BREAKING NEWS: Study Confirms Natural Disasters Make People Unhappy
Portentousness is the means by which cliché, the banal and the obvious are turned into technicality or wisdom, or both. An editorial in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association titled “Mental Health Effects of Hurricane Sandy: Characteristics, Potential Aftermath, and Response” illustrates this very well. One expects a medical journal to contain information that is not common knowledge or available to everyone on the most minimal reflection; it is therefore tempting, though a logical error, for authors to suppose that if what they have written is published in such a medical journal, it ipso facto contains such information.
The editorial in question makes statements such as “The mental health effects of any given disaster are related to the intensity of exposure to the event. Sustaining personal injury and experiencing the injury or death of a loved one in the disaster are particularly potent predictors of psychological impairment.” In other words those who suffer more suffer more. The editorial continues, “Research has also indicated that disaster-related displacement, relocation, and loss of property and personal finances are risk factors for mental health problems…”
I don’t suppose this will come as any great surprise, let alone shock, to readers. I will overlook the rather strange locution “loss of personal finances” – one continues to have personal finances even in bankruptcy. But how vital is research that tells us that people who are displaced and lose their possessions are likely to be unhappy for a long time? Until such research was done, did anyone for a moment doubt that losing your home, becoming a refugee, having your wife or child killed in front of you. etc., was a potent cause of misery? Have we so lost our common humanity that we need “research” to tell us this, or that such misery may be long-lasting?
The editorial continues, “the mental health effects of disaster are not limited to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and may include general distress, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders.” As this is written, it implies that general distress and anxiety are in themselves psychiatric disorders, that the person who is (say) distressed at the loss of his home is in some way psychiatrically disturbed. This is indeed odd; I would put it rather the other way round, that the person who is not in the least distressed at the loss of his home is likely to be psychiatrically disturbed. An undistressed murderer is a much more chilling individual to meet than one who is distressed.
Perhaps what the authors meant (one certainly hopes that what they meant) was the following: “the psychological effects of disaster are not limited to PTSD and other psychiatric disorders, but include general distress and anxiety.” But this is not what they wrote; and one suspects that their imprecision of language is a reflection of their imprecision of thought.
Let us continue briefly on this via dolorosa of cliché. The authors tells us: “Notably, the mental effects after a disaster vary across the exposed population.” But an assertion of fact in whose contradiction no one would for a moment believe is not worth making. When you have nothing to say, say nothing. It is hardly surprising that the authors’ prescriptions should make Ellen Wheeler Wilcox seem hard-edged and cynical by comparison: promoting a sense of safety, calming anxiety, increasing collective efficacy, encouraging social support, and instilling hope.
Actually, another editorial in the same edition of the Journal provides us with a clue as to its subtext, as literary theorists would call it. The other editorial is about the forthcoming reduction in federal funding for medical research. The author quotes Winston Churchill’s favourite Chinese ideogaph, that for crisis, which he maintained contained simultaneously the notion of disaster and opportunity. For the entrepreneurs of psychopathology, disasters are an opportunity, none better in fact.
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Image courtesy shutterstock / andrea michele piacquadio
Previously on health and medicine from Dr. Dalrymple at PJ Lifestyle:
Coming next month in JAMA: Snow makes people feel cold.
Unless you’re George Carlin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pe4XVVUbiA
Golly, the older I get, the more of a hack Carlin becomes. Although, this video clip is of an older Carlin.
Perhaps the same phenomenon is occurring among the academic journals. The feedback loop has constricted to such a degree, or, if you prefer, the intellectual inbreeding has persisted through enough generations, that logical self-reflection becomes impossible, and when the fundamentals of reality (i.e. common sense) are struck upon, they are mistaken for profundity.
In other words, Carlin, like the journals, was surrounded for too long by nodding sycophants that novelty and ingenuity atrophied and died.
Yes.
When it (very) occasionally breaks through into the neural circuits, basic common sense can be seen as the new Godhead.
Yeah, I loved Carlin until I realized he never had any new jokes, just the same ones for decades.
I dunno, there are certain elements that just love natural disasters, because they can blame global warming and push their agenda. (Those types also tend to see humanity as a parasite on their beloved Gaia)
I think this can be filed under the category of “DUH!”
Portentousness is the means by which cliché, the banal and the obvious are turned into technicality or wisdom, or both.
Pretentiousness is, too.
A lot of researchers apparently don’t have enough to do, and, therefore, spend their daze chasing the obvious and writing it up in weighty phrases, often driven by a tendency to self-importantly anal-yze (emphasis on anal) everything down to a gnat’s eyebrow.
Do they think their exercises in vapidity might avert societal meltdown?
… imprecision of language is a reflection of their imprecision of thought… When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
Maybe we need some studies about studies. Or studies about studiers.
…Churchill’s favourite Chinese ideogaph, that for crisis, which he maintained contained simultaneously the notion of disaster and opportunity.
Rahm (“never waste a good crisis”) Emanuel would be on board for that.
For the Left in general, crises are an opportunity to extend their own supervision and power.
The ruse is caring and concern.
“Mystical references to “society” and its programs to “help” may warm the
hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in
the hands of bureaucrats.”
~Thomas Sowell
(off topic alert)
Merry Christmas
“A lot of researchers apparently don’t have enough to do.”
Nail, head, etc.
Hey, the grant money is there to be spent. All you gotta do is write up the right proposal and the money flows like water.
That said, these kinds of studies are a waste of resources and serve only to get the author a citation in a journal. Which will go into his file for when he comes up for tenure at some lib university. He’s a shoe-in.
Just think about all the global-warming induced distress that needs to be studied! I smell a grant coming on….
Remember, in academe it’s “Publish or perish.” That goes for medical academe which is the reason for publishing some of the hogwash that surfaces from time to time.
Bathos makes me unhappy.
Why drag The Three Musketeers into this?
Thanks. My computer screen needed cleaning anyhow. As did the keyboard and half of the desk.
Sounds to me like preparation for a world directly out of Orwell — or the Soviet Union (only more so) …
– all aspects of “human” behavior — classify it — give it a number —
“All those suffering mental disturbance #17 and #18 from loss of property and loved ones — off to the re-education camp (prison) for you — You don’t fit in. You don’t have a vacant, passive smile. Therefore — you’re a disturbance to (have offended?) the rest of the collective! You must be “cured!”"
Mindless liberal lemmings make me unhappy and will ultimately make everyone in this country, including themselves unhappy as well.
Half of all Americans have below-average happiness levels.
Technically not true. Half have “below the median” happiness levels.
And then there are those few, those happy few, who took Sandy in stride, applauded the reopening , after decades, of a great inlet (which no doubt the government will spend millions trying to close), which will reinvigorate the Great South Bay and perhaps retsore it to its proper place in nature, even though it might make our place here a but more precarious, tidewise; who are taking the partial distmantling and flooding of our homes as an opportunity to remodel a bit and who have found great support from friends who we never really knew loved us so.
Sir Winston, and some ancient Chinaman, were perhaps right. What fails to kill us, makes us stronger.
My seven beagles and 3 cats, who had to bug out with me, are all returned safely, and although they don’t like change much, they all seem improved in their love and care for each other. Our neighbors are now closer friends than before: the second evening, we all happened out into the street to peruse the goings-on, cocktails in hand, and spent a lovely hour in the setting sunlight, comparing notes and lamenting what useless fools government people were (FEMA is a paperwork-heavy waste of time…SURPRISE!)
Perhaps OUR PTSD is that we re TOO happy, TOO sane, TOO well-adjusted. Stuff happens. Deal with it.
Get to work! And stop whining!
a much more interesting object for research would be – why do people live with seven beagles and 3 cats?
As well one might.
Merry Christmas.
An associate of mine in a large corporation once handed me a turgid report from a business school concluding that employees who liked their jobs were essentially happy in their work and had high morale.
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not seen the authors of the learned study described by Ted above properly credited for their excellent efforts to illuminate and pontificate upon the obvious. Therefore, from the link:
“Yuval Neria, PhD; James M. Shultz, PhD
[-] Author Affiliations
Author Affiliations: New York State Psychiatric Institute and Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York (Dr Neria); and Center for Disaster and Extreme Event Preparedness (DEEP Center), Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida (Dr Shultz).”
It is not too surprising to discover, then, one of the causes for all the nuts running around loose. Their healers are otherwise occupied bombinating in the void.
“But an assertion of fact in whose contradiction no one would for a moment believe is not worth making.”
If this were true we would have no political speeches. Try it sometime. Take an Obama speech and write down the opposite of each sentence. Based on the above rule, you can easily see that he says nothing worth saying. Uh, except that it gets his minions cheering and crying and adoring the crease in his pants. Now that’s a subject for these academia dweebs.
Struggling to come up with article, were you?
Policy needs to be based on evidence. Which means that, ever so occasionally, somebody will need to go and actually confirm what might be “obvious”. Yes, natural disasters are bad – but who is worst hit? What sorts of support services would be the most cost-effective, and where? What are the long term impacts?
Ah, so much depth…so little time.
Suggestions for future studies:
(1) Are orgasms enjoyable?
(2) Are short-range weather forecasts useful in planning a golf day?
(3) Does the possession of large amounts of money and other valuables make a person wealthy?
(4) Does pain, you know, hurt?
“(4) Does pain, you know, hurt?”
Only when someone tells you that it doesn’t.
Be careful for what you wish for…
Here is some more “obviousness” to be studied:
Effectiveness of government program before study = effectiveness of program after study.
Therefore, value of study = zero.
Cost of study / benefit = infinity.
Response of government = here is more money for studies.
Response of public = whatever.
Having published this totally awesome research paper, their next step must surely be to publish a self-help book, which they can distribute among those who have had their children slaughtered and/or their homes flattened.
Some years ago, when my employer was about to make about half of its staff redundant, those kind people issued us all with a copy of “Who moved my cheese?” (Actually, as I recall, they issued it to about a quarter of us, and told us to pass it round when we’d finished reading it!) I have to tell you, if I hadn’t read that book I would have been so very miserable, but it made losing my job so much easier.
Sounds like a Tim Mcarver baseball commentary, “the team that scores the most runs, tends to win the game.”
Did they honestly think happiness came with natural disasters? Interesting how someone might think this.