Hating the schizoid mind

The schizophrenic world mingles in one experience what is kept painstakingly separate in homo normalis. The “well-adjusted” homo normalis is composed of exactly the same types of experiences as the schizophrenic. Depth Psychiatry leaves no doubt about this…The fact is that the schizophrenic is, on the average, much more honest than homo normalis, if one accepts directness of expression as an indication of honesty. Every good psychiatrist knows that the schizophrenic is embarrassingly honest. He is also what is commonly called “deep,” i.e., in contact with happenings. The schizoid person sees through hypocrisy and does not hide the fact. He has an excellent grasp of emotional realities, in sharp contradistinction to homo normalis. I am stressing these schizophrenic characteristics in order to make comprehensible why homo normalis hates the schizoid mind so much.

The objective validity of this superiority of schizoid judgment manifests itself quite practically. When we wish to obtain truth about social facts, we study Ibsen or Nietzsche, both of whom went “crazy”, and not the writings of some well-adjusted diplomat or the resolutions of the communist Party congresses… This is because the schizophrenic tells us frankly what he thinks and how he feels, whereas homo normalis keeps us digging for years before he feels ready to show his inner structure… This appears to be a sad state of affairs. It should be the other way around. If homo normalis is actually as normal as he claims to be; if he claims that self-realization and truth are the greatest goals of good individual and social living, then he should be much more able and willing to reveal himself to himself and his doctor than the “crazy man”. There must be something basically wrong with the structure of homo normalis if truth is so hard to get out of him. To declare, as the well-adjusted psychoanalysts do, that this is as it should be, that homo normalis could not otherwise withstand the impact of all his emotions amounts to complete resignation regarding the improvement of the human lot. We cannot base improvement of conditions on broader knowledge of man’s soul and simultaneously defend his reluctance to reveal himself. Either we keep broadening the scope of our knowledge of man and condemn the general evasive attitude of homo normalis, or we defend this attitude and give up the task of understanding the mind of man. There is no other alternative (Character Analysis, p. 400-2).