The Human Evasion by Celia Elizabeth Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In this book, Celia Green tries to deconstruct the term ‘sanity’. She argues that sanity is only an evasion taken on by people to avoid looking at reality and the whole spectrum of problems it brings with it, e.g. how little of the world we know or can, as humans, ever know; or the knowledge that our presence in the world is finite and therefore could be deemed as pointless, etc. In other words, sane people get used to dealing with problems concerning their relationships with other humans so as not to have to deal with reality and their finiteness. “Dealing with reality” is avoiding reality. Curiously, sane people do not seem to be aware of the fact and may insist that they are taking reality head-on while telling fellow humans more concerned with otherworldly or trans-human issues (in the sense of transendence, not transhumanism) that they are not dealing with reality.
An interesting book and one I that I wish to read again, if only because I feel that reading it off a screen somehow reduced my retention even if it is a short read. It is fully available on deoxy.org, which looks as if it has many other interesting articles, books and opinions that can go a long way in challenging the conceived sanity of most.