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1-Page Summary of The Age Of Reason
Introduction
Today, there is little connection between society and those who are severely mentally ill. Instead, doctors bear the responsibility of healing these patients, so they have no choice but to let the doctor handle everything for them.
However, the history of mental illness is more complex than it may seem. Although people are often suspicious of those with mental illnesses today, that wasn’t always the case. Mental illness wasn’t always seen in such a negative light. The history of madness conveys as much about Western society’s definition of normalcy as it does about mental illness itself.
Conceptions of Madness in the Middle Ages
In the late Middle Ages, people didn’t think of mental illness as an illness that required a cure. They also didn’t fear those who were mentally ill or deny them certain rights and privileges. Instead, they just accepted it as a normal part of reality.
The social acceptance of madness began to erode due to the changing needs of the times. This transition occurred in part because leprosy was disappearing from society. Leper colonies had served as scapegoats for centuries, and they were used as such during this time period (14th-17th century). They fed into cultural rites that involved purification and exclusion.
The Church banished lepers from society because they were a symbol of both God’s anger and mercy. The leper was treated like the sacrificial lamb, which is paradoxical because Jesus saved the leper in the Gospels but society wanted to get rid of them anyway. This rite attempted to reconcile these two things by showing that Christ saved the leper with his sacrifice, while at the same time society cast out those who weren’t perfect.
However, in the late 17th century, leprosy was disappearing from Europe. This may have been because of social exclusion by the Church and society that helped to control the spread of disease. Whatever caused it, leper colonies were emptying out as a result. However, although leprosy disappeared from the social landscape, its traditions continued on within another group—criminals and vagabonds who became targets for exclusion. Mental illness became a new target for this tradition of exclusion in Europe during this time period (1600-1800), replacing leprosy’s role as an object of fear and hatred among Europeans at the time.
The Renaissance and the Ship of Fools
During the Renaissance, people began to realize that they were not in control of their own destinies. They began to look for external factors to blame and started using metaphors like Plato’s Republic. The Ship of Fools was a popular literary trope during this time period.
After the Middle Ages, it became more common for people to be kicked out of their towns if they were mentally ill. This was especially true in Germany: Records from Nuremberg and Frankfurt showed that authorities would often cast away or arrest those who were mentally ill. These individuals were usually given over to merchants and sailors who would then transport them on boats and drop them off at a new location. The Ship of Fools trope may have been popularized during this time because writers witnessed the allegory living within their own communities. Thus, both an artistic device as well as a reflection of reality came about thanks to the popularity of this trope.
Like lepers in the past, madmen were banished from society. They wandered and became useful to others because they made people feel safe by being outcasts. As a result, those who were cast aside gave the rest of society a sense of stability and strength.
Madness has been a source of knowledge for centuries. In the Bible, Christ is portrayed as being foolish in order to show that he was wiser than others. Erasmus uses folly as a narrator who decries human arrogance and ignorance. Madness becomes a way of accessing wisdom and it can be used to protest against human certainty.
