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Madness And Civilization Foucault Analysis

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In his book Madness and Civilization, what does Michel Foucault mean by “the great confinement”? Madness and Civilization revolve around Michel Foucault life and perception of the society on the different vices affecting them. The book is restricted to debates and opinions that surrounded the anti-psychiatric movement. Foucault wrote the book on various perspectives of the society. Some of the perspectives include: cultural political philosophical legal From the historical point of view, it cannot be deduced on whether madness can be described as a religious or philosophical occurrence. Additionally, other civilizations considered madness as an objective medical core. Some types of madness may have developed as a result of psychiatry. Through …show more content…

It occurred in the classical age as an unreason to reduce madness to silence. This was a contrary to the Renaissance period where the mad were highly regarded as the functioning individuals in the society (Foucault, 2006). There was a need to develop a fully functioning society in the period. This led to inflicting of punishment to those persons who lacked reason and behaved foolishly with childish behaviors. The law perceived the reasonable persons and rational members of the society as a success. The great confinement period saw the increase in the number of institutions and prisons in Paris to detain the irrational. The detention facilities housed the unemployed, prisoners, insane and the have-nots. These facilities were not medical establishments because those who had reason were allowed to imprison the poor and mad people in the society. Foucault saw the high confinement as a deliberate policy since one percent of Paris population during the period was imprisoned. > [T]he Hopital General in Paris was established in 1656 as a center for the irrational in the society (Foucault 1965, p.47). The community was not given a chance to appeal the decision made by the rational rather there was an absolute sovereignty over them. There was an extension of the rule across France and the rest of Europe where several governments adopted the project of confinement. Their confinement centers were previously known as correction …show more content…

I agree with Foucault interpretation of insanity as a culturally constructed phenomenon. There is a different perception of mad people in the past and present times. According to Foucault, insanity was regarded as a regular event in history (Gutting, 2005). With the changing cultural activities and perception of people, insanity has been able to be interpreted differently as the previous prediction. Interpretation of insanity has been categorized in the renaissance, classical and modern periods. In each of these periods, the evolving cultures of both the society and representative governments have had the ability to define it in different manners. Foucault focuses on the exclusion of other irrational persons in the cities. The insane were secretly isolated from the society by being placed in the confinement facilities. Various cultures did not approve of their existence as they were termed as idlers and thus there was a need to punish them. The classical period applied authoritarian strategy with an aim to maintain a socio-cultural order in the society (Argyriadis, 2016). Mad persons were first displaced and confined from the rational individuals. Studies were then conducted to determine the cure for insanity. Insane people were known to have a different cultural behavior. Later, the condition is diagnosed as a medical disorder, which requires special treatment. In the Renaissance period, insanity was culturally constrained phenomenon to some extent. People believed

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