(written for the course Modernism and Postmodernism Period by Wesleyan University)
Foucault and Emerson had similar ideas about society: what it is not according to them, they tend to null, silencing the new by order or by prison to keep the status quo. Although both differ from the people they analyze, they are accurate about one thing: it is very difficult to be ourselves when we are about to be unique.
Michel Foucault, in his book Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, reveals that hospitals for mental illnesses not only had madmen, but also people who could embarrass society for their style of life “In its functioning, or in its purpose, the Hospital General had nothing to do with any medical concept. It was an instance of order, of the monarchical and bourgeois order being organized in France during this period.”. That included single mothers, homosexuals, medicants and even prostitutes “hospitals, prisons, jails – and his philanthropy was outraged by the fact that the same walls could contain those condemned by common law, young men who disturbed their families’ peace or who squandered their goods, people without profession, and the insane.”. Shameless was supposed to be locked up.
One could not be oneself on the risk of being condemned to not fit according to the society rules. Having a baby without being married was against the Church principles, suffering from syphilis would be enough for incarceration due to the consequences of the disease that could even cause mental disorientation. But not only these people who were problem to their families were the target, but also the poor ones being addressed to those called to be distincted, insane, alienated, deranged, demented, extravagant. “For a long time, the house of correction or the premises of the Hospital General would serve to contain the unemployed, the idle, and vagabonds. Each time a crisis occurred and the number of the poor sharply increased, the houses of confinement regained, at least for a time, their initial economic significance.”. It was not a matter of treatment, but of excluding the ones who didn’t belong to the current society. It was a matter of hiding them from the perfect society “it is no longer because the madman comes from the world of the irrational and bears its stigmata; rather, it is because he crosses the frontiers of bourgeois order of his own accord, and alienates himself outside the sacred limits of its ethic.” Therefore, confinement was explained, or at least justify, as a way of containing the scandals, the unreasonable, the madness from a community that couldn’t bear or allow such disorder.
From another stand point, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote Self-Reliance rationalizing about the fear of expressing, the forbidden ideas, conducting the speaker to an ambiguous and safe speech in order to keep the ideas in accordance to what it is expected. “In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”. Having liberal thought, or different ones, guide to a natural rejection of the uncertainty “Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”. Emerson believed that every time we have a new concept, we must face rejection from the traditional, from the current cultural aspect “Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.”
Progress is feared and avoided when it comes to change the unit of conformity. People who don’t believe in themselves don’t believe in others. We may conclude by a famous Emerson quote “For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face.”
Bibliography
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance. 1841
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.