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| DOES MENTAL ILLNESS = POWER?
A good point brought up in the last section of part three of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is that...: Does mental illness have the aspect of power? Perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become?.see ....power and mental illness..
Hitler for example...or is this all in ones head? when the boys take their fishing trip, they are stopped at a gas station, the attendant there seems unwilling to help, in fact he seems to give them a great deal of difficulty. McMurphy, the pain in the rear he normally is, doesn't step out of character and comes to the rescue. He gives the attendants exactly what he knew would deter them. Fear.. He goes over the (fake) details of their convictions admitting that they are a bad group. This giving the boys a little "bravado and courage"...and what it can do..
Hitler is in fact a great example, he most certainly wasn't of sound mind, he must to some extent be completely loony to order the deaths of 50,000 Jews in one week. With fear comes power. People were to scared to cross him, they knew their fate if they did. so did his mental illness lead to power? or did his power lead to his mental illness? one could argue both points, and to some extent both would be correct. see...Adolf_Hitler
"food for thought here.." The the Nurse for example she deals with mental illness on a daily basis and she has power...The power to control the men and their daily activities, bathroom breaks, food and whether or not they will be drugged. She's taking the power a little too seriously i think..its turning her mad...going to her head...leading to a mental illness? Becoming the Asylum Hitler? see... Nurse Ratched
You can take a look throughout our history, (more so in American history though)..and see how power has led to mental illness and how mental illness allows for the belief of having power. Charles Manson, again...cuckoo out of his tree, convinces people to not only become his followers but to in fact act of crimes and murder people in order to please him. I'm sure feeding them full of drugs had something to do with it. but never the less his mental illness brought about his power, and his power allowed for the stealing, murdering and vandalism that occurred. You can see his mental issues in the words he chose in a song he wrote....see... Lyrics to a song written by Charles Manson. Not the most stable man I'd think..
Although the boys saw how their mental instability can be frightening towards others, they are still ashamed. Not that they are ashamed of the lies being told about them, but that they are afraid of the truth. It is a bit scary to see a car full of patients from an asylum come through, but did they attendants act appropriately? or were they way out of line? .....were they acting out of fear or was it their own insecurities of their own stability?
i most certainly wouldn't want to be the one to aggravate a carload of patent's...i think people should be treated with respect, they way you would want to be treated.. now I'm not saying I do so on a regular basis, I'll admit there's a few people who get under my skin and i couldn't bring myself to be nice if i tried. But for the most part unless you give me a reason to disrespect you, you'll be treated fairly.
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Monday, 5 November 2012
Mental Illness = Power?
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I agree with your statement "with fear comes power". Fear is something that can control people's lives, and can make them do completely irrational things that they wouldn't do if they were thinking straight. I also think that manipulation has to do a great deal with it as well, as Nurse Ratched and Hitler both used those in their different ploys to conquer and control. The manipulation allowed them to mold the individual's opinions into fear of the general outcome, allowing them to step in and obtain power. I think that is how that the people that have made the most drastic impacts on the world managed to keep their power for such a long period of time. When people are manipulated into believing a certain lifestyle, or way of thinking, once it is engrained for a long period of time it becomes a normal way of life.
ReplyDeleteI also think that in regards to your statement about the mental patients and society being afraid of them, it wasn't so much that they were afraid; they were completely misunderstood by the general population. If people in society at that point in time had taken some time to actually address the things that they thought were queer, odd, or completely insane they maybe they would have had a better understanding about what was going on. People with mental illness were totally shunned in the 60's. For example my mom told me that when she was growing up, people that had children that were mentally challenged were ashamed of them, and they weren't allowed to play with the other children; they were kept hidden inside their houses, in the basement the majority of the time!! Isn't that insane! All because they were misunderstood and society rejected everything that wasn't absolutely "normal" in their eyes.
This might sound horrible, and I truly do apologize if this is offending to anyone at all, but I’m personally someone who would be terrified to step into an asylum.
ReplyDeleteCertainly, after reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I can see that not every single patient is dangerous, but they’re in a hospital for a reason, right? Working in a mental hospital, I feel you’d have to be tough, yet gentle at the same time. What I find absolutely terrible and frightening is that lately, as people can see with the “Batman shooter”, people will kill/ingure a mass amount of people, and then say they have a “mental illness”. Well yes, to kill someone, let alone a lot of people, there must be some kind of illess there, but to then be put in a hospital and not jail...
Anyways, back on track, I think the idea of a mental disabilities creating power is very interesting. You get people, like me, who do fear those who are mentally insane. I’m sure, if I even came across someone like that, they’d be able to have complete power over me because I’m too much of a scardey-cat to do anything about it.
As you said, it could also go the other way, too. I always watch Criminal Minds, and each episode the “unsub” (unknown subject) is based on a real life case. That being said, there are some people out there who have so much power, that they truly do believe they can do anything they please, including murder. I like how you used Hitler as an example. He seemed completely normal to people at first, at first people thought he was a great leader. With all that power he had, he ended up killing.. what what it, millions of people?
The world is a crazy place, that’s for sure.