Is your sanity determined by how well you conform to social norms?
Yes
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No
Side Score: 7
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Irrefutably. It ensures the status quo can never be challenged because by definition you become insane by very virtue of challenging it. But entire societies can and have demonstrably been sick themselves, insofar as they have rewarded and thereby encouraged deplorable behaviour. The rule applies not just to larger societies, but to all group interactions. For example, a lone atheist would be considered crazy if all his peers were devout Christians. The most interesting question quickly becomes obvious. In a neurotic society, are the deviants the sane ones? Your flirtation with this topic leads me to believe you might have taken my advice and read some of The Sane Society by Erich Fromm. Side: Yes
@NumberOne It seems there are two senses in which the term 'sanity' is being applied here: (A) If society deems one 'sane' (B) The internal criteria that constitutes 'sanity' Now, I agree that conforming to social norms is seen by society as an indicator of 'sanity'--however, in many cases, nothing could hardly be further from the truth. In fact, a conformist is overwhelmingly likely to be a person of lower intelligence, while those with higher intelligence are able to see the chess board society has constructed and make better/differing 'plays' then recommended/demanded (or even challenge the validity of the 'game' itself). This dynamic pops up everywhere, from school, work, family, major life decisions, ect. ect. All smart people look eccentric/exotic through the eyes of stupid people Side: Yes
More often than not. And the scary thing about that is to be sane in a really messed up society, like in ISIS caliphate, means accepting or doing some really crazy and sick sh!t. The person who refuses to participate and denies the authority of the caliphate is the one labelled a kook and a heretic and then put to death for it, and the guy who cuts his head off is somehow the sane guy doing what he thinks his god and his leader told him to do. Side: Yes
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I think it could take a certain amount of insanity to conform to ALL social norms even when it goes against your nature. It's entirely possible that the pressure to submit to all social norms as an attempt to "fit in" would bring about some level of insanity if you don't learn flexibility and acceptance on what society would see as failures but are part of your character. Side: No
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Saying good mental health is determined by how well you conform to social norms is like saying that good physical health is determined by how well you conform to a society's ideals for physical beauty and fitness. It is functionally useless for deciding what conditions constitute objective sanity. Freud's definition of sanity depended on two criteria: whether you can work and whether you can love. According to Freud, if you can do both, you are sane. I am not a big fan of Sigmund Freud, or of psychology in general, but I think this definition is a useful starting point for objective discussion of mental health. It gives an outcome-oriented focus that leaves room for the myriad variations of personality. It leaves out any of the requirements to adjust the definition to fit the cultural or societal norms, which change with time, location, and company. It leaves out any of the bother of trying nail down internal motivations, and parse out whether they are "healthy" reasons or accurate perceptions. It makes room for misperception, misunderstanding, misinformation, and all the delusions that these can engender in fully functioning brains. It leaves out how we cope with problems, and instead focuses on whether we are able to do so in a way that has a chance of integrating us into society. Side: No
Saying good mental health is determined by how well you conform to social norms is like saying that good physical health is determined by how well you conform to a society's ideals for physical beauty and fitness. I think this is a spurious analogy. To a significant extent (i.e. outside of schizophrenia and other forms of acute psychosis) the qualifiers for sound mental health are set by society. I think that is the point trying to be made. The same is not true of physical health because one's physical condition is objective (i.e. it can be measured). Side: Yes
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