February 04, 2007

THE NYTIMES: NORMALIZING PARANOIA

        One of the first things you learn as a psychiatric resident is not to try to talk a paranoid person out of his delusions. Horsefeathers remembers as a first year resident the futility of trying to persuade a patient that the FBI was really not interested in pursuing him for his political views. It took a while to realize that this paranoid belief bolstered his sense of self importance, protecting him from terrible feelings of worthlessness. Freud once remarked that there is always a kernel of truth in delusions, and paranoids find that small kernel and expand it to encompass all of reality. You can't compliment a paranoid person for he'll see the reverse side. Tell a paranoid woman she's pretty and she'll say "You're saying that because you really think I'm ugly." Tell a paranoid he's intelligent and he'll think "ah ha, you really think I'm stupid and are saying that to disguise you're real feelings."
        Today's New York Times offers a black wordsmith's paranoid view of race as if it were a perfectly reasonable description of reality. Lynette Clemetson offers a potpourri of paranoia from various black intellectuals who resent being described as 'articulate'. You see, the hidden message is 'how surprising that a black person can speak, reason and think'. The real problem inadvertently revealed by this article is the stance of victimization and grievance it expresses, aided and encouraged by the New York Times. Fortunately most blacks, like most others of whatever ethnic or racial background eschew the pleasures of victimhood for the greater satisfactions of real achievement. Most normal people, of whatever skin color, enjoy a compliment.