Cultural structures that determine suffering among various populations
Pagés Larraya, F.
Acta Psiquiatrica y Psicologica de America Latina 32(3): 169-182
1986
ISSN/ISBN: 0001-6896 PMID: 3591392 Document Number: 282361
The cross-cultural consideration of our Psychiatric Epidemiology Program outlined the profile of the madman and his discourse as both mirror and enigma of his cultural community. This enigma occurs as a result of the suffering, the violence and the slyness inherent to creativity, in the sense that his own accomplishments are inexorably questionable because of the ubiquitous presence of the tragic and das Unheimliche. The madman "malgré soi" becomes a perfect interpreter of the cultural crisis and is a real key to his deepest structural interpretation. Therefore, we uphold a "tragic erasmism" and from then on discuss the hermeneutics of Nietzsche, Freud and Heidegger.