The Sciences of Human Behavior
Dr. X posts this using a secret Pookmail keyword embedded in an ice bullet:
"Seattle has been busted by Jodi O'Brien of Seattle University: 'Politeness is a poor substitute for intimacy and genuine friendship,' says the mean-spirited pseudo-scientist. (Just an attempt at humor, Ma'am...)
"In a related matter, my heart was warmed by this clinical psychiatrist's account of OPD - obnoxious personality disorder. This is a reaction, in part, to the official Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), which used to be known as 'having a temper'.
"Back in the days when there was still money to be made from selling drugs for it, I proposed a counterweight to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD then, now ADHD), to be known as Easily Amused Disorder (EAD). You can tell which you have with this handy table:
ADHD...................................EAD
Poor impulse control..............No impulsesMood swings.........................No moods
Distractability.......................Not distracted by anything*
Appearing not to listen..........Listening even when nothing is being said
Difficulty in quiet play...........Difficulty in 'Smear the Queer'
* I know of one particularly tragic case where a teenager was so obsessed with training a dog for the blind to pad his Harvard application that he failed to notice that a pack of squirrels had somehow gotten into the house. If the dog had only been diagnosed earlier, perhaps the ensuing fracas could have been avoided. (The young lad did not get into Harvard, and blames the dog to this day.)
"I was also interested to see this as-yet unnamed affliction, which I propose we designate as RUTD (Rich, Unhappy Teenager Disorder). I note that its companion affliction, UTD, has received relatively little attention from thought leaders in the psychiatric profession.
"That's why we have to have computers, because man, nobody is perfect."
posted by Latouche at Large at 11:48 AM
2 Comments:
Seattle is the American center of easily amused disorder. Joke before dishonor.
But I must take exception: Seattle University, like it's non-catholic right-wing conservative twin Seattle Pacific University, is an atypical curio, a little like going to the Sunset in SF and finding Branson, MO. Their chief business is soaking several thousand kids who thought UW was too accomplished, inexpensive, and secular.
Of course they are shunned.
Seattle's accomplished passive-aggressiveness is notable, however.
I have been mystified, and victimized, by this socially reticent phenomena for some years, and in particular, confused by my friends who are original genuine-type Seattlelites, who are by and large deeply gregarious and cheerful. My dark suspicion is that it was the imports who adopted the "and you are..?" vibe, which smells like transplanted East coasters and Californians who sold out their property for big bucks before moving here, and then misapplied the curious linkage of Scandanavian and East Pacific cultures than combines to create a wonderland of emotional detatchment. If the Masai moved here, I doubt anyone would burp.
But they tend live in Bellevue, with the other IT reptiles. (The IT humans tend to live here.) To get someone to react there, you have to bleed on them.
I will allow that Seattle may be too cool for school. But it has earned this through cultural vitality. It has a kind of exhausting hyper-hipness you find in America in SF and New York (and to a lesser but more concentrated extent in Portland), to which I, a professional contemporary artist, admit I cannot live up to. I have, however, dated above my hipness class, which is very nearly as good.
Dr X. posts this using an Apple Newton:
"My friends in Minneapolis say it's the same deal here. Everybody's very nice, but you have to live here a generation or two before you make friends..."
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