Madness

Chapter from “Culture Is Not Your Friend: Sex, Death, Drugs & Madness”.

The Illusion Of Normality

In order to fully understand madness, we must first examine our ideas of what is normal.

Normal:

1. Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.
2. (of a person) free from physical or mental disorders. A person who is conventional or healthy.

So, being normal is conforming to a standard. Living up to expectations and not behaving in ways that upset the status quo. Why does this sound strangely like conservatism? Share on X Maybe because normality is an illusion, created by a conservative culture to control behaviour?

Mad people on the other hand are anything but conservative. They are non-conformists. Unconventional, wild and unpredictable. We can not have that, can we?

Is Madness Real?

If you equate madness with mental illness, then it is real to the extent that it has been defined by psychiatrists. If you think that everyone who has unusual beliefs or that behaves in unusual ways is mad, then no. But the latter is what may actually account for some of the definitions psychiatrists have of mental illness.

At some point, being gay or transgender was thought of as a form of mental illness, subject to horrendous treatments such as conversion therapy, shock therapy, lobotomy and castration.

And have you ever heard of monomania of pride and ambition’? This was once a real diagnosis, and a reason to put someone in a lunatic asylum. It was defined as ‘excessive pride and ambition’, qualities we today might applaud and not treat as a sign of madness.

Or what about hysteria? A condition believed to have its origins in the uterus and which was treated by stimulating the genitals of the patient until they reached orgasm.

Seems like the psychiatrists were as mad as their patients.

How about the ones we label mad today? Are they really mad, or do we simply have trouble understanding and accepting them?

A person we label schizophrenic may in some tribal societies be recognised as a shaman and be treated as a pillar of the community. A person worthy of respect and reverence. Share on X Here we take these people and shove them into mental institutions, pump them full of drugs and tell them that they have a life-long, debilitating illness

It appears that the definitions of madness change across time and cultures, which leads me to believe that madness is not so much a medical issue as it is a cultural judgement. Mad is a label we attach to people we find disruptive and confusing.

Mad Culture?

“One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Around 450 million people currently suffer from such conditions, placing mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide.” – World Health Organization (WHO)

That is a lot of people. But do all these need treatment?

It depends. Does their illness interfere with their ability to function? And is it acceptable or unacceptable in their culture?

If the madness interferes with normal functions, such as keeping a job, having good relationships with people, being able to dress and feed oneself and so on, then maybe they do need help. But the question then becomes: What functions do we allow? Maybe what we view as dysfunction is actually the best function that individual is capable of. Are we expecting too much of people?

In the US and the UK, as many as 1 in 10 people take antidepressants, even though they do not have a diagnosis that warrants their use. Why then are so many people are being medicated? Is it to improve their function? To make them ‘fit in’?

“We all experience periods of stress, periods of sadness, and periods of self-doubt. These don’t make us mentally ill, they define us as human.” – Dr. Howard Forman

So, we are medicating away the very things that define us as human. Is that a sane strategy? And why are we doing this? To make sure people can keep up with their never ending list of work requirements and social responsibilities?

Maybe it is time we recognise that we are humans, and not machines. Instead of using drugs to create system friendly humans, perhaps we should be creating human friendly systems that do not require people to take drugs to function. Share on X

“It is no sign of health to be well adjusted to an inherently sick society.” – Krishnamurti

Acceptable And Unacceptable Madness

If you are overly enthusiastic about Bieber, I would call you mad. Luckily for you, I do not wish to limit your expression of that madness, nor require you to seek treatment and medication.

But what about beating up people who do not like your favourite football team? That sounds pretty mad. And what about deeply religious people who believe that some mysterious unseen force is watching them and delivering commandments that dictate their behaviour? Their beliefs sound a lot like the delusions of a schizophrenic, but they are neither diagnosed, medicated nor shunned by society because of them.

These are examples of socially acceptable forms of madness, which many people share. The problem with mad people is not that they are mad, but that they are suffering from a particular brand of madness that the majority are not. Share on X So, who gets to judge what is normal and what isn’t?

Thankfully, these decisions of who is mad, whether they need treatment and what that treatment should consist of, is not left up to the common man. These decisions are made by professionals, who we believe have better judgement. Let me rephrase that, we hope they have better judgement. Although, history clearly shows this is not always the case.

Madness And Genius

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” – Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a genius, with around 300 patents to his name. But he was also ‘mad’. He was obsessed with the numbers 3,6 and 9, suffered from hallucinations and nightmares, was terrified of germs and overly concerned with hygiene. He drank more than most because he thought alcohol prolonged his life. He never had a romantic relationship with anyone, except a very close friendship with a beautiful white pigeon, of whom he said,

“I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.”

If we go by today’s standards of what constitutes mental illness, Tesla would have been diagnosed with a number of them. Does this mean that he should have been medicated and given psychological care, or maybe even been restrained and confined to a lunatic asylum for his own good, and for the good of society?

Would his legacy have existed if we had made him subject to the same standards of ‘normal’ behaviour and psychological constitution as we use today? Or let me put it another way, are we at risk of diagnosing and medicating away genius?

Maybe it is not the 'mad' people who should be fixed in order to function in our society, but our society that needs to be fixed so that we do not interfere with their function. Share on X

The Right To Be Mad?

“Yes you can think and believe whatever you want.
You have freedom of thought.
No, no, no. Not like that. You are NOT Napoleon…
Take your medication.”

Why do we insist on maintaining specific boundaries for how our minds are allowed to function?

Because beliefs underpin our actions.

We set the alarm at night because we believe we will be alive the next morning and that our job and all our other responsibilities will still be waiting for us. And so we are naturally afraid that wrong beliefs will lead to wrong actions, which they might. But does that allow us to rein in ‘bad’ thoughts? To sanction those that have them, when we know that even supposedly right thinking sometimes leads to wrongdoing?

In Nazi Germany, eugenics was cutting edge science and widely accepted. For the good of mankind, tainted human blood had to be cleansed from the population. This desire to have a healthy populace eventually led to the mass scale killing and forced sterilization of those deemed unfit for reproduction.

Today, we may see the ideas behind eugenics as flawed, but back then this was the right way of thinking. Not just in Nazi Germany, but in other countries as well. So what happened? Why did eugenics fall out of favour?

For any change to occur in the world, we first have to change our minds. New ideas must be given the right to exist. Share on X They must be entertained and examined, no matter how insane or ridiculous they may appear at first. You could say that in order to progress, we must first have the right to be mad.

Madness As Progress

To claim that the Earth is not the centre of the universe was once considered to be utter, heretical madness. So was the idea that the slaves should be freed, that women should have the right to vote, or that a heavier than air flying machine could actually work. These were wild, crazy ideas that no sane person would accept. What is odd is that we seem to owe most of our progress to madness.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Rob Siltanen

© Merlyn Gabriel Miller