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Non-Conformity and Anti-Authoritarianism Now Considered an Illness: ‘Opposition Defiant Disorder’
The Brave New World of “Mental Health Disorders”.
If Albert Einstein was a youth today, there’s a good chance he would be saddled with an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, possibly even Opposition Defiant Disorder (ODD) as well.
He ignored his teachers, failed college entrance examinations several times and was hard-pressed in holding down a job.
In ‘Einstein: The Life and Times‘, biographer Ronald Clark argues that Einstein’s problem wasn’t attention deficits at all, but rather a hatred of authoritarian, Prussian influences in school.
“The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants and in the gymnasium the teachers were like lieutenants,” Einstein once remarked.
The fact that he read Kant’s difficult Critique of Pure Reason for pleasure is quite revealing. He also refused to prepare for college admissions out of rebellion to his father’s “unbearable” path of “practical profession.”
When he did gain entrance to college, one of his professors chided Einstein:
“You have one fault; one can’t tell you anything.”
The very characteristics that troubled authorities, were exactly the ones which helped him to excel.
Considering Einstein’s life history, it makes one wonder about the rampant use of ADHD and ODD diagnosis that are plaguing our children and teenagers today.
Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat http://philosophers-stone.co.uk
Source: http://www.philosophers-stone.co.uk/?p=10385
