The State of Madness

Are you mad? Are you nuts? Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? Are you a lunatic? No, we never use the last statement! We do not call people lunatics. Being a lunatic is a serious matter. It is not being crazy or nuts or scattered brain or anything we may call each other casually. However a lunatic is someone who needs to confine to a sanatorium, or just to pay a visit to a psychiatrist. In such a case, we do not still call the person a lunatic, but call the doctor or the hospital.

Earlier statements however, are in fact used as a strong objection to people saying or doing something we don’t approve of. Sometimes we use similar statements just to insult another person; such as stupid, dimwit, dense, idiot or imbecile. These are still not used to seriously mistrust the person’s intelligence. A person we consider a lunatic is someone whose mental health or capacity we really suspect. The word lunatic is not as soft as crazy or nuts or foolish or mad or harebrained! We may react to something someone said or did by saying; it is insane, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, illogical, misguided, or whacky. But never would one envisage for that person to have a need for some kind of psychotic analysis. Calling someone nuts or mad or crazy is just a matter of speech. It is a condition of being out of ordinary, softer than idiocy and stupidity and foolishness, but harder that insanity. Even if we call someone an idiot in the course of an ordinary conversation, we do not necessarily believe the person to be really gullible or stupid. We think of that person to be simple and naïve, and just for the situation at hand. When we call someone a lunatic, we are really considering that person to be different from the norm, by all standards. A mentally unhealthy person does not think nor act like others. The majority of us act normal, and those with mental problems don’t. There is also more than one kind of mental illness, as they differ in types and degrees. Normal, is a person who acts like the majority in many respects. Those who do not act like the majority and do not have certain admired status or wealth may be considered abnormal and insane. This needs some explanations. A famous celebrity or a politician or a billionaire climbs on a lamppost, and when on the top, announces to all the journalists and photographers who are reporting this event that the secret to happiness is exercising one’s free-will and doing what heart desires. A news anchor will use a ladder of the fire department which is present there, to get closer to the person on the top of the pole, and have a live interview. This event will be displayed on the first page of all e-journals, and bloggers will discuss his statement in detail. He will also be invited to many talk shows to discuss his views on happiness. Now assume some unknown person or a homeless climbs on a lamppost and announces to the bystanders that the secret to happiness is exercising one’s free-will and doing what heart desires. In addition to journalists and fire engines, police will be present and they will book him right away. This will be news also, but the first person will be considered in the news as a person of atypical thinking and avant-garde, and the second person will be talked about as an insane.

In fact, sanity is in the mind of the beholder! Each one of us has done or said things, that in retrospect may be called as foolish or crazy or “I don’t really know what came over me when I said (did) that”! Then, we try to think and act like others. Some of our politicians consider insane people prone to crime, and therefore, dangerous. In the absence of mental health facilities, politicians want insanes and criminals locked down the same. They also consider anyone who lives in the street to be mentally deranged. What is missing in this equation is economical conditions. But who is really insane: the politician or the street person?

As a result of an increase in crime in Oakland California, the government of this city is hiring ex-police chiefs of other large cities to come up with a crime-fighting solution. Streets of Oakland are filled with homeless people, who do not have a place to live due to their economic or their mental conditions. On the other hand, there are several gangs who wage turf-wars in the streets of Oakland, for the same reasons of mental or economic conditions. Spousal abuse and domestic conflicts are also rampant in the city. In this condition, is the law enforcement the agency that should come up with a solution to this increasing problem, or psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists? Government officials, who constantly reduce social benefits and expand the disparity between the rich and the poor, should address this question. Since wars waged on other nations of the Middle East and Africa, ignited by the US, the crime rate decreased, and when soldiers started going back home, it increased. According to FBI report: “Preliminary figures indicate that, as a whole, law enforcement agencies throughout the nation reported an increase of 1.9 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention for the first 6 months of 2012 when compared with figures reported for the same time in 2011. The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The number of property crimes in the United States from January to June of 2012 increased 1.5 percent when compared with data from the same time period in 2011. Property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Arson is also a property crime, but data for arson are not included in property crime totals. Figures for 2012 indicate that arson increased 3.2 percent when compared to 2011 figures from the same time period.” (see: FBI report for Jan to June of 2012)

US government has been sending soldiers all around the world, some of whom have been deployed to wage wars in some Middle Eastern and African countries, since the beginning of this century. Is hurting, torturing, or killing someone who lives outside of one’s geographical boundary an insane act? No matter what the reason for this action is (revenge or increasing the wealth of multi-national corporations), the action as a whole is abhorring and criminal. Plundering and devastating someone’s normal life stems from an insane mind, whether the mind of some government officials or the mind of an army of soldiers who commit the killing. Criminality is as a result of insanity, and insanity is initiated by unique formation of brain cells, or it is triggered by economic conditions of the insane through time. In the absence of clinics for people of the first group, and worsening the situation of the second group (as it seems to be the present government’s policy to enrich the rich, and increase number of poor in order to service the rich), violence in the streets of all major US cities will have an upward trend, no matter how many law enforcement officer are hired, or the police state is tightened more.