DRAFT Concept ac 4/09

America’s No.1
Mental Disorder:
IRES

Inability to Reason on Emotional

Subjects

A Crancer
B.S., M.A.

Copyright al crancer 06 2008

 IRES

To: ______________

I sincerely hope you get cured!

Al Crancer
 IRES

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
An example 2
Characteristics of the disorder 2
Where it manifests itself most 2
Characteristics explained 3
Facts don’t matter 3
Unreal perceptions about persons/things/places 4
Passion to belong. Belief trumps facts 5
Tests to see if you have the disorder 6

Try “What If . . .” to see if disorder is curable 7

Proper reaction to persons with this disorder 7
 IRES

America’s No.1
Mental Disorder:
Inability to Reason on Emotional
Subjects

Introduction

Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to discuss certain subjects with
your business associates, friends, family, and loved ones? It seems like no
matter what you say or how you say it, they just can’t reason on certain
subjects. It’s like they are under a spell. You go over the issue step by step
and then they still come up with totally wrong conclusions. It’s like 1 + 1 equals
3 every time! The truth is that they are suffering from America’s No. 1 mental
disorder that affects literally millions of people: the Inability to Reason on
Emotional Subjects (IRES).

What we will do is explain the disorder, discuss its symptoms, and give you some
idea on how to detect this disorder. The treatment for this disorder is beyond
the scope of this book. But one thing is for sure, the first step is a correct
diagnosis followed by medical or psychological treatment that may lead to a
cure.
 IRES 1

An Example

Isn’t my new-born beautiful? You’ve heard this a dozen

times. But how many times was it actually true? About
never! The reason mothers say this is because they are
emotionally blind when it comes to their children,
especially their new born. Usually the disorder relating
to their children lasts a lifetime and is totally incurable.

Even Charlie Manson’s mother thought little Charlie was always

a good boy. Let’s excuse the mothers of the world and explore
the characteristics of this mental disorder that affects
millions in all walks of life.

Characteristics of the disorder

There are three major characteristics of the disorder:

1. Facts don’t matter, or are totally or selectively ignored. (Fact
Phobia)
2. Unreal perception of persons, things, or places.
(Stereotypically Challenged)
3. Passion to be identified with a group/class/movement. (True
Believers)

Usually one or two of these characteristics dominate the thought process for
people with IRES.
Where it manifests itself most

This disorder manifests itself most often in four areas:

1. Politics 2. Family Matters

3. Environmental issues 4. Purchasing Decisions

The following paragraphs expand on these areas.

1. Politics
This disorder is well known in the area of politics. How else could a KKK person
from West Virginia keep getting elected to the Senate?

Ask a person why they are for a certain candidate and they
will very often give you the most absurd and twisted reasons.
Even when you tell them that their candidate holds a totally
abhorrent position on something they will still support their candidate.

2. Family Matters
2
The arguments, the fights and violence, and the law suits are evidence that this
is an area where IRES is almost an epidemic. People get so
mad that they can’t “see straight”. What’s even worse, they
can’t think straight!

3. Environmental issues
The issues of global warming, drilling for oil, and
endangered species, are but a few of the issues in
this area in which people suffer quite a lot. Just
mention global warming and many of my friends get
hot! Add organic food to this list. If you eat non-
organic food you will probably die in a week!

4. Purchasing Decisions
The basic maxim of sales for years has been Elmer Wheeler’s maxim, “You don’t
sell the steak, you sell the sizzle!” How else can you get
people to buy worthless stuff? They think that if they
buy expensive shoes their ugly feet will look great. Buy an
overpriced car and they will look rich driving it. Buy
expensive wine and it will always taste great. Rational
reasoning just left the building with Elvis.

Brands are a powerful factor in purchasing. People with IRES are the kind of
person that let brand recognition dominate their purchasing decisions.

Characteristic 1: Facts don’t matter! (Fact Phobia)

Facts about Facts: True facts are hard to distinguish from false facts.
The reason for this is that liars and other wrong people manufacture and
distribute their stuff the same way true facts are distributed.
 Often well meaning people spread false facts. The guy that
first said that the world was flat really thought it to be true.
His experience led him to that conclusion. The guy that
said Obama took the oath of office on a Koran spread a false 3
fact. Lots of people believed it that did not have the IRES
mental disorder.

Here are several things about facts: The best way to validate a fact is to
check the source. Two or more sources are usually better than only one. An
expert in a fact area is generally better than one that isn’t. New facts from
many sources are usually better than old ones from the same number of
sources. I could go on and on and soon you would be totally confused about
facts. That’s why so many totally ignore them!

One thing for sure, leaving facts out of the equation when reasoning on
emotional subjects is a sure sign of a mental problem.

Characteristic 2: Unreal Perceptions about persons, things, and

places.
Unreal perception of about everything!
(Stereotypically Challenged)

Have you ever noticed how people with this disorder

have a fairy tale view of almost everything? It’s hard
to find someone with just an unreal perception about
persons who also doesn’t have an unreal perception
about things, and sometimes places. They are hard to
separate in the twisted mind. There is no way that
you can reason correctly if this component of the reasoning process is screwed
up.
Most unreal perceptions involve generalizations and stereotypes. Most
stereotypes are based on what we hear and see about things, since most of us
don’t have the experience to develop our own based on our experience.

Often those stereotypes are not fact based and of course they don’t apply to
all members of the group, regardless of the validity of the stereotype for the
group.

Further we may have developed a stereotype based on unusually bad (or good)
experience. An example of this happened years ago when my father, a
businessman, had his store robbed twice by men with beards. From that day on
he had an usually negative regard for anyone with a beard.

Unreal perceptions regarding persons: Because of stereotypical thinking, many

people become emotionalized in their thinking when it comes to persons of
different outward characteristics such as race, creed, color, national origin,
sex, sexual preference, height, weight, and even the color of hair, just to name
a few. The same problem is found for perceptions of persons in occupations
such as lawyers, politicians, medical professionals, and the clergy,

And in family matters, we see unreal perception a significant problem. Persons

with IRES just can’t objectively assess relatives no matter what the issue.

Unreal perceptions regarding things: People become emotionalized when it

comes to how things work or don’t work such as relationships, government,
businesses, etc. Because of the way many perceive how things work, they think
you can just wave a wand and things will instantly get better or worse. This is
especially true in bad economic times. Many think that the government can fix
things instantly because of the way they perceive that government works.
4
Man made global warming is a darling of unreal thinking as
is organic food. The unreal perceptions in these areas can
actually lead to physical violence!

They say that the media paints such an idealized and

stereotyped picture of relationships between men and women that it results in
most relationships being considered less than acceptable.
Unreal perceptions regarding places: Places such as countries, states,
neighborhoods, restaurants, and business
establishments evoke stereotypical and emotionalized
thinking. No one could possibly live in West Virginia and
be happy, get a good meal at
Denny’s, and buy a good diamond ring at any place
other than Tiffany’s.

Characteristic 3: Inordinate desire to belong! Belief trumps

facts
(True Believers)
One of the characteristics of persons with IRES is they often have an
inordinate desire to belong or be identified with a
group, movement or ideology that clouds and even
prevents clear thinking. The reason is they are
simply true believers. For these people, belief
trumps fact. If you believe that the president
walks on water, you cannot possibly believe that he
can have a wrong policy on anything.

Belonging to a group, movement, or maybe even a cult of radical/screwed

thinking is quite important to most with this disorder. Most independent
thinkers do not have this problem.

The worst cases of IRES are among persons in activist groups. Members of
activists groups such as environmental, political, religious, and social are
extremely difficult to reason with about issues dear to their group.

There are numerous examples of this.

Try to change the mind of a Republican (or Democrat) on
issues dear to their heart. Try to change the mind of a
true believer (or non-believer) in a religious group, and try
to change the mind of an environmentalist about saving the
planet. It simply won’t work.
A member of the ‘Rich” group could never agree that something bought at Wal-
Mart could ever meet their standard.

A member of the “Liberal Left” could never agree with

reasoning that could possibly be misinterpreted as racist. 5
A rabid “Fiscal Conservative” could never agree with a
reasoned conclusion that supports deficit spending.

Belief trumps facts 99% of the time. When persons with facts collide with
persons of belief, usually the believers will get angry when pressed, while the
persons with facts will change the subject, knowing that further conversation is
useless.

Tests to see if you have the disorder.

Test No.1
President Bush lied to us about Iraq having WMDs.
VP Cheney gave a no bid multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton to work in
Iraq.

Test No. 2
Your kid, the axe murderer, is really nice, but misunderstood.
All children could do well in school if the parents got involved.
The major problem with schools is that they are way underfunded.

Test No. 3
Global warming is an imminent (like in the next five years) danger to mankind.
Waste from nuclear power plants will eventually destroy the environment.
Coal can never be made clean enough to burn in our environment.
Eating non-organic food significantly increases you chances of cancer.

Test No. 4
Designer clothing is of significantly higher quality than medium priced products.
Wine less than $10 a bottle is never fit to drink.

To be continued . . . .

5 6
 Play “What If. . .” to see if they are curable

Really sick people with this disorder will still reason wrong even when you play
the “What If. . .” game.

For example, “What if drilling for oil in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge) wouldn’t hurt anything no how, no way, no where, would you still be
against drilling there?” Really sick puppies would still answer a resounding YES!

Another example, “What if we have a video tape of your son stealing the car,
would you believe it?” Of course their answer would be NO!

Proper Reaction to persons with IRES

These people are beyond help and cannot be cured. Just smile at them and try
to avoid subjects that evoke their truly sick responses. Only occasionally
should you tease them, for deep down they know they are suffering from IRES.
And, of course they may become violent!

To be continued . . . .