Madness and Civilization

MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION Michel Foucault ← Context → Background information Paul-Michel Foucault was born on October fifteen 1926 in Poitiers. His father was a doctor, and he had a standard provincial upbringing. He was educated at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) in Paris from 1946 to 1950, where he studied philosophy and psychology and was briefly a member of the French communist party. Foucault observed clinics at the Sainte-Anne mental asylum whilst he was at the ENS. After graduating, Foucault taught psychology at Lille University. In 1955 he went to Sweden as the head of the French cultural delegation to Uppsala. He wrote much of Madness and Civilization, his first major work, at the University of Uppsala. Foucault was transferred to Poland, then to Hamburg. Madness and Civilization was presented as his doctoral thesis in 1960, and was published in 1961. Foucault became a professor of philosophy and psychology at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in 1960. This appointment represented the beginning of his career as a public intellectual. He joined the editorial board of the French critical journal, Tel Que. Other works followed: a study of the poet Raymond Roussel (1963), The birth of the clinic (1963), The order of things (1966), The Archeology of Knowledge (1969) Discipline and Punish (1975) and the three volumes of his ##History of Sexuality##. Foucault taught in Tunisia and at the University of Vincennes before his appointment to a Professorship in the History of Systems of Thought at the highly prestigious College de France in 1970. Foucault was not only an intellectual and philosopher, but also a political activist. He was involved in a wide range of protests and campaigns: against the war in Algeria, against racism, against the ##Vietnam War##, for prison reform. For much of the 1970s his political work occupied him almost entirely. Foucault was openly gay, and lived with his long-term partner Daniel Defert. He died of an AIDS-related illness in 1984. Historical and Philosophical contexts Foucault's intellectual family tree is hard to trace. Throughout his career, he was hostile to attempts to link him to any philosophical movement. He did suggest several important influences on Madness and Civilization. The first is the historian of religion Georges Dumezil, who got Foucault a job at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. Dumezil was an expert on Indo-European religion, and emphasized sets of relations between various traditions and structures. He is often seen as a forerunner of the structuralist movement. Foucault claimed that Dumezil's notion of the importance of structure influenced him greatly. Dumezil was also important in introducing him to the medical and scientific libraries of Uppsala, which provided much of the raw material for Madness and Civilization.

Foucault's relationship to "structuralism" itself is complex. He repeatedly denied being a "structuralist", but many critics have nevertheless linked his work to that of structuralist thinkers such as Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Lacan. Structuralism as a movement attempted to study particular philosophical structures and systems of language. It derives from the work of the linguistic theorist de Saussure, who emphasized the role of "signs" in language. Signs are composed of the sounds that "signify" a word, and the object or concept that they signify. Speech and language are a complex interplay of different signs. Many of Foucault's concerns might be described as "structuralist", such as his interest in the role of language and systems of power in controlling individuals. More importantly, his conception of the individual resembles that of many other structuralists. Although much of Foucault's work is aimed at giving individuals trapped within a particular discourse a "voice", universal ideas of human nature or man are meaningless. For him, the wider structures that control and create man are more important. Another key figure is Foucault's mentor, Georges Canguilhem. Canguilhem was a historian of science who taught Foucault at the ENS in Paris. Foucault claimed that Canguilhem was a major influence over the original dissertation from which Madness and Civilizationwas drawn, a claim he always denied. Certainly, Canguilhem acted as an examiner of the thesis and academic patron. His comments onMadness and Civilization are particularly perceptive. A more practical context is Foucault's experience of psychiatric hospitals as a student. He was briefly hospitalized for depression in his twenties, and later became interested in the practice of psychiatry. He observed clinics and worked with doctors at the famous Sainte-Anne mental hospital near Paris, eventually taking a diploma in psychology. Foucault briefly considered a career in psychiatry before turning to philosophy and philosophical psychology. It is uncertain exactly how these experiences informed his work, but it is clear that Foucault had first-hand knowledge of the modern treatment of madness. Foucault's influence on the study of madness is considerable. This influence is particularly marked in America, and is most evident in the adoption of his terminology by other philosophers and historians. The "anti-psychiatry" movement, which opposed many modern psychiatric practices, also claimed Foucault as a patron saint. A diverse range of writers on the history of science, medicine and psychiatry have also been influenced by him. Arguably, many writers adopt Foucault without considering the implications: his role as the fashionable theorist of 1980s and 90s has resulted in many bad books allegedly inspired by him. It is possible to see many of the important themes of Foucault's later thought introduced in this work. The idea of deep structures, of writing a history of knowledge about a certain topic, and of the discourse are all introduced here.Madness and Civilization represents the beginning of Foucault's various attempts to unravel the working of various types of power in modern society. Criticism of Foucault's methods and conclusions is also widespread. Traditionally, he is accused by historians of mishandling evidence and ignoring previous work in various fields. Foucault's legendary carelessness with footnotes and references may have something to do with this. For example, Foucault claimed

that image of the Ship of Fools at the beginning of Madness and Civilization was real. Historians proved that it in fact existed only in books; Foucault declined to comment. Of all the criticisms of Madness and Civilization, however, that of Jacques Derrida is best known. In "Cogito et Histoire de la folie", Derrida argued that Foucault fundamentally misread Descartes. This provoked a stern reply from Foucault. Formidable opposition is lined up against Foucault: his obscurity, hostility to traditional institutions and sloppy scholarship do not endear him to some people. Indeed, one critic said that "Foucaultbashing is the favorite indoor sport of American academics".

General Summary → Madness and Civilization is a deep and complex treatment of the role of madness in Western society. It begins by describing end of leprosy in Europe and the emergence of madness as a replacement for leprosy at the end of the Middle Ages. The Ship of Fools which wandered the waterways of Europe was a symbol of this process. Great uneasiness arose about madmen. Fantastic images of madness, that associated it with dark secrets and apocalyptic visions became important. A change occurred in the seventeenth century. Madness became tamed and existed at the center of the world.

The position of madness changed in the classical period. A "Great Confinement" occured. Madness was shut away from the world, along with a range of other social deviants. Houses of confinement were places where power was exercised, not medical establishments. Confinement represented a series of practices and disciplines: Foucault explains attitudes toward madness in terms of economic ideas, attitudes to labor and ideas of the city. Confinement was related to the police, which Foucault sees as a range of measures that make work possible and necessary for those who cannot do without it. Madness was constructed in this period as a place set apart from a world that valued work. The theme of the animality of madness was central to confinement.

The passions were also important in classical madness; because they unite body and soul, they allow madness to occur. Foucault analyses the concept of delirium, which is a discourse that essentially defines madness. Classical madness is a discourse that departs from the path of reason. The link between madness and dreams was also an important part of the classical conception of madness. There were four key themes within the classical conception of madness: melancholia/mania and hysteria/hypochondria. They were located within medical and moral debates, and were eventually seen as mental diseases as time progressed.

Cures and treatments for various aspects of madness emerged. For the first time, society attempted to cure and purify the madman. This change in the techniques of confinement occurred at the same time as a shift in epistemology, exemplified by Descartes's formula of doubt. A further evolution in the status if confinement occurred. The madman appeared as a figure with social presence. Madness altered human relations and sentiments. But public fear developed around confinement.

A shift occurred in the nineteenth century. Confinement was condemned and attempts were made to free the confined. Confinement was represented as an economic error as much as a humanitarian issue. A need developed to separate madness from other deviants. The place of madness became insecure. The asylum replaced the house of confinement. In an asylum, the madman became a moral outcast, and his keepers tried to act upon his conscience and feelings of guilt. The model of the family now structured madness. At the end of the nineteenth century, madness became moral degeneracy. From the asylum, a new relationship between the doctor and the patient developed, culminating in Freud's psychoanalysis. The work ends with Foucault's interpretation of the complex relationship between madness and art.

Important Terms → Artaud - Antonin Artaud (1896–1948). A French actor, writer and dramatic theorist, Artaud was a drug addict and spent a large part of his life in a lunatic asylum. His most influential work, The Theater and its Double, is a collection of essays and articles about dramatic theory. Artaud's delusions and madness are a central part of his art and life. For Foucault, he represents a particular relationship between art and madness; he is part of a growing tradition of artists and writers who succumb to madness. Artaud's madness is exactly the absence of a work of art; his life was a struggle between creativity and insanity. To an extent, Artaud's name is a kind of token for Foucault; he refers to him without analyzing his work in any depth Cervantes - Miguel Cervantes (1547–1616), Spanish novelist, and author of Don Quixote. Don Quixote, who travels around Spain acting out imaginary deeds of chivalry, is for Foucault a symbol of the integration of madness into Renaissance life. Together with Shakespeare, the work of Cervantes represents madness as the ultimate limit of reality. The classical period - The time period from 1660 to the end of the 19th century.Madness and Civilization, like most of Foucault's works, refers mainly to this period. For Foucault, the classical period sees as the birth of many of the characteristic institutions and structures of the modern world. Madness in the classical period is confined and silenced, along with other forms of social deviance.

Cogito - The argument "cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") comes from Descartes's Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. For Foucault, it represents a key shift in the conception of madness. The cogito argument begins in doubt; Descartes attempts to counter the position of extreme skepticism about the world and his own existence. He asks, "How do I know that I exist?", and wonders if he is not mad or being deceived about his own existence. The answer is essentially that, even if all other evidence is discounted, Descartes knows that he doubts his existence; and because he doubts, he must be thinking. If he is thinking, he must exist and cannot be deceiving himself. There are various problems of interpretation that affect this argument, but Foucault ignores them. What interests him is the way that Descartes reveals the self-confidence of reason in the classical period. Descartes believes he cannot be mad because he reasons; reason opposes itself absolutely to madness. Foucault's interpretation of Descartes was heavily criticized by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his "Cogito et Histoire de la folie" (Cogito and the history of madness). Confinement - Confinement is a phenomenon specific to the eighteenth century, by which society creates a space in which certain social deviants, including criminals, the idle poor and the mad are locked up and excluded. Confinement began, Foucault argues, with the building of the Hopital General in 1656, and ended during the French Revolution when attitudes to madness changed. Confinement was possible because of a combination of economic and social factors; it represented far more than the construction of buildings to house lunatics. Delirium - Delirium comes from the Latin word deliro, meaning to move out of the proper path. In this context it essentially means to move away from the path of reason. Foucault argues that there were two forms of delirium in the classical period. The first was a general symptom of various forms of madness; the second was a particular discourse that distorted the madman's relationship to the truth. Classical delirium is a phenomenon of language; madness becomes a sustained, untrue belief. The various "cures" developed in asylums were designed to alter delirious belief and restore sanity. See also discourse Descartes - Rene Descartes, (1596–1650), French philosopher, and author ofMeditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method. The relationship between the human body, as matter in motion, and the soul is a central concern for Descartes. He is perhaps best known for the "cogito ergo sum" argument, by which he believed he had proved that human thought and existence is not a fantasy, or a trick played on us. Foucault's views the Cogito as a key philosophical shift in man's conception of madness. Discourse - Discourse is central concept for Foucault, which is first introduced in Madness and Civilization but developed in his later work. A discourse is essentially a total system of knowledge that makes true or false statements possible. Certain statements become possible within certain discourses. The discourse of madness is particularly powerful. The madman believes unreal things to be true because the delirious discourse that structures his belief dictates it. See also delirium. Goya - Francisco Goya, Spanish painter (1726–1848). Foucault finds some of the nightmarish figures of Goya's darker, hallucinatory works representative of various kinds of madness, and of the experience of

classical unreason in general. He draws a line from Goya to Artaud, Nietzsche and others; all these artists let the almost silent voice of unreason speak. Madness - Madness for Foucault is a term with many meanings. It has a complex relationship to unreason; it is both part of unreason and separate from it. It is essentially constructed and controlled by the intellectual and cultural forces that operate within society. The treatment of the mad depends fundamentally on how they are perceived, Madness in the middle ages was associated with dark secrets and visions of the end of the world; in the classical period, however, it was confined along with other forms of social deviance and lost its exclusive status. The modern idea of madness as a treatable mental disease developed from nineteenth century ideas of madness as a kind of moral evil. Nerval - Gerard de Nerval (1808–55), French poet and writer. Foucault views him, along with other insane artists such as Nietzsche and Artaud, as representative of the link between madness and art. Nietzsche - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Nietzsche was a deep influence on all of Foucault's work. In the context of madness and civilization, Foucault discusses Nietzsche along with Artaud, Van Gogh and others as part of a tradition of mad artists. Nietzsche was mad for the last years of his life. For Foucault, the beginning of madness is the necessary end of the work of art; in a sense, Nietzsche's value as a philosopher and artist begins and ends at this point. Police - Foucault defines the police as a set of rules and tactics that make work possible and necessary for those who cannot do without it. it becomes important in Foucault's discussion of the relationship between madness and labor. The "police" in French thought had always referred not to the idea of a modern police force, but to a set of laws and customs that regulated behavior. Unreason - Unreason, like madness, is a term that shifts in meaning. Essentially, it refers to those people, literary works and experiences that are beyond reason. Foucault thinks that classical unreason is reason "dazzled", blinded by the light of experience. In the classical period, reason sought to confine unreason in the shape of social deviance; at this point unreason included the mad, the bad and the lazy. Madness and unreason have a complex and changing relationship; sometimes madness forms part of unreason, but sometimes they are clearly separated. Important Themes, Ideas, and Arguments → Madness and unreason

Madness and Civilization explores the changing relationship between madness and unreason. The true nature of both terms is rarely expressed or allowed to speak, and frequently one forms part of the other. Unreason is defined as "reason dazzled" or confused in the period of confinement. In the modern period, however, unreason is pushed further beneath the surface of society, and is understandable only through certain artists; madness on the other hand, becomes mental illness, and is treated and controlled by medical and psychiatric practices. Unreason is somehow lost after the eighteenth century, a situation which Foucault laments.

The construction of madness

This is Foucault's central idea. Throughout Madness and Civilization, Foucaulut insists that madness is not a natural, unchanging thing, but rather depends on the society in which it exists. Various cultural, intellectual and economic structures determine how madness is known and experienced within a given society. In this way, society constructs its experience of madness. The history of madness cannot be an account of changing attitudes to a particular disease or state of being that remains constant. Madness in the Renaissance was an experience that was integrated into the rest of the world, whereas by the nineteenth century it had become known as a moral and mental disease. In a sense, they are two very different types of madness. Ultimately, Foucault sees madness as being located in a certain cultural "space" within society; the shape of this space, and its effects on the madman, depend on society itself.

Structure

The idea of structure is implicit in all of Foucault's work. In writing a history of madness, he wants to penetrate beneath the surface of society to find the cultural, intellectual and economic structures that dictate how madness is constructed. He is concerned with changing patterns of knowledge, sets of relations, and broad themes. In this account, the actions of individuals are less important; people such as Samuel Tuke and Philippe Pinel represent certain tendencies and a certain discourse about madness. Madness and Civilization is ultimately a book about madness, not individual madmen. This tendency to consider deep structures instead of individual personalities is extended in Foucault's later work, where his concept of the discourse is seen to control and define the lives of individuals in subtle and powerful ways.

Madness and art

The convoluted relationship between madness and art is explored, but never fully explained in Madness and Civilization. The work as a whole shows Foucault's interest in literature, and his belief in the importance of using literary works as sources in a historical or sociological work. His discussion of

madness in the Renaissance, for example, draws heavily on the works of Shakespeare and Cervantes; for Foucault, the fictional character of King Lear reveals much about the role of madness in society.

His central argument, however, rests on the idea that modern medicine and psychiatry fail to listen to the voice of the mad, or to unreason. According to Foucault, neither medicine nor psychoanalysis offers a chance of understanding unreason. To do this, we need to look to the work of "mad" authors such as Nietzsche, Nerval and Artaud. Unreason exists below the surface of modern society, only occasionally breaking through in such works. But within works of art inspired by madness, complex processes operate. Madness is linked to creativity, but yet destroys the work of art. The work of art can reveal the presence of unreason, but yet unreason is the end of the work of art. This idea partly derives from Foucault's love of contradiction, but he feels that it reveals much about modern creativity.

Paradox and contradiction

Foucault relies heavily on contrast and contradiction. From the contrasting images of leprosy and the Ship of Fools at the beginning of the work onwards, Madness and Civilization is structured around a series of conceits and paradoxes. The experience of madness and unreason is complex, Foucault suggests, and this complexity is echoed in his work. Academics have criticized Foucault for what they see as his chronic obscurity, but at least part of the problem comes from his attitude to language and discourse. Those who are labeled as mad can become "trapped" within their own delirious discourse and within the structures designed to confine them: perhaps the experience of being trapped inside some of Foucault's more difficult sentences is meant to echo this. Or perhaps he was just incapable of writing clearly…

Stultifera Navis → Summary

Foucault begins by discussing leprosy. Leprosy vanished from the Western world at the end of the Middle Ages. Lepers were formerly isolated within the community in special sanatoria. Although the disease of leprosy disappeared, the structures that surrounded it remained.

The Ship of Fools, or Narrenschiff, appeared as leprosy vanished. It was a literary device that had a real existence. Towns dealt with madmen by expelling them. Places to care for the insane did exist in towns, but they often only attracted the mad. The expulsion of madmen was only one of a number of ritual exiles. Complex symbolism was involved in the expulsion. The madman had to be both excluded and enclosed. Foucault asks why, if this theme is so deeply embedded in European culture, the Ship of Fools suddenly appeared. He says that it appeared because of a great uneasiness that began at the end of the Middle Ages. Madmen became dangerous and ambiguous figures.

Madness or folly is important in tales and fables. In such tales, the madman speaks the truth. Folly is also important in learned literature; it is at the heart of reason. From the fifteenth century on, madness has haunted the Western imagination. Initially, death was the dominating theme. Madness was substituted for death, but both were part of the same theme. Madness formerly meant not realizing that death is close at hand. Now, madness became like death.

The image and the word, painting and text, are closely linked in this idea of madness. But in fact the two are pulling apart. Slowly, images separate from language and revolve around their own world of madness. A fascination develops with images of madness. Fantastic animals reveal man's dark, hidden nature. Madness also fascinates because it is knowledge; absurd figures and images are part of a complex system of learning. The madman possesses a kind of forbidden knowledge that relates to the end of the world. The end of the world is the triumph of madness. The Renaissance expressed what it understood of the threats and secrets of the world in madness. In the same period, literary, philosophical and moral themes of madness were different. In the Renaissance, madness moves from being one of many vices to being the key human weakness. This concept has little to do with the dark world. No mystery is concealed. Knowledge is linked to madness; madness is the truth of knowledge because knowledge is absurd. Fake learning leads to madness.

Madness is linked to man and his weaknesses and self-perception. In literary and philosophical expression, the fifteenth century experience of madness takes the form of a commonplace spectacle. But new forms of madness develop; madness by romantic identification, as in Cervantes; the madness of vain presumption, which is present in all men to an extent; the madness of just punishment; and the madness of desperate passion, as in Ophelia and King Lear. Shakespeare's and Cervantes' experiences of madness are vital to understanding seventeenth- century literary madness. For Shakespeare and Cervantes, madness was beyond appeal; it is situated in ultimate regions. But madness becomes the image of punishment rather than the real thing. It is deprived of dramatic seriousness because it is fake. Madness takes one thing for another. It establishes a kind of false equilibrium.

The classical idea of madness was born. The threat it posed in the fifteenth century subsided. It was no longer associated with the end of the world, and was no longer the absolute limit. The ship of fools became moored and became a hospital. Madness was tamed. A new pleasure was taken in it. The world of the seventeenth century was strangely hospitable to madness. Madness was at the heart of things, but few memories of its former disturbing incarnation survive.

Analysis

Beginning with leprosy, Foucault analyzes a complex series of themes. He attempts to show the position of madness before the classical period. He charts a series of intellectual changes and a reorganization of knowledge about madness. The Narrenschiff, or ship of fools, is a symbol of the changing status of madness, which is linked to a wider network of symbols. The fifteenth century book from which the Narrenschiff is drawn, written by Sebastian Brandt, mixes woodcut images of madness with text. Many readers have pointed out that this is Foucault's only source for the ship of fools; there is little evidence that the ship actually existed.

Writers before Foucault have discussed the great significance of death in European culture in the late middle ages. Churches and tombs had images of skeletons and of Death itself. Death was not marginalized, but existed at the heart of people's life. However, it was also something that was opposed to life. This is how Foucault can see madness as both replacing and resembling death. Madness resembled death because it was a frightening phenomenon that threatened life and reason. But it also replaced death as a concern because people's concerns changed.

Madness took up the role of death, but also became linked to the theme of apocalypse. The apocalypse was a Christian explanation of the end of the world and the second coming of Christ; it was an absolutely central idea in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Foucault feels that madness was a way of expressing and locating concerns about the darker side of life and fear about the end of the world. These shifts in the cultural meaning of madness had an underlying structure. For Foucault, the relationship between language and madness is an important one. This period is one in which language and imagery changed. In Brandt's book, text and pictures were closely related. Writing about madness and seeing it were almost the same thing. Brandt's images cannot express or explain madness on their own, but in the Renaissance they slowly create their own freestanding representation of madness.

Foucault considers the development of the literary representation of madness by Shakespeare and Cervantes. Madness in King Lear and Don Quixote becomes a kind of ultimate limit. Being mad is the worst thing that can happen to anyone, partly because it destroys humanity. But Foucault recognizes that this is an image of madness that reverses and alters reality. It is a "trompe d'oeil" (French for an image that deceives the eye) because it misleads the audience about its essential truth.

All these themes and images slowly alter in the classical period. Madness no longer relates to the apocalypse or the limit of human experience; it also moves to the forefront of human consciousness. As it becomes the most important sin, it has a greater cultural role. A situation arises that gives the mad a kind of temporary respite. While madness is not the source of fear, it is located in the world and accepted by the majority of people. It can do this because its intellectual context had changed; certain cultural themes change, and madness changes with them. Perhaps the ultimate contrast in this book is between madness in the Renaissance and in the present day, where it is located and isolated within certain medical and psychiatric disciplines, and marginalized within the world. By drawing this contrast, Foucault is not claiming that the Renaissance had a "better" idea of madness, or that we should return to such a relatively tolerant attitude. Indeed, he would argue that such a return is absolutely impossible. What he wants to do is to make us consider the role of madness in the modern world, and stop believing that "modern" madness is the only form that insanity can take.

Foucault sees the physical disappearance of leprosy, and of leper houses, as just as important as the cultural changes he charts. A space opens up as leprosy vanishes. It is almost as if a permanent space exists in which certain people can be defined and excluded; when leprosy no longer fills this space, madness appears to occupy it. Madness did not exactly replace leprosy, but the shift between the two conditions represented a move from a concern with diseased bodies to a concern with abnormal behavior, and diseased minds. Foucault can be criticized for his analysis of leprosy, which did not vanish entirely. He frequently uses such flamboyant contrasts to point out the contrast between classical madness and its predecessors.

The Great Confinement → Summary

The classical age reduced madness to silence, after the Renaissance liberated it. The seventeenth century created enormous houses of confinement; one percent of the population of Paris was put there. From the mid-seventeenth century, madness was linked to confinement, which was a place for the unemployed, prisoners, the poor and the insane. 1656 is a key date; it represents the founding of the Hopital General in Paris. This was not a medical establishment; it had a semijuridical and administrative

structure. It had absolute sovereignty over its inhabitants, and jurisdiction without appeal. The Hopital General is related to royal power. This kind of absolutist state extended throughout France and the rest of Europe; government and the Church worked together in a project of confinement. In England, the origins of confinement are less certain. Houses of correction developed in the late sixteenth century. They spread across the country in the seventeenth century.

Confinement became an amalgam of various elements, but at the beginning a certain unity must have existed. A particular group was chosen to replace the leper in places of confinement; we need to discover what constituted this group. Various themes are important in this new attitude to madness: a new attitude to poverty, new reactions to the economic problems of unemployment and idleness, a new work ethic and a new vision of the city in which moral obligation and civil law are linked within authoritarian constraint. These themes were present in the city of confinement and explain how the classical period perceived madness.

Confinement in eighteenth century Europe was related to the police. The police in this sense make work possible and necessary for those who cannot do without it. Confinement is not initially required for taking care the sick, but because of an "imperative of labor". Confinement is closely linked to the condemnation of idleness. From the Renaissance onwards, cities were concerned with ridding themselves of beggars and labor problems. Confinement edicts were aimed at the mass of unemployed population that was rejected and mobilized by the new economic developments. Confinement was one of the answers the seventeenth century gave to the problems of economic crisis. The houses of correction contained vagabonds, the idle and the unemployed. But confinement acquired another meaning outside the crisis period. It became a way of making the confined work and contributing to the prosperity of all. Houses of correction were economic institutions. The classical age used confinement in ambiguous ways to reabsorb unemployment and to reduce labor costs. Measured in these functional terms, houses of correction failed. But labor had ethical status in the classical period. It was a general solution to poverty and the opposite of poverty. They believed that idleness was the chief sin because the idle man feels he does not have to work.

A certain experience of labor formulated a demand for confinement. Confinement was a place of depraved idleness. Madness appeared in a space which a society that placed a high ethical value on labor created. Madness was first defined as another place in which work was sacred. What was new about the classical period was that men were confined to the city in which moral law was applied to all in a physical way. Morality was administered like trade and the economy. A strange moral city existed, in which representations of good were imposed on those who tried to avoid it. Houses of confinement aimed to instill a moral and religious order in their prisoners. The house of confinement was a symbol of

a police that saw itself as the civil equivalent of religion for the edification of the perfect city. Confinement was an institutional construction peculiar to the seventeenth century, but it was also important in the history of unreason. It marked the point at which madness became one of the problems of the city. Less than half a century after madness was openly seen in King Lear and Don Quixote, it was confined and bound to reason and morality.

Analysis

Madness and Civilization is organized around key shifts in the status of madness within society. The Great Confinement is one of these shifts. Confinement involves a series of measures—building houses of confinement and prisons, the creation of a new kind of social space, and the realignment of madness within this space.

Buildings were important as the means by which confinement was achieved. They also have great symbolic value. The Hopital General represents the beginning of confinement and the only place of confinement that Foucault analyzes. Taking one building or text as representative of a whole movement is typical of Foucault's approach.

The creation of a new form of social space was related to the disappearance of leprosy. Foucault sees confinement as a series of social and economic measures that surround certain people and tendencies. Foucault sees society as creating a kind of safe place where it put those who it saw as abnormal: criminals, those who do not work and the mad. Unreason, or the irrational included all these people. They were not confined because they need medical attention, or out of humanitarian concern, but because the power of the state needs to control them. It needs to do this because by separating them from "normal" society the state helps to define itself. Only by controlling the abnormal can the "normal" exist. This is a theme that Foucault returns to in almost all his work. In Discipline and Punish, for example, he explains the rise of the prison system in similar terms.

The realignment of madness is central to Foucault's explanation of confinement. In the classical period madness became part of a wider class of social deviancy, which was defined by its relationship to work. Foucault argues that the mad did not really exist as a separate group, but only as part of a wider deviancy. Criminals and the idle were inseparable from madmen.

The contemporary European political context is central to Foucault's argument. Houses of confinement emerged at a time when European states were expanding and exercising greater control over their citizens. In a way, confinement is linked to the creation of larger armies, and more sophisticated methods of collecting taxes. All of these phenomena express a desire to control, and to define people. However, the problems of a more sophisticated economy were also important. Foucault emphasizes the importance of economics and morality in explaining the development of confinement.

Fundamentally, those who were confined had a negative relationship with labor and the economy. Increasing economic sophistication and production led to cities wanting to resolved labor problems; those who did not want to work were problematic. The seventeenth century economic crisis that Foucault describes was serious and widespread. It involved high inflation, harvest shortages and was matched by political crises in many countries. Confinement was a one response to these problems. An age that tried to define "normality" in terms of economic productivity attempted to isolate and exclude those who could not or would not produce.

But Foucault also stresses the moral dimension of confinement. Economic development was supported by an ethical theory that argued that work was morally good. This was only partly a Christian theory. Morality and work were closely linked, and so those who were confined became bad people. The police, as a series of measures that allowed work to take place, had a moral dimension because law and custom disapproved of idleness and insanity. A great transformation took place. From being integrated into the world at the end of the seventeenth century, madness in the classical period was silenced and isolated. It was not allowed to speak, and was seen as a moral and economic evil. Similarly, the concept of unreason was extended include a wide range of "dangerous" people.

The Insane → Summary

The age of reason confined all sorts of irregular and abnormal people. In doing so, it created its own profile of the experience of unreason. Confinement was primarily concerned with scandal; it imposed secrecy in order to avoid scandal. A change occurred in the consciousness of evil, from the earlier idea of making evil publicly known to confinement, which was based on shame. All forms of unreason that were close to evil had to be hidden away. But there was an exception to this rule: the public exhibition of madmen. This practice occurred in lunatic hospitals such as Bethlehem in London. Confinement hid away unreason but drew attention to madness in order to organize it. The eighteenth century organized exhibition of madmen was not the same as the situation in the Renaissance. In the Renaissance, madness was public and present everywhere, not exhibited behind bars.

The imagery of animals haunted hospitals of this period. Madmen were similar to beasts, and were treated as such. The animality of madness takes away what is human. In the classical period, the madman was not a sick man. Animality protected the madman from whatever was fragile in man. It made him oblivious to cold, hunger or pain. Madness was not linked to medicine or to correction. The only way to master animality was through discipline and brutalizing. When the madman becomes a beast, in a way he is cured because man himself is abolished. An obsession with animality seen as a natural place of madness created the imagery responsible for confinement. The animal was part of antinature, the negativity that endangers the order and reason of nature. Classical practices concerning the insane show that madness was still related to anti-natural animality.

Confinement glorified the animality of madness but tried to avoid the immorality of the unreasonable. If madness was allowed to speak while the rest of unreason was silent, what did it have to say that was so important? At the beginning of the seventeenth century, unreason was no longer so instructive. The great theme of the madness of Jesus began to disappear in the seventeenth century. Christian unreason was marginalized. As Christianity got rid of unreason, the madman became important. The church's concern for madness reveals that it found an important but difficult lesson in it: the guilty innocence of the animal in man.

Madness had a strange relationship with unreason. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries only recognized madness against a background of unreason, which was an absolute freedom. Classical rationalism was on guard against the danger of unreason, a threatening space of absolute freedom

Analysis

Foucault explores the changing relationship between madness and unreason. Irregular and abnormal people were the lazy, wife-beaters, tramps, the work-shy and the mad. Foucault says that that these people were defined as abnormal by their society. They were not inherently odd, but were seen as such by society. Foucault uses the example of these people to show how a split emerged between madness and unreason. Evil unreason, such as those who committed terrible crimes, or pornographers and libertines such as the Marquis de Sade, were hidden away out of shame, and to protect society.

Madness, however, had to be revealed. This was partly to separate it from other forms, but more importantly so that it could be observed. The idea that observation is a form of control and organization is important to Foucault, and is repeated in his later work. The public who paid to see madmen helped to set them in their place, and by being observed the insane could be placed in a particular social space within unreason. An important distinction is drawn between this situation of observation, and the Renaissance experience. Foucault's image of the Renaissance has madness present as a force in society. It was part of everyday experience, not observed in particular situations. Experiencing madness in this way did not involve controlling it.

Foucault's discussion of animality and madness is contradictory and complex. He charts the move from fantastic images of madness in the Renaissance, to one in which the madman was part animal. Seeing madness as bestial justified treating the madman like a beast, but also offered a deeper explanation of his actions and place in the world. Rather than seeing animal qualities as being similar to those that human have, or seeing humans as highly developed animals, this attitude robs the madman of all humanity. By removing his humanity, madness makes the madman dangerously free. He cannot be bound by human laws, and so has to be confined.

Foucault's picture of animality as anti-nature is also confusing. The "animal" is not part of nature because the order of nature implies a rational order. In a way, the practices of confinement are justified by this conception of madness; they attempt to hide away this irrationality.

Foucault develops the relationship between madness and unreason further in this section. He needs to explain why madness is seen as different to the range of deviant behavior that is confined. He explains it in terms of religious change, adding another dimension to the economic and moral elements already discussed. Foucault argues that unreason and religious ecstasy were less important after the seventeenth century, which is commonly seen as a period of great religious enthusiasm. As religious enthusiasm declined, madness appeared to fill it place. In a sense, the Church needed the structure of madness to replace something it had lost; the parallel with the decline of leprosy is obvious. Explaining the Church's concern with madness in terms of kindness or Christian charity is meaningless to Foucault. What matters to him are changes in demand for certain figures or roles, such as the leper or the madman.

The reorganization of madness and unreason is a general theme of Madness and Civilization. In this section Foucault argues that the classical period confined a range of dangerous and liberated behavior, but that this unreason represented the only way of understanding madness. Madness and the way the

mad were treated made sense only against a background fear of absolute liberty. Confining madness, Foucault argues, was the eighteenth century's way of dealing with this fear.