Foucault, "Madness" and How it All Came to Be . . .

In a fascinating romp through history, post-modern secular French philosopher Michel Foucault explores how "madness" or "insanity" has developed as a concept throughout medieval and modern/post-modern Western history.

In his acclaimed Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault describes how once Western Europe conquered leprosy as a disease, the "empty sociological space" that the outcast leper once occupied must now be occupied by a different denizen of the Realm.

Whereas in the Middle Ages, the "madman" could range from annoying town fool to later being categorized as "mad" and sent off aboard a ship to avoid contact with normal society (the famous "Ship of Fools" metaphor is derived from this late medieval practice!), now, through the institutionalization of Christendom, the "madman" (along with the debtor, and the criminal) could be isolated in confinement.

Part of what I love about Foucault's work is his historical sensitivity and his ability to "imagine" how certain concepts that once meant a certain type of sociological arrangement in one era of history, could suddenly mean something entirely different in a new era of history.

In medieval France, the "madman" or "insane" person was little more than a town nuisance, yet once leprosy was conquered, a new "outcast" was needed, and thus the "insane person" suddenly fit the bill and was imprisoned as a result!

But is this the entire story?

Truly, as any graduate student in Theology, Ethics or Philosophy would know, Michel Foucault is one of the foremost philosophical voices of the late twentieth century.

But, although such scholarly acumen is praiseworthy, the Christian version of the story always remains different.

In the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Medieval Doctor of the Catholic Church, due to the unified Christian Governmental umbrella provided by the See at Rome, Christian Orthodoxy ruled. As such, rather than later secular understandings of 'rationality' prevailing in the High Middle Ages, to be 'rational' according to St. Thomas Aquinas was to have one's mind in conformity with God Who Is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Although Islam was encroaching both in North Africa and at the gates of Byzantium, to think of God as anyone other than Father, Son and Holy Spirit was heretical. Moreover, since a Trinitarian Christian society was assured "rationality" truly was nothing other than conformity to the Divine Mind as Revealed in Jesus Christ, the LOGOS.

Granted, such "LOGOS-theology" was more of an Eastern Greek emphasis yet, in Aquinas' own thought, such Patristic and Medieval Greek Thinkers are nonetheless a common resource for Aquinas.

Thus, in the Christian worldview, to be "rational" is to be "Jesus-like" for the Divine Mind is the source of all human rationality and only revealed through the LOGOS, either directly through Jesus Christ, or more indirectly as part of the divine rationality intrinsic to creation itself that can be found in the Natural Law, also emphasized by Thomas Aquinas.

Interestingly, this equating of "rationality" with Christian virtue is noticed by Foucault in an inverse sense when Foucault notes how "madness" was itself a "vice" in the Middle Ages (p. 24), but since Foucault is a philosopher and social commentator (and not a Theologian), the connection is not made here concerning how and why the "madman" moves from a mild sinner to a communal outcast, except of course through Foucault's excellent sociological commentary.

Therefore, in contradistinction, yet harmony with Foucault's analysis, the "birth of modern insanity" as a concept can be traced not simply to such social dislocation, but more importantly to the breakdown of Christendom itself!

First, with the Protestant Reformation and consequent splintering of ecclesial authority, and then with the encroaching secularism in the form of modern Enlightenment Thought (most notably, Immanuel Kant), "Rationality" increasingly became defined outside of any specifically Theological framework, either ecclesially OR epistemologically. "To be Rational" (for Kant and other Enlightenment Thinkers) soon became nothing other than being a well-educated European. Gone was the understanding that Rationality was to be defined by participation in the Triune God-head of Father, Son & Holy Spirit through the Divine LOGOS Who is Jesus Christ! Instead, to be "rational" soon became nothing other than to be well-educated!

In closing, in our own post-Christian society of the U.S.A., be very careful what you label as "mad or insane" because such categories are no longer defined by the Church of Jesus Christ (Catholic or Protestant), but instead are defined simply by whomever can wield enough political power to have someone institutionalized! In fact, even our beloved President George W. Bush was labelled by Democratic leader Howard Dean as being 'delusional . . .'

God help us if those god-less democrats ever get in power!

Blessings in Jesus Christ, the Source of ALL Rational Thought,
Rob J. King Thinker for Jesus . . .