Insanity is fashionably updated

“Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule” Friedrich Nietzsche

I have come across an interesting concept, maybe known to some of you, which stated that “insanity is a legal concept not a medical or a psychiatric term; that in spite of the fact that insanity is a legal concept, it doesn’t mean that someone is not sick”. Moreover, the character went on and added that the “legal distinction between sanity and insanity rests upon free-will”.

Logically, for a determined fatalist, who rejects the concept of free-will and claims his destiny is written by some higher power (e.g.: Thy will be done) there is no such distinction. Consequently, such a person cannot be held responsible for his acts. Not within the frame of the current legal definitions.

What makes a person crazy? Who decides who is crazy and who is not? Who decides the normality of a situation or behavior? If your answer to those questions was “psychiatrists/psychologists and alike”, you were wrong. Try again.

Bear with me for a second and let’s try to define a few words so we can get the hang of it. Michel Foucault tried to define the relativity of values as opposed to the social power. Our cultural values, especially what we consider normal, determine and are determined by the way society exerts its control. Who is considered mentally sick? Who establishes this?

Tom Cathcart and Daniel Klein go on with their explanation about the relative truth and tell us this well known story. So, Chuang Tzu woke up one day after he dreamt he was a butterfly. Or, he asked himself, maybe in fact he was a butterfly which dreamt it was Chuang Tzu. Was Chuang Tzu insane? At the time, no, but according to nowadays definition, yes.

Benjamin Franklin defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Oh well, I guess from this perspective we are all crazy. The term “insanity” is not longer used within the scientific community unless there is some psychiatric congress and they all crack jokes about it. We know they do. So what is insanity? Madness, craziness, foolishness, mania, bipolar disorder, dementia, all in all a violation of some norms but not necessarily health norms (see below).

Is insanity fashionably updated? What was considered to be normal (within the norms) 500 and 1000 years ago, ceased to be considered that way? Were Diogenes’ words sought after or was he suggested to be on medication as he lived naked in a tub and was on an onion diet?

Was our social sensibility exacerbated to the point where we consider a violation of norm if we come across someone who is bipolar? It does sound a bit paradoxical, but on the one hand, our moral sensibility increased while on the other hand, our emotional defense thickened. Aren’t we a bunch of happy, easy going and profound rays of sunshine? Since when normality became equivalent with contemporary median? Always?

Emil Cioran used to say that the divagations of a lunatic are absurd only by report to his situation, but not reported to his delirium. It kind of makes sense, right?

Dictionaries define insanity as violations of societal norms, or behavioral expectations. What if we fall under the expectations? What if we disappoint the society? Will we get imprisoned for it?

No doubt, crime is an extreme type of such societal disappointment, but isn’t equally disappointing if we cut our own veins, take drugs, drink, read the stars or have visions? Isn't a psychic, who claims to be seeing ghosts and reads palms and ironically gets paid for it, as “mentally deranged” as a person who claims to be hearing voices but is put on medication? They both “violate” society norms so why the double standard?

Media and entertainment industry abound in such “outside the norms” shows and needless to say they are successful. Moreover, do we all secretly desire to have the ability to see ghosts and hear voices? If movies are a type of escapism and we all are watching them ardently, aren’t we in fact as insane as the characters with whom we identify or we delegate to act on our behalf?

Since normality equals to being adequate, what happens to those who don’t fit in? Shall we stone them to death for getting out of line? Isn’t what the repressive societies and the despotic leaders did? To make us all fit in and stand inline?

What is the society expecting from us? One simple example of social expectation and norm is hands shaking after a match. So, no, it is not OK to be a sour loser and show your disappointment or that you hate your opponent. No, Vae Victis (Woe to the vanquished) is not socially acceptable anymore. Go back to ancient Rome for that episode. Although you have mens rea (bad thought) as long as you don’t allow yourself into actus reus (bad act) you will be fine. Keep it to yourself and we’ll be socially content.

It is quaint to notice how insanity got to equal, in time, “unhealthy”. The word itself, sane derives from the Latin sana, which meant healthy, and by extension insane became unhealthy, or non compos mentis (a non-composed mind).

There were times when daydreams, visions and divination were highly appreciated and sought after by wise men, not all crazy, I might add. In ancient Greece and Rome, such techniques were equally adulated by philosophers and demos alike. Words of wisdom and secretive meanings kept an aura of mystery and many looked for answers in ambiguous riddles. Pretty much like bibliomancy, where each random text pertains a meaning for a person, they all made sense to them. In our desperate and unquenched thirst to find answers, sometimes we are ready to listen and give meaning to what once were meaningless symbols, words, icons, gods. Some claim that newly found wisdom is an eye-opening experience, while others think those who can read beyond the immediacy of our world are “abnormal”.

Under these circumstances, normality can be defined as what lays under our eyes, what we can see from left to right, or what others tell us is normal. Now, the problem that arises is that philosophers will jump right at your neck and tell you “stop trusting what others tell you or what your eyes tell you, as the truth can only be known through reason and not senses”. Dubito, ergo sum, right?

Can you debate in a court motivating “the victim of the murder you have just seen, hacked into pieces, was not real? That we create our reality and your eyes are cheating on you? That nothing is real?” Isn’t how George Berkeley would have played the devil’s advocate? Wasn’t the physical body only a mental object, which had extension in the space of a visual field? How can you apply your refined wisdom and 5 o’clock tea theories when you have to talk about truth and the slippery concept of sanity? How would you explain to a victim’s family that the crime and drama they go through is not real? That their perception and memory cannot be trusted that “being sure is no guarantee that a memory isn’t false, reconstructed or even implanted”? (Bloom).

Since it was established that doctors and specialists have no say when diagnosing a “non composed mind”, who will then hang the label around the lunatic’s neck? Correct, the others. Nowadays, in a court of law, the mental health specialists can only suggest or submit their opinion to the court. However, it will be the judge and or jury (ordinary people, anyone) will make the final decision regarding the defendant's status regarding an insanity defence.

But I’d say, since we are tangled in jungle of legal lianas and sane definitions, and what society expects of us, why not start a revolution, an innocent one, to see how far we can push the society’s limits by breaking small rules. Revolutions meant first of all, evolutions. Let’s being slowly, with a single act. Let it be yours. Stop shaking someone’s hand when you don’t feel like it, but you do it just because society expects you to. Be honest when expressing your emotions. In exchange do a good deed, one that society doesn’t expect you to do. Feed the parking meter of someone you don’t know. Let’s do the unexpected! Let’s defy the societal norms by creating a sweet and positive anarchy, the kind no one expects! Let’s get abnormal! Let’s violate the societal norms.