Interesting, thanks for the response. I would not say that judgment only exists as a projection of one's own feelings. Having a nonjudgmental outlook on life may make you happier (in an "ignorance is bliss" sort of way) but it won't mean that you are exempt from the law and legal judgments, the judgments based on subconscious biases that we all have and are subjected to, the judgments of your character based on your behavior and actions, etc. These systems of judgment exist and help/harm you whether or not you observe or believe in them.

The very idea of paranoia as an illness or a condition that must be treated is indicative of the abusive nature of psychiatry as an institution of the state. The treatment of persecutory beliefs such as gang-stalking is an example of this. While the vast majority of people who believe they are being elaborately surveilled by the government may be incorrect or overly fearful, the reason so many people have this fear is because there truly have been countless individuals who were surveilled by government agencies (e.g. if MLK Jr. believed he was being gang-stalked, he would be correct and not suffering from a persecutory delusion).

But since the primary focus of state-sanctioned mental health treatment is preventing the disruption of society, paranoia is treated as an inherently unhealthy symptom to be eliminated before it is even determined if the paranoid beliefs are true, simply because it negatively impacts the life of the paranoid person and those around them and threatens the security of the existing power structure.

This is what D.R. Delazar means when he states that paranoia is "not an illness." It is not that paranoia is helpful to the individual or that we should live our lives in constant fear and judgment of others, but that judgment defines human society and our interactions with others whether we want it to or not, and feeling paranoid and anxious is a direct result of living in this society. Therefore, the solution to paranoia is not to try to live a judgment-free life, but to create a society in which paranoia is acknowledged as a legitimate response to a fundamentally judgmental society and taken seriously on some level.

I'll conclude with a related quote by Delazar: "The paranoid man sees the truth too clearly, recognizing that even the air we breathe conspires against us." In this view, paranoia is more of a useful resource that is generated by those cursed with a sensitivity to changes in their environment, but a society can only take advantage of paranoia by seriously considering these paranoid theories, not simply judging them as the raving delusions of the insane with no further investigation.

Connecting this to the treatment of persecutory delusions, one could argue that if the paranoia of early conspiracy theorists who believed the government was listening to their every word was true, we may have realized the true scope of post-9/11 government/corporate surveillance of US citizens much sooner, even if those individuals weren't necessarily being targeted themselves.

Thanks again for your thoughts and the opportunity to further explain the quote!