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Let's stop referring to bad people as 'unhealthy'

6K views 149 replies 38 participants last post by  contradictionary 
#1 · (Edited)
I've noticed for years, both in the community and on the websites for different systems, that there is a strong trend of talking about the bad seeds of the various personality types as 'unhealthy' individuals. The thing is, the quality of ones mental health has little to do with the quality of ones values. Bad people are not necessarily more likely to be unhealthy, and there is no correlation between a lack of mental health and a lack of ethics or moral integrity.

Regardless of the stress that they are under good people do not stop being good people. They may panic. They may loose their cool. They may get in arguments more readily. They may struggle to see peoples perspectives when they normally would not. But they will not stop respecting other peoples autonomy and independence, nor will they cease to value or prioritize taking care of others, and no matter how much stress they are under they will not intentionally bully other people and will be deeply concerned to discover if any of their actions have made other people uncomfortable or scared (and typically take actions in themselves to prevent themselves from scaring that person again.)

And bad people continue to be bad people even when they are happy, calm, focused, and well-adjusted. Even the most violent and tyrannical abusers often pass all psychological screenings easily because there is nothing psychologically wrong with them. When people are consistently disrespectful to others it is because they don't see those people as people (perhaps because they see them as animals or because they see them as property). When people are controlling, whether in a domineering way or a manipulative way, by playing the victim or the oppressor, it's not because they're crazy, it's because they believe they are entitled to something that they are not being given. And they may be right if they're being deprived things like food or water or sleep, or having their ideas listened to and grappled with in good faith, or basic respect and kindness, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc. But if they are seeking personal gain at the expense of others beyond the basic things everyone has a right to then they're not mentally unhealthy, they're being bad people.

The process by which bad people who are willing to take advantage of others to satisfy their own entitlements become good people who respect others is not a process of becoming sensitive to their own insecurities and maladjustments. It is a process of them recognizing that their actions were wrong, owning up to their morally wrong actions, taking responsibility for the damage they caused, and making amends. It starts with the people around them naming the moral wrongs they are guilty of and refusing to tolerate that behavior or to listen to excuses for it**. Therapy is a wonderful thing that can work miracles for people suffering from legitimate mental health issues like PTSD, Depression, Chronic Anxiety Disorders, etc. But it doesn't help a manipulative person get less manipulative. Therapy makes manipulative people better at it by giving them more tools to use to manipulate other people and better excuses to justify their behavior.

When an ISFP* is telling you your opinion is impractical or unrealistic and thereby shutting you down, putting you in positions where your forced to pay for them constantly while dodging the responsibility of dealing with their own finances, insisting that you need to be okay with an open relationship and your a bad person if you're not, or using the insecurities you shared with them in confidence to punish you for not conforming to their sense of values they're not being an 'unhealthy' ISFP, they're being a shitty person ISFP. And they probably do think that what they're doing is okay. They probably have lots of moral arguments for why it's justified behavior. (Although that's not guaranteed: I've personally done the financial one of those things in the past, knowing it wasn't okay, because it was convenient, I'd mismanaged my money, and nobody held me accountable for doing it. I wish someone had held me accountable for doing it. Getting a grip on that bad behavior would have been easier if someone given me shit for doing it.)

So let's stop referring to examples of types misbehaving as 'unhealthy individuals' and start calling them something else more appropriate like 'abusive individuals', or 'selfish and disrespectful individuals', or whatever (I'm open to suggestions.)

*: I used ISFP because it is my own type and I did not feel comfortable using another type in an example of negative behavior as I did not want anyone to feel attacked or accused and thought that using my own type might help mitigate that. Furthermore, I do not mean to imply that these behaviors are at all typical for an ISFP. I personally have had very good experiences with others of my type.
**: If you are currently dealing with an individual who frightens you, scares you, etc. Then please do not use this post as a guideline for dealing with them! If you feel like you are unsafe around this individual then trust your intuition. Nobody knows your situation better than you. I would urge you to call an abuse shelter to talk about your experiences even if you don't think that your experiences are abuse.
 
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#134 ·
Whatexists said:
First I have to clarify something. When you say able-ist, do you mean it in the way it's used in social justice contexts? As in, "Prejudice against disabled people" (wittingly or unwittingly)? That is the context in which I am familiar with that word.

My guess is that he does. Obviously as well, he is holding up a mirror to you or intending to.

Whatexists said:
If so it wasn't intended to be. I'll have to consider the possibility that it was an able-ist perspective.

This was wisdom. You should have stopped the post here.

Whatexists said:
My intent was to put forward that mental health issues are not primarily the cause of people mistreating others, being rude, taking advantage of others, etc.

Ok, so far so good. At this stage you have only rejected the primacy of this cause. I still disagree, but that is a small step only at this stage.

Whatexists said:
That people with mental health issues are not more likely to mistreat others then people without mental health issues.

And here we see the expanding nature of the chaos apologist's argument style. You expand upon non primacy and now say unequivocally they 'are not more likely to mistreat others'.

Yes, the mentally ill ARE more likely to mistreat others along a certain threshold of moral awareness. That is because their disability FUNCTIONALLY affects their moral awareness at a LOWER level. So you are not only wrong but wrong in multiple ways at the same time. Further, this IS NOT an ableist argument as I will show. This conflation is the SAME conflation that you have with respect to your misunderstanding of arrogance and condescension.

Whatexists said:
And that blaming the mistreatment of others on mental health issues is unfair to people with mental health issues.

No, it is not.

Whatexists said:
In other words, my intent was to challenge a set of unfounded but common beliefs that stigmatize people with mental health issues and protect people who mistreat others from accountability simultaneously. If that is able-ist then I would like to hear the argument for why as it would help me avoid able-ist actions and beliefs in the future.

Prepare to hear this same MORAL argument FOREVER, because morality is objective and this moral truth, its BETTER interpretation of moral truth, WILL NOT EVER CHANGE.

Explanation:

Chaos apologists conflate equality of worthiness with equality of function. This is also true for the negation, they conflate inequality of worthiness with inequality of function. Neither conflation is correct.

This means:
Worthiness can be respected and function expressed as lesser. That is morally possible.
Function can be greater and worthiness DOES NOT increase. That is moral truth.

Ergo:
The mentally challenged or disabled ARE morally functionally disabled often enough. E.G. You are wrong.
Moral health has many faces and one of those is physical health, including mental health. E.G. Your title proposition for the OP is wrong.

As well and to whit:
Ableism to be an accurate charge MUST propose the fundamental unworthiness of the target BECAUSE of their disability.
As long as that unworthiness is not contended, that label not applied, the person stating the target is functionally unable (mentally and thence possible morally) is merely CORRECT and not immoral.

This is the same conflation that immorally asserts that someone who is not contending the unworthiness of a target because of their poor argument is condescending or arrogant. That is because the challenge to those arguments is functional, not based on worthiness.
 
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#135 ·
I'm convinced there are some people who have crossed a threshold beyond what most normal human beings can fathom.

You can't fix someone who's malevolent and maliciously finds happiness in the sufferings of others.

They're the same as serial killers, but they do so in very subversive ways of what appears to be benign, and when added up all together, it collectively destroys the spirit of everyone around them, the fate of humanity, and including the environment that shelters them. That's what misery does best.

I agree, we shouldn't call these people unhealthy, but I disagree that they will ever change. They feed onto peoples' pains. They're vile. To the bone.
 
#136 ·
Well, I disagree and will continue to try to change them.

Can you not see that your final decision to judge them, permanently, is THE SAME error you accuse them of? It is the same along a different virtue. Because it is always true, that until they die, THEY CAN CHANGE, then, happily, you can change that wrong opinion as well. It is only THAT truth which allows for forgiveness.
 
#137 ·
@contradictionary do you agree with series0's breakdown of my perspective? If so you should be aware that he makes a number of statements that are not supported by evidence and that the statistics on the issue contradict. I've sighted well regarded works of literature to contradict these statements in the past, the most important of which is likely, 'Trauma and Recovery', although 'Why Does He Do That' by Lundy Bancroft is also excellent and addresses the issue, as do many other works by well regarded authors. Since this has come up repeatedly I've asked some friends of mine who are experts in mental health if they can provide me with specific research I could link here for people to read to support what they've told me many times regarding mental health and it's relationship with moral reasoning.

"Yes, the mentally ill ARE more likely to mistreat others along a certain threshold of moral awareness. That is because their disability FUNCTIONALLY affects their moral awareness at a LOWER level. So you are not only wrong but wrong in multiple ways at the same time. Further, this IS NOT an ableist argument as I will show. This conflation is the SAME conflation that you have with respect to your misunderstanding of arrogance and condescension."
This assertion is simply untrue. It flies in the face of every single expert opinion on the subject I've ever read or heard and all of the statistics on the issue I've seen. I'm working on getting statistics from good sources, as I stated above. I'll supply them when I have them. However, the two works I've supplied above do provide, together, a comprehensive coverage of the subject matter. For more information on the reasons people hurt other people, including how mental illness plays into it, I highly recommend, 'Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker.

"Chaos apologists conflate equality of worthiness with equality of function. This is also true for the negation, they conflate inequality of worthiness with inequality of function. Neither conflation is correct."
I don't conflate function with worthiness. I believe that worthiness, the value of human life, stems from something inherent to human life that cannot be alienated from a person. As such no physical or mental disability could impair it. Furthermore, and here I recognize that people will assume this is in contradiction to my OP do to my use of 'bad people' in that post and others, I don't believe that even people who commit profoundly evil acts cease to be human beings or lose their inherent value. The firmness of my belief that such people need to be held accountable stems from my knowledge that doing so is the most compassionate thing we can do for them and the first step to helping them change.
@strawberryLola I hear you. Clearly, based on what I just said, I don't agree that they're vile to be bone and that there is no hope of changing them. But I do understand that perspective. And there may definitely be individuals who will not change as there are certainly individuals who do not change even when the most effective methods of helping people change are applied to them.
 
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#140 ·
@contradictionary do you agree with series0's breakdown of my perspective? If so you should be aware that he makes a number of statements that are not supported by evidence and that the statistics on the issue contradict. I've sighted well regarded works of literature to contradict these statements in the past, the most important of which is likely, 'Trauma and Recovery', although 'Why Does He Do That' by Lundy Bancroft is also excellent and addresses the issue, as do many other works by well regarded authors. Since this has come up repeatedly I've asked some friends of mine who are experts in mental health if they can provide me with specific research I could link here for people to read to support what they've told me many times regarding mental health and it's relationship with moral reasoning.
Yes, firstly you already clarify that it (able-ist arguments) was unintentional at best, that's good enough for me. So let's glide past that.

Secondly, i know there are books, there are empirical theories, based on researches. Good to read stuffs. But they simply can't give you the actual wisdom to see beyond the superficial numbers and texts.

For example, I believe your OP might actually have quite "reasonably good" motivation in order to detach the bad behaviors from the health status. Well I gotta say you might have differentiate only at the facade, because there is no way "a happy, calm, focused, and well-adjusted" person who greet you with huge smile while at the same time backstabbing you, can be considered healthy.

If you want to address the problem of "unhealthy" mental condition i think this is not the proper way to address it. A spade is a spade.
 
#138 · (Edited)
Whatexists, I appreciate your optimism in rehabilitating these people. There's a difference between delinquencies based on acts committed by social inequities- finding means for survival as the situation makes it hard for some people that they have no choice they’ve fallen through the cracks of society- those people truly have potential as the problem is situational.

But even some kids who have been raised in the most loving home environments end up harming people and society, as a whole. I’m convinced that the neurocircuitries of their brains make it so that empathy is unattainable, nor achievable. They don’t compute emotions like most people do, but do exhibit cold empathy. I also think social environments play a huge role on intrinsic impulses.

Do I feel sorry for people who vehemently harm others? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. But feeling sorry and having hope for someone who consistently shows a lack of remorse or callous behavior and jeopardizes the safety and sanctities of basic universal human rights- it’s like trying to retrain a rabid viscous dog that notoriously attacks everyone at every cost. At what point should people risk endangering themselves at their own personal expense to show compassion and kindness when that kindness gets repeatedly violated? There has to be some kind of retribution for their actions. But I get what you’re saying also. Perhaps, social deviance can be drastically reduced when a system changes (the social environment) combined with intervening at the most critical points in a person’s stage of development that could positively improve outcome in the trajectories of their lives long-term. They key vantage points could mean the sooner the behavior is caught the better.

It’s commonly said that it takes a village to raise a child, and I agree. Maybe we need a new way of re-framing how and what community means, social contracts and agreements, to help instill a sense of belonging, community engagement. I’m in the camp of nature intertwining with nurture (20/80) with nurture, a person’s environment mostly influencing nature upon their DNA.

And thank you for your thoughtful response. You asked a very poignant question especially in modern times where social isolation can exacerbate the problem inherent in a depersonalized and impersonal modern society.
 
#139 ·
The quality of one's mental health has everything to do with the quality of one's thoughts and judgments.

One might approve the right values for the wrong reasons, like a broken clock can point at the right time for a fraction of a second. It depends on how the clock is broken and the situation.

Misbehaving is the result of having one fucked up mind that cannot put one's thoughts/reactions into proper order. That's what misbehaving is, an inconsistent set of reactions/ideas which result in self-destruction, whether that is through self-punishment or object-punishment.
 
#141 ·
I think youre misunderstanding what "unhealthy" entails. For example, when a 4 is being emotionally masochistic, that is an unhealthy 4. When a 9 is numbing out so much that they cant face the problems in their life, that is an unhealthy 9.
 
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#143 ·
Actually I do understand that. And in essence there is nothing inherently wrong with that. The problem comes when we start to generalize the phrase, 'unhealthy' and apply it to behavior that is not just self-destructive but also destructive to others or that takes advantage of others.
 
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#145 ·
I think you’re both right, but agree with WhatExists that the term ‘unhealthy’ seems to be watering the behavior and it’s consequences down a bit. Toxic sounds more fitting but even that term doesn’t exemplify the amount of pain and damage inflicted upon others. I wouldn’t know how else to phrase it except abusive, controlling, manipulative, narcissistic, cruel, psychopathic, lack of empathy, deflection, scapegoating, gaslighting... how does one provide a definition for that all into one word when it has so many destructive qualities? Even abusive doesn’t exemplify the degree of psychological manipulation, tactics, and diversion it creates. It’s so strategically done to strip away people’s sense of self and identity. Egoist, malignant, flagrant, grandiosity... even swear words can’t capture the degree of monstrosities when dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths.
 
#147 ·
Personally, having grown up with an abusive father and studied abuse a lot. I think "Abusive" is absolutely a fitting and accurate word. Not all abusers are the physically intimidating violent people media paints them to be. Some accomplish the same level of tyranny and control through emotional manipulation, gas-lighting, scapegoating, deflection, condescension, isolating their victims from their peers and loved ones, etc. And even the physically intimidating violent abusers who beat their victims on a regular basis tend to also use those tactics.
 
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