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This, of course, can be embraced on the right as evidence that leftist are nuts.
But it is instead a useful illustration of how little we can learn from social science studies. For there are too many possible explanations, and we cannot tell which is true.
It may as well be that the mentally ill are more compassionate, and leftist policies are more compassionate.
It may be that mental illness is inclined to make you poor, and the poor see more benefit in leftist politics.
It may be that mental illness comes with high intelligence, and leftist politics are, on the whole, better ideas than rightist views.
It may be that leftist politics ameliorates or even cures mental illness—attracting the mentally ill to it.
It may be that leftists are more inclined to use psychiatric services and to take psychiatry seriously—and so more likely to have gotten a diagnosis.
The survey relied on self-reporting; it may be that left-wingers are more honest.
It may be that psychiatrists have simply wrongly diagnosed certain political opinions or tendencies as “mentally ill,” making those who hold the opinions, by definition, mentally ill.
It may be that being mentally ill makes you left wing, but this is unrelated to the reason that most people are left wing. Nazis like highways; but most people who like highways do not like them because they are Nazis.
It may be that being left-wing is more socially acceptable, and people who are mentally ill are afraid to stand out. So they will say they are left-wing.
It may, conversely, be that being left wing makes you mentally ill because people reject you for your left-wing opinions—not because the opinions themselves are wrong.
Shall I go on?
Just about any social science survey can be used to prove opposite hypotheses; the human soul is too complex to be understood in such simple terms.
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