Kliv in i en oändlig värld av stories
How the insane asylum became a laboratory of democracy is revealed in this provocative look at the treatment of the mentally ill in nineteenth-century France. Political thinkers reasoned that if government was to rest in the hands of individuals, then measures should be taken to understand the deepest reaches of the self, including the state of madness. Marcel Gauchet and Gladys Swain maintain that the asylum originally embodied the revolutionary hope of curing all the insane by saving the glimmer of sanity left in them. Their analysis of why this utopian vision failed ultimately constitutes both a powerful argument for liberalism and a direct challenge to Michel Foucault's indictment of liberal institutions.
The creation of an artificial environment was meant to encourage the mentally ill to live as social beings, in conditions that resembled as much as possible those prevailing in real life. The asylum was therefore the first instance of a modern utopian community in which a scientifically designed environment was supposed to achieve complete control over the minds of a whole category of human beings. Gauchet and Swain argue that the social domination of the inner self, far from being the hidden truth of emancipation, represented the failure of its overly optimistic beginnings.
Madness and Democracy combines rich details of nineteenth-century asylum life with reflections on the crucial role of subjectivity and difference within modernism. Its final achievement is to show that the lessons learned from the failure of the asylum led to the rise of psychoanalysis, an endeavor focused on individual care and on the cooperation between psychiatrist and patient. By linking the rise of liberalism to a chapter in the history of psychiatry, Gauchet and Swain offer a fascinating reassessment of political modernity.
© 2012 Princeton University Press (E-bok): 9781400822874
Översättare: Catherine Porter
Utgivningsdatum
E-bok: 5 maj 2012
Taggar
1 miljon stories
Lyssna och läs offline
Exklusiva nyheter varje vecka
Kids Mode (barnsäker miljö)
För dig som vill prova Storytel.
1 konto
20 timmar/månad
Spara upp till 100 olyssnade timmar
Exklusivt innehåll varje vecka
Avsluta när du vill
Obegränsad lyssning på podcasts
För dig som lyssnar och läser ofta.
1 konto
100 timmar/månad
Exklusivt innehåll varje vecka
Avsluta när du vill
Obegränsad lyssning på podcasts
För dig som vill lyssna och läsa obegränsat.
1 konto
Lyssna obegränsat
Exklusivt innehåll varje vecka
Avsluta när du vill
Obegränsad lyssning på podcasts
För dig som vill dela stories med hela familjen.
2-6 konton
100 timmar/månad för varje konto
Exklusivt innehåll varje vecka
Avsluta när du vill
Obegränsad lyssning på podcasts
2 konton
239 kr /månadSvenska
Sverige