“INT: Are there parallels aside from the master-slave relationship between the student as an excluded figure and the madman? And are there other “pariahs” defined and set by society in order to maintain its own rationality and cohesion? [cont’d] FOUCAULT [cont’d]: It seemed to me interesting to try to understand our society and civilization in terms of its system of – exclusion – rejection – refusal
in terms of – what it does not want – its limits – the way it is obliged to suppress a number of things, people, processes – what it must let fall into oblivion – its repression-suppression system I know very well that many thinkers—-,-though if only since Freud- have already tackled the problem [of the repression-supression system of societies]. But I think there are exclusions other than the suppression of sexuality that have not been analyzed. – There’s the exclusion of the insane – There is, up to a certain point the exclusion whereby we short-circuit those who are sick and reintegrate them in a sort of marginal circuit, the medical circuit – And there is the student: to a certain extent he is caught similarly inside a circuit which possesses a dual function. First, a function of exclusion[, then a function of integration].”— Michel Foucault, “A Conversation with Michel Foucault“, interview with John K. Simon, Buffalo, New York, 1970