Skip to content
quotesby

This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse's heart; something that came in all twisted and different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold.

Ken Kesey#20

HealthSocietyIndividualityInstitutionSystem

About this quote

What does it mean?
The ward normalizes patients into functional parts of society, removing their uniqueness.
In plain terms
The hospital fixes people to fit into society like machines.
What can you take from it?
Institutions standardize individuals.

Where it applies

  • psychiatry
  • education

Putting it to work

  • recognize systemic pressure
  • value diversity

Questions to consider

  • Who decides what is fixed?
  • How do you stay different?

Another view

Standardization can also reduce harm.

More from Ken Kesey

  1. Mr. Bibbit, you might warn this Mr. Harding that I'm so crazy I admit to voting for Eisenhower. Bibbit! You tell Mr. McMurphy I'm so crazy I voted for Eisenhow…

    Permalink to quote #19
  2. I can't help it. I was born a miscarriage. I had so many insults I died. I was born dead. I can't help it.... I'm tired.

    Permalink to quote #21
  3. He who marches out of line hears another drum.

    Permalink to quote #18

Related quotes

  1. I do not oppose the insane asylum - but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asyl…

    Eugene V. DebsEugene V. Debs quote #10
  2. For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington.

    Henry AdamsHenry Adams quote #1
  3. In the usual (though certainly not in every) public decision on economic policy, the choice is between courses that are almost equally good or equally bad. It …

    John Kenneth GalbraithJohn Kenneth Galbraith quote #1