Commonplace in college, but a worrying sign in the hospital
Posted by Michel Morvan on
Commonplace in college, but a worrying sign in the hospital… Do you know what it is?
This is madness !
In "young" language, in the schoolyard, " what is this delirium? " could be translated as "what is it about?". Whereas in a psychiatric structure, the term is used only with the greatest caution since it refers to a loss of the sense of reality resulting in false, irrational convictions, to which a psychotic person adheres unwaveringly. It is also used in a less worrying way to evoke agitation mixed with incoherent speech linked to a high fever.
And when it comes to describing a crowd as "delirious", it can only mean that it is very enthusiastic! In this last context, however, the concern can reappear when this crowd attacks the heart of democratic institutions, as was recently seen in the United States ... As early as 1895, Gustave Le Bon, in his work Psychology of Crowds , described the specific behavior of human beings "in a crowd":
"Thousands of separated individuals can at certain times, under the influence of certain violent emotions, a major national event for example, acquire the characteristics of a psychological crowd . It will then be enough for some chance to bring them together for their actions to immediately take on the characteristics specific to the actions of crowds."
And he added, which does not fail to resonate with current situations:
"The crowds knowing only simple and extreme sentiments ; the opinions, ideas and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected by them en bloc, and considered as absolute truths or no less absolute errors. It is always thus with beliefs determined by way of suggestion, instead of having been engendered by way of reasoning... Having no doubt about what is truth or error and having on the other hand the clear notion of its force , the crowd is as authoritarian as it is intolerant. The individual can bear contradiction and discussion, the crowd never bears them ."
In her powerful novel Porte de sortie , Bénédicte Vidor-Pierre is only interested in one individual, but makes us experience what we could call her delirium in a striking way. Because we are plunged into the heart of a mad love , a love too big , too strong , too good to be true. An absolute love that frightens, as it absorbs life, metamorphoses it, and dangerously explodes the everyday . Bénédicte Vidor-Pierre's free writing follows the rhythm of her heroine's thoughts, gives pride of place to invention and gives form, symbiotically with her subject, to the disturbing meanderings of unbridled creativity . Troubled, carried away, upset witnesses of a descent into hell paved with sensual explosions and questions about the essence of creation, we are always in doubt, in hope, in the blur, eager to untangle the real from the imaginary , and it is therein that lies one of the pleasures of reading this beautiful novel, often troubled, sometimes limpid, but always enlightening.
