[Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Suicide?  What do you mean?  I've got a reputation to maintain here.  
It's no time for being Reasonable.

I just found the text from one of my favourite essays on the internet 
today, thanks to the marvel of Google Books.

It's written by the famous American author "Anonymous" (or was it Name 
Withheld?) and after publication in The Atlantic, was collected into 
"Essays and Essay-Writing", published in 1917.
Even after more than 80 years, it is nothing short of delightful...I 
just posted it on my website today and you can read all of it there
(http://www.liberty4urbana.com/drupal-6.8/node/245)...
but here are some excerpts...


        "Asylums for the Hopelessly Sane"

    These are courageous, intelligent days, when the world is taking
    itself in hand and studying its own wants, with the effect of
    divining some needs which our fathers crassly ignored. Our
    psychological development enables us more and more to look below the
    obvious surface of the demands of our civilization. Among other
    things, we are beginning to feel the necessity of erecting a few
    asylums for the hopelessly sane. The progress, if not the actual
    safety, of the commonwealth requires them.

    Fortunately, there would never have to be many such institutions in
    existence; for sanity in its advanced stages is not a disease widely
    prevalent among human communities, and incipient sanity can
    generally be checked. But the demand might support a supply of one
    to every state.

    What are the symptoms of sanity, and what are the dangers inherent
    in its development? Some of us know only too well. We have tried to
    deal with sane people. But others, more fortunate, have never felt
    the chilly blanketing of the malign influence, its distortion of the
    generous values of life, and they have to have their eyes opened to
    the thwarting peril...

    ...Sane people are always drawing lines. That is one of the surest
    indications of their malady. As if the hard-and-fast lines of our
    human destiny were not already drawn close enough! As if, enlisted
    in a good cause, we had any business to set ourselves boundaries!

    ...But is sanity tolerant ? If it were, it would at least be
    harmless, and there would be no need for the Sane Asylums.
    Unfortunately, like all its other characteristics, tolerance graces
    it only up to a certain point. Beyond that, a decided negation takes
    possession of it and makes it a grim force in the world....

    ...Enthusiasm is too sensitive and spiritual an essence not to
    suffer from the shock and chill of encounter with prudence. It draws
    in its tentacles, contracts; and, when it recovers itself, finds
    itself a changed being in a hardening world. There is then nothing
    for it but to go slowly; for hard things require deliberate
    manipulation. Only things made molten by a fire of love and zeal
    flow swiftly into place.

    One sees, then, how fatal the touch of sanity may be. It is not
    precisely contagious, for most of us --- thank heaven ! --- have no
    germs of it in us; but it is very arresting. It interrupts the
    momentum by which many a good cause, if left to itself, would have
    carried all before it. When the world at last makes up its mind to
    become and to do that which it promised nineteen hundred years ago,
    it will have to begin by locking all its strictly sane people out of
    the way.

    But if sanity is so thwarting, does it follow, on the other hand,
    that madness is the disposition which best suits human life? Natural
    selection seems to have found it so. Everybody is mad when he is
    most spontaneously, most effectively himself. For then he is
    literally beside himself, carried out of, away from himself, lost to
    his own recognition in the mighty sweep of his cause. He does not
    stop to weigh and consider, to balance expediencies; he lets himself
    go, and, almost without knowing it, accomplishes great things...

    ...Madness is an attribute of youth, and sanity of maturity. That is
    the reason why a beneficent Providence has decreed that the span of
    human life shall be so comparatively short, and that nations and
    civilization shall be so frequently dissolved and dispersed. Only
    when people and countries are young, do they make vigorous history.
    When they take to turning on themselves and asking soberly, 'Is this
    worth while? Are we not becoming ridiculous?', they have to be
    safely annihilated. Then the world-progress, sorely interrupted and
    impeded, can gather itself together and go on again.

    This is all quite too bad. For youth's inexperience is its serious
    handicap; and maturity's wisdom might stand it in good stead, if it
    were not taken in such over-doses that it becomes a poison. If
    people and nations could only conserve their madness through the
    whole course of their experimenting lives, learning the rules of the
    game while still devoting their passionate attention to the goal,
    they might end by making some really great and brilliant achievements.

    Perhaps, then, sanitariums would be better than asylums for our
    sane. Instead of waiting till they become hopeless and then
    committing them permanently, it might be well to note the first
    symptoms and take them in hand. For the groundwork of human nature
    is so vital and healthy that, if it is encouraged, it can almost
    always throw off incipient sanity. The methods of such sanitariums
    would be interesting to devise. Patients not too far advanced in
    their malady would have a good time. They would be constrained to
    devote themselves recklessly to whatever they held most dear
    (provided the causes were approved worthy) ; they would be made to
    take risks, commit imprudences. By some ingenious arrangement of the
    daily curriculum, they would be constantly given the choice between
    that which is spontaneous, vital, and that which is reasonable ;
    and, when they chose the latter, they would be hissed. A fine place,
    such a sanitarium! Stimulating, inspiring, invigorating. We should
    all of us want to go there, for very love of the standard, for very
    joy in the great contagion of enthusiasm. Sane and insane alike, we
    should look upon the experience as a sort of religious * retreat.'

    Ah! it is a desperate business, this life, to which we are so
    obscurely, so inexplicably committed. Our only chance with it is to
    take it desperately. It is infinitely greater than we are, it knows
    what it is about, its cosmic intentions endure. We are wise when we
    let ourselves go with it; we are very silly when we weigh and
    reserve our allegiance.

    So, then, the sane are the only insane ? That is possible.

***



On 5/21/2009 6:31 PM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> What state, country -- planet!!! -- are you living on, Wayne?? (Have 
> you looked at an IL license plate lately??) AWARE would be committing 
> suicide if this was turned into an op to expose Lincoln. I can live w/ 
> the LEGACY of Lincoln, and hope the AWARE decision-makers can as well 
> -- that during his presidency the US stayed one country, and that 
> (eventually) slavery was abolished. Other positives: from modest 
> beginnings to the highest office in the land, powerful speeches, 
> giving his life for his country, etc. Probably other examples can be 
> found and used as well, if AWARE stays positive (for a welcome change).
>  --Jenifer
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 5/20/09, E. Wayne Johnson /<ewj at pigs.ag>/* wrote:
>
>
>     From: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
>     Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...
>     To: "Jenifer Cartwright" <jencart13 at yahoo.com>
>     Cc: "Peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>     Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 11:48 PM
>
>>     we can get our point across w/o dissing Lincoln
>     Really?
>
>     His reputation as a good guy is pretty much a myth.
>
>     We might as well celebrate Paul Bunyan.
>
>
>
>     On 5/20/2009 10:26 PM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>>     How 'bout a sweet little girl asking, "Mr Lincoln. What if they
>>     gave a war and no one came??"
>>     And/or our own version of what we hope Lincoln would say if he
>>     were alive today? Distill down his actual quotes (as John
>>     suggested), and/or use a quote or slogan that represents his
>>     reputation as a good guy, e g --
>>     Honesty is the best policy.
>>     Something about negs of war.
>>     Something about positives of peace and freedom.
>>     And also, show examples to the contrary w/ the universal symbol
>>     for NO -- circle w/ slantwise slash.
>>     It can't possibly have the punch of last year's (wow!), but we
>>     can get our point across w/o dissing Lincoln (or Obama).
>>      --Jenifer
>>
>>
>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Peace-discuss mailing list
>>     Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>     http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>        
>
>

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