With the risk of sounding clichéd, I would like to state that as I recall, I did not know what to expect when I joined the course- Psychology after Foucault. The previous semester, I had joined another certificate course by CSCS on Gender and Culture; hence I had expected the “suffering” to be a part of it. Though (objectively) I had decided that I would not let this (Gender and Culture) course “get to me”, it invariably did! After knowing about the ‘other’ (often neglected) side of “our world” it becomes difficult to ignore it, to not CHANGE and QUESTION your day to day activities, attitudes, prejudices and thoughts-especially those that stereotype. My problem was dealing with the dichotomies- black and white, right and wrong, life and death, man and woman, et cetera. And that brings me to a dichotomy which forms the central element of Psychology- reason and unreason. The course promised to address it and that brought me to more “suffering” (as Anup would have it called!).
During the course, we studied madness- its origin (in a sense), causes and effects and Who is wielding its power by reading ’The History of Madness’ by Michelle Foucault. To put it simply- as a student of psychology and literature, I was the one who would get the “privilege” to exercise that power (I know, duh!). Through the use of Language, I would be installing and widening the gap between reason and madness; through Psychology, I would be using this distinction between reason and unreason/madness as if it were a given, a natural.
The effect of this course was felt in both, my public and private spheres (ironic that I am using another dichotomy!). Private because firstly, I am questioning and re-thinking my decision to study Psychology and wondering how I can work my way through this problem if I do make the decision to practice psychology. Secondly, I no longer have the confidence to judge or to criticize anything because suddenly my faith in knowledge (that I possessed) about myself, others and things around me has been shaken. Public because simply, after reading Foucault; I cannot innocently nod when my psychology lecturer speaks about the ways in which we can “cure”/”treat” the unreasonable, the mad. Something is just not right there and it needs to be changed, altered or at least be dealt with!
As long as I can remember, my only problem with people was that they did not have a purpose in life or some were just not “serious” enough. They could laugh at all things silly and that made them “stupid” but Foucault taught me that I (badly) needed a paradigm shift. Who is to say “stupid” is not the way to live? Or in other words “not being stupid” is the way to live?! (Am I confusing here??)
Also, there is no longer a dying urge to justify my actions. For instance:
I used Foucault to read the poem ’Theme for English B’ by Langston Hughes, with the class.
In the poem, the instructor (white) asks his students to write a page and to keep it “true”. The poem mostly is a response by one of his students (colored).
An extract from the said poem:
“As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me
although you're older and white
and somewhat more free.”
These lines show that knowledge is two dimensional. Both the reasonable (the teacher) and the unreasonable (the student) interact and learn from each other. When I took this observation to class it resulted in a heated debate where I eventually lost my temper and banged my fists on the table. Being me, I would have apologized profusely and would have been embarrassed. BUT after Foucault happened, I feel that even though my behavior has been understood as “unreasonable”, it is okay by me because at least I was being true to myself. I feel that if I am “unreasonable” at times, it is okay to express it and there is no need to be apologetic about it or fear it and suppress it!
For the time being, I deal with Foucault and my “sufferings” (“I” can “see” Anup smiling) by believing in psychological realism- the belief that each one experiences reality in different ways, according to their psyche. In other words- there is no reality, only perceptions. And there is no right or wrong perception.
Like Pascal said, “men are so necessarily mad, that not being mad would be being mad through another trick that madness played.”
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