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Top-level
 I'm as guilty of this as anyone. It's cathartic to refer to "the real crazies on the right wing" or to dismiss some piece of horrifying news as "crazy." But it's a dodge and it stunts our ability to be analytical and critical if overindulged. Many of these people do not lack for education, mental health, or the ability to choose other movements to associate with. If your model of behavior can't accommodate that, your model of behavior is flawed. (Or hell, in the original meaning, "crazy.") 12 comments
And this is the point in the thread when my brain wants everyone to see the connections between calling reactionaries "crazy" with the modernist conceit, as if this behavior would disappear with enough education or mental health care or exposure to Enlightenment philosophers or working out of systemic contradictions or whatever. It'll get you ambushed by the fascists every time. If you want an alternative way of thinking about this that avoids this trap without falling into nihilistic fatalism, I'll be over here with more-than-human social assemblage theory. You can find me with the sign "will provide empirically informed ecological constructivist critique for food" sign. Yeah, Deleuze is useful to me but not nearly as much as Latour and actor-network theory, which goes further and says basically that the actors and networks don't exist independent of each other. Things change their associations and re-associate but they also change their own being when they do that. Also Deleuze can be trippy AF and hard to understand. I prefer Latour's puns and snark, even when he's being obtuse. But a lot of the good stuff is definitely in Deleuze. As that article implies, the reductionism and obsession with micro versus macro goes away, origin stories are no longer determinant of destiny, and it leaves room for complexity in history and in analysis. If folks want to dive into the philosophy, I always recommend We Have Never Been Modern as a starting point. There really needs to be a better popularly accessible treatment for the more casual reader, though, and particularly one that's more up to date than 1987.  @MichaelTBacon thanks for all of this helpful context and latour book as starting point! @dana I am a bad Ph.D. graduate who has forgotten most of what I knew about Delanda from my theory survey class. I don't use him heavily. I'd much rather get people reading Donna Haraway. Cyborg Manifesto and Situated Knowledges are the classic essays but I hear great things about Making Kin (haven't read it sadly). https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/making-kin-an-interview-with-donna-haraway/ |
Gregory's Server
As to the ablest aspect—poor mental health can certainly cause erratic and sociopathic behavior but most people with mental health issues do not exhibit this.
And yes, "crazy" has had multiple connotations for centuries well beyond "mentally deranged" And yes, reactionaries are in some senses broken, but that's not usually the connotation.
I'd like to preserve uses like "crazed rant" because I think they're evocative. So from me this is a narrow ask, not a broad one.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/crazy
As to the ablest aspect—poor mental health can certainly cause erratic and sociopathic behavior but most people with mental health issues do not exhibit this.
And yes, "crazy" has had multiple connotations for centuries well beyond "mentally deranged" And yes, reactionaries are in some senses broken, but that's not usually the connotation.