And predictable.

Ah, at last a blog post about Tiger Woods. I remember that when I suggested that a few months ago, I got about 10 thumbs down.

Hypocrits.

I think they label it a medical condition so they can say in the media that he is not a bad guy, he is suffering from a condition that needs treatment. But as anyone that has read books about psychology knows, It is only natural that a guy with a ton of resources gets a ton of hot chicks mad about him and it is only natural also that he gives in to his natural urge to copulate with as much women as he possibly can. Calling that an illness only denotes total ignorance about mens nature and/or monetary interest.

That is public relations that they use with famous people so they can resume their money making activity that is making a lot of people earn a lot of money. The guy is a money making machine and what they all want is for him to resume his activity so the money can flow again. You can see that from the inside in Metallica s last movie, some kind of monster, when they hire a psychologist that specialises in resolving conflicts between famous people that dont stand each other so they can resume whatever their activity is, and continue the money making process. It applies to sports teams, music bands ...

His behaviour is only natural, but ff course that does not mean that his wife has to put up with that. If his wife wont accept him doing a ton of !$%* actresses and pass on to her a ton of venereal diseases, and suffer scorn from people whenever she is seen in public and his sponsors don t like promoting that kind of people in their adds, well they are of course free to think that way and ACT ACCORDINGLY to that belief, but he doesn t have any disease (I mean mental ones) he is acting perfectly normal.

- Do you realise scott that the exactly same argument you are using here for making fun out of religious people beliefs and behaviour can be used for non religious people? Non religious people also think religious people are profoundly gullible despite billions of people being religious (or having a particular religion). Religion is not about reason it is about faith. Non religious people like myself, have a difficult time understanding them because we lack that faith, but you just cant explain religion in a rational way, in fact reason corrupts faith the same way faith corrupts reason.

They need to be separated. Dont put to much on reason thou, in the end more often than not, we just decide what to do, to believe etc... according to our own biases and prejudices, and then rationalize our decision so we avoid cognitive dissonance. That hardly gives anyone a moral high ground to judge other people as gullible, for not using that.

Puts me in mind of a chris rock standup routine, 'what happened to stupid' where he asserts that labelling the defects of a person is percieved somehow removes those defects, and asks the question, what happened to just calling people stupid.

If i'm too stupid to lace my own shoes, you might rightly call me stupid... if then some condition is invented, can'ttiemyshoesia, now i'm not stupid, i've got a condition. My mother claims to be dyslexia, however she uses this label as a cover all for any inept behaviour. E.G

"37 12? ...48?"

"you mean 49?"

"oh, i don't know, i'm dyslexic"

The label isn't the problem, its the percieved change in meaning, specifically the shifted responsibility. If i had chronic stabhappyness and i killed some people it might be percieved that my condition is, if not entirely, as least partially responsible...but me and my condition are one in the same entity, i am still wholly responsible. I'm not saying we shouldn't have diminished responsiblity for people whose mental state precludes complete understanding of their actions but that, much as scott suggests in god debris, people have different levels of urges, i argue that these differences 'belong' to that person and shouldn't be abstracted from who they are.

Labels are fine, but when they change meanings we need to examined that. Inherintance tax can sound like a positive encouragement to avoid simply living off the achievements of your family. The death tax? thats just mean old government stealing whats your in your time of grief! The connotations of labels are fascinating.

As scott rightly asserts, psycology relies on deviation from the norm to determin illness but it makes a distinction between the illiterate, who are so because they've never tried to learn and the heavily dyslexic person who could never learn, who lack the facilities required. In the case of sex addiction, any addiction infact, the ability to not screw,smoke etc is possessed by all and so it seems important to draw a line here. Addicition is compulsion, by this rationale most of humanity is addicted to sex, dessert, tv, money etc, but we choose not to persue this things without restraint. Where a person fails to control their urges they become that moral failing, it doesn't happen to them, they do it.

There maybe sympathy for a person whose sex drive compels them to have outrageous extra-martial sex. However, if that persons compulsion was so great they raped somebody would we still want to talk about their inability to control their urges as anything but their own failing, would we still charitably externalise their wants and needs to save daemonising the person?

Society tends to label anything it can't criminalise yet doesn't like as a medical condition.
This has been going on for decades, maybe even centuries (before that "undesirables" were simply clubbed over the head or exiled).
That's how you get segregation laws, forced sterilisation of the "mentally disturbed", and in extreme cases concentration camps, ghettos, and gas chambers.

WNYC Radiolab did a radio show germaine to the discussion...
http://tinyurl.com/2huwy5
"...swimmers who lie to themselves swim faster..."
-enjoy it, I did!

Researcher Four: I lost all my optimism when I realized that if there is a Santa Claus, he will never leave me presents because I don't believe in him.

Optimism plus a lizard and a ton of radiation... you're hoping for a cure for cancer but you really get Godzilla. Nice. We need more optimism in the world.

So do optimism plus pessimism equal a doomsday cult of some kind?

The problem factor in the Woods case is not what I would call optimism. I would call it ego-centrism, warped by insecurity presented in adolescent behavior. Due to a stunted upbringing he is an immature person with a skill that is strangely valued. After all, of what actual existential value is the ability to play golf? Will golfers be valued if civilization suddenly ended? All these sports millionaires are fortunate to live in a silly era when their temporary physical abilities of strength and coordination are fantastically rewarded.

All these troublesome urges and attitudes must have had survival value at one time. They drive our lives even now as evolutionary relics. They served some purpose in tribal socialization, and eventually early civilization; but in modern societies taint our lives so that lotteries flourish and uneducated sociopaths of all types become wealthy. People are severely probability challenged.

I think optimism is a way of both coping with and obscuring reality. It can be a good or bad thing depending on the amount of reality it obscures. Living near the slopes of Vesuvius is eventually bad optimism. Thinking tomorrow will be a better day at work is good optimism. It is said that an optimist is a pessimist who does not know all the facts. On the other hand, if humans had all been pessimists none of our ancestors would have spread far from their origins.

I think gullibility is also a relic attitude. There is uncertainty and ineptness in the natural world, otherwise change would not happen. In animals it is a dominance struggle. When it pertains to humans, it is gullibility. For humans it is subservience to a tribal slash authority figure and it is comforting and safe to submit to someone who enjoys leading. Religion arose from this subservience and shamans used constructed values to keep their followers. Later, secular leaders split from religious leaders and gained influence. Religions constructed pre-scientific cosmologies from false intuition and dreams. Secular science further explained things in realistic, non intuitive terms that seem valid for now.

In an age when we are no longer citizens, but voters or constituents or audiences or consumers, foolish optimism, infantile urges, gullibility, and just plain intellectual laziness make things run more smoothly and with more profit for a lucky few. These days many people can live comfortably off the leavings. The peasants now have pensions and financial entitlements.

At what point does gullibility become a non survival characteristic? Personally, I think humans are not suited to survive long in societies such as we have puffed up. Resources are being depleted, the environment is worsening, conflicts are more deadly. Behind it all is the desire for physical and emotional comfort that will soon be hard to satisfy within present expectations.

I think the human pimple is just a temporary phenomenon, anyway. Nature will survive our induced catastrophes as it has many others. Millions of years from now some other entity will stumble from the stupor of evolution and declare itself the purpose of all creation, and then directly proceed to mess it up.

In the UK, we have many thousands of middle class mothers who claim that their spoilt lazy brat is actually suffering from attention deficit disorder and they are actually not too bone idle to learn spelling or reading but have dyslexia.

I just want to say that I've never cheated on my wife in almost 30 years of marriage.

Now, the big question: Is it because I'm a saint or because I haven't had any opportunities?

Tiger Woods is famous, rich, athletic, handsome, talented, sociable, and all the things I'm not. Is it any wonder women found him attractive? Knowing all the sex "scandals" other professional athletes and famous people have had, is it any surprised that Tiger Woods might do similar stuff?

Why do we act so surprised that rich, famous people are having affairs? In the middle ages and the renaissance period, everyone knew the sleeping partners of the rich and famous (both men and women). It was more than just common knowledge. It was as if these were official positions in government. In fact, one of the biggest scandals in 18th century England wasn't King George III losing the American colonies, but was the fact King George III actually was loyal to his wife and never had an affair. Shocking!

The problem with Tiger Woods is that he was thought of more than a mere golfer. If he was just a golfer, no one would care about the scandal. However, we held him up to be a Roll Model. We bought the things he shilled, and imagined what a great guy he must be. We held him up as more than a mortal. He was a Greek god!

Come to think of it, if you know Greek mythology, you know that the various gods were going around banging every single mortal being they came across, getting drunk, and insisting that the rules of society don't apply to them -- just like the rich and famous now do.

Speaking of labels, I heard that the new DSM is going to label "shyness" and "anxiety" as illnesses (as I understand it, they don't mean in temrs of the severe symptoms associated with autism, OCD, etc., but shyness in front of large crowds and nerves when taking tests).

I imagine the conversation went like this:

Psychologist 1: I propose we add run-of-the-mill shyness as a mental disorder.

Psychologist 2: Preposterous! Most people have that.

Psychologist 1: Yes, but if we document personality traits as a disorder, we can sell drugs to treat them and make a ton of money from drug companies by offering their products.

Psychologist 2-999: Well, in that case, include them all!

And somewhere in the world, some gullible mom is glad that her stupid son failed math because he is anxious, and not in fact stupid.

And all the kids in the class will act exactly the same because their personalities have been treated for with drugs.

Would be cool if "incompetence" were a psychological disorder. Apparently it's treatable.

I read an article a while back about competence:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-01-18/news/17635543_1_percentile-dunning-incompetent

The underlying message being that incompetent people are unaware that they are incompetent, because the very skills most needed to be competent are self-evaluation skills. Incompetent people are also generally unable to recognize competence when they encounter it.

RavenBlack >How about germophobic? It's a perfectly rational fear, why does it get a name like it's a disorder?

Have you met an actual geraphobic? Sure, concerns about germs are normal, but having the fear interfere with your ability to live a normal life makes it a phobia. Just like it's natural to be afraid of heights when standing on the edge of a cliff, but not on the 3rd stair of a staircase. It's a matter of degree.

I worked with a guy who was a germaphobic. He would use the company mens room urinals, followed by an elaborate hand washing and exiting ritual. But he would NOT sit on a public toilet - he drove home to poop. I visited his apartment once and the stench of cleaners hit you when the door opened, almost inducing a gag reflex. He had Lysol and paper towels sitting out in every room. THAT is a phobia.

If you care about the process of changing the labels, then you are probably also interested in the DSM, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders". The next version is due to be released in 2013, and the first draft is available online at [ http://www.dsm5.org ]. The media has reported on the new disorders that might be included in this edition, and the discussion is now more open than ever, with public comments possible until next week.

My definations for:

Gullibility: changing your computer password every day.
Optimistic: having the perfect uncrackable computer password EVER!
Oh,btw, I agree with your blog...very funny

I agree in the notion that his golfing success and (temporarily successful) cheating are products of the same optimism and confidence. In the case of his extramarital affairs, it was obviously overconfidence.

One thing I'd like to ponder is how he had so many mistresses and his wife had no clue for so long. The only reason I can think of is because his wife wasn't present during large amounts of time (though I wonder how much time he really needed, being who he is and having a last name like "woods" ... and I guess a first name like "tiger"). She probably wasn't very interested in golf, or lost interest after hearing the word "golf" for the 18 millionth time. If that's true, then maybe Tiger would have been better behaved my marrying someone more into golf? Then they'd be together more, and he'd have had less opportunity to "tee off the other green" as it were.

We put labels on mental diseases such as "Sex addiction" to give excuses for bad or not normal behavior. where normal behavior is what is defined by society. An example of this is curiosity it could be a mental disease because some people are naturally more curious than others but since this is accepted by society it is not considered a mental disease. while eating too much or being addicted to sex are considered mental diseases because society says so.