ABSTRACT
Two disciplines are implied in this title, perhaps three. Madness refers to a mental state. Society is the domain of sociologists and social anthropologists. Implicit in any study of them together is history. I shall touch upon all three in this chapter. The critic Terry Kupers pointed out the recurrent problem that has faced many sociologists in trying to account for madness. Certain sociological theories argue that our current social arrangements cause emotional disorders, and they envisage a society that could be less alienating. If this is the case, why have socialist societies failed to ameliorate emotional distress? If we persist in blaming reified capitalist relations for the existence of schizophrenia, how do we test this theory if these are the social relations we are stuck with (Kupers, 1981, 1988)? The idea that the schizophrenic’s utterances mirror the real truth of our social existence, which is masked by false consciousness, retains a powerful hold over many people, particularly in Western cultures. Normal citizens are socialized to ignore this truth, the theory argues. Isolated schizophrenics break down under the weight of their burden of harsh truths, and this plight is what led Laing and Cooper (1964) to glorify the lucid utterances of their psychotic patients. In France, Deleuze and Guattari (1977) wrote their compelling countercultural treatise, which linked the mechanical, deadening world of the schizophrenic to the machines and mindlessly repetitive, corrosive effects of late capitalist relations of production and their social sequelae.
