Post-Modern Anthropology - Dissertation Example

Post-Modern Anthropology The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a rapid development in the field of postmodernanthropological theory. The post-modern theory of anthropology proved it right that “no one narrative of the way things are can be truly objective or authoritative.” It is true that the postmodern theory of anthropology is a culmination of the criticisms of literature and philosophy that did not seem to offer concrete answers to certain phenomenon (Michael and Richard 1961:393). Postmodernism led to the creation of the medical anthropology from which it made it possible for the society to understand the familiar images of histories of psychiatry. It made it possible for the society to finally recognize and understand madness and treat it according to the truth which the society had been blinded from for a long time. Out of the post-modern anthropological theory, the disease that had been seen as accurse and a humiliator of the human reason could finally through inventions be taken care of and cured. Postmodern anthropology therefore provides a different view of phenomenon thereby enabling the discovery of solutions for the liberation of man and his sanity. This led to the freeing of the majority of the people from the dungeons of both physical and mental imprisonment that had occurred. Postmodern anthropology provided solutions that religion did not fathom to the problem of mental illness. Over long time religion patented that madness could only be controlled but not cured, but with advent of the anthropological theory, “religion was part of the movement which indicated in spite of everything the presence of reason of madness and which led from insanity to health” (Michael and Richard 1961:394). The understanding of the real nature of madness helped in deriving a way the fear that had been passing down like an evocation of a common nature. Before the adoption of the contemporary anthropology, the society was encapsulated with an error that alienated the people of their freedom and joy. As a result of the theory, madness could cause no more fear and the solitary attitude and character that existed between the sane and the madman disappeared. The use of such theory enabled the understanding of the ancient mythical methods of treatments of such illnesses in the olden society and also provided the cause of such diseases thereby enabling the acquisition of medication. “The obscure guilt that once linked transgression and unreason is thus shifted; the madman, as human being originally endowed with reason is no longer guilty of being mad” and can instead now feel morally responsible and respected especially because the disease can be treated (Michael and Richard 1961:395). Natural religion which was mostly a local cures’ concern proved effective. It made use of the benevolence of nature to cure which soothed the minds of the sick and lured them back to the olden cores thereby retrieving the normal behavior. It took a total of three years for one to be cured and restored and be restored to the extreme simplicity. All these happenings had not been able to be done by religion, philosophy, or medicine over a long period of time. The postmodern anthropology by its very nature of criticizing philosophy and literature was able to bring forth such an elaborate and flamboyant mechanism of treatment that had never been witnessed before. In the pre-postmodern anthropological theory, religion was seen as the major preliminary treatments to patients of this kind. This was confirmed in the case of a girl who had been prevailed upon by her councilor to attach herself to a predesigned form of a firm and measured holiness to guard herself against high passions, patience and time in order to get better. Thus the use of asylum enabled the assimilation on “the moral power of consolation, of confidence, and a docile fidelity to nature” (Michael and Richard 1961:395). Asylum being regarded as religious domain without religion is regarded as a domain of ethical uniformity and pure morality. In the same manner, the asylum represents a greater continuity of the morality. However this morality may be seen as primitive since it did provide a substantial answer to the problem of insanity. The kind of morality maintenance that cannot provide solution to the problems was seen as the main source of insanity. The problem of asylum can be solved by imposing morality that will prevail upon the strangers where insanity is prevalent. The operations as performed in the olden times present confusing elements many of which are not able to carry out effective synthesis of the problems for a tangible solution to the contemporary problem of insanity. Postmodern anthropology has provided the mechanism for dealing with the situation through an understanding, care and cure of madness. The adoption of postmodern anthropology came at a time when people were getting stranded as to what they could really adopt for the cure of the disease. It came at a time when the use of religion in an attempt to cure the disease had fallen apart. The then means of medicine could not understand the nature of the disease and those who suffered the unfortunate fate of getting sick by the disease were considered as a curse to the society. Those who became sick were treated as prisoners; they were chained and thrown deep into the dark dungeon where they were secluded from the general public. It became an unbearable disease to get hold of someone since it led to both physical and mental captivity of an individual. The situation prevailed over a long period of time until the discovery of the postmodern anthropology as a result of criticism of the philosophical approach of issues. Postmodern anthropological theory through its analytical approach brought a breakthrough in the discovery of the cure of the disease of madness. Its application through the natural environmental disposition of the sick to the previously everyday routines, the music of nature and the chapping of birds as one attended to the traditional daily domestic course helped one regain sanity with time without the notification of one that he/she is under medication (Michael and Richard:395). The postmodern anthropological theory of treatment took up to three in its implantation approach and left a remarkable mental sanity upon an individual. The attempt of the use of religious segregation in order to exact moral purity with an aim to foster peace in the already chaotic mind of a madman had long been used to no avail of tangible and substantial healing. The classical period before the advent of postmodern anthropological theory saw the treatment of madmen as though they were slaves to their disease. During that time, “indigence, laziness, vice, and madness mingled in an equal quilt within unreason; madmen were caught in the great confinement of poverty and unemployment, but all had been promoted, in the proximity of transgression, to the essence of a Fall.” During this primitive time, madness was observed as a social failure and not as a disease with a cause, limit and model. The society in general suffered from ignorance about the disease and could not understand its implications to an individual’s mind. Later on nearly half a century, mental disease caused a degeneracy tendency to an individual, the dangerous and the essential madness was known to be that which rose from the societal lower depths. The insanities that emanated from the outer limits were eliminated into the Pinel’s asylum which was considered a site for moral syntheses and a uniform domain of legislation. The life of inmates in the asylum and the conduct of both their doctors and keepers were pre-arranged by the Pinel in order to make the moral synthesis function. Pinel’s used the principle of silence as one of the cure of madness in the hospital. The embarrassments of iron chains, the thick stones of the dungeon and its darkness bestowed upon some madmen a sense of change and freedom when the chains were removed and the person brought back to the general ward. The order to everyone not to talk to them until they regained their senses coupled with the sense of freedom from chains and the dungeons’ darkness yielded the sense of liberty; however the persons still became extremely confined in their emotions and perception of certain realities. The principle of silence kept the madman fascinated by nothing apart from his own presumption of the nature and how things were unfolding in his mind. In that case he faces despair, and only feels his presence not as an observation but as a denial of attention and an observation deflected. The observation of absolute silence in the Pinel’s treatment seemed different from the traditional one in which mild dialogue and torture were engaged in the attempt to treat the sick (Michael and Richard 1961:396). The use of recognition through the mirror was the second mode of treatment by Pinel. Unlike in the Retreat where the madman was observed and he knew that he was being observed. With Pinel, observation was only done within the space defined by madness itself in the absence of interior or surface limits. He believed that “madness would see itself, would be seen by itself-pure spectacle and absolute subject.” The observations of the madmen led to the agreement with the fact “madness is made to observe itself, but in others: it appears in them as a baseless pretense-in other words as absurd.” The mirror became a subject of demystifying the illusionary thoughts of the madmen and brings them back to reality in a manner that did not include violence and torture but through self-indignation and discovery of who one really is and the regain of the conscious mind almost lost to mental disorder (Michael and Richard 1961:397). Certain therapeutic procedures of the eighteenth century included making the madman aware of his madness in an attempt to cure him from it. However, in Panel’s way of treatment of the .madman, he considers madness “as an impulse from the depth which exceeds the juridical limits of the individual, ignores the moral limits fixed for him, and tends towards an apotheosis of the self” (Michael and Richard 1961:397). It has been shown through research work that, during the nineteenth century, madness was seen as believing oneself to be God and after that in the following centuries it became the denial of God. As a result, it is postulated that “madness, sin the spectacle of itself as unreason humiliated, was able to find its salvation when, imprisoned in the absolute subjectivity of its delirium, it surprised the absurd and objective image of that delirium in the identical madman” (Michael and Richard 1961:398). The third principle in treating madness according to Pinel’s postmodern application of anthropological theory was the use of perpetual judgment. Here madness is aided to judge itself and at the same time judged from without through an invisible tribunal in a permanent session. The application of postmodern anthropological theory in treatment sought to find out whether the irresistible curse of the madman’s sinister ideas could be corrected not through the exertion of fear and torture upon him but through an understanding of the entire processes. The Bourgeois society still practiced the confinement of the unlawful inmates in to the dungeons in order to try and exact some sort of reform upon them. Those inmates who could not be subject to the general law of work and maliciously provokes peace were the subject of the sufferings in the dungeons. However, the attempts of the eighteenth century to treat the madman also included the principle of the medical personage (Michael and Richard 1961:399). This was an important attempt which created a relationship between the insanity and the doctors. The cures of the doctor in complementary to Pinel’s therapeutic treatment offered a formidable assistance to the patients in a more peculiar way than had been seen before. It is seen from Pinel’s explanations that medical treatments alone without therapeutic treatment did not always result in to satisfactory healing of the patients. This was seen in the case of the seventeen year old girl who became bitter with her parents for being in the asylum where the gentleness she enjoyed for the better part of her sanity was not tolerated (Michael and Richard 1961:401). The girl became opposed to her cure which resulted into the maximum severity in her treatments. After the therapeutic treatment offered to the girl she became understanding and confessed her loss of reason and the reasons as to why. From there henceforth her response to drugs improved until she became well again. As such it is a proof that therapeutic treatment is as well as important as the medicinal treatment when it comes to dealing with insanity. The adoption of psychiatric practice in the treatment proved equally important function of the postmodern anthropological theory in the treatment of madman within the medical world. This was considered the medicine of the mind which had gained its autonomy from the ancient Greek medicine. The Pinel’s and Tuke’s psychiatry offered a fundamental irresistible part of the medicinal application that was south by every endeavor in the understanding of the disease (Michael and Richard 1961:403). The postmodern anthropological theory in the treatment of insanity through the miraculous power of psychiatry and medicine, doctor-patient relations, all sunk into an understanding that brought forth healing in a quicker and better way. The patient viewed the doctor as a figure of authority from which order, morality and family is driven from. The work of psychiatry into enabling the patient accept and believe in medication was fundamental altogether. The later nineteenth century presented a deeper understanding of the phenomenon insanity. The structure that enveloped medical personage was exploited and greater attempts were made to find an ultimate cure for the disease. In an attempt to find the solution, scientists focused on the “single presence—concealed behind the patent and above him, in an absence that is also a total presence—all the powers that had been distributed in the collective existence of the asylum” (Michael and Richard 1961:406). Work Cited Michael, Trans, and Richard Howard 1961 The Birth of the Asylum. New York: Book Published. Read More