Madness: A Philosophical and Analytical Discussion

Do you think the Joker movie boring without Batman to counter him?

  • No, Paul Phoenix has the acting range to pull this off! .... I mean Joaquin Phoenix.

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Kokayi005

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Webster's dictionary defines "madness" as:
"a state of severe mental illness" or "unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility".

I was always told that an insane person couldn't tell they were insane because that would require a certain level of rational thought and self awareness that the person loses when the descend into madness. And yet we've all seen shows where a villain is crazy and the victim or hero calls them such, and the villain defiantly or playful agrees. Now we could write this off as just them being a cocky asshole and agreeing to taunt the person they're dealing with. But is that really all there is to it?

Everyone saw Us right? That movie by Jordan Peele? The guy who blew up as a comedian on MadTV and Comedy Central then he suddenly went into directing and blew people's minds with Get Out. Well Us is his second movie. We can discuss that movie if yall want but I just want to touch on one aspect of right now.

In the movie there are a lot of crazed people. Insanity takes many forms. Some people go mad quickly and bounce back due to a stressful fearful scarring moment. Others minds go back due to years of torturous situations. In the movie, a little of both is at play. And yet there are still very intelligent minds behind some of the crazed characters.

My question is: "If a person lives a life of acute self-awareness and one day goes insane, isn't it possible, due to their observation of their past action and how they conflict with their current ones and their knowledge of other's actions in relation to them, that they ACTUALLY CAN know they're insane."

I might even venture that to some degree any insane character taunting others about being insane maybe not believe they are insane but know the reaction they can elicit from being madness so they agree when called such.

Now where am I going with this? There's a JOKER movie coming soon. They want to make it a character study. Is that possible when we all know Joker is so bat-shit insane that evaluation of himself rarely happens. Won't the movie just degrade into odd stuff he does and reaction shots from on-lookers? Especially if Joker is known to have a long and on-going career as a crazed murderous villain.
 

Stemwinder

Well-Known Member
Jun 15, 2018
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If madness and self-awareness have any link it's that too much of one leads to the other.

As with many conditions that are classified as mental illness or madness the core of it is that they're out of step, slightly or severely, with what is considered right and proper and just in polite society. Anyone who's out of step certainly knows they are, they'll be reminded of it constantly through their own observations or the way others react to them. What is and isn't rational is quite dependent on the times and the culture and accusations of irrationality are slung about in a tribal fashion. When someone on the left calls someone on the right irrational they mean "you're out of step with my favored ideology" and vice versa, a man to a woman is saying "you're not acting like a man, which in my understanding is the right and proper way, so you're crazy". The fewer of these little teams that someone is in step with the crazier they'll seem to others.

What that whole quote is really getting at is that crazy is an othering label, something people accuse others of being rather than a label someone would typically give to themselves. It's a half-cocked sentiment since, again, others will certainly let them know how weird they are but the person themselves, whether they're upset by it or not, will feel to some degree that the accepted sense of rationality is too strange or restrictive or unappealing or whatever else to conform to the way everyone else does. All things that seem crazy make sense to the crazy person; they're more likely to see their lack of rationality as an enlightenment of sorts.
 
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Kokayi005

Guest
I'm not sure being self aware to the extreme is ever a bad thing unless it hinders your attempts to interact with society. How could too much self awareness delve into insanity. Wouldn't a person see the road they were heading down (the stress, the emotional instability) and know to/ try to turn back. If anything more self awareness would make the person put the breaks on continuing all the way to madness.

But I do agree that society shapes what labels go where. I would say a person could try their best and still end up in a grey area outside of the social norm and be shunned.
 

ScarletteKnight

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Dec 19, 2015
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My answer is "Yes, and I won't watch it".

One certainly knows when they are mad, and self awareness does not equate power over the self. Many drug addicts are fully aware that they have a problem and understand how to escape it, but when the time comes they cannot force themselves to take the better path. Someone who has a mental illness is perfectly capable of being aware of it, even hiding it, but have no power to fight against it.

Now what I absolutely despise is fucking imbeciles who try to impress or intimidate with the phrase "I'm crazy". Not only is it insulting to people with actual illness, but it's ignorant and basically screams "I can't fight for shit".
 
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Kokayi005

Guest
Fair. Fair point with addicts. I'll give you that.
LOL Now-a-days, I don't hear people using "I'm crazy" before a fight. Usually people just talk shit non-stop till it looks like the fight is about to start then calls the police. Most people are scared to fight unless they think the other person is weaker. But I know what you mean. A lot of bullies I knew wanted people to think they were bat shit so no one would confront them. It was a con to steal bikes, break into people's houses, or just force people to give up what they had.
Now-a-times, it's seems like most times people have some emotional issues and they don't get address (like a super short temper from being spoiled for too long) and people ASSUME mental illness. That's a factor too.
 

Stemwinder

Well-Known Member
Jun 15, 2018
417
621
I'm not sure being self aware to the extreme is ever a bad thing unless it hinders your attempts to interact with society. How could too much self awareness delve into insanity. Wouldn't a person see the road they were heading down (the stress, the emotional instability) and know to/ try to turn back. If anything more self awareness would make the person put the breaks on continuing all the way to madness.
Self-awareness is not a willingness to conform to social norms and ideals. People who follow those with the least trouble are those who never question them to any great extent.

Being overly self-aware can lead to paranoia and a disconnect from all those normal goings-on, into the sort of self-reflection outlined in many forms of mysticism, religion, occultism, or just to eccentricity that others find strange and unfathomable. Focus all your awareness on something for extended periods of time and it'll lose its sense of "reality". Something like "uh oh, I'm getting very far away from normal, better forget all this nonsense" isn't an expression of self-awareness, it's an expression of social awareness. Self-awareness by nature is isolation and the further one isolates themselves the further they'll begin to deviate.
 
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Kokayi005

Guest
By self-aware I mean you know yourself. You know when you talking too much, when you said something mean on accident, or when you are being hypocritical, etc. But I guess you're right, a person who focuses too much on themselves and their reactions to the world and puts no stock into how the society sees them back won't get far. After all, it's usually a lie when people say they don't give a fuck what the world thinks. No one lives in a vacuum. You need other people on some level. To get jobs, to appraise your work so you can more up in a job, sometimes people need each other just to feel safe or to stave off isolation and the dark thoughts that come with it.

That said.

Speaking for myself, I'm very self aware due to years spent alone in my room reading, drawing, playing with toys or talking to myself about cartoon characters motives during commercial breaks. Now that I'm an adult I still do all those things (just replace toys with Playstation RPGs). I'm aware of who I am and mentally (intelligence, emotions, and imagination) I'm proud and satisfied with who I am. But I did still have times I left the house or interacted with my siblings. These were fewer and far in between because my tolerance for society's bullshit is low. So I'd say I'm 60% self aware focused and 40% socially aware focus. I don't scream "fuck the world" and try to do whatever I want, uncaring about the consequences or how it makes people feel to see me being an ass or an oddball. But I do know sometimes you gotta make a choice to turn away from society and be weird if that's who you are. If that's what you do. After all society is never too quick to accept anyone sane or not. So you'd waste your whole life trying to walk that line trying to always being on the public's good side.

I mean look at where we "are" right now? An erotic site. Few people would be willing to believe anything intelligent happens here. They're assume, based on society's preconceived notions, that everyone here is a mouth-breathing pervert without a brain between us.

And knowing how they would usually react is again, social awareness. And knowing that I've been oversexed (overly exposed to sexual content) which lead to a high sex drive and more hormonal thoughts, is self awareness.
 

Stemwinder

Well-Known Member
Jun 15, 2018
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That's being self-concious. It's the difference between overthinking all of your actions in terms of how others perceive them vs. overthinking your state of being in terms of how you perceive it.

To grow people need a sense of both who they are (awareness) and how they fit - or don't - into society (consciousness). Too much of either will reliably lead to marching out of step with others. That's when they get labels like weird, awkward, crazy, eccentric, or even genius and lunatic.
 
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Kokayi005

Guest
Some thought provoking stuff. Won't lie. I see what you're saying.