A clarification for the privileged

[noracharles]

An emotion is not an opinion. We can not agree or disagree with an emotion, but we can sympathize (feel the same) or empathize (understand or care about the person's emotions).

An experience is not an opinion. We can not agree or disagree with it, but we can believe or disbelieve, or understand the experience being relayed.

An opinion is an opinion, and we can agree or disagree with it, or argue for or against it.

Someone who has a mental health issue and reacts in an unusual way emotionally may have emotions we can't sympathize with. But that doesn't mean we have to disbelieve their experiences, or disagree with their opinions.

Irrational is a not a synonym for wrong, or "thing I disbelieve" or "thing I disagree with."

Sane is not a synonym for right, or "thing I believe" or "thing I agree with."

And a pertinent example:

"Because of my social anxiety, I don't like having my fic archived on public archives, including the AO3" is not the same as "I have political or philosophical objections to the AO3".

When you use mental health to judge who are right and who are wrong in a disagreement, you are not just arguing for your opinion, you are also contributing to the oppression of all people with mental health issues (including those who agree with you about the matter at hand).

Comments

[noracharles]

I don't mind Beatriz calling Ana irrational, because Ana is irrational. Irrational is a fine word, and Beatriz used it correctly. I think Beatriz is also irrational when she says that because something happened later, it was not possible to experience it not having happened yet.

Irrational is a good word.

What I have a problem with is Beatriz concluding that because Ana is irrational, she is also delusional. Not sympathizing with someone's emotions, does not mean denying their experience, or disagreeing with their opinions.

But because the neurotypical are privileged over the mentally ill, accusations of mental illness can be used to discredit someone as a person, or to discredit their position in a disagreement.

'irrational' and possible connotations

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

I hope I'm not derailing anything with this (and do tell me if I am!), but I realized on reading this post and comments that it's possible that some misunderstanding is coming out of what I think may be non-universal nuances of meaning to the word 'irrational' as used in current American English.

The thing is, there are cognitive modes that most or all of us routinely use that are not formal or linear reason, that I don't even think can be traced back to linear reason on full examination. Intuition, faith, emotion: those are all modes of thought, and not modes I would automatically dismiss or imply were less valid than reason by their nature.

But if I were talking about those cognitive modes, I would normally use the term 'non-rational' rather than 'irrational,' even as I suspected I was using self-invented terminology. And I'd be doing it to avoid the connotations of 'irrational,' which in my dialect of American English suggests a situation where whatever the underlying cognitive process, it has been distorted by either an inability or a refusal to accurately process relevant, ascertainable fact. And I wouldn't want to imply that a thought process was disordered when I wasn't damned sure that I meant exactly that.

Or, to do my usual thing with the examples: A devout more-or-less Anglican astrophysicist tells me that he can't explain why he has faith not only in God, but in a God with whom it's possible for an individual human being to have a personal relationship. "I know how much sense the arguments against it make," he tells me. "And I know, intellectually, that I could be totally wrong; but I still really believe it. I don't know, it just feels like it's right." This guy's faith is what I'd call non-rational: it's not based in reason, or not any reason that's accessible to him. But he's not refusing to look at facts that might contradict his faith, or distorting the facts he looks at.

By contrast: A politician from an American coal-mining state tells us that climate change/global warming is a giant hoax. He has proof, he tells us, if only people would listen to what he's saying and check his evidence! Only when we look more closely, we find that many, many people, in the sciences and out of them, have taken him seriously, looked at his evidence, and rebutted it all so meticulously that it's impossble to look through their findings and not see that some of what he's relying on has been faked, and the rest has been misrepresented or distorted. And this has been explained to him over and over and over, by his opponents and by at least a few of his friends.

This guy isn't lying to us -- he really believes every word he's saying. But for some reason or other (his sense of himself is now all wrapped up in this political position; his sense of self is similarly wrapped up in the idea that he's always right; his state's prosperity depends on continuing to mine coal and he can't bear the idea that they need to stop doing it for the sake of the planet, whatever) he has become incapable of engaging with any fact that would undercut his beliefs. He won't look at those facts, or if he's forced to he insists they're all hoaxes, or if all other alternatives are cut off he suddenly becomes unable to understand them.

This is what I'd call 'irrational.' It's not a neutral term by any means: it implies at the very least a profound flaw in cognitive processing, including the kinds of cognitive processing that don't depend on reason. Which may be why you're seeing the word used in ways that tend to conflate, say, 'irrational' with 'delusional.' They're not the same concept, but colloquially and in my language group, they may actually be more closely related than 'irrational' and 'nonrational.'

Re: 'irrational' and possible connotations

[noracharles]

Those are wonderful illustrative examples. I love a good illustrative example, and I have considered founding my own religion, so I could always go around and speak in parables :-D

You are right about the colloquial meaning of "irrational", and for that reason, I also prefer to use the term "non-rational" when talking about emotions, faith, intuition, and so on. But I don't think the word irrational in itself is ableist or despective, only a certain usage of it, and I do think it's a better alternative in many contexts.

It's unfortunate that a more accurate and politically correct term introduced or promoted to replace a despective word will gradually shift to occupy the place of the despective term, including all its connotations.

But really, what you're saying is that people have sloppy thinking about mental health issues and cognitive ability and lucidity because they are confirmed in those stereotypes daily by ableist attitudes permeating society. I am not seeing the word used in ableist ways because the word is vague or has shifted in meaning: I am seeing the word used in ableist ways because society is ableist and has shifted the meaning of the word to express a particular kind of irrationally caused by a flaw in cognitive processing.

I don't really care what word people use to talk about irrational anxieties. I care about using mental health issues to discredit opponents in debates. I care about using the circular argument that your emotions are opinions in disguise, so your emotions aren't valid; your opinions are based on emotions, so your opinions aren't valid; therefore nothing you just said is valid, and you should stfu and gtfo.

I don't think your explanation of the connotations of the word was derailing at all, and it's good to have it clarified so we all know what we're talking about. I just think it's correlation, not causation ;-)

[sqbr]

*nods*

I think we're talking a bit at cross purposes here: I agree with you about the usage of the word to dismiss the opinions of mentally ill people, and with the examples you gave. And on further thought I think I was being a bit off topic with my questions so I'll leave it.

[noracharles]

I'm glad you know what I mean, now. I was a bit distressed that I had given so many people the impression that it was the word in itself I have a problem with.