Stupidity is a mental disorder

There's a movement afoot to include bitterness in the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the authoritative guide to all things psychiatric. Apparently, the thinking on the disorder of bitterness models itself on the apparently ubiquitous problem of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and accordingly the nomenclature, should the idea be accepted by the psychiatric community, will be something like Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. It states that some people, perhaps a large number of us, cannot overcome everyday occurrences like relationship breakups, failure to receive promotions, hell, even a neighbor's shiny new barbecue might trigger a decent into embittered malaise. One psychiatrist considers the disorder of embitterment to be a step beyond your meat-and-potatoes rage, by attaching to it the feeling helplessness. Yes, no matter how one might fret, his neighbor will irritatingly continue to enjoy evening barbecues on that fantastic appliance.

Everyone has come across these sorts of people; heaven forbid a cherished knowingdoingean might also harbor boundless and debilitating feelings of resentment and anger. You know the attitude: "The world has conspired against me, everyone else has everything and receives every opportunity I don't; it's everyone's fault but mine." I once commented on a young man's work attire, only to learn - years later - that so deep was his hatred and bitterness towards me that he lay in wait, like a retarded hunter, all those intervening years for his chance to strike, which he did by commenting on my own vetements. I was barely conscious of the experience, so enfeebled had his rage made him. I had to be told of the event after the fact. I was in the center of a raging hurricane and I didn't even notice. I've occasionally seen it in work mates as well, the constant drudging up of distant snubs, ignored or glossed over misunderstandings and such. Usually I try to change the subject, or remark on the great quantities of wasted time and effort at carrying around that sort of ill will. "There's nothing to be done about it, move on," I'd say, you know pretty normal, dare I hazard, "common sense" sort of advice. Almost invariably the quibble persists, the resentment festers, like a colony of warts left unchecked.

I should quickly concede the point that there are no doubt situations in life that may justly lead to uncontrolled bitterness. I can imagine a catastrophic injustice like rape, murder of a loved one, theft of one's property, and other similar examples might indeed be difficult if not impossible to overcome. Nevertheless they should be overcome, not for any ideal of magnanimity, but so that the person having undergone the injustice can go on to enjoy and appreciate their life. But from my reading of a few articles about this issue, it is not these genuinely traumatic experiences which are compelling psychiatrists to medicalize embittered attitudes, but the more everyday sort of stuff - break ups, failed undertakings, casual remarks about work uniforms - which is causing people to seethe in resentment.

This being the case, I propose psychiatrists hurry up and develop diagnostic criteria for several other, unseemly human follies. Perhaps selfishness is a mental disorder? How about pettiness? A lack of curiosity? Maybe we should include that feeling of anger towards amorphous entities like "governments" or "liberals" or "them" too. Does this sound far fetched? A little hyperbolic, exaggerated and what not? Well the people who ponder the parameters of normal/healthy human behavior are preparing to anoint bitterness with the status of mental illness. And if the psychiatry community agrees, then I propose they hurry up and declare the above list as equally deserving of medical cordoning. But maybe all this hairsplitting of deplorable personality traits is a waste of time, more about enabling the easy packaging of particular pharmaceuticals with particular disorders.

If you ask me, and I'll do it for you, thanks for asking, I sincerely believe that this would have been called stupidity once upon a time. I believe, and think a little too, that intelligence and stupidity have more to do with morality than an aptitude for calculus or comprehension of technological mechanisms. The emphasis that intelligence or its converse are most about what skills can allow one to manipulate nature, succeed financially, "out smart" others, is a red herring, a distraction from the true purpose of our analytical faculties. All that matters is how we treat each other, intelligence properly defined should lead us away from debilitating, destructive attitudes and opinions to those enabling and productive. Following from that, I believe that all these negative attitudes and mind sets ultimately flow out of that eternal well-spring of human folly, stupidity. Bitterness and selfishness are mere weeds in the great garden, the boundless forest, the immortal fecundity, infinitely perennial, of human stupidity. Stop being stupid or they'll pour more pills down your throat! You know, I'm feeling kind of bitter about this.