The Madness of Reason: A Psychoanalytic Conception of Reality
“on a foundation of foolishness no reasonable building can be erected” — Don Quixote
Polarization, Propaganda, and Arrogance
Today, we habitually use words like “crazy” and “insane” — as well as less extreme alternatives like “strange,” “odd,” “bizarre,” “peculiar,” “ridiculous,” “weird,” and so on — to describe many mundane happenings and people. These terms have become normalized in informal, but also more formal, public discourse.
For example, someone who hasn’t seen ‘a classic’ film might receive these descriptors; perhaps those who prefer Pepsi over Coke might as well; the experiences of thunderstorms, traffic, and waiting-in-line tend to be stamped with these adjectives; and increasingly, ideas (or people who convey ideas) with which we disagree politically, morally, or otherwise are ignorantly labelled as “psychotic.”
This latter example is often referred to as polarization.
Polarization signals a situation in which perspectives increase their distance from each other by becoming less intelligible to those with supposedly conflicting views. In tandem with this is an inability or unwillingness — by one or more parties — to extend the same quality of…
