The Daniel syndrome

The Daniel syndrome is one of my linguistic creations.

Daniel syndrome

A psychological condition that makes you decide or behave, in certain situations, in a way that others find weird or even unacceptable, because you are disturbed by something that doesn’t disturb them. They don’t understand why you make your life more complicated than necessary.

Examples of Daniel syndrome include the person who refuses to receive medical help because they believe that something is wrong with our health care system. Or me trying to avoid using content that is considered intellectual property by its owner.

The name is inspired from Daniel 3:1-14. Daniel was a successful and trusted high-ranked employee of king Nebuchadnezzar. One day his boss the king had the idea to build a statue of himself and demanded that every citizen should follow a given rite to show reverence to this statue. And Daniel refused to follow that rite, because his religious conviction demanded him to not believe in other gods than JHWH. But refusing to follow a rite that has been installed by your boss is a very stupid thing to do, especially when you have a well-paid job and your boss is the king. He probably knew that refusing would be the end end of his career or even his life. We can assume that his friends advised him to stop being stupid, and that Daniel himself probably had serious doubts regarding whether to be reasonable or to follow his religious conviction. And still he refused to perform the rite. From the stories before this we can assume that Daniel was a reasonable and even wise person. How can a reasonable and wise person be so stubborn, unrelenting, uncompromising and resistant to advice?

Georges Brassens suggests “Mourir pour des idées? D’accord, mais de mort lente.”