A Brief History of Insanity

Draft of my upcoming Spyglass article
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One of Plato’s most enduring ideas was called the Allegory of the Cave. This story is quite easy to visualize, as it involves people chained inside a cave in such a way that they can only see shadows dancing and flickering across a wall. The shadows are the only entertainment they have ever known and none of them are aware of the world outside the cave. Plato asks us to imagine what would happen if one of them managed the painful and life-changing ascent to sunlight and then returned back to the cave, telling the others that there is much more to life than images on a screen. The cave dwellers would see the one who escaped as insane even though he spoke the truth. Plato believed his own teacher, Socrates, was an enlightened man whom the people of Athens considered crazy because of his wisdom.  The allegory shows the disturbing tendency of our society to label ways of thinking we don’t understand as ‘madness’. Part of the reason why we stigmatize the mentally ill is because we fear that they tell the truth. We often consider them to be less intelligent than us, failing to recognize the unique talents and creative gifts that they can offer the world.

In the book Madness and Civilization, French philosopher Michel Foucault expresses disgust and outrage at the dehumanizing treatment of the mentally ill. Throughout history, they have been subject to all kinds of torture and locked up in asylums. Many endured unethical medical practices like shock therapy or lobotomies. Yet Foucault argues that not all societies of the past were like this and that some were better at accepting differences. There is a lot we can learn from medieval European society for example, in which the wisdom of people we would now label as mad was sought out. They would be allowed to wander free and were often hired as court jesters or entertainers, positions in which they could often get away with questioning the authority of a ruler. Conditions that we now view as disorders, like Williams Syndrome, which causes one to have an excessively trusting personality and view all strangers as close friends, were seen as gifts.  People with Williams often score less than average on standard IQ tests, yet in ancient societies their charming personalities were the inspiration behind mythological elves depicted as helpful and good-natured. Instead of focusing on their strengths, such as communication and empathy, children with Williams are seen as problematic individuals who need to be fixed.

Even Socrates was said to have vivid hallucinations- like the type a schizophrenic would have. Plato and the historian Xenophon considered this to be a ‘sacred illness’ and believed that these visions were from the gods. The lesson here is to embrace diversity, especially different ways of thinking. Far too many creative and talented minds have been shunned by society simply because they didn’t conform to what is considered normal. People who work with the mentally ill seem to view their patients as problems rather than as human beings while the education system aims to make them act like everyone else instead of embracing their own gifts. The truth is that the world would not be worth living in if everyone thought the same way.