The Modern "Bedlam"

We assume that we have moved far from the days when aristocratic elites visited the mad in Bedlam Hospital and called it entertainment.  But as a recent magazine article points out, in a way we haven't moved far from that scenario at all: "In twentieth century New York, professional elites now visit the mad in the streets and call it homeless outreach.  The results in both cases are the same: the objects of attention are left to rot in their own filth, perhaps to lose a limb or two to gangrene, or to die."  We seem to have returned to the uncivilized days when the mad, left to their own devices, were allowed to roam the streets -- frightened and confused, and sometimes creating havoc.  Yet unlike the eighteenth century, when such chaotic figures were stigmatized as outcasts of society, advocacy groups have tried to redefine today's mentally ill homeless population as rebels or nonconformists who refuse to be co-opted by an oppressive society.  In honoring the civil liberties of an entire population of mentally ill homeless individuals, we have in turn managed to deny their very real needs and contribute to their degradation.


Anne Hendershott, The Politics of Deviance, p.31-32