“You can tell a bigot, but you can’t tell him much.”
Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a religious, racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.
[From French bigot, a religiously intolerant person, hypocrite]
Psychiatrists love to debate whether bigotry is a mental illness.
They might qualify the condition as “pathological bigotry” to emphasize that they really mean a medical disease condition, rather than just plain ignorance. Although they’ve got ignorance covered as well, with a diagnosis of “neurocognitive disorder.”
Of course, they need to make it seem to be a medical condition in order to diagnose it as a psychiatric disorder and prescribe harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs for it.
The latest psychiatric “research” demands more funds to investigate how prejudice supposedly is biologically based in the brain.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) enshrines discrimination as a mental disorder: “Target of (perceived) adverse discrimination or persecution”. But notice that it’s the victim, not the perpetrator, who is labeled with a diagnosis.
To what might we owe the surging prevalence of bigotry and prejudice in modern society? How does an apparently rational person sink to the level of devious writhings of secret hate?
In truth, the hard core bigot is completely terrified of anyone becoming more powerful than them. To such a person, everyone else is an enemy.
When confronted by a bigot, what can you do about this? It is counterproductive to make someone wrong for their attitude. Here is what I do: With a big smile, I tell them exactly what they are doing. For example I might say, “That’s a particularly bigoted attitude.” They’ll usually deny it, because such a person cannot detect this in themselves. End of interaction. You are now forewarned; go cultivate better relationships.
As a way of fighting back, report instances of intolerance, discrimination, bigotry and prejudice by clicking here.