns.”

“I thought that was kinda the point,” Nash said cheerfully, from the driver’s seat. “Y’all aren’t supposed to be attracting attention.”

“Nash, respectfully, you aren’t a part of this discussion unless you’re gonna be gettin’ out of the car to go with us,” Cody said, his voice flat.

He knew exactly what Nash’s orders were, unfortunately, and Nash wasn’t coming with him, John, and Sailor. According to what Marc had said that morning at brunch, Nash was coming along strictly as their getaway driver. If they didn’t come back to the rendezvous point within about an hour, Nash was allowed to head back to Texas Waters and leave the three of them high and dry. Cody, for one, had no doubt that he really would. Nash may have been affable enough, but at the end of the day, Marc was the one paying him for his services.

“Fair enough,” Nash said, with an easy shrug. “Your drop point’s comin’ up in a couple minutes, by the way.”

“Great,” Cody said through his teeth. John put a hand on his knee, gently, and he reached down to squeeze it. Having his own gesture returned muddled his thoughts about the whole interaction - he still wasn’t sure what he had been trying to communicate, back at breakfast. At least he could say for certain that John hadn’t minded. Cody refocused himself on the problem at hand, more agitated now than before. “I still don’t see why we have to split up.”

Their instructions were relatively straightforward, all things considered. Marc would be meeting with the heads of a local mob, in a town just across the Mexican border, under the pretense of making an alliance with them. Something about dividing up certain resources they each had access to for a mutual benefit. While the meeting was going on, John, Cody, and Sailor would be pulling off one of the double-crosses Marc was apparently notorious for - considering breakfast, that hadn’t been much of a surprise.

John, Cody, and Sailor were to steal the mob’s supply of water. The only catch was that the supply was kept in a compound located dead in the middle of a nest of muties. The mob didn’t have to spend the manpower guarding their most valuable resource if the muties kept people away for free, after all. All they had to do was guard one tunnel entrance. The mob members transported the water in barrels through a tunnel under the mesa, then raised it up on a lift. The barrels sat out in the open, the hundred-odd feral muties enough of a deterrent for any sane person.

The water heist, as Marc had devised it, was a two-pronged plan. Cody and Sailor would make their way up one side of the mesa, doing their best to go as quickly as possible while also disturbing as few muties as possible. At the same time, John would arrive at the guard station at the base of the mesa, dressed as one of the mob’s security men. While Cody and Sailor reached the compound from the top, John would take care of the guards patrolling the underground tunnel. If all went well, they’d meet as soon as Cody and Sailor took the lift down, then transport the barrels of water out through the tunnel to where Nash would be waiting in the truck.

It was a decent plan, in theory. But there were a lot of ways it could go wrong, and Cody hadn’t stopped thinking up more since they’d left Texas Waters. He was so nervous that he could practically feel the food he’d eaten at brunch rolling around in his stomach, threatening to come back up.

“You really want to fight your way back through a nest of pissed-off muties? I mean, be my guest, but…” Nash trailed off, perhaps remembering that Cody had just told him not to talk anymore. He punctuated it with another shrug.

“He’s right,” John murmured, almost as if it pained him to do so.

Cody frowned. “The last time we split up -”

“Was different,” John said, squeezing his hand back. “Not on purpose.”

“Still!”

“Cody,” John said firmly, then looked surprised when Cody’s attention snapped completely to him. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing conspicuously in his throat, looking a little like a deer caught in headlights.

“Well?” Cody asked.

“...I’ll handle it,” John said at last, a little gruff, diverting his gaze towards the floor. Cody’s frown deepened.

“I know, but -”

“John has the easy job,” Sailor broke in, looking more than a little exasperated with the route the conversation had gone down. “All he has to do is clear the getaway path for us, and stay there to make sure no other goons show up.”

“I dunno about easy. Once he starts takin’ them down, someone’s gonna notice,” Cody said.

“Not if he’s careful,” Sailor said. “He’ll have enough time to be, with us sneakin’ our way up the whole fuckin’ mesa. I didn’t exactly think he was gonna run in guns blazing, and just start shooting people left and right.”

John snorted.

“Hey, he might have to, if his cover gets blown,” Nash pointed out.

“That’s fine,” John said, and then fell silent again, looking contemplative.

Cody watched him, thinking that, strangely, this was the most he’d heard John speak since before they’d arrived at Texas Waters that morning. He wondered how John was feeling, but he wasn’t about to ask a thing like that in front of Sailor and Nash. They’d have time to talk about it later, hopefully.

“Alright, here we are,” Nash said, pulling the truck off to the shoulder of the road. There wasn’t much there - the mesa loomed over them a couple of yards away, but for the most part, it was just scenic desert. Nothing to suggest a nest of muties nearby. “Hop on out, you two, and don’t forget your guns.”

Cody gave John’s hand a final squeeze before letting go of it, and opening the door to let himself and Sailor out of the truck. He hopped down to the ground, adjusting his poncho, and circling to the back of the truck for the rifles Marc had given to them, just in case. Cody had never fired a fancy rifle like the ones Marc’s guards used before, but he’d fired a shotgun, and he reckoned they worked about the same. He had his pistol holstered to his hip again, too, as a last resort.

“Be safe,” he told John through the window, slinging the rifle’s strap over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

John nodded. Nash revved the truck’s engine once, then peeled away onto the road, with apparently little regard for the dust the tires kicked up onto Cody and Sailor. Cody watched the truck disappear into the distance, until he couldn’t see John’s face looking for him from the window anymore.

“Ready to kill some muties?” he asked, turning to Sailor.

“I’m hoping we won’t have to,” she grumbled. She started to head for the mesa, her eyes scanning the horizon line for something. “There should be a footpath close to here that goes up to the top. It was on Marc’s map.”

“Right,” Cody said, following just a couple steps behind. He’d thought the map of the area that Marc had brought out while explaining the plan had been largely for dramatic purposes, but now he felt a little silly for not taking the time to study it seriously.

“What’s with you and Marc, anyway?” he asked. It couldn’t hurt to make conversation until they actually reached mutie territory, and he was curious, anyway. “I thought you were trying to catch him for the bounty. He acted like you come around for brunch all the time.”

“It’s complicated,” Sailor said, bluntly.

“Is it?”

“No,” she answered, after a moment of contemplation. They’d reached the beginning of the footpath, and she started up it, only pausing for a moment to make sure Cody was following her closely. “Not really. He thinks I’m hunting him because I like him.”

“And he likes you, obviously,” Cody said, filling in the gaps.

“Obviously,” Sailor said. “What was your first clue?”

Cody laughed - and then froze, the sound dying in his throat as he abruptly became aware of something moving in his peripheral vision. Sailor snapped her head up to look, and he did the same, already knowing what he’d find. His stomach twisted. There was a group of muties, at least five of them crouched on a ledge not five yards away. Their eyes were milky white with cataracts, and they were hunched over, with necks and arms that looked too long for their bodies. Some of them were chittering softly, Cody thought, unless it was the sounds of nearby animals. But he doubted that, somehow.

“They can’t see,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. If the muties were blind, maybe sneaking past them would be easier than Marc had thought.

Sailor frowned. She stooped to pick up a rock from the ground, slowly and deliberately. Cody wondered what she was doing for only a moment before she wound up and threw it, sending it sailing over the group of muties’ heads and clattering across the ground on the ledge they were on.

The muties reacted in less than a second. So abruptly it was startling, they sprang into motion, turning to lunge on the spot where the rock had landed. They were making low, guttural noises in their throats that sounded like a human imitation of a dog’s growl. Cody thought it might have been the worst noise he’d ever heard in his life.

“They can sure hear, though,” Sailor said, under her breath.

Cody bit the inside of his cheek, and nodded. Somehow, he got the feeling that this was going to be much worse than the last time he and John had split up.

5.5 || 5.7

[thesquidwizard]

I was told reading  Philosophical problems with blah blah blah would answer why making 500 genders would solve gender stereotypes I am petty and affable so I read it

If you want my opinions and my mind slowly melting i am kindly putting this under a read more cuz its fucking long as shit

the TLDR is : this drivel doesnt mention the problems of gender stereotypes or neogenders at all its just some guy wanking on why women need to give up their spaces because he thinks their wrong and annoying ( Kathleen Stock especially)

I’d love to @ you lake-lady, but you blocked me for thought crimes and im to lazy to try to get around that ( if you actually read this before recommending it to me, you are very very strong and very very brainwashed)

the first 14 paragraphs are circle talk "GC feminists are wrong, i will prove their wrong, they think "this" it is wrong ill prove its wrong etc etc etc" if you survive that that, They focus on Kathleen Stock in their words "Stock presents an articulate, relatively comprehensive, and moderate form of gender-critical feminism" first: If Margie’s self-diagnosis (“I’m a boy”) is questioned by the therapist, the therapist can be construed as . . . “converting” . . . a trans child to a “cis” one. If, on the other hand, Margie’s self-diagnosis is affirmed unquestioningly, the therapist is effectively failing to affirm Margie in a sexual orientation of lesbianism; something which also looks like conversion by omission. (Stock, 2018e) -They spend 5 paragraphs explaining why Stocks hypothetical girl^ isnt converted to male heterosexualness by transitioning, and not affirming Marges Gender identity is Dangerous They do not address Stocks ACTUAL concern that Gender Affirming Therapy without any kind of therapy and research on GNC and SSA children is conversion by omission because it doesnt take into account if these feelings stem from gender stereotypes and homophobia. Stocks is not concerned that you are converting this girl straight( sex is real she would be SSA either way) she is concerned your transitioning her without affirming her sexuality and giving her support in the knowledge that being a lesbian is okay and perfectly normal.-

Next: concern about female-only spaces is about legal self-identification without any period of “living as a woman,” prior male socialisation in a way which exacerbates the tendency to violence against female bodies, and the fact that many self-identifying trans women . . . retain both male genitalia and a sexual orientation towards females. (stock) If the evidence shows (as, in fact, it is already showing) that some males—whether genuinely “truly” trans or just pretending—turn out to pose a threat to females, and it’s really hard to tell in advance which ones will, can’t we then make a social norm and/or law to exclude all [natal] males from female-only spaces . . . ? (also stock)

-Quotes are separated by garbage but this whole section is what we have all seen before " why must trans woman suffer, just because cis men hurt woman" except its really long it acknowledges male violence rates but refuses to acknowledge we have already seen men (and identified transwoman) taking advantage to hurt woman. This whole chunk is just SOME woman must be sacrificed for Trans feelings-

They do put: Finally, we know that some men who come into contact with children in their work will offend against them. Yet we do not exclude all men from working with children, even if using gender as a watershed would prevent those offenses. Why does the good of minimizing child sexual abuse not lead us inexorably to the conclusion that we must outlaw all male teachers and coaches? Because our practical reason recognizes complexity: We readily see that even the most highly desirable states of affairs (minimizing abuse of children) do not have simple, quasi-mechanistic implications for policy or decision-making, and that they do not justify the indiscriminate suppression of other goods (even less important ones, such as professional vocations).

-And id like to add with the rise in pedo crimes I am 100% down with separating men from children because i do not think any child should be endangered just to keep men in jobs.-

They also put this quote in:

there is clearly a difference between the experience of a child who is treated by others in way that are characteristic of boys and also feels like a boy, and a child who is treated by others in ways that are characteristic of boys whilst feeling that they are really a girl. (Finlayson et al., 2018)

-And are you sure? are you really sure? I feel like there might be differences between social conditioning, experience and feelings. A boy treated like a boy and a boy(who feels like a girl) treated like a boy are still experiencing being treated and raised like a boy?? one just has emotional differences  (is it internalized homophobia, Gender non conformity, a developed fetish?? who knows but they still experienced boyhood)-

-Next section says we cant make single stall or any other kind of netrual or trans bathrooms because its to hard? and it hurts trans feels reminding them that they have birth sexes because thats hate speech???-

also this: Our social world is arranged in a way that makes exclusion from the sex/gender they claim—on the basis of a lack of “authentic” belonging (Serano, 2007)—central to trans subordination. As with other forms of social subordination, trans exclusion has not only material dimensions (Blair & Hoskin, 2018; Hargie et al., 2017; Moolchaem et al., 2015; Movement Advancement Project and GLSEN, 2017; Rondón Garcia & Martin Romero, 2016; Serano, 2013; Stonewall, n.d.; Yona, 2015), but also discursive ones that work in accordance with the logic of so-called performatives. Performatives are utterances that do things with words: specifically, they accomplish something in the act of saying it (Austin, 1975). The classical example is marriage—in the act of declaring a couple married, a celebrant brings about a change in their normative status, provided the celebrant is the right person in the right circumstances. This presupposes a normative background (that is a set of laws, conventions, or other rules) governing all those matters: who qualifies as a legitimate celebrant, what the right circumstances are for the performative to do its work, what marriage status means in terms of spouses’ rights and obligations, etc.

-Celebrating a Marriage is celebrating a couples chosen form of representing their relationship publicly and adding each other to their legal family, how is that the same as letting men into woman's bathrooms because they have feelings??-

-Theres more babblery about subjugating trans people by not pretending biology is fake, and that saying they cant just taking womans rights and spaces is denying their reality and existence we find out the author is a gay(cis) man so why does he have opinions on womans spaces and issues who fucking knows ( he really likes the word unintelligible)-

-Im tired, Ive taken several breaks just to stay clear headed( mildly sane) and now we are onto why Trans inclusive practices dont threaten the concept of female, male, lesbian and gay. Okay buddy ole pal bring it on-

Stock (2018b) has also argued that trans inclusion on the ground of self-identification/declaration threatens “a secure understanding” of concepts intimately related to “woman”—namely, “female” and “lesbian.” It is hard to see this threat as a real one. After all, conceptually, “trans maleness” and “trans femaleness” presuppose “cis maleness” and “cis femaleness” as their other—namely, the case of female and male for which no transition, no reaching across, is required: the case of femaleness and maleness already on this side of (= “cis”) their sex.

-At some point i expect to find out Stock implied his dick is tiny or something " gender crit feminists are wrong im gonna argue with just this one" In this section he manages to be long winded and say nothing have a taste:

Stock (2019b) argues, correctly, that “sex [i.e., maleness and femaleness] is not determined by any single, unitary set of essential criteria,” and that “there is no single set of features a person must have in order to count as male or female.” She goes on to state that: (a) “you do still need to possess some” female (biological) sex characteristics to count as female; (b) that this is “a real, material condition upon sex-category-membership”; and (c) that “medical professionals [assigning sex]. . . rely upon an established methodology, aimed at capturing pre-existing biological facts” (Stock 2019b). Stock presents (a), (b), and (c) as if they were true without qualification. In fact, they only describe how, for very legitimate reasons, sex is understood and assigned within the discourses of biology and medicine; but our everyday usages of “male” and “female” may well be more capacious. It does not follow, of course, that there is no connection at all between these discursive domains—biology and the everyday. Rather, something like the biological meaning of “male” and “female” refer to the central cases of “male” and “female” as those terms feature in everyday usages. But those usages, if trans-inclusive (as they should be), will also cover, legitimately and usefully, noncentral cases of those selfsame terms.

-Yes you need to be female to be female, it doesnt matter what you look like how much you weigh your hobbies or tastes you just need to be female. Observed Biology is observed not assigned we dont pop out blank slates until someone says "ya this ones a girl"-

There really is no good reason to fear that such trans-inclusive practices will imperil “maleness” and “femaleness” as concepts. It is the very fact that those concepts have and will retain central cases that puts to rest any such fear. What makes something like the biological meanings of “male” and “female” the central cases of everyday usages of those words is “[o]rdinary-life truth seeking, a certain level of which is essential for survival”; this “involves a swift instinctive testing of innumerable kinds of coherence against innumerable kinds of extra-linguistic data” (Murdoch, 1992). Reproduction is a key aspect of human experience: The existence of each of us and the perpetuation of the human species presuppose it. The extra-linguistic reality of the dioecious configuration of human bodies, which is functional to human reproduction, means both that the concept of “female” and “male” are here to stay, and that their central cases will remain well-understood, even after we give up on trans-exclusionary attitudes, practices, and policies. To put it another way: trans-inclusive linguistic usages, policies, and so on, cannot threaten the distinction between the concepts of “male” and “female,” which hinges on the nondisposability of the central cases of those concepts.

For similar reasons, it is difficult to agree with Stock that characterizing as “gay” trans men attracted to men, and as “lesbian” trans women attracted to women, “leaves us with no linguistic resources to talk about that form of sexual orientation that continues to arouse the distinctive kind of bigotry known as homophobia” (Stock, 2019d). After all, our linguistic conventions make cissexual womanhood and manhood the central or paradigmatic cases of “womanhood” and “manhood”; cissexual (though not necessarily gender-conforming) lesbianism and male homosexuality the central or paradigmatic cases of “lesbianism” and “male homosexuality,” and so on. This will not change. First because of the prevalence of cissexual women/men and cissexual lesbians/gay men, in terms of sheer numbers, relative to trans women/men and trans lesbians/gay men. Second, because of the ways in which the concepts of “man,” “woman,” “gay,” “lesbian,” “cis,” and “trans” sit together with the concepts of “male” and “female,” which reference an extra-linguistic reality, of which, as we have already seen, we cannot but take notice. Given these linguistic and empirical facts, a trans-inclusive use of the terms “lesbian” and “gay” does not carry the dangers Stock (2019d) worries about.

-I keep going back and checking the date this was published  in 2020 clearly this man has neither been online except to stalk Stock, nor talked to a human who actually believes what he is arguing against. No one is mad at transwoman for liking woman or vise versa its the kind of woman and men they go after and EXPECT romance and validation from ( ie lesbians and gay men, ie threatening what lesbian and gay mean in "inclusive" climates) fucking knob.-

I dunno if this is translated or the writer isnt english but he keeps using subordination where "opression" would be used and umm. anyway onto "Overemphasizing Sex-Based Subordination"

first he explains the difference between paranoid and paranoid structuralism there is so much fucking bullshit then we get to some quotes! that are bullshit-

Even assuming that the socialization of trans girls mirrors that of cis boys, the fact that trans girls do not identify with maleness can be expected to make a difference to the outcomes of such socialization (Finlayson et al., 2018).

-this guys back, love this guy doesnt know you dont fucking socialize yourself-

It is a mistake to treat “violence and discrimination against trans women . . . as if it were unconnected to that faced by cis women” (Finlayson et al., 2018).

 -Finlayson marry me your so smart, that big brain of yours is sooo sexy. Anyway transwoman and "cis" woman face violence from the same people.. Men. but it is not for the same reasons and most transwoman who face violence are brown and black sex workers( if your gonna care go wholesys not halfseys). As opposed to woman who face violence no matter their class, race, nationality, age.. etc etc etc-

Saying “Not giving people everything they desire is not a denial of their humanity” (Allen et al., 2019) amounts to an insensitive dismissal of the serious argument that trans exclusion is ipso facto harmful.

-I want an affordable home and access to food and water whenever i am hungry, you want me to pretend reality doesnt exist so your feefees dont get hurt-

The claim that women “are a culturally subordinated group . . . [while] at best, trans women are a distinct subordinated group; at worst . . . members of the dominant group” entirely discounts the ways in which sex, gender, and cis/trans status intersect. These intersections produce more complex, shifting, and context-dependent power relationships than are captured by the M > F formula.

-Sex based oppression is actually like jello, sometimes woman are less oppressed or oppressed slightly more to the left, I too can just kinda say words-

A dubious assumption underlies this statement: “[T]he fact that our concept-application [of, e.g., ‘woman’] might indirectly convey disadvantage towards some social groups [e.g., trans women] is not itself a reason to criticise the concept use, because the concept use has a further valuable point” (such as “to pick out a distinctive group, relative to recognisably important interests”) (Stock, 2019e). The dubious assumption here is that the “valuable point” of a restrictive use of the concept will be lost if the concept is broadened. The assumption is dubious because even in its broad, inclusive use, the concept retains a readily identifiable central case.

-Yes you dunder head if we start calling lizards mammals we lose the point of what makes a mammal a mammal, which complicates and endangers our way of researching and understanding mammals by making woman "whoever the fucks wants to be one" we loss the ability to easily talk about things that are exclusive to woman the more female language is edified the harder it is for females to unite to talk about womans issues, womans health, girls puberty, womans oppression etc etc.-

-my fuck i dont even care to learn this mans name and i have a personal hatred just for him, i hope ya'll have noticed he uses several different "sources" for his arguments and yet pins GC feminism on Stock alone. Anyway here we go into Doing Philosophy and Debating Policy in the Age of Social Media and Digital Platforms ( i think this man nuts every time he types out philosophy)-

my god we have brough Plato into this, Stocks must stand alone but we are at fucking plato, anyway this section actually has some brains in it there drivel but also truth:

Needless to say, in real-world face-to-face exchanges, unalloyed communicative action is known only by approximation. But there are very good reasons to think that the distance between the ideal (namely, communicative action) and the real is especially wide in the context of the quasi-spoken digital media used to construct (and respond to) the gender-critical case against trans inclusion. Stock (2019f) herself, discussing the reception of her arguments, has complained about countless “half-arsed takedown attempts” by “online philosophers,” crediting, conversely, philosophers she meets offline with “interesting, constructive, and charitable” objections. She also notes that social media siphons “users into paranoid, angry silos” (Stock, 2019d), and that “when reading disembodied words on a screen” it is “easy enough” to engage in “projection” (Stock, 2019a). Why and how do social media and allied platforms have this potential for distorting genuine communicative action?

First, they enable new manipulative communication practices, such as flaming and trolling. The popular support base of gender-critical academics makes ample use of these, though gender-critical scholars are also at the receiving end. Rather than using the quasi-spoken features of social media and allied platforms with a view to genuinely advancing understanding, online activists may exploit these features for strategic aims. Common techniques include drowning a post or blog with irrelevant comments; exposing the blogger to ridicule; deflecting attention from the point she made; forcing her to address spurious objections; pretextually professing a failure to understand, demanding endless further explanations; and so on. Some of these techniques are available in spoken exchanges, but social media and allied platforms magnify their power by enabling “widely-distributed individuals to organize and galvanize around issues of common interest [or] political advocacy” (Stewart, 2016); and by facilitating the use of nonverbal or nonargument-based, but effective, communicative devices, such as memes, gifs, and emoticons.

Another way in which these digital media distort genuine communicative action is by affecting the motivations of the blogger, or micro-blogger, herself. Specifically, they facilitate the interference with genuinely communicative goals (reaching understanding) by noncommunicative, strategic aims. I will discuss three: acquiring influence, career progression, and venting.

In traditional academic communicative practice, one’s recognition as an expert is supposed to follow from the credit that accrues to one as a result of the soundness of one’s research methods and arguments, judged through peer-review processes. But “in the era of social media there are now many different ways that a scientist can build their public profile; the publication of high-quality scientific papers being just one” (Hall, 2014). Veletsianos and Kimmons (2016) have found, by examining a large data set of education scholars’ participation on Twitter, that

being widely followed on social media is impacted by many factors that may have little to do with the quality of scholarly work . . . and . . . that participation and popularity may be impacted by a number of additional factors unrelated to scholarly merit (e.g., wit, controversy, longevity; p. 6).

-This section like every section goes on forever but we finally finally reach our conclusion-

Cooper (2019) has invoked a legal pluralist perspective to argue that it is possible, and may be desirable, for gender as conceived by gender-critical feminists (as “sex-based domination”) and gender as conceived in trans-affirming terms (as “identity diversity”) to coexist side-by-side in the law. Access to women’s spaces is just the kind of policy matter that need not choose between one conception of gender and the other: it can and should be granted on the basis of both. While a compelling feminist case has been made for inclusion (Finlayson et al., 2018), the best feminist case against inclusion suffers from a number of argumentative fallacies (Aristotle, n.d.), and is at odds with well-established and sound uses of practical reason. Many problems in gender-critical thought are consistent with the explanation that paranoid structuralism is too often presupposed in gender-critical work, rather than being treated, productively, as a hypothesis. The nature of the publication outlets favored by gender-critical feminists (social media, blogs, etc.) is also likely to be implicated in generating some of these problems.

I think one of the things i would like anyone who managed to read this entire thing to take away from this is that not ONCE were male bathrooms or male spaces mentioned, not once did this apparently "cis" gay man say that he welcomes and wants transmen in HIS spaces or that he has even thought about it

(((( also he didnt even mention neo genders so my original question 100% unanswered, even fuckface magee doesnt think demiboys are real. He doesnt want to or even mention solving sex based oppression he just wants woman to stop fighting to keep men out))))

[bluewatsons]

Bryan Caplan, The Economics of Szasz: Preferences, Constraints and Mental Illness, 18 Rationality & Society 333 (2006)

Abstract

Even confirmed economic imperialists typically acknowledge that economic theory does not apply to the seriously mentally ill. Building on psychiatrist Thomas Szasz’s philosophy of mind, this article argues that most mental illnesses are best modeled as extreme preferences, not constraining diseases. This perspective sheds light not only on relatively easy cases like personality disorders, but also on the more extreme cases of delusions and hallucinations. Contrary to Szasz’s critics, empirical advances in brain science and behavioral genetics are largely orthogonal to his position. While involuntary psychiatric treatment might still be rationalized as a way to correct intra-family externalities, it is misleading to think about it as a benefit for the patient.

Do we want two types of accounts about human behavior – one to explain the conduct of sane or mentally healthy persons, and another to explain the conduct of insane or mentally ill persons? I maintain that we do not need, and should not try, to account for normal behavior one way (motivationally), and for abnormal behavior another way (causally). Specifically, I suggest that the principle, ‘Actions speak louder than words,’ can be used to explain the conduct of mentally ill persons just as well as it can the behavior of mentally healthy persons. Thomas Szasz, Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences (1997: 352)

1. Introduction

Even the staunchest proponents of economic imperialism have long made an exception for the seriously mentally ill. Posner (1998: 258) remarks that:

If a person is insane either in the sense that he does not know that what he is doing is criminal (he kills a man who he thinks is actually a rabbit) or that he cannot control himself (he hears voices that he believes are divine commanding him to kill people), he will not be deterred by the threat of criminal punishment.

Cooter and Ulen’s (1988: 237) Law and Economics text is more explicit:

If the promisor’s preferences are unstable or not well-ordered, then he is unable to conclude a perfect contract. The law says that such people’s promises are unenforceable because they are legally incompetent. For example, children and the insane do not have stable, well-ordered preferences, and, as a result, their promises are unenforceable.

Even Milton Friedman (1962: 33) concurs: ‘Paternalism is inescapable for those whom we designate as not responsible. The clearest case, perhaps, is that of madmen. We are willing neither to permit them freedom nor to shoot them.’

Though these authors are usually eager to bring social phenomena into the orbit of economics, they not only make an exception for severe mental illness; they treat the exception as uncontroversial. Over time, however, diagnoses of mental illness have become increasingly widespread.1 Epidemiologists now report that 20% or more of the USA population suffers from mental illness during a given year (Kessler et al. 1994). A seemingly small loophole in the applicability of economics has grown beyond recognition.

This article argues that much if not all of the loophole should never have been opened in the first place. Most glaringly, a large fraction of what is called mental illness is nothing other than unusual preferences – fully compatible with basic consumer theory. Alcoholism is the most transparent example: in economic terms, it amounts to an unusually strong preference for alcohol over other goods. But the same holds in numerous other cases. To take a more recent addition to the list of mental disorders, it is natural to conceptualize Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as an exception- ally high disutility of labor, combined with a strong taste for variety.2

Consider how economists would respond if anyone other than a mental health professional described a person’s preferences as ‘sick’ or ‘irrational’. Intransitivity aside, the stereotypical economist would quickly point out that these negative adjectives are thinly disguised normative judgments, not scientific or medical claims. Why should mental health professionals be exempt from economists’ standard critique?

This is essentially the question asked by psychiatry’s most vocal internal critic, Thomas Szasz. In his voluminous writings, Szasz has spent over 40 years arguing that mental illness is a ‘myth’ – not in the sense that abnormal behavior does not exist, but rather that ‘diagnosing’ it is an ethical judgment, not a medical one.3 In a characteristic passage, Szasz (1990: 115) writes that:

Psychiatric diagnoses are stigmatizing labels phrased to resemble medical diagnoses, applied to persons whose behavior annoys or offends others. Those who suffer from and complain of their own behavior are usually classified as ‘neurotic’; those whose behavior makes others suffer, and about whom others complain, are usually classified as ‘psychotic’.

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) 1973 vote to take homosexuality off the list of mental illnesses is a microcosm of the overall field (Bayer 1981). The medical science of homosexuality had not changed; there were no new empirical tests that falsified the standard view. Instead, what changed was psychiatrists’ moral judgment of it – or at least their willingness to express negative moral judgments in the face of intensifying gay rights activism. Robert Spitzer, then head of the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association, was especially open about the priority of social acceptance over empirical science. When publicly asked whether he would consider removing fetishism and voyeurism from the psychiatric nomenclature, he responded, ‘I haven’t given much thought to [these problems] and perhaps that is because the voyeurs and the fetishists have not yet organized themselves and forced us to do that’ (Bayer 1981: 190). Even if the consensus view of homosexuality had remained constant, of course, the ‘disease’ label would have remained a covert moral judgment, not a value-free medical diagnosis.

Although Szasz does not use economic language to make his point, this article argues that most of his objections to official notions of mental illness fit comfortably inside the standard economic framework. Indeed, at several points he comes close to reinventing the wheel of consumer choice theory:

We may be dissatisfied with television for two quite different reasons: because the set does not work, or because we dislike the program we are receiving. Similarly, we may be dissatisfied with ourselves for two quite different reasons: because our body does not work (bodily illness), or because we dislike our conduct (mental illness). (Szasz 1990: 127)

Explicitly wedding standard economic concepts to Szasz’s philosophy of mind allows us to spell out his position with new clarity and force. How so? Consumer choice theory has two basic building blocks: preferences and budget constraints. Inside of this framework, how would one model physical disease? By and large, as an inward shift of the budget constraint: When you have the flu, for example, your peak level of physical performance declines. In contrast, most mental diseases amount to nothing more than unusual preferences; they do not affect what a person can do, only what they want to do. An oft-repeated slogan states that ‘Mental disease is just like any other disease’, but elementary microeconomics highlights a disanalogy with a distinct Szaszian flavor. To call someone physically ill is (usually) a descriptive claim about what a person is able to do; to call someone mentally ill is (usually) a normative claim about what preferences he ought to change.

In addition to unusual preferences, the mentally ill are often said to suffer from delusional beliefs. This criterion has greater economic appeal than bald complaints about preferences: Since the rational expectations revolution, economists have routinely equated systematically biased beliefs with ‘irrationality’ (Caplan 2002; Sheffrin 1996; Thaler 1992). In practice, however, only unpopular delusions provoke diagnoses of mental illness. Adherence to the dogmas of an established religion or ideology – no matter how bizarre – almost never attracts psychiatric attention. Originating your own bizarre belief system frequently does.4 In Szasz’s (1990: 215) words:

If you believe you are Jesus or that the Communists are after you (and they are not) – then your belief is likely to be regarded as a symptom of schizophrenia. But if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God or that Communism is the only scientifically and morally correct form of government – then your belief is likely to be regarded as a reflection of who you are: Christian or Communist.

Once again, mental health specialists’ covert standard is not scientific or medical, but moral: Absurd beliefs shared by millions are ‘healthy’; equally absurd beliefs held by a lone individual are ‘sick’. While economists have only begun to study the demand for irrational beliefs (Akerlof 1989; Akerlof and Dickens 1982; Caplan 2001), there is little if any reason to treat ‘popular’ and ‘niche’ delusions asymmetrically.

I organize this article as follows. The next section summarizes the distinctive features of Szasz’s position and corrects popular misconceptions about it. Section 3 considers the best way to model disease in economic terms. Section 4 explains why at least a high fraction of mental illnesses must be formalized in the opposite way, as preferences. Section 5 analyzes the ‘hard cases’ of hallucinations and delusions. Section 6 argues that the progress of brain science and behavioral genetics sheds little light on deeper questions about the nature of mental illness. Section 7 concludes.

2. A Brief Survey of Szasz

Thomas Szasz is probably best known for his opposition to involuntary mental hospitalization. His (1990: 107) rejection is categorical and impassioned:

Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the legal or psychiatric criteria for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve or reform commitment, but how to abolish it.

Unfortunately, his policy advocacy overshadows the more novel aspect of Szasz’s thought: his philosophy of mind. For Szasz, the most salient fact about human motivation and thought is its vast heterogeneity. Even if we limit the sample to people with a ‘clean bill’ of psychiatric health, the range of desires and viewpoints is amazingly wide (Caplan 2003; Piedmont 1998). There are monks and prostitutes, mountain climbers and shut-ins, CEOs and beach bums, Sunni Muslims and Trotskyist splitters. Great works of literature are perhaps the most powerful evidence of human diversity: think of the chasms between Iago, Brutus or Falstaff in Shakespeare; Pierre, Rostov or Anna Karenina in Tolstoy; Javert, Frollo or Quasimodo in Hugo. Indeed, one of the lessons of literature is that characters’ superficially inexplicable behavior becomes intelligible once you see it from their perspective.

Now consider the common sense view of mental illness: ‘You would have to be crazy to do that!’ or, as Sylvia Nasar (1998: 18) describes schizophrenia, ‘More than any other symptom, the defining characteristic of the illness is the profound feeling of incomprehensibility and inaccessibility that sufferers provoke in other people. Psychiatrists describe the person’s sense of being separated by a ‘‘gulf which defies description’’ from individuals who seem ‘‘totally strange, puzzling, inconceivable, uncanny, and incapable of empathy, even to the point of being sinister and frightening’’.’ Szasz faults the common sense view for refusing to take human heterogeneity seriously. What makes you think that no human being would prefer a life of day-dreaming, play-acting, daily heroin use or sadism? Is this any less credible than other unusual preferences that now escape psychiatric stigma, such as being gay, entering a convent, or ‘speaking in tongues’ in a Protestant church? As Szasz (1997: 64) critically observes:

It is wonderfully revealing of the nature of psychiatry that whereas in natural science there is a premium on the expert observer’s ability to understand what he observes . . . in psychiatry there is a premium on the expert’s inability to understand what he observes (and to understand it less well than the object he observes, which is typically another person eager to proffer his own understanding of his own behavior).

Thus, psychiatrists’ inability to understand economist Donald McCloskey’s desire to become Deirdre led to two short but involuntary hospitalizations. But she (1999: xiv) maintains that she simply would rather be a woman than a man:

In response to your question Why? ‘Can’t I just be?’ You, dear reader, are. No one gets indignant if you have no answer to why you are an optimist or why you like peach ice cream. These days most people will grant you an exception from the why question if you are gay . . . I want the courtesy and the safety of a whyless treatment extended to gender crossings.

Szasz maintains that it is equally easy to ‘get inside the heads’ of most of the other people psychiatrists diagnose as mentally ill. Their behavior is extreme, but their motives are familiar. As Szasz (1990: 121) uncharitably puts it: ‘Among persons categorized as mentally ill, there are two radically different types. One is composed of inadequate, unskilled, lazy, or stupid persons; the other, of protestors, revolutionaries, those on strike against their relatives or society.’5

The strong temptation to label individuals who fit either description as ‘mentally ill’ is a predictable byproduct of human heterogeneity. If people in close proximity – such as families – have radically different goals, conflict is almost sure to arise. This makes the concept of mental illness strategically useful, both as an excuse for deviant behavior and as a justification for harsh measures to combat it. As Szasz (1990: 135) puts it: ‘Mental illness is a myth whose function is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations. In asserting that there is no such thing as mental illness I do not deny that people have problems coping with life and each other’. But despite its social function, mental illness is metaphorical, like ‘lovesickness’ or ‘homesickness’.

Another strain of Szasz’s thought emphasizes the lack of neurological evidence that the putatively mentally ill suffer from brain diseases:

Demonstrable bodily lesion is the gold standard of medical diagnosis. Without practical convertibility into gold, the value of paper money rests on faith. Without conceptual convertibility into bodily lesion, the diagnosis of disease rests only on faith. Unbacked by gold, paper money is fiat money – the politically irresistible incentive for debauching the currency, called ‘inflation.’ Unbacked by lesion, diagnosis is fiat diagnosis – the medically irresistible incentive for debauching the concept of disease, called ‘psychiatry’. (1990: 9)

While he grants that such neurological evidence has occasionally surfaced – most famously in the case of paresis (syphilis of the brain) – such cases are remarkably rare (Szasz 1976). In fact, paresis and schizophrenia are so different that the proven neurological basis for the former makes it less likely that there is any neurological basis for the latter. A person with paresis ‘exhibited objective neurological signs; the illness was characterized by a rapidly downhill course with an invariably fatal outcome; and at autopsy, the patient’s brain showed easily identifiable morphological (structural) abnormalities’. In contrast, a person with schizophrenia ‘exhibits no neurological signs; the illness is not characterized by a rapidly downhill course and is never fatal; and at autopsy, the patient’s brain shows no identifiable morphological abnormalities. Some analogy’ (Szasz 1997: 89). Consistent with these observations, schizophrenia still does not receive an entry in as comprehensive a work as Anderson’s Pathology (1996).

Eminent psychiatrists occasionally admit the difficulty of connecting mental illness to brain abnormalities. In The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, Renshaw and Rauch (1999: 84) grant that ‘Current understanding of the pathobiology underlying primary psychiatric disorders is quite limited, and pathognomonic imaging profiles indicative of specific psychiatric disorders have not been identified’. Even the intensive and long-running search for a biological cause of schizophrenia has been surprisingly unsuccessful, especially taking publication bias into account. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Fourth Edition, Text Revision (APA 2000) acknowledges that ‘No laboratory findings have been identified that are diagnostic of Schizophrenia’ (2000: 305). Another chapter in The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry asserts that brain abnormalities are common in schizophrenics, but acknowledges that ‘no single abnormality is found in all or even most brains from schizophrenic patients’ (Tsuang et al. 1999: 264). Breggin (1991: 84) questions even these limited findings on the grounds that almost all subjects in modern brain research on schizophrenia have histories of heavy anti-psychotic medication, which itself is known to cause brain damage. Brain autopsies conducted on schizophrenics before the introduction of anti-psychotics generally found no abnormalities.

Most psychiatrists predictably minimize the importance of their field’s past failures, but Szasz sees strong and uncomfortable implications. One is that until the brain lesions underlying a mental illness have been found, psychiatrists ought to be far less certain that an illness even exists. Another is that if the absence of lesions in a given brain were affirmatively proven, psychiatrists ought to admit that the individual is not sick, no matter how odd his behavior is (Szasz 1997: 78).

At times, Szasz seems to make the stronger claim that since mental illnesses are metaphorical, empirical study of their biological basis is a category error: ‘Looking for the organic etiology of mental illness is like looking for the caloric content of food for thought’ (1990: 131). But Szasz does not literally rule out empirical research on this question. When his critic Seymour Kety objects that ‘Our ability to demonstrate and elucidate pathological disturbances is limited by the state of the art, and to assume their absence because they have not been demonstrated is a non sequitur’, Szasz (1997: 51) responds:

True enough. But I do not maintain that the nonexistence of pathological findings in schizophrenia proves there are none; I maintain only that a promise of such findings is only a promise, until it is fulfilled . . . If psychiatrists had to pay interest on their promises of pathological lesions, as borrowers must pay lenders, the interest alone would already have bankrupted them; instead, they keep issuing the same notes, undaunted by their perfect record of never meeting their obligations.

As mentioned earlier, perhaps the greatest misconception about Szasz’s work is that it is primarily a critique of involuntary mental hospitalization. Only a minority of his writings deal with psychiatric commitment, the insanity defense, or other policies related to mental illness. The bulk deals with philosophy of mind. Whether or not one agrees with his controversial position, it should be clear to any reader of the full Szaszian corpus that this stance is his most original and intellectually challenging contribution. Indeed, one could consistently embrace Szasz’s philosophy of mind, but advocate involuntary commitment on efficiency grounds as the best way to reduce the negative externalities that extreme eccentrics impose on their families and society.

Another misconception about Szasz is that he denies the connection between physical and mental activity. Critics often cite findings of ‘chemical imbalances’ in the mentally ill. The problem with these claims, from a Szaszian point of view, is not that they find a connection between brain chemistry and behavior.6 The problem is that ‘imbalance’ is a moral judgment masquerading as a medical one. Supposed we found that nuns had a brain chemistry verifiably different from non-nuns. Would we infer that being a nun is a mental illness?

A closely related misconception is that Szasz ignores medical evidence that many mental illnesses can be effectively treated.7 Once again, though, the ability of drugs to change brain chemistry and thereby behavior does nothing to show that the initial behavior was ‘sick’. If alcohol makes people less shy, is that evidence that shyness is a disease? An analogous point holds for evidence from behavioral genetics. If homosexuality turns out to be largely or entirely genetic, does that make it a disease?

Szasz’s philosophy of mind is unquestionably contrarian, and often provokes negative reactions.8 The remainder of this article maintains that – unlike the standard view of mental illness – Szasz’s main theses are strikingly consistent with basic microeconomics. Reframing Szasz in economic terms helps make his aphoristic thought both easier to understand and more introspectively plausible. Economists may be reluctant to fully embrace the Szaszian approach, and Szasz might object that my economistic reading misses important facets of his thought. Nevertheless, my thesis is that there are significant gains to trade between the economic approach to human behavior and Szasz’s analysis of mental illness.

3. Disease as Constraint

Consider normal physical diseases, such as cancer and influenza. Anderson’s Pathology describes their main symptoms:

The usual course of untreated cancer is continuous local and metastatic extension with progressive systemic effects, all of which combine to weaken the host in diverse ways until cachexia and death from sepsis or bronchopneumonia, or both, ensue. About half of the deaths in cancer patients result from infection . . . Other causes of death in these patients include organ failure, tumor infarction and hemorrhage, and carcinomatosis. (Lieberman and Lebovitz 1996: 540)

Sudden onset of headache, myalgias, fever, and chills are classic symptoms of most influenza-induced illness. Although sore throat and dry cough are common, they are rarely self-reported because of the overwhelming systemic symptoms, which predominate. Influenza produces such a rapid onset of high fever that febrile seizures are frequently triggered in children. (Hinrichs et al. 1996: 923)

How can these conditions be formally modeled? (Grossman 1972). Basic consumer theory makes the answer clear: It shifts your budget constraint inwards. If influenza or cancer actually kills you, your lifetime budget constraint shifts drastically inwards. But even if you escape the worst outcome, you lose on many other mar- gins. Influenza moves a normal temperature outside of your budget set; cancer makes you more vulnerable to other diseases. Further- more, in both cases your physical abilities typically decline. For example, you will probably be unable to walk at your normal speed.

Figure 1 illustrates the latter effect. If a person had 24 hours of time to divide between walking and resting, and a healthy person faced budget constraint A, then after contracting the flu or cancer, the same person would face a budget constraint such as B. A sufficiently sick person might collapse if he tried to walk for more than a few miles – suffering from reduced endurance as well as reduced speed. Then the budget constraint of the sick person would differ more starkly from the healthy person’s, as shown by the kinked constraint in Figure 2.

Figure 1. Illness as a budget constraint

Almost every traditional medical condition one can name can be modeled as an inward shift of one or more budget constraints. If your legs are paralyzed, the maximum amount you can walk under your own power falls to zero. If you have the common cold, the good of ‘not-sneezing’ suddenly falls on the wrong side of your budget set. If you have a stroke, the maximum number of words you can speak per minute shifts inwards. Mental retardation puts a high score on an IQ test beyond your reach, and common forms of brain damage impair your memory.

Budget constraints shift in for many reasons other than disease. But traditional medical conditions and shrunken budget sets go hand in hand.9 It is nearly paradoxical to assert, ‘All of my abilities are at their peak levels and I expect them to remain so,10 but I am nevertheless sick.’

Figure 2. Illness as a kinked budget constraint

This is not to say that the preferences of the sick might not shift as well. For example, the indifference curves of a person with an upset stomach might shift to put more value on carbonated beverages. But for almost any ordinary disease or injury, shifts in preferences – if any – accompany shifting constraints. You can be physically sick without changing your preference orderings, but you cannot be physically sick without changing what you can do.

4. Mental Illness as Extreme Preference

Most mental illnesses do not fit the preceding template. Consider a paradigmatic case such as substance abuse. In what sense does this illness shift one’s budget constraint inwards? It is hard to see how it does. If one were to formalize it in economic terms, the natural strategy would be to model it as an extreme preference.

Note that ‘extreme’ does not mean ‘intransitive’ or ‘not-wellordered.’ Cooter and Ulen (1988) probably speak for many economists when they deny that the preferences of the severely mentally ill are well-ordered. But in fact, not only do individuals with mental disorders typically have transitive preferences; they usually have more definite and predictable orderings than the average person.11 People with Alzheimer’s disease may not have well-ordered preferences, but as Sylvia Nasar (1998: 324) explains, insanity is almost the opposite of senility:

[T]he delusional states typical of schizophrenia often have little in common with the dementia associated with, for example, Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than cloudiness, confusion, and meaninglessness, there is hyper-awareness, over- acuity, and an uncanny wakefulness. Urgent preoccupations, elaborate rationales, and ingenious theories dominate.

A person with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD), to take a less dramatic example, is also unusually transitive. Unlike most of us, he feels no need to strike a delicate balance between his own welfare and the welfare of others; he puts his own interests first and last. It is also worth pointing out that several mental disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), come close to classifying transitivity as symptom (APA 2000: 462, 717).

It is also implausible to interpret most mental illness using a ‘hyperbolic discounting’ or ‘multiple selves’ model (Ainslie 1992). These might fit a moderate drug user who says he ‘wants to quit’; one symptom (albeit not a necessary condition) of substance dependence is ‘a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance use’ (APA 2000: 197). But they do not fit the hard-core drug addict whose only wish is to be left alone to pursue his habit. The same holds for most serious mental disorders: They are considered ‘serious’ in large part because the affected individual continues to pursue the same objectionable behavior over time with no sign of regret or desire to change.

What then are ‘extreme’ preferences? In brief, they are preferences that few people share or condone, with large life consequences, that nevertheless satisfy the axioms of choice theory (Varian 1992). McCloskey’s autobiography, describing her ‘crossing’ from Donald to Deirdre, offers an especially vivid example. As she (1999: 82) puts it:

Donald had a conversation with himself about whether what he was doing was unusual. On the one hand, I wonder why more people aren’t doing this. But then, You don’t get it, do you, Donald? Most people don’t want to change gender.

Puzzled in return. Oh. You don’t say. That’s funny.

But is it not the case that most people with preferences extreme enough to attract psychiatric attention are also extremely unhappy?12 It depends on which extreme preferences one has. People with ASPD or NPD have inflated senses of self-worth almost by definition. In any case, if most people with extreme preferences are unhappy, this is weak evidence that their preferences are somehow inconsistent or irrational. Unpopular preferences – medicalized or not – naturally tend to reduce happiness. People with normal preferences can simultaneously ‘be themselves’ and be liked. People with abnormal preferences have to balance these two goals. Furthermore, unlike religious and cultural minorities, people with unique extreme preferences cannot easily retreat into an accepting subculture.

I now examine three common mental disorders – substance abuse, ADHD and ASPD. In each case, the leading ‘symptoms’ of these ‘illnesses’ – such as McCloskey’s preference for being a woman – turn out to be nothing more than unpopular preference orderings. There is no reason to think that individuals with these preferences fit the rational economic actor model less well than anyone else. The descriptions often make it clear that individuals with these conditions act exactly as one would expect a rational economic agent with unpopular preferences. Indeed, as we shall see, there are a few ‘symptoms of mental disorder’ that economists routinely assign to homo economicus.

4.1. Substance Abuse

The DSM (APA 2000: 199) classifies substance abuse as ‘A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring within a 12-month period’. Table 1 lists the criteria, all of which are preference-based. Take criterion 1: ‘recurrent substance use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home’. It is only a small step to translate this into the language of economic theory. If you have an unusually strong taste for alcoholic beverages or drugs – a taste so strong that you willingly risk family, friends and career to satisfy it, then you suffer from substance abuse.

Table 1. Some DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for substance abuse

From an economic point of view, however, what is so puzzling about a person who prefers consuming alcohol to career success or family stability? Life is full of trade-offs. The fact that most of us would make a different choice is hardly evidence of irrationality. Neither is the fact that few alcoholics will admit their priorities; expressing regret and a desire to change is an excellent way to deflect social and legal sanctions.

The other three criteria in Table 1 fit the same pattern. You will be diagnosed as a victim of substance abuse if you use alcohol/drugs when it is ‘physically hazardous’ – in other words, if your taste is so strong that you are willing to take high safety risks (for yourself or others) to satisfy it. You can also be diagnosed if you have ‘recurrent substance-related legal problems’ – presumably because you have such a strong preference for alcohol/drugs that you are undeterred by ordinary expected punishments. The final criteria almost repeats the first – using the substance even though it causes ‘recurrent social or interpersonal problems’. The DSM definition strikingly fails to mention intransitivity. In fact, the people most likely to be diagnosed with severe substance abuse are heavy users who have no desire to change their lifestyle.

4.2. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Substance abuse is a particularly straightforward case for economists to analyze, since it involves the trade-off between (1) one’s consumption level of a commodity and (2) the effects of this consumption on other areas of life. But numerous mental disorders have the same structure. One way to be diagnosed with ADHD, for example, is to have six or more of the symptoms of inattention shown in Table 2. Overall, the most natural way to formalize ADHD in economic terms is as a high disutility of work combined with a strong taste for variety. Undoubtedly, a person who dislikes working will be more likely to fail to ‘finish school work, chores or duties in the workplace’ and be ‘reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort’. Similarly, a person with a strong taste for variety will be ‘easily distracted by extraneous stimuli’ and fail to ‘listen when spoken to directly’, especially since the ignored voices demand attention out of proportion to their entertainment value.

Table 2. Some DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for ADHD

A few of the symptoms of inattention – especially (2), (5) and (9), are worded to sound more like constraints. However, each of these is still probably best interpreted as descriptions of preferences. As the DSM uses the term, a person who ‘has difficulty’ ‘sustaining attention in tasks or play activities’ could just as easily be described as ‘disliking’ sustaining attention. Similarly, while ‘is often forgetful in daily activities’ could be interpreted literally as impaired memory, in context it refers primarily to conveniently forgetting to do things you would rather avoid. No one accuses a boy diagnosed with ADHD of forgetting to play videogames.13

4.3. Anti-social Personality Disorder

Homo economicus arguably suffers from this disorder by definition. Table 3 lists some of the DSM’s diagnostic criteria, any three of which are almost sufficient for a positive diagnosis. Since homo economicus always plans ahead – most notoriously with his unlimited use of backwards induction – symptoms (3) and (6) do not apply. But as a narrowly selfish being, homo economicus lacks remorse (symptom 7). Insofar as deceitfulness leads to personal profit, homo economicus is deceitful (symptom 2). And while homo economicus of course worries about his own safety, the safety of others concerns him only if he is financially responsible for it. In any case, all of the symptoms of ASPD are exclusively about preferences – for narrow selfishness, high discount rates and affinity for violence.

Table 3. Some DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality

Admittedly, not all cases are easy to classify. I have some control over my heartbeat, but it is impossible for me to reduce it to 10 beats per minute. Is the number of times my heart beats per minute a constraint or a choice? The distinction between constraints and preferences suggests an illuminating test for ambiguous cases: Can we change a person’s behavior purely by changing his incentives? If we can, it follows that the person was able to act differently all along, but preferred not to; his condition is a matter of preference, not constraint. I will refer to this as the ‘Gun-to-the-Head Test’. If suddenly pointing a gun at alcoholics induces them to stop drinking, then evidently sober behavior was in their choice set all along. Conversely, if a gun-to-the-head fails to change a person’s behavior, it is highly likely (though not necessarily true) that you are literally asking the impossible.14

Obviously most physical diseases would pass the gun-to-the-head test. Pointing a gun at a paralyzed man will not enable him to walk, nor can you frighten a cancer patient into living longer. Conditions like mental retardation and Alzheimer’s disease are also highly likely to pass the gun-to-the-head test. Smart people occasionally play dumb, and the elderly might feign senility from time to time; but most people who appear to have very low cognitive ability really do.

The same cannot be said, however, for the large majority of mental disorders. Though the gun-to-the-head test rarely happens, most people with mental disorders respond to far milder incentives. During the course of any given day, individuals diagnosed with substance abuse, ADHD and ASPD act contrary to their impulses because giving in to them would be too expensive. Studies of demand elasticity normally find that consumption of hard drugs is quite sensitive to price (van Ours 1995); in fact, the psychiatric literature on ‘contingency management’ shows that a high percentage of heavy users of alcohol and drugs will go cold turkey for a moderate price (Higgins and Petry 1999). Even lazy people with a strong taste for variety will complete a boring task if their life is on the line. Anti- social personalities are prone to perform acts ‘that are grounds for arrest’, but that does not mean that they take actions that surely end in severe punishment.

Suppose one grants that at least a large fraction of mental illnesses are nothing more than extreme preferences. What follows? Most importantly, it confirms the core Szaszian thesis: psychiatric diagnoses are not descriptive judgments comparable to a diagnosis of cancer, but normative judgments about whether preferences are good or bad, right or wrong. Disputes about whether ‘X is a mental illness’ cannot be resolved by more and better empirical research, but only – if at all – by ethical reasoning.

5. Mental Illness, Systematic Bias, and Preferences Over Beliefs

At this point, one might reasonably object that I consider only the easiest targets. Perhaps ADHD is a medicalized label for laziness. But what about the symptoms that we intuitively associate with full-blown psychosis or ‘insanity’ – delusions and hallucinations?

5.1. Delusions

The DSM defines a delusion as ‘a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary’, adding the further condition that ‘The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith)’ (APA 2000: 821). Another reference source more succinctly defines a delusion as ‘a fixed false belief (excluding beliefs that are part of a religious movement)’.15 These definitions are striking on several levels. Most obviously, why are religious beliefs exempt from this stigma? What about quasi-religious political movements like Leninism or Nazism, comprised almost entirely of fixed false beliefs (Hoffer 1951)? What about religious movements with a small number of members? One member?

One could eliminate the ‘religious exemption’ and conclude that the fraction of the population suffering from delusions has been greatly underestimated. However, the exemption does seem to have a rationale: The cognitive faculties of the overwhelming majority of religious believers are functional. Outside of religion, they habitually adjust their beliefs in response to evidence. So it is natural to interpret their embrace of improbable religious doctrines as a choice to relax ordinary intellectual standards. Doing so allows them to enjoy not just the social benefits of religious participation (Iannacone 1998). It also provides direct personal benefits, such as a sense of identity and meaning.

In other words, just because a person believes patent absurdities does not imply that he cannot believe otherwise, that changing his mind is outside his choice set. Instead, he may have preferences over beliefs (Akerlof 1989; Akerlof and Dickens 1982; Caplan 2001, 2000). If individuals have to choose between maintaining a cherished worldview and giving the other side a fair hearing, many would rather forego the latter. The competing hypothesis, of course, is that a person wants to grasp the truth, but lacks the cognitive resources to process evidence or detect errors.

From this perspective, it is worth considering how most psychiatrists would have diagnosed the founders of the world’s leading religions. What would they make of their assertions that God speaks with them, giving them revelations to deliver to the rest of mankind? Were they paranoid schizophrenics? A more plausible account is that they were people who wanted (among other things) to believe in their own cosmic importance – and managed to convince others to accommodate them. And there is every reason to think that such motivations remain salient to many people today, though in a more secular age religious themes will be less prominent. But variations on the theme of ‘I am a leading figure in world history, locked in combat with powerful enemies’ have a timeless appeal to human vanity.

If religious ‘fixed, false beliefs’ stem from the refusal to exercise one’s cognitive faculties, as opposed to defective cognitive faculties, why might not the same hold for non-religious fixed, false beliefs (Shermer 2002)? Perhaps they too provide a sense of identity and meaning. This is essentially Szasz’s view: People largely become schizophrenics because they find reality too unpleasant to cope with:

What the psychiatrist calls a ‘delusion of persecution’ is one of the most dramatic human defenses against the feeling of personal insignificance and worthlessness. In fact, no one cares a hoot about Jones. He is an extra on the stage of life. But he wants to be a star. He cannot become one by making a fortune on the stock market or winning a Nobel prize. So he claims that the FBI or the Communists are watching his every move, are tapping his phone, and so forth. Why would they be doing this, unless Jones were a very important person? In short, the paranoid delusion is a problem to the patient’s family, employers, and friends: to the patient, it is a solution to the problem of the meaning(lessness) of his life. (1990: 116)

What about paranoid schizophrenic John Nash, who in fact did win a Nobel prize? Surprisingly, he fits Szasz’s profile, because Nash’s great ambition was not to earn a Nobel prize in economics, but the coveted Fields Medal in mathematics. In 1958, he failed to win it, and given his age he had little hope of ever doing so. As his biographer Sylvia Nasar (1998: 229) explains: ‘One can almost imagine a sniggering commentator inside Nash’s head: ‘‘What, thirty already, and still no prizes, no offer from Harvard, no tenure even? And you thought you were such a great mathematician? A genius? Ha, ha, ha!’’’. And Nash’s personal problems – a gay or bisexual man, unhappily married, and expecting a child – were at least as serious as his professional disappointments.

Since, as Nash later observed, ‘rational thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos’, he escaped into a world of fantasy, where his failures no longer mattered. His biographer confirms the subjective benefits: ‘For Nash, the recovery of everyday thought processes produced a sense of diminution and loss . . . He refers to his remissions not as joyful returns to a healthy state, but as ‘‘interludes, as it were, of enforced rationality’’’ (Nasar 1998: 295). His choice to abandon his academic career was much in the spirit of Robert Frank’s (1985) Choosing the Right Pond: If Nash could not be a Fields Medalist, his next choice was to be Emperor of Antarctica, not a second-rate mathematician.16

Is it inconceivable that anyone could or would choose to be a paranoid schizophrenic? Many psychiatrists found Nash’s eventual recovery astounding, leading some to question the original diagnosis (Nasar 1998: 350–3). But Nash’s first-hand account is that his return to rationality was a choice:

Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of my delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. (Nasar 1998: 353)

It is noteworthy that Nash consciously decided to stop thinking about the two subject matters where normal people routinely embrace ‘fixed, false beliefs’: not just politics, but religion as well (Nasar 1998: 354). He compares his recovery to dieting.17 Despite its short-run emotional benefits, he decided to stop indulging his daily temptation to hide from life:

Actually, it can be analogous to the role of willpower in effective dieting: If one makes an effort to ‘rationalize’ one’s thinking one can simply recognize and reject the irrational hypotheses of delusional thinking. (Nasar 1998: 354)

Intellectual dieting would be an implausible solution if one were utterly disconnected from reality. But his biographer explains that this describes neither Nash nor the typical schizophrenic:

[T]he ability to apprehend certain aspects of everyday reality remains curiously intact. Had anyone asked Nash what year it was or who was in the White House or where he was living, he could no doubt have answered perfectly accurately, had he wished to. Indeed, even as he entertained his most surreal notions, Nash displayed an ironic awareness that his insights were essentially private, unique to himself, and bound to seem strange or unbelievable to others. (Nasar 1998: 324–5)

In fact, ‘While he was ill, Nash traveled all over Europe and America, got legal help, and learned to write sophisticated computer programs’ (Nasar 1998: 19).

Nash describes the behavior of his son – also a diagnosed para- noid schizophrenic – in comparable terms: ‘I don’t think of my son . . . as entirely a sufferer: in part, he is simply choosing to escape from ‘‘the world’’’(Nasar 1998: 385). The father’s attitude is not so shocking considering his son’s objection whenever urged to complete his PhD: ‘Why do I have to do anything? My father doesn’t have to do anything. My mother supports him. Why can’t she support me?’ (1998: 346). Nash’s biographer laments his ‘insensitivity’ on this point (1998: 385), but who is in a better position to understand his son’s state of mind?

Even if John Nash chose his condition, it does not follow that every schizophrenic does the same. But it underscores the point that there are two competing hypotheses to explain the existence of delusions.18 In economic terms, one is preferences, the other is constraints. To deal with this complex issue, it is once again helpful to consider the Gun-to-the-Head Test. If maintaining a fixed, false belief would result in death, does the believer ‘unfix’ it? If he does, sound cognition must have been in his choice set all along, but for whatever reason falsehood was more appealing.

At least in the case of religious ‘fixed, false beliefs’, people who pass the gun-to-the-head test are rare.19 Gaetano Mosca (1939: 181–2) provides one intriguing illustration:

Mohammed, for instance, promises paradise to all who fall in a holy war. Now if every believer were to guide his conduct by that assurance in the Koran, every time a Mohammedan army found itself faced by unbelievers it ought either to conquer or to fall to the last man. It cannot be denied that a certain number of individuals do live up to the letter of the Prophet’s word, but as between defeat and death followed by eternal bliss, the majority of Mohammedans normally elect defeat.

Perhaps the tiny minority of willing martyrs really did have defective brains that literally prevented them from seeing the world as it is. But even here, historical accounts of the martyrs raise significant doubts. Rodney Stark (1996: 163–89) argues that they were heavily motivated by community support and adulation, which they often enjoyed for years due to lags in the Roman legal system. Further- more, martyrs often discussed their temptation to give in. One rarely feels ‘tempted’ by an option that is not available to us in the first place: I am not tempted to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming. Socrates’ Apology is perhaps the most striking case of a man with unimpaired cognitive faculties who died for his beliefs. Indeed, before drinking the hemlock, Socrates demonstrated critical thinking abilities far in excess of the normal range (Ahrensdorf 1995). Blaming his decision on a brain defect is most implausible.

While the mentally ill rarely face the Gun-to-the-Head Test, a large fraction respond to less extreme incentives. The mentally ill routinely modify their behavior to avoid psychiatric hospitalization and unpleasant treatments. As psychiatrist Peter Breggin (1991: 61) reports, ‘[T]he drugs cause so much discomfort. . . that patients often stop saying what they believe to avoid getting larger doses and to bring a more speedy end to the treatment. As many ex-patients have told me, ‘‘I learned right away I’d better shut up or I’d get more of that stuff.’’’ This is so common that psychiatrists often suspect that ‘recovered’ patients are merely concealing their symptoms.20 The fear of more extreme treatments like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) often affects behavior far beyond the walls of the psychiatric hospital. In one case study of female shock therapy patients, ‘Three of the ten women lived in dread of ECT for years afterward; and therefore they refrained from expressing any angry feelings toward their husbands, for fear of being sent back to the hospital for involuntary shock treatment’ (Breggin 1991: 200).

Patients’ responsiveness to incentives is well known to those who administer the incentives. A case study on the attitudes of shock therapists observed that shock was used ‘as a threat against difficult patients. Personnel on the hospital would warn, ‘‘You will go on the shock list’’’ (Breggin 1991: 212). Even when treating mentally ill children, psychiatrists recognize that incentives change behavior:

Used to saying what he thought with his dad, Sammy made the mistake of ‘talking back’ to one of the doctors. He was told that patients had to ‘earn’ their liberties and was reduced to the lowest disciplinary level – no visitors, no books, no radio, ‘no nothing’, as he later told his dad. (Breggin 1991: 294)

At least for many delusions, the fact that you would try to feign recovery shows that your degree of irrationality – not just outward behavior – is incentive-sensitive. Nash is once again an excellent example. ‘I thought I was a Messianic godlike figure with secret ideas’, he tells us. ‘I became a person of delusionally influenced thinking but of relatively moderate behavior and thus tended to avoid hospitalization and the direct attention of psychiatrists’ (Nasar 1998: 335). But if Nash were literally constrained to see him- self as a ‘godlike figure’, he would have imagined that he could free himself at any moment.21 He would be unable to grasp that – in reality – his freedom depended on a psychiatrist’s diagnosis, so he would have no motive to ‘beat the system’. But try to beat it he did, regularly acting more normally to avoid or end commitment: ‘When I had been long enough hospitalized . . . I would finally renounce my delusional hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances’ (Nasar 1998: 295). He also firmly grasped the social process of commitment, knowing, for instance, that his sister would probably try to commit him after their mother’s death (1998: 330–1). Perhaps most strikingly, to deter others from committing him, Nash did not threaten divine retribution, but ordinary social sanctions like divorce (from his wife), and breaking off relations (with his sister).

There is more systematic evidence from so-called ‘token economy programs’ that mental patients substantially change their behavior in response to modest material rewards (Corrigan 1995; Stuve and Salinas 2002). These programs pay patients fixed numbers of tokens for desired behavior. Tokens can be redeemed for benefits like snacks, magazines, grounds passes, and the right to wear non- institutional clothing. Paying patients turns out to be a highly effective way to improve hygiene, group participation and adherence to ward rules, and deter threats and violence. It can also curtail ‘screaming, ritualistic behaviors, mannerisms, responsiveness to hallucinations, and the frequency of delusional talk’ (Stuve and Salinas 2002: 824).

Since hospital residents typically have the most extreme problems, it is striking that their behavior is so price elastic. Furthermore, at least in many cases this indicates that their delusions – not just their outward behavior – respond to incentives. If a mental defect literally compels you to see yourself as all-powerful, why would you chase after petty monetary rewards? If, in contrast, the cause of megalomaniacal delusions is preferences rather than constraints, we should expect patients to start ignoring them as the material cost of adhering to them rises. As it turns out, when the price of being wrong goes up, even the delusional start to recognize the difference between reality and their self-aggrandizing worldview.

5.2. Hallucinations

Perceptions, unlike beliefs, rarely contain an element of choice. Even if you put a gun to my head and tell me to see a blank wall in front of me rather than my computer, I will not because I cannot. People who genuinely experience hallucinations have the same problem. If you are under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug, you see things that do not exist even if you would rather not (hence the ‘bad trip’) (APA 2000: 250–3). From an economic perspective, hallucinating is similar to being blind or deaf; seeing or hearing the real world lies outside your budget constraint. Of all the symptoms of mental illness, hallucinations are the least objectionably modeled as constraints.

The same does not hold, however, for claiming to hallucinate. Initially, it seems unlikely that anyone would lie about such a thing. However, Szasz (1997: 117) maintains that such skepticism is well-grounded:

[W]hen a grisly, unsolved crime is reported by the press and the police look for the person who did it, innocent people often come forward and confess to the crime. Such a confession is never accepted on its face value as true; on the contrary, it is treated with the utmost skepticism. On the other hand, when a person lodges a psychiatric complaint against himself, it is not investigated at all.

In both cases, people pretend to have seen or heard things that did not happen because they prefer negative attention to none at all. Consider people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Why do they do it? Well, if beings from other worlds travel all the way to earth just to probe you, you must be a pretty important person.

In the pre-modern period, one could get the same feeling by claiming to see and talk to angels or demons: ‘[W]omen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were often accused of (and even allegedly experienced or confessed to) having illicit sexual encounters with aliens – in this case the alien was usually Satan himself . . .’ (Shermer 2002: 97).

Fabrication aside, minimal scrutiny often reveals that what superficially sound like reports of hallucinations are only delusions.22 As Shermer (2002: 96) recounts:

While dining with the abductees, I found out something very revealing: not one of them recalled being abducted immediately after the experience. In fact, for most of them, many years went by before they ‘remembered’ the experience.

Like most delusions, their stories usually reflect a choice to relax normal intellectual standards, not lack of ability to impose these standards. Shermer (2002: 95) describes the abductees as ‘perfectly sane, rational, intelligent folks’ overall. Yet they exempt their abduction beliefs from straightforward objections:

[A woman] said that the aliens actually implanted a human–alien hybrid in her womb and that she gave birth to the child. Where is the child now? The aliens took it back, she explained. One man pulled up his pant leg to show me scars on his legs that he said were left by the aliens. They looked like normal scars to me . . . One man explained that the aliens took his sperm. I asked him how he knew that they took his sperm, since he had said he was asleep when he was abducted. He said that he knew because he had an orgasm. I responded, ‘Is it possible you simply had a wet dream?’ He was not amused. (2002: 94)

Szasz similarly maintains that many alleged hallucinations are only eccentric descriptions of ordinary experience. To take the most common form (APA 2000: 300), psychiatrists routinely equate ‘hear- ing voices’ with auditory hallucination. But when a person feels guilty, we often say that he ‘hears the voice of conscience’. Such a person will often not just feel guilty; thoughts such as ‘What you’re doing is wrong!’ repeatedly come to mind. To take a stronger case, the DSM treats ‘a voice keeping up a running commentary on the person’s behavior or thoughts, or two or more voices conversing with each other’ as an exceptionally serious symptom (APA 2000: 312). But this describes any person deliberating between major life options over an extended period of time.23 While these examples might seem to stretch the meaning of ‘hallucination’, it is the DSM that explicitly fails to distinguish whether ‘the source of the voices is perceived as being inside or outside of the head’ (APA 2000: 823).

An analogous point holds for ‘seeing things’. To equate this with visual hallucinations is not the only interpretation, nor even a particularly plausible one. It is more natural to interpret it as imagination. I cannot literally see Satan just because I want to, but I can visualize a red being with horns and a pitchfork on demand.

How could genuine hallucinations be identified, even in principle? The gun-to-the-head test remains a helpful benchmark. If a person’s perception ‘suddenly improves’ after the cost of seeing and hearing nonexistent things goes up, that is strong evidence that his senses were functioning fine all along.

In the absence of incentives, it depends heavily on the trustworthiness of the source. It is suspicious if a person who claims to hallucinate also happens to put a low value on truth in other contexts. Conversely, if a person who shows no inclination to bend the truth in any other situation claims to have strange visual or auditory experiences, his self-reports have to be taken more seriously.

In the DSM, having both delusions and hallucinations is almost a sufficient condition for schizophrenia (APA 2000: 312). However, the preceding analysis suggests that a person who says he has hallucinations but not delusions is more credibly diseased than a person who claims to have both. If most delusions arise out of a choice to relax normal intellectual standards, then the delusional suffer from a credibility gap. Can the self-reports of a man who finds solace in a version of ‘I am a leading figure in world history, locked in combat with powerful enemies’ be trusted when we ask him to distinguish between direct observation, recovered memories, and day- dreaming? Imagine asking Joseph Smith if he literally saw and conversed with the angel Moroni (Hardy 2003). Given his overall worldview, he might not consider it a lie to treat his dreams or musings as on par with direct experience.

6. Orthogonality of Behavioral Genetics and Brain Science

The most sophisticated critics of Szasz grant that he is a brilliant debater, but add that he conveniently ignores hard scientific data from both brain science and behavioral genetics. Psychiatrist Seymour Kety (1974: 961) famously remarked that ‘if schizophrenia is a myth, it is a myth with a powerful genetic component’. Szasz seldom if ever cites contrary empirical findings. The natural inference is that such findings do not exist.

What this inference overlooks, however, is that brain science and behavioral genetics usually ask questions orthogonal to Szasz’s thesis. Return to the case of homosexuality. Does evidence of a strong genetic component raise the probability that homosexuality is a disease after all? It is hard to see how it would. Twin and adoption studies have found that genetics explains a substantial fraction of variation in almost every form of human behavior (Harris 1998; Segal 1999). Such studies can teach you about the cause of a condition already known to be a disease, but not separate diseases from non-diseases.

During the period when homosexuality was classified as a mental illness, psychiatrists heavily debated the extent to which it was inborn or environmental. The purpose of this debate was not to determine if homosexuality was in fact a disease, which was taken as given. Rather, competing theories had different implications for the best way to cure it (Bayer 1981: 18–40). This perspective is hardly surprising: ordinary physical disease has both genetic and environmental causes, and the point of distinguishing them is to develop better treatments, not ascertain whether they are ‘really diseases’.

A similar point holds for brain science and mental illness. If homosexuals were found to have verifiably different brain chemistry than heterosexuals, that would not raise the probability that being homosexual is a disease. Brain science is no more able to determine whether other forms of behavior are diseases. In most cases, this conclusion is obvious: If charity, or kindness to children or church attendance correlated with brain states, would anyone take this as evidence of their pathological character?

The brain scientists’ critique of Szasz takes on a straw man. It essentially asserts: ‘Your theory predicts no correlation between mental illness and brain states. Since there is a correlation, your theory is false’. But every major theory of mind from materialism to Cartesian dualism predicts a correlation between mental states and brain states. To take advances in brain science as ‘mounting evidence’ for one side reveals only a failure to understand the other side.

In a similar vein, brain science sheds little light on whether a condition arises out of preferences or constraints. Yes, constraints must have some biological basis; but the same is true of preferences. Even if a chemical were isolated that correlated perfectly with love of chocolate, that would not show that what appeared to be a preference was really a constraint. Rather it would show that a preference had a biological basis – which presumably we thought all along.

One might take Szasz’s failure to present original empirical evidence as the usual strategy of the a priori obscurantist. But this takes for granted that the empirical evidence is relevant to the debate. Szasz (1990: 216) asks: ‘If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would psychiatrists look for their chemical and genetic causes?’ It would be a mistake to interpret his rhetorical question as an attack on genetics and brain research. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate for a scientist to search for the chemical or genetic correlates of Christianity, communism or anything else. The Szaszian point is that even if a scientist discovered a 1:1 correlation between having a gene and being a Christian that would not prove Christianity to be a disease. To reach that kind of conclusion it would be necessary to show that individuals with the ‘Christian gene’ are literally unable – not merely unwilling – to think rationally about their worldview; to show, in economic terms, that Christian belief is a constraint rather than a choice.

7. Conclusion

Economists recognize the benefits of specialization. Only with hesitation, then, can economists focus their attention on an unfamiliar discipline and conclude that experienced professionals have been making elementary mistakes. However inconsistent psychiatry’s main theses seem to be with basic consumer theory, one might think it foolhardy to conclude that they are wrong.

At the same time, economists also recognize not only that rent-seeking is a ubiquitous force, but that most rent-seekers create and internalize public-interested justifications for their activities (Klein 1994). It is not overreaching for economists to criticize domestic auto makers’ arguments for protectionism. The auto makers know more about the details of their own industry, but economists are better at interpreting those details. Equally importantly, economists are trained to consider the costs of a policy for everyone in society, not merely groups with the most political influence.

From a rent-seeking perspective, skepticism about psychiatry is common sense. Rent-seeking is only a side activity for the auto industry, but it lies at the core of psychiatry. As Szasz (1990: 178) puts it, ‘The business of psychiatry is to provide society with excuses disguised as diagnoses, and with coercions justified as treatments’. Like lobbyists, one of psychiatrists’ main jobs is to argue in favor of exceptions. Some explain why their client should not have to pay the normal price for his behavior; others, why a person willing to pay the normal price for his behavior should be prevented from engaging in it nonetheless.

From this perspective, the divide between an intermediate economics textbook and the DSM is predictable. Consumer theory does not make an exception for extreme preferences. On the contrary, the more heterogeneous preferences are, the more important it is to charge uniform prices. Making people pay the full social cost of their behavior is the way that we find out if their preferences are as extreme as they say. The DSM avoids these conclusions by redefining extreme behavior to be a ‘disease like any other’. ‘Some people prefer to have mental disorders’ then sounds as implausible as ‘some people prefer to be sick’.

Nevertheless, people with extreme preferences often create negative externalities, especially for their families. Some economists might conclude that the psychiatric perspective on mental illness is scientifically mistaken but pragmatically useful. Political constraints make it difficult to regulate preferences merely because they are extreme. Using the obscurantist language of mental illness helps circumvent these constraints.

Conversely, there are efficiency reasons for political reluctance to regulate extreme preferences. Most obviously, there is the Coasean argument: If familial side payments are insufficient to induce normal behavior, it is a sign that the deviant values his deviancy more than his family values his normalcy. Calling extreme preferences ‘diseases’ makes it easy to misinterpret unwanted treatment as a benefit for the patient rather than a cost.

Treating extreme preferences as a disease also opens up a wide range of moral hazard problems. The Americans with Disabilities Act specifically refuses to count sexual behavior disorders, compulsive gambling, kleptomania, pyromania and substance use disorders resulting from current use of illegal drugs.24 But the moral hazard problem of the covered disorders – such as alcoholism – is probably comparable or greater.

‘Economic imperialism’ has often led economists to study another discipline and defend what until then had been an unpopular minority view. If the isomorphism between Szasz’s view and basic consumer theory is genuine, the economics of mental illness will be no exception. Economists have a great deal to learn from psychiatry, but at the same time economists need to make the difficult argument that the Szaszian view is far from crazy. In fact, it is good economics.

Notes

Psychiatrists now prefer to talk in terms of ‘having a mental disorder’ rather than ‘being mentally ill’ (APA 2000: xxxi, emphasis added). For the sake of readability, I use both expressions interchangeably.

The disorder of ADHD was first introduced in the DSM-III-R (APA 1987), but this was essentially a relabeling of the DSM-III’s (APA 1980) Attention Deficit Disorder. The latter was however a significant change relative to its precursor, ‘hyperkinetic reaction of childhood (or adolescence)’ in the DSM-II (APA 1968).

For a complete bibliography, see http://www.szasz.com/publist.html

Relatively new religions with small numbers of members – often called ‘cults’ – have however been subject to a degree of psychiatric stigma (Iannacone 2003). If a very small group (usually a couple or a family) shares a common delusion, its members may be diagnosed with shared psychotic disorder (APA 2000: 334).

Except in tone, the latter description almost exactly matches one from the biography of John Nash: ‘Nash was choosing the ‘‘path of most resistance,’’ and one that captured his radical sense of alienation. Such ‘‘extreme contrariness’’ aimed at cultural norms has long been a hallmark of a developing schizophrenic consciousness. In ancestor-worshipping Japan the target may be the family, in Catholic Spain the Church. Nash particularly desired to supercede the old laws that had governed his existence, and, quite literally, to substitute his own laws, and to escape, once and for all, from the jurisdiction under which he had once lived’ (Nasar 1998: 271).

Breggin (1991) however notes that most claims about ‘imbalances’ are tautologous: If a drug changes behavior in a desired way, the drug ipso facto ‘corrects an imbalance’. The Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry’s entry on lithium certainly fits this pattern: ‘Theories abound, but the explanation for lithium’s effectiveness remains unknown. Patients are often told it corrects a biochemical imbalance, and, for many, this explanation suffices. There is no evidence that bipolar mood disorder is a lithium deficiency state or that lithium works by correcting such a deficiency’ (quoted in Breggin 1991: 174).

Breggin (1991: 60) raises the question of what ‘counts’ as successful treatment. It is clear that psychiatric drugs and electroshock make people more docile and apathetic, but other benefits are much more questionable. ‘Since drugged patients become much less communicative, sometimes nearly mute, it’s not surprising that they say less about their hallucinations and delusions. Had the investigators paid attention, they would have noticed that the patients also said less about their religious and political convictions as well as about their favorite sport or hobby.’

For an especially thoughtful critique, see Seavey (2002).

Admittedly, today’s constraining diseases may stem from yesterday’s lifestyle choices. I might be sick today because I smoked or even deliberately drank bacteria. But the same holds for more familiar cases. For example, my current wage depends on my past work experience.

The latter clause is necessary because an ailment might have an incubation period or go through cycles of outbreak and remission.

One exception is dissociative identity disorder, commonly referred to as ‘multiple personality disorder’ (APA 2000: 529).

I would like to thank an anonymous referee for raising this question.

See for example the profile of ‘Andy: A Hyperactive Child’ in Breggin (1991: 275–6).

Thus, if a person has lexicographic preferences, they will choose death rather than change their behavior, even though life was inside their choice set.

BehaveNet 2004. http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/delusion.htm

Perhaps a better comparison could be drawn between Nash’s decision and Denethor’s suicide oration in The Return of the King: ‘‘‘I would have things as they were in the days of my life,’’ answered Denethor, ‘‘and in the days of my long-fathers before me: to be the Lord of this City in peace, and leave my chair to a son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard’s pupil. But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated’’’ (Tolkien 1994: 836).

Once Nash wanted to abandon delusional thinking, then, his dieting analogy suggests the possible relevance of self-control problems or hyperbolic discounting (Ainslie 1992). But this would still be a poor model of Nash’s condition during the many years when he felt little desire to change.

A third hypothesis that must explain part of the data is that the delusions are deliberate fabrications. As Szasz (1990: 117) succinctly remarks, ‘If a man lies about his car so he . . . can get more money for it, that is rational economic behavior; if he lies about himself to get attention, that is irrational madness. We respond to the former by bargaining about the price, to the latter by treating mental illness.’

Political ‘true believers’ who pass the Gun-to-the-Head Test are rarer still. Even in the modern world, suicide attacks are chiefly committed by religious rather than secular zealots (Iannacone 2003).

See for example Nasar (1998, especially pp. 260, 330–1).

As Jesus maintained according to Matthew 26: 51–53: ‘With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. ‘‘Put your sword back in its place,’’ Jesus said to him, ‘‘for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?’’ ’ (The Holy Bible 1984: 740–1).

The DSM curiously overlooks this point in an especially pertinent case: ‘In some cultures, visual or auditory hallucinations with a religious content may be a normal part of religious experience (e.g. seeing the Virgin Mary or hearing God’s voice)’ (APA 2000: 306). Presumably this does not mean that millions of devout believers have malfunctioning eyes and ears.

Note that even if you did experience auditory hallucinations, it hardly follows that you have to obey them. The Son of Sam killer claimed to follow a dog’s orders (Szasz 1997: 206–7). Assuming he was not lying (as he later admitted he was), one could still ask: Do you always do what you’re told?

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/reg2.html

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44 Writing Hacks From Some of the Greatest Writers Who Ever Lived

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44 Writing Hacks From Some of the Greatest Writers Who Ever Lived

Writing looks fun, but doing it professionally is hard. Like really hard. Why on earth am I doing this?-hard.

Which is probably why so many people want to write, yet so few actually do. But there are ways to make it easier, as many writers can tell you. Tricks that have been discovered over the centuries to help with this difficult craft.

In another industry, these tricks would be considered trade secrets. But writers are generous and they love to share (often in books about writing). They explain their own strategies for how to deal with writers block to how to make sure your computer never eats your manuscript. They give away this hard-won knowledge so that other aspiring writers wont have to struggle in the same way. Over my career, Ive tried to collect these little bits of wisdom in my commonplace book (also a writers trick which I picked up from Montaigne) and am grateful for the guidance theyve provided.

Below, Ive shared a collection of writing hacks from some amazing writers like Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Stephen King, Elizabeth Gilbert, Anne Lamott, and Raymond Chandler. I hope its not too presumptuous but I snuck in a few of my own too (not that I think Im anywhere near as good as them).

Anyway, heres to making this tough job a tiny bit easier!

[*] When you have an idea for an article or a bookwrite it down. Dont let it float around in your head. Thats a recipe for losing it. As Beethoven is reported to have said, If I don’t write it down immediately I forget it right away. If I put it into a sketchbook I never forget it, and I never have to look it up again.

[*] The important thing is to start. At the end of John Fantes book Dreams from Bunker Hill, the character, a writer, reminds himself that if he can write one great line, he can write two and if he can write two he can write three, and if he can write three, he can write forever. He pauses. Even that seemed insurmountable. So he types out four lines from one of his favorite poems. What the hell, he says, a man has to start someplace.

[*] In fact, a lot of writers use that last technique. In Tobias Wolffs autobiographical novel Old School, the character types the passages from his favorite books just to know what it feels like to have those words flow through his fingertips. Hunter S. Thompson often did the same thing. This is another reason why technologies like ebooks and Evernote are inferior to physical interaction. Just highlighting something and saving it to a computer? Theres no tactile memory there.

[*] The greatest part of a writers time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. Samuel Johnson

[*] Tim Ferriss has said that the goal for a productive writing life is two crappy pages a day. Just enough to make progress, not too ambitious to be intimidating.

[*] They say breakfast (protein) in the morning helps brain function. But in my experience, thats a trade-off with waking up and getting started right away. Apparently Kurt Vonnegut only ate after he worked for 2 hours. Maybe he felt like after that hed earned food.

[*] Michael Malice has advised dont edit while you write. I think this is good advice.

[*] In addition to making a distinction between editing and writing, Robert Greene advises to make an equally important distinction between research and writing. Trying to find where youre going while youre doing it is begging to get horribly lost. Writing is easier when the research is done and the framework has been laid out.

[*] Nassim Taleb wrote in Antifragile that every sentence in the book was a derivation, an application or an interpretation of the short maxim he opened with. THAT is why you want to get your thesis down and perfect. It makes the whole book/essay easier.

[*] Break big projects down into small, discrete chunks. As I am writing a book, I create a separate document for each chapter, as I am writing them. Its only later when I have gotten to the end that these chapters are combined into a single file. Why? The same reason it feels easier to swim seven sets of ten laps, than to swim a mile. Breaking it up into pieces makes it seem more achievable. The other benefit in writing? It creates a sense that each piece must stand on its own.

[*] Embrace what the strategist and theorist John Boyd called the draw-down period. Take a break right before you start. To think, to reflect, to doubt.

[*] On being a writer: All the days of his life he should be reading as faithfully as his partaking of food; reading, watching, listening. John Fante

[*] Dont get caught up with pesky details. When I am writing a draft, I try not to be concerned with exact dates, facts or figures. If I remember that a study conducted by INSERT UNIVERSITY found that XX% of businesses fail in the first FIVE/SIX? months, thats what I write (exactly like that). If I am writing that on June XX, 19XX Ronald Reagan gave his famous Tear Down This Wall speech in Berlin in front of XX,XXX people, thats how its going to look. Momentum is the most important thing in writing, so Ill fill the details in later. I just need to get the sentences down first. “Get through a draft as quickly as possible.” is how Joshua Wolf Shenk put it.

[*] Raymond Chandler had a trick of using small pieces of paper so he would never be afraid to start over. Also with only 12-15 lines per page, it forced economy of thought and actionwhich is why his stuff is so readable.

[*] In The Artists Way, Julia Cameron reminds us that our morning pages and our journaling dont count as writing. Just as walking doesnt count as exercise, this is just priming the pumpits a meditative experience. Make sure you treat it as such.

[*] Steven Pressfield said that he used to save each one of his manuscripts on a disk that hed keep in the glovebox of his car. Robert Greene told me he sometimes puts a copy of his manuscript in the trunk of his car just in case. I bought a fireproof gun safe and keep my stuff in therejust in case.

[*] My editor Niki Papadopoulos at Penguin: Its not what a book is. Its what a book does.

[*] While you are writing, read things totally unrelated to what youre writing. Youll be amazed at the totally unexpected connections youll make or strange things youll discover. As Shelby Foote put it in an interview with The Paris Review: I cant begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else.

[*] Writing requires what Cal Newport calls deep workperiods of long, uninterrupted focus and creativity. If you dont give yourself enough of this time, your work suffers. He recommends recording your deep work time each dayso you actually know if youre budgeting properly.

[*] Software does not make you a better writer. Fuck Evernote. Fuck Scrivner. You dont need to get fancy. If classics were created with quill and ink, youll probably be fine with a Word Document. Or a blank piece of paper. Dont let technology distract you. As Joyce Carol Oates put it in an interview, Every writer has written by hand until relatively recent times. Writing is a consequence of thinking, planning, dreaming this is the process that results in writing, rather than the way in which the writing is recorded.

[*] Talk about the ideas in the work everywhere. Talk about the work itself nowhere. Dont be the person who tweets Im working on my novel. Be too busy writing for that. Helen Simpson has Faire et se taire from Flaubert on a Post-it near her desk, which she translates as Shut up and get on with it.

[*] Why cant you talk about the work? Its not because someone might steal it. Its because the validation you get on social media has a perverse effect. Youll less likely to put in the hard work to complete something that youve already been patted (or patted yourself) on the back for.

[*] When you find yourself stuck with writers block, pick up the phone and call someone smart and talk to them about whatever the specific area youre stuck with is. Not that youre stuck, but about the topic. By the time you put your phone down, youll have plenty to write. (As Seth Godin put it, nobody gets talkers block.)

[*] Keep a commonplace book with anecdotes, stories and quotes you can always usefrom inspiration to directly using in your writing. And these can be anything. H.L. Mencken for example, would methodically fill a notebook with incidents, recording scraps of dialogue and slang, columns from the New York Sun.

[*] As you write down quotes and observations in your commonplace book, make sure to do it by hand. As Raymond Chandler wrote, when you have to use your energy to put words down, you are more apt to make them count.

[*] Elizabeth Gilbert has a good trick for cutting: As you go along, Ask yourself if this sentence, paragraph, or chapter truly furthers the narrative. If not, chuck it. And as Stephen King famously put it, kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribblers heart, kill your darlings.

[*] Strenuous exercise everyday. For me, and for a lot of other writers, its running. Novelist Don DeLillo told The Paris Review how after writing for four hours, he goes running to shake off one world and enter another. Joyce Carol Oates, in her ode to running, said that the twin activities of running and writing keep the writer reasonably sane and with the hope, however illusory and temporary, of control.

[*] Ask yourself these four questions from George Orwell: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? Then finish with these final two questions: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

[*] As a writer you need to make use of everything that happens around you and use it as material. Make use of Seinfelds question: Im never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I am thinking, Can I do something with that?

[*] Airplanes with no wifi are a great place to write and even better for editing. Because there is nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

[*] Print and put a couple of important quotes up on the wall to help guide you (either generally, or for a specific project). Heres a quote from a scholar describing why Ciceros speeches were so effective which I put on my wall while I was writing my first book. At his best [Cicero] offered a sustained interest, a constant variety, a consummate blend of humour and pathos, of narrative and argument, of description and declamation; while every part is subordinated to the purpose of the whole, and combines, despite its intricacy of detail, to form a dramatic and coherent unit. (emphasis mine)

[*] Focus on what youre saying, worry less about how. As William March wrote in The Bad Seed, A great novelist with something to say has no concern with style or oddity of presentation.

[*] A little trick I came up with. After every day of work, I save my manuscript as a new file (for example: EgoIsTheEnemy2-26.docx) which is saved on my computer and in Dropbox (before Dropbox, I just emailed it to myself). This way I keep a running record of the evolution of book. It comforts me that I can always go back if I mess something up or if I have to turn back around.

[*] Famous ad-man David Ogilvy put it bluntly: Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

[*] Envision who you are writing this for. Like really picture them. Dont go off in a cave and do this solely for yourself. As Kurt Vonnegut put it in his interview with The Paris Review: …every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. Thats the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind.

[*] Do not chase exotic locations to do some writing. Budd Schulbergs novel The Disenchanted about his time with F. Scott Fitzgerald expresses the dangers well: It was a time everyone was pressing wonderful houses on us. I have a perfectly marvelous house for you to write in, theyd say. Of course no one needs marvelous houses to write in. I still knew that much. All you needed was one room. But somehow the next house always beckoned.”

[*] True enough, though John Fante said that when you get stuck writing, hit the road.

[*] Commitments (at the micro-level) are important too. An article a week? An article a month? A book a year? A script every six weeks? Pick something, but commit to itpublicly or contractually. Quantity produces quality, as Ray Bradbury put it.

[*] Dont ever write anything you dont like yourself and if you do like it, dont take anyones advice about changing it. They just dont know. Raymond Chandler

[*] Neil Strauss and Tucker Max gave me another helpful iteration of that idea (which I later learned is from Neil Gaiman): When someone tells you something is wrong with your writing, theyre usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, theyre almost always wrong.

[*] Ogilvy had another good rule: Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

[*] Print out the work and edit it by hand as often as possible. It gives you the readers point of view.

[*] Hemingway advised fellow writer Thomas Wolfe to break off work when you ‘are going good.’Then you can rest easily and on the next day easily resume. Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Billions) has referred to this as stopping on wet edge. It staves off the despair the next day.

[*] Keep the momentum: Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether. Jeanette Winterson

That taps me out for now. But every time I read I compile a few more notecards. Ill update you when Ive got another round to share.

In the meantime, stop reading stuff on the internet and get back to writing!

But if you have a second…share your own tips below.

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