halloween costumes removed due to offending the mentally ill

[SuperFerret]

Well, I'm out. I never thought I could meet someone who willingly won't take drugs and find them as stupid as the people who willingly do take drugs for the same reasons.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Well, I'm out. I never thought I could meet someone who willingly won't take drugs and find them as stupid as the people who willingly do take drugs for the same reasons.

and I find your stance willfully ignorant.

Saying something is wrong with the minds of extremely gifted people simply because their brains are abnormal is ignorant. You should judge whether something is wrong with someone based on their actions.

A mentally ill person has abnormal brain chemistry but they are not "broken" or "wrong" unless their actions suggest this.

but I'll stop short of childishly calling you stupid since that would be ethically WRONG.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Here's a "stupid" science article to backup my point.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/thinking-cap1.htm

Snyder's work is predicated on the idea that all humans have the ability to produce works of both creative and scientific genius. Our ability to do so is ironically "impaired" by normal brain functioning. The researcher, who directs the Centre for the Mind in Sydney, Australia, is primarily involved with studying autistic savants, people who are mentally deficient in some areas but excel in other, more specialized areas, like mathematics or music. Snyder theorizes that we're all potential savants, and this idea is supported by cases of people who've suffered brain damage but gain an extraordinary ability. Upon investigation, he found these people had all suffered damage to the left side of their brains [source: Phillips]. To test his theories, Snyder turned to transcranial magnetic stimulation, the "thinking cap."

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

and another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_mental_illness

A study by psychologist J. Philippe Rushton found creativity to correlate with intelligence and psychoticism.[5] Another study found creativity to be greater in schizotypal than in either normal or schizophrenic individuals. While divergent thinking was associated with bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex, schizotypal individuals were found to have much greater activation of their right prefrontal cortex.[6] This study hypothesizes that such individuals are better at accessing both hemispheres, allowing them to make novel associations at a faster rate. In agreement with this hypothesis, ambidexterity is also associated with schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals. Three recent studies by Mark Batey and Adrian Furnham have demonstrated the relationships between schizotypal[7][8] and hypomanic personality [9] and several different measures of creativity.
Particularly strong links have been identified between creativity and mood disorders, particularly manic-depressive disorder (a.k.a. bipolar disorder) and depressive disorder (a.k.a. unipolar disorder). In Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison summarizes studies of mood-disorder rates in writers, poets and artists. She also explores research that identifies mood disorders in such famous writers and artists as Ernest Hemingway (who shot himself after electroconvulsive treatment), Virginia Woolf (who drowned herself when she felt a depressive episode coming on), composer Robert Schumann (who died in a mental institution), and even the famed visual artist Michelangelo.
A study looking at 300,000 persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar depression, and their relatives, found overrepresentation in creative professions for those with bipolar disorder as well as for undiagnosed siblings of those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was no overall overrepresentation, but overrepresentation for artistic occupations, among those diagnosed with schizophrenia. There was no association for those with unipolar depression or their relatives. [10]]

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

It's not mainstream.

I am a completely, normally functioning adult human being. Nature isn't a popularity contest.

Nature kind of is a popularity contest with natural selection where only popular traits are attractive for mating and breeding. And in the the near future people will be able to get rid of mental abnormalities, that make people more unique and diverse, through genetic engineering. How sad.

"Nelly, your attitude about the abnormal is totally mainstream".

 

[Lunar_Wolf]

[YT]sn6jKGVxTbk[/YT]

Hahaha, this thread is CRAZY!!!

 

[Nell2ThaIzzay]

You can say mental illness is abnormal but saying it is wrong sounds like a value-based judgement. The truth is a mental illness can give unique insight and perspective regardless of abnormalities. It can also give people powerful experiences they would otherwise be clueless about. Saying it's ONLY a problem or ONLY a curse is narrow tunnel vision.

Sometimes mentall illness is a curse and other times it is a malformed gift.

You can pity Temple Grandin, Van Gogh, Phillip K. Dick, and Jackson Pollock but their mental abnormalities enabled them to do things a healthy mind couldn't imagine.

It's only a "value judgment" because you made it one.

I never placed a value judgment on it. I never said that mentally ill people were incapable or less valuable as human beings or to society.

BTW - It's ironic I have to argue these points to someone witha Magneto avatar. Maybe a Bolivar Trask avvy would suit you better? [/QUOTE]

But Bolivar Trask is deformed!

Nature kind of is a popularity contest with natural selection where only popular traits are attractive for mating and breeding. And in the the near future people will be able to get rid of mental abnormalities, that make people more unique and diverse, through genetic engineering. How sad.

"Nelly, your attitude about the abnormal is totally mainstream".

Where did you get any of that from anything I said?

 

[MangleBoP]

So it's okay to perpetuate negative stereotypes because those stereotypical portrayals only represent those individuals who are actually examples of those stereotypes? Does his rule apply to all groups of people?

Also the font thing is getting a little annoying, I've got to be honest.

I'll make this simple: Psychopaths are dangerous. Are you a psychopath? No? Then don't be offended by portrayals of psychopaths as dangerous. If this is something you can't live with, then stop reading comic books, watching slasher movies, and generally remove yourself from pop culture fandom. If you can't separate harmless eccentrics from violent psychos, that's your problem, so please don't ruin things for those of us who can. And I always post in this font, if you don't like it, see if the mods will take away font options. Or better yet, don't, since that again would be spoiling something for everyone because it upsets your delicate sensibilities.

 

[The Question]

I'll make this simple: Psychopaths are dangerous. Are you a psychopath? No? Then don't be offended by portrayals of psychopaths as dangerous. If this is something you can't live with, then stop reading comic books, watching slasher movies, and generally remove yourself from pop culture fandom. If you can't separate harmless eccentrics from violent psychos, that's your problem, so please don't ruin things for those of us who can. And I always post in this font, if you don't like it, see if the mods will take away font options. Or better yet, don't, since that again would be spoiling something for everyone because it upsets your delicate sensibilities.

Yeah but this is a depiction of institutionalized mentally ill individuals. Psychopaths don't go to mental hospitals. The problem is that this is portraying individuals who would be admitted to mental hospitals (who are mostly harmless) as violent psychopaths.

 

[chaseter]

The only acceptable Halloween costume this year is a gray onesie.

 

[roach]

The only acceptable Halloween costume this year is a gray onesie.

A gray onesie makes fun of the working class mechanic and you should never make fun of the poor.