What authorities claim as ‘scientific knowledge’ are really just means of social control. Foucault shows how, for instance, in the eighteenth century ‘madness’ was used to categorize and stigmatize not just the mentally ill but the poor, the sick, the homeless and indeed, anyone whose expressions of individuality were unwelcome. ‘Madness’ became the antithesis of ‘reason’ and was ascribed promiscuously not from an ignorance of medical science, but from the knowledge of its efficacy as a means of social control.
