In class we talked about mediums that were introduced into the world and had potential scares associated with them. A few examples were television and how individuals were scared of losing time with family or being spied on, security cameras and how they can be used to spy and invade privacy or help with solving crimes, and video games on how they can cause kids to become and act out violently.
I was wondering if anyone can help me flush out the idea of humans as a medium and having potential scares associated with them. Specifically I am thinking about the psychologically disabled individuals and the scares of the mental disability hospitals? I am thinking this can be described as a medium, but I am unsure and would welcome any feedback you had on this concept.
This question itself is hard to grasp, especially because I was never able to associate humans as a type of media scare. However, the way we view disabled patients in mental hospitals could be similar to the way we view prisoners in modern day prisons.
When I learned about Michel Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish” in one of my Literature classes, I remember our discussions about the modern day penal system. The Guillotine was replaced by prisons and this shows what kind of society we live in- a society that determines the punishment (usually time in prison) depending on the “severity of the crime,” and not by just publicly cutting off one’s head.
I guess the fact that we have mental hospital also reveals the society we live… what we value, what we consider is “normal” vs “mentally ill”…
It is still difficult for me to see “special” humans as a medium because anything that is abnormal can cause a scare; and I don’t think anything that causes a scare is a medium.