Should There Be A Golden Bullshit Award On Medium?
In Medium’s guidelines it states:
Medium is a free and open platform for anyone to write their views and opinions. As such we don’t vet or approve posts before our users publish them. We believe free expression deserves a lot of leeway, so we generally think the best response to bad ideas is good ideas, not censorship.
What is written below is the description of an event that will allow you to judge whether this is the case.
Introducing the Absolute Censor
Recently I was blocked, then reported, by a writer named xxxxxxx, after I both critiqued her misuse of the word narcissism and objected to how she was abusing psychiatric terminology by indiscriminately pathologizing people in her article entitled: xxxxxxxxx.
I have left the place for a name and title blank since Medium will not allow me to provide them because they seem to think that a constructive critique of what someone writes — and a screen-shot of their advert on Medium– is potentially “shaming and harassing” someone.
But just put into the search field on Medium the word ‘narcissistic’ and you will find many people who are using the phrases ‘narcissistic personality’ and ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ incorrectly and in a potentially harmful way.
To be fair, recently, my account was unblocked after I deleted the post mentioning the name of the author, but the incorrect information is still on Medium.
Since there are no fact-checkers on Medium one may well ask if they also ban any form of critique and cross-reference of authors on the site, then are they not simply promoting a site where anything is permitted as long as it is perceived to be non-violent.
In fact, with a second look, this is a new form of Absolute Censorship, unlike the old relative censorship whereby an elite or group of editors suppressed free speech, this new form of Absolute Censorship is the promotion of a mad use of free speech:
Say whatever you want as long as it does not promote violence.
Why?
Because it really doesn’t matter, your article is at best, your opinion and entertainment, at worst, nonsense!
Remember: not only is nobody checking the facts or validity of an argument on Medium, but there is no critique allowed that would cross-reference an author because that is considered shaming, i.e., violence.
In other words, the censorship is Absolute since nothing really matters.
Announcement of a New Award
Since I cannot include my real critical response to the author’s misinformed article on narcissism, Medium considers this harassment, I have included at the end of this article a facsimile of my response so that you can be the judge:
Was my response polite and critical or shaming and harassing?
After this occurrence of being blocked, reported, then having my account temporarily suspended all for merely critiquing an article, and in the lack of any internal regulation on the validity of the articles on Medium, we should ask does there need to be a Golden Bullshit Award?
‘Bullshit’ probably originates from the 17th-century ‘bull’. The OED cites it as meaning, fraud, trickery, nonsense, but H. Frankfurt’s analysis (On Bullshit-1966) shows the ‘bullshitter’ stops short of being a liar, in so far as s/he has no concern for truth.
Medium claims there is no advertising on their platform, but in the lack of an adequate means of critique — and a quick access to the block button and account suspension — there is the risk that the site regresses into nothing more than self-advertisements and a podium for paranoia.
In the lack of any mediator or internal form of critique, a Golden Bullshit Award could be affixed to an article by a highly trained group of bullshit detectors. Of course, the award would not be given to literary endeavors, but only those articles claiming they are addressing, in one form or another, reality. Once the award is pinned to an article, the author would be encouraged to leave a response explaining why his/her article is not bullshit. Then, after clarifications by the author, one could allow the community of writers and readers on Medium to determine by a vote if the Golden Bullshit Award should remain pinned on the article or not.
In the end, any person who has received the award could always delete, amend, then republish the article to respond to the critiques. What could be fairer?
To conclude, since I am not allowed by Medium regulations to name the person or copy my critical response to her self-advertisement xxxxxxxxx, I have only included below a facsimile of my response to the misinformed use of psychological and psychiatric terminology.
I let you be the judge as to whether it was critique or harassment.
==========
I like writers like xxxxx for making clear why it is so difficult to write about narcissism seriously.
A few comments may help to bring out the problems.
Did you ever notice that it is always the other person, ‘your friend’, who is the narcissist in articles like these?
With a little less ‘narcissism’, that is to say, a bit of humility, it becomes evident what is really being spoken about in this article is egoism and egotistical behavior.
The distinction is important for five reasons:
First, everyone you know has an ego and the slide into egoism and egotism is not for a privileged few, but an inertia that can happen to anyone, including the author. In fact, for everyone who calls (incorrectly) their boyfriend or girlfriend a ‘narcissist’, you will probably find the compliments being returned by that same girlfriend/boyfriend. In short, when it comes to egoism, all the ‘subtle signs’ of being vain, mean, arrogant, unempathetic, toxic, etc. are reciprocal.
Second, contrary to the out-dated link provided by the author on the Royal College of Psychiatrists, it is well known today that the diagnosis of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ is one of the least reliable diagnosis one can make. To date, there have been no clinical trials on ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. See a) Caligor, Eve; Levy, Kenneth N.; Yeomans, Frank E. (May 2015). “Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Diagnostic and Clinical Challenges”. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 172 (5): 415–22. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14060723. PMID 25930131.
Third, to think there are signs of a narcissistic personality that can be decoded by a magic ring is not only wrong-headed but paranoiac. It is like diagnosing someone with ‘homosexual disorder’, which until recently was also considered an abnormality in the DSM manual of psychiatrists, then going out looking for all the signs that make someone homosexual. A very paranoiac endeavor … no?
Lastly, because of the sparse and contradictory research literature, narcissistic personality disorder was set to be eliminated from the current psychiatrist’s diagnostic manual (DSM-5) just as other ‘disorders’ such as homosexuality had been previously eliminated. However, in response to pressure from professional groups, the decision to remove narcissistic personality disorder was reversed, and today it has been reinserted as a pathology in the current DSM-5 with a far from unanimous recall. To confirm this turbulent clinical history of NPD, read: b) Shedler J, Beck A, Fonagy P, et al.: Personality disorders in DSM-5. Am J Psychiatry 2010; 167:1026–1028 Link, Google Scholar c)Ronningstam E: Narcissistic personality disorder in DSM-V: in support of retaining a significant diagnosis. J Pers Disord 2011; 25:248–259 Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar d) Miller JD, Widiger TA, Campbell WK: Narcissistic personality disorder and the DSM-V. J Abnorm Psychol 2010; 119:640–649 Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar
Fifth, narcissism, if it were ever to be explained adequately, is a cure for egoism and its paranoiac tendencies.
In the end, the question is up in the air as to whether there are any ‘real’ traits that would allow for “telling if your friend is a narcissist”. But what is sure, is that there are no magic decoder rings and a lot of paranoia.
Just a few grains,
$
