We are all InSaNe

Thanks for the debate weirdman. == Rebuttal == {{{ Thinking about the future }}} My opponent claims that all people are insane because they think about the future, and since our brains can only handle one task a time, thus ignore the present. My opponent continues to have two flaws in his argument: 1. He fails to show that *every* person routinely does this. Remember, he has the burden to show that "we are all insane. " But then he says that I "failed to repute [sic] any of [his] scenarios. " By definition, a scenario is a hypothetical, individualized situation. It can't prove that a) something happens in the real world and b) that something happens categorically. Supposedly I only need to show one person that does not ignore the present. It wouldn't be hard to do so: mindfulness expert and Zen enthusiast Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. Zen masters perfect the art of "living in the now" and not dwelling on past or future. 2. Second, if you take anything to the extreme, it becomes a compulsion ("insane"). But in moderation, it is normal. If you eat one carrot a day, you are normal. If you eat 200 carrots a day, you have a compulsion. If you check whether the lights in your home are off once, you are normal. If you have to check 50 times before you can leave, you have OCD. My opponent commits this flaw in reasoning repeatedly: he takes something that would be "crazy" if it were repeated constantly, but then claims a single instance is "insane. " Yet, the dose makes the poison. Something that is normal in moderation can be dangerous or crazy taken to an extreme. {{{ Competition }}} My opponent claims pride is irrational. Not only have I shown that 1) possessing pride is rational and reasonable and 2) having emotions is not "insane," provided our rationality is still functional, but also, weirdman fails to prove that everyone engages in prideful competition. Pride is listed as one of the deadly sins, which some people avoid religiously. For example, Andrew Murray, author of the book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, would refuse to engage in prideful competitions. So weirdman fails to prove, categorically, that *all* people 1) engage in competitions, and 2) do so out of pride. {{{ The definition of criminally insane }}} In the last round, I argued that normal people can distinguish between right and wrong. The criminally insane cannot. I challenged weirdman to explain how we deal with the legal definition of insanity if we define ourselves as "all insane. " Do we eliminate the insanity defense? Weirdman seems to concede this point, in saying that "The difference now is that we know that killing is wrong, but a ill man does not know the difference. " So weirdman concedes that we are not all criminally insane; only some people are. This seems to concede the whole debate. {{{ Peer pressure }}} Weirdman still fails to show how giving in to peer pressure is "insane. " We are social creatures. We want acceptance. In addition, not everyone believes in submitting to peer pressure. The following book contains stories of people who refused to submit to peer pressure: "The Courage to Be Yourself: True Stories by Teens About Cliques, Conflicts, and Overcoming Peer Pressure. " So I, again, fail to see how weirdman proves his claims categorically. The human experience is extremely varied. To prove we are *all* insane, weirdman can't just assert that "X action is insane," he must also prove that *all* people engage in X action. He never even *attempts* to prove this. {{{ Emotions }}} My opponent's entire case comes down to arguing that the emotions we feel render us insane. Mood swings - insane. Pride - insane. Desire for social acceptance - insane. Yet weirdman himself admits, "sane individuals have the ability to properly channel there [sic] emotions. " So he admits that sane people exist and can properly channel their emotions into healthy outcomes. So it is true that some people have an inability to control their emotional responses. These people have no impulse control, however, which is recognized as a psychiatric disorder. The ability to control how we respond to our emotional state is what makes us sane. We don't all murder our lovers in response to finding out we have been cheated on. We wouldn't all jump off a cliff just because our friends told us to do so. The dose makes the poison. A complete inability to overcome pride or the desire for social acceptance *would* be insane, but few people have such a complete inability. Weirdman also drops the analysis that he is merely redefining "sane" to mean Superego and "insane" to mean "Id. " His definition of "insane" is the emotional side of our brains and his definition of "sanity" is the idealized super-rational response. This is precisely what Freud meant by Id and Superego. The Id is our emotions, pulling us in one direction, and the Superego is our pure rationality, pulling us in the other. We don't need redundant nomenclature. Thus, you vote Con to uphold the current meaning of insanity and sanity. {{{ Insanity is a spectrum }}} My argument was that making insanity into a spectrum means calling someone (like your weird neighbor) "insane" becomes meaningless. We won't know where on the spectrum that person falls, if most normal people are also classified as insane. Wierdman claims that we should keep calling "critically" insane people "insane" and not call "mildly" insane people anything. So basically, weirdman is arguing that when we *use* the word insane in conversation, we should understand the term to mean that we are *not* all insane. We should use Con's definition of insanity in everyday conversation. But for the purposes of voting on this debate, *and voting only*, you should uphold Pro's definition. This makes no sense. Why would the judge vote for a definition that Pro himself would not endorse in everyday speech. Pro's entire advocacy breaks down when he is not willing to apply his nomenclature to the real world. He is conceding that defining all of us as insane would be problematic and would eliminate any meaning from the word "insane. " This is akin to a Pro side arguing, "we should all donate 100% of our earnings to charity. " Con says, "okay, go ahead. " Pro says, "no thanks. " This is called a performative contradiction. If Pro is not willing to endorse his own advocacy, in the real world, then the advocacy is too extreme. == Voting Issues == 1. Criminally insane people are insane, whereas normal people can tell right from wrong. Vote Con to uphold this legal distinction. Voting Pro abolishes this distinction. 2. Having a properly functioning frontal cortex = sane. Having a malfunctioning one = insane. Pro never answers this. We can have emotions alongside a fully-functional rational mind, meaning we can have something that would render us insane, absent a fully rational mind. But with a fully rational mind, we are not insane. 3. Everyday usage. This clearly goes to Con. 4. Burden of proof. Pro fails to prove any of claims categorically. He fails to show that his "scenarios" apply to all people, all the time. And he fails to show that something that is normal in moderation should be defined as "insane," instead of only defining as insane that same behavior, but only if taken to the extreme.