On the issue of Crazee.

From a discussion on Facebook:

I think there are those who are, in fact, biologically disposed to craziness. They used to be considered the medicine men and women of primeval cultures and they had an important role in the community as those who were thought to be in touch with the sacred. On the other hand, I think our current models of 'human nature' don't look at cause and effect of mental states well enough.

Much of the reason for this is because of the way that metaphysics affects our ability to understand the societies we live in. Let us say that we live within a hierarchy of power of some sort. Metaphysics states that "the good" is located above us, in the higher levels of the hierarchy, whereas those with nefarious character structures are those who are relatively disempowered at the lower levels of the hierarchy.

Once one has absorbed this implicit idea, it becomes nearly impossible to "see", much less imagine, how the behaviour or actions of those located higher up in the power system can cause damage or distress to those lower in the system. After all, "the good" (those with power) are surely only capable of causing "good" results, whereas those who are "bad" are more likely to cause their own problems in life. So, it becomes very confusing.

We don't understand cause and effect well enough yet, mostly because we don't want to.

UPDATED(expansion on the nature of cause and effect):

Those who have power in society (i.e. are not located in the lower levels of the social hierarchy) have a greater capacity for both good and harm than those who are lower down.

A capacity to achieve ongoing results will be systematized by one's place relative to the social hierarchy. Those who have power are thus those who have the greater capacity as causal agents of either good or harm. In a society where oppression is systematized -- for instance, where gender or race have implicit meanings concerning inferiority or superiority -- those who reinforce these social values are likely to be agents for harm.

As a general rule, those who are more likely to be damaged by power relations are at the lower levels of society, whereas those who are more likely to cause the damage are at the higher levels of society.



Despite this, the role of metaphysics in thinking is to confuse the direction of cause and effect, so that all "evil" seems to come from those who have long ago been disempowered, whereas all the potential for "good" is deemed to lie with those who already have substantial social power, but who do not however use it in the metaphysical ways --i.e "for good" -- as we like to imagine.