Wednesday, May 04, 2005
NOT SO CRAZY ABOUT THE CRAZIES
Michael hopes the blogosphere gives "semi-normals" a chance to speak out on cultural topics and "bring the weirdos a little to account." He classes himself as one of the semi-normals and for proof points out a quiz at which he scored 70% normal.It took me ages to understand that many of the people I was encountering in the cultureworld weren't charming eccentrics or engaging oddballs. What I finally woke up to was the simple fact that many people in the cultureword are real weirdos -- people who are so deeply off as to be close to mentally ill, if not actually mentally ill. They aren't crazy with a small c -- crazy as in eccentric. No, they're Crazy with a great big C -- crazy as in loony-bin-worthy, or something close to it.
I also woke up to the fact that many inhabitants of the cultureworld aren't sweetly nuts. They're destructively nuts. In my clueless smalltown way, I'd had trouble imagining that anyone -- anyone short of a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Jeffrey Dahmer -- might wish the general run of humanity ill. Yet what I found was that a fair number of people in the American cultureworld seethe with bile and contempt towards the mainstream.
Is it very Asperger's of me to want to know what the cut-off is to be deemed semi-normal? Do you have to score above 50%? I just ... was curious.
