Notice your own wording: “Actions which deviate from generally acceptible human behaviour”. Hitler’s actions were at best, only halfway unacceptable to him and to Germany. Historically, they would not have attracted much comment, or even congratulations on his efficiency in eliminating his opponents. Therefore, it cannot be outsie the human norm. If anything, the respose of people today in disgust meets your criteria for insanity: it is historically highly abnormal and might cause harm to others, in the form of disgust towards Germans. I think you need to rethink your stance.
Plus, your definition is so vague as to be meaningless and useless. You have just defined anyone who does not fit in and irritates anyone else as insane. Who defines “harm”, eh? You can probably declare everyone insane by that standard. At which point there is no point. Try again.
Why? What is “insane” about it? Evil? Yes. Despicable? Certainly. Yet why is it insane to enjoy to pain of others. It begins with a feeling of power over others, and ends in causing torture. Perfectly natural, in fact, at least for some people. For certain groups, it would be considered absolutely normal, even neccessary. And I do not accept the foolish notion that insanity is only defined by culture.
bandit, it’s also “perfectly” natural for me to whip it out and piss in the streets, and yet were I to do so, I would be violating the accepted norms of American society. People would also question my sanity for doing such a thing, but in other societies it would be considered perfectly normal for me to do such a thing.
To assume that the definition of “sanity” is a static item, which remains the same throughout history is foolish. Homosexuality, for example, was considered acceptible human behavior by the Greeks and Romans, yet in the 1950s, it was considered a mental illness.
Certainly what Hitler did might considered acceptible by some societies (I can imagine that Caligua would have approved), but would you want to be part of such a society where his actions were considered the norm?
And kingpengvin, it only absolves him if you choose to absovle him. Speaking as someone who has suffered from mental illness in the past, I don’t look at my past actions and say, “Well, I couldn’t help what I was doing, I was crazy.” I look at my past actions and say, “I knew what I was doing was wrong, and yet instead of seeking help, I continued in my actions. That was foolish of me.” I did those things, and ask for no absolution for my actions.
Hitler was careful never to come out and say that he was going to exterminate the Jews. He talked of relocating them to the East.
The actual plans for how the Jews were to be dealt with were made at the Wansee Conference which took place on January 20, 1942. Those in attendance included Adolf Eichmann and Reinhard Heydrich. Hitler was said to be grooming Heydrich to take his place, until Heydrich was assasinated by Czech resistance fighters.
The Nazis were quite careful never to officially refer to what they were doing to the Jews as extermination, but instead used a number of code words. Nevertheless, the real meaning was quite clear to those in the know.
As to whether Hitler was insane, no I don’t think he was. His racial views, especially about the Jews, were extremely extreme, even considering the time period. However, after the failed assasination attempt in 1944 I believe Hitler, while not going insane, did begin to fall in a sort of pyschosis, which accelerated and reached its depths in the final days in the bunker in Berlin.
You would not be insane. Well, you could be insane, bbut that that isn’t a neccessity. You might simply not care about other people’s opnions, or you might have some reason for “making a statement”. regardless, there is no reason to assume you are mentally ill. There is nothing wrong with your mind, in this case, it is simply that you do not agree with other people.
Which is my point. If you define insanity by cultural mores, then it means absolutely nothing. It becomes only an opinion. And frankly, thinking Hitler was insane because you find his actions vile is self-deception. One is not the other.
It’s time for you to take a good long look in the mirror, my young friend. Be careful where your beliefs might carry you:
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A former North Korean prison guard has revealed that Christian prisoners are “treated more harshly than are other prisoners” and regarded by authorities as “insane.” **
Then how do you define insanity? How do you conclusively state that this or that persons actions are sane? Or insane? How do you eliminate cultural bias from marring your definition? In interviews, Wade Davis (author of The Serpent and the Rainbow) has stated in interviews that the shamen he’s met have all been “insane” by our definition, and yet are considered to be a “sane” and intergral part of the society in which they live.
Frankly, I don’t see how can you can define sanity by any other method of cultural mores. (Which means, I realize, that most of Germany during WW II would be considered a nation of nutters. Yeah, I’ll agree with that. Mass hysteria’s been around for a while and has been known to do some pretty silly things, like making tulips more valuable than gold, for example.)
Think about his question a little bit longer in context. It’s a rhetorical question to make a point. You’re supposed to answer in your head, “No,” and then associate the question with what preceded it.
He was making the case that beliefs that he considers silly are NOT sufficient grounds for considering someone insane.
I define insanity as either a biological flaw rendering rational excercise of the mind vasty more difficult or impossible, including severely warped perceptions or reactions, or an aquired behavior that seriously inhibits social reactions and that the “patient” does not desire. Beyond that, there may be traits we find undesirable, and many may benefit by treatment with some form of mental health care, but cannot be considered insane, nor could they be rightfully committed.
Obviously, my definition is incomplete in some cases, but I Am Not A Trained Psychologist. I can only observe that the culturally-relevent definition of sanity is nothing more than embracing bias, an “easy way out”, that ultimately depends far more on the perceptions of normalcy of the observer than the status of the patient in question.
In this case, I see no reason why someone cannot believe that spirits are talking to him. After all, I see no reason why they could not, assuming such spirits exist. I do not believe they do, but I may be wrong. Moreover, everyone takes part in behaviors that society deems unusual, innapropriate, or strange. Yet, merely because one chooses to live differently from other people does not make one magically insane. After all, your definition would mean the Pilgrims “suffered” from a collective insanity in England, then magically became sane when they landed in the New World. (Yes, I know they went to Holland first. Hush.)
No, no they weren’t. Most people may have considered America and Britain and the Soviets and the French to be their enemy, but that was their choice to think. You once again demonstrate the total inadaquecy of your definition, because that means that in America, they’d be insane, while in germany they wouldn’t be. If insanity is nothing more than a point of view, it means absoluitely nothing but what you want it to mean. Heck, why should we divide by nation? Why not state or territory, or city or, hell, why not household?Then everyone can be a little bit insane.
And ultimately, that means nothing at all. Whether it is “true” or not, it is a pointless waste of time. It means nothing, is unprovable, and has no consequences for the world whether right or wrong.
Moreover, why is it “insane” for tulips to be more valuable than gold? (You are making this too easy on me.) Either one has value depending solely on the worth peple assign to it. therefore, if people want tulips more than they want gold (Yes, simplifying, Hush.) Then, ipso facto, it is more valuable than gold. So long as the demand held up tulips were worth more. Not everyone would agree with the Dutch’s temporary valuation of flowers, because to them it isn’t more valuable. They may even feel the Dutch were insane, but that is irrelevant. They are simply unable to understand that other people might value things differently. Now, if you were to show that the Dutch tuilp obsession was motivated by a widespread brain flaw, or a truly irrational choice, I might believe you. That it was a widespread and commonplace desire, I therefore assume it was not an insanity, but rather a strong but temporary demand upswing. these are not unknown, and are mrely based on temporary situation of popular opinion.
Biological flaw, eh? Or behavior that the “patient” does not desire? A couple of problems with those. First of all, do you know how we decided that there was a biological “flaw” in patients who were mentally ill? Mental health professionals noticed that therapy wasn’t always successful in treating mentally ill patients and that certain medications seemed to improve the patients condition. As brain imaging technology progressed, it became possible to image a person’s brain in such a manner that one could see which areas were active and inactive. In people with undesirable traits, certain areas were more active than in those without the undesirable traits. At present, the technology used to do brain imaging is somewhat limited in it’s scope. We can look at a person’s brain and tell, for example, if they’re a manic-depressive, however as technology progresses, we’ll be able to look at a person and tell, for example, if they’re a Christian or not, or if they enjoy nose picking, or anything else. At that point and time, doctors will be able to develop “medications” to “cure” people of those things. So, in theory, someone could go to a doctor and state that they’re having a crisis of faith, and the doctor can then perscribe them “medication” to “correct” this.
Additionally, the people who are diagnosed as being “mentally ill” are, for the most part, not subjected to brain scans to determine what’s wrong with them. They are perscribed medication, mainly based on information they provide their therapist. Adjustments are made to the types and dosages of medication as determined by the patient’s reaction to those medications.
Next, there’s the problem of the patient wanting to be treated. One of the biggest issues in mental health is that many of the patients simply do not realize that there is something wrong with themselves! They feel that the problem is with society, or the people around them, not themselves. This makes treatment particularly difficult in some cases. Indeed, there was a recent SCOTUS decision in which a man was ordered to take his medication, in order that he might stand trial.
Mental health is not a cut-and-dried issue. In any trial where the defendant is claiming to be mentally ill, both sides present a panel of experts who have examined the defendant, and state their opinion on the defendant’s mental condition. Ultimately, it is up to a judge and jury to decide if the defendant is sane or not.
Nor am I, but I was a psych major for a couple of years, and I can tell you that no respectible mental health professional will tell you determining a patient’s mental state is an easy task. It can only be inferred based on intensive examination of the patient in question.
Yet, AFAIK, there is no other way. Take, for example, people who claim to commune with spirits. It might be that they are communing with spirits, it might be mental illness, or it might simply be that they are a con-artist. In our society, we have decided that if the individual’s behavior is not particularly harmful to themselves or others that the person is either having a religious experience or a con-artist. If the behavior is harmful to the person or others, we decide that the person’s mentally ill. However, in a strongly religious society, any person who claims to commune with the spirits is not judged to be mentally ill, but to be genuinely doing so. In some societies, harmful behavior by those said to be communing with spirits is attributed to the work of evil spirits, in other societies all such actions might be determined to be “good.” In a society which has no religious traditions (AFAIK, there aren’t any) such a person would be labelled either a con-artist or a lunatic, with no in-between.
Correct. Which is why determining someone’s mental state is so difficult. Indeed, if it were a simple matter of deciding if one was sane or not, then we wouldn’t be having this thread, now would we?**
And a few hundred years later decided to be a bit looney again after the mores of society changed. Remember the Salem witch trials? Mass-hysteria combined with greed which caused the deaths of innocent folks. Yet, at the time, it wasn’t seen as such by many folks. It was “God’s work.”
And who’s to say that we aren’t? In order to say that there is an ultimate definition of sanity, everyone has to agree that there is an example of a person with perfectly sane behavior. AFAIK, there’s no universally accepted model. Even Christians disagree with what their God meant when He said something.
Of course, that depends upon your definition of “consequences.” Ultimately, we’re but blips in a cosmic eyeblink, if humanity chooses to wipe itself out tomorrow, the cosmos will continue to go on, even though our species may be extinct. Civilizations rise and fall due to the actions of their members, and that is the natural order of things. One could argue that a person who commits actions which cause society to collapse is merely following the natural order of things, and not insane, even if those actions are harmful to the members of that society.
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And the fact that the economies of several nations collapsed afterwards is no indication to you that the choice to value tulips so highly was an irrational choice? Obviously it was, because the economies did collapse and tulips assumed a much lower value. A much more rational choice would have been to value something which wasn’t subject to such wild fluxations in price.
I hope you’re right, but I’m not a very good mindreader and Latros has not returned to explain his comment.
Here’s why I took a negative view. He appeared to be equating “mad” with “insane”. You seem to be equating “mad” with “silly”. I have never heard your interpretation before so, without an explanation from Latros, I’m inclined to think my view is correct.
"Hitler possessed a manner of speaking to large masses of people that absolutely captured their imaginations and stimulated within them a tremendously powerful emotion. "… when Hitler was elated, his normal halting awkward style was transformed into a magical flow of words, delivered with spellbinding effect. **On these occasions it was as though Hitler himself was listening to the extraneous intelligence which had temporarily taken over his soul … The strange transformation … would later be described by others who saw this Luciferic possession **take place yet more concretely as Hitler rose step by step to the very pinnacle of power. ‘Listen to Hitler and one suddenly has a vision of one who will lead mankind to glory’, Gregor Strasser, a defected Nazi, recounted twenty years later. ‘A light appears in a dark window. A gentleman with a comic mustache turns into an Archangel. Then the Archangel flies away and there is Hitler sitting down bathed in sweat with glassy eyes.’
Lord save me from loonies… (hmmm some how apropo…)
We weren’t talking about Hitler and the occult and no he was not a magical man hypnotising his followers with deamon powers. If I sound trit about it well I am, it is a silly notion. It only works if you want to watch an Indiana Jones film but not if you wish to understand the history and causes of that time.
Hitler’s speech style was differnt from his regular talking style because he was acting when public speaking. He practiced and slowly improved his oratory skills over time. He was public speaking for years before he became the person we see in films such as Triumph of the Will.
His maniac style is not that differnt from at contemprary leaders except he was better at it. That was the sytyle carried over from the time when a politician talking to a large crowd had no speakers or TV screens. You could not be subtle if you wanted to get a point across. You had to shout, over emphasise and over gesture.
Know the truth … good advice.
GOM,
How would things be different if Hitler’s oratory prowess came from more mundane sources? I mean how can you tell that his puissance is different than what could be normally acquired?
This is the key problem. This is what you define as “sane” and “insane”. Rationality is semi-irrelevent. Humans make rational choices all the time, and irrational choices all the time, based on incomplete information, malice, or simply stupidity. I stand by what I said before: in defining sanity only by cultural context, you only prove that your definition is incomplete. We may never be able to knwo the full truth of the human brain, and so we must try and fill in the gaps with guesswork, a sad but neccessary requirement.
Ultimately, though, if sanity is contingent on culture, then where do you draw a cultural line? What defines a person’s culture. WHy should anyone pay any attention to the culture outside his own mind? What is so mighty about culture that makes it the arbiter of ones mental health?
Any definition is going to be incomplete so long as we do not fully understand how the mind works. As you admitted, even your definition was incomplete.
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Good question, and one that folks wrestle with all the time. Remember the European couple that got into trouble because they left their kids in a stroller while they went in and ate a restaurant in NYC? Authorities had trouble deciding on what, if any punishment the parents should have faced, simply because they were outsiders who were following the customs of their native country.**
Because society would be incapable of functioning if one didn’t.**
Because one of the key factors in determining a person’s mental state is how they follow social norms. You wouldn’t question a person’s sanity if they acted more or less like everyone else. It’s when they deviate from the accepted norms of society that you begin to question a person’s mental state. Indeed, in my example of someone urinating in the street, you immediately provided examples of situations where our society had deemed such acts to be acceptable. Because, as you admitted, it’s not simply the act which makes one mentally unstable, but the circumstances underwhich one commits the act that determines if one is or is not sane.
So what? I say my definition is an attempt to create a complete definition, a step towards it, rather than wallowing in ignorance.
No, I do not remember this. I do not consider this insane, and while illegal, it is not without a case of the law having no reason for mercy. Granted, I think the European custom in question is totally boneheaded. I could be wrong. However, any punishment I would impose would bepart of my attempt to find an objective good/bad and enforce it.
So what? Why is society an absolute good? What reason does any individual have to obey it, except that it seems rational. Moreover, taken to the logical extreme, your are literally saying that in a truly vile society it is insane to do good, since that is “abnormal”. Fuck abnormal. I don’t care. people should do what they think is right.
Here is where you once again go wrong. Simply because one acts like everyone else does not mean everyone is sane. In fact, there are some things lots of people do that I think is borderline psycho, which I do not wish to state here since I do not want to turn this into a thread full of people ranting at me for calling them nuts.
[I don’t recall saying anything about peeing in the streets, and my quick review didn’t show anything] Which was [or at least, would have been if I had done so] meant to show that no act is unusual, and that circumstances are simply a bunch of people’s say so. Culture changes and has nothing to do with any real principle of sanity, merely that a person does not think the same things as those around him or her. Even if unusual behavior is how we “know” (very inadequately) that someone is insane, that is merely one sign, and not an ironclad one. The real disease is much deeper, and may or may not expres itself in unusual behavior, at least not yet. Eventually, a truly insane person might engage in behavior truly out of whack with reality, but not all of them do. Many simply suffer quietly and are never treated. Therefore, “insane behavior” is not and cannot be the sole criteria.
You misunderstand again. It is not the circumstances I am interested in but the actual state of a person’s mind. You seem to believe that insanity is the relationship between a person and the outside world. I state that it is the inner state of a person’s mind.
