2

Losing your social inhibitions does not mean you will all of a sudden go berserk and start doing crazy things against your will; it is the other way around. When you are uninhibited, you are in true control of yourself, but when you are inhibited, you are not. While this does not mean you will automatically go wild, it does mean that if you really want to do something wild, there will no longer be an invisible barrier blocking you inside your mind. You will no longer be struggling with yourself like a lunatic. You will have full control of yourself for a change; you will be less affected by whatever your upbringing has forced onto you. And when the crowd starts going wild, you have the ability to step aside without mindlessly following along, unlike a member of the crowd

I've searched on Internet and find that "go berserk" means "to go crazy" and "go wild" means "to get very excited", but I still feel hard to understand them in this paragraph? Does they have another meaning? Can anyone explain it? Thank!

Improve this question
3
  • The passage presents a paradox: only when we lose our inhibitions are we in full control of ourselves. The passage says that social inhibitions are not what keep us sane and orderly, such that if these inhibitions were relaxed we would 'go berserk' and 'go wild'; rather they are a form of insanity, something inside our heads telling us not to do what we want to do, which causes us to be in a constant struggle with ourselves. Freed from that struggle, we are able to judge situations clearly and act sanely.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 12:08
  • Can you tell us where "on Internet" you found these definitions? Do you use an English dictionary? What is it about the definitions of berserk and wild that you don't understand? Do you have a reason not to believe the definitions you found?
    – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
    Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 19:41
  • @ P. E. Dant I use idioms.thefreedictionary.com. You can search “go berserk” and “go wild” in here
    – thegioibian
    Commented Oct 28, 2016 at 1:32

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

In your passage:

Social inhibition is a conscious or subconscious avoidance of a situation or social interaction. With a high level of social inhibition, situations are avoided because of the possibility of others disapproving of their feelings or expressions.

So it means if one is freed from social inhibitations they won't go uninhibited or unrepressed all of a sudden because that's how most people are. Hence the words 'berserk' and 'go wild'. Just check the definitions of any word that you can't understand in a passage it will be easier to understand then.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .