Moral Charge

"The Great Confinement", the first chapter of Michael Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, traces early reactions to a set of people, including the mad, whose common condition was idleness. His tracing includes a discussion of the role of Europe’s churches; with the aid of the Church, houses of confinement, which frequently doubled as work houses (sources of cheap labor), had a moral charge to assign labor and condemn the idle. Armed with a moral charge, they operated without oversight, without checks on their power, without critical analysis of their judgments because they had the faith of the state. Idleness was a sin, the reasoning went; because of Original Sin men were condemned to labor forever, Earth being no longer a paradise fit to sustain him without aid of his toils.

Recently I attended church and heard this Gospel:

Mt 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its strength, how can it be made salty again? It has become useless. It can only be thrown away and people will trample on it.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and covers it; instead it is put on a lampstand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine before others, so that they may see the good you do and praise your Father in heaven."