The MMPP

As part of my war to stay out of the draft, I tried to prove I was insane.  This was not that difficult, since I nearly was, but I needed documentation.  One could go to the LA draft board howling like crazed banshee and they would still take you.  So I took the Minnesota Multiphase Personality Profile, at that time the most used instrument for determining degrees of nuts-ness.

I have cheated on few tests, but I did on this one, not to pass it, but to make sure I failed. I answered yes to a few questions that I really didn’t believe.  I didn’t find the results entirely satisfactory.  They said a) I had massive reading defect b) I was malingering c) I was a danger to myself and others and then went on grimly for two single spaced pages explaining why.

I have a theory that about three quarters of the population is functionally insane and the rest holding on by the skin of their teeth.  Without the diverse forms of insanity society would cease to move; it is fueled however by diverse pathologies.  Sadists become Generals, and Police men, and Surgeons.

I think everybody should be required to take the MMPP. But of course the test is set up to create a normal person; if every body who took the test turned out insane then the test would lack “scientific validity.”

As I remember the test had questions like:

Do you feel that people are watching you?  (Yes, of course, why do you ask?)

Do you cross the street rather than speak to a person you know.  (Why certainly, that’s what streets are made for).

Do you examine? Study? Or eat? Your feces after taking a dump. Or: all of the above.

Do you believe in the Second Coming of Christ?

Do you believe the End is “at hand,” “somewhat close by,” in the “distant future.”

I wonder if the MMPP people have dropped the question about the Second Coming? Or maybe they have changed its value from an indication of insanity to an indication of sanity.  Because if they haven’t a large portion of the population and of persons now running the government, have a) a massive reading defect b) are malingering or c) are a danger to themselves and others.

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