Ordinary craziness

Full disclosure: My experience with "emotional instability" is long-standing and personal. I fully recognize that this does not make me an expert on the problem that has, from time to time, affected my own judgement. By the same token, Hedges can make no special claim to know the secret aims of President Obama or originate grand theories of history. Hedges can claim to formal qualifications and practical experience in only one area: religion. Contrary to popular belief, crazy people are particularly unwelcome in that domain. Even within his own domain of expertise, his religious theories of Christianity are too misguided to be seriously discussed. This is why you see Hedges preaching on You-Tube, which sets the bar low enough for dancing dogs and apes that play with baby tigers.

In fact, anyone with personal experience with "crazy people" (which includes 10% of the population and all their families) will gain a special appreciation for sanity and will instantly recognize it when they see it.

Hypomania (literally “under mania” or "less than mania") is a mood state characterized by persistent disinhibition and pervasive elevated (euphoric) or irritable mood but generally less severe than full mania. Characteristic behaviors are extremely energetic, talkative, and confident commonly exhibited with a flight of creative ideas.^[1] While hypomanic behavior often generates productivity and excitement, it can become troublesome if the subject engages in risky or less than wise behaviors

Wikipedia

Paranoia is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion.^[1] Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (e.g. "Everyone is out to get me"). Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame. Making false accusations and the general distrust of others also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident or coincidence, a paranoid person might believe was intentional.

Wikipedia

I have sometimes slipped out of the real world to be lost in my own mind, to the point where my behavior became a problem to others. There is a tendency in the medical community and especially the common population to characterize such things with a single word. These days the popular word is "bipolar disorder", which, in the movies at least, has become the code word for "crazy", justifying whatever irrational acts that the screenwriters need to toss in to keep the plot interesting. Realistic portrayals of real mental illness are rare.

What few writers appreciate is the borderline craziness of ordinary people (see To Kill a Mockingbird as a rare exception) and how craziness can spread like wild fire to threaten entire populations.

"Depression" is another of these broad terms, "explaining" all kinds of irrational behavior, including self-destructive and/or massively anti-social acts. In the course of my own struggle to find and hold on to sanity, I have learned quite a bit about this subject "from the inside".

• It seems to me that current terminology relating to "mental illness" is largely a classification of "treatments" with little or no understanding of the actual disease process, if, indeed there is an underlying pathology at all.
• Individual differences are huge. The tendency to "label" is a consequence of the medical technique of matching up "illnesses" with "treatment", so, for example, if you have "depression", you take Prozac. If you take Prozac, you must have one of a short list of illnesses, some of which were specifically invented by the company that sells Prozac. To many doctors, "depression" is basically a Prozac deficiency!
• I do accept that, whatever the state of our ignorance may be, medications are necessary and effective in my case to prevent my imagination from going into overdrive. Whatever the shortcomings of medical science may be at the moment, I am the crazy one, not the doctors.
• A little bit craziness is wired in to each one of us. People differ widely in how connected they are to reality and how much that connection varies over time. In particular, many individuals manage to stay seriously hypomanic and/or paranoid throughout their lives but manage to gain acceptance among us as ordinary "pains in the ass". In fact exceptional creativity and artistic insight seem to be gifts that are along a continuum with something like mania further down the road. On the other hand, exactly the same "gifts" in the otherwise ungifted are simply vulnerabilities to crazy ideas. 
• The discipline of Mindfulness teaches that we are naturally "wired" to over-emphasize interpretation of reality over reality itself. Hypomania and paranoia are just extreme examples. Reversing this natural tendency works against nature and does not come easily. In my own case, I have found Zen practice and philosophy to act precisely against my "manic" tendencies. Together with medication, Zen seems to be keeping me sane -- in fact it is helping me to recognize sanity in others and to avoid crazy people who turn out to be a lot more common than is generally appreciated.

As a "reformed" or "under treatment" crazy guy, you would think I'd be exceptionally sympathetic to fellow  crazy people. In fact, the reverse is true. Modern "treatment" of just about anything tends to involve creating groups of people to share their stories and support each other. This has placed me in intimate contact with dozens of deeply troubled human beings. As anyone with similar exposure will tell you, there is no point trying to reason with a crazy person. Anyone who has had the misfortune of watching a loved one lose control of his own faculty of reason will know exactly what I mean. Apart from making sure they don't harm themselves or others and making sure they take their medications, there is little that can be done for them, especially in the short term. In the long term, family and community support can give the patient "space" to recover. Without such support, mental illness can be a killer. But to cure it or at least control it is a long-term struggle, painful for the sufferer and those who patiently try to help.

This brings me to my attitude toward public figures who are plainly crazy. As a fellow sufferer, someone who has "been there and done that", I may seem to be unusually harsh and unsympathetic. The reason for this is that such people do immeasurable harm to the general public, who are generally ignorant of the subtle variations in sanity or the symptoms of mental illness. Charisma is one of the most notable "powers" that comes in the hypomania package. The ability to remember vast amounts of information and stitch them together into an impressive paranoid universe is another. The tireless "fire hose" of seemingly sensible ideas is another. You can't shut these people up or reason with them in any way on any level. It is alarmingly common for charismatic leaders to draw millions of moderately crazy people into their paranoid universe with horrific results.

If we recognize that the vast majority of human beings are naturally in tenuous contact with reality, we see that insanity can be contagious. Crazy people, especially crazy people in the public eye are are dangerous.

The issue of respectful dialogue on the Internet is closely related to "Ordinary Craziness", a topic inspired, in large part, not by Chris Hedges (a certifiable nut) but by his followers and fans, who have learned the art of truthy rant at the feet of the master.