"We see why the scandal of madness could be exalted, while that of other forms of unreason was concealed with so much care. The scandal of unreason produced only the contageous example of transgression and immorality; the scandal of madness showed men how close to animality their Fall could bring them; and at the same time how far divine mercy could extend when it consented to save man. For Renaissance Christianity, the entire instructive value of unreason and of its scandals lay in the Incarnation of God in man. For classicism, the Incarnation is no longer madness; but what is madness is the incarnation of man in the beast, which is, as the ultimate point of his fall, the most manifest sign of his guilt; and, as the ultimate object of divine mercy, the symbol of universal forgiveness and innocence regained. ±-Foucault in “Madness and Civilization”.
The churchmen, whose job it was to provide and police exegesis of Christian dogma in the times Foucault refers to, found in madness a logic that rendered their concept of the fall reasonable. They saw madness as man’s regression to animality, to the brute, innocent determinism that drives the beast. Given this situation, God would have to become a man, would have to suffer all indignities of the human condition and would have to overcome the Adamic/animal in order to offer salvation that could lead to a higher innocence in which free will becomes possible. Jesus, as sacrificial savior, would have had to experirnce madness.
Nowadays, unreason is generally seen as stupidity or reason in infancy. Madness is seen, even in its most intractable manifestations, as curable illness. A psychiatrist, assuming the erstwhile duties of God, can now intervene without experiencing his patient’s condition. The bestial nature of man has now become analogy, not diagnosis. The Fall/Redemption mythos, once considered logical,is not considered unreasonable.
So, no one hear reads Foucault? I’d be especially interested in comments from anyone who has read Derrida’s “deconstruction” of some of F.'s ideas. If you’ve read neither, surely you have an opinion of F’s statement as quoted or of my take on it. I hesitate to pose questions.
Did God have to experience the human psyche through Jesus’ earthly manfestation, or was God embodied in the flesh for a higher purpose?
Thanks for your post.
What higher purpose is there that could not be initiated from the experience of what is human? It certainly would not apply to me.
Well, for me it would be of a spritual nature. Relying on human esoterica without a higher purpose knowing the complexity of emotions which seems pervasive in our makeup, would not fulfill me at this point in my life. I have experienced something that far excels this existence.
Not to deny your experience, I, but to deny how you see it–no human ever transcends humanity. What you see as spiritual is a physical extrapolation known by billions of humans. There is no extra-human reality. There is, however, a human reach, a potential, that can extend from the known into the unknown. Without that potential neither language nor ideals would have evolved. I, personally, cannot accept a disconnect that estranges the knower from what can be known, that posits some extra-human reality that imposes on human reality. If you need that, good for you, not for me. Now, what is your take on the fall/redemption model asFoucault describes it according to 16th and 17th century classicism?
I do speak from personal experience as you know from my previous post. The kind of proof you ask of me can not be obtained soley by my words. It would require your true desire to know and have a personal experience yourself. This knowledge won’t come through reading or scientific research, rather placing faith in the picture with humility as a backdrop. All I would have to offer is my testaments that has affected me spiritually.
Foucault in my estimation, must have been observing through historic collections and visages of his time. I apologize for not knowing of his writings to give you thoughts on that subject. If I have circumvented your OP, I apologize again. It seemed this subject was of importance to you, so I tried to interject some sort of retort since it seemed there were no takers on this discussion. Is he trying to use anthropomorphism in trying to explain Christianic behavior in those eras? I must admit his accounts seems somewhat intriguing trying to understand those situations.
Using scientific methods to understand how people relate to God is like trying to boil water over a picture of a fire in my estimation. If science can’t or won’t venture beyond known physical boundaries of this universe for this kind of understanding, then I fear it will be like a dog chasing it’s tail. If you don’t use all the resources at hand to solve certain problems, then you will most certainly fall short of answers. I would like to have a civil debate with you concerning your OP, but I would rather hear your thoughts than those of Foucalt’s. It would probaly be an enjoyable exploration of thoughts and I would hope to justify your time spent with me.
Thanks, L., for your honesty. I do appeciate that and am somewhat dismayed that few or none here will even tackle a post about reason/unreason as interpreted by religious exegetes or by Foucault.
I’m not into dualism or any other type of mind/body disconnect. I’m not into a relativity of personal experiences. What we have in common is much more important than our differences. Only our attempts to complement and include smack of any religion that can rise above personal selfishness.
“We sometimes think, and even like to think, that the two greatest exertions that have influenced mankind, religion and science, have always been enemies,intriguing us in opposite directions. but this effort at special identity is loudly false. It is not religion but the church and science that were hostile to each other. And it was rivalry, not contravention. Both were religious. They were two giants fuming at each other over the same ground. Both claimed to be the only way to divine revelation.”–Jaynes, 1976.
Ierrellus, thanks for your candor and honesty in this matter. It is obvious our life experiences along with environment has shaped our mindsets. Truths and perceptions vary from person to person. Learning about others thoughts and values helps me understand about the human dynamic. This has increased my tolerance of different veins of reasoning while reducing my judgemental tendencies.
Science in my mind helps us understand the the physical universe we live in. It shouldn’t be used as a vehicle for ‘witch hunting’ of different beliefs. A lot of what science envelopes is extrapolation and theory in it’s different realms. Even some long held postulations of science still fall under scrutiny while some are corrected through further investigation. This is prevelant in religious venues too. Sometimes it all boils down to what makes one comfortable in their world. Heretics exist in both science and religion. Sadly, bad things happen in both due to hard held thinking. I like to explore varying tenets concerning all aspects of life, filter those ideas through my heart (if you will) and apply it through my foudational beliefs to change my thinking as needed. As I have come to realize in my journey in life, I am constantly learning new things.
Thanks, I. Here’s my take–
The common argument many religious-minded persons give in defense of and in propagation of their particular creeds, tenets or beliefs is that reason and experience can be separated into opposing describers of some universal truth. The argument is false because–
- Reason is an experience.
- Interpretations of and and communications about any experience are conveyed through rational language.
- Creeds, tenets and beliefs are personally customized interpretations of an ideal. They cannot claim universality.
- Religions claim certainty where none exists. For many the claim is sufficient to ward of fears born of uncertainty, i.e., the reified ideal serves the purpose.
- If truth could be established in a universal absolute, religion and science would merge in a final conclusion in which reason and belief would quickly become extinct.
I think I understand your position. You base your existence and this universe in which we live soley on empirical findings. Whether or not you were exposed to a religious exprience, tangibility is the vehicle that best serves your needs. Religion bears an irrational precept to your mind wherein relying on a supposed higher entity that usurps the boudaries of what physically perceive.
Being that I was exposed as a child to Christianity, it culminated in me extending beyond those confines through faith and personal experience. When I was a kid, church to me was mainly something I was expected to attend with my family. We didn’t go to church all the time due to our not staying in one place too long. My family wasn’t the consummate example of Christianity, thus it resulted in me not hanging tight to the belief until I had gotten older. When my mind had got to the point where I could make sense of it, that is when it blossomed for me. Through the years, I had experienced things to my mind that were beyond normal explanation. I assure you I was lucid when those occured. Some were subtle while others explicitly obvious. That in and of itself cemented my belief in something other than this world we live in. So, in my estimation, unless people extend their thinking and faith to a being of higher intelligence, they most likely won’t experience what I have in life. Christianity could be viewed as an irrational undertaking, but it’s hard to deny since there hundreds of millions people ascribe to such thinking.
I, my friend, you continue to misunderstand me. I’m not an empricist; I’m a realist whose into pragmatism. I condemn no religion, since it appears as a widespread, human need. I do condemn the “this is the only possible way to truth” ideas of those who have found some self-substantiation in religious beliefs and assume that those beliefs must be everyone’s. I was raised Christian, in the church. I am grateful for the values I was taught; but I am not grateful for the isolationism of belief imposed on me. In the world now, 3 billion folks are into the Abrahamic religions–Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Why are we now in a culture war with a religion (Islam) that came from the same source as ours (Christianity)? Are not the Buddhist and Confucian takes on religion valid? Would a God pick and choose among religious expressions? I am Christian, but not like any you may have met.
You cannot separate the experiences of reason and religion without denying the rationales that make us human. Ideas of some unknowables that affect us are moot; they are not shared in any universal or absolute sense. Atheists can follow the way of Christ without believing in Christ. Are they then condemned by disbelief or are they part of those Jesus claims have the knowing in their hearts without the experience of a teacher? “Come, let us reason together.”
I’m just going to blurt out some words here, I’m not sure if they’re pertinent to the discussion or not But in some traditions the madmen are considered the wise-men, and wasn’t it in Jaynes’ theory of consciousness that the prophets of old were mad/schizophrenic? Couldn’t it be said that there is wisdom to be found beyond the scope of reason?
It may seem strange, but when I read these words explaining the quote from Foucault, I had to think, “How ironic, since the opposite is true!”
I think that the Genesis mythology describing what is referred to as the “fall of mankind” is in some ways describing his “rise” to civilisation, not his regression to animality. The story tells me that people were inspired enough to understand this paradox way back then, and that we are far off in our modern understanding. You see, it was a kind of “innocence” that we otherwise only find amongst animals and young children that human-kind is said to have lost, and it is discrimination that they gained. An animal doesn’t behave immorally, because it, just like small children, is not subject to moral measure. Human beings, on the hand, behave immorally by betraying common standards that civilisation attempted to build.
I think that this opinion has not found favour for so long, because we value our civilisation highly. How can we say that the rise of culture led to immorality and a behaviour that in no way portrays a “regression to animality”, since animals would not behave in a comparable manner and in fact, as the Bible says in numerous passages, the “beast” is wiser than mankind, because it knows what it needs, and where it belongs, whereas mankind does not.
Madness was originally and adjective describing foolishness, which has nothing to do with the lack of sanity, which is meant here. The German “verrückt”, which means to be moved from a reasonable standpoint, suggests that someone who is “mad” in this sense is not where one would expect to find him. The “position” or “standpoint” of reason is expected from a human-being because he is able to be rational and follow a set of agreements, which an animal cannot.
The death of Jesus then, follows the requirements mentioned in as much that the whole process leading to his death is portrayed as being unreasonable and decadent. Christ suffers the “madness” of the “knowledge of good and evil” (duality) and brings his followers back to the wholeness and unity with God (“may all be one, as You are in Me, Father, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us”).
Shalom
I apologize for not comprehending your thoughts. I must have missed in your earlier postings that you are a Christian.
I too am a realist and pragmatist. Dogma and doctrine are scrutizied by me since most of it is contrived by man.
Condemnation of religious beliefs where God is concerned will not serve a purpose. Judgement will be in the Hands of The Lord. If I feel there may be something askew in how someone perceives a scripture in the Bible of the Christian faith, I will express my opinion about it and ask that the person pray about their thinking on it…as will I.
God never promised the path to our salvation would be an easy one. If we treat people with respect, try our best to follow the tenets of the Ten Commandments and accept Jesus as our savior, we will never be alone.
A lot of the reason we are at war with Islamic believers stems from the interpretive reasoning of some of the extremists in that religion in my opinion. Christians who used their doctrinal inflections going against the teachings of the Bible are just as guilty as those who use their religion to ‘kill infidels’. I too on some occasions may have foisted my beliefs circumventing what the Bible really meant. As far as the Confucianists and Bhuddists are concerned, their religious affectations does not involve Jesus’ sacrifice, so I could not effect a relational meaning to them as I do Christianity.
I have no way of knowing God’s Mind. If I take to heart the Bible’s teachings, then I would say if someone who is not a devout Orthodox Jew or of the Christian faith, I would have to extrapolate they may not be accepted in Heaven…this just my opinion and could be wrong in this matter.
If you are Christian as you have stated, then from my point of view it would mean you have accepted Jesus as your Saviour and try to follow His Teachings. That is my idea of a Christian. We all sin everyday I would venture to guess. Having done so and asking forgiveness would keep us in God’s good graces in my opinion.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo
I agree.
Yes, atheists could possibly follow how Jesus lived and taught. If they go as far as doing that and know of Jesus, what would it hurt to extend theirselves with faith and accept Jesus as their Saviour? How could it be considered to be lost time convening in church in fellowship when it promotes brotherhood amongst one another?
John 14:5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you are a Christian as you have stated and believe God exists, then reflection with prayer would be time well spent in buttrussing the spirit. Being a Christian in my reasoning involves humility and resolve served with a side of faith.
Wisdom found beyond the scope of reason…that could apply very heavily to John The Baptist. Crying out in the wilderness wearing animal furs while dunking people in a river in the middle of nowhere. He was perceived as being mad, but was dearly loved by Jesus.
RebelEpsilon,
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. My Am. Native friends still see madmen as closer to spitiual awareness than us sane folks are. There is logic in creativity and creativity in logic.
I,
Where I become the Christian you may not know is in my belief that Jesus was exactly who He said he was–the way, the truth, the life. I cannot accept the idolatry of worshipping a personality when the way can be followed by anyone, regardless of creeds, tenets, etc. Try praying for a madman and see how far that goes toward making him sane.
Bob,
Thanks for coming aboard. I do highly respect your ideas–but are you not imposing what should have been on what actually was?
Digging Deeper,
In the early 1950s we lived about 25 miles from a town whose name had become, at least among the locals, synonymous with its most well-known institution–a large fortress for warehousing the insane. In the early 1980s the institution released all but a few of its captives. In the early 1980s I worked in that town and would go there an hour or so earlier to swill coffee, read and write before I had to be at work. The burger place where I sought my muse soon became populated by those released from the insitution. I would, on most occasions, stop my study in order to hear stories of those, who like “The Ancient Mariner” burned to tell their tales.
The questions of why the institution suddenly opened its doors and let almost everyone out
and of why these people were incarcerated in the first place get to the heart of Foucault’s concern. Were they released because they were cured? Were they released because taxpayers and philanthopists no longer supported the institution? Were they released because someone in authority believed that a warehouse containing many neurotics and a few psychotics caused conditions of the latter to exacerbate conditions of the former?
Perhaps answers to these questions lie in the reasons these people were warehoused in the first place. The easy reason is that no one knew what else to do with them. They, the insane, could not by reasoning adapt to the rational standards that permit families and societies to function smoothly. Since the standards of familial and societal operations were generally based on a marriage of religious and pragmatic concepts, persons who could not apply those to their lives had to be considered soul-sick and infectuous.
Apparently, the “we don’t know what else to do with them” reason for families abandonning their own is alive and well. Unless the law has changed by now, you can go to a state that allows you to drop your incorrigable teenager on the hospital doorstep and be rid of the awful stigma of what the neighbors think.
The consensus from psychriatrists on what should be done is not so concerted as I note in the OP. Kline suggests total chemical therapy; Pszasz (sic) and other anti-psychiatrists would like to see the DSM burned. Cognitive therapists still attempt a combination of talk and minimal chemical therapies. What persists is the reason/unreason view of madness that still stumbles over the problem of “what do we do with them”–a problem hinging on personal and societal standards of ethics.
Ierrellus,
The thing you may not know is we all have the same capability as Jesus through God, The Father. Jesus (look in Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:33-37) helped a madman who was possessed by demons and cast them into swine. The swine became mad and went off a cliff. This had a Biblical connotation behind it because the money changers were dealing in pigs which goes against the tenets of their belief (not to mention their obsession with money business in the synagogue). My point is, we all are capable of what is considered as miracles as Jesus was if we allow ourselves. The more we allow Jesus into our hearts, the closer to God we become.
We’re sane?
I do believe there is much value in escaping from oneself, in escaping the ego via some form of ecstasy. I’m not versed in religion but this is what I would be primarily interested in .
Hi Ierrellus,
I don’t think so. For churchmen to consider madness “a logic that rendered their concept of the fall reasonable” they would themselves have to assume that mankind’s regression to animality, and consequently “madness” amongst those people who are considered “brutish”, was commonplace, since the fall has its effect on all of mankind. But it is on the contrary, that humankind’s “rise” to civilisation of various kinds became commonplace and it is an inability to be “reasonable” in that setting that has constituted “madness”.
Living in a suburb in Germany which too has become synonymous with the Psychiatric Klinik, we too have regularly witnessed a number of inmates in the town but they were generally not communicative in a way that most people could deal with, and they were accompanied by Nurses and the therapeutic staff. When I was working in the old people’s home close to the psychiatry, a number of elderly inmates were released, generally because their ailments required more nursing than the staff could manage. They came to us and we had to accommodate them amongst our residents suffering with dementia, mainly because they too were suffering signs of dementia amongst other ailments.
Generally, they kept to themselves and sought relationships with people they tentatively learnt to trust. I had a number of male inmates on my ward with whom I was best able to communicate and motivate. But they rarely imparted much of their experiences – instead, they attempted to pick up the pieces of their lives, some after thirty years of the psychiatry. Many of them had memories regarding brothers and sisters that were very much alive, but well out of date. Their family members had long moved out of the houses where they had grown up in, which were still in the memories of the inmates, and of course, many of their relatives were no longer alive. Some, for obvious reasons, didn’t want any contact.
I must assume, since that is the way of the world, that funding was lacking. Psychiatry in the fifties and sixties in Germany, were places where scandalous treatment of people took place, for which the society had no inclination to help. The “demented” and the “crazy”, the “frenzied” and the manic depressives, those with psychotic disorders and others who were deemed in the nineties to be able to be released into elderly care, had generally been locked up because there was no other place for them.
In Germany during the eighties, the term “gerontopsychiatry” came into regular use and, applying a basic understanding of dementia and depression, psychotic, psychiatric and other neurological disorders, we started finding ways and means of giving some kind of “normalcy” to the everyday experiences of these people, which had reasonable success. We are still working on that, with some difficulties, especially since the state wants it to be cheap. Of course, that was nearly twenty years ago now. The problems with gerontopsychiatric ailments have become less of a problem than they were and we can cope with them in homes that are a great deal closer to normalcy than before.
I think that you are over-doing the religious bit here, it was probably a more pragmatic solution that anything to do with religious concepts. In fact, in Europe it is often religious or ideological groups who provide a service for these people at all. My experience tells me that people with relatives with psychiatric disorders generally hold out far longer than is healthy for the rest of the family and the myth about people being abandoned to psychiatric hospitals may have been true in the past and is sporadically found here and there, but there are generally reasons that we, those not in such a dilemma, cannot judge.
A sick society has sick people; a deranged society has deranged people. This is supported by even the thought of “burning” people. If we could do something to promote generally the health and health-education of people, we would find that solutions are there. But when fear and prejudice is the main reason for “doing something”, it is generally an atrocity – even if it is declared a legal one.
Shalom