We live in a world that is, by every observable measure, going insane.
It occurs to me with every obvious incongruity, shouted maniacally and accepted as gospel truth.
It occurs to me whenever I see banality celebrated as genius, vulgarity hailed as art, and beauty denigrated as bigotry.
I think of it when I hear pleas for virtue dismissed as weakness and acts of vice lauded as justice.
What manner of madness is this? Did I miss something important when I looked up from the grindstone of daily family life, where right and wrong, sane and insane meant something totally different than they appear to mean now?
So I decided to look up the word sanity; just to make sure I hadn’t missed one of Merriam-Webster’s famous updates:
Sanity: The quality or state of being sane. Especially soundness or health of mind.
So it does still mean what I thought it meant. Soundness or health of mind used to mean an observable congruence, coherence, and harmony in thinking and reasoning.
Most days, I think I’m pretty sane, but what my troglodyte parents taught me is no longer considered good sense. It made me think of a quote I once saw quoted, but never knew where it came from. I did some clicking and learned that it is attributed to Kurt Vonnegut:
A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.~ from Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
*I have never read Welcome to the Monkey House. If anyone has, feel free to weight in because it isn’t in my queue.
I had to edit this to account for a glaring typo. I wrote “congruence” in the second paragraph when I actually meant its opposite; “incongruity”.
It’s fixed, so hopefully I make more sense now.
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If everyone goes insane, does that make insane the new sane, and sane, the new insane? 😉
I am kidding, somewhat. Truth is truth, falsehood is falsehood; right is right, wrong is wrong; but in a time of lies, alas, all such considerations go unheeded…
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If everyone goes insane, does that make insane the new sane?
Yes. I am part of the new insane…a strange guy my ancestors would recognize as sane (or could drink a beer with St. Ignatius w/out conflict):
1. I laugh at women’s basketball (or women’s sports in general); I’m insane.
2. I laugh at people not having as many children as is natural; I’m insane.
3. I laugh at individuals who believe they supersede community or family; I’m insane.
4. I laugh at folk who think they can invent their own religion; I’m insane.
5. I laugh at women in leadership roles; I’m insane.
6. I laugh at women’s clothing today; I’m insane.
7. I laugh at people who eat processed food; I’m insane.
8. I laugh at people who own a TV; I’m insane.
I could literally go on for a hundred of these, but why bother? Modern man is simply insane, headed for extinction, and couldn’t give a damn. Let the orgy go on…I’m going to move in with the Amish…
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