This essay is written like a discussion between the persons one and two. One is a believer in the scientific method, while two is somewhat more aligned toward the views of exitentialism. Their argument start with a Nietzsche quote and then evolves into a more wide spread discussion.
It might be straggling somewhat in certain parts but in defence I want to point out that it’s pretty much unedited, exept for spelling errors. I wrote it in one single chronological line without going back to edit, in other words as similar to a real discussion as I could make it.
[i]Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche[/i]
One:
One could argue that Nietzsche’s use of the term insanity is somewhat removed from the clinical term. The merits of group oriented psychosis is fairly known and can be observed on a daily basis in groups that you do not belong to. However just because the behavior of a group, party, nation or epoch appears to be insane to you, doesn’t mean they are.
Far be it from me to attempt to force my interpretation upon the texts of one of the greatest philosophers of all time, but one could read this to be similar to the term “If you’re poor you’re insane but if you’re rich you’re eccentric” By this I mean that if I as an individual say that a space lord came to the Earth millions of years ago and tossed a bunch of people into a volcano and the remnants of their souls linger inside us to this day, I’m insane. But if a group says it its more acceptable. (Yes I’m talking about Scientology)
Its common knowledge that if a large group accepts something smaller groups and in some cases larger groups accept their opinion without questioning it in the same manner they would if it came from an individual.
Two:
As a part of western culture and as a very ordinary person in that regard, I can almost always count on people around me to feel just as repulsed by what I describe as “insane” behaviour as I do. If I see something that is alien or unnatural to me I can always rely on my family, friends and even some unknown person from the other side of the country to experience it in a similar way, and lable it with the same word: Insane.
Insanity is a collection of behaviours that in our society isn’t accepted. We put medical and psychologial terminology on top of that to make it feel less chaotic and random (i.e. less insane).
One:
Your view can come from a misuse of the word insane or more likely from a different view on what is regarded as insane. A lot of behavior is seen as “insane” by people even when its technically not insane. Whether or not something is insane depends on if it is or borders on mental derangement, rather than a social code within a group. For instance I think listening to Boy bands qualify as being insane, but in reality its not.
The behavior I was mainly referring to in that sentence was group behavior such as slang only used by that group, a special “code” of dress and such things. Those things aren’t insane, neither is some rich guy spending 50 million on a new boat however I’ve seen both of these categorized as insane by multiple sources.
I’m in no way denying that actions such as murder, genocide and such aren’t insane, however their cause isn’t always insanity as much as it can be motivated by other things. To us it seems insane, to the offender it does not.
What you quoted from me is just a matter of how broad your view on insanity is, I use the word quite liberally in my daily life, for instance “Oh my god, the way he plays guitar is insane”. I use the word wrong or rather in a socially accepted way. That is where our disagreement lies.
Two:
My point was that there is no such thing as “technically” insane because all the psychologists, doctors, scientists and researchers we base our “objective” version of insanity on are all from our culture. We take all that is alien to us and put it in a box, we label it insanity and then use a number of complicating procedures and terms to package it.
For example if I was to say “rocks can talk, I have heard it myself” you would probably think I was insane. If I however said that “in my religion we believe that rocks can talk” you would no longer think so. This is because we accept religious differances on a much wider scale than just personal opinions i.e. we accept insanity in a religion but not in a person.
I spot a very ignorant attitude here. You think that insanity is a fixed value and that someone can pinpoint what it actually is. To dismiss things as insanity because of physiological differances, or to blame the enviroment in which a person was raised or lives is dangerous since it lets certain people think they have the right to judge what is real and what is not. The defenition of insanity must hence be something that the majority of a society sees as severely abnormal. To pretend there is a universal, more correct version than that is to fool yourself.
Another Nietzsche quote: There are no facts, only interpretations.
One:
Naturally cultural differences and experiences has an effect on our views and perceptions of normality. However there are ways to judge whether something is the result of mental derangement.
One can say that from an ethnocentric view something is insane, but it may be rational just alien to our culture, hence its a misuse of the term. There are countless examples of words taking on the wrong meaning due to misuse on a broad scale.
In modern society we use the word to lightly describe behavior which is by definition not insane. I’m not arguing against your point of view, but against the modern use of the word. We need to find a word that better fits what we describe, rather than throwing the word “insane” or “insanity” into the mix.
I agree with you that our tolerance for religion is different from individuals, but this is more due to political correctness and social stigma than anything else. We as humans are conditioned to accept others based on a set of social guidelines unique to our culture or society rather than on a case to case basis.
Since the view of the majority decides what is and what is not insane, it cannot be used as anything except a descriptive word of behavior that the majority does not understand. Its original use is long gone, and it is now used as a term with no scientific merit, but heavy social stigma. Instead of using the word insane as a descriptive term, one should use words that more accurately reflect the nature of the behavior.
Can insanity be used as a scientific term? Not at the moment, but the behavior in which insanity originally referred to can be. Terms like Anti-social behavior disorder, Schizophrenia and Paranoid Delusion are all ailments, that would have been called “insane” at an earlier time, but are now referred to by the more accurate terms. The only place where the word still holds merit as a scientific term is within the “Insanity defense” used to lessen the penalty a person may suffer because of their actions, and in that case insanity can be defined and judged.
Two:
This is the main issue I have with today’s “scientific” society. All these new terms like schizophrenia and paranoia etc. are all just new words for the same thing as insanity. Things we don’t understand and that we feel threatened by because of its randomness and irrationality. In the medieval ages when someone started taking walks in the middle of the night they were regarded as insane and locked away. These days we go through all these examinations, label them anti-social, schizophrenic and whatnot only to put them in a mental hospital. However we do the exact same thing we have always done: we try to calm our need for logic by getting rid of deviant behaviours that we dont understand. The only differance is that we have made the procedure more complicated and switched words.
As soon as we decide that earth is flat again it will be flat and the “fact” that it isn’t wont matter. Facts are screwed as soon as people choose to ignore them, and that’s happens more often than one might think. We all live in a dream world where we selectively choose what facts to accept and where we fill in the gaps with lies. The only difference between me and a scientist or a priest is that I recognize this.
One:
Actually I would argue that something that appears several abnormal from an ethnocentric point of view, may actually not be insane merely appear to be. The notion that something is insane most often comes from a lack of knowledge about the causes of that behavior, rather than the result of that behavior.
For instance my diet consisting of about 2 kilos of meat, 20 - 30 eggs a week, no bread, no rice, no pasta, no processed sugar, no potatoes, and about 10 different supplements, does appear to be insane. But it is based around the fact that lowering carbohydrates while taking in fat and protein encourages increased muscle growth due to higher testosterone levels, and a lowering of body fat due to the body using it as primary fuel.
Does it appear like I’m crazy when I go shopping? Do waitresses look at me like I’m insane when I substitute or ask to have my meal served without half of the trimmings? Yes in both cases, is it insane? Far from it.
The need for more accurate terms, is to allow us to categorize behavior. By doing this we can use what we know to accurately spot such behavior in others that may suffer from the same disorder.
This is no different than taking symptoms of physical ailments in order to diagnose them. If we called all these forms of behavior “insane” the list of symptoms would be a mile long, and the ailments all very different. It would be like putting all the symptoms of physical ailments in a box and whenever a patient comes in go through a 30000 point checklist.
Not all people who suffer from mental ailments are put in mental hospitals, most are simply given medication, only those who may pose a danger to themselves or others are usually placed within care. With the array of ailments out there, its important that we can accurately diagnose them so that the sufferer can get the right treatment and medication. If we simply labeled all of them insane this wouldn’t be possible.
A fact is still a fact even if people choose to ignore it. That makes them ignorant and uninformed, but it has no bearing on whether its a fact or not.
Facts can be proven, tested, corroborated and withstand examinations, things that are merely opinions, ideas, hypothesis’s or whatever other name we can give them will not.
As an example we can look at the theory of evolution vs creationism. Evolution does hold up in a lab, since the fact that organisms change over time is documented, proven and has been the subject of countless tests, debates, examinations and so on.
Creationism however does not hold up since we have no way of verifying it scientifically or otherwise, since its based on the bible which we are also unable to fully verify. We cannot test anything in regards for it, simply put the data on trial so to speak.
Even if people started to believe that the earth is flat, it would be spherical. If people believed that cigarettes were good for you, they would still be bad for you. A belief is not a fact, and a belief cannot change a fact. If every single person on earth believed that rain is Barbie dolls crying, it would simply be a popular opinion, not a fact.
Two:
Well this would be true, but then you would also have to think that the cause of a behaviour is more important than the result. I am not one of those people, and in fact I think the result is the only thing that matters. If you have good intentions but your actions end up bad it’s just as bad as if you were plain evil to begin with. No extenuating judgement from be because you was only looking to help the cat swim when you drowned it.
The popular opinion decides what is facts and what is not. For about 30 years scientists cried that smoking was dangerous but smokes sold just as good. The marlboro man was just as popular. Then when the marlboro man got cancer and some other popular figures started campaigns and smoking was prohibited in public places etc the public opinion turned. If you use your time machine to go back to the 1940s smoking is good and whatever you will say won’t change that.
I think you got a very elitistic and narrow perspective on things. Your western scientific way of deciding what is wrong and right isn’t better than any other method. To state that it is is a sign of self righteousness, which also happens to be the main trait of our culture.
One:
Stay calm and cool, then react. Or throw a tantrum, take a walk, then react. Nobody is of sound mind when they are being emotional. It’s not up to me to decide how people should react, but I do believe that the world would be a better place if people reacted with reason rather than emotion. We take measures to as humanly as possible prevent harm to society by pacifying potentially harmful individuals. We do the same with criminals, lock them up not as a punishment but to protect the rest of society.
I consider this the best measure for dealing with those who can potentially hurt other people, can it be inhumane? Definitely but in my eyes a better solution than having hundreds of untreated psychopaths walking the streets. I elected those who have spent years of their lives researching their subjects. For instance if someone believes that there is a spaghetti monster I’ll elect not to believe it unless they can prove it via research.
I simply wrote that “a fact” is a set term for something that is prove to be true, which is the definition of the word fact.
If you believe something but can’t prove it, it can be an opinion, it can be a belief but its not a fact. Now if someone can prove to me that God exists, or that there is a magical fairy living inside my fridge who turns the lights on when I open it, I’ll be happy to judge their research, gather information on the subject and make a conclusion based on evidence rather than my gut. If there are no facts, how can “there are no facts only interpretations” then be true? Its a logical fallacy.
If I stub my toe against a rock, that is a fact, because I can prove it, I can explain it and I can repeat it.
The evolution of living organisms over time, is a fact. Creationism is based on unverifiable source material, can’t be proven or disproved, or even tested, so it is a theory. If you take a time machine back to the 1300s people still believed in witches and they burned them at the stake, that just means they didn’t know any better.
I don’t think its elitist to make choices based on facts, after spending time gathering the information to make an informed decision. I simply think its the most rational way to make a decision.
Its not about having a narrow perspective, its about judging every piece of information on an equal basis. I would love for the idea of an all powerful God that watches over me and loves me. However this is something that can’t be proven to be true or false, ergo it shouldn’t cloud my mind when I make a decision.
I guess I am an elitist because I choose to rely on the people who know the most about a matter to supply me the information I require, rather than letting someone who has nothing but his opinion. Perhaps the next time I go to the doctor I should ask a mechanic for a second opinion.
Two:
I believe emotions brought us from the hunter-gatherer society to living in an organized world economy. Compassion, sympathy, curiousity and even hatred and jealousy have been very important for the childhood of the modern man. If everyone reacted with reason instead of emotion there would be no evolution because making changes to a structure or behaviour takes time and is dangerous since you can’t be sure of the outcome. It involves risk, a word which a reasonable man doesn’t like.
You elect those who say they have and thats a big differance. I mean do you really read and try every new scientific report? Empiricism sounds really great at first but then you realize that for it to work every single person will have to retry the whole history of science before accepting it. Right now there is an elite consisting of very old and dusty men that decides what is real and what is not and the rest follows because they dont understand a single word of what is being said because the language used when deciding reality is a different one from the language ordinary people use… hmm why is this hierarchy familiar?..
Like you can prove that the earth isn’t flat? Have you ever been to space? Have you calculate that the earth is spherical? The differance between your empiricism and blind faith in a religion isn’t all that great. Your hyppocracy keeps amazing me. Good day One.