Cultural Insanity, the Key to Understanding Our World & Ourselves (eBook)
718 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-4160-2 (ISBN)
The concept of cultural insanity provides a better way of understanding much of what is wrong in our society and in the world today-and how it got that way-and some ways to improve it. Where our own culture is involved, we and all other individuals in our society are party to it, yet largely blind to it, and to varying extents partake of at least some of its craziness. Accordingly, correctly grasping the idea of cultural insanity will also reveal pathways to improve one's self-understanding, develop a more realistic worldview, and help liberate the mind from the unseen mesh of cultural implants and biases. Cultural insanity is characterized foremost by features of a society/culture that unnecessarily thwart the development of human potential. (My compilation here of the "e;elements of human development"e; describes most of these potentials.) Because "e;unnecessarily thwart"e; means that there must be viable alternatives, allowances may need to be made for a culture's level of technology, its people's levels of consciousness, and more. Part One includes the theory and methods for cultural insanity analyses, along with many examples of current and recent cultural insanities from U.S. politics, history and the environmental realm. Parts Two through Four are historical case studies that consider witch-hunts, religion vs. science in the Middle Ages, and the discoveries of geologic time and evolution. With the distance in time to keep bias at bay, the reader can see a cultural retrogression toward greater cultural insanity, a culture that resisted possibilities to advance human potential, and a once-buried (and thus discounted) cultural insanity that was exposed but is still present today. The reader can also more fully understand the methods and nuances used in the analyses and recognize parallels in society's problems today. Virtually (if not) all cultures are, or have tendencies to be, culturally insane in some respects, and it is immensely important to understand why this is so. To some extent the causes of such general cultural problems are rooted in the evolutionary history of our species, including the way our brains operate. Awareness of the nature of these processes, along with more fully conscious thinking, and the use of evidence, reason and scientific methods, can reduce the negative effects these influences have on culture(s). The same techniques are needed to break out of our enculturated mental straitjackets. To liberate oneself from cultural insanity, it is important to incorporate all the important relevant facts. You may need to face head-on any competing values or worldviews. And exclude stereotypes, fake facts, and one-sided interpretations based on cherry-picked data; and discount all nonrepresentative anecdotes/stories. Information silos will mislead you. And with more of our cultural blinders off, or at least perforated, we can get a better grasp of the problems and damages that cultural insanities cause our society-and envision better alternatives to improve the development of human potential. Many of our society's problems are U.S.A.-centered. But there are also damages which our country, along with many others, are causing. Together, we are causing a Sixth Extinction and overpopulation; we are overconsuming the Earth's resources and depositing waste and chemicals everywhere; we are causing global warming; and we are living in a world in which many "e;social"e; media are manipulating our grasp of facts and reality for their own benefit. Too often these cultural insanities are being denied, ignored, or otherwise given low priority and, hence, are frequently being left in exacerbated forms for subsequent generations. Some of these cultural insanities endanger all humanity. A greater liberation from our own culture's insanities offers new hope for the development of human potential without so much destructiveness.
INTRODUCTION
This book provides a better way of understanding much of what is wrong in our society and in the world today. The cultural insanity perspective offers the mind a pathway to see reality more accurately, especially within one’s own country and culture. The concept demonstrated here may well grip your imagination with its possibilities. The explanations I offer, together with the current examples and historical cases studies, will help you to apply the concept correctly and in an enlightening way (rather than merely derogatorily and erroneously for political insults).
Although the focus here is on the kinds and extents of insanity not of individuals, but of a culture itself, be forewarned: Where our own culture is involved, we and all other individuals in our society are party to it, and to varying extents partake of at least some of its madnesses. Accordingly, correctly grasping the idea of cultural insanity will reveal pathways to improve not only one’s worldview but one’s self-understanding.
The theory and methods for cultural insanity analyses, along with many examples of current and recent cultural insanities in U.S. political history and the environmental realm, are provided in Part One. Parts Two through Four are historical case studies, the last leading up to the present time. These histories deal with major aspects of our society’s heritage, two of them at the bedrock level, with considerable relevance to our culture today. These case studies demonstrate in greater depth the methods of analyzing cultural insanity as well as more of the nuances involved in the proper use of the concept.
Cultural insanity is characterized foremost but not exclusively by features of a culture that unnecessarily thwart the development of human potential in the associated society/societies, where “unnecessarily” means that there must be viable alternatives available. Accordingly, allowances must be made for a culture’s level of technology and its people’s levels of consciousness. Historically, not to make such allowances is to judge the past using today’s values—an ethically unjustifiable stance that is also taboo among historians. For example, for millennia, due to their widespread acceptance, slavery and the oppression of women can qualify only as “buried” cultural insanities—insanities that got exposed only gradually in more recent times—rather like sedimentary rock beds eroding away until the fossils in them are revealed.
The very notion of cultural insanity as unnecessarily thwarting the development of human potential makes us re-reflect on two related questions. What are the purposes/goals of the Nation-state and how should it be designed for best results? And what are these potentials which the State should be fostering and too often doesn’t? In this book the former is dealt with only indirectly, by focusing on long-festering problems that need to be dealt with (i.e., maybe shouldn’t have arisen in the first place) and occasionally mentioning alternatives. With respect to the latter, I have included an extensive listing of what seem to me to be the principal “elements of human development.”
Although cultural insanities, and tendencies toward them, are plentiful and widespread, if you want to assert that some feature of your society is “culturally insane,” you will need to make a case for it, not just assert it. Such a case must take account of the relevant historical context(s). It must indicate how human development is impeded. Like a good scientific theory, it must fit all important facts. It may need to face head-on any competing values or worldviews. It will need to reject stereotyping and fake facts or one-sided interpretations based on cherry-picked data or anecdotes/stories. If done well, it will draw on different information silos while cracking them open. More later.
Only a few almost obvious examples of cultural insanity in Part One refer to cultures other than those of Western Europe, but they make it clear that this analysis applies to more than Western culture. Indeed, I claim that virtually (if not) all cultures are, or have tendencies to be, culturally insane in some respects, and that it is immensely important and valuable to analyze and recognize how this is so. The goal is to develop a more realistic worldview, envision alternatives that might improve the development of human potential, and lead to a greater understanding of what people are usually blind to—the culture in which they are enmeshed. Thus one crucial contribution in this writing is to help liberate the human mind from unseen cultural constraints. And, with more of those blinders off, or at least perforated, perhaps we can get a better grasp on the harms that our society has caused and is causing—and see how we need to act to improve the situation. Moreover, some of the environmental harms associated with our society are problems that are common to many cultures—and they are too often denied, ignored, or otherwise given low priority and, hence, are frequently being left in exacerbated forms for subsequent generations—some even potentially endangering all humanity.
But how can cultures be called insane if they don’t necessarily account for individual insanities? Well, for one, full-blown cultural insanities are profoundly irrational, where “rational” is one definition of sane. Cultural insanities interfere with our use of reason and thus our problem-solving capacities, and they typically reduce or even foreclose other more viable possibilities. Individual insanities often share those characteristics. Unlike many individual insanities, however, cultural insanity does not necessarily imply that the individuals involved knowingly suffer; they may feel or be adapted to their (sub)culture. But the people involved in cultural insanities are not aware how their entanglements negatively affect human fulfillment in the larger society nor how those entanglements often limit them and their progeny as well, though not necessarily in exactly the same ways.
The reader may wonder too, whether my general criterion for identifying cultural insanities—the thwarting of the development of individual potential—involves a modern imposition on the past. But, as described in Part One, some predecessors, some early versions of this criterion, have been available for choosing at least since the time of Aristotle. And there are other examples that also date back to empires before the Romans. Further, as already noted, these analyses do not depend on expecting more than was feasible at the time.
When I asked Google to define “cultural insanity” (as of September 29, 2019), the top ten choices were all focused on individual insanity(ies). Among the top ten, there were no uses of the concept that focused on the problems within cultures generally. The two closest to my usage here spoke to how cultures differ in their stigmatization or interpretation of individual insanity, and to the tendency of the stresses of modern culture to exacerbate depression (specifically). There is no denying that some problems with depression at the individual level are culturally-induced or, at least, culturally-exacerbated. Indeed, as will be seen here, there are a number of cultural insanities that contribute mightily to the sources of stress in modern society.
There are also, of course, histories about the treatment of the insane, as defined at the time, and how the understanding and treatment of insanity have varied over the centuries. But they have only a marginal relevance here. The work closest to mine that I have encountered was published after I had been working on this (for several years). It is Allen Frances’ Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump (2017). This work focuses on ten “delusions” that he identifies as common to large numbers of people in this country, where delusions are erroneous understandings of reality that, most crucially, are not readily susceptible to alteration with facts and reason. Frances’ work contributes to Part One, but it does not deal with the origin of these delusions nor speak to how they are propagated by people as part of their cultures. Moreover, cultural insanity derives from far more than psychiatric delusions; it also festers in realms typically studied by the anthropologist, psychologist, historian, sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and other scientists.
Parts Two through Four are case studies involving major aspects of historical eras lasting from more than 100 years to more than a thousand years. The three case studies involve religion-related topics in the history of the West. They were chosen in part because the vast majority of people in the West have at least some background understanding of the principal religion in the West, such that no case study’s material will be entirely unfamiliar to them. Still, religion can be a delicate subject if something written seems to contravene strongly held beliefs. Accordingly, the reader is hereby urged to think of this account as if it were written by a long-lived Martian anthropologist who watched the history of Western Europe unfold from their spaceship. To assist and...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 9.2.2021 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung |
| ISBN-10 | 1-0983-4160-0 / 1098341600 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-0983-4160-2 / 9781098341602 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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