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On the word "crazy"
Dec. 24th, 2021 10:18 amI just connected something this morning. "Crazy" is one of a list of words that have something in common.
The clearest and most neutral of these words is "mystery".
I could tell you, "There's something in the box, but I haven't opened it yet; it's a mystery." Despite my attributing "mystery" to the thing, "mystery" is not really a property of the thing. The person who put the thing in the box knows what it is. The person who made it knows what it is. It's not a mystery to them. The word described my own lack of knowledge, and nothing more.
The full list of such words is a fun one, but opens cans of worms that I'm not in the mood to get into. Eliezer Yudkowski explores one of them, and mentions another, here. (Content note for potentially yucking your spiritual yum.) Yudkowski asserts that these words do not add meaning to a sentence, but in the process, he misses the meaning carried by the use of the words. If I said, "I somehow ran a mile," that's different from "I ran a mile". "Somehow" didn't add information about the running, but it communicated that I don't know how I did it, and wouldn't have guessed that I could do it.
And so, we have "crazy". I'm writing about the problematic, dismissive use. Not someone reclaiming the word to describe their own mental illness as "my brand of crazy". I was already familiar with two problems with calling other people crazy:
1. People have reasons for the things that they think and do. To call them "crazy" is to falsely claim that they don't.
2. The word is harmful and hurtful to people with mental illness.
This morning's realization further clarified this. When you call someone "crazy," you say two things: "I don't know why this person thinks or feels or acts like this," and "This person is wrong to think or feel or act like this."
The contradiction here is palpable. Imagine me saying, "I don't know what's in the box, but I'll bet it isn't even USB compatible," or "I don't know what's in the box, but it probably tastes nasty". How can I possibly judge something negatively, when in the same breath I've admitted that I don't know squat about it?
If you describe someone as "crazy," you don't harm only them: You do yourself a disservice. You close yourself off to the possibility of knowing something, and you create an unsupported judgment, out of nowhere, treating it as though it were true. You warp your worldview with pretend information, which can then cause you to behave in ways that are inappropriate to the reality of the situation. Hey, do you have a word for that?
Speaking of which, I've seen people attack themselves with this word. "I shouldn't feel this way. Am I crazy?" As often as not, the way they feel in their situation sounds perfectly sensible to me!* And when the reaction doesn't seem to match the situation, there's still a reason for it. Often, their brain is adeptly pattern-matching to past situations, and selecting a response designed to keep them safe. Or their physical discomfort is affecting their emotional comfort. Or their dopamine receptors aren't working. Et alia, et alia. There are plenty of possible reasons for a person's thoughts, behavior, and feelings, and none of them are, "There's no reason". Even when they don't know the reason. If that's you, please show yourself the same grace that you would show others. If you wouldn't dismiss someone else as "just crazy," please don't do it to yourself. Thank you.
* See Perpetual Footnote 1.
The clearest and most neutral of these words is "mystery".
I could tell you, "There's something in the box, but I haven't opened it yet; it's a mystery." Despite my attributing "mystery" to the thing, "mystery" is not really a property of the thing. The person who put the thing in the box knows what it is. The person who made it knows what it is. It's not a mystery to them. The word described my own lack of knowledge, and nothing more.
The full list of such words is a fun one, but opens cans of worms that I'm not in the mood to get into. Eliezer Yudkowski explores one of them, and mentions another, here. (Content note for potentially yucking your spiritual yum.) Yudkowski asserts that these words do not add meaning to a sentence, but in the process, he misses the meaning carried by the use of the words. If I said, "I somehow ran a mile," that's different from "I ran a mile". "Somehow" didn't add information about the running, but it communicated that I don't know how I did it, and wouldn't have guessed that I could do it.
And so, we have "crazy". I'm writing about the problematic, dismissive use. Not someone reclaiming the word to describe their own mental illness as "my brand of crazy". I was already familiar with two problems with calling other people crazy:
1. People have reasons for the things that they think and do. To call them "crazy" is to falsely claim that they don't.
2. The word is harmful and hurtful to people with mental illness.
This morning's realization further clarified this. When you call someone "crazy," you say two things: "I don't know why this person thinks or feels or acts like this," and "This person is wrong to think or feel or act like this."
The contradiction here is palpable. Imagine me saying, "I don't know what's in the box, but I'll bet it isn't even USB compatible," or "I don't know what's in the box, but it probably tastes nasty". How can I possibly judge something negatively, when in the same breath I've admitted that I don't know squat about it?
If you describe someone as "crazy," you don't harm only them: You do yourself a disservice. You close yourself off to the possibility of knowing something, and you create an unsupported judgment, out of nowhere, treating it as though it were true. You warp your worldview with pretend information, which can then cause you to behave in ways that are inappropriate to the reality of the situation. Hey, do you have a word for that?
Speaking of which, I've seen people attack themselves with this word. "I shouldn't feel this way. Am I crazy?" As often as not, the way they feel in their situation sounds perfectly sensible to me!* And when the reaction doesn't seem to match the situation, there's still a reason for it. Often, their brain is adeptly pattern-matching to past situations, and selecting a response designed to keep them safe. Or their physical discomfort is affecting their emotional comfort. Or their dopamine receptors aren't working. Et alia, et alia. There are plenty of possible reasons for a person's thoughts, behavior, and feelings, and none of them are, "There's no reason". Even when they don't know the reason. If that's you, please show yourself the same grace that you would show others. If you wouldn't dismiss someone else as "just crazy," please don't do it to yourself. Thank you.
* See Perpetual Footnote 1.
