Abstract
In this article, I explore Seth Farber’s critique in The Spiritual Gift of Madness that the leaders of the Mad Pride movement are failing to realize his vision of the mad as spiritual vanguard of sociopolitical transformation. First, I show how, contra Farber’s polemic, several postmodern theorists are well suited for this leadership (especially the Argentinian post-Marxist philosopher Ernesto Laclau). Second, I reinterpret the first book by the Icarus Project, Navigating the Space between Brilliance and Madness, by reimagining its central metaphor of Icarus in the context of late capitalism as a prison world. Finally, I conclude with four strategies derived therefrom for higher functioning mad leaders to transform our penitentiary world.
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1 I am indebted, for the second point, to an early reviewer of the present article.
2 See Hall 2017.
3 In support of Farber’s position, this idea resonates with what I have termed the concept of “self-angelizing” in the work of Dante Alighieri, a concept which functions in both a spiritual and a political register, as part of his avowed calling to save readers’ souls and restore the world to flourishing peace. See Hall 2020.
4 See Hall 2018.
5 Among the latter of these two groups, finally, stands the present author. Following the courageous lead those who have publicly identified as mad (and/or as consumers/survivors/ex-patients), including the contributors to the Icarus Project, and Bradley Lewis, I affirm that I too have experienced milder versions of these extreme states, though (like Kika Kat) I have never had a formal diagnosis, nor been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. I too have always struggled with what are considered symptoms of depression. And I found myself responding viscerally to DuBrul and McNamara’s characterization of (a) “hypomania” as “intoxicating,” and (b) how they “tend to become incredibly confident and magnetic to the people around us, and often find ourselves dreaming up grandiose projects and becoming the center of attention” (DuBrul & McNamara 2013, 26). I acknowledge this in part because, honoring the spirit of Icarus Project’s disability rights motto of “nothing about us without us,” the leaders of Farber’s mad messianic utopianism should be drawn primarily from the high-functioning, self-identified mad.
6 As I have explored in detail elsewhere, in the dance with the people lies the realization of social justice. See Hall 2021.
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Hall, J.M. Farber’s Reimagined Mad Pride: Strategies for Messianic Utopian Leadership. J Med Humanit 43, 585–600 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09727-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09727-w