At what point do you think I'm crazy?

When you say thing like “Duh, winning!” or “I have adonis DNA”.

When you won’t shut the eff up and listen for once already!

When you get that crazy look in your eye—you know that look.

Seriously (though I was serious about the crazy look), one or both of us is/are crazy when any or all of the following occur:

when an actual rage ensues during a debate
when our disagreements become larger than our mutual respect
when we begin to define each other by our different philosphies (rather than what we have in common)
when we’ve “agreed to disagree” but continue to engage the other in a pointless debate
when our differing views leave us nothing else to talk about

And just because I think you’re crazy doesn’t mean you’re “Charlie Sheen” crazy. It means I think you have an irrational viewpoint that is probably pushing me away from you.

When you subject your children to fatal harm because you believe prayer will heal them instead of treatment. Yep, that’s the point.

When you repeat yourself over and over, and
When you repeat yourself over and over, and then
When you repeat yourself over and over

Actual scenario from family that have extremely polarizing views:

*You are crazy when immediately after saying hello, you must state your political ideology and how effed up mine is or anyone’s that differs

*You are crazy when you agree with something I’ve said, stated it made sense, then go right back to rehash whatever the eff you heard Beck, Limbaugh or O’Reilly regurgitate at you recently.

*You invite me to family dinner. Then at the dinner table spew your religious/political ideology which you know is opposite of mine.

At which point I make certain to keep my friggin’ distance as much as possible….so then, you begin drive by visits to my house where you get out of your car say you can to say hi & check in…only to begin spewing your ideology on my own property.

You are then officially friggin’ crazy in my book!

When you vote for Obama and when you believe it was just the terrorists that did 911,

When you finally get to the part of arguing that you bring up your IQ of 155, then I will understand why I know you are crazy

When you make outrageous claims and don’t seem to understand why I think you need to support them with evidence.

When you start denying clear facts. Not just social facts, brute facts.

When you get into an argument over the same thing every single day and refuse the facts. (one of my friends was like that.)

@john65pennington exactly!! ga 1000 times

“You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.

Thats from the american president. (Michael Douglas movie)

Before I decide one of us is crazy, I would change the subject or leave.
Who needs the aggravation?

When, after all that, you smirk at me and say “Eh just kiddin” ..that’s when I know you’re completely insane.

Well, there’s a little conundrum about that. Your view of the world is totally wacky, and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how you got to that understanding of the world, how can I account for you? Perhaps you’ve been under the influence of other crazies, like fundamentalists or people who, because they are Republican, think they know something about economics.

But usually I don’t think they are crazies. Just unlucky in the way they grew up. Or very selfish. With a complete misunderstanding about how people are interdependent on each other.

I suppose if they admitted to deliberately not giving a shit about others, and hoping to hurt poor people, on the theory they are all shiftless slobs, and it won’t bother them if they just go to the garbage dump and shoot them and bury them—then I would think they were crazy. I’ve wondered about a few people, but I haven’t had the guts to really push them that far. I don’t want to believe they exist in the world, although I know they do.

I don’t think you can link angry to crazy any more than you can link passive to crazy. I mean, I’d say it’s possible for sane people to get angry and it’s possible for crazy people to be very meek.

It certainly can’t be crazy to hold a certain view. I mean, if that’s the case, by the time you look at politics and religion and money and sex, there probably aren’t two of us who don’t have a “great divide” between us.

But we do have to decide to lock people up (or at least steer clear of them) because they are irrational. When does that happen?

When you’re irreconcilably disagreeable, when we disagree. When you’re unreasonably unreasonable. When your superstitions or beliefs are actively harmful. When you start throwing onions at me.

I think disagreeing is great, it promotes thought and discussion. But when people are disagreeable when they disagree, it ruins almost all the thought and discussion. At some point you have to have empathy and understanding for views other than your own. It’s not crazy if you don’t change your mind. It is crazy if you are constantly rude and don’t try and understand someone’s views and thoughts. When there is no rational to your irrationality, and you won’t own up to it… That’s crazy.

@everephebe If I came to you and said I’d had a vision in which some mystic power told me that YOU were the carrier of light. So I will henceforth always regard what you say as truth, regardless of my prior beliefs or understanding. Would you think I was sane?

@6rant6 I’d say NO, not sane

Well… @6rant6 I would certainly be taken aback. And probably take a step or two back.

I am not very judgmental, so I’d follow up with that statement of yours. For instance, I would tell you that the vision was false, and if you got that then… No problem. For logically if I, being the truthspeaker/ carrier of light, you must believe me. So you could then revert back to your beliefs. If you insistent about whole carrier of the light thing, I would take you to a mental hospital, unless you had tangible proof.

I said, “when your superstitions or beliefs are actively harmful,” while worshiping me isn’t directly/actively harmful, I would worry about you… You know, as a loving deity/carrier of light. Since I am not the carrier of the light, believing that would be harmful to you, when you found out I wasn’t. I mean, it would hurt your feelings to say the least.

Yeah I’d probably think you were crazy or have a very active imagination. Why do you ask @6rant6? I thought your question was regarding the difference of opinion, between two people. Not between you or I.

Answers are way too long won’t read them.

@Summum I think I have an aspirin somewhere. Oh here it is. Please take it. I wouldn’t want you to get too bad of a headache from your Herculean efforts to keep up here.

Oh dear. Now you’ve done it. I’m crying just thinking about how awful it must have been for you to have to see all these Pynchonian answers.

I guess I hopeless.

@everephebe

I’m just trying to be precise. I don’t have a particular answer in mind. Describing someone as crazy seems like something we do pretty readily. Certainly we do it offhandedly in jest. But I’m really trying to figure out where the line is.

It comes from something I’m writing. One character says, something like, “Is what she doing crazy or just a bad idea? Because if it’s crazy I have an obligation to stop her. But if it’s just a bad idea, then she’s an adult and she’s entitled to make bad decisions.”

So I’m really, actually wondering, when does one appear crazy?

@6rant6 Hmm ..maybe when the societal norms deem them to be.

I understand your question. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where that line is. We just sort of know it when we see it.

@6rant6 Crazy or clinically insane? People do “crazy” things all the time. If friend has a bad idea or a crazy idea, then you wouldn’t be obligated to stop them, but it might be something you wanted to do in order to help or protect them. I think you can try to stop them, but if they don’t listen to you then there is little “obligation,” even if they are “crazy.” If someone has a crazy idea, it not necessarily more harmful than a bad idea.

It’s all highly contextual, subjective, case by case, in the eye of the beholder type stuff. Plenty of great things wouldn’t have been accomplished if there wasn’t a crazy person to do it. I think that crazy ideas can in fact be generally be said to be less harmful on average than bad ideas. Because bad ideas are always bad ideas. With crazy… It’s mixed bag. I’ll take a mixed bag over bad.

“When does one appear crazy?” When one does, that’s when. You draw the lines, everyone gets a chance to draw their own lines. As @PluckyDog said you know it when you see it. Which means you define it, you draw that line or conclusion.

For me crazy isn’t a big deal word. Madness is madness and oh well. For me crazy is when someone doesn’t want rationality, or logic. Just like for me stupid is not wanting to learn or know. That are somethings I want to be crazy about, and stupid about. And that’s ok for the most part.

I’m still not to sure what you’re getting at. Do you want to give us more details?

@everephebe In the novel, one of the characters is schizophrenic. She wants to go on a cruise with her brother and a friend of both. The conversation occurs between the brother and the friend. They both think the cruise is a bad idea, but is it crazy the brother asks.

As adults we let each other make our own decisions. But we may draw a line if we know a family member is mentally ill, and a decision potentially dangerous.

The story has a theme around what the limits should be to our ability to make decisions that primarily affect only ourselves.

@6rant6 Well if they both think the cruise is a bad idea, then they should tell her, it doesn’t matter if the idea comes from crazyland or not. It’s a moot point, in that case. But it’s not crazy for the brother to wonder.

Is the schizophrenic sister on meds? Or is her condition unknown?

I’m all for personal freedoms, and as far as decisions that primarily affect only ourselves. People learn, sometimes the hard way is the best way. Now if the sister wants a tattoo on her face, she better come up with a good reason as to why. Because that might be detrimental, a cruise might be detrimental to her bank account, but what else?

When someone can’t articulate a reason at all, even a bad one, I find that to be crazy. Bad reasons, of course, can qualify you too. What you qualify for is more diverse than just plain old crazy though.

Remember, not to be a patronizing ass they say write about what you know. So you better know some crazy people or else do you homework. I’m not saying you don’t, or haven’t. I can only speak for myself… I don’t and haven’t. Good luck on the novel, ask us for help anytime you want, and we’ll give it our best shot. Cheers. :D

And when you agree on something, do you then think
“Me thinks the whole world is crazy except me and thee; and sometimes I wonder about thee.”?

Being contrary isn’t insanity.. It’s a form of rebelism.. I say the sky is blue, you say it’s green, that’s not crazy that’s being contrary.. You can look up and the proof is looking back at you.. You can rebel and think, I’m gonna be contrary.. When faced with contrary people I simply drift away from them because their no longer worth my attention.