Differently creative

On 16 November 1961, a man walked into the mental asylum of Gorizia to find closed walls, pavilions and wards, and closed people. The man’s name was Franco Basaglia; he ended up in Gorizia after working at the Clinic for Nervous and Mental Illnesses at the University of Padua because he had read too much philosophy to be a psychiatrist at university. This story, which celebrates this year’s 40th anniversary of the Italian Legge 180 [which lead to the closure of the country’s mental asylums], has relevance not only for the ‘mad’. It is about change: of structures that appeared unchangeable; of asylums; and of the way in which we view each other as people - the strong, the weak, the able and those less able. Knowing that we will all, at some point, become a little more fragile. However, we will always be citizens, the owners of rights. Creative and original, all differently creative, even when merely surviving with dignity. We will invent mechanisms, physical and social prosthetics, small structures of movement for happiness. It is up to everyone to become in part philosopher.