Dr. David Owen's diagnoisis of George W. Bush - This is something of a hobby horse for Owen. Although hubris syndrome is not, strictly, a form of madness or a medical condition, he'd like it to be adopted as a, let us say, diagnosis, and studied to discover whether its sufferers bring some predispositi

**Member** Joined: Jun 12, 2007 Posts: 2936

This is something of a hobby horse for Owen. Although hubris syndrome is not, strictly, a form of madness or a medical condition, he'd like it to be adopted as a, let us say, diagnosis, and studied to discover whether its sufferers bring some predisposition to the table, or whether the offices they come to hold induce the condition. As a precedent, Owen cites shell-shock or post-traumatic disorder as a syndrome which wasn't recognized as a medical condition until fairly recently. Among the signs of hubris syndrome are:

1) a tendency to view the world as an arena for personal glory; a disproportionate concern with image
2) a messianic self-aggrandization
3) excessive confidence in one's own judgement and contempt for advice or criticism
4) a belief that they will be vindicated by God or History; and so on.

One reason for not considering hubris an illness is that while the individual can be said to suffer from the syndrome, his constituents typically do most of the suffering. Actually, Lord Owen's iterative description of hubris syndrome is a suspiciously exact description of Tony Blair and George W. Bush, and the good doctor has overtly political axes to grind, especially with regard to the present Iraq debacle, which he fairly characterizes as the most ill-considered foreign policy adventure of modern times.

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I feel Dr. Owen just might have hit the nail right on the head this time!