Post I made to addict-l on Dodecamania

[Guest guest]

[an addict-l subber] once posted something moderately

critical of the 12-step approach. I asked him if I could

fwd it elsewhere, and did he want me to leave his name on

it if i did. He said I could fwd it, but perhaps I should

just leave his initials on it because of a possible

reaction from the " dodecamaniacs " (his word). What is

going on here? A qualified, experienced neurologist, using

his skills and the best that modern science can offer to

help his patients, is concerned about his views on a

medical question - addiction - being expressed

publicly as it might result in a disagreeable hounding?

My impression was that he was concerned abt practitioners

rather than amateurs. I dont know which is worse - that a

clinician fears the mob or an Inquisition from within the

medical community.

The West, America in particular, seems to be entering into

a cult of Dumb'n'Dumber. A film like Forrest Gump, apart

from being tasteless freakism, is also a celebration of

simplistic attitudes. I cant remember if " Keep It Simple

Stupid " is one of the slogans in the " Silly Slogans " posts

- it ought to

be. apart from in itself denigrating the person it is

supposed to help, it is an appeal not to use one's

intelligence, as is " Your best Thinking got you here " .

The Disease/12-step Model is directly similar to the

Creation/6-day Myth challenged by evolutionists in the 19th

century. It is so heavily entrenched not only in the

culture but within the scientific community that one is

eventually bound to become cynical and embittered if one

tries to fight too long against it.

I joined addict-l hoping it would be a club that might not

want me as a member - because my academic credentials are

minimal and my clinical zero, except as patient - where the

academic and scholarly was indeed discussed in an academic

and scholarly way.

I wouldnt have minded the Step discussions to have

continued [t]here - in fact, I would have welcomed them, as

an

opportunity to understand how steppers interpret them. i

would want to be able to pass comment, and it's possible if

i did, the conversations would have stopped being as

agreeable, but thats by the by. We Rationalists are

missing something in that at present we have few answers to

the *A " Bums on Seats " argument. There are some, and I

have made them [t]here, and I think they are adequate in

themselves, but there is much, much more that we could

discover abt this which would make the Rationalist approach

stronger and make us look less neaner-neaner (or even nuts)

to our opponents or the uninformed. I would love to take

part in such a discussion in an academic way - including

defence of the 12SP that was *also* academic, but I'm not

going to be getting that. Occasionally there is a glimpse

- a comparison of the Steps to ksson's Stages of Moral

Development - but no-one is really interested in that,

probably at least in part because imho the comparison with

ksson is an *unfavourable* one - the 12SP encourages

regression to a primitive, pre-adolescent world of moral

absolutes and conforming to external authority rather than

full adult mature responsibility and self-determination.

Addict-l is mostly little more than yet another forum where

science is ignored or ridiculed, and the Grouper Godzilla

continues to lay intellectual civilization waste.

I dont think the Rationalists fired the first shot.

Pete

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Cool Briton

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--- End Forwarded Message ---

Pete

----------------------

Cool Briton

PERSONALITY-DISORDERS LIST:

http://rdz.acor.org/athenaeum/lists.phtml?personality-disorders

_____________________

" Every great scientist is part B.F. Skinner and part P.T. Barnum "

- Bart Simpson's science teacher

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