We are all InSaNe

Thanks for the response weirdman. == Rebuttal == {{{ Pondering the future }}} My opponent fails, yet again, to show that normal people sit, for unhealthy amounts of time, and daydream about the future, while ignoring the present. Thinking about the future helps most people *alter* their present so that they can actualize the future that they desire. Pondering future events and paying attention to the present are not mutually exclusive. And if people spend too much time fantasizing about the future, they are not normal. They would need to take a course on mindfulness and "living in the now." {{{ Competition }}} My opponent points out that we compete solely for the purpose of pride. But pride also ties into social standing, which has actual value. A man who wins a number of local competitions has a better chance attracting a mate. On some level, pride is fully rational. But even if it isn't, look to my argument that as long as a person has a properly functioning frontal cortex, that person cannot be classified as insane. Emotions are not "insane." {{{ Adverb vs. Adjective }}} My opponent concedes that if you do one insane thing, you are not insane. If you repeatedly do insane things, then you are insane. This proves my point. We sometimes have mood swings, but not *always* (like someone with bipolar disorder). We *sometimes* enter a dream state ("dreaming"), but not *always* (like someone with schizophrenia). And our brain is never turned off: unlike a schizophrenic, we can tell the difference between reality and fantasy. My opponent cites a number of instances in which we give in to our baser urges, but our rational minds are still functioning while we are doing so. We are *choosing* our actions, unlike an insane person who acts completely irrationally. For example, a "criminally insane" person is defined as someone who cannot distinguish right from wrong. We *sometimes* have difficulty distinguishing right from wrong, but not *always*. And we can distinguish right from wrong when it counts: in regards to murder, rape, etc. {{{ Emotions }}} My opponent says, "a sane person is in control of his/her emotion[s]." I agree. However, in control means that the rational brain is functioning alongside emotional states. It does not mean that we can *will* ourselves into our out of certain emotional states. It doesn't make sense for someone to say *be happy* and to suddenly become happy. And as social creatures, it's perfectly natural that we care about social pressure. But, regardless, some people don't care about peer pressure. My opponent, yet again, fails to prove his claims categorically - that *all* people give in to peer pressure like mindless automatons. Lastly, psychopaths have an inability to feel emotions, which makes them fully sane under my opponent's definition of insanity. That seems to be completely backwards. {{{ "Sanity is unattainable, like perfection" }}} My opponent argues this. He says that we know what is rational (sane) in every given situation, but we often give in to insanity. I think my opponent is trying to re-purpose the word "sane" to mean "Superego" and the word "insane" to mean "Id", in the Freudian sense. We already have words to describe the push-and-pull of rationality and emotion (Id/Superego). There's no reason to re-purpose sanity and insanity to mean exactly the same thing as Freud's terms. Again, insanity means "the state of lacking rational faculties *all the time*." My opponent *agrees* with me here: normal humans don't lose our rationality, even when we give in to our baser urges. So we are not all insane. {{{ "Insanity is a spectrum" }}} Weirdman claims that insanity ranges from people being relatively normal to wanting to kill other people. However, using a spectrum instead of a brightline means we lose the precision of language. If someone says to you, as you're moving in to your new home, "the neighbor is insane," you'll never know whether that means, "he's a normal guy," or if it means, "you should keep your children away from him." Autism, for example, is a spectrum disorder, and there's a lot of stigma from saying someone has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because people assume that ASD means "autistic" (and imagine the worst possible symptoms), when many children with ASD are high functioning (such as those with mild Asperger's). So taking a word that has a great deal of meaning ("insane") and morphing it into a spectrum makes the word meaningless. By definition, a spectrum tells you nothing. You need further descriptive details to tell where on the spectrum that person lies. And when the spectrum encompasses *all possible levels of sanity*, as opposed to ADS, which encompasses a range of developmental disorders, then it's truly meaningless. This is analogous to my opponent redefining "heavy" as "having mass." When you ask me: "is that box heavy; can I lift it," I would respond with weirdman's definition by saying, "yes, it's heavy. It's weight could range from zero to infinite. It's heavy." That's not useful. Weirdman has castrated the word insane and made it descriptively impotent. {{{ Example: failing a test }}} Weirdman concedes that some people blame themselves and some people realize that there were exogenous factors for their failure, like not studying. Yet weirdman only considers "blaming oneself" to be "insane." So I don't understand how this proves we are *all* insane, but weirdman asserts that it *does*. Furthermore, this example turns weirdman's entire case against him. It proves that his conception of "insane" is meaningless. It's just a word that we throw at everything. Fail a test and blame yourself - that's insane. Fail a test and blame the test - that's insane. There is no sanity - under this definition. Everything is insane. Thus, we have a dichotomous term (insane/sane), but we're eliminating the dichotomy if we vote Pro. This is similar to saying: we are all *a little bit* homosexual; no one scores a zero on the Kinsey scale; we have all at one point recognized or admired the attractiveness of someone of the same gender. Therefore, we are all gay. Yet, if we break down the gay/straight dichotomy, we suddenly live in a world that is more difficult to describe. We no longer have functional words to describe sexual orientation or mental status. And we can't use the word for its social purpose: in the case of "gay," to describe someone who has same sex relations, and in the case of "insane," to describe someone who may be a danger to himself or others. {{{ Caveman }}} I don't even know anymore what weirdman's point is. {{{ Imagination }}} Wierdman calls pondering the future: "creating an imaginary world in our mind." This is called "imagination." Imagination is what allowed the first of our ancestors to invent tools. A caveman sat somewhere and imagined a new way in which he could use a stick (he could sharpen it and use it to hunt). It's not insane to use your imagination. It's only insane if you can't distinguish between your imagination and the real world. I leave weirdman with a question: if we define everybody as insane, then what do we call people who have an inability to distinguish right from wrong? What do we call people who have an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality? In a courtroom, will people invoke the "normalcy" defense instead of the "insanity" defense? Vote Con to protect the meaning of "sanity." And to protect my own sanity...