They've been good today. :) There was a desperately interesting lecture about how madness has been defined, viewed, treated and so on throughout history. I though the analysis of Michel Foucault, who no one except Jacob will know probably, was especially provocative; he said that madness/insanity is entirely a social construct, invented to alienate those who don't fit in to whatever the society of the day is like. He claims it has no objective existence at all, and that necessarily to label someone mad we must assume that we have a monopoly on what is rational and sane, which we don't.
I think Foucault was wrong. But I think there's a lot of truth in his analysis and a very strong case for it. I also got to defend the Marxist view of human nature (it largely doesn't exist) at some length today, and it was unchallenged. In fact there were nods, smiles and agreement+expansion. Unhearrrrd of I'd have been laughed at and indulged for the sake of argument at school and college. I was. Not taken seriously! Weird. =p And a further chance to discuss how religion is essentially subservient to political and economic interests later (more Marxism) which is actually the consensus in academia by the looks of it.
My blogs are getting geekier.
<3
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