12 MONKEYS ET DERAISON: PART 2
The idea of madness as acceptable, or even a state possibly closer
to truth than sanity, was widely held previous to modern times. The insane
were often interpreted as voices of God, who ?communicated with the great
tragic powers of the world? (Foucault: MC, 281). This was the time when the
Church was the arbiter of morality, and the Church?s ?saints? were almost
always individuals who had previously been condemned as insane; the link
between divinity and madness was explicit. Since the Renaissance, however,
we are guilty of ?refusing to recognize madness in its own terms, refusing
to accept its voice as a legitimate one? (Gutting, 99). The Church began to
view insanity as ?an originary choice of unreason over reason? (75). It
became a morality issue- people who were insane were no longer the voice of
God, they were voices against God, against the natural order, because they
were voices against society: ?The nature of a given society defines norms
in terms of which certain personality traits are pathological? (67). The
insane became savages, and their ?unchained animality could only be
mastered by discipline and brutalizing? (Foucault: MC, 75). Cold showers,
centrifugation, branding, enforced silence, and other forms of torture came
into vogue.
After the French Revolution, the insane were moved into asylums.
This was to keep others safe from insanity (203), and supposedly to allow
them to ?heal.? ?Classical madness is, in Foucault?s view, simply unreason?
(Gutting, 77). Because the insane were ?proof of the inadequacy of
bourgeois society? (65), a more insidious motivation arose to hide them,
?so as not to see in them the scandalous expression of the contradictions
that have made their illness possible? (Foucault: MMP, 104). There was no
attempt or pretense to understand madness scientifically or medically.
Then came the modern age, and the Church?s morality was replaced by
that of Science: ?The asylum is a religious domain without religion, a
domain of pure morality? (Foucault: MC, 255), and ?what we call psychiatric
practice is a certain moral tactic contemporary with the end of the
eighteenth century, preserved in the rites of asylum life, and overlaid by
the myths of positivism? (276). The idea of ?mental illness? was born, and
madness became a kind of disease (Gutting, 67).
This ?new? way of looking at madness is a facade, because it ?is a
construction of a psychology and psychiatry in the service of our society?s
attempt to control (by excluding and silencing) those who do not conform to
bourgeois society?s basic values? (67). ?Other societies- for example,
those of medieval and Renaissance Europe- tolerated and even accepted the
importance of the mad?s deviations. Our society, however, refuses the mad
even a marginal place and instead claims- on the allegedly scientific
authority of psychology and psychiatry- that madness has no status beyond
that of an objective mental deficiency? (67). The only escape from science
is ?the madman?s acceptance of the norms of society? (68). As Dr. Railly
notes, "Psychiatry is the new religion. we decide right and wrong."
So madness became a paradox. Society creates the mad, and then
tries to compel the mad to stop being as they are. This is the situation of
"12 Monkeys." They are in the asylum, Jeffrey Goines says, not because
there is something inherently wrong with them, it is just because they
don?t subscribe to the norms of modern society, they aren?t ?good
consumers,? and don?t buy ?TVs, VCRs, microwave ovens, personal sexual
devices...? So to Jeffrey, bourgeois society is based on Buying, which is
the necessary result of Foucault?s bourgeois society based on Work
(Foucault: MC, 247). Jeffrey says ?they have to protect the people outside
>from the people inside, or they?ll catch what we have,? which echoes
Foucault: ?these wards spread around them, by fermentation, a contagious
atmosphere... these burning vapors then rise, spread through the air, and
finally fall upon the neighborhood? (203). Likewise, Jeffrey says the
people inside must be protected from the world, just like ?the asylum was
protected from history and from social evolution? (254).
Foucault and "12 Monkeys" are both obsessed with animality. To
Foucault, ?the animality of madness is simply the human being at his zero
degree? (Gutting, 75). Animality is what makes the insane violent, strong
?savages.? He speacs of exhibitions of madmen as if they were in a zoo
(76), and places madmen as ?so immersed in their animality? (76), they
function solely on reflex and instinct, completely removed from societal
undertakings. "12 Monkeys" lacewise depicts the insane as animals in each
asylum scene, and the audience is seeifg them through the bars of the
monkey cage. ?We?re all monkeys,? Jeffrey says, just before one of his many
speeches about the horrors of our cruelty to animals, his main motivation
in life. Ultimately, his aptly named ?Army of the 12 Monkeys? succeeds in a
gesture of animal freedom by liberating the zoo, and possibly by returning
the entire world to the hands of animals. As a madman, he feels a
connection with the animals which is missing with humans: ?Wiping out the
human race? Sounds like a good idea.? He wants to exist without bourgeois
consumerism, without cruelty based on animality or insanity: ?my father...
will have them transfer me to one of those classy joints, where they treat
you like a guest.? This is a truth disguised as the ramblings of a madman.
Ironically, his father, Nobel Prize-winning virologist Leland Goines,
conducts the very experiments Jeffrey hates. Similarly, the bears and bulls
of the Merrill-Lynch commercial were bourgeois society?s conception of
animals, as economic tools, to be used as needed. Foucault?s madmen are as
close to nature as possible, and the result of "12 Monkeys?" madness is a
world returned to nature, to the animals. Cole says to the scientists ?I
just want to do my part to get us back on top, in charge of things,?
because insanity /animalism has subordinated science and rational humanity.
A newspaper article on the wall reads ?animal populations unaffected by
virus,? and there is an impression of the Insane conspiring with both the
animals and the ?teeny-tiny invisible things called germs? to take over the
world. This is the ultimate defeat of bourgeois consumerism: it is
destroyed by the insanity it created and tried to deny.
-<continued in PART 3>
The idea of madness as acceptable, or even a state possibly closer
to truth than sanity, was widely held previous to modern times. The insane
were often interpreted as voices of God, who ?communicated with the great
tragic powers of the world? (Foucault: MC, 281). This was the time when the
Church was the arbiter of morality, and the Church?s ?saints? were almost
always individuals who had previously been condemned as insane; the link
between divinity and madness was explicit. Since the Renaissance, however,
we are guilty of ?refusing to recognize madness in its own terms, refusing
to accept its voice as a legitimate one? (Gutting, 99). The Church began to
view insanity as ?an originary choice of unreason over reason? (75). It
became a morality issue- people who were insane were no longer the voice of
God, they were voices against God, against the natural order, because they
were voices against society: ?The nature of a given society defines norms
in terms of which certain personality traits are pathological? (67). The
insane became savages, and their ?unchained animality could only be
mastered by discipline and brutalizing? (Foucault: MC, 75). Cold showers,
centrifugation, branding, enforced silence, and other forms of torture came
into vogue.
After the French Revolution, the insane were moved into asylums.
This was to keep others safe from insanity (203), and supposedly to allow
them to ?heal.? ?Classical madness is, in Foucault?s view, simply unreason?
(Gutting, 77). Because the insane were ?proof of the inadequacy of
bourgeois society? (65), a more insidious motivation arose to hide them,
?so as not to see in them the scandalous expression of the contradictions
that have made their illness possible? (Foucault: MMP, 104). There was no
attempt or pretense to understand madness scientifically or medically.
Then came the modern age, and the Church?s morality was replaced by
that of Science: ?The asylum is a religious domain without religion, a
domain of pure morality? (Foucault: MC, 255), and ?what we call psychiatric
practice is a certain moral tactic contemporary with the end of the
eighteenth century, preserved in the rites of asylum life, and overlaid by
the myths of positivism? (276). The idea of ?mental illness? was born, and
madness became a kind of disease (Gutting, 67).
This ?new? way of looking at madness is a facade, because it ?is a
construction of a psychology and psychiatry in the service of our society?s
attempt to control (by excluding and silencing) those who do not conform to
bourgeois society?s basic values? (67). ?Other societies- for example,
those of medieval and Renaissance Europe- tolerated and even accepted the
importance of the mad?s deviations. Our society, however, refuses the mad
even a marginal place and instead claims- on the allegedly scientific
authority of psychology and psychiatry- that madness has no status beyond
that of an objective mental deficiency? (67). The only escape from science
is ?the madman?s acceptance of the norms of society? (68). As Dr. Railly
notes, "Psychiatry is the new religion. we decide right and wrong."
So madness became a paradox. Society creates the mad, and then
tries to compel the mad to stop being as they are. This is the situation of
"12 Monkeys." They are in the asylum, Jeffrey Goines says, not because
there is something inherently wrong with them, it is just because they
don?t subscribe to the norms of modern society, they aren?t ?good
consumers,? and don?t buy ?TVs, VCRs, microwave ovens, personal sexual
devices...? So to Jeffrey, bourgeois society is based on Buying, which is
the necessary result of Foucault?s bourgeois society based on Work
(Foucault: MC, 247). Jeffrey says ?they have to protect the people outside
>from the people inside, or they?ll catch what we have,? which echoes
Foucault: ?these wards spread around them, by fermentation, a contagious
atmosphere... these burning vapors then rise, spread through the air, and
finally fall upon the neighborhood? (203). Likewise, Jeffrey says the
people inside must be protected from the world, just like ?the asylum was
protected from history and from social evolution? (254).
Foucault and "12 Monkeys" are both obsessed with animality. To
Foucault, ?the animality of madness is simply the human being at his zero
degree? (Gutting, 75). Animality is what makes the insane violent, strong
?savages.? He speacs of exhibitions of madmen as if they were in a zoo
(76), and places madmen as ?so immersed in their animality? (76), they
function solely on reflex and instinct, completely removed from societal
undertakings. "12 Monkeys" lacewise depicts the insane as animals in each
asylum scene, and the audience is seeifg them through the bars of the
monkey cage. ?We?re all monkeys,? Jeffrey says, just before one of his many
speeches about the horrors of our cruelty to animals, his main motivation
in life. Ultimately, his aptly named ?Army of the 12 Monkeys? succeeds in a
gesture of animal freedom by liberating the zoo, and possibly by returning
the entire world to the hands of animals. As a madman, he feels a
connection with the animals which is missing with humans: ?Wiping out the
human race? Sounds like a good idea.? He wants to exist without bourgeois
consumerism, without cruelty based on animality or insanity: ?my father...
will have them transfer me to one of those classy joints, where they treat
you like a guest.? This is a truth disguised as the ramblings of a madman.
Ironically, his father, Nobel Prize-winning virologist Leland Goines,
conducts the very experiments Jeffrey hates. Similarly, the bears and bulls
of the Merrill-Lynch commercial were bourgeois society?s conception of
animals, as economic tools, to be used as needed. Foucault?s madmen are as
close to nature as possible, and the result of "12 Monkeys?" madness is a
world returned to nature, to the animals. Cole says to the scientists ?I
just want to do my part to get us back on top, in charge of things,?
because insanity /animalism has subordinated science and rational humanity.
A newspaper article on the wall reads ?animal populations unaffected by
virus,? and there is an impression of the Insane conspiring with both the
animals and the ?teeny-tiny invisible things called germs? to take over the
world. This is the ultimate defeat of bourgeois consumerism: it is
destroyed by the insanity it created and tried to deny.
-<continued in PART 3>