Saturday, February 17, 2018

‘Alternative facts’: A psychiatrist’s guide to twisted relationships to truth


This understanding is better than for instance when we FAIL to get our way technically and/or  politically we would say "its a neo-liberal conspiracy oligarchy world!!!", etc...


First, we need to make a distinction often emphasized by ethicists and philosophers: that between a lie and a falsehood. Thus, someone who deliberately misrepresents what he or she knows to be true is lying – typically, to secure some personal advantage. In contrast, someone who voices a mistaken claim without any intent to deceive is not lying. That person may simply be unaware of the facts, or may refuse to believe the best available evidence. Rather than lying, he’s stating a falsehood.


Yet meanwhile in MMT world, how many times have we heard or read the conspiratorial "neo-liberal lies!' or "its a big Oligarchy world!!!" and BS like that???   IT.... HAPPENS....ALL... THE... F-ING.... TIME....



The Conversation
Ronald W. Pies Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine, Tufts University





11 comments:

Kaivey said...

So you don't believe there is such a thing as neoliberalism, or that oligarchs rule America.

Kaivey said...

I think psychiatrists call that denial, or self delusion.

Noah Way said...

He's just repeating a falsehood.

Matt Franko said...

"neoliberalism" is a figure of speech...

Matt Franko said...

Noah the guy is a trained/qualified psychology person... he's not weighing in on infrastructure policy or "the debt!" or wtf ... he's talking directly about matters of the technical discipline he is trained in..

Kaivey said...

Yes, it's a blanket term that covers the present economic system.

Kaivey said...

Economic and political system.

Matt Franko said...

Its personification:

https://literarydevices.net/personification/

"The non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings."

e.g. "neoliberal lies!" etc... ie the writer of this is applying human attributes to a figure of speech... BAD!

There is NO PLACE for this in technical disciplines...

Matt Franko said...

"The Fed is taking away the punch bowl!"

"money supply!"

"inflation!"

the list goes on....

Matt Franko said...

From the article:

"On the milder end, we have what psychiatrists call over-valued ideas. These are very strongly held convictions that are at odds with what most people in the person’s culture believe,"

MMT people suffer under what is termed here an 'over-valued idea' that we are not "out of money!"... this is at odds with what most people in our highly libertarian culture believe... most people believe we are "out of money!".... MMT people say "govt issues money!" while the people who form the libertarian shit-and-entrails filled Pool of Siloam we are trying to tread water in say "govt borrows money!"....

Its leading to a big a technical problem(s) that can be solved via a technical solution, but MMT is going to have to up its technical game big time from where it is right now...

Increased use of personifcations, figures of speech, etc are not going to help...

Noah Way said...

Matt, I'm not talking about him, I'm talking about you.