That was a really good analysis on why people are diagnosed, but I would like to take a guess at why people
want to diagnose their fellow man as such.
First, I'm no psychologist or historian, so feel free to disregard everything that follows...this is just a hypothesis.
I've noticed (but I'm probably far from the first) that every seemingly "modern" human behavior can be traced back to a handful of primitive instincts or tribal behaviors (fear, greed, prejudice, etc.). So my guess would be that diagnosing someone as mentally ill because they act anti-authoritarian comes from the tribal instinct that allowed, or even required, all humans to work together without questioning their orders. It was necessary to hunting, protecting the tribe, etc. that everyone act as one. Not acting as one would cause the hunt to fail or the tribe to lose a battle, either way they would die. It's the same way that packs of animals like wolves behave. Shun the outlier because he could put all our lives at stake.
So expanding on this theory, maybe the reason we as humans act this way is because our cousin species died out because they didn't act as one. Perhaps those other semi-human species that died out were more independently-minded, but for the first few hundred thousand years that was a negative thing that led to natural selection filtering them out?
I guess I get this idea from Seth Godin's talk about "Quieting the lizard brain." Pretty interesting, if anyone is interested: http://vimeo.com/5895898
First, I'm no psychologist or historian, so feel free to disregard everything that follows...this is just a hypothesis.
I've noticed (but I'm probably far from the first) that every seemingly "modern" human behavior can be traced back to a handful of primitive instincts or tribal behaviors (fear, greed, prejudice, etc.). So my guess would be that diagnosing someone as mentally ill because they act anti-authoritarian comes from the tribal instinct that allowed, or even required, all humans to work together without questioning their orders. It was necessary to hunting, protecting the tribe, etc. that everyone act as one. Not acting as one would cause the hunt to fail or the tribe to lose a battle, either way they would die. It's the same way that packs of animals like wolves behave. Shun the outlier because he could put all our lives at stake.
So expanding on this theory, maybe the reason we as humans act this way is because our cousin species died out because they didn't act as one. Perhaps those other semi-human species that died out were more independently-minded, but for the first few hundred thousand years that was a negative thing that led to natural selection filtering them out?
I guess I get this idea from Seth Godin's talk about "Quieting the lizard brain." Pretty interesting, if anyone is interested: http://vimeo.com/5895898