# Sanity is just a form of conformity.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 3, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195 "2004-03-03T00:00:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/21 "2004-03-04T06:53:24Z")
I’m assuming that this discussion does not relate to the legal definition of _insane_.
> [@](#):
>
> **Mangetout** : In general terms, though, isn’t sanity just conformity with reality (i.e. that which exists and works, regardless of whether we like it), rather than conformity with the majority.
Maybe it is comformity with what the majority _perceives_ to be reality. But imagine for a moment that the Theory of Everything is absolutely true. Those people who could actually perceive all 11 (?) demensions would still seem kind of crazy to the average fellow. But what if you could perceive only of three demensions plus time and **most** people perceived of 11 demensions? You would be considered impaired but the majority would not be considered insane.
The unsighted person cannot perceive of sight and doesn’t understand _how_ you know, from a distance, who has possession of the football. You may even sound a little bit crazy to her when you try to explain how you know. It is outside of reality for her. Yet she knows that your ability is not a sign on insanity because the majority of people seem to have this same ability.
Who is to say that schizophrenics aren’t perceiving of a different level of reality also? (I am asking – not making a judgment call.)
I can tell you this much about mental illness. In _some_ forms it can become extremely physically painful. I was misdiagnosed and given the wrong medication once. I assume that the reaction that I had was a psychotic one. It was the most painful episode I have ever endured. I assume that **not** all psychosis is like that.
And being eccentric isn’t the same as not being able to depend of your perception of reality from moment to moment.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/22 "2004-03-04T08:49:43Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#):
>
> Yes, but you believe 2+2=4 to be the ultimately correct truth because of the axioms and rules of logic and deduction taught to you by society.
I’m not sure if that’s correct; I think that some concepts (like small integer maths) are self-evident - I put two apples next to two other apples and there are now four apples on the table. If you can think of a _workable_ replacement set of axioms (or whatever) that results in an answer other than 4, I’d be intrigued to hear it.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/23 "2004-03-04T13:37:56Z")
**Normal** = within an acceptable range of the majority of the group.
Sanity is by definition, psychological functioning within that acceptable range; concurrance with the plurality’s definitions of reality. Sane and insane can never be defined without reference to a set of societal norms and consequences of behaviors.
We are social creatures; we have evolved for life within groups. If my perceptions of reality are different from the plurality in dysfunctional ways, then I am insane for the society in which I live. If my perceptions are different from plurality’s in ways that garner me advantages then I am a prophet or a seer or a genius.
None of us know reality; reality is agreed upon by group consensus. Consensus is agreed upon by functional outcomes.
Hijack: I would be fascinated to hear what a linguist would say about the language invented by that SouthAfrican family - I suspect that the signs and “grunts” have some significant grammatical structure of some complexity of significance to life on that farm.
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### Author:  [@Eveready](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eveready)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/24 "2004-03-04T14:01:31Z")
I think that part of our problem is one of definitions what do we mean by insane? I think it would be safe to say that the person who thinks he is Napoleon is insane but what about a person with a mild unusal compulsive habit? I just don’t buy into the non-conformity=insanity.
> [@II Gyan II](#):
>
> Who’s to say those kids didn’t have normal brains when born. Most likely, they did but lack of exposure to civilized society caused them to exhibit “animalistic” behaviours. Problem is there are different types of insanity. Some might due to deviant brain structures and hence more objectively insane than those who simply learnt to behave differently. But ultimately, insanity is a value judgement.
most likley they did have normal brains when they were born but they did not develop language skills thus imparing their mental development.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/25 "2004-03-04T15:11:42Z")
**Mangetout** said
> [@](#):
>
> isn’t sanity just conformity with reality (i.e. that which exists and works, regardless of whether we like it), rather than conformity with the majority
and I 'd like to point out that this is not in conflict with what I (and Gyan, I believe) are saying, given his definition of “reality” as that which “works” (since again, none of knows what _really_ exists). _Functional outcome_ is key, and in that regard for social creatures, “that which works” - “reality”, is dependent upon cultural context.
Likewise, **Eveready** , if you use the definition offered then there is no conflict. Insanity is percieving and acting upon reality in a nonconformist manner such that function within your environment (which includes your society) is highly impaired.
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### Author:  [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/26 "2004-03-04T19:19:08Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I put two apples next to two other apples and there are now four apples on the table.
Ah, but what if your perceptive visual brain works in such a way that each singular red object appears in pairs? And if your logical apparatus is intact, you would say 1 + 1 = 4 (you picked 1 apple with your left hand, one with your right, put them on the table, and voila! there are 4).
Not exactly this kind, but similar things do happen. Like the [checkerboard illusion](http://www-bcs.mit.edu/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html). In reality, the two blocks are the same color. But a unaided sane person would say that B is lighter than A.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/27 "2004-03-04T23:15:33Z")
Yes, but you could test your theory that 1+1=4 by using the same tests you used to determine that you had 1 apple in one hand and 1 apple in the other hand. If you reached out and touched the “four” apples, you would discover that your visual perception and your tactile perception did not match. And if you looked at the “one” apple in your right hand and the “one” in your left hand, you would SEE 2 in each hand. Therefore you would conclude that 1+1=2 and 2+2=4.
Sanity doesn’t prevent you from making perceptual mistakes. But the closer an organism’s perceptions and thought processes are to reality the more likely they are to survive and pass on their genes. But perceptions do not need to be perfect, just “good enough”. How much insanity an organism can carry and still reproduce and function is dependent on their environment.
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### Author:  [@Buran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buran)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2004, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/28 "2004-03-04T23:28:08Z")
> [@Rooves](#):
>
> I’m going to say that **Ex Machina’s** statement seems to hold the most truth as far as I’m concerned. But That’s just the romance in me talking.
I don’t see anything romantic about it.
In my opinion its just another example of the cyniscm thats prevalent in people and society at the moment.
“If you are alive you are crazy. Any desire to carry on is based in a practical delusion. Intellectual sanity is impossible in the human mind.”
I pity you if this is all you can perceive in human nature.
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### Author:  [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/29 "2004-03-05T01:04:02Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> If you reached out and touched the “four” apples, you would discover that your visual perception and your tactile perception did not match.
Yes, and which would be the overriding sensation?
> [@](#):
>
> Sanity doesn’t prevent you from making perceptual mistakes. But the closer an organism’s perceptions and thought processes are to reality the more likely they are to survive and pass on their genes.
This is assuming there is a right way of sensing (in order for there to be a “mistake”). Your second statement has no basis except assumption. Since life exists today, after billions of year of first supposed appearance, the survivors must perceive pretty close to “authentic reality”. That’s a tautology.
Our perceived reality is a context-based generated schema of meaning. Within this framework, once you ordain a purpose for life or anything, only then you can place individuals on the sanity matrix.
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### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/30 "2004-03-05T01:59:05Z")
> [@Midwinter](#):
>
> I don’t see anything romantic about it.
>
> In my opinion its just another example of the cyniscm thats prevalent in people and society at the moment.
>
> “If you are alive you are crazy. Any desire to carry on is based in a practical delusion. Intellectual sanity is impossible in the human mind.”
>
> I pity you if this is all you can perceive in human nature.
People who say things about the apparent futility of life ( **Ex Machina** ) and the insignificance of humans (Me, in another thread) usually are not genuinelly synical and sad about the situation. It is a casual observation. We shouldn’t be pitied.
Incedentally. People tend to be vastly delusional about their position in society and their place in history. We really are (the vast majority of us) just incredibly insignificant blips in time and space. We are not as important (both individually and as a species) as we like to think we are. Not by a long way. But that doesn’t make me sad or in need of pity!
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### Author:  [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/31 "2004-03-05T03:13:00Z")
**Midwinter** , my comment about romance was just a (free) stab at humor to counterbalance what would seem like a bleek point of view. I do think, however, that having the outlook that **Ex Machina** described can being freeing more than it can be a burden. Eventually everything and every one on this planet (including this planet) will be gone. Any other way to look at it is sugarcoating it.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/32 "2004-03-05T05:07:03Z")
Sanity is a shared delusional state.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/33 "2004-03-05T07:10:38Z")
Hi, everyone! You knew I was coming to this party, didn’t you?
For any who don’t know: I’m a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, a schizzy-rights activist and a psychiatric treatment-refuser.
So, to the question: Is sanity just a form of conformity?
Well, sort of. Mind if I go at it from a different angle though?
In order to be “sane”, in the sense of having your feet on the ground, of being able to understand your world well enough to accurately predict outcomes of behaviors and interpret observations as part of ongoing phenomena, etc etc – a state of mind that _generally_, though not always, also causes you to be _perceived_ as “sane” by others – we depend to a very high extent on ratification of our thought processes by other people. That’s how we stay grounded. If I isolate you from other people, so that you aren’t getting that kind of feedback, you are stripped of a lot of your ability to separate your own mental chaff from your healthy cognitive and emotional wheat, get my drift?
Well, but. What if, for some reason, you were surrounded by people who believed things that you did not believe to be true at all, and because that belief system was part of their shared reality they tended to build on it and draw other conclusions which, to you, seemed as nutty as the faulty beliefs on which they were based. Having the courage of your convictions, you exist as a nonconformist.
And, in doing so, you isolate yourself and expose yourself to the “mental chaff” problem I described above. But the alternative doesn’t look any healthier, does it? Conforming to a shared belief system and world-view that makes no sense to you, just to get by and be part of the society?
And yet that’s exactly what a great many individuals do in modern society. Because modern society is very very complex and huge chunks of it don’t make inherent or intuitive sense. You watch people’s behavior and you don’t see why they are doing what they’re doing; you get older and you understand more of how society is organized but again you don’t see why we do it that way, why it has to be that way. Gradually, as you get older, you begin to be able to put voice to questions, deep serious questions about life and values as well as method and lifestyle and habit and behavior – the kind of questions to which a coherent belief system and a coherent social arrangement of behaviors and structures would constitute an answer. But however simple that kind of thing might have been 10,000 years ago, it ain’t so simple now. To be blunt, lots of people get frustrated and shrug and sigh and quit trying to make sense of things, and instead look around to see who seems to be surviving relatively well, and they emulate them, more or less blindly.
Oh yeah: and, having done so, they are quite likely to get bristly and defensive in the presence of anyone who persists in questioning and trying to figure things out and make sense of things, especially if they reject the importance of conformity to things for which there is no obvious apparent reason for doing them that way.
So, in conclusion: we don’t really _have_ a sanity. We have an array of choices between conformity to systems of thought and behavior we don’t fully understand and which aren’t well understood by the people who are already participants therein, which isn’t “sane” in the feet-on-the-ground sense; or we can strike out stubbornly on our own, trying to make sense of the complexities of modern life, questioning everything, and running the risk of going off on a tangent and staying there in the absence of feedback (the “mental chaff” problem again) and building upon our delusional thinking and perhaps ending up just as lost as the conformist-sheep, except without the companionship and cameraderie. And that’s not “sane” either, of course.
Me, I’m a lifetime stubborn nut type, the eccentric social-hermit form of not-necessarily-sane. I’ve found it helps to have a good sense of humor: it enables you to throw out huge chunks of stuff you fervently embraced after finally deciding it has a kind of chafflike feel to it when you re-examine it, without it savaging your ego and dignity too bad to endure the hit.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/34 "2004-03-05T07:26:51Z")
PS – anyone posting or reading the stuff about “mental illness is a biological chemical genetic disease of the brain” stuff – if you haven’t heard my rap on it before, have a momentary listen: if my brain is _different_ from yours, whether chemical or genetic or structural or whatever, that’s a difference, not a disease. Neither you nor the world’s supply of psychiatric professionals gets to define that difference as a disease, because that call is a subjective one, and by all rights the folks who get to make that call are the ones with the difference. Me, I like being this way and I do not want to be normal and I sure as hell don’t want to be cured. Insofar as I’m not violating laws, my behaviors (and my differences) are not your concern.
Now, some folks who have received a psychiatric diagnosis welcome psychiatric treatment. And some would like to find a treatment that would work for them, because they don’t like their difference, it’s just that the psychiatric treatments to which they’ve been subjected have done them harm rather than help. There _are_ a few of us who think there’s some deeply ingrained and strongly reinforced self-hate and self-rejection playing a role here, just as gay folks at various times in the past (even sometimes still in the present) feel or felt very bad about their difference and wish they had been normal. Be that as it may, our movement supports individual choice with regards to treatment and we’re not out to ban psychiatry or psychiatric treatment. We just want room in which to come out loud and proud, those of us who accept and rejoice in our difference (or alternatively, reject the claim that such a difference exists), to say that we like ourselves as we are.
We are not a disease. We have always been in human societies, and we exist for a reason, and you “cure” us against our will at your own peril.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/35 "2004-03-05T11:32:44Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#):
>
> Ah, but what if your perceptive visual brain works in such a way that each singular red object appears in pairs? And if your logical apparatus is intact, you would say 1 + 1 = 4 (you picked 1 apple with your left hand, one with your right, put them on the table, and voila! there are 4).
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think there’s any way this can be descibed as being equally _workable_ as the reality with which I am familiar.
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### Author:  [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/36 "2004-03-05T13:18:39Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> So, in conclusion: we don’t really _have_ a sanity. We have an array of choices between conformity to systems of thought and behavior we don’t fully understand and which aren’t well understood by the people who are already participants therein, which isn’t “sane” in the feet-on-the-ground sense; or we can strike out stubbornly on our own, trying to make sense of the complexities of modern life, questioning everything, and running the risk of going off on a tangent and staying there in the absence of feedback (the “mental chaff” problem again) and building upon our delusional thinking and perhaps ending up just as lost as the conformist-sheep, except without the companionship and cameraderie. And that’s not “sane” either, of course.
Y’know, that whole “conformist sheep” thing sounds a lot like the diatribes of political extremists of all stripes. Likewise, I’d be interested to see any of these “free thinkers” who have actually managed to win head-on collisions with high-speed locomotives, simply because they believe that basic principles of mass velocity, and force are just “conformist-sheep” thinking. Likewise, for individual who think the same regarding tall buildings and the ground, far below.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/37 "2004-03-05T13:42:50Z")
😕 And in some relevant way this differs from the point I was making in the very sentences you were quoting?
Or are you saying that _everyone_ whose thinking constitutes enough of a departure from the conventional to be thought “mad” is out of touch with reality, or that _all_ of the agreed-upon canonical construct of “reality” is in fact dead-on accurate?
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### Author:  [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/38 "2004-03-05T14:19:51Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> 😕 And in some relevant way this differs from the point I was making in the very sentences you were quoting?
>
> Or are you saying that _everyone_ whose thinking constitutes enough of a departure from the conventional to be thought “mad” is out of touch with reality, or that _all_ of the agreed-upon canonical construct of “reality” is in fact dead-on accurate?
I’m saying that defensive “I’m better than all you sheeple.” braggadocio is indistinguishable from the run-of-the-mill would-be dictator screed.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/39 "2004-03-05T16:15:37Z")
Dogface,
I don’t read AHunter as saying “better”, just that different is not the same as diseased. Which raises the question of “What is diseased?”.
AHunter,
Glad you made it!
Sanity equals
> [@](#):
>
> being able to understand your world well enough to accurately predict outcomes of behaviors and interpret observations as part of ongoing phenomena
No debate there.
And as social creatures our world to understand includes the behaviors of others, and being able to fathom their mental states and motivations in order to interpret and predict their behaviors. We do not exist in isolation. If an individual’s brain differences help, or at least do not impair in that regard, then no disease exists. If they handicap an individual from accomplishing those tasks in any significant way (or at least in any significant way that isn’t substantially offset by some advantage of that brain difference), then disorder exists; it is a disease state. If someone is ascribing motivations to others so off target that their function within society is grossly impaired, then they are diseased. Do they have a right to be diseased if they so choose? Sure, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others in the process. (And any more would be a hijack into material of past threads.)
What I call reality is as much an internal subjective experience of the outside world as what you call reality or what anyone else calls reality. Call them all delusions because none is reality itself. To the degree that our delusions allow for successful functioning, for “being able to understand your world well enough to accurately predict outcomes of behaviors and interpret observations as part of ongoing phenomena”, are we as individuals “sane”.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanity-is-just-a-form-of-conformity/232195/40 "2004-03-05T17:04:49Z")
**DSeid** :
> [@](#):
>
> …as social creatures our world to understand includes the behaviors of others, and being able to fathom their mental states and motivations in order to interpret and predict their behaviors.
Well put, and directly suggestive of one of the trickier areas. _I_ may be doing well (or well enough) at predicting behaviors and understanding mental states of others to get by generically, but still may disturb others who become unsure of _their_ ability to understand _my_ behavior and therefore predict what _I_ might do next.
In my opinion (albeit an opinion backed with lots of informal observation), this phenomenon is strongest among people who have done the most “conforming” – that is, not merely that they are normative and typical of their community, but that they became that way by copying what people around them appear to believe and mimicing their behavior on purpose in order to fit in. [NOTE: **Dogface** , it is to this, and not simply being normative and typical, that I’ve referred to as sheep-behavior].
Still, it’s another one of those “costs of doing business” – if you happen to be one of the ones whose mind works differently and contains different reality-models, not only do you have to deal with the “mental chaff” problem and reinspect your own belief systems with more courage and thoroughness than other people, you also have to include, in your predicting and understanding of human behavior, some provisions for how your peculiarities may worry others, who come to feel that they can’t predict what _you_ might do next.
Being a nature-worshipper who finds the divine in the natural rather than the supernatural, and who sees consciousness as an aspect of Universe rather than universe as separate from and created by a Consciousness, may strike many of you on this board as being at least _as_ in touch with reality if not considerably more so; but you don’t need to look far to find communities in which internalizing that belief-system rather than one of the Christianity-variants, and acting upon it and drawing behavior-indicative conclusions from it, could lead to problems, many of them pertaining to their fears of what you might be doing or might do next, etc.
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