Anosognosia and tax denial

[LDE]

At the NYTimes Web site, Errol Morris has a series on "anosognosia," a condition in which sufferers are paralyzed but cannot recognize their own paralysis. At the beginning, he discusses criminals in denial, such as a bank robber who thought lemon juice made him invisible to cameras:

Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving. “But I wore the juice,” he said. Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.

In a follow-up article, Fuoco spoke to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler’s arrest. Commander Ronald Freeman assured Fuoco that Wheeler had not gone into “this thing” blindly but had performed a variety of tests prior to the robbery. Sergeant Wally Long provided additional details — “although Wheeler reported the lemon juice was burning his face and his eyes, and he was having trouble (seeing) and had to squint, he had tested the theory, and it seemed to work.”

The similarity to tax denial was of interest to me. Instead of "but I wore the juice," it's "but I followed the CtC method."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... dilemma-1/

[Judge Roy Bean]

I suspect some of them are more likely to suffer with Wernicke’s aphasia. It would at least account for the gibberish.

[Cathulhu]

It does work as an analogy. My own favorite tax analogy has always been comparing the structure of the Code to Winchester House.

[LOBO]

The similarity to tax denial was of interest to me. Instead of "but I wore the juice," it's "but I followed the CtC method."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... dilemma-1/

Shhhhhh. If anyone figures out that if they say they earned "lemon juice" instead of "wages" it becomes nontaxable, the whole house of cards will fall.

[fortinbras]

I very much appreciate the link to the articles on anosognosia.

[LPC]

I like the concept of "social anosognosia," which is not individuals but whole groups of people denying the existence of an impairment.

Lost Horizons might be a good example of social anosognosia, as well as the entire "tax honesty movement" generally.

[Cathulhu]

Fascinating! Thanks for linking the article, LDE.

[Brandybuck]

The following quote is particularly appropriate for the CtC gang:

If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.