[Mental illness] belonged to the destiny of this history that such a criticism should, after the event, be applied by medicine to all religious phenomena and rebound, at the expense of the Catholic Church, which had actually solicited it, against the Christian experience as a whole, and thus show at the same time, and in a paradoxical way, that religion belongs to the fantastic powers of neurosis and that those whom religion had condemned were victims of both their religion and their neurosis.
- Michel Foucault, Mental Illness and Psychology, page 65
The student in me wishes I had taken philosophy classes in college. The writer in me balks at the length and structure of this (single!) sentence. The brain in me wishes that it was better developed to understand what the heck Foucault is trying to say.
6 Feb 2007 |
I think he’s saying that the church at the time (1950s ?)was trying to modernize, and move away from the idea of madness, and mental illness, as a result of sin, or possession by an evil spirit, but that ironically religious belief itself came to be seen as the result of a disordered mind. (with which in part I am inclined to agree–for what that’s worth!–eg. indoctrination of children)
But Foucault? bah.
Comment by mark | 6 Feb 2007 @ 12:05pm
It’s always helpful to remember that Foucault you’re reading is in translation. Writing styles and expectations aren’t the same from culture to culture. He’s also writing from within French culture, and from within his experience of the French academy, etc.
That said, this is one pretty darned ugly sentence. It does take some chutzpah to start chapter one with “the general pathology referred to earlier” doesn’t it?
Comment by Bardiac | 6 Feb 2007 @ 12:24pm
i think the translator should have used the word ‘ironic’ and not ‘paradoxical’ - it makes more sense that way. and what they ^ said. :)
Comment by Ali | 6 Feb 2007 @ 2:09pm
It’s exactly this reason that Foucault is not very highly regarded in the English-speaking (analytic) philosophical tradition. He writes such complex stuff that it’s sometimes unclear if it has a meaning at all… by the way, there’s a pretty interesting “debate” between Chomsky and Foucault on Youtube. Neither one of them knows what the other is talking about the whole time… and neither do I, for that matter.
Comment by soluman | 6 Feb 2007 @ 8:58pm
I can understand what he is saying, but I can’t explain it clearly. Religion wants those who believe absolutely. Nurosis lends itself to this very well. If a person is too nurotic about their religion, the religion does not want them. Condemning them.
I’ve seen it happen a couple of times.
Comment by Jesse | 6 Feb 2007 @ 9:35pm
Foucault sounds like he’s trying to say that religious people are crazy and that religious people were not only condemned to hell, but also condemned to being crazy.
Dangit, I’m tired. That made no sense.
Comment by Marissa Miller | 6 Feb 2007 @ 9:39pm
ascribing neurosis to religiousity (or lack thereof) is ridiculous, even if such reasoning is perpetrated by the catholic church itself. gah!
Comment by yaser | 6 Feb 2007 @ 11:36pm
An entanglement of words becomes difficult to argue with, since the reader can always be said to have not understood the true meaning.
Obviously there is an attempt to demean the labeling of mental illness while simultaneously demeaning the medical profession and the Catholic Church. So we have a thin line of logic encrusted with polysyllabic and convoluted sentence structure.
Comment by Greg P | 8 Feb 2007 @ 6:15pm
hey, i got my undergrad degree in philosophy, and i don’t have a clue what he’s saying…anyway, hola! (found you pretty quickly), sorry i missed the last six years…
Comment by saul | 22 Feb 2007 @ 4:08pm