Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Michael Savage and the Knights of ODD

Oppositional Defiance Disorder Has Defiant Resistance

by Winsip Custer CPW News Service

Conservative talk show host, Michael Savage of The Savage Nation radio program is sure that the American Psychological Association (APA)  is out to brand him a misfit, but he is not the only one to be defiant of opposition and diagnosed with ODD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  History is filled with defiant individuals....and indeed, all progress depends on the unreasonably defiant  personality.  Moses, David, Galileo, Copernicus, Martin Luther, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, not to mention George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Groucho Marx were all defiant in their own ways.

Bible of the
American Psychological Association
with 5th Edition approved
in 2010

Each year the DSM Handbook (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders) committee manages to add a new disorder which brings both praise and criticism with opposition often coming from the introverted Jungian acorn-admirers, anti-pill-popping holdouts for cognitive therapy and those who see the APA thrusting people ever closer to an Orwellian candy land of psychotropic mood levelers like Lithium, Zoloft, Effexor or Retalin.

Michael Savage is a mouth-grinding, hacksawing air-ways philosopher of a Viking-Anglo-Judeo-Christian bent, which puts him somewhere between the anti-authoritarianism of the German Martin Luther and the Israelite King David.  Judaism's Golden Age was initiated by David, the defiant Goliath-slayer and the youngest son of a Bethlehemite named Jesse  who nicknamed his youngest son "Stumpy".

 Like Michael Savage, David would have made a poor Benedictine Monk.  Benedictines are required to take a vow of obedience and are rarely oppositionally defiant.   

Oppositional Defiance Disorder or ODD was Mr. Savage's target the week of December 15th on his radio show and he says that this new "gotacha" diagnosis is not unlike ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder for which children are being medicated in record numbers.

While some authorities including the pedestrian Wikipedia says that ODD is often associated with unprovoked anger, belligerence, theft, vandalism and other sociopathic qualities, many on-line shrinks will not stress these negatives.  Instead they highlight the eight classic signs that are considered the hallmarks of  ODD. 

Considering that America was founded by pilgrims escaping the domination of the birth-ordered primogeniture model of Britain's monarchy, the APA is seeking to remake the American collective personality in total, or so Dr. Savage argues. Frank J. Sulloway whose groundbreaking study on birth order titled Born To Rebel (NY Times Book of the Year, 1996) says that birth order is the primary determinant of revolutionary personality traits. Sulloways' research indicated that the most defining characteristic of revolutionary tendencies is birth order with younger children being most resistant to compliance and submission, thus making America a repository of revolutionary tendencies and proud of it.

According to Dr. Karl Rienmarkim of Paris, France's Centre de Reflecteur Introspection or  Center for Reflective Introspection,  ODD is, well... odd.  "I am a Presbyterian of French Huguenot heritage and a last born child.  I am an Elder in our church and hate the title," he said.   "Personality characteristics are often reflective of what the culture values as a whole," said Rienmarkim.  The French are full of defiance as anyone who has ever seen the movie Casablanca can tell you."  It's a matter of national priority and pride.  Winston Churchill was a defiant Englishman while the Duke of Windsor was defiant in his resolve to abdicate the British throne in favor of marrying Wallace Simpson, "or he may have just been horny" said Dr. Rienmarkim.  "As head of the Center for Reflective Introspection I am concerned that the American Psychological Association will soon discover Oppositional Submission Disorder or OSD, sometimes wrongfully referred to as OCD or Oppositional Compliance Disorder, but we all know that OCD is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," he said. "With OSD the patient tries to outdo others in submission, passivity and obedience.  I discovered it when my wife could not stand to have the dishes in the our dishwasher arranged in any way but in the pattern designed by the manufacturer.  I would rearrange them and find that she would go bonkers.  Then one morning I clanked the dishes in the washer without moving them...dishes she had arranged the night before.  She got up and rearranged them neater than she had the previous night.  This is thinking well within the box and it makes the diagnosis of OSD difficult, often confusing it with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD.  It's also frequently confused with spouse-hatred which has not yet been labeled a disorder. When the DSM committee finally adopts OSD as a disorder our eighty thousand members will find traveling to the U.S. very threatening and opt instead for a more reflective destination like Pongo Pongo.  French history at Normandy shows that the military learned during World War II on D-Day that only a small percentage of soldiers could be counted on to take the lead in defying the machine guns and mortars of the enemy.  The troops trained in shooting a bulls eye target which was non-threatening.  That was changed to a human silhouette in order to condition future soldiers to shoot to kill and get over their OSD," said Dr. Rienmarkim.  "Most of those who would be labeled Obsessive Submissive Disorder individuals at Normandy were medics and journalists. If the American Psychological Association wants to tee them off then they run the risk of finding those labeled ODD men, those who lead the charge, may sadly be left on the beach to bleed to death, their wounds unattended and their stories never told," concluded Dr. Rienmarkim with an air of introspective defiance.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Jungian therapist, George Wilde Heathenson of Fountainhead, Missouri  has organized the Knights of the Order of ODD whose motto is "Show Me!".  Their flag reads "Don't Tread On Me" and their official crest is shown below.  A copy of their crest has been sent to the British Ministry of Chivalry for documentation and approval.  Meanwhile, Michael Savage who was banned in Britain and has written a book of that title found the ban lifted in the summer of 2010. Heathenson who anticipates that he will be banned in Britain, like Savage, has publicized that he will travel to England to receive the documentation for the new crest when it is approved.   He will be accompanied by a delegation of three hundred direct ancestors of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin,  John Adams, Paul Revere, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt and Pamela Harriman's cousin.  Pamela Harriman was married to both Winston Churchill's son and to W. Averill Harriman who served as Ambassador to Britain and the Soviet Union.  "It's great that we will have a Harriman with us," said Heathenson, "since the Harriman's employed the father of the George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather of his son GWB...an attempt at the return of the British dynasty if there ever was one," said Heathenson.

T-shirts with the crest on the front are available at http://www.theorderofodd.com/ for $20 plus shipping and handling.