Are we all crazy? Are these times marked by madness, in which we no longer have time to hurry, according to J. Lacan? How much is enough to confirm that the impermanence of thought is already ours? Or what, if not, to declare Wayus Day in the midst of a political crisis? And don’t even mention confusing constitutional articles for a potential trial that could go down in history. Wow, what a power of mental separation from the congregants!

Today, carambola, we live in some kind of changed state, no matter how you read it. It is outdated to refer to crazy people as possessed by the devil, enlightened prophets, separated from reality, overwhelmed by their passions. Our social bonds have been broken and as M. Bassols points out, the reduction of madness to biochemical or genetic causation refers to a pathological state, strange compared to the normal. But the normality of reason is for everyone what others say is normal: “Normality is finally a statistical criterion (…) it is like an average man, whom no one has ever seen, but should have a reasonable opinion of everyone”.

And what is normal if we have become paranoid – which is a symptom of psychosis – seeing that we are exposed to exponential crime, kidnapping and extortion? Aren’t we behaving like severe neurotics due to extreme social isolation, learned in pandemic tantrums? Aren’t we sinning as perverts when we violate norms, avoid justice, or kill others for pure pleasure? Aren’t we complacently indulging in the quantification of everything, under the pretext of filling a void that is impossible to close?

Today we are suspicious of the institutions that created trust in us: only 52% of Ecuadorians trust the FF. AA; 41% in the police; 13% in the judiciary; and 9% in the Assembly (Click Report, 03/20/23). If the function of law and organization has failed us, if the Government does not bring the house to the end, if the titans of the ring remain at odds, what could be the reaction of the citizens? Is there any reason to be angry? Can we then label it as madness?

In his scathing text In Praise of Folly (1511), Erasmus of Rotterdam states that very few people are not crazy. He wonders if it is not sages who praise themselves, or rhetoricians who take four old-fashioned words out of every book to make them shine. Empires, courts, alliances, assemblies; merchants, scientists, writers, priests, lawyers or devotees, Erasmus satirically questions. Speaking about war, he points out that there is nothing crazier than those conflicts that arise without knowing why and which are always more harmful than beneficial for both parties. In the end, “man is created in such a way that fictions leave a greater impression on him than reality itself”.

If life is a kind of endless comedy, says Erasmus, in which people appear on the scene disguised in a thousand different ways, I think that these social symptoms should be interpreted as responses of each subject to locate themselves in the world.

I am re-reading R. Montero’s book and wondering: is it dangerous to be healthy? (OR)