Caring

I struggled to finish Foucault's Madness and Civilisation, feeling by the end that despite its many moments of illumination I was falling short of all the book had to offer (which was plenty.) I think I grasped the central thesis, though, which was illuminating in itself. The problem for me lay in some of the detail inherent at the conceptual level, which was demanding and strangely abundant for what is, after all, quite a short work.

Having said all that, the idea that the pride that we might feel over what we consider the more humane treatment of the 'mad' (whatever that means, and Foucault is mind-bendingly good regarding whatever that means) in contrast to how they were treated in a less 'enlightened' age is entirely delusional, comes through loud and clear and painfully provocatively.

But it cannot match the pain engendered through watching Trapped In Care, a documentary aired this evening by Sky News. I caught a 15-minute snippet just now, focusing on the treatment of the intellectually disabled and autistic in various 'care facilities' in the UK. Initially I was struck by the odd coincidence of viewing this just after reading Foucault, though I hasten to add that the poor souls featured in the documentary are not mad in any reasonable sense of the word. (If there is a reasonable sense. (See M. Foucault.))

When pain in the abstract becomes pain in real human beings, it becomes more than food for thought.