Madness is pride as long as there are few madmen!

2026-06-17 19:52:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

There's a reason why healthy societies call madness what departs from reason. Not because the majority is necessarily always right, but because there are some minimal logical limits without which coexistence becomes impossible.

Currently in Albania we are experiencing a strange phenomenon: Madness is no longer trying to justify itself.

It is seeking to be declared a virtue, a morality, a cause, a law, a constitution, a canon. It is seeking applause and followers.

Until yesterday, it was shameful to change your stance every week; to deny what you said yesterday; to insult a politician in the morning and defend him at dinner. To be Albanian in the morning, Greek at lunch, Serbian in the afternoon and Italian in the evening.

Today this is presented as cleverness! Yesterday it was unacceptable to ask for votes from citizens and at the same time declare that the system in which you are competing is illegal and cannot be defeated with votes.

Today this is presented as heroism! And the more this logic spreads, the less it seems like madness. It seems more like an insult. When the madman is alone, people notice immediately. When the madmen become a crowd, normal people begin to doubt themselves.

Therefore the axiom remains valid: madness is pride as long as there are few madmen. The moment it becomes massive, it turns into a public danger. Or, or into stupidity. Or worse still, into wickedness.

Because then "Madness-Stupidity-Evil" deforms not only individual judgment, but political and social reality itself.

Albania today does not suffer from a lack of information. It suffers from a lack of coherence. From the ability to accept as true two things that exclude each other.

To be against the system and at the same time a product of it.

To declare revolution and preserve the privileges of the establishment.

To demand morality from those you accused of immorality yesterday.

And when these contradictions are not only tolerated, but applauded and pursued, the problem is no longer with the individual. The problem is with society, which begins to call normal what it considered absurd yesterday.

The problem begins when madness becomes fashionable. When people are no longer ashamed of it, but proud of it.

Political history is full of people who were convinced they possessed the absolute truth. No one did. Madness may give you momentary strength for a while, but it does not automatically make you right. Madness may produce noise, but not necessarily reason.

Experience shows that societies do not collapse when madmen appear. They collapse when madmen begin to believe that they are the geniuses of the time and when the crowd begins to applaud and follow them./ CNA