Greetings All,
I have just returned from my interesting adventure/holiday in Vietnam.
I am glad to be back home.
New Zealand is certainly very, very different to Vietnam. I was a away for
just over a week and have found that I have been overloaded by emails
from MOQ and it seems it my take some time for me to catch up on everything
that has happened. On to the real discussion, throughout LILA Pirsig talks
about insanity. I found this subject interesting. My mother is a (not in
action) phycologist. She did the degree but decided that phycologist are not
quite 'sane' themselves and has decided not to be a phycologist.
On with the subject line.
--------The Definition of "Insanity"---------
According to my 1991 edition of "Colins Pocket Dictionary of the English
Language" the definition of the word insane is:
1. mentally ill; crazy; of unsound mind. OR
2. irresponsible; very foolish; stupid
and the definition of insanity is:
1. The state of being insane
2. utter folly; stupidity
I found this definitions rather unsatisfactory. I find that Pirsig's
definition of insanity is a much more intelligent way of defining the word
insane. This dictionary and probably every dictionary fails to even attempt
to define why and how does one become mentally ill or crazy and they seem to
use the connotation (association) between insanity, and foolishness and
stupidness. I think insanity is a largely misunderstand subject. I believe
insanity did not exist in ancient times when ape-men roamed the earth. Why,
because the morals of the sane had not been invented therefore there was no
way of telling a sane ape-man from a insane ape-man. In modern society this
still exist in some ways. It is still very hard to define the difference
from an insane person and a sane person but because of the certain morals of
modern society we persuade people to conform to these basic morals and if
they where to break these morals they would be classified as being insane as
Lila was in the book. I find this idea of mine relates to the title.
"LILA : An inquiry of morals"
We portray Lila as being insane. The subtitle finally makes sense. Pirsig is
inquiring into how morals relate to defining if a person is sane or not.
Insanity is simply a evaluation of one's moral conformity.
Thanks for reading I hope I will get some other people's definition and
views of insanity and the insane.
Geoff.
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