Notes

there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in our philosophy...
I perchance hereafter shall thing meet
to put an antic disposition on

faking sickness until you feel sick
hamlet faking madness until he feels mad?

i will be brief. your noble son is mad
mad call i it. for, to define true madness,
what is't but to be nothing else but mad?

madness as a way to control people
definitions as madness as ways to define what is and what isn't acceptable behavior
behavior that is as a culture we can't accept and we can't explain any other way
we can't assign reason to
definitions of madness are particular to history and culture
whats mad in one place eat one time is perfectly normal in another place at another time
and as we think about what kind of behavior is particularly unacceptable/unreasonable/uncivilized
(things that culture acan't accept or explain)
you're not guilty of murder by reason of insanity (madness)
if we can explain in some way, reason not madness (guilty!)
another thing that generally speaking people have used this idea to try and govern/manage/define, our ideas about gender and sexuality
many parts of the world, homosexuality has been thought of as madness
dominant culture wants to manage that, calls it madness
think about the way mainstream press treats gender identity
organized under madness (behavior a society tries to control)
definitions of madness are a mode of controlling people
not to say no such thing as mental illness (there are sickness)
get treatment when can't meet expectations that culture places on them
sad = sad
too sad to come in = talk to doctor
(that's what culture needs from us)
in hamlet:
the four humors
black bile (melancholy)
blood (snnnguis)
yellow bile (choler)
phlegm

correspond to
hot/dry/cold/wet
earth/air/fire/water
childhood/adolescence/youth/old age

(they should be in balance)

cause you to behave unacceptably
probably true that behaving overly happily (maniacal) means you have too much blood (take blood = calm down obviously)