The Origin of Insanity

We all know that our culture is not right.  I mean “not right”, like ill, the kind of not right you feel when someone laughs too quickly, then looks around and notices that others are upset. It’s that kind of empty feeling that you get when you listen to a passionate argument about a world view, then realize that the scripts to these arguments have already been written, predigested, by that strange hybrid of entertainment and journalism. (What do we call this magic combination?  Journalment?  Enterporting?) There has been quite a bit of talk this last week about the source of our mental instability.  It is good that we are nervous about this.  When you are sick in America, things do not go well for you.  And there is this sense that we all own some part of this mental illness.  As we all know, blaming others, or trying to deflect blame, or making you tube videos about blame is a sure sign of guilt. 

For me, it is helpful to start with some clarifying terms.  Albert Einstein might still hold the gold standard for diagnosing insanity, but when I try to think about someone repeatedly approaching a problem with the same failed perspective, my warped brain imagines cartoon characters, like Wile E Coyote.  This is the problem with iconic quotes.  They may be full of wisdom, but you may not personalize them.  My own definition for mental illness surely would include something about not allowing for new possibilities to exist, and something about balancing the critical brain with the creative brain. This reminds me of a university lecture I attended a few years ago, delivered by the art critic and painter Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. He was talking about why he felt the need to both write about art and make paintings, and he explained that, from his perspective, criticism was the act of removing things from the world and making art was the act of bringing new things into the world.  He felt the need to balance one with the other, knowing that both the critique and the creation had to answer to each other. When they do, a positive momentum builds.  This idea, I think, is relevant as we reflect on the rhetoric that may be ailing us. We can be fooled, with the magic alchemy of Enterporting (with high definition polish, ever expanding formats, up-to-the-minute nowness), into thinking that something new is being produced- new ideas, new movements, new energies and new solutions (think about Wile E Coyote’s Acme products catalogue that always seemed so promising, while keeping him squarely focused on the same problems). But when was the last time that a biased rant made you feel like the world was a bigger place, full of possibilities?  Doesn't limiting our perspective always lead to us falling off the cliff again?

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