{"id":2270678,"date":"2024-06-18T15:02:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T19:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-different-way-of-thinking-about-sanity\/"},"modified":"2024-06-18T15:07:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T19:07:16","slug":"a-different-way-of-thinking-about-sanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-different-way-of-thinking-about-sanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking the Concept of Sanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-different-way-of-thinking-about-sanity%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2270678&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In Dr. Jordan \u200dPeterson&#8217;s &#8220;We Who Wrestle With God&#8221; tour segment, \u200bhe\u2063 discusses his perspective on the traditional definition of sanity, which \u200ctypically focuses on the individual&#8217;s internal psychological stability. He argues that this view is too narrow as it overlooks the essential role of social\u2062 integration in mental health. According to Peterson,\u2062 rather than solely being a well-constituted individual, sanity involves being \u2063meaningfully embedded\u200d within a \u200dsocial hierarchy. He underscores this through examples from his clinical practice, highlighting cases where individuals \u2064might feel depressed not because of internal dysfunction but due to\u2062 their \u2062poor integration \u2064into social\u200b structures. <\/p>\n<p>Peterson suggests that various elements such\u2062 as intimate relationships, family \u200cconnections, employment, community involvement, and spiritual \u2063life significantly contribute \u2064to\u200c one&#8217;s mental\u2062 health. \u200cHe emphasizes the \u200cimportance of \u2064dialogue and interaction in \u200cthese domains for maintaining sanity, pointing\u200d out \u2062that people\u2064 are inherently \u2062social\u200c beings,\u2064 evident from practices like solitary \u2064confinement being used as severe \u200bpunishment. His broader\u2063 point is that sanity emerges from our interactions within society, and\u200c that \u200cmental health \u2063cannot be \u200cfully understood or treated \u200cby looking solely at individual psychology. This talk\u2064 further explores how mutual support within relationships and community engagement are \u2064crucial to navigating life&#8217;s complexities.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The following is a transcript excerpt from Dr. Jordan Peterson\u2019s \u201cWe Who Wrestle With God\u201d tour. In this segment, he explains the problem with the historical definition of sanity \u2014 being a well-constituted individual \u2014 is its sole reliance on the individual. He establishes a difference between being depressed and not being situated in the hierarchy of social order (having an intimate partner, family, job, and so forth). Social interaction is critical to finding meaning. Dr. Peterson\u2019s <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/watch\/jordan-peterson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">extensive catalog<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  is available on DailyWire+. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our Protestant, liberal definition of sanity is wrong. We tend to think of sanity in terms of internal psychological organizations. We think you are sane if your psyche is well-constituted or if you are biologically healthy in relationship to neurological function, as an individual thing: A well-constituted psyche means you are sane. The idea of self-actualization goes along with that. If you are a sane person, you are a sane individual: Sanity is the description of the well-constituted individual. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the corollaries might be that you could regard any social constraint on the flowering of your individuality as antithetical to your sanity. I would say corrosive criticisms of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-jordan-b-petersons-beyond-order-12-more-rules-for-life\/\" title=\"Review: Jordan B. Peterson\u2019s \u2018Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life\u2019\">social institutions<\/a> tend to presume that axiomatically: \u201cNothing should interfere with my self-actualization. All social constraint is antithetical to that spontaneous organization and to sanity itself.\u201d I do not think that is the correct notion of sanity. It is too atomistic; it is too individual. For example, how sane are you going to be in a terrible marriage? I do not care how well-constituted you are individually. This is a different question. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When people would come to me and they were depressed, I would try to find out if they were depressed or if they just had a horrible life. Those are not the same questions because if you are depressed, you have a life that, in principle, should work but is not. So if they said, \u201cLook, I have a lot of things going for me. I have a good job, I have a good family, my wife loves me. But man, I am miserable all the time,\u201d we would delve into that a bit more deeply. That sounds like depression. But they might come and say, \u201cI am miserable. I am suffering. I don\u2019t even want to be alive.\u201d Then I might ask:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWell, do you have an intimate partner?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNo, not really. And I have a history of catastrophic relationships.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cDo you have any friends?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWell, I have this one person I phone once every month or so, but other than that, no I don\u2019t really see anyone.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cDo you have any close family?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNo, my family is pretty fractured. I don\u2019t get along with my mom and dad. I don\u2019t see my sisters or my siblings much.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHow about a career or, failing that, a job?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWell, I\u2019ve always kind of been under-employed, and I just lost my job and that is not going very well.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can walk through someone\u2019s life and find out if they are reasonably embedded in a hierarchy of social institutions. If they are not \u2014 no intimate partner, no family, no children, no friends, no job, no career, no educational pathway, no engagement in civic responsibility, no church attendance, no <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/liberal-modernity-and-its-discontents\/\" title=\"Liberal Modernity and Its Discontents\">spiritual life<\/a>, no routine \u2014 then they are not depressed; they just have a horrible life, multidimensionally. It is no wonder they think they are depressed; there is nothing in their life that is working. But that is not exactly a diagnosis at the level of the individual; it is a diagnosis of the relationship between the individual and the structure containing social institutions. If you do not have an intimate partner, a family, any friends, a career or a job, any civic involvement or any involvement with religious institutions, and no creative striving, all you have left is pain. That is what you have.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/show\/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WATCH: The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast on DailyWire+<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a different way of thinking about sanity. Sanity is not being well-constituted as an atomized individual. Sanity is what makes itself manifest if you are properly situated in the hierarchy of social order. Now, some of that is internal because of your mess of fragmented subpersonalities. For example, anger can pull you in one direction, anxiety can pull you in another direction, impulsive enthusiasm can pull you in another direction, and lust can pull you in a different direction \u2014 those are all subpersonalities in some real sense. They are ways of perceiving and acting in the world. You need to integrate them within yourself so that as an individual, you are integrated. But the nature of that integration is dependent on your integration within the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/affirmative-action-opponents-sue-naval-academy-to-ban-race-consideration\/\" title=\"Lawsuit filed against Naval Academy to end race-based considerations.\">broader social context<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can think of sanity as a distributed phenomena. That is another reason you do not want to casually denigrate social institutions because we are social creatures \u2014 deeply social creatures. You can tell that because you can take the most anti-social people, the most violent predatory and parasitic criminals, and punish them by putting them in solitary confinement. Think about that: The people who like other people <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the least<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, who are most likely to pathologize their social relationships, and who would be long-term, habitually sadistic, violent criminals find it virtually unbearable to be forced into isolation. We are unbelievably social. One of the corollaries of being miraculously social is that to be well-constituted, you have to be a harmonious player in a multidimensional symphony of social interaction. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is very hard to stay on the straight and narrow without a partner who does not share your blindspots and correct you constantly. Now, that is annoying because there is tussling about it; there is a fractious, adversarial element to that because you are married, and you do not see eye to eye \u2014 and thank God for that because sometimes in your foolish instance of being right, you are wrong and wrong in a way that will take you out. So you better have a partner who does not think the same way you do. Fortunately, if you have a partner who does not think the same way you do, if you can get the dialogue flowing, that is a mutually corrective mechanism. Then, the truthful dialogue between partners in a marriage is actually the process by which sanity itself is generated, which I mean technically. You are too complex to regulate yourself \u2014 period \u2014 so you need other people to help you do that. If you have a wife or a husband, someone who knows you who is there for the long-run, you can help each other find the meaningful path and stay on it. You cannot do that alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To continue, listen or watch more content with Dr. Jordan Peterson on <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/watch\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">DailyWire+<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dr. Jordan B. Peterson<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  is a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. From 1993 to 1998 he served as assistant and then associate professor of psychology at Harvard. He is the international bestselling author of \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Peterson\/dp\/0415922216\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&#038;qid=&#038;sr=\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maps of Meaning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u201d \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos\/dp\/0345816021\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&#038;qid=&#038;sr=\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">12 Rules For Life,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d and \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Beyond-Order-More-Rules-Life\/dp\/0593084640\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&#038;dib_tag=AUTHOR&#038;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.nbV0WtVit9busCddbjMST-Oe7hjueQrxfqnQ4L3HXXUFdIaqlEBr0sp9HQWIq9ut9NlHDAFA0YQoDWVZfDtKNJI7VvlzWv2rMhs2KcAAIIppPRMWq4GIiFerkrssvBABAjeKlg3OFs3H8IHs5D8ktJ5uBg3K-SZ4hpKltaKkrhY6j-RKn-tTkBz29JZXP3Rhm9SB14rHUX1nol5d4z4Fi6f8fwhxXWCVGgkvOHSqG6E.iVF1NljuBEwrpumO9rQBh9FotnzaIo4K7K8HvNnC46k&#038;qid=&#038;sr=\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond Order.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d You can now <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/podcasts\/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/watch\/jordan-peterson\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">watch<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  his popular lectures on DailyWire+.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Be sure to <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson\/dp\/0593542533\/?_encoding=UTF8&#038;pd_rd_w=38kcw&#038;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&#038;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&#038;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&#038;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&#038;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&#038;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk\"><b>PRE-ORDER<\/b><\/a><b>  Dr. Peterson\u2019s newest book: \u201c<\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson\/dp\/0593542533\/?_encoding=UTF8&#038;pd_rd_w=38kcw&#038;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&#038;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&#038;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&#038;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&#038;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&#038;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk\"><b>We Who Wrestle with God<\/b><\/a><b>.\u201d (Portfolio\/Penguin. November 19, 2024.)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This excerpt from Dr. Jordan Peterson&#8217;s &#8220;We Who Wrestle With God&#8221; tour discusses the issue with defining sanity historically as merely being a well-adjusted individual. He highlights the distinction between depression and the broader context of an individual&#8217;s situation, critiquing the focus solely on personal constitution<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1006,"featured_media":2270679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/06\/JP_FOR_DW_GDWOODMAN027-copy.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/06\/JP_FOR_DW_GDWOODMAN027-copy.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2270679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}