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himbeaux-on-ice · 2 years ago

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hours after my wild up-close NateMac sighting (which you should read as context for this post), having ferried and bussed and walked back across the harbour to my work dorm, I got online and had the second insane thing that I had suspected might have happened to me finally be confirmed.

here's what went down. I haven't a shred of proof this occurred, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

about fifteen minutes before Nate's arrival to the post-parade Beer Garden party I had stumbled upon, as guests began trickling in, I had watched a group of four or five hockey-looking men arrive from the opposite direction along the boardwalk that Nate would eventually appear from, chatting amongst themselves, and discreetly enter the Beer Garden via the gate after just a few words with security. I say hockey-looking because most of them were tall, visibly athletic, some had The Flow, they had the backwards snap-backs; they just kinda looked like hockey players y'know? most of them were decked out in some amount of Avs merch, including some Avs-coloured lanyards with a 29 on them that looked like some kind of guest pass.

indeed, these guys and their gear caught my eye so much that I almost missed the most discreet member of their little group. he was noticeably shorter than the others, stocky but trim, dark-haired, and wore no merch to speak of; just a white tee, black shorts, black sneakers, a black forward-facing baseball cap and sunglasses.

it was only as he turned side-on, to walk up to the gate, that I saw him in profile, saw his very sharp, prominent nose and the shape of his jaw and thought "wait, that looks like- but he looks thinner than- is it???" he and his group disappeared into the party before I could fully process this or even snap so much as a creeper-pic for my suspicions. and so I simply wondered about it all night long, trying in vain before I left to get a glimpse over the tarps and cordons set up to make the party private which might confirm my suspicion.

and then when I got back to my room and opened up tumblr, there he was: Sidney Crosby, dressed for Nate's parade day in a white tee, black shorts, black sneakers, black baseball cap and sunglasses, said to be hanging about the outskirts of the celebrations with a handful of other hockey players:

oh. my god.

it was him.

I need you to understand: he was, at least for the brief time I saw him, completely unnoticed on that boardwalk. the little group he was walking with weren't followed by any lingering fans or admirers, nobody approached them or made a noise when they passed by. they could have passed for any of the hundreds of groups of decked-out hockey fans in town for the parade that day. and Sidney Crosby, Nova Scotia's most famous son, walked down that little stretch of crowded Halifax waterfront completely unheralded, the least noticeable of any of them, slipping into the party well ahead of the flurry of attention that came with Nate and the Cup. I genuinely almost missed him, despite the fact that I'd been watching the arrivals and keeping an eye out for him all day long. he was so discreet I didn't even process his presence in time to get any proof that I'd seen him at all.

Mike Crosby, indeed.

(it had occurred to me, while I was sitting around drinking slushies all afternoon, that the most likely reason we probably didn't see Sid in a more prominent role around Nate's celebrations, the parade and whatnot (like Landy and Cogs and their horse-drawn carriage, for example), is that Sid is most certainly well-aware that he is still more famous than Nate, and that just his mere presence somewhere can attract a lot of attention and easily steal a spotlight. he's had his share of these parades before, so this time it seems like he stuck to the background in order to sit back proudly and let Nate have his moment, entirely for himself - as just Nate, rather than as Sid's understudy or sidekick. again, that's just my speculation, but... well, it certainly sounds like something he would do, doesn't it?)

#please for the love of god be normal about this post #sidney crosby #pittsburgh penguins #what a goddamn cryptid lmao

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iwach4n · 4 years ago

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this is basically an AU me and @snazzieyama have been talking about where haikyuu characters are the actors in Hamilton, and i haven’t been able to get it out of my mind so have an obnoxiously long set of headcanons about it

(i wrote this listening to the soundtrack, proper jamming i tell you)

CAST LIST (hear me out on some of these)

alexander hamilton - hinata shoyo

aaron burr - akaashi keiji

eliza schuyler - kageyama tobio

angelica schuyler - atsumu miya

peggy schuyler - yachi hitoka

john laurens / phillip hamilton - nishinoya yuu

marquis de laffayette - bokuto koutarou

hercules mulligan - tanaka ryuunosuke

george washington - sawamura daichi

thomas jefferson - tsukishima kei

james madison - yamaguchi tadashi

king george III - oikawa tooru

maria reynolds - kozume kenma

james reynolds / the doctor - kuroo tetsurou

samuel seabury - sugawara koushi

charles lee - lev haiba

george eacker - yaku morisuke

the bullet - shimizu kiyoko

HEADCANONS

hinata auditioned for hamilton despite having literally no theatre experience besides like school musicals and like one community theatre show. he was cast in ensemble at first but worked his way up to hamilton’s understudy and then the official hamilton

tsukishima auditioned for burr. he was salty that he was cast as someone else (his dynamic with yamaguchi was too good to pass up and akaashi had a better voice for Wait For It) at first but then he immediately clashed with hinata and took great pleasure with being able to roast him every night

in Alexander Hamilton, the laffayette/jefferson and mulligan/madison parts switch actors every show so bokuto, tsukishima, tanaka and yamaguchi all get to do it. sometimes they switch it at the last minute because “please dude my grandma’s come to watch i need to be on stage as much as possible”

tanaka has the Best fun on stage. he never fails to get the crowd pumped, he is jumping around and bringing so much energy, especially in his part in yorktown. it makes you mad that its a musical and you can’t start jumping up and singing along

suga was cast as seabury because he was perfectly good at the role and they preferred kageyama as eliza, which he auditioned for originally. he’s really good at it but it took way too long for Farmer Refuted to come together because him and hinata kept bursting out laughing. they both consider each other, like, the least threatening people ever, and they couldn’t take it seriously whenever hinata would have to get in suga’s face

SOMETIMES IT STILL HAPPENS!! if you watch carefully, you might see one of their lips twitch while they try to keep a straight face. the minute suga gets off stage, someone always has some cushion or piece of clothing he can laugh into because once he started laughing while his mic was still on

THE BIGGEST CAST JOKE IS ABOUT THE HEIGHT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAMILTON AND ELIZA!! kageyama looks so much taller than hinata (coz he is but its so noticeable when they’re alone on stage) and they torment hinata with pictures where it just looks ridiculous

oikawa always absolutely steals the show. he’s so dramatic, but he’s also one of the most simped-for cast members and sometimes he’ll throw a wink into the audience in the middle of You’ll Be Back to make things more interesting.

also the bits in act 2 where he just comes in to watch and laugh at everything that’s happening? he’s so fun! just because he’s not the main focus of the scene doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna make the most hilarious facial expressions. half the audience ends up focusing on him instead.

daichi is the most commanding washington literally ever. he just comes on and he immediately takes over the stage. he barely has to try to give the character the air of authority. literally the perfect actor for the role

he’s also been in the show the longest. was cast as washington right off the bat and has been doing the role for multiple years. it makes him the unofficial dad of the cast and the go-to for advice since he’s seen a bunch of people do every other role

the “CALL ME SON ONE MORE TIME” line was another one that took too long for them to do without laughing. daichi has been doing this for ages but when he practices with hinata, he can’t help but laugh because this is the kid who he witnessed choke on hello kitty gummies with five minutes until the show began (back when hinata was in ensemble). hinata does the line too well and its hard to take it seriously at first

akaashi singing Wait For It is the literal most beautiful part of the show. he’s an amazing actor and his voice is incredible and it’s the sort of thing you could rewatch on loop for an entire week non-stop without getting bored

bokuto got akaashi the audition for burr, and even though their characters don’t interact too much their chemistry is really good. The “everyone give it up for everyone’s favourite fighting frenchman!” line is so genuine they just really admire each other as actors

lev auditioned for lee for the sole purpose of getting the line “i’m a general, WHEEEE”. he got the role mostly because he was just,,, really good at that line

atsumu refused to interact with anyone outside of rehearsals and performances for a solid month. the instagram of the cast had loads of photos on the story that were just mugshots of him saying “day 24, atsumu still won’t talk to us :(” whenever any of the cast take over it for a day

akaashi is the second most simped-for actor in the cast (after oikawa). you can literally feel people in the audience swooning in Dear Theodosia because he’s just so sweet

when yachi found out she was the only girl in the main cast she was literally terrified. she latched onto kiyoko really quickly and there’s a ridiculous amount of pictures that every fan has seen of those two together

kiyoko is really mesmerising as the bullet!! when she’s lifted her form is just stunning she just looks really nice okay-

every wondered whether kageyama would be like,,, actually good because he just seems kind of awkward off stage, but the minute he’s on stage and following a script, he’s like the perfect eliza

nishinoya has the perfect range for both laurens and phillip. fun and friendly yet still principled and serious rebel? check. small sweet nine year old? check. charismatic flirt? check. heartbreakingly dying from a gunshot wound? check.

tsukishima is a really unique jefferson. he’s not as flamboyant as the role usually is, but he’s super sassy to make up for it. it’s really refreshing and SO fun to watch. “uh,,, france?” becomes “france.” with a ‘are you stupid’ expression

yamaguchi wasn’t expecting to get anything past ensemble but he came in to audition with tsukishima and he is so good at what few lines he has. “which I wrote!” is said with such a scandalised tone, it gets a laugh every time

everyone who knew kenma before thought he’d be too awkward to do maria but he is actually really good once he gets past the initial awkwardness, he manages to portray her like a victim really well

i’ve already done like two of these so here’s some more scenes that took too long before they didn’t burst out laughing: eliza teaching phillip to play piano in Take A Break (just imagine nishinoya and kageyama doing it i can’t-), the duel in Ten Duel Commandments (the height difference between nishinoya and lev made them laugh every time they turned around), 90% of Say No To This but especially the kiss (kenma would just stop and get off like ‘no, i can’t, i can’t do this’ every time it was about to happen while hinata just started cackling)

part of the reason noya got cast as phillip as well as laurens was because he’s one of the only people who auditioned who was shorter than hinata

in rehearsals, akaashi has fallen off the table from The Room Where It Happens because they couldn’t time him jumping while the tablecloth was pulled off. there’s a compilation of the falls on youtube, no one knows who recorded them, let alone who posted it (it was kuroo)

speaking of kuroo, he takes his like five lines and he runs with them. he’s awesome as james reynolds but he’s also the fandoms favourite instagram of the cast because he just posts all the backstage shenanigans. he’s somehow always recording whenever something is going wrong.

he also teases kenma relentlessly about how their characters are married, but kenma is having none of it. it always goes like “awe we’re married” “,,, you’re literally abusive” or “come on, do it for your husband” “i’m cheating on you”

(i stopped here to jam to That Part of Hurrican. i wrote my way out hell i wrote my way to revolution i was louder than the crack in the bell i wrote eliza love letters until she fell-)

bokuto managed to rap Guns And Ships first try. he listened to it like twice, read the lyrics, and he could immediately do it. he took ages to do a convincing french accent though, and it pained everyone

TSUKISHIMA COULDN’T DO THE FAST PART OF WASHINGTON ON YOUR SIDE AND HAD TO ASK BOKUTO FOR HELP

bokuto is just,,, such a good laffayette. he’s jumping all over the place, flexing his muscles while he does the fast raps without looking out of breath at all. it seems almost impossible

also!!!! kuroo has a ridiculous amount of videos of bokuto backstage fortnite dancing to serious songs like Burn or Its Quiet Uptown

kageyama in Burn!!! heartbreaking and beautiful but he burns his hand on the letter too often. he’s gotten used to it at this point so he only slightly flinches when the flames touch his hand. its worrying

congratulations was almost brought back because atsumu really likes it and he absolutely kills it. they recorded him singing it in like a studio and everything because its just that good

when noya found out yaku was playing eacker he was so happy because they’re both short and he already looks ridiculous and tiny enough in the first duel

tsukishima will never admit how much fun he has with “southern motherfucking democratic republicans!!!” but its so clear his eyes literally shine (he kind of carries that line coz yamaguchi and akaashi are a lot more mellow)

oikawa once got dared to fortnite dance in reynolds pamphlet when he’s throwing the one singular sheet of paper. he was going to do it but the directors found out about it and literally threatened to fire him if he did it (they did it in a rehearsal to make up for it)

you know that bit in Your Obedient Servant where its like “careful how you proceed good man, intemperate indeed good man, answer for the accusations i lay at your feet or prepare to bleed good man”? literal chills from the look on akaashi’s face when he does it

whenever other cast members get food gifts from fans and they leave them unattended atsumu will always steal them. only daichi has figured out its him and he has kept quiet on two conditions - he leaves his alone, and he gets half of all the cakes

sometimes yachi just likes to lie down in the middle of the spinny floor and spin to destress. yamaguchi joins her sometimes.

there’s always a ton of people waiting at stage door, and kuroo has made it his mission to come out first and announce everyone as they leave. people play along with it and cheer for every person. some of the cast (mainly oikawa and bokuto) make it super dramatic and do massive bows as they walk out. kageyama never fails to look bewildered despite it happening every day

oikawa chills in full king gear backstage way before and way after he needs to. like half of his instagram is selfies is him in it doing dramatic poses. he’s broken the crown too many times because it fell off his head

hinata sometimes subconsciously does the My Shot dance while he’s going about his life. he can’t escape

they can be sorted into three groups: is the literal sweetest baby to their fans and is kind of shocked they even exist, adores having fans and fully expects them to exist, and the ‘i appreciate the support but pls leave me alone i want to go home’

i don’t know how to round this off but this is getting too long and its gonna keep on going because i’m listening to the soundtrack as i write. maybe there will be a part 2 one day.

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jasonsblog26 · 4 years ago

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Reconsidering the College Commitment: Issues Today Are Too Big To Ignore

The most perilous idea a parent can have today about their youngster setting off for college is "I'm so happy I don't need to stress over mine heading out to class since the person in question experienced childhood in the correct condition, doesn't utilize medications and spends time with the correct children." Parents, including me, would do well to recollect that we are presented to just a little division of our kids' idea life. As they get more established, we are presented to less about how they utilize their own time. And keeping in mind that our expectations with respect to them may frequently be exact, being off-base about even one thing can be overpowering - even shocking.

Consider the calming proof with respect to school today:

1. Drop Out Rates are a Catastrophe! The school drop-out rate is twice as awful as the secondary school drop-out rate, and the secondary school drop-out rate is awful. Roughly, 25% of all secondary school understudies don't graduate (Colin Powell's associates say as much and the proof bears it out). The rate is near half for undergrads (and for certain schools it is significantly higher than half) in light of graduations rates following six years of school, not four. You would prefer not to see the multi year rates.

2. The amount Debt Can You Stand? The normal undergrad leaves their advanced education experience between $25,000 - $35,000 paying off debtors whether they graduate or not. That is the normal. Understudy advance obligation in the United States outperforms all charge card obligation - over $1,000,000,000,000 (trillion). More regrettable, the sum keeps on developing.

3. What Befell My 6,000 Hours? An understudy who leaves school following two years has contributed as long as 6,000 hours of their life in an undertaking that fizzled. Falling flat, all by itself, isn't the most exceedingly terrible thing on the planet. Indeed, disappointment is frequently an extraordinary educator. Here is the issue: The political, social, instructive and banking framework enculturate youth and families that you can't be fruitful in existence without a higher education. The pitiful circumstance currently is that practically 50% of those we send to school come up short at the essential endeavor society says they should prevail at to be effective throughout everyday life.

4. Significant Research Says Learning isn't Happening at College? As per Dr. Richard Arum (University of New York) and Dr. Josipa Ropka (University of Virginia), understudies are finishing their lesser year of school with for all intents and purposes no net increment in learning. In their book, Academically Adrift, they exhibit that the general volume of perusing and composing based schoolwork expected of undergrads is the most reduced it has been in an age. Indeed, even with the diminished work, graduation rates are as yet appalling. Arum composed more than 10,000 presidents and college pioneers tending to the issues inside the previous two years, and there has been practically no reaction from the instructive network. Know here BEd course in rajkot

5. Do You Really Need College to Get Ahead? Forbes Magazine researched a couple of years back demonstrating that most understudies would end up as a winner by a) not setting off for college, b) getting a respectable line of work and c) setting aside however much cash as could be expected. This originates from an organization included those with cutting edge advanced educations who realize how to do the math. Their exploration indicated that with great cash the executives, about any individual who didn't head off to college could be similarly also off monetarily as those with a degree. Obviously, on the off chance that you are setting off for college to be a specialist or an administrator in a social work calling, you must choose between limited options. Be that as it may, the obligation issue is as yet a main consideration in plotting your course through school.

6. The More Money Over Your Lifetime "Deception". Of the considerable number of reasons you are let you know ought to set off for college, this is the one that is the most distorted by government officials, banks, funders and the schools themselves. I just allude to it as the huge "distortion". The equivalent Forbes article referenced beforehand says that it is deluding and wrong to imagine that school graduates will get more cash-flow after some time than their non-school partners. This is an amazing counter to the well established tried and true way of thinking, cited endlessly that "you will get more cash-flow in the event that you get a higher education".

The individuals who enroll you to their school, impact you to set off for college, need to back your training, and so on reveal to you that you'll get significantly more cash-flow throughout everyday life on the off chance that you have an advanced education.

While it might fluctuate dependent upon the situation, there are in any event five convincing motivations to accept this isn't accurate:

#1: College is the New High School and That Does Not Impress Employers

An age back, kids learned Greek, Latin and Philosophy in secondary school (some in center school). Practically every college in America today has a nearby Writing Center to show medicinal English and composing aptitudes to understudies. The facts confirm that a few understudies who utilize these administrations are worldwide understudies whose English is their second or third language. In any case, as a school teacher/educator, I can let you know from my own experience that the composing abilities of local conceived Americans is nothing to boast about. As a rule, it is discouraging to perceive what is permitted to go through secondary school as adequate composition.

In their book and scholarly exploration of more than 2,000 arbitrarily chose understudies, Drs. Arum and Ropka found that an inconceivable level of understudies were entering their lesser year of school with truly no net increment in learning. On the off chance that this is valid, and there have not been noteworthy answers, you can without much of a stretch fall behind by heading off to college and not learning or dropping out. This is applicable on the grounds that businesses are talking boisterous and clear that they are disappointed with the low aptitude levels and qualification outlook of the present school graduates. Google as of late reported an activity to start finding non-school graduates with the correct abilities and aptitudes that they can prepare for their business, subsequently bypassing the advanced degree framework for their own procedure. Google, maybe the most dynamic manager on earth, perceives that the current framework is basically neglecting to deliver what they need. Universities, and by augmentation center schools and secondary schools are just neglecting to address the issues of corporate and non-benefit bosses. While numerous businesses despite everything appear for the mandatory vocation reasonable at the neighborhood college or school, the incredible occupations and openings are heading off to the extraordinary personalities who system and make the most of the non-scholastic open doors managed by the networks wherein they live.

#2: Making Money isn't an Indicator of Responsible Spending

Aesthetic Sciences schools and colleges invest next to no energy helping understudies with life the executives abilities, picking to concentrate to a great extent on social and cause related encounters (another engaged analysis by Arum and Ropka). Numerous private schools like ECPI University, Bryant and Stratton and others do give financial plan and cash the executives as a feature of their educational plan, yet they serve the market uniquely in contrast to do significant schools. Whatever happened to evaluating the components associated with satisfaction and individual satisfaction other than cash?

#3: More Income Means Greater Access to Debt

As the American culture has gotten progressively increasingly materialistic, its craving for obligation to fund its wants has detonated. The quantity of school graduates declaring financial insolvency versus non-graduates due to this wonder has limited drastically in the previous twenty years. School graduates are declaring financial insolvency at a developing and disturbing rate comparative with their non-graduate companions. The primary concern is millions are acknowledging since living with more cash and high pressure isn't justified, despite any potential benefits. Living inside your methods, in any event, when it includes less salary is all the more fulfilling, more advantageous and progressively supportable.

They state it since it was the support that helped them choose to go, and what better approach to legitimize the choices I made than to utilize similar contentions on you.

#4: The Role of Alcohol and Drug Abuse on Campus Destroying Dreams and Costing Us All

The Dean of Students at one school recognized that 25% of their green bean class every year is lost due to poor scholarly execution legitimately connected with liquor and medication abuse. He said that his partners the nation over demonstrated that is an agent figure. The earnestness of this issue is known and felt at each center school, secondary school, school and college in the nation.

It is at the secondary school to school progress, be that as it may, that young view their drinking from new and avowing points of view:

1. They are transitioning soon - in any event legitimately.

2. They plan intellectually to stamp their 21st year with a beverage.

3. It is socially adequate at school whether it is lawful or not.

4. Numerous guardians approve drinking and some really bolster it as a social hindrance breaker.

5. It is open with a diminishing level of hazard.

6. It is seen as more secure than different medications.

7. Hazard/Reward appraisals favor drinking. Getting alcoholic is unimaginably a good time (for a brief period).

The issue comes when you understand that around 70% of all liquor utilization by youth, remembering for school, occurs after children are as of now legitimately alcoholic. Consider what that implies. When tanked, they drink enough to become legitimately inebriated in any event two additional occasions while they are as of now alcoholic.

It is all around perceived since this conduct is profoundly affecting learning, duty and maintenance - information maintenance, just as keeping up the capacity to stay in school.

On the off chance that that is not terrible enough, factor in the utilization of unlawful solutions meds, illegal medications, benzodiazepines and others, and you have a remedy for instructive and individual fiascoes. This situation is being played out a huge number of times every year now in America. In addition, the most widely recognized spot for the utilization of date assault drugs is on school grounds.

Liquor and medications don't separate. They pulverize li

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jimdroberts · 6 years ago

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Is it just me, or is everyone going crazy?

I’ve often entertained myself by thinking of the chaos that could be brought upon mankind if mental illnesses were, like physical ones, contagious . Imagine, a man who goes to bed one night with a slight headache and a runny nose, wakes up the next morning in a psychotic hallucination, covered in a mixture of his own sweat and the blood of strangers, charging up and down the high street, head thrown back, laughing maniacally, waving a chainsaw. As the psychosis virus infects more and more of the population, the uninfected are forced underground, moving stealthily through the post apocalyptic wilderness. Essentially it’s replacing zombies with mental illness. Today zombies are more politically correct, society is more comfortable with the idea of your dead relatives trying to kill you than your mentally ill living ones. Although that hasn’t stopped Hollywood producing many movies exploiting mental illness for the sake of box office revenue: The Silence of the Lambs, Black Swan, American Psycho, Shutter Island, Secret Window, and Misery, to name but a few.

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Still I’m left wondering, what if mental illnesses were contagious?

We can all relate to sitting in a doctor’s surgery, waiting our turn. I suspect fewer of us would admit knowing what it’s like to wait for an appointment to see the psychiatrist. From personal experience I can say that initially both waiting rooms look very similar, there’s more people talking in the waiting room at the psychiatrist, random people break out into erratic and impassioned conversations with people that don’t exist. In essence, performing convincing monologues with greater conviction than even the most accomplished Shakespearean actor could dream of. Meanwhile, at the doctor’s surgery there are only whispered, fragmented conversations, punctuated by nasal ejaculations, snuffles, and of course an abundance of coughing and throat clearing. In short you can enter a doctor’s surgery with a mild case of hemorrhoids, but leave incubating a new, exotic virus, or disease. The patients waiting at the psychiatrist’s are unable to play the game of pass the psychotic/neurotic parcel, because thankfully, psychiatric conditions aren’t contagious. Are they?

Are Mental Illnesses Contagious?

In his book “The Quantity Theory of Insanity“, British author, Will Self, tells a story that proposes the idea that within any given population, at any given time, the level of insanity is a constant. You might think that contradicts what I just said about people getting crazier, let me explain. The state of being mentally ill is tacitly defined through a person’s conformity to the social norms of their society, and diagnosis can only be achieved through the observation of a person’s behaviour. Take the picture below:

Symbolic of his devotion not to eat meat for a month, I imagine he’s also going to struggle with soup.

The majority of cultures around the world would regard a person displaying this behaviour as being mentally unwell. However, when performed in Phuket, Thailand, on the eve of the ninth lunar month, such a person becomes the life and soul of the party. His actions display his devotion to the nine emperor gods and his commitment not to eat meat throughout the ninth lunar month. Perhaps I’ was just fortunate to have grown up in a society that didn’t feel it necessary to measure my determination to achieve something by the amount of sharp metal I was willing to stick through my face.

Most of us would think of cannibalism as the ultimate, universal taboo, well not if you’re from the Yanomami tribe. The Yanomami are horrified by the idea of burying their dead, they believe that eating the dead ensures that the spirit goes on living in those who have consumed them, especially in those who helped themselves to seconds. With a population at any one time of over thirty thousand, it’s reasonable to assume that the Yanomami have a steady supply of protein.

Now in western culture, getting dressed like Tony the tiger and eating a dead relative attracts all sorts of negative attention, but it’s just another day for the Yanomami

There are scores of examples of behaviour from around the world where what is normal in one area, would be considered quite insane in another. QED, insanity is a classification largely determined by the context of society. Unlike physical ailments, a broken arm is a broken arm, whether you’re an Inuit living in Greenland, or a member of the Tuareg traipsing around the Sahara. Likewise cancer is cancer irrespective of what culture you’re from, religion you might practise, or language you speak. Mental illness however isn’t a constant, rather it is determined through the context of social norms.

Let’s reconsider our chainsaw wielding psychotic. Place him on the high street covered in other peoples blood, and he’s regarded a lunatic, who must be locked away for the safety of the society. Put him on a battlefield in a foreign country, wearing army fatigues covered in other people’s blood, and he comes home a hero and gets a medal, probably going on to appear on a variety of day time television shows.

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Generally any behaviour, or cognitive deficiency that falls outside of societal norms will be classified a mental illness. The problem is that after removing the person least conforming to the norm, inevitably leads to another person replacing them, taking on the mantle of now being the group’s “craziest” member. This is a phenomenon that I have first hand experience of.

Having worked in classrooms for over fifteen years I have seen this dynamic conformed to without exception. Every class has its clown, or trouble maker, and some days the teacher is lucky because they will be sick and not come to school. The teacher naturally believes, that with the instigator of most of the classroom trouble away, they’re in for an easier day. WRONG! Because what happens is the role of classroom clown simply gets passed on to someone else. It’s like there’s been an understudy who’s almost equally as proficient, waiting in the wings for their opportunity. It’s like they’ve been the understudy waiting for the role the whole time. Every group dynamic requires roles to be fulfilled, the classroom being no different. Remove the “crazy” person from society and the title simply gets passed on to the next, least conforming, “craziest” person that remains. Just like Self implies, the quantity of sanity is static, but dynamic on account of it being passed from one person to another. The role of classroom joker can’t be removed, only transferred to someone else.

This suggests that society plays a significant part in determining the our role within it. This also implies that society influences our behaviour, and asks the question, how free is free will?

Unless an individual has a particularly strong character, the rigidness of societal norms often forces its members to conform, whether consciously or not, and regardless of whether conformity has negative implications. Indeed, any negative implications are disregarded because they fall outside of those defined by the society’s norms. And that’s how it becomes acceptable for a group of people to eat the dead in South America, for people to practice self mutilation on the streets of Thailand, and how a nation of people can be convinced into pursuing genocide. The desire to conform to others’ expectations, particularly if their expectations are regarded by the majority as being unquestionably right, can lead to a strong urge for conformity, irrespective of what the consequences of conformity might be.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti

This six minute video is an example of how our desire to fit in overrides common sense. The participants may only be standing up or sitting down, but the compulsion to follow others is clear enough for us to ask the question, what lengths will people go to, to fit in?

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Group dynamics and environmental factors are immensely powerful determinants of behaviour. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted psychologist, Philip Zimbardo in 1971, to this day it remains one of psychology’s most infamous and divisive pieces of research. Initially scheduled to last fourteen days, the experiment was abandoned after only six. Zimbardo wanted to simulate prison conditions using participants arbitrarily assigned the roles of prisoner or guard. Zimbardo expected to see some degree of participants conforming to their roles, but what unprepared for the complete collapse of basic human behaviour. Despite the experiment rapidly spiraling out of control Zimbardo failed to notice and act accordingly. It wasn’t until someone, not involved in the experiment, witnessed what was happening and told Zimbardo to abandon the research immediately. All the participants had embodied their roles far quicker, and more completely than Zimbardo had anticipated. Perhaps even more worrying is that Zimbardo himself admits to playing a role within the experiment, that of prison warden, and losing all impartial objectivity. The environment and the circumstances of the experiment overpowered everyone’s objectivity. The prisoners, despite having done nothing wrong, assumed their roles as prisoners and accepted the guards authority. The guards were quickly corrupted and showed the most disturbing behaviour. They devised degrading, non-physical means of punishment, much of it in elaborate, creative, disturbing ways. The Stanford prison experiment has received enormous criticism, ranging from its ethics to its results. I believe that there are reasons to believe that there is some truth in what Zimbardo discovered. One of the most compelling reasons was demonstrated by American reservists at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq.

Abu Ghraib

What happens when you ask inexperienced, untrained people to do a stressful job in dangerous conditions, in a foreign environment, supported by no clear chain of command?

The events that took place during August and September, 2003 at the prison complex at Abu Grahib is one the more shameful stories to have come out of American involvement in Iraq. The American Army, desperate for intelligence on the whereabouts of Iraqi weapons that were falling into the hands of Iraqi citizens determined to resist the American invasion. The Abu Grahib detention centre was put under the control of American reservists, with no experience of working in prisons or detaining people, they received no training that might in any way have prepared them for being given such a task. Like the Stanford Prison Experiment, things got out of hand quickly.

In a Lord of the Flies type of scenario, untrained, inexperienced guards, with no chain of command taking responsibility, established a societal norm of barbarity and humiliation. When interviewed today, each of the participants confesses to knowing what they were doing was “stupid”. Their need for conformity was greater than their need to uphold moral integrity, but then isn’t this an essential requirement of any soldier in combat?

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Nazis

History provides us with too many examples of what happens when environmental circumstances, the need for conformity, and a morally bankrupt ideology conspire to lead a large group of people to behave in uncharacteristically cruel, barbaric ways.

Perhaps the most striking example of the evil that can occur when people are motivated to conform to a society with corrupted norms id the Nazis. And within the Nazis the case of Adolf Eichmann stands out. Eichmann, was responsible for overseeing the logistics of the holocaust. Eichmann was responsible for the efficiency of a process that led to the deaths of over six million Jews, as well as many more Romani Gypsies, gay people, the mentally ill and priests.

After the war Eichmann fled to Argentina and was in hiding there until Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, captured him and took him back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. From a combination of Eichmann’s court testimony and historical documents, Hannah Arendt concluded that Eichmann wasn’t a monster, or a sociopath. In fact Eichmann appeared mundanely normal. Eichmann recounted how he was responsible for arranging the transportation of Jews to the death-camps. He saw it as a logistical, theoretical task that he wished to make as efficient as possible. During his trial, Eichmann chillingly stated on several occasions, “I was just doing my job”. In short, Eichmann was conforming with the abhorent societal norms of a society that respected abhorrent behaviour. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Whether madness, evil, or just bad behaviour, none of these are values set in stone. Instead our interpretation of these they are dynamic, subject to being defined by our society’s changing morality. Was Nazism an epidemic of madness and evil? It’s not unreasonable how it might be viewed this way. Humans are social creatures with a predisposition to fit in with others, throughout our evolution conformity has been necessary for survival. What society expects of us has a great bearing on how we act. As the saying goes “evil will prevail when good men do nothing”, but understanding what is evil and what is good, in a society that is changing rapidly, is far from easy, but must never be used as an excuse to forget our fundamental responsibilities as humans.

Next time I will continue from here and look at memes, mind viruses, and why bad ideas spread quicker than good ones:

Memes Religion and Nazis

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Contagions of Madness and Evil Is it just me, or is everyone going crazy? I've often entertained myself by thinking of the chaos that could be brought upon mankind if mental illnesses were, like physical ones, contagious .

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