Eu aceito a provocação do meu amigo Filipe, eheheh...
Repito o que já disse em outra correspondência.
Eu não tenho nenhuma pretensão a ser o dono da verdade.
Tenho minhas convicções, embora não seja dado a radicalismos. Eheheheh, apenas ao me exprimir...
Creio que pessoas inteligentes e preocupadas em pensar o mundo podem colaborar comigo para que eu alcance, por outros pontos de vista, idéias já conhecidas.
Portanto, não pense que eu caio na besteira de assinar embaixo do que outros pensam. Não concedo parte de minha soberania intelectual a ninguém. Nem à Olavo, nem à Reinaldo, nem à Emir.
A única coisa que faço questão de deixar claro é que, na hipótese de uma conflagração ideológica, eu sei qual o meu lado. Sou liberal e não marxista, sou cristão e não muçulmano. Sou defensor dos direitos da mulher (inclusive o direito fundamental de mandarem na gente), creio que devemos cuidar do planeta dentro do possível (e aí é que está o problema, eheheh) e penso que é uma ilusão trabalhar com a idéia de estender padrões de consumo ou cultura política para todos neste planeta.
Sou, sobretudo, pela tolerância. A citação à Montaigne não foi à toa.
Este blog é nosso, inclusive para quebrar o pau.
Voltando à tolerância, devemos enfatizar a igualdade, a paridade entre pessoas com entendimentos e vivências divergentes. Devemos falar em alto e bom som que não há qualquer superioridade, antes igualdade, quando se defende que ninguém pode se arvorar com mais autoridade que o seu semelhante em matéria de convicção filosófica. Tolerar não significa concordar. Ao contrário. Não necessitamos tolerar pessoas com quem concordamos. Discordância com tolerância se funda na noção de que podemos defender convicções sem que isto implique em qualquer noção de superioridade. Devemos até mesmo tolerar algum nível de transgressão, sobretudo na luta ideológica renhida, típica de uma democracia jovem como a nossa, sob pena de criminalizarmos até mesmo divergências de botequim.
5 comentários:
A apresentação do texto a seguir não tem nenhuma intenção de se participação no debate político-partidário. Trata-se da real situação da "Academia" brasileira, diagnosticada pelo maior intelectual brasileiro. Este texto foi primeiro publicado, sob outro título, no Jornal do Brasil, de 2 de maio de 1981. O livro "As Idéias e as Formas", de Merquior, contém o ensaio “Marxismo e democracia” (páginas p. 232-40) com o mesmo conteúdo.
por José Guilherme Merquior
“Há na democracia um apelo interno ao socialismo.” Com essa convicção, Marilena Chauí dedica dois ensaios (e dois terços) de seu brilhante e recém- publicado Cultura e Democracia (Ed. Moderna, S. Paulo) ao que há pouco discutíamos, em debate com Carlos Nelson Coutinho*: à tentativa de revalorização do princípio democrático no ensaísmo marxista ou marxizante brasileiro. Mas enquanto Carlos Nelson procura conciliar sua louvável defesa do valor universal da democracia com uma apologia do pensamento político de Lênin, Marilena nem perde tempo com tarefa tão ingrata: seu democratismo marxizante já passa tranqüilamente por uma resoluta rejeição de Lênin. É que o guru de Marilena não é nenhum marxista ocidental leninista, tipo Lukács ou Gramsci, e sim a voz mais interessante do gauchisme: Claude Lefort. Na realidade, embora o cite expressamente um par de vezes, Marilena deve a Lefort bem mais do que seu texto reconhece (o que talvez se explique pela destinação originariamente oral desses ensaios), já que seu próprio fraseado se acha, em vários trechos, diretamente calcado na obra do teórico francês, a começar pelos Eléments d’une Critique de la Bureaucratie (1971).
A diferença entre Lênin e Gramsci (cuja teoria política é perfilhada por Carlos Nelson) é de grau — mas a diferença entre Lênin e Lefort é de natureza. A divergência entre Gramsci e Lênin se resume numa questão de tática. Gira em torno do reconhecimento, pelo italiano, da força da sociedade civil no Ocidente, e, portanto, da necessidade de fazer preceder a tomada revolucionária do poder de uma ampla hegemonia sociocultural das massas. Já com Lefort, que se propõe radicalizar a crítica de Rosa Luxemburgo ao bolchevismo, a divergência é estratégica: não se refere ao problema da conquista do poder, mas à própria substância do poder revolucionário, enquanto centralismo despótico e elitista. Ex-trotskista, Lefort conservou do autor de A Revolução Traída um horror. à dominação do partido degradado em burocracia absolutista. Amigo íntimo de Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), herdou desse filósofo, grande adversário de Sartre nos anos 50, a consciência da ambigüidade radical de todo estar no mundo humano, ambigüidade que torna utópico — e necessariamente violento — todo e qualquer anelo de agir em nome de uma pretensa transparência do sujeito, quer individual, quer — como o partido revolucionário — coletivo. Se a história, ação humana, não é essencialmente transparente, então nenhuma força que pretenda encarná-la poderá aspirar com legitimidade à direção global da sociedade. A idéia de uma vanguarda no poder – o modelo leninista – perde com isso sua sustentação filosófica. A influência de Merleau-Ponty reforçou a ruptura de Lefort com o sebastianismo trotskista, que ainda se alimentava da ilusão de salvar o partido do despotismo burocrático.
Para o outro maitre-à-penser do gauchisme, Cornelius Castoriadis, companheiro de Lefort no grupo Socialismo ou Barbárie, o marxismo libertário de Lefort padece de um defeito: não satisfaz a um mínimo de requisitos organizacionais do combate revolucionário. Mas é que Castoriadis quer a todo custo salvar o princípio da revolução — mesmo ao preço do abandono do marxismo. Lefort é muito menos lírico, e muito mais ambíguo. Para quem não se considere comprometido com o mito da revolução, porém, a verdadeira lacuna de seu pensamento é outra. Em Lefort, a vontade de escapar ao leninismo sem cair no liberalismo desemboca numa análise da sociedade contemporânea que pode ser politicamente relevante (crítica do burocratismo), mas é sociologicamente vaga (a sociedade burocrática é algo histórica e institucionalmente muito indeterminado). Além disso, do lado construtivo, esse gauchisme não oferece mais do que um libertarismo difuso, quase completamente destituído de viabilidade prática. Um protesto romântico, sem projeto político-social.
Valeria a pena indagar até que ponto essa carga romântica do libertarismo lefortiano convida ao flerte com teorias do conhecimento igualmente pouco racionais. Marilena coloca seu livro sob a égide das delirantes invectivas da escola de Frankfurt contra “as pressões sociais que a ciência (sic) criou” (Max Horkheimer); e prefacia sua teorização política pela adoção de uma antítese, entre o “conhecer” e o “pensar”, cujo talhe heideggeriano cheira e soa ao mais sovado irracionalismo neo-romântico. Nem é difícil associar a essa atmosfera irracionalista o seu hábito de denunciar as preocupações de racionalidade econômica como coisa meramente alienada, desumanizante e repressiva. Decepciona ver uma autora tão sofistica incidir nesse cacoete humanístico, que, a pretexto de repudiar certas falácias da tecnocracia, termina negligenciando infantilmente uma das maiores obrigações da reflexão social em nosso tempo: a absoluta necessidade de incorporar a lógica do econômico — relativa, mas, até certo ponto, irredutível — ao discurso que se queira objetivo sobre poder e sociedade.
Como era de esperar, o marxismo antiburocrático extrema o gosto marxiano pela demonização do estado. Marilena revela alto apreço pelo desbragado filosofismo da nova escolástica neomarxista, especialmente alemã, no capítulo da teoria do estado; mas não demonstra igual interesse pela análise empírica do fenômeno da estatificação, seja historiográfica (de um Stein Rokkan a um Charles Tilly, por exemplo), seja sociológica. A despeito de seu breve elogio à crítica de Miguel Reale à miopia antiestatista de muitos liberais, nossa pensadora se mantém no essencial, fiel à dogmática estadofobia marxista, ao mito do estado como eterno instrumento de opressão de classe. Daí seu pronunciamento, em nome do “apelo socialista” da idéia democrática, contra a perspectiva de um movimento social-democrático no Brasil, por ela considerado “etapista, legalista, parlamentarista, estatista, nacionalista e aliancista”. À soma, para muitos quase impecável, desses atributos, ela contrapõe o ideal de um radicalismo obreiro (p. 206-7) de prática “antiestatal” (p. 131). O motivo desse puritanismo antialiancista é uma velha melodia marxista: o ódio supersticioso ao reformismo, o apego fundamentalista ao Desejo de Revolução. Aqui, visivelmente, Marilena se separa da ótica bem mais desencantada — ou bem mais lúcida — de Lefort.
E, contudo, o decisivo é saber se a posição de Marilena supera os equívocos (que Lefort procura evitar) do ataque marxista contra a democracia liberal. Nesse ponto, curiosamente, a autora oscila entre duas direções. Por um lado, ao longo de seu justo e eloqüente inventário das carências e iniqüidades que compõem nosso colosso de privilégio e autoritarismo (p. 159-61), ela não advoga, a rigor, nada que não seja perfeitamente integrável numa democracia de índole social-liberal, nada que não possa ser oferecido pela combinação do estado de direito com o estado-previdência. Por outro lado, no plano teórico, endossa a vulgata marxista, decretando que “a liberdade é impossível numa democracia liberal”, já que, enquanto houver uma classe dominada, as relações sociais, da produção à ideologia. servem de obstáculo permanente à autodeterminação do homem.
Tomara que essa defasagem entre teoria utópico-radical e programa político razoável e, que me perdoem os “radicais” o palavrão, sensata e humanitariamente reformista possa perdurar na prosa do nosso marxismo de cátedra e salão. Afinal de contas, foi na base de uma dissonância análoga que, na Belle Époque européia, a social-democracia germânica realizou a educação política dos trabalhadores alemães. A audácia de Bernstein foi apenas ter ousado ser revisionista também na teoria; na prática, como é sabido, todos os ortodoxos, Kautsky à frente, foram indecentemente reformistas.
Mas o que precisa ser logo contestado, nesse verbalismo “radical”, é a cansativa mania de reduzir a imagem liberal da democracia ao nível de uma simples visão “burguesa”. Visão burguesa que, alega-se, “politiza” o universo democrático para esvaziá-lo de suas potencialidades sociais... Infelizmente para quem teima em sustentar esse ponto de vista, a realidade histórica tem sido bem diversa. A democracia liberal não foi nenhuma dádiva-engodo da burguesia; foi uma conquista popular, forçando, por etapas, o alargamento universalista da cidadania e das liberdades, até o atual desdobramento dos direitos civis e políticos em vários direitos sociais. E, para tanto, a democracia – o regime da liberdade na igualdade, ou melhor, numa dinâmica de igualização – operou por meio da ativação de um mecanismo – o mercado político – a que socializantes pós-liberais como C. B. Macpherson, citado simpaticamente por Marilena, torcem seu delicado nariz “humanista”. Como se o primeiro cuidado de todos os autoritarismos (a começar pelos nossos, na convincente análise de Bolívar Lamounier) não tivesse sido sempre, justamente, impedir esse mercado político de funcionar.
Marilena condena saudavelmente o “reducionismo classista” do marxismo crasso. Mas o que ela tem em mente é apenas o economicismo, o “formalismo socialista”, para o qual socializar é tão-somente coletivizar os meios de produção. Assim, quando um Norberto Bobbio aponta a dificuldade de fazer atuar a democracia, em sua plenitude, numa sociedade como a contemporânea, dominada pela crença inevitável de grandes burocracias e de uma medida também inevitável de gestão tecnocrática, paradoxalmente derivadas da pressão das próprias massas, ansiosas por progresso e segurança, tudo o que nossa teórica tem a comentar é que esses males e paradoxos não procedem do próprio jogo político-social da democracia representativa, e sim da libido dominandi do capitalismo moderno. . . Convenhamos que é ficar muito, muito perto de uma visão conspiratorial do processo histórico, sem ter sequer o trabalho de tentar fundamentá-la com algo mais que a mera invocação ritual do demônio disfarçado de formação social. Num dos melhores momentos de seu livro, ao expor a política de seu – e meu – querido Espinosa, Marilena lembra que, para a teoria política moderna, o eixo do bom regime não é mais, ou só, a motivação os governantes, mas a excelência das instituições e, em particular, sua aptidão a garantir a segurança dos cidadãos por meio de mecanismos que impeçam a monopolização da autoridade por qualquer tipo de poder social. Pois bem, a pergunta que deve ser claramente respondida é: alguém conhece algum regime mais capaz de concretizar essa garantia (e, através dela, expandir liberdades reais) do que a tensa, imperfeita e precária democracia liberal? Se o filosofismo “radical” o conhece, ainda não nos fez a graça de demonstrá-lo; e, se não conhece, temos o direito de pedir à sua retórica acusatória que se dedique a avaliar um pouco menos superficialmente o sentido e função das liberdades democráticas.
O ENIGMA MERQUIOR
por André Singer
Passada uma década da morte de José Guilherme Merquior, todavia não está claro o papel que a história intelectual do Brasil lhe reservará. Há quem o qualifique de "a maior inteligência brasileira da segunda metade do século 20", como declara o poeta Bruno Tolentino. Há quem o considere apenas um "aluno hiperaplicado", conforme escreveu na Folha outro poeta, Nelson Ascher. Entre uma e outra opinião, pode-se colher vasta gama de avaliações distintas sobre o diplomata carioca que discorria sobre literatura, filosofia e política com rara erudição. Desde ser apenas o mais "talentoso porta-voz da direita", segundo declarou Marilena Chaui, professora de filosofia da Universidade de São Paulo, quando o adversário morreu, até se constituir no "árbitro da atualização cultural brasileira", de acordo com o cientista político Candido Mendes, reitor da Universidade Candido Mendes, no Rio de Janeiro, Merquior ainda recebe avaliações muito distintas. À parte duas condições reconhecidas por todos -a de ser um erudito e amar a polêmica-, a meteórica carreira de Merquior, que começou a escrever já na adolescência e morreu com menos de 50 anos sem parar de publicar ("é como se ele soubesse que tinha pouco tempo", afirma Tolentino), foi desconcertante para gregos e troianos. Homem dotado de uma capacidade de leitura descomunal ("quase nunca me aconteceu de ter mencionado um livro que ele não houvesse lido", conta o filósofo de orientação marxista Leandro Konder, professor de filosofia na Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro), Merquior foi autor de 22 volumes "e há ainda vários póstumos por sair", segundo o editor José Mário Pereira, da Topbooks, que pretende reunir, nos próximos anos, os escritos dispersos e inéditos do amigo. A dificuldade em fixar a imagem de Merquior decorre, em parte, da diversidade de sua produção. Entre "Razão do Poema" (1965) e "O Liberalismo" (1991), o polemista transitou -ao impressionante ritmo de quase um livro por ano- por diferentes áreas de interesse e posturas ideológicas. "A sua carreira tem mais curvas do que a estrada de Santos", afirma o acadêmico Eduardo Portella, ex-ministro da Educação (governo Figueiredo, 1979-1985). Começou na crítica literária e terminou na teoria política. Iniciou-se simpático à esquerda e acabou em uma adesão militante ao credo liberal. Enfim, as mudanças de Merquior, apesar de não serem bruscas ou erráticas, foram largas o suficiente para impedir uma apreensão simples do significado da obra que deixou. O balanço do seu legado necessitará de trabalhos acadêmicos de fôlego e terá que começar por distinguir pelo menos dois Merquiores. Existe o jovem Merquior, que apareceu, de surpresa, em 1959, no cenário cultural do Rio por meio de críticas literárias publicadas no "Suplemento Dominical" do "Jornal do Brasil", o qual, curiosamente, saía aos sábados. O responsável pelo caderno, Reynaldo Jardim, recebeu o primeiro texto pelo correio. O conteúdo era tão bom que decidiu publicá-lo, mesmo sem conhecer o autor. Estabeleceu-se, assim, uma rotina em que o colaborador enviava os textos pelo serviço postal e era então aproveitado sem que houvesse contato direto com o editor.
Precocidade excepcional
Certa vez, Merquior decidiu entregar um dos artigos em mãos. Foi à redação do jornal e passou o envelope ao jornalista. "Olha, diga a seu pai para aparecer", disse Jardim ao rapaz de pele muito branca e cara de garoto, características que o acompanharam até a morte. "Mas eu sou José Guilherme Merquior", respondeu o quase menino para a surpresa de Jardim, que o convidaria, em 1960, a assumir a coluna de crítica de poesia do suplemento.
Konder, que conheceu Merquior em 1961 durante um festival de cinema soviético, confirma a lenda que cercava a figura do crítico adolescente e, naquela época, simpático à esquerda: "Muita gente achava que ele não existia". Nascido em 1941, na Tijuca, em uma família bem-posta, porém sem intelectuais de renome, Merquior foi de uma precocidade excepcional. Basta observar o impacto que tiveram alguns daqueles ensaios iniciais, redigidos por volta dos 20 anos e depois reunidos no livro de estréia, "Razão do Poema".
"A Sereia e o Desconfiado", de Roberto Schwarz, e "Razão do Poema", ambos publicados pela Civilização Brasileira em 1965, "foram verdadeiros renovadores da crítica literária brasileira", afirma o editor Pedro Paulo Sena Madureira, hoje na Siciliano. "De repente, apareceram, um em São Paulo e outro no Rio de Janeiro, dois jovens pensadores de grande vigor."
A sensibilidade de Merquior para a poesia, demonstrada em análises de peças clássicas como a "Canção do Exílio", de Gonçalves Dias, ou de poetas modernos, como Murilo Mendes, também é consensual. "Ele foi um excelente crítico de poesia", diz o pensador de inspiração marxista Carlos Nelson Coutinho, professor de teoria política na Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Em homenagem a Merquior realizada no Pen Club do Rio de Janeiro, o mais importante teórico da literatura brasileira, Antonio Candido, professor emérito da Universidade de São Paulo, afirmou que "Merquior foi sem dúvida um dos maiores críticos que o Brasil teve".
E, para exemplificar a qualidade da fatura de Merquior, Candido menciona justamente o estudo sobre a "Canção do Exílio". "Ele mostrou que a sua eficiência [do poema" provém na verdade do fato de ser todo ele, virtualmente, uma espécie de grande expressão adjetiva", disse Candido.
A primeira fase de Merquior, em que o apego à literatura predomina sobre os interesses ideológicos, se estende por cerca de uma década. Nela, além de aprofundar o gosto pela poesia, que iria resultar, por exemplo, na tese "Verso Universo em Drummond", defendida na Universidade de Paris e que resultou em "um belo livro", segundo Carlos Nelson Coutinho, ele passa a estudar outros gêneros literários. "A interpretação que ele faz de Machado contém novidades importantes", afirma Portella, referindo-se, sobretudo, ao texto "Machado de Assis e a Prosa Impressionista", contido no volume um de "De Anchieta a Euclides, Breve História da Literatura Brasileira" (1977).
Significativamente, o volume dois daquela "breve história da literatura brasileira" jamais seria escrito. É que em meados da década de 70, em Londres, para onde se havia mudado a convite do então embaixador Roberto Campos, o foco intelectual de Merquior começou a se deslocar para a temática política.
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Não é difícil perceber que havia um elo comum nos ataques de Merquior; tratava-se de combater certa cultura de esquerda que ele qualificava de romântica e atrasada
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A atenção à conjuntura sempre fizera parte do cotidiano de Merquior, até porque dela dependia o seu futuro como funcionário do Ministério das Relações Exteriores. Merquior nunca descuidou de ascender no Itamaraty. Admirador confesso de Francisco Clementino de San Tiago Dantas (1911-1964), o mítico chanceler e depois ministro da Fazenda do presidente João Goulart (1961-64), procurou seguir-lhe os passos. "Conheci José Guilherme em 1963, no almoço em que se convidou San Tiago Dantas para ser o paraninfo da turma dele no Rio Branco", conta o ex-ministro da Fazenda Marcílio Marques Moreira (governo Collor, 1990-1992). Formado em direito e filosofia pela antiga Universidade Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Merquior fizera, em seguida, no Instituto Rio Branco a formação para ingressar na carreira diplomática e se tornou orador da turma paraninfada por San Tiago. Formado, foi logo depois trabalhar em Brasília. Conta Tolentino que, quando sobreveio o golpe de 1964, Merquior quase embarcou no avião que levaria Darcy Ribeiro, o chefe do Gabinete Civil de Jango, para o exílio. Impedido pela mulher, Hilda Vieira de Castro Merquior, de seguir os chefes do governo deposto, Merquior teve que enfrentar, no Brasil, processo interno no Itamaraty por vínculos com o antigo regime. "Ajudei a fazer a defesa dele e de Sergio Paulo Rouanet", lembra Marques Moreira.
Mergulho na política
Após ser absolvido, Merquior foi enviado à embaixada em Paris, onde permaneceu até o final dos anos 60. Findo o período francês e após uma passagem por Bonn, na Alemanha, e outra em Brasília, Campos o leva em 1974 para Londres. Já doutor em letras pela Sorbonne, Merquior decide, então, matricular-se na London School of Economics and Political Science para obter um segundo doutorado, dessa feita em ciência política. Começa, então, a aparecer o Merquior da maturidade, aquele que mergulhará na política. Do ponto de vista intelectual, a ponte entre uma e outra fase foi realizada pelos trabalhos anteriores de Merquior na área de crítica da cultura, uma extensão natural da militância literária. Ao final da turbulenta "era de Aquário" que caracterizou os anos 60, Merquior escreveu "Arte e Sociedade em Marcuse, Adorno e Benjamin" (1969), significativamente dedicado a San Tiago Dantas. "Foi o primeiro trabalho a sair no país sobre a Escola de Frankfurt", conta Portella. De acordo com José Mário Pereira, graças a Merquior, que havia lido os autores alemães na tradução italiana, o Brasil teria tomado conhecimento dos frankfurtianos antes que eles fossem estudados em determinados países da Europa. Com uma linguagem clara -um dos traços da prosa merquioriana-, "Arte e Sociedade" antes de mais nada "explica" o pensamento dos três ícones da esquerda para em seguida criticá-lo a partir de uma ótica heideggeriana. Concorde-se ou não com a crítica, o caráter didático da exposição anterior produz aquele efeito de "atualização cultural" a que se refere Candido Mendes. O mergulho no mundo neo-hegeliano alemão foi, no período que precedeu Londres, parte de uma ampla pesquisa voltada para o fenômeno estético. Nesse percurso, Merquior principia a afastar-se do marxismo, que o havia estimulado no início da década de 60. "Lembro-me de uma carta, do começo de 1964, em que ele revia Lukács e aderia a Lévi-Strauss", relata Konder. Em Paris, Merquior estabelece contato direto com o mestre da antropologia e escreve um ensaio intitulado "A Estética de Lévi-Strauss". Como se vê, o caminho que levaria Merquior da crítica literária à teoria política seria ao mesmo tempo o percurso da esquerda ao liberalismo, ainda que em tempos diferentes. Atribui-se, sem razão, ao ambiente popperiano da London School, onde, sob a orientação do sociólogo Ernest Gellner, o diplomata escreveu "Rousseau and Weber - Two Studies in the Theory of Legitimacy" (Routledge e Kegan Paul, 1979), a conversão liberal de Merquior. Na verdade, a tese é antes favorável a Rousseau do que a Weber. "Em 1978, achava-me ainda razoavelmente impregnado do utopismo de Maio, que eu vivera dez anos antes em sua sede parisiense", escreveu Merquior, como para justificar-se da falta de liberalismo, no prefácio à edição brasileira, publicada apenas dez anos mais tarde. O caminho para o liberalismo foi lento, e a verdadeira cruzada liberal de Merquior ocorrerá apenas nos anos 80. Transferido do Reino Unido para o Uruguai e depois para o Brasil, Merquior se engajará em uma série de polêmicas no começo da década que, não por acaso, marcaria o espalhamento do neoliberalismo pelo mundo. A partir dessa época, o futuro embaixador mostrou-se pouco interessado em conciliar, ao menos no plano do debate público. Atacou a psicanálise, cutucou o jornalista Paulo Francis, então o de maior evidência no país, esculhambou Caetano Veloso, ídolo da juventude intelectualizada e, acima de tudo, comprou uma briga de morte com Marilena Chaui, uma das mais brilhantes pensadoras da escola uspiana, ao acusá-la de "plágio não-doloso" do filósofo francês Claude Lefort. Marilena respondeu que era tradutora de Lefort para o português, além de ter formação comum e intercâmbio intelectual com ele, daí não fazer sentido a idéia de plágio.
Espadachim conservador
Não é difícil perceber que havia um elo comum nos ataques de Merquior. Tratava-se de combater certa cultura de esquerda que ele qualificava de romântica e atrasada. Nomeado, no mesmo período, para assessorar o chefe da Casa Civil (governo Figueiredo), Leitão de Abreu, o ex-crítico literário lukacsiano passou a frequentar o debate político como espadachim conservador.
Ao fogo cruzado do início dos 80 segue-se uma série de livros em que Merquior -recém-eleito para a Academia Brasileira de Letras- busca dar sustentação à crítica da crítica anticapitalista. "A Natureza do Processo" (1982), "O Argumento Liberal" (1983), "O Marxismo Ocidental" (1987) e "O Liberalismo, Antigo e Moderno" (1991), todos publicados pela editora Nova Fronteira, colocam Merquior no mesmo diapasão que outros intelectuais latino-americanos que haviam migrado da esquerda para o liberalismo (e da literatura para a política), como Mario Vargas Llosa e Octavio Paz, com quem manteve intenso contato durante o período em que foi o embaixador do Brasil no México, entre 1987 e 1989.
"Com a morte de Merquior, nós, marxistas, perdemos um ótimo interlocutor", afirma Carlos Nelson Coutinho. "Sinto falta dele", corrobora Leandro Konder.
A falta a que se refere Konder diz respeito à qualidade da argumentação merquioriana, que obriga o intelectual de esquerda a refinar os argumentos se quiser manter-se à altura do adversário. "Acho que ele foi o primeiro crítico conservador do marxismo no Brasil que efetivamente leu Marx", afirma Konder.
Para Candido Mendes, a cultura e a inteligência de Merquior o teriam levado a superar o liberalismo. De acordo com Mendes, a morte "eliminou a maturidade completa de um pensamento que iria garantir a tarefa crítica no Brasil como uma razão operante sem as servidões da ideologia ou da pequena dialética". No mínimo, afirma Mendes, é preciso entender que o liberalismo de Merquior não descartava, antes pressupunha, "a retomada do desenvolvimento".
Com efeito, Merquior apagou-se, de repente, no auge de uma batalha intelectual e política que ninguém sabe exatamente aonde o levaria. Engajado na sustentação ideológica do governo Collor, produziu, a pedido do presidente, o texto que seria a base programática de um partido social-liberal a ser construído pelo político alagoano. "Eu lhe disse para cair fora, que aquilo era uma barca furada", conta Konder, que permaneceu amigo de Merquior apesar das desavenças doutrinárias e já percebera o aventureirismo da empreitada collorida.
Por que Merquior não ouviu os conselhos? Uma hipótese, aventada por outro amigo, o advogado Paulo Mercadante, precisará ser levada em conta quando for composta a biografia definitiva do polemista. "Merquior tinha sonhos políticos", cogita Mercadante. "Certa vez, ele me disse que havia se preparado intelectual e culturalmente para dar o pulo na política, tal como o fizera, décadas antes, San Tiago Dantas."
Últimos dias
Por essas estranhas coincidências do destino, as trajetórias de um e de outro seriam interrompidas pela doença. Surpreendido por um câncer devastador e fatal em agosto de 1990, Merquior, naquele momento em Paris, reagiu com estoicismo à aproximação da Parca, a ponto de continuar a proferir conferências e escrever quase até o último dia. "Eu acho que o mais importante foi a ética da sua morte", afirma Mendes. "Essa capacidade de ter uma vigília absolutamente romana", explica Mendes, "no sentido de ignorar a morte e ir adiante, quer dizer, como se a contemplação dele já tivesse se fincado na eternidade".
Na última aparição pública, em dezembro, na capital francesa, Merquior apresentava palidez e magreza cadavéricas. "Mas iluminou-se ao começar a falar", conta Eduardo Portella. Defendeu o estabelecimento, no Brasil, de um "neocapitalismo produtivo", que se opusesse tanto ao "projeto de República sindicalista" quanto ao capitalismo "especulativo". Propugnava por um Estado "promotor de estratégias globais de desenvolvimento" e "protetor dessas imensas camadas da população que estão ainda sem teto, sem a alimentação apropriada, sem escola e sem acesso à Justiça".
Morto em janeiro de 1991, é impossível saber o que Merquior diria diante do surto neoliberal que começou no governo que ele apoiava e teve continuidade na era tucana. Seja como for, o balanço de sua obra, quando for feito, iluminará não só a contribuição específica de um dos principais intelectuais brasileiros do século 20 como o percurso de parte da intelectualidade nacional antes que as estruturas desenvolvimentistas das quais Merquior foi fruto começassem a ser desmontadas.
André Singer é professor de ciência política na USP e repórter especial da Folha. Autor de "Esquerda e Direita no Eleitorado Brasileiro" (Edusp) e "O PT" (Publifolha).
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On Being Sane In Insane Places
David L. Rosenhan*
How do we know precisely what constitutes “normality” or mental illness? Conventional wisdom suggests
that specially trained professionals have the ability to make reasonably accurate diagnoses. In this
research, however, David Rosenhan provides evidence to challenge this assumption. What is -- or is not -
- “normal” may have much to do with the labels that are applied to people in particular settings.
If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?
The question is neither capricious nor itself insane. However much we may be personally
convinced that we can tell the normal from the abnormal, the evidence is simply not compelling. It is
commonplace, for example, to read about murder trials wherein eminent psychiatrists for the defense are
contradicted by equally eminent psychiatrists for the prosecution on the matter of the defendant’s sanity.
More generally, there are a great deal of conflicting data on the reliability, utility, and meaning of such
terms as “sanity,” “insanity,” “mental illness,” and “schizophrenia.” Finally, as early as 1934, {Ruth}
Benedict suggested that normality and abnormality are not universal.[1] What is viewed as normal in one
culture may be seen as quite aberrant in another. Thus, notions of normality and abnormality may not be
quite as accurate as people believe they are.
To raise questions regarding normality and abnormality is in no way to question the fact that some
behaviors are deviant or odd. Murder is deviant. So, too, are hallucinations. Nor does raising such
questions deny the existence of the personal anguish that is often associated with “mental illness.” Anxiety
and depression exist. Psychological suffering exists. But normality and abnormality, sanity and insanity,
and the diagnoses that flow from them may be less substantive than many believe them to be.
At its heart, the question of whether the sane can be distinguished from the insane (and whether
degrees of insanity can be distinguished from each other) is a simple matter: Do the salient characteristics
that lead to diagnoses reside in the patients themselves or in the environments and contexts in which
observers find them? From Bleuler, through Kretchmer, through the formulators of the recently revised
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the belief has been strong that
patients present symptoms, that those symptoms can be categorized, and, implicitly, that the sane are
distinguishable from the insane. More recently, however, this belief has been questioned. Based in part on
theoretical and anthropological considerations, but also on philosophical, legal, and therapeutic ones, the
view has grown that psychological categorization of mental illness is useless at best and downright
harmful, misleading, and pejorative at worst. Psychiatric diagnoses, in this view, are in the minds of
observers and are not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed.
Gains can be made in deciding which of these is more nearly accurate by getting normal people
(that is, people who do not have, and have never suffered, symptoms of serious psychiatric disorders)
admitted to psychiatric hospitals and then determining whether they were discovered to be sane and, if so,
how. If the sanity of such pseudopatients were always detected, there would be prima facie evidence that a
sane individual can be distinguished from the insane context in which he is found. Normality (and
presumably abnormality) is distinct enough that it can be recognized wherever it occurs, for it is carried
within the person. If, on the other hand, the sanity of the pseudopatients were never discovered, serious
difficulties would arise for those who support traditional modes of psychiatric diagnosis. Given that the
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hospital staff was not incompetent, that the pseudopatient had been behaving as sanely as he had been out
of the hospital, and that it had never been previously suggested that he belonged in a psychiatric hospital,
such an unlikely outcome would support the view that psychiatric diagnosis betrays little about the patient
but much about the environment in which an observer finds him.
This article describes such an experiment. Eight sane people gained secret admission to 12 different
hospitals. Their diagnostic experiences constitute the data of the first part of this article; the remainder is
devoted to a description of their experiences in psychiatric institutions. Too few psychiatrists and
psychologists, even those who have worked in such hospitals, know what the experience is like. They
rarely talk about it with former patients, perhaps because they distrust information coming from the
previously insane. Those who have worked in psychiatric hospitals are likely to have adapted so
thoroughly to the settings that they are insensitive to the impact of that experience. And while there have
been occasional reports of researchers who submitted themselves to psychiatric hospitalization, these
researchers have commonly remained in the hospitals for short periods of time, often with the knowledge
of the hospital staff. It is difficult to know the extent to which they were treated like patients or like
research colleagues. Nevertheless, their reports about the inside of the psychiatric hospital have been
valuable. This article extends those efforts.
PSEUDOPATIENTS AND THEIR SETTINGS
The eight pseudopatients were a varied group. One was a psychology graduate student in his 20’s.
The remaining seven were older and “established.” Among them were three psychologists, a pediatrician,
a psychiatrist, a painter, and a housewife. Three pseudopatients were women, five were men. All of them
employed pseudonyms, lest their alleged diagnoses embarrass them later. Those who were in mental
health professions alleged another occupation in order to avoid the special attentions that might be
accorded by staff, as a matter of courtesy or caution, to ailing colleagues.[2] With the exception myself (I
was the first pseudopatient and my presence was known to the hospital administration and chief
psychologist and, so far as I can tell, to them alone), the presence of pseudopatients and the nature of the
research program was not known to the hospital staffs.[3]
The settings are similarly varied. In order to generalize the findings, admission into a variety of
hospitals was sought. The 12 hospitals in the sample were located in five different states on the East and
West coasts. Some were old and shabby, some were quite new. Some had good staff-patient ratios, others
were quite understaffed. Only one was a strict private hospital. All of the others were supported by state
or federal funds or, in one instance, by university funds.
After calling the hospital for an appointment, the pseudopatient arrived at the admissions office
complaining that he had been hearing voices. Asked what the voices said, he replied that they were often
unclear, but as far as he could tell they said “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud.” The voices were unfamiliar
and were of the same sex as the pseudopatient. The choice of these symptoms was occasioned by their
apparent similarity to existential symptoms. Such symptoms are alleged to arise from painful concerns
about the perceived meaninglessness of one’s life. It is as if the hallucinating person were saying, “My life
is empty and hollow.” The choice of these symptoms was also determined by the absence of a single report
of existential psychoses in the literature.
Beyond alleging the symptoms and falsifying name, vocation, and employment, no further
alterations of person, history, or circumstances were made. The significant events of the pseudopatient’s
life history were presented as they had actually occurred. Relationships with parents and siblings, with
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spouse and children, with people at work and in school, consistent with the aforementioned exceptions,
were described as they were or had been. Frustrations and upsets were described along with joys and
satisfactions. These facts are important to remember. If anything, they strongly biased the subsequent
results in favor of detecting insanity, since none of their histories or current behaviors were seriously
pathological in any way.
Immediately upon admission to the psychiatric ward, the pseudopatient ceased simulating any
symptoms of abnormality. In some cases, there was a brief period of mild nervousness and anxiety, since
none of the pseudopatients really believed that they would be admitted so easily. Indeed, their shared fear
was that they would be immediately exposed as frauds and greatly embarrassed. Moreover, many of them
had never visited a psychiatric ward; even those who had, nevertheless had some genuine fears about what
might happen to them. Their nervousness, then, was quite appropriate to the novelty of the hospital
setting, and it abated rapidly.
Apart from that short-lived nervousness, the pseudopatient behaved on the ward as he “normally”
behaved. The pseudopatient spoke to patients and staff as he might ordinarily. Because there is
uncommonly little to do on a psychiatric ward, he attempted to engage others in conversation. When asked
by staff how he was feeling, he indicated that he was fine, that he no longer experienced symptoms. He
responded to instructions from attendants, to calls for medication (which was not swallowed), and to
dining-hall instructions. Beyond such activities as were available to him on the admissions ward, he spent
his time writing down his observations about the ward, its patients, and the staff. Initially these notes were
written “secretly,” but as it soon became clear that no one much cared, they were subsequently written on
standard tablets of paper in such public places as the dayroom. No secret was made of these activities.
The pseudopatient, very much as a true psychiatric patient, entered a hospital with no
foreknowledge of when he would be discharged. Each was told that he would have to get out by his own
devices, essentially by convincing the staff that he was sane. The psychological stresses associated with
hospitalization were considerable, and all but one of the pseudopatients desired to be discharged almost
immediately after being admitted. They were, therefore, motivated not only to behave sanely, but to be
paragons of cooperation. That their behavior was in no way disruptive is confirmed by nursing reports,
which have been obtained on most of the patients. These reports uniformly indicate that the patients were
“friendly,” “cooperative,” and “exhibited no abnormal indications.”
THE NORMAL ARE NOT DETECTABLY SANE
Despite their public “show” of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected. Admitted, except in one
case, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia,[4] each was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia “in
remission.” The label “in remission” should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during
any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatient’s simulation. Nor are there any
indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatient’s status was suspect. Rather, the evidence is
strong that, once labeled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. If the pseudopatient
was to be discharged, he must naturally be “in remission”; but he was not sane, nor, in the institution’s
view, had he ever been sane.
The uniform failure to recognize sanity cannot be attributed to the quality of the hospitals, for,
although there were considerable variations among them, several are considered excellent. Nor can it be
alleged that there was simply not enough time to observe the pseudopatients. Length of hospitalization
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ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days. The pseudopatients were not, in fact, carefully
observed, but this failure speaks more to traditions within psychiatric hospitals than to lack of opportunity.
Finally, it cannot be said that the failure to recognize the pseudopatients'sanity was due to the fact
that they were not behaving sanely. While there was clearly some tension present in all of them, their daily
visitors could detect no serious behavioral consequences—nor, indeed, could other patients. It was quite
common for the patients to “detect” the pseudopatient’s sanity. During the first three hospitalizations,
when accurate counts were kept, 35 of a total of 118 patients on the admissions ward voiced their
suspicions, some vigorously. “You’re not crazy. You’re a journalist, or a professor (referring to the
continual note-taking). You’re checking up on the hospital.” While most of the patients were reassured
by the pseudopatient’s insistence that he had been sick before he came in but was fine now, some
continued to believe that the pseudopatient was sane throughout his hospitalization. The fact that the
patients often recognized normality when staff did not raises important questions.
Failure to detect sanity during the course of hospitalization may be due to the fact that physicians
operate with a strong bias toward what statisticians call the Type 2 error. This is to say that physicians are
more inclined to call a healthy person sick (a false positive, Type 2) than a sick person healthy (a false
negative, Type 1). The reasons for this are not hard to find: it is clearly more dangerous to misdiagnose
illness than health. Better to err on the side of caution, to suspect illness even among the healthy.
But what holds for medicine does not hold equally well for psychiatry. Medical illnesses, while
unfortunate, are not commonly pejorative. Psychiatric diagnoses, on the contrary, carry with them
personal, legal, and social stigmas. It was therefore important to see whether the tendency toward
diagnosing the sane insane could be reversed. The following experiment was arranged at a research and
teaching hospital whose staff had heard these findings but doubted that such an error could occur in their
hospital. The staff was informed that at some time during the following three months, one or more
pseudopatients would attempt to be admitted into the psychiatric hospital. Each staff member was asked to
rate each patient who presented himself at admissions or on the ward according to the likelihood that the
patient was a pseudopatient. A 10-point scale was used, with a 1 and 2 reflecting high confidence that the
patient was a pseudopatient.
Judgments were obtained on 193 patients who were admitted for psychiatric treatment. All staff
who had had sustained contact with or primary responsibility for the patient – attendants, nurses,
psychiatrists, physicians, and psychologists – were asked to make judgments. Forty-one patients were
alleged, with high confidence, to be pseudopatients by at least one member of the staff. Twenty-three were
considered suspect by at least one psychiatrist. Nineteen were suspected by one psychiatrist and one other
staff member. Actually, no genuine pseudopatient (at least from my group) presented himself during this
period.
The experiment is instructive. It indicates that the tendency to designate sane people as insane can
be reversed when the stakes (in this case, prestige and diagnostic acumen) are high. But what can be said
of the 19 people who were suspected of being “sane” by one psychiatrist and another staff member? Were
these people truly "sane" or was it rather the case that in the course of avoiding the Type 2 error the staff
tended to make more errors of the first sort – calling the crazy “sane”? There is no way of knowing. But
one thing is certain: any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot
be a very reliable one.
THE STICKINESS OF PSYCHODIAGNOSTIC LABELS
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Beyond the tendency to call the healthy sick – a tendency that accounts better for diagnostic
behavior on admission than it does for such behavior after a lengthy period of exposure – the data speak to
the massive role of labeling in psychiatric assessment. Having once been labeled schizophrenic, there is
nothing the pseudopatient can do to overcome the tag. The tag profoundly colors others’ perceptions of
him and his behavior.
From one viewpoint, these data are hardly surprising, for it has long been known that elements are
given meaning by the context in which they occur. Gestalt psychology made the point vigorously, and
Asch[5] demonstrated that there are “central” personality traits (such as “warm” versus “cold”) which are
so powerful that they markedly color the meaning of other information in forming an impression of a given
personality. “Insane,” “schizophrenic,” “manic-depressive,” and “crazy” are probably among the most
powerful of such central traits. Once a person is designated abnormal, all of his other behaviors and
characteristics are colored by that label. Indeed, that label is so powerful that many of the pseudopatients’
normal behaviors were overlooked entirely or profoundly misinterpreted. Some examples may clarify this
issue.
Earlier, I indicated that there were no changes in the pseudopatient’s personal history and current
status beyond those of name, employment, and, where necessary, vocation. Otherwise, a veridical
description of personal history and circumstances was offered. Those circumstances were not psychotic.
How were they made consonant with the diagnosis modified in such a way as to bring them into accord
with the circumstances of the pseudopatient’s life, as described by him?
As far as I can determine, diagnoses were in no way affected by the relative health of the
circumstances of a pseudopatient’s life. Rather, the reverse occurred: the perception of his circumstances
was shaped entirely by the diagnosis. A clear example of such translation is found in the case of a
pseudopatient who had had a close relationship with his mother but was rather remote from his father
during his early childhood. During adolescence and beyond, however, his father became a close friend,
while his relationship with his mother cooled. His present relationship with his wife was characteristically
close and warm. Apart from occasional angry exchanges, friction was minimal. The children had rarely
been spanked. Surely there is nothing especially pathological about such a history. Indeed, many readers
may see a similar pattern in their own experiences, with no markedly deleterious consequences. Observe,
however, how such a history was translated in the psychopathological context, this from the case summary
prepared after the patient was discharged.
This white 39-year-old male . . . manifests a long history of considerable ambivalence in
close relationships, which begins in early childhood. A warm relationship with his mother
cools during his adolescence. A distant relationship with his father is described as
becoming very intense. Affective stability is absent. His attempts to control emotionality
with his wife and children are punctuated by angry outbursts and, in the case of the children,
spankings. And while he says that he has several good friends, one senses considerable
ambivalence embedded in those relationships also . . .
The facts of the case were unintentionally distorted by the staff to achieve consistency with a
popular theory of the dynamics of a schizophrenic reaction. Nothing of an ambivalent nature had
been described in relations with parents, spouse, or friends. To the extent that ambivalence could
be inferred, it was probably not greater than is found in all human’s relationships. It is true the
pseudopatient’s relationships with his parents changed over time, but in the ordinary context that
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would hardly be remarkable – indeed, it might very well be expected. Clearly, the meaning
ascribed to his verbalizations (that is, ambivalence, affective instability) was determined by the
diagnosis: schizophrenia. An entirely different meaning would have been ascribed if it were known
that the man was “normal.”
All pseudopatients took extensive notes publicly. Under ordinary circumstances, such behavior
would have raised questions in the minds of observers, as, in fact, it did among patients. Indeed, it seemed
so certain that the notes would elicit suspicion that elaborate precautions were taken to remove them from
the ward each day. But the precautions proved needless. The closest any staff member came to
questioning those notes occurred when one pseudopatient asked his physician what kind of medication he
was receiving and began to write down the response. “You needn’t write it,” he was told gently. “If you
have trouble remembering, just ask me again.”
If no questions were asked of the pseudopatients, how was their writing interpreted? Nursing
records for three patients indicate that the writing was seen as an aspect of their pathological behavior.
“Patient engaged in writing behavior” was the daily nursing comment on one of the pseudopatients who
was never questioned about his writing. Given that the patient is in the hospital, he must be
psychologically disturbed. And given that he is disturbed, continuous writing must be behavioral
manifestation of that disturbance, perhaps a subset of the compulsive behaviors that are sometimes
correlated with schizophrenia.
One tacit characteristic of psychiatric diagnosis is that it locates the sources of aberration within the
individual and only rarely within the complex of stimuli that surrounds him. Consequently, behaviors that
are stimulated by the environment are commonly misattributed to the patient’s disorder. For example, one
kindly nurse found a pseudopatient pacing the long hospital corridors. “Nervous, Mr. X?” she asked. “No,
bored,” he said.
The notes kept by pseudopatients are full of patient behaviors that were misinterpreted by wellintentioned
staff. Often enough, a patient would go “berserk” because he had, wittingly or unwittingly,
been mistreated by, say, an attendant. A nurse coming upon the scene would rarely inquire even cursorily
into the environmental stimuli of the patient’s behavior. Rather, she assumed that his upset derived from
his pathology, not from his present interactions with other staff members. Occasionally, the staff might
assume that the patient’s family (especially when they had recently visited) or other patients had stimulated
the outburst. But never were the staff found to assume that one of themselves or the structure of the
hospital had anything to do with a patient’s behavior. One psychiatrist pointed to a group of patients who
were sitting outside the cafeteria entrance half an hour before lunchtime. To a group of young residents he
indicated that such behavior was characteristic of the oral-acquisitive nature of the syndrome. It seemed
not to occur to him that there were very few things to anticipate in a psychiatric hospital besides eating.
A psychiatric label has a life and an influence of its own. Once the impression has been formed that
the patient is schizophrenic, the expectation is that he will continue to be schizophrenic. When a sufficient
amount of time has passed, during which the patient has done nothing bizarre, he is considered to be in
remission and available for discharge. But the label endures beyond discharge, with the unconfirmed
expectation that he will behave as a schizophrenic again. Such labels, conferred by mental health
professionals, are as influential on the patient as they are on his relatives and friends, and it should not
surprise anyone that the diagnosis acts on all of them as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eventually, the patient
himself accepts the diagnosis, with all of its surplus meanings and expectations, and behaves accordingly.
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The inferences to be made from these matters are quite simple. Much as Zigler and Phillips have
demonstrated that there is enormous overlap in the symptoms presented by patients who have been
variously diagnosed,[6] so there is enormous overlap in the behaviors of the sane and the insane. The sane
are not “sane” all of the time. We lose our tempers “for no good reason.” We are occasionally depressed
or anxious, again for no good reason. And we may find it difficult to get along with one or another person
– again for no reason that we can specify. Similarly, the insane are not always insane. Indeed, it was the
impression of the pseudopatients while living with them that they were sane for long periods of time – that
the bizarre behaviors upon which their diagnoses were allegedly predicated constituted only a small
fraction of their total behavior. If it makes no sense to label ourselves permanently depressed on the basis
of an occasional depression, then it takes better evidence than is presently available to label all patients
insane or schizophrenic on the basis of bizarre behaviors or cognitions. It seems more useful, as
Mischel[7] has pointed out, to limit our discussions to behaviors the stimuli that provoke them, and their
correlates.
It is not known why powerful impressions of personality traits, such as “crazy” or “insane,” arise.
Conceivably, when the origins of and stimuli that give rise to a behavior are remote or unknown, or when
the behavior strikes us as immutable, trait labels regarding the behavior arise. When, on the other hand,
the origins and stimuli are known and available, discourse is limited to the behavior itself. Thus, I may
hallucinate because I am sleeping, or I may hallucinate because I have ingested a peculiar drug. These are
termed sleep-induced hallucinations, or dreams, and drug-induced hallucinations, respectively. But when
the stimuli to my hallucinations are unknown, that is called craziness, or schizophrenia –as if that inference
were somehow as illuminating as the others.
THE EXPERIENCE OF PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALIZATION
The term “mental illness” is of recent origin. It was coined by people who were humane in their
inclinations and who wanted very much to raise the station of (and the public’s sympathies toward) the
psychologically disturbed from that of witches and “crazies” to one that was akin to the physically ill. And
they were at least partially successful, for the treatment of the mentally ill has improved considerably over
the years. But while treatment has improved, it is doubtful that people really regard the mentally ill in the
same way that they view the physically ill. A broken leg is something one recovers from, but mental
illness allegedly endures forever. A broken leg does not threaten the observer, but a crazy schizophrenic?
There is by now a host of evidence that attitudes toward the mentally ill are characterized by fear, hostility,
aloofness, suspicion, and dread. The mentally ill are society’s lepers.
That such attitudes infect the general population is perhaps not surprising, only upsetting. But that
they affect the professionals – attendants, nurses, physicians, psychologists and social workers – who treat
and deal with the mentally ill is more disconcerting, both because such attitudes are self-evidently
pernicious and because they are unwitting. Most mental health professionals would insist that they are
sympathetic toward the mentally ill, that they are neither avoidant nor hostile. But it is more likely that an
exquisite ambivalence characterizes their relations with psychiatric patients, such that their avowed
impulses are only part of their entire attitude. Negative attitudes are there too and can easily be detected.
Such attitudes should not surprise us. They are the natural offspring of the labels patients wear and the
places in which they are found.
Consider the structure of the typical psychiatric hospital. Staff and patients are strictly segregated.
Staff have their own living space, including their dining facilities, bathrooms, and assembly places. The
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glassed quarters that contain the professional staff, which the pseudopatients came to call “the cage,” sit out
on every dayroom. The staff emerge primarily for care-taking purposes – to give medication, to conduct
therapy or group meeting, to instruct or reprimand a patient. Otherwise, staff keep to themselves, almost as
if the disorder that afflicts their charges is somehow catching.
So much is patient-staff segregation the rule that, for four public hospitals in which an attempt was
made to measure the degree to which staff and patients mingle, it was necessary to use “time out of the staff
cage” as the operational measure. While it was not the case that all time spent out of the cage was spent
mingling with patients (attendants, for example, would occasionally emerge to watch television in the
dayroom), it was the only way in which one could gather reliable data on time for measuring.
The average amount of time spent by attendants outside of the cage was 11.3 percent (range, 3 to 52
percent). This figure does not represent only time spent mingling with patients, but also includes time spent
on such chores as folding laundry, supervising patients while they shave, directing ward cleanup, and
sending patients to off-ward activities. It was the relatively rare attendant who spent time talking with
patients or playing games with them. It proved impossible to obtain a “percent mingling time” for nurses,
since the amount of time they spent out of the cage was too brief. Rather, we counted instances of
emergence from the cage. On the average, daytime nurses emerged from the cage 11.5 times per shift,
including instances when they left the ward entirely (range, 4 to 39 times). Later afternoon and night
nurses were even less available, emerging on the average 9.4 times per shift (range, 4 to 41 times). Data on
early morning nurses, who arrived usually after midnight and departed at 8 a.m., are not available because
patients were asleep during most of this period.
Physicians, especially psychiatrists, were even less available. They were rarely seen on the wards.
Quite commonly, they would be seen only when they arrived and departed, with the remaining time being
spend in their offices or in the cage. On the average, physicians emerged on the ward 6.7 times per day
(range, 1 to 17 times). It proved difficult to make an accurate estimate in this regard, since physicians often
maintained hours that allowed them to come and go at different times.
The hierarchical organization of the psychiatric hospital has been commented on before, but the
latent meaning of that kind of organization is worth noting again. Those with the most power have the
least to do with patients, and those with the least power are the most involved with them. Recall, however,
that the acquisition of role-appropriate behaviors occurs mainly through the observation of others, with the
most powerful having the most influence. Consequently, it is understandable that attendants not only
spend more time with patients than do any other members of the staff – that is required by their station in
the hierarchy – but, also, insofar as they learn from their superior’s behavior, spend as little time with
patients as they can. Attendants are seen mainly in the cage, which is where the models, the action, and
the power are.
I turn now to a different set of studies, these dealing with staff response to patient-initiated contact.
It has long been known that the amount of time a person spends with you can be an index of your
significance to him. If he initiates and maintains eye contact, there is reason to believe that he is
considering your requests and needs. If he pauses to chat or actually stops and talks, there is added reason
to infer that he is individuating you. In four hospitals, the pseudopatients approached the staff member
with a request which took the following form: “Pardon me, Mr. [or Dr. or Mrs.] X, could you tell me when
I will be eligible for grounds privileges?” (or “ . . . when I will be presented at the staff meeting?” or “. . .
when I am likely to be discharged?”). While the content of the question varied according to the
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appropriateness of the target and the pseudopatient’s (apparent) current needs the form was always a
courteous and relevant request for information. Care was taken never to approach a particular member of
the staff more than once a day, lest the staff member become suspicious or irritated . . .[R]emember that
the behavior of the pseudopatients was neither bizarre nor disruptive. One could indeed engage in good
conversation with them.
. . . Minor differences between these four institutions were overwhelmed by the degree to which
staff avoided continuing contacts that patients had initiated. By far, their most common response consisted
of either a brief response to the question, offered while they were “on the move” and with head averted, or
no response at all. The encounter frequently took the following bizarre form: (pseudopatient) “Pardon me,
Dr. X. Could you tell me when I am eligible for grounds privileges?” (physician) “Good morning,
Dave. How are you today? (Moves off without waiting for a response.) . . .
POWERLESSNESS AND DEPERSONALIZATION
Eye contact and verbal contact reflect concern and individuation; their absence, avoidance and
depersonalization. The data I have presented do not do justice to the rich daily encounters that grew up
around matters of depersonalization and avoidance. I have records of patients who were beaten by staff for
the sin of having initiated verbal contact. During my own experience, for example, one patient was beaten
in the presence of other patients for having approached an attendant and told him, “I like you.”
Occasionally, punishment meted out to patients for misdemeanors seemed so excessive that it could not be
justified by the most rational interpretations of psychiatric cannon. Nevertheless, they appeared to go
unquestioned. Tempers were often short. A patient who had not heard a call for medication would be
roundly excoriated, and the morning attendants would often wake patients with, “Come on, you m_ _ _ _ _
f _ _ _ _ _ s, out of bed!”
Neither anecdotal nor “hard” data can convey the overwhelming sense of powerlessness which
invades the individual as he is continually exposed to the depersonalization of the psychiatric hospital. It
hardly matters which psychiatric hospital – the excellent public ones and the very plush private hospital
were better than the rural and shabby ones in this regard, but, again, the features that psychiatric hospitals
had in common overwhelmed by far their apparent differences.
Powerlessness was evident everywhere.
The patient is deprived of many of his legal rights by dint of his psychiatric commitment. He is
shorn of credibility by virtue of his psychiatric label. His freedom of movement is restricted. He cannot
initiate contact with the staff, but may only respond to such overtures as they make. Personal privacy is
minimal. Patient quarters and possessions can be entered and examined by any staff member, for whatever
reason. His personal history and anguish is available to any staff member (often including the “grey lady”
and “candy striper” volunteer) who chooses to read his folder, regardless of their therapeutic relationship to
him. His personal hygiene and waste evacuation are often monitored. The water closets have no doors.
At times, depersonalization reached such proportions that pseudopatients had the sense that they
were invisible, or at least unworthy of account. Upon being admitted, I and other pseudopatients took the
initial physical examinations in a semipublic room, where staff members went about their own business as
if we were not there.
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On the ward, attendants delivered verbal and occasionally serious physical abuse to patients in the
presence of others (the pseudopatients) who were writing it all down. Abusive behavior, on the other hand,
terminated quite abruptly when other staff members were known to be coming. Staff are credible
witnesses. Patients are not.
A nurse unbuttoned her uniform to adjust her brassiere in the present of an entire ward of viewing
men. One did not have the sense that she was being seductive. Rather, she didn’t notice us. A group of
staff persons might point to a patient in the dayroom and discuss him animatedly, as if he were not there.
One illuminating instance of depersonalization and invisibility occurred with regard to medication.
All told, the pseudopatients were administered nearly 2100 pills, including Elavil, Stelazine, Compazine,
and Thorazine, to name but a few. (That such a variety of medications should have been administered to
patients presenting identical symptoms is itself worthy of note.) Only two were swallowed. The rest were
either pocketed or deposited in the toilet. The pseudopatients were not alone in this. Although I have no
precise records on how many patients rejected their medications, the pseudopatients frequently found the
medications of other patients in the toilet before they deposited their own. As long as they were
cooperative, their behavior and the pseudopatients’ own in this matter, as in other important matters, went
unnoticed throughout.
Reactions to such depersonalization among pseudopatients were intense. Although they had come
to the hospital as participant observers and were fully aware that they did not “belong,” they nevertheless
found themselves caught up in and fighting the process of depersonalization. Some examples: a graduate
student in psychology asked his wife to bring his textbooks to the hospital so he could “catch up on his
homework” – this despite the elaborate precautions taken to conceal his professional association. The
same student, who had trained for quite some time to get into the hospital, and who had looked forward to
the experience, “remembered” some drag races that he had wanted to see on the weekend and insisted that
he be discharged by that time. Another pseudopatient attempted a romance with a nurse. Subsequently, he
informed the staff that he was applying for admission to graduate school in psychology and was very likely
to be admitted, since a graduate professor was one of his regular hospital visitors. The same person began
to engage in psychotherapy with other patients – all of this as a way of becoming a person in an impersonal
environment.
THE SOURCES OF DEPERSONALIZATION
What are the origins of depersonalization? I have already mentioned two. First are attitudes held by all of
us toward the mentally ill – including those who treat them – attitudes characterized by fear, distrust, and
horrible expectations on the one hand, and benevolent intentions on the other. Our ambivalence leads, in
this instance as in others, to avoidance.
Second, and not entirely separate, the hierarchical structure of the psychiatric hospital facilitates
depersonalization. Those who are at the top have least to do with patients, and their behavior inspires the
rest of the staff. Average daily contact with psychiatrists, psychologists, residents, and physicians
combined ranged form 3.9 to 25.1 minutes, with an overall mean of 6.8 (six pseudopatients over a total of
129 days of hospitalization). Included in this average are time spent in the admissions interview, ward
meetings in the presence of a senior staff member, group and individual psychotherapy contacts, case
presentation conferences and discharge meetings. Clearly, patients do not spend much time in
interpersonal contact with doctoral staff. And doctoral staff serve as models for nurses and attendants.
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There are probably other sources. Psychiatric installations are presently in serious financial straits.
Staff shortages are pervasive, and that shortens patient contact. Yet, while financial stresses are realities,
too much can be made of them. I have the impression that the psychological forces that result in
depersonalization are much stronger than the fiscal ones and that the addition of more staff would not
correspondingly improve patient care in this regard. The incidence of staff meetings and the enormous
amount of record-keeping on patients, for example, have not been as substantially reduced as has patient
contact. Priorities exist, even during hard times. Patient contact is not a significant priority in the
traditional psychiatric hospital, and fiscal pressures do not account for this. Avoidance and
depersonalization may.
Heavy reliance upon psychotropic medication tacitly contributes to depersonalization by convincing
staff that treatment is indeed being conducted and that further patient contact may not be necessary. Even
here, however, caution needs to be exercised in understanding the role of psychotropic drugs. If patients
were powerful rather than powerless, if they were viewed as interesting individuals rather than diagnostic
entities, if they were socially significant rather than social lepers, if their anguish truly and wholly
compelled our sympathies and concerns, would we not seek contact with them, despite the availability of
medications? Perhaps for the pleasure of it all?
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LABELING AND DEPERSONALIZATION
Whenever the ratio of what is known to what needs to be known approaches zero, we tend to invent
“knowledge” and assume that we understand more than we actually do. We seem unable to acknowledge
that we simply don’t know. The needs for diagnosis and remediation of behavioral and emotional
problems are enormous. But rather than acknowledge that we are just embarking on understanding, we
continue to label patients “schizophrenic,” “manic-depressive,” and “insane,” as if in those words we
captured the essence of understanding. The facts of the matter are that we have known for a long time that
diagnoses are often not useful or reliable, but we have nevertheless continued to use them. We now know
that we cannot distinguish sanity from insanity. It is depressing to consider how that information will be
used.
Not merely depressing, but frightening. How many people, one wonders, are sane but not
recognized as such in our psychiatric institutions? How many have been needlessly stripped of their
privileges of citizenship, from the right to vote and drive to that of handling their own accounts? How
many have feigned insanity in order to avoid the criminal consequences of their behavior, and, conversely,
how many would rather stand trial than live interminably in a psychiatric hospital – but are wrongly
thought to be mentally ill? How many have been stigmatized by well-intentioned, but nevertheless
erroneous, diagnoses? On the last point, recall again that a “Type 2 error” in psychiatric diagnosis does not
have the same consequences it does in medical diagnosis. A diagnosis of cancer that has been found to be
in error is cause for celebration. But psychiatric diagnoses are rarely found to be in error. The label sticks,
a mark of inadequacy forever.
Finally, how many patients might be “sane” outside the psychiatric hospital but seem insane in it –
not because craziness resides in them, as it were, but because they are responding to a bizarre setting, one
that may be unique to institutions which harbor nether people? Goffman [8] calls the process of
socialization to such institutions “mortification” – an apt metaphor that includes the processes of
depersonalization that have been described here. And while it is impossible to know whether the
pseudopatients’ responses to these processes are characteristic of all inmates – they were, after all, not real
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patients – it is difficult to believe that these processes of socialization to a psychiatric hospital provide
useful attitudes or habits of response for living in the “real world.”
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals. The hospital itself
imposes a special environment in which the meaning of behavior can easily be misunderstood. The
consequences to patients hospitalized in such an environment – the powerlessness, depersonalization,
segregation, mortification, and self-labeling – seem undoubtedly counter-therapeutic.
I do not, even now, understand this problem well enough to perceive solutions. But two matters
seem to have some promise. The first concerns the proliferation of communitymental health facilities, of
crisis intervention centers, of the human potential movement, and of behavior therapies that, for all of their
own problems, tend to avoid psychiatric labels, to focus on specific problems and behaviors, and to retain
the individual in a relatively non-pejorative environment. Clearly, to the extent that we refrain from
sending the distressed to insane places, our impressions of them are less likely to be distorted. (The risk of
distorted perceptions, it seems to me, is always present, since we are much more sensitive to an
individual’s behaviors and verbalizations than we are to the subtle contextual stimuli than often promote
them. At issue here is a matter of magnitude. And, as I have shown, the magnitude of distortion is
exceedingly high in the extreme context that is a psychiatric hospital.)
The second matter that might prove promising speaks to the need to increase the sensitivity of
mental health workers and researchers to the Catch 22 position of psychiatric patients. Simply reading
materials in this area will be of help to some such workers and researchers. For others, directly
experiencing the impact of psychiatric hospitalization will be of enormous use. Clearly, further research
into the social psychology of such total institutions will both facilitate treatment and deepen understanding.
I and the other pseudopatients in the psychiatric setting had distinctly negative reactions. We do
not pretend to describe the subjective experiences of true patients. Theirs may be different from ours,
particularly with the passage of time and the necessary process of adaptation to one’s environment. But we
can and do speak to the relatively more objective indices of treatment within the hospital. It could be a
mistake, and a very unfortunate one, to consider that what happened to us derived from malice or stupidity
on the part of the staff. Quite the contrary, our overwhelming impression of them was of people who really
cared, who were committed and who were uncommonly intelligent. Where they failed, as they sometimes
did painfully, it would be more accurate to attribute those failures to the environment in which they, too,
found themselves than to personal callousness. Their perceptions and behaviors were controlled by the
situation, rather than being motivated by a malicious disposition. In a more benign environment, one that
was less attached to global diagnosis, their behaviors and judgments might have been more benign and
effective.
* I thank W. Mischel, E. Orne, andM.S. Rosenhan for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
SOURCE: David L. Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Science, Vol. 179 (Jan. 1973), 250-258.
Copyright 1973 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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[1] R. Benedict, J.Gen. Psychol., 10 (1934), 59.
[2] Beyond the personal difficulties that the pseudopatient is likely to experience in the hospital, there are legal and social ones that,
combined, require considerable attention before entry. For example, once admitted to a psychiatric institution, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to be discharged on short notice, state law to the contrary notwithstanding. I was not sensitive to these difficulties at the outset of the project,
nor to the personal and situational emergencies that can arise, but later a writ of habeas corpus was prepared for each of the entering
pseudopatients and an attorney was kept “on call” during every hospitalization. I am grateful to John Kaplan and Robert Bartels for legal
advice and assistance in these matters.
[3] However distasteful such concealment is, it was a necessary first step to examining these questions.
Without concealment, there would have been no way to know how valid these experiences were; nor was
there any way of knowing whether whatever detections occurred were a tribute to the diagnostic acumen of
the hospital’s rumor network. Obviously, since my concerns are general ones that cut across individual
hospitals and staffs, I have respected their anonymity and have eliminated clues that might lead to their
identification.
[4] Interestingly, of the 12 admissions, 11 were diagnosed as schizophrenic and one, with the identical
symptomatology, as manic-depressive psychosis. This diagnosis has more favorable prognosis, and it was
given by the private hospital in our sample. One the relations between social class and psychiatric
diagnosis, see A. deB. Hollingshead and F.C. Redlich, Social Class and Mental Illness: A Community
Study (New York: JohnWiley, 1958).
[5] S.E. Asch, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol., 41 (1946), Social Psychology (Englewood Cliffs, NF:
Prentice_Hall, 1952).
[6] E. Zigler and L. Phillips, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 63, (1961) 69. See also R. K. Freudenberg and J. P.
Robertson, A.M.A. Arch. Neurol. Psychiatr., 76, (1956), 14.
[7] W. Mischel, Personality and Assessment (New York; JohnWiley, 1968).
[8] E. Goffman, Asylums (Garden City, NY; Doubleday, 1961).
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