Friday, November 16, 2018

Two Posts


Yesterday Rod Dreher tweeted this:



(This seems to be the 'friend' he is talking about. Notice how earnestly he insists these people must be believed because they travel in Europe.)

Today, he posted this charming item, in which he detailed, scathingly, a young trans man's interview about his journey through an adolescence marked with anxiety and depression, among other things. As someone who has dealt with the psychiatric community, I know how much a 'diagnosis' is worth. And I know why Scout calls himself crazy -- it's a way of reclaiming the word.

Rod uses inaccurate and frankly vicious language about Scout, misgenders him, and finally claims that he's an "abomination." This is typical of Rod, of course. I don't know what his issue is with queer people in general, and trans people in specific, but boy does it run deep. It's not just hatred: He's obsessed.

Anyway! My point, and I do have one: Who do you think needs more time in a therapist's chair at this point, Scout or Rod?


2 comments:

D Shannon said...

Scout needs the therapy.

Therapy doesn't work against willful ignorance. It doesn't work against willful evil. Ergo, it won't work with Rod.

It does help with mental illness, so Scout will benefit.

I'll never forget something Matthew White once wrote:

"In 1801, almost every monarch in Europe was a gibbering lunatic. Even those who may not have been clinically insane were odd enough that later generations could find plenty of strange stories. You would think that with so many unbalanced individuals at the helm, countries like England (George III), Russia (Paul I), Portugal (Maria I), Sweden (Gustav IV Adolf), and Denmark (Christian VII) would be a menace to society, but no. Lunatics were running every country in Europe -- except one. A perfectly sane military dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, ruled France, and that was the country causing all the trouble."

delagar said...


Hah! Mad King George takes on a new flavor.

But yes, you're right. Rod is so sure he's sane, therapy would be wasted on him

(It's like the old joke: Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: My dear, the light bulb has to WANT to change!)