Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [242]
“Syndrome? Who said anything about a syndrome? You’re misusing a term. There’s no syndrome, because there’s no disease.”
“Thank you for the correction, Doctor. I’ll rephrase it. Do the symptoms fall into a single pattern of neurotic disturbance-a common psychiatric class?”
“I know what you’re driving at, of course. It’s a paranoid personality, of course, but that is not a disabling affliction.”
“What kind of personality, Doctor?”
“Paranoid.”
“Paranoid, Doctor?”
“Yes, paranoid.”
Greenwald glanced at Challee, then looked around slowly, one by one, at the faces of the court. He started back to his desk. Challee rose. The pilot said, “I haven’t finished cross-examination, I want to consult my notes.” Challee sank into his seat. There was a minute of silence. Greenwald shuffled papers at his desk. The word “paranoid” hung in the air.
“Doctor, in a paranoid personality like Commander Queeg’s, how do you distinguish between illness and adjustment?”
“As I’ve said repeatedly”-there was a tired, irritated note in Lundeen’s voice-“it’s a question of degree. Nobody’s absolutely normal. Perhaps you’re a mild manic-depressive. Perhaps I’m a mild schizoid. Millions of people live normal lives with these compensated conditions. Their physical analogues are a sway back, a heart murmur, something that is an individual weakness but not a disabling factor. You have to look for the disabling factor.”
“Is this disabling factor an absolute or a relative thing, Doctor?”
“How do you mean that?”
“Well, could a man have a paranoid personality which would not disable him for any subordinate duties, but would disable him for command?”
“Conceivably.”
“Then as a communications officer he would not be mentally ill-but as captain of the ship he would be mentally ill, isn’t that right?”
“You’re jumbling up a lot of medical language which you use very loosely,” Lundeen said huffily.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“In the case of Captain Queeg my board did not find him disabled for command.
“I remember that testimony, sir. Can you describe, Doctor, the point at which the paranoid personality becomes disabling?”
“When the man loses control of himself and of the reality around him.”
“What are the symptoms of the disabled paranoid who finds reality too much for him?”
“Well, there can be various reactions. Withdrawal into torpor, or frenzy, or nervous collapse-it all depends on circumstances.”
“Is the disabling factor likely to show up in personal interviews?”
“With a skilled psychiatrist, yes.”
“You mean the patient would go into frenzy or torpor?”
“No. I mean the psychiatrist could detect the disabling mechanisms, the rigidity, persecution feelings, fixed ideas, and so forth.”
“Why is a psychiatrist needed, Doctor? Can’t an educated intelligent person, like myself, or the judge advocate, or the court, detect a paranoid?”
Dr. Lundeen said sarcastically, “You evidently are not too well acquainted with the pattern. The distinguishing mark of this neurosis is extreme plausibility and a most convincing normal manner on the surface. Particularly in self-justification.”
Greenwald looked at the floor for half a minute. There was a rustle at the bench as all the court members, by a common impulse, shifted in their chairs. “A hypothetical question, Doctor, about a commanding officer with a paranoid personality ... Assuming he does the following things: he becomes bewildered or frightened under fire, and runs away; he damages government property and denies it; he falsifies official records; he extorts money from his subordinates; he issues excessive punishments for small offenses. Is he disabled for command?”
After a long wait, with the court members staring hard at him, Lundeen said, “It’s an incomplete question. Does he perform his duties satisfactorily otherwise?”
“Hypothetically, let us say so.”
“Well, then, he-he is not necessarily disabled, no. He is obviously not very desirable. It’s a question of your level of officer procurement. If you have other men as qualified as him for command, well, they would be preferable. If you’re in