Karen's blog reminded me of a question that I've had for a while...
How can we be sure that we aren't all crazy? I guess we can't ever be sure of the answer but the possibility that I could be the one who's actually crazy and everything I am seeing is just all in my head is a scary thought. A schizophrenia sees and hears thing no one else does but how do we know it's not actually there? For all we know what ever they are seeing is what's actually real.
In the book The Giver by Lois Lowry people could only see in black and white and only the Receiver of Memory (Jonas) could see color. Does that make Jonas crazy? I would answer no to that question only because color is a normal part of our society but to the people in the story it was an idea beyond their comprehension. Just like many of the ideas of the people regarded as insane by our society. So how does someone just go crazy (by societies definition)? Have they reached a level of knowledge that we can't even being to comprehend? So where does that leave the rest of us...are we the crazy ones for not being able to see it?
Good point. What constitutes craziness? I'm actually having a hard time coming up with an answer for that one. Maybe that a person's thoughts and actions do not correlate with the world around them, to the point that they can no longer be a functioning member of society. Yet that definition doesn't seem to work for The Giver. Jonas really did see a different world than others around him. And at the end, he doesn't end up fitting in with society and runs away. But I don't think he was crazy at all.
ReplyDeleteI think mental health has a lot to do with the science of the brain. When your brain is no longer functioning at full capacity, or has been rewired in some detrimental way, that could cause "craziness".
To answer the question of what society constitutes as being crazy is simply not "fitting in" or not conforming to societal norms. By those standards, the society in The Giver (I actually read the book a few years ago, and it's still fuzzy in my mind) would see Jonas as crazy. But, by modern scientific/psychological standards, Jonas wouldn't be considered crazy. So, who actually decides whether someone is crazy or not? Us or them?
ReplyDelete