It's days like today : comments [pmsumner]

It's not fear alone. Healthy suspicion is a part of it too. We evolved this, I think, when we learned how to lie. It's necessary - particularly in today's world - to take very little at face value. A certain percentage of the people we meet are indeed out to "get" us - not necessarily to harm, but as competitors. Healthy paranoia prevents us from being completely naive and gulliable, and makes us double-check motivations, politics. Paranoia fuels the true scientist, the sceptic, hones the senses. It's an understanding that each person has their own, slightly different agenda.

Paranoia becomes pathological when we find it impossible to trust at all, when we suspect the motives of absolutely everyone. A paranoid schizophrenic, for example, may have delusions that everyone s out to poison them, or take something away from them. They are unable to discern truth at any level of interaction because their sense of paranoia is completely off the scale.

My 3p. :)

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What you describe is suspicion, not paranoia. The true scientist is suspicious of all results not verified by himself. The sceptic is suspicious of anyone who states something without having proven it to them. They're not afraid of them.

Paranoia is an unhealthy obsession with fear, a chronic state of fear. As you said - a "someone's out to get me" complex :)

Hang on, I was going somewhere...

Ahh yes. My original point was that this "paranoia" that exists right now isn't at all healthy. For various reasons. I realise there is a reason, but is it really useful to put yourself in one unhealthy frame of mind to relieve another situation?

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pmsumner

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