OCD - a God complex: says John Waters

JuliusCaesar

Has anyone seen the articles in The Voice Today (www.thevoice.ie) in which John Waters claims that OCD is "one of a host of escalating symptoms of atheistic society in which the contagation of disbelief is [due to] the self-imposed pressure to become 'god' of our own lives is, literally' driving us mad"? 14th April, 28th April. What do yous think?

John

I think he's wrong, I think it's a mental disorder that's caused by an imbalance in serotonergic signalling.

lostexpectation

er which article is that, 'Why I felt the need
to stray from church' is a good article, but just cos Pope Benedict says modern secualr life ain't all your hoped isn't a reason to run or wander back.

JuliusCaesar

the articles are "Beck's obsession is a God complex" 14th April; and "Do you believe or not believe in God?" 28th April. In the second article he shreds a corrospondent who disagreed with him in the letters column on the 21st April - on rather spurious grounds: for using 'their' rather than 'his or her'; for being a professional (the guy never said whether he was or not); for quoting him directly which JW says is a misquote (it's not). Personally I can't stand JW, but it's sad that such ignorant views of such a disabling condition are getting free rein in a 'family newspaper'.

simu

John2 wrote:

I think he's wrong, I think it's a mental disorder that's caused by an imbalance in serotonergic signalling.

But hey, don't let science get in the way of a catchy article.

Briony Noh

It doesn't even bear commenting on, does it. Anyone know any OCD sufferers? They hardly have control over their environment, do they? Quite the reverse. I think the case rests there.

You want to talk about God Complexes, let's talk about self-appointed experts in human bahavioural psychology - and why the media worship them so much.

Briony Noh

It doesn't even bear commenting on, does it. Anyone know any OCD sufferers? They hardly have control over their environment, do they? Quite the reverse. I think the case rests there.

You want to talk about God Complexes, let's talk about self-appointed experts in human behavioural psychology - and why the media worship them so much.

Myksyk

(Originally posted on the Irish Skeptics forum in response to the same thread).

It's difficult not to feel angry reading Water's article so I understand the tone of Ryan's response. However, it plays into his hands to address it in that tone as he can, and did, reject the indignation as 'splenetic disagreement'. There are a whole host of points that I picked up on which are factually incorrect, inaccurate or poorly informed but it may be distracting to concentrate on every little thing (e.g. Beckham probably doesn't have OCD, Waters seems to misunderstand the difference between obsessions and compulsions and their relationship, and why has he got such a problem with professionals who may actually know what they're talkng about ... for "beat you over the head with their diplomas and degrees" read "I don't like facts, evidence and research being brought into a discussion I started based on fantasy and ignorance").

There is a key point where Waters believes that OCD is about perfectionism and therefore this leads him nicely onto his vaccuous argument about secular atheism being a root cause for such 'obsessions'. The fact is that OCD is not about perfectionism. It is about the chaotic overt and covert behavioural attempts of people suffering from the condition to negate the anxieties arising from intrusive cognitions. These are quite specific and may not generalise out to the rest of the person's life which may be as normal and unperfectionistic as Joe Soap's. People are not trying to impose order ... they are trying to allay anxiety associated with obsessions.This is one of his key errors (he doesn't really have a good grasp of what the condition actually is).

The central issue revolves around his presenting a 'theory' of OCD. It clearly, despite his wrangling, is not an optional theory but one which supplants the clinical scientific theory as it supposedly gets to the root and doesn't just address the symptoms. Well, if he has presented us with a theory, albeit a supernaturally inspired one, it still has measurable implications. So how does it stand up and how good is it at explaining the condition. I'd suggest that if he is right then:

Countries infected with the 'contagion' of disbelief to a higher degree than others should have higher rates of OCD (as it "tend(s) to grow exponentially" in these societies). They don't.

Countries or societies with higher rates of belief should have statistically significant lower rates of OCD in the general population. They don't.

Atheists should statistically at least be over-represented in populations of people with OCD. They aren't.

On average, people with excellent connections to their God should be less vulnerable and hence under-represented. They aren't.

If it is a general spiritual malaise in the society which then randomly afflicts individual's souls there should be no real genetic effect. But there is.

Treatment of OCD involving creating strong connections to God should be evident. There is no evdence that this is the case.

I think you could actually tease this apart even further. The fact is he has made an extraordinary claim about the nature of a well-known, specific clinical condition. His claim does not stand up to scutiny. It is bad theory informed by bad logic and worse philosophy. It explains precisely nothing about OCD's onset, course, symptoms, prevalence or epidemiology.

democrates

I doubt John Waters has ever heard of DSM-IV, and assume he refers to OCD in the wider sense in which it has entered the public consciousness.

So instead of running down the "that's not OCD" road, if you ignore his laymans mistake and seek to understand, could it be possible that some of his points have some merit?

simu

democrates wrote:

So instead of running down the "that's not OCD" road, if you ignore his laymans mistake and seek to understand, could it be possible that some of his points have some merit?

Surely it's not too much to ask that he read up on OCD or any other topic that inspires before putting pen to paper? As an influential columnist, he should be aware of the distance his words go and as a professional journalist, it's not much to ask that he do a bit of research.

Myksyk

I agree. OCD is a very specific clinical condition and doesn't really have a 'wider sense'. If he meant something else then he entirely failed in making that clear, probably impacting to some degree on the public understanding of a debilitating condition in the process.

democrates

I agree that he was lax in referring to OCD, should have googled it and in two minutes avoided the error, and has contributed to spreading misunderstanding about it.

That aside, if you subtract that error from his article, are there any points of worth remaining, or does that error mean the enterity is seen as having zero value? Put another way, if you look for value, is there anything to salvage?

p.pete

democrates wrote:

That aside, if you subtract that error from his article, are there any points of worth remaining, or does that error mean the enterity is seen as having zero value? Put another way, if you look for value, is there anything to salvage?

Why spend time looking for value in something that is lazily written or poorly researched?

democrates

p.pete wrote:

Why spend time looking for value in something that is lazily written or poorly researched?

Personally I do because he has made some interesting points in the past. I can just filter out errors of fact and trawl for points of principle for consideration, rather than assume one error means every other point must be wrong.

Frankly I'm surprised to find myself arguing for the benefits of tolerant perception skills on this particular forum...

Eoghan-psych

The first problem I see with Waters' nonsense is that his central premise seems to be derived entirely from David Beckham's semi-literate vocabulary. The article centres around "perfect" for seemingly no other reason than Beckham's use of that word.

Now, call me crazy, but if I wanted to construct and intellectual analysis of society's ills, my first port of call would be something other than David Beckham's vocabulary.

Second, Waters acknowledges that OCD affects about 1 in 60 [~1.66%] of the population. Now, even conservative estimates put the atheist population far higher than that so Waters' is on statistically shaky ground.

Third, he acknowledges a significant biological component to the disorder - but then later lays cause at the feet of an entirely psychosocial factor by describing the disorder as being "quite manifestly a disease of the spirit".

Plainly, Waters' main aim is neither to analyse nor account for OCD or any other psychological disturbance - his only aim is to push a conservative religious agenda, and he is quite prepared to distort facts to achieve that end.

Turns out that this thread belongs in the psychology forum for two reasons - firstly, it deals with public ignorance about psychological issues, and secondly illustrates the psychological defence mechanisms which are utilised by religious believers to insulate themselves from empirical reality.

democrates

Eoghan-psych wrote:

Turns out that this thread belongs in the psychology forum for two reasons - firstly, it deals with public ignorance about psychological issues, and secondly illustrates the psychological defence mechanisms which are utilised by religious believers to insulate themselves from empirical reality.

Hmm. 'Empirical reality' is limited to what we perceive to be 'proven' in the lab, it has no business outside that realm which is where faith and philosophy fill in blank cheques. Pope Jean Paul II waxed on faith and reason in his encyclical "Fides et Ratio", but really he should have not feared the work of Hawking et al on a TOE.

While 11 dimensional membrane theory is a nice coalescence of cosmology and sub-atomic physics, and even if the number of believers grows to include the entire scientific community, it still has limits. No matter how big our observations the question remains "what is outside of that", no matter how small, "what is inside that".

Also since we aren't watching everything all of the time we will never have complete evidence to insist we have seen all there is to see. While our knowledge grows our ultimate ignorance has remained, science is thus far unable to prove there is no God, only that God hasn't been observed with conventional conceptual frameworks, so faith remains free to flourish and those true to the scientific method recognise that.

I like Socrates view that nothing can be proven with absolute universal certainty. Many choose to believe that what we can demonstrate in the lab is what always happens, surely one gigantic and ironic leap of faith. Such assumptions by scientists are repeatedly exposed as irrational each time new evidence debunks old 'truth' or limits its extent.

I'm not concluding from the limitations of the scientific method that religion is therefore absolutely right, that would be equally absurd. But I'm not so quick to be absolutely certain that any particular religious idea is 100% wrong throughout 100% of space and time. Hence I am tolerant and content to entertain all notions without loyalty. I wish to be free of the psychopathology of certainty (just in case it's bad karma - lol).

So while I can agree JW mixes faith and science a la carte, I can see that he is wise to have reservations about the direction in which social values are going. In the 80's greed was good, now we're all worth it. How readily people become believers.

John

democrates wrote:

I like Socrates view that nothing can be proven with absolute universal certainty. Many choose to believe that what we can demonstrate in the lab is what always happens, surely one gigantic and ironic leap of faith. Such assumptions by scientists are repeatedly exposed as irrational each time new evidence debunks old 'truth' or limits its extent.

No (good) scientist thinks that what happens in the lab is the absolute truth or that we can prove anything with absolute universal certainty. Scientists only ever discuss what facts they know in terms of models. Models for how an atom is composed, models for how evolution occurs and models for how the brain works. As new evidence emerges, the models get updated and in theory get more accurate. Making a leap of faith is bad science. Yes sometimes it can lead to advancements in science but it is still bad science.