Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 36 No. 3, 2016.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/fi36304
Danger of Normal People: The Politicization of Madness in Foucault’s and Lütz’s Discourse
Goran Sunajko
orcid.org/0000-0003-1438-9830
; Leksikografski zavod »Miroslav Krleža«, Frankopanska 26, HR 10000 Zagreb
Abstract
The paper presents a philosophical discourse on the dangers of the society of normal persons. It is about the importance of relation between madness and normality within the society and the political community from the former Michel Foucault’s optics and today’s Manfred Lütz’s perspective. The purpose of this paper is to show how the concept of the norm, and accordingly of the normalisation and discipline, leads to the imperative of the healthy society based on norms. Such society excludes all those who in any way deviate from the behavior predicted by the norm. Such request is the danger of modern society that does not differentiate abnormality from insanity, but use them to discredit its members which refuse to be subordinate. To be abnormal means only to be critical toward the norm that is set by majority, whether is it a legal, political, social, religious, educational or medical norm. On the foundations of Foucault’s philosophical and Lütz’s psychological insights, the thesis shows that the danger to society are not those who deviate from the norm, but the “normal people” who, as bearers of “normal” society, uncritically accept and implement the normative order.
Keywords
norm; discipline; jail; clinic; control; panopticon; normal; abnormal; normal madness; crazily normal; person
Hrčak ID:
179919
URI
Publication date:
19.10.2016.
Visits: 3.281 *