Home Is Where The Heart Dwells

Madness is evidence of the imperfections of human reason, a constant reminder of the limit of our brain power. A mad person is annoying to us, not only because of the inconveniences has he/she caused, but also his/her mere existence. We are uneasy for this being: are we the same as him/her? To admit a mad person as a person like us requires more than overcoming an emotional barrier. We have to figure out how we can live with this fact, in other words, how we can differentiate ourselves from them after accepting his/her nature is the same as us.

Here comes the history of madness. We, the society as a whole, plotted to confine our neighbors in order to be convinced of our own sanity, as quoted by Foucault from Dostoyevsky. “Are you crazy?” One may ask. “How can you say we are mad to confine (or define, they are all the same after all) madness?” Here comes a second quotation from Pascal, “Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.”

Madness is an “uncomfortable truth”, to borrow from Dick Cheney. No one intends to talk about it, while everyone has made up his/her mind to embrace a certain position towards it. How do you know you are right if you just hold fast something you never examined? The truth is, we have acting with bias while we do not think we did.

“What? What the heck are you talking about? ” Slow down, slow down. Just like people under propaganda feel hard to accept the possibility of another world, we will experience difficulty in following the questioning. We are living in a world much longer than communists had fooled people under their ruling, a world trying to eliminate madness and establish the ultimate ruling of reason.
“To explore it we must renounce the convenience of terminal truths, and never let ourselves be guided by what we may know of madness. None of the concepts of psychopathology, even and especially in the implicit process of retrospections, can play an organizing role. What constitutive is the action that divides madness, and not the science elaborated once this division is made and calm restored. What is originative is the caesura that establishes the distance between reason and non-reason; reason’s subjection of non-reason, wresting from it its truth as madness, crime, or disease, derives explicitly from this point. ”(Foucault)
The truth of reason was found, after madness comes to stand in the place of non-reason. But backing to the initial point, we will find a different landscape. Truth did not require nailing down the non-reason as madness. And the reason is not necessarily the reason we hold today. It could be a reason without an opposite, a free-floating power without definite shape. The ship of fools motif, as Foucault suggested, represented such a reason.

—A very impressive book: Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault.
Guo Rui
July 13, 2006 in New York City Library

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

Doubtless can be an adjective meaning “free of doubt,” but it is relatively rare: He is doubtless and fearless when he begins his performance. Doubtless is also an adverb, as are all the other locutions in this entry; all mean “probably,” “certainly,” or “absolutely.” Doubtless and doubtlessly (which is rare and often considered clumsy since the flat adverb doubtless is available too) may not always sound very certain; they usually express the sense of “probably, very likely.” No doubt is perhaps a bit stronger, but not quite certain in some contexts; in others it shares the force of undoubtedly. Undoubtedly and without doubt are stronger; they express certainty. Indubitably and unquestionably are the most forceful of all. They express dead certainty, leaving not the shadow of a doubt. Try each of them in place of doubtless in this sentence for an idea of the gradations: It will doubtless rain this afternoon.

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), a recent Northwestern University journalism grad went to a job interview millions of other girls would kill for: working at the elite fashion magazine Runway. After a few minutes sitting in the waiting area, she was surprised by finding out all employees there worked for an emperor-typed editor, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Andy got this job. But she soon found out it torture for her. Miranda was never pleased, though poor Andy had tightened every muscle of hers.

Off-Broadway show: Room Service (Sunday, June 10)

Here is a NewYorkTime Review:

“Generally considered one of the funniest American plays of the 1930′s, Room Service centers around a slippery theatrical producer, trying to find a backer for his new show while holed up in a Times Square hotel with nineteen starving actors. Hoping to forestall eviction, he convinces the show’s gullible young playwright to fake his own death.”

Another story about greed, but way more funny than Burley Grum. Written in 1930s, a time of depression, it bears an obvious feature of satire and ambitiousness. It seems to me people back at that time were ready to laugh when they see the plots of some clever guy are hatched and turn out to be very successful.

Today’s Show: Wedding Singer

Here is a review that attracted my interest to see it.

The music in the movie was a terrific collection of 80s songs. The music for the show is original to the musical except for Somebody Kill Me and Grow Old With You (which were written by Adam Sandler and Tim Herligy for the movie). However the original music stays true to the sound of the 80s and the lyrics are fun. (At intermission I went to the lobby to buy the soundtrack, but it hasn’t been recorded yet. They are playing to record it in the next few months.)

Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subjecct

–: Madness and Civilization

Koopman: Hostile Takeover

New York Public Library, 42 street

There is an interesting scene in Tails, a story of some dogs met in a pool waiting for adoption or slaughter. One of the dogs, newly dumped in the pool, was asked what talent it had. Obviously the new guy did not know a dime of their question. So the rest of dogs showed it what they conceive as a talent. One could jump high enough to reach some house stuff; one looked beautiful and was a show dog; still one could roll on the ground. The new guy got confused at first, because it was a fighting dog and had never been adopted before. But after a few minutes of brainwashing the new guy concluded its talent was to fetch things back quickly. The dialogue of the show was designed to completely show their judgment of a dog’s value. It looked funny to have it based on the talents that all aimed at pleasing dog master. But as the story went on, it became more and more serious. No other way except being adopted could lead them out of slaughter. Thus talents to please dog master were indeed vital to them. You may laugh: what the heck those things are? Does it counts without a dog master feeding dogs from birth to death? But wait a minute. Ask yourself the same question. What are you good at? Are you going to say “I am a computer engineer” or “a lawyer”? Does it counts without people using this stuff and give you daily bread? What makes you better than those dogs? I guess you will hesitate to boast before a dog after thinking it though. Your talent, or your knowledge, using a loftier word, depends much on your master, as dog’s does.

A deeper metaphor, which is also the reason that you were ready to laugh at those dogs, is that you know it is possible for dogs to live without dog masters. However, they were ignorant of such a seemingly simple fact. If we apply this insight to our own life, we are probably ignorant of the same thing as dogs were. We can live without artificial complicated rules，such as what lawyers live for. Lawyers’ knowledge is no better than a dog’s talent of fetching a tennis ball, if we treat it honestly.

You may make differentiate you from dog after a long time of thinking. “My knowledge is good for the society, while dog’s only pleases its master.” Think twice. What good does your knowledge do to the society? Have you seen anyone benefit from it? Or isn’t it better without your knowledge in the society? Lawyers may loose their eloquence or began to fool themselves.

Nevertheless, you did touch an import question: how we judge, evaluate, measure our knowledge depends on the social setting. In Tails, the only criterion to judge knowledge is whether it pleases dog master; while in the human world, we might judge with a sense of utility, in other words, demand from others.

As dog’s talent merely points to the dog master’s pleasure, our knowledge sometimes points just to market needs. And market needs could be anything as ridiculous as a dog master’s pleasure. For instance, someone may have special knowledge of how to make lady’s nails as long as possible. It does come from market needs, but few people will agree that it is more meaningful than a dog’s skill of jumping through a window.