VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 16:53:58 09/22/99 Wed
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Re: paranoia -- Illness or Stigma?
In reply to: 's message, "Re: paranoia may destroy ya;)" on 05:24:13 09/22/99 Wed

> [I] think there is a big difference
> between paranoia and awareness, first of all, because
> paranoia is sickness...and nothing else. i don't get
> it, to be honest: you rumble about events, small and
> big, about being aware of the world, of wanting some
> answers: do you honestly believe that you're not
> living in fear?
> w.

Paranoia the sickness...hmmm. Paranoid Schitzophrenia is an illness, but does that make paranoia an illness too? All apples are fruit but are all fruit apples? [The first rule of philosophy is to answer questions with questions.;) ] I believe that IF there is a conspiracy, it would be in its best interest to label anyone who sees a true connection as mentally ill. I believe the word 'paranoia' has negative connotations while 'awareness' has a zen-like positive connotation attached to it. Socially, being referred to as 'aware' is complementary, while being called 'paranoid' is, at the very least, used pityingly to denounce someone who refuses to believe that so many coincidences are ONLY coincidences. Here's an anology to illustrate:

A man is hit by a car in the middle of a crowded marketplace. Two people saw the event. The first one tells his group of friends how he saw another man in the crowd push the victim in front of the car. His friends believe him and they praise his 'awareness'. Now the second witness also saw the other man push the victim into the road, but, after doing a little research, he discovered that the man who pushed the man in front of the car was a small-time criminal; The criminal was recently 'accidentally' released after being held on suspicion of murdering his wife; One of the people in charge of paperwork at the jail belongs to the same chapter of The Knights of Columbus as a local politician; And the victim was one of that politician's assistants (who would have access to many of the politician's secret papers). Now witness #2 puts all these factors together and deduces the victim was killed for stumbling onto something that the politician didn't want discovered. The politician convinced his 'brother' in the K.o.C. chapter to arrange for the premature release of the criminal in exchange for that criminal's cooperation in removing the 'trouble' from the picture. Now witness #2 tries to tell his friends about what happened in the marketplace and they all tell him he's just being paranoid. Instantly, witness #2's circumstantial evidence is dismissed as coincidence. It COULD happen that way, but he has been denounced as crazy and if his friends won't believe him, who will? Is he crazy, or is his idea just not a popular view?

Here's another point for you to ponder: If conspiracies don't exist, why does EVERY government in the world have laws against them?

-s138

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.