Madness! (We are all necessarily mad)

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Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness – Michel Foucault.

Madness is a very peculiar subject which a lot of great scholars have written about.

In line with this, some of the great thinkers and writers who have had access to it are award-winning Shakespeare who wrote King Lear and Hamlet, Ola Rotimi, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, Wole Soyinka, Madmen and Specialists, Chinua Achebe, The madman and Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen.

A philosophical political activist who has also written a lot about this concept is Michael Foucault who wrote Madness and Civilisation where he tried to explore the aspect of madness further by showing the specific faces by which madness was recognised in the classical thoughts.

He wrote that madmen were considered as "another class of unfortunates who brought horrible suffering to humanity" (240).

He further asserted that "what disappeared in the course of the 18th century, was not the inhuman rigor with which madmen were treated, but the evident necessity of confinement" (234) which could be the reason why “madmen” are still victims of harsh treatment in the society.

But in order not to pigeonhole our thought on who a madman is and the concept of madness as in line with Foucault’s thesis, madness and the understanding of it is constructed by the society.

In the Nigerian society, to a lot of people, a “mad man” is someone who does something different from what others are doing, some consider “mad men” to be prophets, while others consider them to be useless and invalid and therefore don't bother to reference them.

Well, Foucault gave illustrations to show that, "Men are so necessarily mad, and that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness" (ix) which can be interpreted to mean that everyone is mad!

To buttress his point, he gave series of symptoms of madness. In line with that, he opines that "Among the symptoms and manifestations, a certain profile of sadness, of blackness, of slowness of immobility" It should be noted that sad people, especially those grieving and are psychologically disintegrated exhibit those characteristics.

Also, in line 125, Foucault made mention of people who would "avoid company, solitary places and wander without knowing where they are going" He refers to them as those suffering from Melancholia.

It should be noted that he defines melancholia as "a madness without fever or frenzy, usually accomplice by fear and madness."(121).

According to him, madmen, “Imagine that they are guilty of some crime" (118)

He further asserted that madmen "fear death, which they yet cause most often to themselves" (117-118).

At first, I was doubtful of all this, because even though I and you readers have once exhibited some of Foucault’s analysis of a madness, I just found it difficult to agree that I am mad, but something convinced me.

It was the day I passed by a madman. When I got to his lane, I ran quickly past him, and when he saw this, he aggressively called me a “mad man”. I was shocked because he was the one that looked different from the remaining people on the road. He was naked, caked in filth, was smelling, had dirty dreads and looked horrible.

His name calling made me realize something... maybe we that dress well and try to look neat are also mad... that maybe really, there are two worlds. One for people who dress neatly and go about their normal business, while the other world consist of those that are opposite. After all, it is only logical to conclude that since we call them “mad” because they behave strangely, in their sight (society) we are also mad since we don't behave like them.

It should also be noted that a lot of philosophers like Wole Soyinka, Goya, Artaud, Van Gough, Vietsche and Marquis de Sade were considered to be mad, but the fact is that regardless of that, they were still able to contribute a lot to the world.

Reference: Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage Books. 1977.