Book Description

The concept of cultural insanity provides a better way of understanding much of what is wrong in our society and in the world today--and how it got that way--and some ways to improve it. Where our own culture is involved, we and all other individuals in our society are party to it, yet largely blind to it, and to varying extents partake of at least some of its craziness. Accordingly, correctly grasping the idea of cultural insanity will also reveal pathways to improve one's self-understanding, develop a more realistic worldview, and help liberate the mind from the unseen mesh of cultural implants and biases. Cultural insanity is characterized foremost by features of a society/culture that unnecessarily thwart the development of human potential. (My compilation here of the "elements of human development" describes most of these potentials.) Because "unnecessarily thwart" means that there must be viable alternatives, allowances may need to be made for a culture's level of technology, its people's levels of consciousness, and more. But some of the roots of cultural insanity also come from the limitations in the evolutionary history of our species and the way our brains operate--which more fully conscious thinking, reasoning and scientific methods can remediate. Part One includes the theory and methods for cultural insanity analyses, along with many examples of current and recent cultural insanities from U.S. politics, history and the environmental realm. Parts Two through Four are historical case studies, the last leading up to the present time. These case studies consider witch-hunts, science versus religion in the Middle Ages, and the discoveries of geologic time and evolution. With the distance in time to keep bias at bay, the reader can more clearly see the cultural insanities, more fully understand the methods and nuances used in the analyses, and recognize parallels and continuations in society's problems today.