Matlock, MD; or What Reruns Reveal About Madness

Plus: The Great Rogan Bible Debate!

Murder most foul. Early clues overwhelmingly point to a man as the likely killer. Then, an unexpected break in the case: video evidence of the culprit fleeing the scene. There isn’t a good angle of the face, but her high heels and designer dress are plain as day. A mystery too great for most to solve. But Ben Matlock is not most. With his unique mix of legal brilliance and folksy compassion, he arrives at the unexpected but unavoidable conclusion. We head to the climactic courtroom showdown:

Matlock: Mr. Smith, remind us, where were you the night of the murder?

Man in the witness box, clean cut, deep voice, wearing a suit and tie: I was home, having dinner with Geraldine.

Matlock: Yes, of course. With Geraldine. Mr. Smith, where is Geraldine now?

Man: Oh, Geraldine, well, you know, she comes and goes.

Matlock, with great sympathy: Mr. Smith, we’d like to speak with Geraldine now.

Man: Now? Ha, I don’t understand, I don’t know what you mean, she’s not here.

Matlock: We won’t harm her, we just want to ask her some questions.

Man: [Oscar winning acting as, after a long pause, the witness crosses his legs, clasps his face in his hands, and, his voice going up a register, adopts a Southern accent] Why, Mr. Matlock, bless your heart! Whatever am I doing here? And what am I wearing? What happened to my pearls and my gingham dress?

Jury box: *Gasps!*

Do you remember Multiple Personality Disorder? If you’re of a certain age, I bet you do. Having several tenants sharing a spacious, body-sized apartment was all the rage back in the day. The Three Faces of Eve hit the bestseller lists in the 1950s, Sybil was flying off the shelves in the 1970s, both became popular movies, and by the 1980s you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a whole crowd of people – even if you hit only one. There were only 200 reported cases of multiple personality disorder in the history of the world up through 1980 – but between 1985 and 1995, there were 40,000! Matlock premiered during the heart of the craze, in 1986, but the above courtroom dramatics could have been taken from any number of shows and movies of that era. Then, once such scenes became so clichéd that jury boxes weren’t gasping anymore, the cultural moment passed. The cases disappeared, people decided to keep their bodies to their selves, and chances are most young people today have never even heard of the phenomenon.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: it must have been a fad. Perhaps to the untrained eye. But a medically trained eye would trust the “bible of psychiatry,” the DSM – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – in which Multiple Personality Disorder was included as a legitimate diagnosis. You’re not going to question the science, are you?

So, then, what happened? Did Eve misplace her two other faces? Well, turns out she had to downsize, because Multiple Personality Disorder doesn’t exist anymore.

Now wait a second, you are thinking, if you are one of my sharper readers, which I hope you are. Didn’t he just say Multiple Personality Disorder was in the bible of psychiatry, the DSM?

Yes, it’s true, I did. But pay attention: I said it was in the DSM. It isn’t anymore. You see, it was in the DSM 3. These days, we’re on to the DSM 5. Do try and keep up.

The science is settled: if this storyline makes it into the modern Matlock remake, the lady Matlock will have to find a whole new line of questioning to explain the curious case of a man dressing up as a woman. I wonder, what completely authoritative expert psychiatric diagnosis will our 21^st century Matlock rest her case on? We can only speculate, but whatever it is, don’t even dream of suggesting it might be a fad! And do make sure you use the proper pronouns…

Speaking of bibles of various kinds, earlier this year, a brilliant young Canadian scholar and apologist was introduced to the wider world on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Wes Huff caught Rogan’s eye after a debate in which the young man politely, respectfully, and thoroughly humiliated an arrogant opponent. In fact, the opponent was so embarrassed he demanded video of the debate be taken down. Naturally, this only brought more attention to video, thus the Rogan appearance (video version here).

What was the debate about? Well, among other things, Huff’s opponent insisted the Bible could not be trusted because it had changed so much over the centuries. Careful analysis of earlier versions of scripture, he argued, revealed so many alterations that today’s Bible must get tossed. Now, it happens that the opponent was gravely misinformed; Huff had a field day politely showing off his knowledge of the relevant manuscripts.

Huff, who is PhD candidate, studies ancient manuscripts as his job. When Carson insinuated that the Sinai Bible does not mention the crucifixion, Huff confronted this claim,

Live on camera, Huff turned to a bookshelf behind him and pulled out a copy of the Sinai Bible and showed that it included Christ’s crucifixion.

It went downhill for Carson from there.

Downhill, indeed. The rest of the conversation went more or less like this:

Carson: Well, the Gospel of Judith reveals that Jesus was actually an insurance salesman from Topeka with a wife and two kids. He was never crucified, but he did suffer from male pattern baldness.

Huff: That document is a universally accepted forgery.

Carson: What proof do you have to back that claim up?

Huff: Well, for starters, it was written in Maybelline Cherry Red lipstick on a Hard Rock Las Vegas cocktail napkin.

I exaggerate only slightly.

Why bring this up? Well, because Huff’s opponent was right! No, not right about any of the history or details or research or facts, but right in the logic of his argument: if the Bible had indeed been rewritten numerous times over the years, it should not be trusted. Thankfully for believers worldwide, Huff explained why the modern text remains reliable and unchanged. Note that Huff did not argue – he would have been mad to argue – “well, of course you’re right, we Christians open the Book up and edit it every few decades, you know, add a few pointers we think the Big Guy forgot about, cut out some of those awkward Old Testament excesses, clean up the timeline, add a few more relatable characters for the kids, you know, make it more relevant and timely.”

What gives the Bible its authority, what makes it (ugh) “relevant,” is precisely that it does not change as the world does, it is a rock of eternal truth in the ever-shifting sands of popular fashion. If it were rewritten every few hundred years – or heck, even every thousand years – it would be nothing but a doorstop.

Now, turning back to medicine, let us recall that the current edition of the DSM is the fifth version to come out in the past 70 years. One single rewrite in the past two thousand years would render Holy Writ irrelevant; meanwhile, the expert guidelines your child’s doctor dutifully follows to prescribe your six-year-old mind-altering drugs average a rewrite every decade and a half!

Let me put it this way: if you were scheduled for a hip replacement and learned that the anatomy textbook your surgeon uses adds a new bone or two, and removes a couple internal organs, every fourteen years, would you consent to the operation?

Do not fall victim – do not let your children fall victim – to fads. The same experts today who will insist until they’re blue in the face that their patient was assigned the wrong gender at birth were the ones who, just a few decades ago, insisted just as vociferously that their patient had a clown car full of personalities sharing one cerebellum.

In conclusion, read old books, watch old movies, and don’t forget those Matlock reruns, either – it’s a great way to mob-proof your mind and, as CS Lewis put it, to recognize the common blind spots of your time.

And the next time a doctor turns to the DSM to classify your child, politely inform him that he’s mistaken, that particular diagnosis only applies to one out of your kid’s five personalities.

Thank you for reading and have a great week!