Mad about the insane use of "crazy", and why I like Alice in Wonderland
From Dr. J, Your Heart's on the Left:
I always thought calling George Bush “crazy” was politically lazy, reducing US foreign policy to the intellectual shortcomings of one man. Bush policies were not “crazy”, they were an expression of the contradictions of US empire: facing an economy in decline but a massive military, the US turned to its strategic advantage. How shocked people have been to see a “sane” Obama continue Bush’s “crazy” wars. The problem is not psychiatric deviance, it’s imperialism.
With the left caught supporting a president who continued disastrous wars and bailed out the banks but not those losing their homes, it’s no wonder the US has seen a right-wing populist backlash—with Tea Party rallies in the streets and the return of the Republicans in the House. The backlash is definitely right-wing and racist, but it is not “crazy”.
Similarly, when Toronto’s mayor David Miller attacked striking workers, and left councilors were silent, they opened the door to a right-wing backlash that catapulted Rob Ford into office. Ford articulated a right-wing populism that spoke to people’s anger and misdirected it towards each other rather than at the corporate system responsible for the recession. He is not a “lunatic”, he is the local face of global austerity. He is certainly racist, homophobic and pro-privatization, but he’s not “crazy”.
I have been avoiding using such words in the last couple years for that reason--not wanting to alienate or marginalize people with mental health issues. On one hand I wish there were alternative words that could convey similar ideas without the negative side effects. On the other hand I appreciate that labels separate us as well as allowing for some laziness.
There's a well known phrase--"insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result." I don't think this phrase has value in describing actual mental illnesses--but I do think it's an idea we all understand. That's the idea that I wish I could talk about, but don't want to use words that will alienate.
I think that idea, that "insanity", that's exactly what's being peddled right now in the US, and it's very popular. Cut spending, cut taxes, cut services, cut regulations: all the policies that have been causing the problems, and people are demanding more of them. Things are upside down and backwards. I'm often tempted to call it "crazy" and I wish I had some more appropriate words.
Whats wrong with using 'stupidity' in those kind of uses of 'insanity'? Seems to me it has the same force and power.
Now if 'stupidity' isnt strong enough, frequent use of it would probably undermine its strength. If so, you move on to 'idiocy' or whatever.
Seems to me there are plenty of creative riffs that could branch out from there.
There's also the word "irrational". I think that's at the root of what people are getting at when they say "crazy" or "insane". And one doesn't need to have a bona fide mental illness in order to be irrational.
'Irrational' doesnt have much rhetorical power.
And, rightly or not, it has more than a whiff around it of elitism. Which in itself is the kiss of death for the messaging we want.
I'm not sure that it isn't the simple dismissal that's got the kiss of death on it. Choose whatever word you like, but if it's meant to be a two syllable rebuttal to right wing ideas, it's not really going win many hearts and minds.
Sometimes I think the left too often believes that the wrongness of things is self-evident, and hurries to assume that those who don't immediately agree are just being wilfully stupid, wilfully lazy, wilfully greedy, or whatever other character flaw comes to mind.
Agree very much with the second paragraph.
Not sure where the first paragraph comes in. But we're not talking about an argument here, or even the short form of an argument.
We are talking about the evocation of images. The use of 'insane' has a power to it. It just shouldnt be used the way it is. But that leads right away to what else.
Intentional or not, lefties using the word that people are 'irrational' is a pretty close kin to assuming that your ideas are self-evident.
....and hurries to assume that those who don't immediately agree are just being wilfully stupid, wilfully lazy, wilfully greedy, or whatever other character flaw comes to mind.
And there is a lot of hurrying to those assumptions in discussions 'in house'. [Though I'm not sure that in the formulations the 'wilfull' part is bothered with.]
Recent example of that here.