The Madness of Normal
At first I thought I would give examples of how this shows up across different states, and then I was like, “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had, do you want to hate your life?” And then I thought, “the fact that I’m thinking that is only credit to what I’m about to blab about! Which is…
When madness is shared, it’s called normal. The greatest atrocities weren’t the result of individual insanity, but of social psychosis and conformity. And so it is with even the little things we share in common, those that only continue certain harmful actions and beliefs for the sake of culture and tradition.
We are all influencing each other more than ever in this age of information. If many people share the same false judgments, then you don’t get one disturbed mind, you get a disturbed society.
And because we inadvertently mirror everyone else, no one notices. Because we are reciprocal, we are easily wound up to the tension of others without realizing it.
We spend on a garments with little utility, because they mean belonging. We fear the tribe’s disapproval more than the winter wind. So we suffer cold for reputation, and we commit ourselves to slavery. We have surrendered our will to strangers’ eyes.
Time itself gets surrendered. Someone rises early, because “this is what one does.” She sits in a room performing tasks she does not value, for money she does not need, to buy objects she does not care about, to impress people she does not respect. Ask her why and she cannot say. But the people who would rather live freely on the streets? A problem that needs resolution!
This is not life. This is craziness.
A crowd decides what is success, what is failure, what is shameful, what is admirable. And the individual accepts these verdicts with little trial, as though the mob were a court of reason.
If the crowd worships wealth, the man who is poor feels defective. If the crowd worships youth, the old feel guilty for aging. If the crowd worships productivity, the sage is made to appear lazy.
Nature demanded none of these judgments. Maybe they’re normal relative to human contrivances, but they’re objectively making us sick, ineffective, and weak.
Hunger, shelter, companionship, these are natural. But “career,” “status,” “brand,” “influence,” “being ahead,” “not falling behind” these are just hallucinations a bunch of people happen to agree on.
When one man believes them, we call him confused. When everyone believes them, we call it culture. This is psychosis.
It is a loss of sovereignty over one’s own faculty of choice. It is irrationality over reason.
You think you choose your clothes. You think you choose your schedule. You think you choose your opinions. Remove the audience and see which choices remain.
Would you still wear it if no one saw? Would you still pursue it if no one praised you? Would you still argue it if no one agreed?
You were moved like a puppet. As were millions before you toward an evil backed by consensus; genocide, war, imprisonment, slavery, these are the fruits of the masses.
The tragedy is not that people conform. We have to to some degree. The tragedy is that humans possess reason but still refuse to use it.
We trade the one thing that is truly ours, our perspective, for the comfort of blending in. And then we wonder why we feel bad! Of course you are anxious, depressed, or unfulfilled, you have handed the steering wheel of your life to the crowd, and the crowd has no driver.
The cure is examination. Eat and wear what serve the body. Do work that serves the soul. Hold only those beliefs you have tested yourself. If it makes you look strange, whatever. Look how weird we look! Intentionality usually looks strange in a room of life long conformists.
The real madman is not the one who refuses the crowd, but the one who never questions it.
Question everything.
