ODD: It Really Is a Thing
Published at 10:46 on 20 February 2023
… and it is not a viable political strategy. For those unfamiliar with this three-letter acronym, I am talking about oppositional defiant disorder.
Of course, any instance of behaviour classified as “a disorder” is subject to abuse by power structures, particularly one characterized as “arguing and defiance toward parents and other authority figures.”
The way to distinguish healthy skepticism of authority from pathological behaviour towards same is, I think, best epitomized by the old anarchist slogan: “Question authority.”
One is being advised to question authority. Not to reject outright, but merely to question. The answer to a question can be in the affirmative as well as the negative. It is entirely possible to question authority and come away with the conclusion that authority figures are being at least partially correct about something.
Consider the COVID-19 pandemic. Heading into it, there was already a large body of evidence and work by researchers in infectious diseases all pointing to the conclusion that a pandemic of some new disease was all but inevitable. Governments had long been planning for such a pandemic, and those plans had long advocated restrictions that would amount to a huge overnight change in daily life.
It was, in fact, obvious that COVID-19 was a pandemic before the authorities admitted it was so. In the earliest stages of the pandemic, questioning authority led me to conclude… that the pandemic was real and authority figures were refusing to acknowledge it was going on! It was also obvious that there would be various restrictions and disruptions to everyday life coming soon, once the crisis became too big to ignore.
Did it stop being a pandemic when the authorities bent to the inevitable? Having ODD leads one to one answer. Having an intelligent and healthy skepticism of authority leads one to quite another.