Authoritarian Psychology

By Crispin Sartwell

Sometimes you have to wonder whether the basic function of psychology is to relieve human misery or to regulate human behavior in a kind of faux-benign totalitarianism.

Nowhere is such a concern more appropriate than with regard to the childhood pathology called "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" (ODD), which is, according to some of the literature I consulted, the most commonly diagnosed pathological condition in adolescents. According to the standard manual of psychological diagnosis, the DSM-IV, symptoms of ODD may include the following: "Losing temper. Arguing with adults. Actively defying or refusing to carry out the rules or requests of adults. Blaming others for own mistakes or misbehavior. Being spiteful or vindictive."

Here we might profitably apply the popular biographical technique of diagnosing the psychological dysfunctions of historical figures: many have commented on or indeed made entire careers out of James Joyce's Oedipus complex, for example, or Friedrich Nietzsche's syphilitic dementia. Obviously ODD has a long history and has wreaked untold havoc upon our history. But sadly, figures such as Socrates, Joan of Arc, Galileo, Patrick Henry, and Martin Luther King, Jr. went undiagnosed and therefore unmedicated.

The idea that opposition to authority is a psychological disorder is one that would, of course, only occur to authoritarians. And the claim that this resistance can be broken not by torture but by Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors is one that would occur only to authoritarian psychologists. Today's Siberias and re-education camps are the professional suite and the treatment facility. And today's Patrick Henrys are no doubt busy composing their new slogans: "Give me liberty, or medicate me." This not only makes our schools more orderly, it stimulates the economy by shoveling all the world's cash in the direction of large drug manufacturers.

In the interests of opening yet new markets for such manufacturers and hence allowing them to hire even more lobbyists while purchasing innovative and self-serving research that might uncover more disorders, I would like to propose a new disease: Vicious, Lamebrained Authority Disorder (VLAD).

VLAD is extremely widespread, particularly among police officers, school administrators, government bureaucrats, and psychologists themselves. The most common symptoms are as follows: Morbid obedience to rules and regulations. Refusal to take responsibility for one's own actions, attributing them to occult agencies such as these very rules and regulations or to one's superiors in a seemingly infinite chain of command. Arbitrary or incomprehensible demands upon those over whom one wields power. Incapacity for independent or creative thought, causing the subject to lose touch entirely with reality. Comorbidities include mediocrity, narrow-mindedness, and a really bad, though conventional, haircut.

Though the causes of VLAD await further research, the condition is certainly due to an organic condition of the brain, as can be easily proven by the following experiment. Take the subject and belabor him about the head with a baseball bat. As his consciousness lapses, so does his VLAD.

Such experiments strongly suggest, indeed, that the baseball bat may, in the end, be the most effective treatment for VLAD, though there is some evidence that talk therapy - particularly extreme ridicule emphasized by a firm slap - may also be effective. ODD itself is another effective treatment for VLAD, and should be encouraged in all persons with which the victim of VLAD may come into contact.

In extreme cases, residential treatment in an anarchist collective may be called for.

Crispin Sartwell's most recent book is "Extreme Virtue: Truth and Leadership in Five Great American Lives" (SUNY, 2003).