“Once leprosy had gone, and the figure of the leper was no more than a distant memory, these structures still remained. The game of exclusion would be played again, often in these same places, in an oddly similar fashion two or three centuries later. The role of the leper was to be played by the poor and by the vagrant, by prisoners and by the 'alienated', and the sort of salvation at stake for both parties in this game of exclusion is the matter of this study.”
― History of Madness
― History of Madness
“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does.”
― Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
― Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
“It almost seems that ‘culture’ requires aspirants to participate according to their specific qualifications, to become adherents to an immense task of justifying a ‘logic’ that knows very well how to say practically everything and hardly knows how to listen.”
― The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening
― The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening
“Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.”
― Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
― Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
George’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at George’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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