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Originally posted by Finwe
I don't know why society has this penchant for labeling all the non-conformists with some sort of mental disease or syndrome.
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It's called "label-me-so-I-am-no-longer-responsible." People look for labels when they are sure "it is not their fault". That way, they don't have to conform/change/admit wrong.
For instance, I believe that parents have a great responsibility toward the instilling of good values and behavior in their children. Recognizing of course that each child is an individual in gifts, interests, personality, etc. So I do things to raise my children within the bounds of what I consider acceptable behavior and knowing right from wrong, according to the standards I set, not necessarily what society sets.
On the other hand, I have very close friends who have taken a much more hands-off, natural parenting approach. Their child is--to put it mildly--a holy terror. And my friends were sure the variable of "parenting efforts" was not responsible for (or even related to) the outcome.
So they sought a label. A stamp of approval for the parents' self esteem.
Absolution, if you will. Society and their psychiatrist and psychologist provided the label: a diagnosis of ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and later Asperger's. Oh! and they also threw in an ODD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, diagnosis.
I have four sons, so I have quite a variety. And my wife and I have agreed that there are two of our sons that, if our friends had raised, they would have turned out with these some or all of these same labels. And vice-versa, I believe with all my heart, that if we had had our friends' son to raise all those years, he would have turned out just as 'unlabeled' and disciplined (read
well-behaved) as our actual four.
Anyway, once enough people in society agree that we have no more responsibility for ourselves and our behaviors, we require the reinforcement that everyone else have some label, showing why they are different--but still okay. So society goes about trying to affix a label to pretty much everyone. That's why we have in the US 25-30% of school age boys on Ritalin for ADD. And so many adults on Prozac, or some such, because they have a "chemical imbalance."
By the way,
Finwe. Face it, you are
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a repressed, goody-two-shoes conformist.
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Just kidding.