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Thinking about boxes and the like got me to thinking about sanity in general, how I got from boxes to general philosophical questions about the nature of sanity don't ask, just another lesson perhaps in what sanity is, where was I oh Yes, Can someone be sane and rational and stable outside of the societal context, in other words can someone be sane by that person's own definition or does it require other people's definition of sane to work.

Is sanity something which only the normal people have, if so what is normal, if so who is sane, if sanity is merely a product of a average of the majority of views available, how valid is it? how accurate is it? Is it possible that the most crazy people are the ones that consider themselves sane, because from what I have seen in life, and it has been a large life, most people are crazy, they just don't admit it, but when confronted with the nature of their insanity they either ignore it or deny but that's beside the point. Any way are the people in the mental homes really crazy, are crazy people crazy, look at all the insanity in the world, all the violence and chaos, environmental pollution(what burst of delusion allows us to live with that), if the people who live in world today are sane, maybe the crazy people should be running the world, couldn't do any worse then the sane people.

How did I get from sanity to boxes, or to boxes to sanity, well I guess sanity is always living inside the box.

Originally posted by AbysmalNature
Thinking about boxes and the like got me to thinking about sanity in general, how I got from boxes to general philosophical questions about the nature of sanity don't ask, just another lesson perhaps in what sanity is, where was I oh Yes, Can someone be sane and rational and stable outside of the societal context, in other words can someone be sane by that person's own definition or does it require other people's definition of sane to work.

Is sanity something which only the normal people have, if so what is normal, if so who is sane, if sanity is merely a product of a average of the majority of views available, how valid is it? how accurate is it? Is it possible that the most crazy people are the ones that consider themselves sane, because from what I have seen in life, and it has been a large life, most people are crazy, they just don't admit it, but when confronted with the nature of their insanity they either ignore it or deny but that's beside the point. Any way are the people in the mental homes really crazy, are crazy people crazy, look at all the insanity in the world, all the violence and chaos, environmental pollution(what burst of delusion allows us to live with that), if the people who live in world today are sane, maybe the crazy people should be running the world, couldn't do any worse then the sane people.

How did I get from sanity to boxes, or to boxes to sanity, well I guess sanity is always living inside the box.

First off, why would anyone want to be sane?

Second, "Everyone's insane. It's what we do with that insanity that gets us labelled as either sane or insane."

Originally posted by AbysmalNature
Thinking about boxes and the like got me to thinking about sanity in general, how I got from boxes to general philosophical questions about the nature of sanity don't ask, just another lesson perhaps in what sanity is, where was I oh Yes, Can someone be sane and rational and stable outside of the societal context, in other words can someone be sane by that person's own definition or does it require other people's definition of sane to work.

Imo its neccessary to compare with social or biological context whatever "disease" is in question. Illness is but a human definition and can be changed or used for whatever purpose we like.

At least being a non-conformist does not mean being insane...

...perhaps things that are considered "strange," "odd," "weird," but UNACCEPTABLE afa the target society's context is concerned would be considered insane?

Aegis <------ This is the only explaination of sanity one needs.

True Aegis, sanity is the exact opposite of Aegis.....

Okay I answer your question

Why would anyone want to be sane, I agree sanity is highly overrated, who needs it or wants it, you have to be crazy to actually want it. Crazy people are more interesting, intelligent and though not always happier more expressive and empathetic.

Who wants sanity, well that would be those people who think themselves 'sane'.

Originally posted by Bloodstalker
True Aegis, sanity is the exact opposite of Aegis.....

Well, that certainly backfired... Thank you BS!

Glad to be of help Aegis.....

Originally posted by AbysmalNature
Why would anyone want to be sane, I agree sanity is highly overrated, who needs it or wants it, you have to be crazy to actually want it. Crazy people are more interesting, intelligent and though not always happier more expressive and empathetic.

Who wants sanity, well that would be those people who think themselves 'sane'.

Having worked at a psychiatric clinic as a licensed clinical neuropsychologist, I do not agree. Sanity is not overrated, and you would probably regret your opinion that "nobody wants it and nobody needs it" if you had met my patients. Also, it's absolutely not correct that "insane" people are more intelligent than healthy ones, it's the opposite. Whether they are more interesting is a question of subjective taste though, but you should remember the limits a severe psychiatric disorder sets for a person's abilities and development.

My guess is that both you and SS are not referring to people with psychiatric/neuropsychiatric disorders here, but instead, you use the word insane to refer to people who are not living according to the norms of our society. However, being an "outsider" or being unconventional, has nothing to do with not being healthy or being "crazy". I know some people call other people insane just because they don't fit the norm, in the early part of the last centurty people could be placed at wards by their families for not wanting to marry the right person. I also know that the concept "sane" is partly relative across time and culture, but there are also many identifyable disorders that makes people suffer horribly.

Originally posted by C Elegans


Having worked at a psychiatric clinic as a licensed clinical neuropsychologist, I do not agree. Sanity is not overrated, and you would probably regret your opinion that "nobody wants it and nobody needs it" if you had met my patients. Also, it's absolutely not correct that "insane" people are more intelligent than healthy ones, it's the opposite. Whether they are more interesting is a question of subjective taste though, but you should remember the limits a severe psychiatric disorder sets for a person's abilities and development.

My guess is that both you and SS are not referring to people with psychiatric/neuropsychiatric disorders here, but instead, you use the word insane to refer to people who are not living according to the norms of our society. However, being an "outsider" or being unconventional, has nothing to do with not being healthy or being "crazy". I know some people call other people insane just because they don't fit the norm, in the early part of the last centurty people could be placed at wards by their families for not wanting to marry the right person. I also know that the concept "sane" is partly relative across time and culture, but there are also many identifyable disorders that makes people suffer horribly.

I understand about the disorders and all that, but what exactly is the definition of insanity? Webster's Dictionary says, for the first definition, that insanity is unsoundness or disorder of the mind; mental illness. For the disorders you refer to, CE, insanity is a viable definition; but not everything that some people consider a disorder or unsoundness of the mind is insanity. Webster goes on to say that insanity is extreme folly or unreasonableness. That is more subjective than 'unsoundness of the mind.' Who decides what is 'extreme folly' or 'unreasonableness'? People certainly consider me unreasonable, likely even extremely unreasonable. I don't consider myself to be particularly unreasonable. In fact, I tend to find that those very people who call me unreasonable are the ones being unreasonable. So who's insane? Me or them?

I won't argue that there are not people who are insane in a bad way. There is plenty of proof that there are. However, there is also "insanity" that is not bad.

Webster's dictionary defines "sane" as "mentally sound and healthy." What does it mean to be "mentally sound"? All I've ever seen to say what that is says that it means you don't "think outside the box," that you only think things that are agreed upon by the "majority" as sane. Well, I certainly don't fit this definition, and I don't want to. So, given the choice, I'd rather be insane.

Originally posted by SS
People certainly consider me unreasonable, likely even extremely unreasonable. I don't consider myself to be particularly unreasonable. In fact, I tend to find that those very people who call me unreasonable are the ones being unreasonable. So who's insane? Me or them?

You. Definitely you .

I can't answer the rest without knowing into what context we're placing sanity-is it the same as 'conventional' for the purpose of this thread, or are we going with CEs psychiatric/neuropsychiatric definition of insanity.

Statement:

"I SYM THEREFORE I AM NOT SANE. "

End of statement.

No worries, "Sanity" is just how society labels "acceptable".

What CE is refering to is "MENTAL ILLNESS" - I wouldn't say those two are the same....


Beldin

Originally posted by Sailor Saturn
I understand about the disorders and all that, but what exactly is the definition of insanity? Webster's Dictionary says, for the first definition, that insanity is unsoundness or disorder of the mind; mental illness. For the disorders you refer to, CE, insanity is a viable definition; but not everything that some people consider a disorder or unsoundness of the mind is insanity. Webster goes on to say that insanity is extreme folly or unreasonableness. That is more subjective than 'unsoundness of the mind.' Who decides what is 'extreme folly' or 'unreasonableness'? People certainly consider me unreasonable, likely even extremely unreasonable. I don't consider myself to be particularly unreasonable. In fact, I tend to find that those very people who call me unreasonable are the ones being unreasonable. So who's insane? Me or them?

I won't argue that there are not people who are insane in a bad way. There is plenty of proof that there are. However, there is also "insanity" that is not bad.

Webster's dictionary defines "sane" as "mentally sound and healthy." What does it mean to be "mentally sound"? All I've ever seen to say what that is says that it means you don't "think outside the box," that you only think things that are agreed upon by the "majority" as sane. Well, I certainly don't fit this definition, and I don't want to. So, given the choice, I'd rather be insane.

My use of the term "insane" versus "mentally healthy" is rather strict (apart from joking, of course). IMO the term "mentally sound and healhty" should not be equal to "normal", although I know some people use it that way. But when used that way the concept healthy and ill looses it's meaning IMO, since health then becomes a question of what is accepable in a certain group or society. "Normal" is just a statistical contruct, derived from what is considered "average" in a certain culture at a certain time, and it's dangerous to mix up "normal" and "according to majority" with "ill, insane, crazy" since that becomes a way of disrespecting and sometimes even discriminating people who happen to be deviating from standard norms. Only 80 years ago, the mental hospitals were still full of people who were not at all ill, only not behaving as their familes demanded them to.

IMO neither you or the people who call you unreasonable are insane, unless either of you fulfulls the strict critera of psychiatric disorder. Joking is one thing, but if somebody calls you insane, I think you should say "no, I might be behaving in a way you don't view as normal, but that doesn't mean I'm not healthy" or something do that effect.

Not behaving according to set standards should IMO not lead to us accepting that other people view us as insane. I come to think of one of my patients at the ward where I worked, a young man who had volontarity seeked our help because his partner, his boss and his colleagues insisted that he was insane. After a rather long examination of his situation, his background and his thoughs and behaviour, I came to the conclusion that this man was not insane at all - other people viewed him as insane because he had expressed a lot of critisism at his work that led him to have conflicts with other people, and his partner thought he was insane because the partner viewed his critisism as unfounded. However, when I investigated the accusations my patients had expressed towards his boss, they turned out to be true - it was quite pathetic really that all the misdoings of the company was easy to confirm objectively. It seemed like my patients boss has just tried to proclaim my patient was insane in order to make nobody listen to him and hide the dirty affairs of the company. The the boss instead accused my patient of being the cause for all the problems. However, I declared my patient healthy, and the company went on to court. (The company in question was a health care company who provided service to disabled people, but it turned out they had abused the employees rights by threatening them to works extremely long hours, otherwise they would be fired. They had also neglected their clients, not providing the service they had agreed on.)

However, I have also met many patients claming they are not insane but the surroundings unfairly believe they are. Both the patients and his/her surroundings must of course be investigated, and sometimes it's a mix between problems within the patient and problems in the surrounding, and sometimes nothing special at all can be found around a patient, but the patient still thinks the mafia, extra-terrestrials, CIA, KGB and the whole world are conspiring against them and send messages through the plummings or whatever. Many schizophrenic patients have paranoid ideas like that, and schizophrenia is certainly a very severe, clearly identifyable neuropsychiatric disorder

@Beldin & Ode: For this thread, I don't mind at all if we use "insanity" as meaning "deviating from normality standards set in a soceity", but not ill. I just wanted to point out that I don't like when "healthy" becomes equal to "normal".

@CE: But couldnt these disorders in a society were they were accepted be classified as just a "feature", be it a bad one. Like for example while I find it quiet frustrating that i cant fly my greif over that fact evoke little to none sympathy among others. In a society were people could fly things might be different. And in that sense it is still the deviation from the norm that is the actuall disease, not the handicaps that springs from that deviation.

Originally posted by C Elegans
@Beldin & Ode: For this thread, I don't mind at all if we use "insanity" as meaning "deviating from normality standards set in a soceity", but not ill. I just wanted to point out that I don't like when "healthy" becomes equal to "normal".

Or vice versa - I do not think that "normal" is equal to "healthy" or "normal" equal to "sane".

No worries,

Beldin

sanity is not possible on one's own. Being sane is living according to the subconscious desires and motives which have been 'evolved into us' to make us function properly among other people for the furtherment of the human race and the reproduction of our genes. If you just appearred one day out of the void and floated in space with no interaction, then sanity would become redundant because furtherment of the human race and reproduction of genes would be out of the question.

Going by what I just said, we can really boil sanity down into chemical or electrical impulses in the brain which govern our every move. That is why soem people are born insane, the chemicals or sparks or whatever just aren't configured properly, like a faulty machine...(you can talk to CE about this from now...)

even when AN and SS say 'I don't like sanity, it's useless' they are actually proving their sanity by acting in a way which is clearly governed by the ego or sex drive etc i.e. in the way mankind is programmed to.

Originally posted by C Elegans
@Beldin & Ode: For this thread, I don't mind at all if we use "insanity" as meaning "deviating from normality standards set in a soceity", but not ill. I just wanted to point out that I don't like when "healthy" becomes equal to "normal".

Cheers CE. I never equate 'healthy' with 'normal', largely because I'm not by any means normal.

Myself, I'd say that sanity is a state of mind, and hence purely subjective. I wouldn't want to be 'normal' for anything under the sun, I'm quite happy being eccentric. People who strive to be normal bore me to tears.