Author Topic: Madness Theory  (Read 9932 times)

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Nation of One

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #30 on: January 20, 2021, 01:04:40 pm »
private message sent to Holden and copies to raul, Ibra, and Silenus

i gots to go  ;)

note: please excuse all the typos (following [follwing], dire [dired], board , liberated, etc ...)
I was typing fast and did not read before hitting send due to time constraints.   :-[

All is as well as can be expected, and there was no dramatic turn of events.  We [the toned down Ignatius/Agnes mother-son duo] are holding down the fort, and will be breaking bread to soak up stew juices this evening under the same roof.   The Mother's fears have subsided quite a bit, and we will just have to acclimate ourselves to coping with her growing neurological "challenges" ...

May Jupiter grant me patience and grace.   :-\
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 04:06:14 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #31 on: June 14, 2021, 08:50:17 pm »
Why I consider Madness Theory to be a spiritual/intellectual descendant of The Inversion Principle:


From 2014 October

Quote
I may be taking extensive notes from this text as it is related to one of my favorite books of Critical Theory, Shoshana Felman's Writing & Madness, the book which inspired the poem/principle, Madness Theory, which most definitely resonates with The Inversion Principle which I had been exposed to in “The Real Man's Club” in the mid-1980's (age 17 or so).  Here I sit, thirty years later, a full-fledged Steppenwolf typing away in his domicile at 3AM in the morning.

See "Madness Theory" at https://xhentric.wordpress.com/incantations/madness-theory/

Much like my nephew in the gortbusting years and “Nat” in the whywork years, I have to credit “Holden” for personally motivating and inspiring me to continue to document my scholarly activities in such an anti-intellectual environment as we live in this twenty-first century Bizarroland culture called the Space Age or the Machine Age – mass industrial consumerist culture, which is a spiritually bankrupt perfumed corpse.  Now I will continue to develop Madness Theory, a spiritual/intellectual descendant of The Inversion Principle.  It is all interconnected.

I want to implement Madness Theory by commenting on the hypocrisy of the status quo, thereby challenging the social order.  This is my living protest and actual historical rebellion against oppressive social institutions (religion, government, big business, the military), i.e., what John Trudell refers to as “the corporate state” - the Predator-Enemy.  Know your enemy.

Early in the text (Insanity As Redemption) I come across a reference to R.D. Laing, and I am instantly validated as anti-Freudian.
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Insanity, Laing concluded, might very well be a state of health in a mad world.

Now, in 1984/1985 I was introduced to the idea that up is down and down is up (THE INVERSION PRINCIPLE from Myths, Dreams, and Cultures [an obscure Philosophy class for inspired high school seniors]).

The core truth of madness theory might be stated as follows:

 "Insanity may very well be a state of health in a mad world."
« Last Edit: June 15, 2021, 06:39:41 am by Deep Truth »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #32 on: June 15, 2021, 01:27:25 pm »
inspired high school seniors-Herr Hauser
Was it a class for gifted students?

I had to wait till I met you in 2014, for a  tête-à-tête with real philosophy. But I think it was worth the wait.
It shattered the game plan and the booby traps that the gorts had for me into a million little pieces.

The U.S. is said to be great in identifying real talent, but in you case, I can bet my bottom dollar, they have failed, and how!
Maybe its because what you possess, Mein Philosoph, goes far beyond mere talent.





« Last Edit: June 15, 2021, 01:29:55 pm by Holden »
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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #33 on: June 15, 2021, 05:27:28 pm »
Quote
inspired high school seniors - Herr Hauser

Was it a class for gifted students?

Not particularly gifted.  Well, just to get into the "academy" as it was called, one had to show some kind of promise.  By the time we made it to senior year, we had witnessed many either get the boot (for behavioral problems or poor performance) or quit the school (for lack of access to females).   

And no, the academy in question mostly prized its mathematics whizkid prodigy eggheads, someone like Ed Chu (a member of the "AP Calculus" class that had me depressed as fuck) who had great discipline and very strict parents.   My own parents were divorced the year before I entered the school, so by the time I was 17, I was engaging in some (alcoholic) drinking on weekends, pot smoking during the week, and was already starting to feel the advancing nervous tensions building up in me - the anxiety, the paranoia, the growing anti-authoritarianism.    I had begun slipping a little in mathematics, and I even got to the point where I refused to attend a BASIC Computer Programming class - the beginnings of some kind of nervous breakdown?  As a teenager, I was actually mostly repelled by the idea of digital electronic computers, although I had always enjoyed "computing" - as an organic computer made of meat.

The go-getter businessmen dads of other classmates had their offices in their houses with their giant computers and printers.   I did not come from such a household.   In fact, to this day, my father has no use for a computer.  I even tried to give him one back in 2008.   He didn't want one.

So, no and again no, as our Art would say.   The Philosophy course, Myths, Dreams, and Cultures was not at all reserved for the eggheads.   In fact, the instructor was the head of the English department, the man responsible for getting many of the great books on the summer reading requirements, such as Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenacne, Levin's This Perfect Day, Brunner's The Sheep Look Up, and even Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It was a great opportunity.  The course was focused on Joseph Campbel's Myths to Live By.  Unfortunately, Ed Chu did not show much interest in what "my Philosophy instructor" was offering.  What is a "real man" anyway?   Is a real man a man who philosophizes?

There was never any mention of Schopenhauer, but more about Wilderness Survival - the whole Tom Brown Jr. thing.

That was the momentum behind GORT BUSTERS:  It was the current generation of "The Real Man's Club" conversing on a message board like this one with old worn out Steppenwolves like myself from the old school RMC ---- I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to such a charismatic Teacher with a capital T.

My interests in mathematics and computing have returned again and again, but I am not sure how long such interest can be sustained.   I wish someone like me had left me some notes like the ones I am leaving.   Leaving notes to some youth in the future who will treasure my attempts to preserve something they might find extremely valuable (for their inner wealth).

I get bored with words.  I sometimes even get bored with music.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2021, 07:22:20 am by Deep Truth »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #34 on: June 16, 2021, 04:04:27 pm »
Yes,something similar happened to me around the same age.My parents fought a great deal and came close to getting a divorce but ultimately did not.
I imagine that Mr.Ed Chu,your classmate, is working with a Corporation now, probably making a great deal of money( do you happen to know what he is doing?).Sure,he might have done better than you at a particular point of time.i

But you see there are some initial successes which lead to the ultimate failure and some initial failures which lead to the ultimate success.

I am sure you know that India produces more engineers than any other country in the world and it is just a sheer anomaly that my father forced me into a program that I hated. I could have easily been sent to an engineering school and might have ended up as “one of the techies”. I might have gotten married.Sired a kid or two.

Instead I was thrown into a furnace of pain and anguish, I began to question everything, every single thing, no school of philosophy could have been better than that.To paraphrase Schopenhauer sometimes what it takes is  extreme suffering, to see the truth and no amount of knowledge could substitute it.

If one forced to run a long race, then is better, as Sea Biscuit, shows us,to pace one self and not to expend all the  energy at once in the first lap.

Also, what you have done is , you have broken the mold and as Thomas Kahn says, those who do that are in for a rough ride but eventually they emerge from the ashes, like Phoenix.

It has only been a couple of centuries that a mathematician or philosopher is supposed to be with an institution. We belong to the lineage of Diogenes, not Plato. That is our fate. Not everything is bad about such a fate. The freedom Diogenes possessed Plato never had.

We may not have the support of an Academy, but we do have freedom of thought, which matters a great deal more.
We might just have a dog and a broken bowl but we bow to no king, to no emperor.A few years back, there was a boss of mine, who wrote really cheap poetry and as he did not know how to even start the computer, so he asked me to set up a blog for him,which I did in my personal time.

I even did all the work to get his book published on Amazon( he back-stabbed me after all that,but that's another story). He ,one day said, that he was about to retire and hopes that his blogs gets really popular before that so that he could start minting money from it after retirement.

Quite innocently and without any malice I blurted out that,generally speaking, the work of any author gets recognised well after he is dead and buried, if then. The bastard went ballistic and I immediately back-tracked and said that it might happen within 10 years too.
Even that was not good enough for him, so I said ,some might make it in 2 or 3 years only.Then was he pacified.

What I am saying is ,we here , are not bothered about  making it. Ever.

Get well soon.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Michaelsourf

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« Reply #35 on: October 07, 2021, 11:59:57 pm »
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Blocked by Gorticide !   >:(
« Last Edit: October 09, 2021, 10:23:50 am by Creepy Sleepy »

Nation of One

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #36 on: November 26, 2021, 04:33:09 pm »
Quote from: Holden
We belong to the lineage of Diogenes, not Plato. That is our fate. Not everything is bad about such a fate. The freedom Diogenes possessed Plato never had.

Holden, some of your statements hit me like a magic incantation.   To understand our Fate might reduce much of our anxieties.  Thank you for your extreme thoughtfulness.   May the bastards in your own society never wear down your determination to be an honest man.

Quote from: Holden
... we here, are not bothered about  making it. Ever.

What could "making it" even mean in such societies as ours ?   
Our failures may have been our greatest merit.
___________________________________________________

Quote
Psychiatric diagnosis has followed the same trajectory as alcoholism. Each diagnosis in turn has been constructed by somatic psychiatrists as a disease, in each case building a similar house of cards. It doesn’t seem to matter that the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry and its influence-peddling in academic psychiatry has been exposed as financially and scientifically corrupted and manipulated. The drug companies have engaged in study suppression, falsification, strategic marketing, and financial incentives.

Take, for example, the antidepressants: the chemical imbalance theory has been discredited, but this didn’t alter the fact that the theory is still believed. Never mind that antidepressants don’t actually do anything constructive, apart from the fact that people believe they do (which has also been proved). And in their wake a lot of harm has been done.

source  (Mad in America)
« Last Edit: November 26, 2021, 07:13:01 pm by mike »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #37 on: November 27, 2021, 02:10:11 pm »
I am glad you liked it.Life is just very tiring.One thing after another.Makes no sense.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Holden

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #38 on: November 27, 2021, 02:15:58 pm »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #39 on: May 05, 2023, 12:21:05 pm »
I found a PDF file of A Philosophy of Madness: The Experience of Psychotic Thinking by Wouter Kusters (translation).

I have not had access to keyboard except with library for 60 minutes per day, in which I have technical, practical things I also must take care of within the 60 minutes, hence the down and dirty link to the text I am exploring at the moment.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2023, 12:40:54 pm by The Mad Philosopher (of the Abyss) »
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Re: Madness Theory
« Reply #40 on: December 25, 2023, 10:15:46 am »
Nassir Ghaemi’s A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness
 

Three lessons about the potential benefits of mental illness:

    Depression and bipolar disorder have benefits that may be helpful in leadership positions.

    Historical leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, and JFK had disorders that helped them make better decisions.

    Knowing the upside of mental illness can help us remove the stigma around it.


I have been wanting to read Hector Tobar's The Last Great Road Bum, and have not been able to do so.  I never have the opportunity.   I have tracked down a digital version of First Rate Madness, and I do believe it might be some original thinking that could inspire me to "take some notes" once again.   I can barely find time to review some basic ideas in Mathematics.   I do not have opportunity to "root the android" on the smart device.   Science Fiction Psychological Horror.

I am very interested in this book.  Please, if anyone has time to look into it, I want to explore this ... I am placing these notes here to motivate myself to include some literature in my life (not Jehova Witness Watchtower crap or Korans!)

FROM:  https://fourminutebooks.com/a-first-rate-madness-summary/
Quote
Lesson 1:

 The benefits of illnesses like bipolar disorder and depression can be good to have as a leader.

The serious and devastating nature of depression and anxiety makes us easily ashamed of them. Depression runs in my family, and we’ve always struggled to talk about it. Although we are getting better, the social taboo around mental illness still lingers today. But there’s hope in the abilities mentally unwell individuals have that others don’t.

Let’s take a look at Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder as examples. Major Depressive Disorder, or more commonly known as depression, is, for simplicity’s sake, like a deep, unbreakable sadness.

Ghaemi claims that because of what most people with depression feel, or sometimes don’t feel, they are more empathetic. People who are depressed can thus better understand the difficulties of human experience.

Bipolar Disorder, on the other hand, is when people experience depressive episodes but also manic periods as well. They may oscillate between sadness and euphoria frequently, even within hours. Often spontaneous, these people have heightened moods on both ends of the spectrum.

People with Bipolar Disorder spend time in the outlier regions of emotional highs and lows, where most other people never go. Ghaemi believes that because of this, they’re more likely to see things from those outlier perspectives. They may be more creative than the rest of us. Let’s see how this, along with the benefits of depression, have helped society in times past.


Lesson 2:

Nations have made it through difficult times throughout history because of their mentally ill leaders.

Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi both tried to commit suicide when they were young? The two of them suffered from depression that started in childhood. Later in life, it appears the stresses they had made their mental state worsen. This makes sense knowing the great changes each of these individuals brought about in the world.

Consider the heightened sense of compassion depressed people have. The civil rights movements of King and Gandhi both were, at their core, just radical empathy. Both of these great men highlighted the importance of love above all else. They knew of the despair others were feeling because they had felt it themselves. Their level of concern for others is well-summarized by a quote from King:

    “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Winston Churchill was another case of a depressed leader making better decisions because of his illness. In 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain heroically declared he would meet with Hitler directly. Chamberlain hoped to persuade Hitler that war wasn’t necessary. Churchill, on the other hand, was more realistic because of his depression. His sound mind helped him make better decisions throughout his leadership.

Here’s one last example, this time of the possible benefits of Bipolar Disorder. John F. Kennedy exhibited many of the symptoms of Hyperthymic Personality Disorder, which is similar to Bipolar Disorder. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy held his position when everyone else told him to call for a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Because of his mental illness, he successfully averted a nuclear catastrophe.


Lesson 3:

Recognizing that mental illness has its good sides is a step toward breaking the stigma around it.

Let’s wrap up with a deeper dive into a point we’ve mentioned before. We know that mental illness continues to be a taboo subject in many places around the world. While many people are breaking free of the stigma, countless others continue to struggle in silence.

It only makes sense for society to be afraid of something they can’t understand. But we must stop the progression of mental illnesses, and the spread of the stigma around it. This is where these upsides we’ve discussed come in handy.

First, we need to accept the mentally unhealthy states of some of our past leaders. We must admit the positive contributions these individuals made despite their challenges.

This leads to the conclusion that those with illnesses like depression and Bipolar Disorder have made a difference in the world. Society is a better place because of the decisions of these leaders which were influenced by their mental illnesses.

From here, we can see that anyone, regardless of mental state, can make a positive contribution to society. Depressed or anxious people, those with Bipolar or eating disorders, and all who struggle with mental illness can change the world.

Maybe my challenging circumstances will force me onto the front lines of this Poverty War and I can help Los Gentes (Los Indios de las Americas) take down the Powers that be!

 :o
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~