Section Introduction *

SRV and Difference *

SRV and Social Constructivism *

SRV and Deviancy Theory *

SRV and a Taxonomy of Difference *

A History of Negative Treatment From Pre-History to Today *

Difference *

Social Construction of Experience, Difference and Value *

Social Construction of the World *

Deviance Theory *

Introduction *

Definitions of Deviance *

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Deviance *

Different Types of Deviance *

Becoming Deviant *

Labelling Theory *

Theories of Deviance *

Managing Deviance *

Roles, Labelling, Deviance and ‘Mental Illness’ *

Roles, Labelling, Deviance and ‘Learning Disabilities’ *

Deviant for Being and Deviant for Doing *

Master status *

Demonisation *

A Taxonomy of Negative Difference *

People with Differences from the Norm Which may be Valued Negatively *

A Bodily Functional Differences *

A1 Inherited Bodily Functional Differences *

A2 Acquired Unwilled Bodily Functional Differences *

A3 Acquired Willed Bodily Functional Differences *

B Psychological Differences *

B1 Inherited Psychological Differences *

B2 Acquired Unwilled Psychological Differences *

B3 Acquired Willed Psychological Differences *

C Behavioural Differences *

C1 Unwilled Behaviour Secondary to Physical or Psychological Differences *

C2 Willed Behaviour *

D Social Differences *

D1 Unwilled Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories *

D2 Willed Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories *

Preliminary Discussion of Concepts Used in the Taxonomy *

Philosophical, Scientific and Sociological Terms Utilised *

Phenotype and Genotype *

Genetic and Intra-uterine *

Physical and Learned Characteristics- Inheritance and Acquisition *

Common Sense Approaches and Empiricism *

‘Common Sense’ *

Positivist Theories *

Social Constructivist Theories *

Difference Categories- Meanings, Definitions and Discussion *

Difference and Differentiation *

Definitions *

Difference and Identity *

Identity and Subjectivity *

Cultural Relativism *

Free Will and Responsibility- Willed and Unwilled Actions- Blame and Excuses *

Impairment, Disability and Handicap *

Bodily Functional Difference *

Derision and Bodily Functional Difference *

The Boundary Between Mental Incapacity and Criminality *

Illness- Physical and Mental *

Race, Ethnicity and Culture *

Race *

Ethnicity *

Culture *

Sexuality and Gender *

Belief *

Behaviour *

Violence *

Age, Aging, and Childhood *

Age As Stratification *

Old Age *

Childhood *

Other Difficult Ages: Teenage, Young Adults *

Stratification, Class and Poverty *

Extended Discussions of Selected Issues *

Conflict, The Universal Other, Warfare, Slavery and Genocide *

A Note The Position of Women *

A Note on Abortion, Infanticide and the Death of Children *

A Note on the Historical Value of Life for the Powerless *

A Note on Mental Impairments- Madness and Stupidity *

A Note on Physical Disability *

A Note on Slavery Through The Ages *

Section Introduction

REWRITE THIS SECTION WHEN THIS CHAPTER IS COMPLETE SO THAT

IT MORE CLOSELY DESCRIBES THE CHAPTER

Difference

SRV is based on the premise that individuals are treated differently by other people or groups of people depending upon differences perceived by those groups or individuals, and the value that they place on those differences.

It especially considers the position of those whose differences are negatively valued by powerful or majority groups in society.

In later sections we shall look at the effect of being ‘seen as ‘one of a group’; of role and the importance of image and competence defining roles; and of the effect that such treatment has on individuals and groups. However, this section is concerned merely with the concept of difference and those social constructs associated with difference.

Consequently, it is important to first investigate how social difference is perceived.

The use of the term ‘difference’ is an attempt to defuse heated passions about meaning and definition of various terms used to define categories of difference. However, this will not be entirely satisfactory, as even the concept of personal difference is socially constructed and will vary from one society to another and from age to age. However, ‘difference’ is as neutral as possible without disposing of all means of describing the phenomena on which SRV is based.

Mere difference, Deviance, Impairment, Disability, Handicap, Illness, Criminality, Race, Ethnicity, Culture and Sex, Sexuality and Gender are various but not exhaustive categories that result in difference of treatment by society. We will need to understand how these categories are perceived and used by society.

Many of these terms are very emotive and much has been written about all of these concepts with many different views expressed with many different levels of emotion and reason.

This section is intended to address these issues and encourage your individual consideration of the issues and to assist you to lead discussions on the issues should controversy occur whilst discussing SRV and other Values Based Theories.

Social Constructivism

This discussion will rely on a concept termed ‘Social Construction’. This implies that the way we react to the world is determined by the manner in which we as individuals and groups ‘create’ the rules for acting within that world.

As SRV is based on the concept of difference from the norm or from valued conditions, it is necessary to attempt to understand which categories of difference are important. These differences may be based on appearance, behaviour, disability, illness, impairment, race, ethnicity, culture, sexuality or many other potential categories.

Deviancy Theory

WRITE

A Taxonomy of Difference

Initially a taxonomy of ‘reasons’ for assigning difference is offered. This is followed by a section which tries to describe briefly some of the terms used and to tie them into the appropriate literature. This is followed by a series of sections describing some of the more difficult or contentious issues arising from the taxonomy.

It is probably best to read the taxonomy first, then the initial comments, and then return to the taxonomy. After that you may want to look carefully at the later more detailed sections.

A History of Negative Treatment From Pre-History to Today

WRITE SUMMARY

This to be a summary of later sections dealing with this in detail- reference ahead.

Social Construction of Experience, Difference and Value

Social Construction of the World

BERGER AND LUCKMANN, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

GERGEN ETC IN HOGG AND VAUGHAN) p20-25, plus later

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION- PLATO, LOCKE, BERKELY, HUME, KANT ETC- TAKE FROM ORIGINAL TEXTS OR FROM CARLTON- VALUES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES WHERE THERE IS A GOOD BASIC DESCRIPTION

REINFORCE FROM OTHER SOURCES AND FULL REFERENCES

The claim of Social Construction is that entities in the perceived world are not seen as ‘things in themselves’ (positivist, objectivist or absolutist), but as a construct made by the joint perceptions of groups of people.

It may be seen as having a Weak and a Strong version.

Strong Social Construction would make the claim that perceived social categories do not exist in a positivist manner, but are merely social constructs of that society. For instance, a Strong Social Constructivist might claim that Schizophrenia has no real existence as an entity beyond the manner in which it is constructed in that society at that time.

Weak Social Construction would make the claim that although there may be separate positivist categories for a social category, the way that that category is interpreted by the society has a greater effect than the positivist reality of the underlying category. For instance, a Weak Social Constructivist might concede that whilst Schizophrenia is an illness with an explanation grounded in underlying changes in brain biochemistry etc., the manner in which Schizophrenia is interpreted by a society at that time defines the important social reality of Schizophrenia considerably more than the positivist approach does.

I find that each of the above approaches is valuable with different levels of positivist claims. For instance, Cancer or Heart Disease have undeniable physical and positivist descriptions involving scientific investigations and valid medical interventions that are largely understood; however, the manner in which these conditions are reacted to by our culture is largely socially constructed. As another instance I find it difficult to see any underlying physical and positivist description of Schizophrenia. However, some schizophrenias respond to medication; despite that, the manner in which people with schizophrenia and the rest of society react to it is almost entirely due to its social construction rather than to any underlying positivist belief.

SEE ALSO ‘INVENTING THE FEEBLE MIND’, TRENT ETC ETC.

Deviance Theory

Introduction

Deviance is a complicated social construct and is open to misunderstanding. Dictionary definitions are often misleading

(COPIES)

and ‘common sense’ approaches tend to see Deviance as a ‘screech word’- it arouses strong emotions. It is common for people to see the word ‘Deviance’ and think of the word ‘Deviant’. Being deviant in sociological terms is value free; however, to be a ‘Deviant’ is a value judgement. When people who are responsible for, say, the care of people with Learning Disability, and they hear the word ‘Deviance’ and by association ‘Deviant’ used about their charges, there is often an emotive and negative reaction to the terminology. Consequently in SRV Southwest we took an active decision to drop the word ‘Deviance’ from lower level courses as it led to much misunderstanding. However, if it is desired to get a full understanding of SRV, it is probably necessary to understand fully the construct of deviance; it cannot really be avoided.

The Sociology of Deviant Behaviour by Clinard and Meier is a comprehensive and recent review of Deviance.

Outsiders by Becker is a classic in the field.

NOTE TAKE BECKER

The Relativity of Deviance by Curra is a recent book which contains a great deal of material that is very pertinent to SRV.

Also: NOTE TAKE

Cohen- Images of Deviance

Baron and Byrne

Hogg and Vaughan

Kitsuse

Etc etc

Definitions of Deviance

WRITE

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Deviance

Varieties of Deviance:

Primary Deviance is the original behaviour that leads to the application of the label (Tischler)

Secondary Deviance is the behaviour that people develop as a consequence of having been labelled as deviant. (Tischler)

Tertiary Deviance is defined as an attempt to re-label deviant behaviour as non-deviant (Clinard and Meier)

Primary Deviance:

Lemert’s definition of Primary Deviance: Some people engage in deviant acts while they continue to occupy conventional status ranks and roles. Some sociologists call this activity primary deviance (Lemert pp75- 76). Primary deviants do not form deviant self-concepts, and they tend not to identify with a deviant role.

Secondary Deviance:

Lemert’s definition of Secondary Deviance: ... Secondary deviance may develop when the deviant role is reinforced through further participation in a deviant sub culture that brings associations with more pronounced deviants (Lemert 1951 75- 76).’ p43

Deviancy Amplification: Although we all break some of society’s rules from time to time, we do not necessarily see ourselves as being deviant and others do not necessarily see us as being deviant. However, if we are labelled as deviant by society, we may come to see ourselves as deviant and be more likely to act in a deviant manner; additionally, society may act towards us in such a way as to paradoxically increase the additional deviant behaviour. This is called Deviancy Amplification and leads to secondary deviance.

Social control can create deviance Erikson 1962

Secondary deviance- deviancy channelling or amplification Sumner 1994. Labelling

Tertiary Deviance:

Kitsuse’s definition of Tertiary Deviance: Kitsuse (1980) has suggested the term tertiary deviant (in contrast to primary and secondary deviant) to describe someone who presses for re-definition of deviant conduct to change standards for acceptable behaviour.

Other Points on Deviance:

CATHERINE POINTS OUT THAT SOME PEOPLE CRAVE ONE DEVIANT ROLE TO HIDE OR DISTRACT FROM ANOTHER

Curra points out that there are two ways of considering the ‘creation’ of deviance:

1/ Social control may identify something as deviant and separate it out. Kitsuse states:

‘Deviance may be conceived as a process by which the members of a group, community, or

society:

(1) interpret behaviour as deviance,

(2) define persons who so behave as a certain kind of deviant, and

(3) accord them the treatment considered appropriate to such a deviants.

2/ Social reactions to deviance can encourage continuance of deviant behaviour. Lemert states:

‘We start with the idea that persons and groups are differentiated in various ways, some of which resulted in social penalties, rejection and segregation. These penalties and segregative reactions of society or the community are dynamic factors which increase, decrease, and condition the form which the initial differentiation or deviation takes. This is ‘channelling’ or ‘amplifying’.

Curra quoting Sumner

‘Social censure is the event that transforms human diversity into social deviance by altering how behaviour and attributes are defined and perceived.’

Curra quoting Goode and Ben-Yehuda:

"Adopting the approach of relativity does not mean that every practice, no matter what it is or when or where it occurs, has to be applauded. Relativity does not require moral indifference, and it doesn't mean that one can never be upset or horrified by what one experiences in another group or culture."

Curra states, referring to Simon’s work::

‘ A competing view to relativism goes by the name of the objectivist or absolutist approach . Objectivists or absolutists identify norms or rights that they believe are good, necessary, or healthy for all people in all places and at all times. Anything that runs afoul of these norms or violates these rights is called deviance, and the people responsible for the trespass are automatically deviant.’

Clinard and Meier quote Stafford and Scott’s list of potential deviant states:

"Old age, paralysis, cancer, drug addiction, mental illness, shortness, being black, alcoholism, smoking, crime, and homosexuality, unemployment, being Jewish, obesity, blindness, epilepsy, receiving welfare, illiteracy, divorce, ugliness, stuttering, being female, poverty, being an amputee, mental retardation, and deafness."

Different Types of Deviance

Clinard and Meier give four definitions of Deviancy:

Statistical definition

Absolutist definition

Reactivist definition

Normative definition

Statistical definition:

Differing from average experience, rare or infrequent phenomena.

Absolutist definition:

" The absolutist asserts that, regardless of time and social context, certain culture-free standards, such as how fully persons develop their innate potential or how closely they approach the fulfilment of the highest human values, enable one to detect deviance. Thus suicide or alcoholism destroys or inhibits the possibility of the actor’s developing his full human potential and is therefore always deviant... . The absolutist believes that he knows what behaviour is, what behaviour should be, and what constitutes full and appropriate development." (Lofland pp23- 24).

Reactivist definition:

‘The Reactivist conception defines deviance as behaviour or conditions labelled as deviant by others. As one reactivist puts it: "the deviant is a one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label"’

(Becker p-9).

Normative definition:

‘ A Normative definition describes deviance as a violation of a norm. A norm CHECK REF is a standard about "what human beings should or should not think, say, or do under given circumstances"’ (Blake and Davis p456).

‘In Clinard and Meier’s book, they adopt a Normative definition of deviance. ‘Deviance constitutes departures from norms that draw social disapproval such that variations elicit, or are likely to elicit if detected, negative sanctions. ...Norms do not simply exist in society. They are created, maintained, and promoted, sometimes in competition against one another. Society creates norms in much the same sense that the idea of deviance itself- results from social construction and negotiation.’ (Pfuhl and Henry). That is also the approach used here.

Curra p summarises issues of deviance:

Nothing can be deviant in a social vacuum, and definitions and social reactions strongly affect the types of deviance that exist in societies (Schur 1971, pp16-17).

The Study of social evidence is more than the study of a type of behaviour or of an individual attribute; it is a study of social relationships and socially constructed perspectives on human behaviour and human individuals (Goffman, 1961).

Good and bad are mutually defined, and each of them has meaning only in terms of the other (Margolin 1993).

‘We must always know what is made of an act or attribute socially’.

What is Normal?

We learn what it is to be ‘normal’. We ‘know’ how we should act, and we ‘know’ how others should act. This ‘knowing’ is not the same for each person or each culture. Such knowledge is ‘centred’ according to the individual and societal experience. It is not universal but particular. Believing that you as a person are the measure of ‘rightness is egocentricty; believing that your society is a measure of rightness is ethnocentricity.

Egocentricity is a Piagetian concept. The child starts of with the belief that its pleasure is right and its displeasure is wrong- this is the only measure of rightness in a child’s world. The process of socialisation that brings the child to adulthood allows the child to develop an understanding of the reality and needs of others and to see the world through other people’s eyes. This socialisation process is in part the internalisation of a culture.

It could be said that a similar process occurs in our cultural relationship with other cultures. If we are culture bound- ethnocentric- then we can only see the world through the eyes of our culture. If we are able to generalise our ethnocentric approach to an understanding of how the world seems to be through the eyes of other cultures, then we throw off the yoke of ethnocentricity in the same way that the child throws off the yoke of egocentricity.

‘Culture is a system of designs for living or shared understandings that members of societies use as they act together’ Curra quote paraphrasing Kluckhohn.

Norms and sanctions: Regulative rules- regulating performance of necessary actions-eating, breathing, drinking, sleeping, waste elimination. Constitutive rules- games, social relationships, interpersonal relations, cultural understandings.

‘Certain groups, because of their luck, skill, determination, or control of important resources such as power or money, usually manage to influence disproportionately the content of culture by creating and spreading ideologies throughout a society’

‘An ideology is a set of ideas or beliefs that serves the interests of one segment of society more than all other segments; an ideology legitimates some specific social arrangement.’

‘It is possible for the ideal norms of one society or group to be drastically different from the ideal norms of another society or group’.

Reference for different levels of rules as in Wolf:

Freilich M 1991 Smart Rules and Proper Rules: A Journey through deviance In M Freilich, D. Raybeck, J Savishinsky (eds.) Deviance: Anthropological Perspectives New York Bergin and Garvey. (pp27-50) PROBABLY USEFUL

Vold G, Bernard TJ, Snipes J (1998) Theoretical Criminology (4th ed) New York Oxford University Press- ?GOOD FOR REFERENCES I’M LOOKING FOR

Becoming Deviant

Deviance may be seen to arise from the breaking of certain social rules- Norms.

There are two types of norms:

Proscriptive Norms: what people should not do

Prescriptive Norms: what people should do.

They also define Social Role (following Biddle) in terms of Norms:

‘A social role is a collection of norms that together convey expectations about appropriate conduct for persons in a particular position. (Biddle)

Analysis of Norms:

Inferential Methods- inferring norms from social control efforts

Qualitative Methods- deeply embedded and not analysable except in their social setting

Cognitive Methods: responses from articulate persons about norms.

As noted above: ‘ People differ from one another in a number of ways, including age, sex, race, educational attainment, and occupational status. Differentiation is the sociological term that refers to such variations’. However, this differentiation leads to deviancy: ‘ But the conditions to promote social differentiation in society also promote deviance’.

‘...As people differ from one another in more ways, the likelihood is stratification or at least the degree of stratification increases. Modern, industrial societies differentiate people in extremely complex ways’.

"Powerful people, by virtue of their influence, often define standards for deviance, and, they often find more deviance among others with less power than they have themselves. …. Powerful groups expand the range of stratified social phenomena through a process of definition and influence (Chambliss). A generic term for this process, norm promotion, indicates an ability to successfully promote particular norms to the exclusion of other, competing norms.’

‘People do not become deviants simply by committing deviant acts. If the sociological criterion for deviance extended no further than commission of a deviant act, society would be full of deviants and the term would have little meaning. A sociological conception of deviance identifies a person who plays a social role that exhibits this behaviour.’

Labelling Theory

Tischler defines Labelling theory as ‘…the social process by which a person comes to be labeled as deviant and the consequences of such labeling for the individual.’ This is sourced to Lemert 1972.

EXAMPLES.

APPLICATION TO CRIMINALITY

APPLICATION TO LEARNING DISABILITY

APPLICATION TO MENTAL ILLNESS

Tischler notes that there are several factors involved in whether a person’s behaviour will lead to labelling as such:

The importance of the violated norms

The social identity of the individual

The social context

‘The labelling perspective devotes little effort to explaining why certain individuals begin to engage in deviance. Rather, it stresses the importance of the process through which society defines acts as deviant and the role of negative social sanctions in influencing individuals to engage in subsequent deviant acts.’

Theories of Deviance

Clinard and Meier give several theories of deviance and summarise them concisely.

Theories of deviance

Biological explanations for deviance

Psychiatric model of deviance

Psychoanalytic explanation of deviance

Psychological explanations of deviance

Rational choice theories

Managing Deviance

Clinard and Meier p 60. Managing Deviance

"Deviants practice a number of techniques either to manage or cope with this kind of stigma, prevent the stigma altogether, or reduce the harm of the stigma. By such techniques, in other words, the deviant tries to save face and ward off social rejection."

Clinard and Meier lists five methods of managing deviancy.

Secrecy

Mainpulating the Physical Setting to legitimise the deviants status; for instance using a ‘beard’ EXPLAIN as a homosexual, or prostitutes using massage parlours and escort services.

Rationalisation, comprising explanations and justification of the deviance.

Change to non- deviance, that is to move out of the deviant status

Join a deviant sub-culture.

DISCUSS WITH REFERENCE TO MENTAL HEALTH AND LEARNING DISABILITY. EXPAND

Roles, Labelling, Deviance and ‘Mental Illness’

Clinard and Meier Chapter 13 Mental Disorders

Clinard and Meier state:

‘A..., primarily sociological conception of mental disorder may look for problems with social roles, especially an inability to shift between or adapt to roles, an active effort to play the role of the mentally ill person, and a sequence of self- reactions. One needs an understanding of the nature and performance of social roles in order to assess deviance. Inadequate role performance violates normative expectations, thus increasing the probability that society will impose a negative sanction.’

Scheff 1974 for roles and mental illness - residual norms - residual rule breaking

Aday 1990 talks of appropriate length of time to stare into space and the proper way to imagine or fantasize ? quoted in Clinard and Meier.

My List:

Behaviour or Residual Rule Acceptable Unacceptable

Cognition/Emotion (Correct way to..) -Explanation -Diagnosis

Withdrawal Affiliate Grief Depression

Hopelessness Cope with adversity Depression/

Abnormal Grief

Over-activity Behave with others Partying Mania

Talking to Communicate Praying Schizophrenia

non-present

subjects

Suspiciousness Show Trust Scepticism Paranoia

of others

Belief in Relate to potential Body of Christ Schizophrenia

non-present objects in the world

objects

ETC. ETC.

EXPAND AFTER CHECKING ORIGINAL SOURCES

Scheff points out that most people, most of the time fail to recognise their own residual rule breaking (Scheff 1984) ? quoted in Clinard and Meier

.

CLINARD AND MEIER: THIS SECTION IS SO IMPORTANT- NOTE TAKE

DIRECTLY WHEN DOING SCRIPT P426-439

Roles, Labelling, Deviance and ‘Learning Disabilities’

TRENT, DYBWAD, WOLFENSBERGER, ETC.

CLINARD AND MEIER: Chapter 15 Physical Disabilties

INCLUDES LD ALSO

FULL NOTE TAKE FOR THIS SECTION

Definitions and distinctions- good for Impairment, Disability, Handicap, p480-

Sick Role p484

To page 493 for social expression of deviance/disability

p 500 Disability as a socialisation process

p502 Disability as a career

p507 Managing disability

DISCUSS DEVIANCY AMPLIFICATION IN MENTAL ILLNESS AND LD

IN-PATIENT SETTINGS.

Deviant for Being and Deviant for Doing

Curra quotes Sagarin: ‘The experiences of people who are treated as deviants for what they are - the shame, self-loathing, and social isolation - may not be appreciably different from the experiences of people who are treated as deviants for what they do.’

Master status

Curra on Master Status:

‘Each of us is a cluster of different attributes - our identity - and each of us engages in a large number of social acts during the course of our lives. We must wonder, therefore, why certain designation are used more often than others to describe us, and why some of them stick more readily to us in describing what we are and what we do. (Hughes 1945) coined the term master status to describe a status that evolves into the dominant way an individual is interpreted or classified by others. Sex is usually a master status, as are skin colour and occupation. These are major identity pegs and they play a role in most human relationships. The status of deviant, (Becker 1963,) informed us, is also a master status. If an individual is defined as a deviant, this status can predominate over many others that the individual occupies and becomes a controlling one in the eyes of the beholders (pages 33- 34). So a strong probability exists that as a deviant identity evolved into a master status, the level of social censure would increase and the sanctioned individual will experiences stigma.’

Demonisation

Curra on Retrospective Interpretation: ‘ The social construction of a spoilt identity can include a process that is called a retrospective interpretation. Into retrospective interpretation, an accused deviant’s personal biography is scrutinised, and what is learned is used to interpret the identity of the individual and his or her situation (Kitsuse 1962 p253). The rule breaker is recast in the eyes of others (Schur, 1971, p52),and he or she becomes a brand new kind of person. The change in identities involves the destruction of one social self and its replacement by a totally different one (Garfinkel 1956). What was once viewed as normal in the identity of the individual comes to be viewed as a facade or charade that was actually hiding a deeper, more concrete, and a more sinister constellation of traits.’

A Preliminary Taxonomy of Negative Difference

This is an attempt to provide a taxonomy of various groups that are devalued by society for whatever reason.

The word ‘Differences’ is an attempt to maintain neutrality in the debate about Impairment and Disability and with other terminology. However, it should be noted that ‘Differences’ still carries connotations, both positive and negative.

It should be noted that Difference implies Valuation (see later section on Value for detail). EXPAND

It is split into four sections: Bodily, Psychological, Behavioural and Social. This is meant to separate out difference by Appearance and Function, Cognition and Emotion, Overt Behaviour (outward individual expression of the first two categories) and interaction with others (outward group expression of the first two categories). These are further subdivided: The first two sections are divided between Inherited and Acquired categories, and the Acquired category is further sub-divided into willed and unwilled. The latter two categories are divided into willed and unwilled.

These categories are not intended to be mutually exclusive, nor necessarily exhaustive as thisis only a preliminary taxonomy.

Problems with separation of Bodily, Psychological, Behavioural and Social: there is considerable debate about what is caused by the physical substance of the person (brain states, bodily states) and the appearance and action of the body in a social space (behavioural and social actions) EXPAND

Problems with Willed and Unwilled EXPAND

People with Differences from the Norm Which may be Valued Negatively

The following taxonomy is used:

A Bodily Functional Differences

A1 Inherited Bodily Functional Differences

(Caused by Genetic Inheritance or Intra-Uterine Events)

A2 Acquired Unwilled Bodily Functional Differences

A3 Acquired Willed Bodily Functional Differences

B Psychological Differences

B1 Inherited Psychological Differences

(Caused by Genetic Inheritance or Intra-Uterine Events)

B2 Acquired Unwilled Psychological Differences

B3 Acquired Willed Psychological Differences

C Behavioural Differences

C1 Unwilled Behaviour Secondary to Physical or Psychological Differences

C2 Willed Behaviour

D Social Differences

D1 Unwilled Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories

D2 Willed Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories

A Bodily Functional Differences

This category deals with the image and integrity of the body but not necessarily the effect that this has on performance

A difference in integrity (fitness for societally expected use) of the body.

A difference in the appearance (image) of the body which alters the reaction of others. This excludes cultural choice or acceptance of some image difference, covered below under other sections (clothing, body decoration short of permanent bodily change, hairstyle etc.).

A1 Inherited Bodily Functional Differences

Here the developmental difference includes the phenotypic expression of the genotype up until and including delivery, affecting physical difference; this includes intra-uterine acquisition of characteristics. These physical differences may or may not lead to behavioural or cultural differences covered later under a separate section.

Sensory Differences:

Blindness

Deafness

Perceived and constructed ‘racial’ categories of skin colour or other (usually facial) characteristics. e.g.:

‘Caucasian’

‘African’

‘Asian’ (N.B. in the USA this tends to mean people of Chinese/Japanese/Other Oriental Origin; in Britain it tends to mean people from the Indian Sub-continent.)

Stereo-typical ‘Jewish’ appearance

‘Latinos’ (More of a ‘problem’ in the USA than in Europe- an example of relativity between cultures- in the USA, the possession of a Spanish name and identification with Hispanic values is life-determining in a similar manner to being African-American, in Britain, it would be seen as a minor difference, no different to being Germanic or French.)

Gypsy appearance

NOTE ON ETHNIC/RACE DIFFERENTIATION

Sexual Differences

Female Gender: Initial primary sexual physical differences lead to immediate different treatment for subjects. Identification of male or female genitals is usually the first information transferred about an individual (often associated with information about bodily integrity (‘Congratulations, you’ve got a healthy baby boy’). Research shows that differential treatment of babies starts as soon as the sex of the child is known. Most societies have given precedence to male children. This is life-defining, and in extreme cases this can be life-ending. Denial of full human status to (usually) females- historic is gross and obvious historically; current disparities are more carefully disguised or ignored. For instance in China, the differential death rates for first born females are considerably higher than for males. However, even in the Western world, sex and consequent gender differentiations probably have a greater effect on social outcome than anything but class and race.

REWRITE

Indeterminate Sexual Bodily Identification : XY Chromosomal abnormalities- ?mention- Turners XO, Klinefelters XXY, XYY ‘Supermales’ etc- referenced in Rose Lewontin Kamin. Males raised as females because of genital insufficiency. EXPAND

Berdache and genital mutilation- mixed with role. Indian Subcontinent and Native American EXPAND

Initial Uncertainty of sex may lead to major problems. EXPAND WITH TRANS-GENDER EXAMPLES- HERMAPHRODITISM ETC.

Other Differences of Physical Appearance:

Different Body Size- Ranging from minimal divergences from the norm to Dwarfism (achondroplasia), Midgets, and Giganticism including acromegaly

Different Body Shapes: Scoliosis (‘Hunch back’), Body-shape physical expression of Cerebral Palsy ETC

Facial Differences- Cherubism, Down’s Syndrome Face, acromegaly, Hair Lip, Port Wine Stains and other birthmarks ETC.

Limb Differences- Thalidomide babies and adults

Physical stigmata of Down’s Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy etc.

OTHERS

Other physical genetic illnesses - WHICH

A2 Acquired Unwilled Bodily Functional Differences

Here the difference springs from acquisition of characteristics that are not considered blameworthy. There is considerable overlap with the next category (Acquired Physical Characteristics) , and these differences vary from society to society and from age to age.

Sensory Differences:

Blindness

Deafness

Amputees

Other shortness of limb or deformity of limb. ?The Withered Arm Thomas Hardy

Socially constructed perception of ugliness

Other difference from the norm in body image (head/body ratio, arm length, leg length,

breast size, etc.)

Genital mutilation- male and female circumcision

Obesity or bodily wasting if unwilled

Mastectomy secondary to carcinoma etc.

Scarring and other Stigmata

(NOTE ON MALE/FEMALE DIFFERENTIAL)

Facial Scarring: Hair-lip repairs, Port Wine Stains

Operation Scars

Scars from injuries including battle injuries SHARK BITE COMMERCIAL

CONSIDER Cancer and other disease in this PLUS AIDS- some. Add in comment about smoking or alcohol or drug induction that transfer it to the following category

OTHERS

A3 Acquired Willed Bodily Functional Differences

Here the difference is seen (constructed) as acquired by the voluntary choice of the person.

Permanent Image Difference ADD REFERENCES TO BELOW

Tattooing

Piercing

Body decoration

Scarification- Africa

Tooth filing- Africa

Foot Binding- China

Coneheads-Native Americans I HAVE REFERENCE

Voluntary amputees and other voluntary disfigurements

Other body shape difference

Obesity

Anorectic look

Overdeveloped musculature (especially though not exclusively with women)

Other deviation from the norm in body shape

OTHERS

But also those aspects of the last section that are considered blameworthy:

Sensory Differences:

Blindness

Deafness

If considered self-inflicted- by drugs, or voluntary action, but excluding voluntary action seen as praiseworthy- armed services, rescue services etc.

Mastectomy as a prophylactic leads to more stigmatisation.

Illness seen as blameworthy - lung cancer etc, AIDS

Temporary Image Difference

Hairstyle

Temporary facial and bodily decoration

Clothing- chosen or enforced

B Psychological Differences

This category deals with the cognitive and emotive actions of the mind but not necessarily the effect that this has on performance.

B1 Inherited Psychological Differences

‘Here the developmental difference includes the phenotypical expression of the genotype covering physical difference and also intra-uterine acquisition of characteristics EXAMPLES

Some ‘Learning Disability’ or ‘Mental Retardation’

EXAMPLES

PKU effects

Downs syndrome

Some Cerebral Palsy

OTHERS

Some ‘Mental Illness’

EXAMPLES

Organic Psychoses

?Alzheimer’s type senile dementia

Alzheimer’s type pre-senile dementia

Pick’s Disease

non-BSE Jakob-Kreutzfeld Disease

Huntingdon’s disease

? Parts of the category labelled Schizophrenia

? Parts of the category labelled Affective Disorder

OTHERS

Other Un-categorised

? ADHD

B2 Acquired Unwilled Psychological Differences

Some Learning Disability

Some ‘Mental Illness’

Some dementias- viral or toxin caused, including Human variant BSE JKD (New Variant CJD or just Variant CJD)

Gross Accidental Brain Damage

Minimal Brain Damage

?Some Sexual Attraction to non-norm sexual object- traumatised or incomplete development models

Involuntary acquisition of mindsets of belief and that alter one’s cognition and affect- ‘brainwashing’ etc. Prisoners of War, CA example - bank heiress, forgotten her name- Patti Hearst- Have a book on this on shelves.

B3 Acquired Willed Psychological Differences

Voluntary acquisition of mindsets of belief and that alter one’s cognition and affect- religions, political beliefs etc.

Temporary altered states of mind caused by drugs (including alcohol) or other means (meditation etc.)

Acquired blameworthy brain damage- drugs and alcohol, blameworthy pursuits Plus Boxing Brain Damage

?Some Sexual Attraction to non-norm sexual object

C Behavioural Differences

This can include pure behaviours or performance issues. Essentially this category covers the social expression of physical or mental differences listed above.

Social Behaviour Disorders Seen as ‘Treatable’- note on Sick Role

C1 Unwilled Behaviour Secondary to Physical or Psychological Differences

? Some Criminal Behaviour EXPAND SEE NOTE BELOW

M’Naghten rules- criminal insanity, not guilty through insanity etc.

Automatic behaviour

Hormonally caused behaviour

Behaviour caused by involuntary ingestion of behaviour altering substances

? Some Anti-social Behaviour

? Some Psychopathy/Sociopathy

C2 Willed Behaviour

Some Criminal Behaviour

Behaviour caused by voluntary ingestion of behaviour altering substances

Some Anti-social Behaviour

Psycopathy/Sociopathy

D Social Differences

This can include association with groups (voluntary or involuntary) or classes consequent to the primary differences listed above.

D1 Unwilled Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories

Age

Lack of age- infanticide, foetus status, potentiality.

Particular ages- ‘teenagers’, ‘young tearaways’ etc.

Excess Age- waiting for death, lack of contribution to society, etc.

Social Condition

Poverty

Aristocracy (a negative category in revolutionary France)

Low Social Caste

Unchosen

Etc. etc.

Add in reactions to ‘intellectuals’, ‘students’ etc. who may be stigmatised.

D2 Willed Membership of Certain Social Groups or Categories

Political activity

Religious activity

Disability support groups

Gangs

Social Groupings

Preliminary Discussion of Concepts Used in the Taxonomy

REVIEW BELOW, KEEP BRIEF INITIAL DESCRIPTION IN THIS SECTION AND TRANSFER MORE DETAILED INFORMATION TO NEXT SECTION

Philosophical, Scientific and Sociological Terms Utilised

Phenotype and Genotype

Genotype is the ‘state of … (the organism’s) … genes’

Phenotype is the ‘total of … (the organism’s) … morphological, physiological and behavioural properties’

The genotype is wholly inherited from the parents; the phenotype develops in association with the outside world and is not dependent on the genetic inheritance alone.

Genetic and Intra-uterine

Genetic means those features of the genotype potentially expressible.

Intra-uterine means those phenotypical expressions arising from the interactions of the foetus and the uterine environment; this includes birth-trauma.

Physical and Learned Characteristics- Inheritance and Acquisition

NOTE ON THIS

Common Sense Approaches and Empiricism

WHERE TO PLACE THIS SECTION???

In considering SRV we will need to use many terms that have every-day and academic meanings.

The problem with every-day meanings is that although everyone believes they know what the terms mean, they remain ill-defined.

Academic meanings are better defined but may be in conflict with other equally philosophically valid meanings.

One of the main divisions is between Positivist Theories and Social Constructivist Theories.

The terms that we will need to define include:

Difference

Impairment

Disability

Illness

Handicap

Race

Behaviour

Will

Responsibility

Gender

Sexuality

Age

ADD AS NECESSARY

‘Common Sense’

The usual approach to defining the above contentious categories is one of ‘common sense’. This is the ‘saloon bar’ approach to crime, mental illness, etc..

This is such a common world view that it is sometimes difficult to convince people that it has little scientific or moral standing, based as it is on prejudice, ego-centicism and ethno-centricism.

Many people with would agree that the complex categories above are ‘simple and easily understood’, claiming that it is just common sense.

According to this view, a criminal is a criminal because of his/her actions alone; a person is easily definable as ‘mad’ or ‘stupid’; a person is definitely ‘Afro-Caribbean’ or ‘white’; a person is definitely male or female.

It is hoped that the discussion below will show how limited this approach is.

Positivist Theories

Some approaches to the sociology of difference would claim that the above categories are definable using similar methods to those of the physical sciences.

This would include the ‘medical model’ of mental illness and learning disability, some traditional criminology, eugenic theories of race, determinist theories of gender etc..

These all assume that the categories under discussion are ‘well-ordered’ and easily definable.

It is hoped that a full examination of the background to these claims will show that the positivist view is lacking in describing the complexity of social interaction.

Social Constructivist Theories

WRITE SUMMARY

Difference Categories- Meanings, Definitions and Discussion

REORDER CATEGORIES

Difference and Differentiation

Definitions

From Stigma: An Enigma Demystified Lerita M Coleman:

‘No two human beings are exactly alike: there are countless ways to differ. Shape, size, skin color, gender, age, cultural background, personality, and years of formal education are just a few of the infinite ways in which people can vary.’

Marshall Clinard and Robert Meier in The Sociology of Deviant Behaviour say:

‘People differ from one another in a number of ways, including age, sex, race, educational attainment, and occupational status. Differentiation is the sociological term that refers to such variations.’

John Curra states in The Relativity of Deviance

‘The universal tendency to pigeonhole is almost always coupled with the universal tendency to prize some characteristics and condemn others. Social differentiations are almost always transformed into social devaluation, and social evaluations translate into social Deviance. It would be nice if this did not happen, but it almost always does.’

The essence here for SRV is that the perceived or real difference is not important in itself, but is only important if it has meaning to groups of people with power within the society. Difference is easily determined and perceived because of our natural tendency to unconsciously assess every piece of incoming information either positively or negatively. It is important to stress that these differences are often purely a social construction and may have no reality in more positivist methods of definition. As such difference is dependent on societal beliefs and norms; the scale and importance of differences will vary from society to society and from age to age.

SUPPORTIVE QUOTES FROM ?WOODWARD:

Difference and Identity

Kathryn Woodward in Identity and Difference points out that identity is marked by difference. She gives the example of the Serbs and Croats who, to outsiders, seem to be culturally identical, but to each other seem to be marked by differences and these differences lead to the two cultural identities.

She points out that there are two perspectives on identity- Essentialist and Non-Essentialist- whether there are clear characteristics of identity or whether there are specific differences.

An Essentialist Perspective would look at what a cultural group had in common- all members having these characteristics over all time.

A Non-Essentialist Perspective would consider the differences between the core group and members of groups outside the core group.

She points out that there are ‘Classificatory Systems’-including: us/them, self/other

She references Durkheim- Emile Durkheim argued that it is through the organisation and ordering of things into classificatory systems that meaning is produced ‘Without symbols, social sentiments could have only a precarious existence’

She considers the concepts of Sacred and Profane- Sacred is set apart, in opposition to profane.

Each culture has its own way of classifying the world

Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger: an analysis of Pollution and Taboo:

‘…culture, in the sense of public, standardised values of a community, mediates the experience of individuals. It provides in advance some basic categories, a positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered. And above all, it has authority, since each is induced to assent because of the assent of others.’

Douglas- rituals extend to all aspects of everyday life- preparing food, cleaning up, putting things away.

Claude Lévi-Strauss on food ‘The Raw and The Cooked’ and La Triangle Culinaire. ADD NOTES

Douglas again in Purity and Danger:

‘…ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and without, above and below, male and female, for and against that a semblance of order is created.’

Difference, especially its production through binary opposition: Woodward:

‘A feature which is common to most thought systems therefore seems to be a commitment to dualism whereby difference, which is essential to meaning, is expressed in terms of clear oppositions - nature/culture, body/mind.’

Helen Cixous in Sorties: ‘Thought has always worked by opposition’

Speech/Writing - Medium

High/Low- Evaluation

‘Does this mean something?’- Search for Meaning

She argues that not only is thought constructed in terms of binary oppositions, but that in these dualisms, one term is valued more than the other.- one is seen as deviant or outside.

Where is she? (Meaning what is she?)

Activity/Passivity

Sun/Moon

Culture/Nature

Day/Night

Father/Mother

Head/Heart

Intelligible/Sensitive

Man .

Woman

Cixous 1975

The positions which we take up and identify with constitute our identities.

Identity and Subjectivity

Identity and Subjectivity: p39 WOODWARD NOTE-TAKE

Cultural Relativism

QUERY TO VALUE

Notes from Channel 4 programme on disgust: Japanese happily eat sea slugs and easterners are not revolted by what Westerners describe as the smell of rotting vegetables because of their liking for fermented foods. Similarly, many easterners are revolted by the smell of milk products such as cheese and yogurt which they perceive as rotting.

Carol and Melvin Ember in Ember And Ember Cultural Anthropology discuss cultural relativism of difference and value.

Hindus would consider Westerners eating beef as primitive and disgusting-they view the cow as a sacred animal. Similarly, we would consider the Korean habit of eating dogs in a similar way.

LIMINAL STATUS OF RABBIT AS FOOD/PET

In many societies, babies are always carried, or in someone’s lap, or asleep next to others- such societies would consider the western habit of leaving babies alone- in play-pens (like prisons) or cots- as barbaric.

Cultural relativism- ‘a society’s customs and ideas should be described objectively and understood in the context of that society’s problems and opportunities’ p. 16

Caste systems are discussed. Camars- leatherworkers, Bhangis- sweepers, Nai- barber caste. Indians system most specific, but occurs elsewhere- EXPAND

N.America- skin colour- inter-racial marriages, children of mixed race inherit low caste status, separate drinking fountains reinforced images of uncleanliness, separate eating facilities similarly (My Note: famous case of the Woolworths lunch counter in Charlotte, North Carolina). Whites gained prestige at black’s expense- even white trash. ?? FROM EMBER AND EMBER OR ?? MY OWN NOTES

MY OWN NOTES – also South Africa- Apartheid EXPAND

Eta in Japan- now known as Dowa Kankeisha- physically indistinguishable- ?the same as other example I have ?Burakim. CHECK

Ruth Benedict 1934 (1959), Patterns of Culture, NY, Mentor. - shows that abnormality is relative. EXPAND

Free Will and Responsibility- Willed and Unwilled Actions- Blame and Excuses

PROBABLY USE DENNET AND NØRRETRANDERS

USE PRINS- DERRIFORD LIBRARY

The question of whether human beings have ‘free-will’ is complex, long argued, and undecided. Certain philosophers are ‘hard’ determinists, who see human behaviour as determined purely by bio-chemical events in the brain and that any existence of conscious will is illusory; other philosophers equally strongly believe that human beings are in control of all their actions and the bio-chemical brain events are controlled by thought processes. Between these two extreme termini are many different stations!

Can human beings be said to be responsible for their actions? Are they always responsible, or are there times when they are excused responsibility?

Are there such things as unwilled actions?

What does it mean to blame a person for an action?

What excuses are accepted?

What excuses are accepted?

This is not a course in philosophy, but it is necessary to at least appreciate that ‘common sense’ ideas about consciousness, free-will, responsibility and blameworthiness are not the whole picture. Philosophers have made serious in-roads into culturally accepted and generally held beliefs about these subjects. As William James pointed out in Principles of Psychology 1890 , introspection and reflection are not necessarily accurate in examining brain and mind events.

Given that much of the rest of the basis of SRV is found in social constructivist theories, it is not surprising that a belief that much of the above is socially constructed rather than positivistically or theologically determined is congruent with this approach. EXPAND

Impairment, Disability and Handicap

DISCUSSION ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISABILITY AND SOCIETAL EXPECTATIONS

SOURCES:

Oliver etc.

CLINARD AND MEIER Definitions and distinctions- good for Impairment, Disability, Handicap, p480-

MUCH MORE NOTE-TAKING BEFORE COMPLETE

Stone, D The Disabled State, Macmillan Basingstoke 1985

Albrecht, G The Disability Business, Sage, London 1992

Wood P International Classification of Impairment, Disability and Handicap World Health Organisation, Geneva.

Coleridge P Disability, Liberation and Development Oxfam Publications, Oxford

UN Disability Statistics Compendium???

Disability: The disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities.

(The Union of the Physically Impaired (1976) quoted in The Politics of Disablement (1990) Michael Oliver, London Macmillan, pp3-40.)

From Scheer and Groce:

‘The World Health Organisation defines impairment as an abnormality or loss of any physiological all of anatomical stucture or function. Disability refers to the consequences of an impairment, that is, any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner of all within the range considered appropriate for non-impaired persons. A handicap, on the other hand, is the social disadvantage that results from an impairment or a disability. For example, polio or spina bifida may impair an individual's ability to walk, so that he or she is unable to climb a set of stairs, stalk game, or harvest food. It is, however the social consequences that disability - the refusal of employers to hire the disabled person in industrialised societies or the denial of initiation into manhood within traditional group - that renders him or her handicapped.’

DISABILITY

Oliver and Barnes quote Tom Shakespeare ?? DUSTBINS FOR DISAVOWAL:

‘… disabled people become ciphers for those feelings, processes or characteristics with which non-disabled society cannot deal. As a result, these negative feelings become cemented to disabled people.’

Sonntag and Illness as Metaphor is considered

Oliver and Barnes.:

‘Historically, ‘disability’ has always been an important category in the crucial division between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor; those defined as unable as opposed to unwilling to work (Stone 1985). Throughout the twentieth century the process of categorisation has become ever more sophisticated with the involvement of a seemingly never-ending list of professional ‘experts’. These include doctors, lawyers, benefit administrators, policy analysts, therapists, and researchers, each of whom have their own interpretation of the concept and its use according to their own interests and criteria. All these people and others are involved in what Gary Albrecht (1992) has referred to as the disability business.’

Oliver and Barnes

‘..the disabled people’s movement has realised that definitions and terminology play a significant role in their individual and collective disadvantage. Terms such as ‘cripple’, ‘spastic’ and ‘mongol’ are offensive when applied to a disabled individual. Others which depersonalise and objectify the disabled community are also considered unacceptable. Examples include ‘the disabled’, ‘the deaf’ or ‘the blind’.’

Oliver and Barnes give the following taxonomy:

Three fold Typology of Impairment, Disability, Handicap

Impairment: ‘any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function’

Disability: ‘any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.’

Handicap: ‘a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or disability, that limits or prevents the fulfilment of a role that is normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual. (Wood 1980:29)

Oliver and Barnes:

‘…house to house surveys conducted in villages near Madras in India …found that only 1 percent of the population were disabled people (Coleridge 1993?. The United Nations (UN) Disability Statistics Compendium (1990) shows that Peru, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have a disability rate of only 1 percent. But Australia, Britain, Canada and Spain have 11 percent and over. Austria has the highest incidence of disability with a figure of 21 percent.’ P22 ‘Clearly, the figures appear to contradict the general view that there are more impaired people in developing countries where poverty and deprivation are common. There are a number of reasons for this. First, wealthy countries tend to have better health and support services; hence there is a greater survival rate among people born with impairments and among those who acquire them later in life. Second, the demographic bias towards old age in most developed societies means that the prevalence of disability is higher among the general population; in all societies the likelihood of acquiring an impairment increases significantly with age. Third, conditions regarded as ‘disabling’ in highly developed industrialised societies, such as ‘dyslexia’ or ‘flat feet’, for example, would present few problems to someone living in a rural village in Zimbabwe. (Coleridge 1993).’

Coleridge P Disability, Liberation and Development Oxfam Publications, Oxford

UN Disability Statistics Compendium???

Oliver suggests in The Politics of Disablement that there are three implicit and historical theories of disability which underlie the ‘Personal Tragedy Theory’ of disability:

1/ Societies dominated by religious or magical ways of thinking, impairment may be perceived as a punishment from God or from evil magic.

2/ The Liminality Theory- neither sick nor well, dead nor alive, with full humanity in doubt, neither fish nor fowl, existing in partial isolation from society as undefined, ambiguous people.

3/ The ‘Surplus Population Thesis’ which occurs in societies where economic survival is a constant struggle. So weak, impaired or old people who threaten society by unproductivity are either killed at birth or left to die.

p13

Hevey notes of the above that Oliver’s work, describing the Personal Tragedy Theory as ‘a particular kind of descriptive anthropology which sees societies as , in the final analysis, the embodiment not of social or economic relationships but of thought systems.’

p13.

Finkelstein (ed) ‘Attitudes and Disabled People 1980 World Rehabilitation Fund, New York ORDER

Finkelstein: Three historical phases of disability:

1/ Feudal, pre-industrial revolution. Produced ‘cripples’ who were not separated from society. No institutions, no special services. Existed at lower end of the economic ladder among the broad oppressed layer of other low-paid workers, the out-of-work, the mentally ill etc.. No disabled group as such since sytematic social exclusion of impaired people from economic productivity had not yet begun.

2/ With the Industrial Revolution, production lines were geared to able-bodied norms. Phase two proper started with the foundation of the Asylums and Institutions to deal with those made destitute by their impaired labour power. Segregation and dependency went hand in hand. Rise of the Deviancy Manager. Cure or care programmes in an effort to adjust disabled people into labour givers. Service workers now dependent on the disabled for continued employment. Start of the ‘disability paradox’ - the relationship between a person (and his or her impairment) and the state of society (the social restrictions imposed upon the individual.)

3/ Phase three begins with the decline of heavy industry. Society is no longer so dependent on able-bodied people to produce and consequently there may be new opportunities for the disabled people.

p.15-16. Hevey

‘…medical professions, social sciences research, and charity advertising have used and constructed a medical dependency view of disability in which the impairment and the disability are both contained within the body…(whereas)…Oliver and Finkelstein have separated out the bodily impairment from the socially created disablement.’

p. 16-17

NOTES FROM:

French S (1993)

Disability, impairment or something in between?

In ‘Disabling Barriers- Enabling Environments, J Swain, V Finkelstein, S French, M Oliver 1993 Sage London

Oliver M (1993)

Re-defining disability: a challenge to research

In ‘Disabling Barriers- Enabling Environments’ Swain J, Finkelstein V, French S, and Oliver M, Sage Publications, London 1993

Oliver M (1989)

Disability and Dependency: A Creation of Industrial Societies?

In Disability and Dependency 1989 L Barton (ed) Falmer Press London

Oliver M, Barnes C (1993)

Discrimination, disability and welfare: from needs to rights

In ‘Disabling Barriers- Enabling Environments’ Swain J, Finkelstein V, French S, and Oliver M, Sage Publications, London 1993

Wolfensberger W (1979)

The case against the use of the term "disability."

Rehabilitation Literature: 40(10)

Impairment

DISCUSSION ABOUT SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMPAIRMENT

Impairment: Lacking part or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism.

(The Union of the Physically Impaired (1976) quoted in The Politics of Disablement (1990) Michael Oliver, London Macmillan, pp3-40.)

Handicap

NOTE ON DICTIONARY AND HISTORIC MEANINGS

Bodily Functional Difference

BRING ALL THESE TITLES IN LINE WITH SUBSEQUENT SECTIONS

Derision and Bodily Functional Difference

Garland notes:

‘The derision of the disabled is almost certainly a universal phenomenon, though likely to be more prominent in communities which lack a developed social conscience. In contemporary society, social conventions tend to prohibit, in public at least, all but the most inoffensive manifestations of what is commonly referred to as ‘sick humour’, though there can be little doubt that humour of this kind continues to operate below the surface, as the enduring popularity of jokes about ‘spastics’ demonstrates.’

Garland notes:

‘Ancient philosophers accorded disablement a central place in their theoretical explanations of laughter. In the Poetics Aristotle states, ‘The ridiculous is a species of the ugly (5.1449b.33f). Likewise Cicero in On Oratory declares, ‘Laughter has its foundation in some kind of deformity and baseness.’ (2.236). According to Quintilian, ‘Laughter is never far from derision (a derisu non procul abest risus)’ (Inst.6.3.7). The word-play works better in Latin because ‘risus’ and ‘derisus’ are cognate. Similarly, at the conclusion of an extensive account of racial deformity, in Book 7 of his Natural History Pliny states, ‘These and similar aberrations of the human race has ingenious Nature created as sources of amusement (ludibria) for herself and wonder for us.’ (32). Nature, in other words, has created human monstrosities in order to relieve the monotony of her tedious existence – a telling revelation about the function of the deformed in Pliny’s own world.’

Garland notes:

‘Modern theorists likewise recognise that laughter is frequently directed towards those who are worse off than ourselves. Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan states that laughter arises ‘from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others.’ In his celebrated study of laughter entitled La rire Henri Bergson (1899, 198) declares, ‘The function of laughter is to intimidate by humiliating.’ He then adds somewhat primly, ‘Perhaps we had better not investigate this point too closely, for we should not find anything very flattering to ourselves.’ This ‘theory of degradation’, as its modern proponents call it, remains today one of the most widely accepted explanations of the human impulse to laugh. It is based on the fact that the human body constitutes an inexhaustable source of laughter because of its painful and humiliating dependency upon physiological exigencies, a dependency made all the more poignant and ludicrous in the case of those who are disabled.’

Garland notes:

‘The complex variety of impulses which causes human beings to mock the disabled has much to reveal about the attitude of the normal-bodied towards those whom they regard, on whatever grounds, as physically inferior. Humour at the expense of the disabled is to a large extent fuelled by sadistic, sexual and scatological impulses.’

Garland notes:

‘Attempting to decide whether any particular brand of humour is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is, as Richlin (The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humour, New Haven and London 1983 pp70-80) argues, a quite pointless exercise. Odious and despicable though the derision of the disabled may be, it is fundamental to the comic impulse and, if we feel we need to justify it, we can say that it performs a variety of important functions, both as a response to the disturbing quality of physical handicap and as a way of reducing other, wholly unrelated anxieties.’

Garland notes:

‘It is the varied social functions served by this brand of humour that I am chiefly concerned to investigate…. One such function is to bolster group cohesiveness at times when unity of the able-bodied majority is threatened and demoralised. By creating a diversion, the disabled help to resolve divisive tensions and thus restore equilibrium. In other words, by drawing attention to their own physical oddity, they are able to remind the rest of us what we ineluctably and inalienably have in common, even though we may be experiencing momentary fragmentation. Secondly, the deformed and disabled frighten and embarrass us, and laughter is a way of exorcising the fear and embarrassment. We laugh, in other words, out of a kind of pretence and in order to demonstrate our mastery over the strong emotions aroused by human oddity and incapacitation.’

Garland notes:

‘…the ‘awkwardness’ and ‘stupidity of the deformed and disabled provoke in others a secret will to oppress , which in turn may be discharged through a brand of humour that takes the form of sublimated aggression. I regard these comic impulses as cohesive, cathartic, and pathological respectively, though these labels can hardly do justice to the complexity of the processes which they are attempting to describe and are not intended in any way to be judgmental. They frequently, perhaps inevitably, overlap, just as the categories of the comic themselves inevitably shade into one another.’

Garland notes:

‘The comic film actor Mack Sennet once declared, "The whacking of a fat lady’s backside is the basis of all true comedy.’

The Boundary Between Mental Incapacity and Criminality

Szasz, Law Liberty and Society, he cites medico-legal cases of homicide, suggesting that insanity was invoked in order to cloud the political issues at stake:

‘Persons of relatively low social rank openly attacked their superiors. Perhaps their grievances were real and justified and were vented on the contemporary social symbols of authority, the King and Queen. Whether or not these men’s grievances justified homicide is not our problem here. I merely wish to suggest that the issue of insanity may have been raised in these trials in order to obscure the social problems which they were perhaps intended to dramatize.’ (Szasz 1974 p128)

Szasz cites as evidence Hadfield’s in case 1800 where the defendent was tried for shooting at George III; Oxford’s case in 1840 where the defendant was tried for shooting at Queen Victoria’ M’Naghten was tried for having shot and killed Drummond, Peel’s private secretary. In order to obscure the unwelcome political implications of such attacks, the diagnosis of insanity was introduced.’ Skultans p5 Skultans defuses these comments by reference to realities- see pp5-6

Woman being sedated in Russia after sinking of the Kursk.

Illness- Physical and Mental

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF ILLNESS

The Mind of Man Bromberg

The Mind of Man Bromberg

MUCH MORE THAT IS APPLICABLE TO MENTAL ILLNESS MODULE- NOTE TAKE AGAIN LATER.

Take notes from Sedgewick 1972 and 1982

Take notes from Scull Most Solitary pp34-42 Differentiation of the Mad.

Plus chapter 2 The Social context of Reform

Curra p173 quoting DSM-IV:

In DSM-IV, there is no assumption that each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries dividing it from other mental disorders or from having no mental disorder. There is also no assumption that all individuals described as having the same mental disorder are alike in all important ways. APA 1994 p xxii

Curra p173 ‘What wayward chemical or brain pathology could possibly exist to differentiate those individuals to hear socially acceptable voices such as God’s or Allah’s from those individuals who hear the socially unacceptable voices of Space invaders or some dead relative? It is not really hearing voices that is the problem but whose voice is heard (or where, or when, or why). (Turner and Edgely 1996 page 437).

CATHERINE NOTES- ?DISTRESS CAUSED TO INDIVIDUAL- IS IS A PROBLEM TO THEM?

Curra p174 ‘ If you believe that you are Jesus, or have discovered a cure for cancer (and have not), or the Communists are after you (and they are not) - then your beliefs are likely to be regarded as symptoms of schizophrenia. But if you believe that the Jews are the chosen people, or that Jesus was the Son of God, or that communism is the only scientifically and morally correct form of government - then your beliefs are likely to be regarded as reflections of who you Jew, Christian, Communist. This is why I think that we will discover the chemical cause of schizophrenia when we will discover the chemical cause of Judaism, Christianity, and Communism. No sooner and no later.’ (Szasz 1973 Pages 101 to 102).

Race, Ethnicity and Culture

DISCUSSION ABOUT SOCIAL PERCEPTION OF RACE AND HOW INADEQUATE IT IS AS A CONSTRUCT

From Worsley:

A traditional seventies definition:

P408: ‘Apart from the universal and historical inferior place given to women in society, the other major inequality – running like a geographical fault across the world – is that between the ‘White’ world of Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia, and the rest. This division has often been thought of as explicable simply in terms of its most obvious features.

‘Yet race did not become a important concept until the nineteenth century (Banton M, 1970 The Concept of Racism In S Zubaida (ed), race and Raci alism, Tavistock pp17-34). People did not inevitably think about society, and explain what happens in it, in racial terms. Until then race had been used to mean ‘line of descent’, since the best argument for the legitimacy of any institution was thought to be the demonstration that it could be traced back to Adam, the Prophet, or the beginning of time. ‘Race’ as meaning a sub-type of humankind gained impetus with the rise of Darwinism and the popularization of the notion of the species as the unit of analysis, in a natural world characterized by competition in the struggle for survival. This immediately gives us some sociological clues, because the world of human society was increasingly characterized by intensified competition, particularly between nations and states. Multi-cultural empires, autonomous tribes, cultures of all kinds were levelled down and incorporated as colonies or semi-colonies within capitalist empires, and combined or split up to form entities which had often never existed before: Nigeria, Indo-China or Eritrea (Worsley P, The Third World, Weidenfield and Nicholson.

‘A note of caution was sounded by those who observed that races were nowhere pure, but always mixed (which led them to theories of ‘degeneration’, rather than progress), but they were largely ignored. Before long, Disraeli could write in Tancred, ‘All is race, there is no other truth.’

Races were now thought of as clearly defined populations, usually with common culture, territory and institutions. Even a century later the more statistical conceptions of race used by biologists have hardly begun to penetrate popular thinking.’

Worsely notes:

P409 ‘Thus, to take skin colour the Berbers of North Africa are much ‘whiter’ than most Mediterranean southern Europeans.’

Worsley notes:

P411 ‘Before the nineteenth century, empires, often enormous in scale – those of the Islamic world, the Turkish Empire, Imperial China, those of India and South America, for example – had been built up by incorporating whole people, with different languages and cultures. Equally, such populations might be split between neighbouring political units.’

Race

The concept of race is contentious and ill-defined. All human life sprang from ancestors in the continent of Africa, and genetic changes since have led to minimal differences in DNA. Outward physical markers of race such as skin colour or facial and bodily features are amplified beyond any real differences(in a positivist sense). As an example, skin-colour is seen to be race definitive in a way that eye colour is not. However, there is undoubtedly a social construct of racial identity- but this is to do with how minimal physical and psychological differences are interpreted by groups of people.

Race is also, of course, a culturally bound construct. In Apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany and the pre-civil War Southern United States, racial category was heavily legislated and classes of people were constructed by legislation and practice. However, in the Roman Empire, the colour of one’s skin did not lead to a separate class, but one’s birth or adopted status was definitive; skin colour was merely incidental and mentioned only in passing if at all.

An opposite extreme was instanced in a 1999 documentary on Channel 4 which showed two groups of people with undeniably ‘African’ facial features and equally dark skin. They were interviewed by an American Presenter ( a person of colour himself), about their ‘racial’ groupings. One group claimed to be Arabs- descended from the influx on trade routes over the past centuries, the other group claimed to be ‘Africans’- pure bred ‘real’ Africans. Each group disdained the other! Neither the American presenter, nor myself could see any signs of racial difference- it was a social construct more to do with social and group claims.

Similarly Serbs and Croats in WOODWARD

JAPANESE EXAMPLES- THE GROUP OF PEOPLE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAJORITY- LOW CASTE- TANNERS AND DYERS, AND ORDURE COLLECTORS- SEEN AS SEPARATE RACE. ALSO RACIAL SIMILARITY OF JAPANESE AND KOREANS

Difference from majority or ruling ‘caste’. Note: ‘race’ is an ill-defined category. EXAMPLES ref to Channel 4 programme about Zanzibar- ‘arabs’ and ‘africans’. References to literature on race and ethnicity. Ethnic or cultural identity is probably a better category.

Ethnicity

DEFINITION OF ETHNICITY

Culture

DEFINITION OF CULTURE

Sexuality and Gender

DEFINITIONS

Including Social Construction

Gender is not a natural, biological fact (Moon, 1995 page 496.)

The role of the Berdache in Native American society. Also consider the Berdaches of India- ? source- Son of the Circus in fiction but query rersearch- possibly referenced in book.

Curra p44 "Though certain biological markers must be present for an individual to be sexual, sexual orientation and gender have strong social components."

Curra p45 Possession of a hymen- Saadawi N 1982 The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World Boston: Beacon

Curra p45 Female Genital Mutilation-Saadawi op cit also Burstyn 1997 Ziv 1997 for details. Also Alice Walker etc.

Male circumcison- notes and references

NOTES ON TRANSEXUALITY IN GENERAL NOTES

Belief

DEFINITIONS

Including political

Behaviour

DEFINITIONS

Including political

Violence

Curra p61

"The symbolic nature of human experience and the complexity of human social organisations make impossible to know for certain who or what is violent or how violence will be evaluated by different groups. No act is universally defined as violent and then negatively sanctioned in all human societies. In some places, for some people, certain acts of violence are viewed as normal and reasonable - as evidence of courage and bravery - but at other times, for other people, what appear to be similar acts up are viewed as serious public health emergencies."

Quoting Koop and Lundberg 1992

Curra p65 for discussion of sociopathy

Curra p68

‘The social construction of violence usually involves the social construction of a target of aggression, an "other." The "other" is depersonalised and objectified, which helps neutralise any lingering moral inhibitions against violence that might still remain among the aggressors (Gamson 1995). Successful creation and portrayal of the "other" as sub-human and deserving of pain and suffering may make it possible for rather ordinary people to commit acts of extraordinary evil ( Katz 1994)If the ideologies that legitimate violence towards an "other" are persuasive enough, individuals may commit acts of extreme cruelty with very little social prompting, even when they're given clear opportunities to renege without penalty or embarrassment "

(Browning 1992 p169-183).’

Query where this goes:

Skultans :

‘As I have argued elsewhere, this belief in man’s ability to prevent and combat insanity is part of a more general constellation of ideas which invests the individual with great powers of self-control and self-improvement. (Skultans 1975 pp15-18). It is part of the ideology of the emerging middle classes.’

Age, Aging, and Childhood

Age As Stratification

Old Age

Childhood

Note taking on deMause The Evolution of Childhood in Lloyd deMause Foundations of Psychohistory

deMause investigates Childhood from a Psychoanalytic stance. Whilst not agreeing with his underlying thesis, the information on the treatment of children through the ages is invaluable.

deMause notes p1: ‘The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused. It is our task here to see how much of this childhood history can be recaptured from the evidence that remains to us.’

deMause notes p2: ‘Historians usually blame the paucity of the sources for the lack of serious study of childhood in the past. Peter Laslett wonders why the "crowds and crowds of little children are strangely missing from the written record…. There is something mysterious about the silence of all these multitudes of babes in arms, toddlers and adolescents in the statements men made at the time about their own experience…. We cannot say whether fathers helped in the tending of infants…. Nothing can as yet be said on what is called by the psychologists toilet training…. It is in fact an effort of mind to remember all the time that children were always present in such numbers in the traditional world, nearly half the community living in a condition of semi-obliteration." (Laslett Peter The World We Have Lost New York:???? 1965 P104) As the family sociologist James Bossard puts it: "Unfortunately, the history of childhood has never been written, and there is some doubt whether it ever can be written [because] of the dearth of historical data bearing on childhood" (Bossard JJS The Sociology of Child Development New York:???? 1948 P598)’

deMause notes p4: ‘When one social historian finds widespread infanticide, he declares it "admirable and humane". (Seltman Charles Women in Antiquity London 1956 p72) When another describes mothers who regularly beat their infants with sticks while still in the cradle, she comments, without a shred of evidence that "if her discipline was stern , it was even and just and leavened with kindness." (Bayne-Powell Rosamund The English Child in the Eighteenth Century London: ???? 1939 p6) When a third finds mothers who dunk their infants into ice water every morning to "strengthen" them, and the children die from the practice, she says "they were not intentionally cruel," but simply "had read Rousseau and Locke." (Laslett p12) No practice in the past seems anything but benign to the social historian.

deMause notes p4: ‘When Phillippe Aries comes up with so much evidence of open sexual molesting of children that he admits that "playing with children’s privy parts formed part of a widespread tradition," (Aries p103) he goes on to describe a "traditional" scene where a stranger throws himself on a little boy while riding in a train, "his hand brutally rummaging inside the child’s fly," while the father smIles, and concludes: "All that was involved was a game whose scabrous nature we should beware of exaggerating." (Aries p105)’

deMause notes p4: ‘Masses of evidence are hidden, distorted, softened, or ignored. The child’s early years are played down, formal educational content is endlessly examined, and emotional content is avoided by stressing child legislation and ignoring the home. And if the nature of the author’s book is such that the ubiquity of unpleasant acts cannot be ignored, the theory is invented that "good parents leave no traces in the records." When, for instance, Alan Valentine examines 600 years of letters from fathers to sons, and of 126 fathers is unable to find one who isn’t insensitive, moralistic, and thoroughly self-centred, he concludes: "Doubtless an infinite number of fathers have written to their sons letters that would warm and lift our hearts, if only we could find them. The happiest fathers leave no history, and it is the men who are not at their best with their children who are likely to write the heart-rending letters that survive." (Valentine A (ed) Fathers to Sons: Advice Without Consent Norman, OK:???? 1963) Likewise, Anna Burr, covering 250 autobiographies, notes that there are no happy memories of childhood, but carefully avoids drawing any conclusions. (Burr AR The Autobiography: A Critical and Comparative Study Boston: ???? 1909)’

deMause p5 gives Ariès main thesis- that the traditional child was happy because he was free to mix with other classes and ages whereas with the ‘invention’ of childhood in the early modern period, the tyrannical family destroyed friendship and sociability.

deMause notes p5: ‘To prove this thesis, Ariès uses two main arguments. He first says that a separate concept of childhood was unknown in the early Middle Ages. "Medieval art until about the twelfth century did not know childhood or attempt to portray it" because artists were "unable to depict a child except as a man on a smaller scale." (Ariès 33, 10) …[however] medieval artists could, indeed, paint realistic children. His etymological argument for a separate concept of childhood is also untenable. In any case, the notion of the "invention of childhood" is so fuzzy that it is surprising that so many historians have recently picked it up. His second argument, that the modern family restricts the child’s freedom and increases the severity of punishment, runs counter to all the evidence."

deMause notes 5-6: Payne good for brutality and infanticide, especially antiquity. Taylor- psychoanalytic approach – good for 18th C England. Hunt covers Heroards ground on childhood of Louis XIII.

NOTES TAKEN ON EARLIER CHILD ABUSE. MOST LATER THAN 1700 IS NOT NOTED BUT I MAY NEED TO GO BACK TO IT LATER.

deMause notes p10: ‘The use of the child as a "toilet" for adult projections is behind the whole notion of original sin, and for eighteen hundred years adults were in general agreement that, as Richard Allestree (1676) puts it "the new-born babe is full of stains and pollution of sin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins…" (Allestree R The Whole Duty of Man London: ???? 1766) Baptism used to include actual exorcism of the devil, and the belief that the child who cried at his christening was letting out the Devil long survived the formal omission of exorcism in the Reformation. (Keith Thomas Religion and the Decline of Magic New York: ???? 1971)’

in deMause notes p10: ‘The child in the past was so charged with projections that he was often danger of being considered a changeling if he cried too much or was otherwise too demanding.’

Other Difficult Ages: Teenage, Young Adults

Stratification, Class and Poverty

Extended Discussions of Selected Issues

Notes from Ryan and Thomas Chapter 1 Definitions of Difference

History of Euphemism for LD:

Mentally Deficient early 20th C

Mentally Subnormal Mid 20th C

Mentally Handicapped Late Mid 20th C

Now Add Learning Disabled Late 20th C

Person with learning Disability Late 20th C p11

Seguin:

‘An idiot is someone who knows nothing, can do nothing, wants nothing, and each idiot approaches more or less to this point of incapacity.’ Pp12-13 and they note that seguin was the nineteenth century’s most inspired advocate of special education for idiots.

Seguin called them ‘children of the néant’

Ryan and Thomas

‘The differences between mentally handicapped people and others have mostly been seen negatively, making them a problem to themselves and to others. Only in a few instances has the ‘otherness of mentally handicapped people been positively valued or respected.’

Ryan and Thomas:

‘Mental handicap provides a case study of the ‘medicalization’ of a social problem. It is not, as a recent Royal Commission (my note - Royal commission on the National Health Service, Cmnd. 7615 HMSO 1979) blandly states ‘an accident of history’ that the NHS has such a large responsibility for the mentally handicapped. Rather the reverse: it is a significant historical fact that this has happened, indicative of the way that our society deals with people it finds useless, dangerous, or inconvenient.

‘Medicine- its institutions, personnel, concepts, and modes of explaining behaviour - has been the main instrument for excluding mentally handicapped people from society. It is not just that hospitals have had to cope with people whom society has rejected, which is how many nurses and doctors see their role. It is also that the medical profession has sanctioned this rejection by producing a whole way of thinking that justifies it. To categorize mentally handicapped people as ‘defective’ or ‘subnormal’ is to describe them entirely in terms of their supposed pathology, what is wrong with them. Such descriptions effectively mask other aspects of their social existence, or even deny them one at all.’ P15

‘Biological damage is a brute fact of much mental handicap. Links between mental and physical defects have long been observed. The early writers on idiocy gave as much prominence to the bodily appearance and physical capacities of idiots as they did to their mental abilities. Mental incapacity was almost always seen as stemming from some kind of physical abnormality, although the nature and cause of the latter were seldom known. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the collecting together of idiots in the first public asylums, that systematic medical interest began.’ P15

Ryan and Thomas:

‘The comparative study of mental handicap in different societies has hardly begun, but we do know that all societies have their incompetent and handicapped members., mildly as well as severely so. The ‘simple people for simple societies’ view wrongly assumes that mentally handicapped people are not such a problem in ‘less developed’ societies because the level of competence required is not so great as in more ‘advanced’ ones. This imperialistic assumption is highly questionable. Reading and writing, for example, are skills which have to be formally learned, and without these skills people in our society are highly disadvantaged and liable to score a very low IQ. But by what cr teria do we judge that these skills are necessarily more complex or difficult to learn than recognizing, tracking and killing fast-moving animals in a dense forest, or participating in an intricate belief system of myths and symbols.’ P25 ANALYSE THIS

‘Furthermore, the economic burden of a handicapped person may be much greater in a so-called ‘simple’ society that tries to glean a living from a harsh environment. Research shows that there is no straightforward relationship between the harshness of living conditions and how handicapped people are treated.’ P25 (Referenced to Edgerton Cloak of Competence- ?where cannot see it. In foreword by Walter Goldschmidt)

‘The production of large numbers of mildly handicapped people cannot be dissociated from other aspects of production in so-called ‘advanced’ societies. The high rate of mental retardation in the USA parallels the high rate of unemployment there.’ P25

‘Learning difficulties, for example, will tend to be phrased in terms of someone’s incapacities- their inability to generalize, their poor attention - rather than in terms of the instructor’s inadequacies, the deficiencies of the layout or the material to be learned. Sexual behaviour is often seen as ‘promiscuity due to mental sub-normality’, rather than as a valid desire for physical and emotional contact in a highly depriving situation, such as a single-sex ward.

‘Medical model thinking tends to support the status quo. The sub-normality of the individual, rather than the sub-normality of the environment, tends to be blamed for any inadequacies. Rather than alter some aspect of the environment or question other people’s behaviour, the usual remedy is to try to change or suppress the individual’s behaviour.’ P27

‘ Similar kinds of explanation are also apparent in many of the theories that psychology has produced about mentally handicapped people. Defect theories, for example, have flourished. These attempt to identify and analyses differences between mentally handicapped and normal people in terms of specific defects that the former are supposed to have: slow reaction times, inconsistent learning strategies, inadequate short-term memories, and many more. All such theories emphasize how mentally handicapped people are different and inferior compared to others; there is little emphasis on how they are similar.’ P27

NOTE TAKE ON P28 ONWARDS

Conflict, The Universal Other, Warfare, Slavery and Genocide

WRITE SECTION

A Note The Position of Women

A Note on Abortion, Infanticide and the Death of Children

A Note on the Historical Value of Life for the Powerless

A Note on Mental Impairments- Madness and Stupidity

Wright and Digby Chapter 1 Contexts and Perspectives Anne Digby:

Digby in Wright and Digby: P4 ‘ Idiocy was seen mainly as a domestic or family problem so that institutional remedies were thought largely inappropriate in the early modern period. The situation became a matter of public concern – and thus Poor Law applications – only when care broke down, the burden of care resulted in family poverty, if male adults, (often the main productive members of the family), were concerned.’

Digby in Wright and Digby: P8 ‘In 1866 John Langdon Down formulated his classic description of mongolism, and this led to it being renamed as Down’s Syndrome.’

Wright and Digby Chapter 5 The Psychopolitics of Learning and Disability in Seventeenth-Century Thought CF Goodey

Goodey in Wright and Digby: P93 ‘One of the roots of the dyadic formula ‘madness or idiocy’ lies in John Locke’s remark that madness is a mis-match of ideas to the external realities that should correspond to them, whereas idiocy is absence of ideas.’

Goodey in Wright and Digby: P94 ‘Is there a trans-historical idiot? Is there a type from past cultures whom we could recognise as our learning disabled person, congenitally and incurably learning disabled, and with perhaps an organic explanation for this too. …Hippocratic writers have a clear schema of congenital physical features…. Other Hippocratic texts deal with what may (or may not) be epilepsy, melancholia, depression, or other so-called mental illnesses.’

Edgerton notes:

‘No matter the definition nor the discipline doing the defining mental retardation is everywhere taken to be a social and cultural phenomenon. Milld mental retardation, I particular, is typically seen as being fundamentally social and cultural in every respect, and it is equally widely agreed that even severe and profound mental retardation cannot be understood, much less responded to effectively, without knowledge of the social and cultural system in which it occurs. I should think it safe, therefore, to insist that the study of mental retardation calls for a broadly social and cultural view. Such a view would lead to investigation of how men everywhere come to recognise mental retardation, how they speak of it, and what they do about people who are seen and discussed. This generic social question – consisting of these specific concerns – is central to an improved understanding of mental retardation.’

A Note on Physical Disability

Disability Deborah Marks Chapter 2 Valuing Lives:

Marks: P27 ‘Many Western accounts suggest that in the ‘bad old days’, disabled people were treated with great harshness and cruelty. Barnes (1994) offers a schematic history of discrimination of disabled people, the main points of which I shall summarize here. He begins with the ancient Greeks and Romans, who cared for those injured in battle, but practised infanticide on sickly or deformed children. He show how, in the Middle Ages, disabled people were subjected to a host of superstitious ideas, which led to their persecution. Impairment was believed to be the result of divine judgement and therefore a punishment for sin. Abuse of disabled people was sanctioned by the church. Only ‘lately have people with learning disabilities been allowed to receive the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church’ (Barnes 1994: 12). During the Middle Ages disability was associated with evil and witchcraft. Visits to Bedlam (the first asylum in the UK) were a common form of amusement, and the practice of keeping ‘idiots’ as objects of entertainment was prevalent among the aristocracy (Ryan and Thomas 1987). During Victorian times, and until as late as the 1950s, social Darwinists argued that allowing the ‘feeble-minded’ to propagate would bring about the degeneration of the species. Proposals to sterilise ‘defectives’ were developed and enacted in the USA and Sweden.

‘Nowadays the ‘civilised world’ dissociates itself from such atrocities, and argues that, thanks to medicine, welfare and enlightenment, disabled people are treated with humanity and respect. Like new improved Persil washing powder, we are getting morally better and better. This Whig view of history (Butterfield, 1931: 28) assumes that ‘we’ are not party to the prejudices of our predecessors. …

‘…a number of authors have shown (most notably, Finkelstein V 1980 Attitudes and Disabled People: Issues for Discussion, New York: World Rehabilitation Fund, Bogdan 1988), contemporary beliefs, practices and structures shaping the treatment of disabled people may not always represent an improvement on the past.’

Marks: The Freak Show: p30

‘The last freak show in the USA took place at the beginning of the 1990s. However, from 1840 through to 1940,

‘…the formally organised exhibition for amusement and profit of people with physical, mental, or behavioural anomalies, both alleged and real, was an accepted part of American life. Hundreds of freak shows traversed America in the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century centuries. (Bogdan, 1988 p2)

‘Bogdan began his research into the freak show with the assumption that displaying unfortunate human ‘freaks’ for the entertainment of others is cruel, demeaning and exploitative. However, once he began researching the organisation and practices of the freak show, and examining the testaments of performers, he found a less negative picture. In contrast to the assumption that ‘exhibits’ were people born with unfortunate physical anomalies, who were completely passive in the face of powerful show managers., Bogdan argues that people employed in the show saw themselves as active performers who faked or exaggerated their anomalies or differences in order to earn a living. He compares this positively to life prior to the organised display of freaks.

‘’Prior to their absorption by museums, human curiosities floated precariously, without roots. They existed hand to mouth, lacking the permanence that an organizational base could provide. Moreover, as long as each exhibit remained independent and had only limited contact with other freaks, no community or culture of show people could develop. (Bogdan 1988 p30)’’

Marks also notes (p31) that Ford and Howell (Ford P, Howell D 1992 The History of the Elephant Man London: Penguin) show that David Lynch’s film of The Elephant Man’ overstated the cruelty of the freak show business, and overstated the benefits of the alternatives. They show that Merrick preferred public display in a shop to medical examination in hospital which he found more intrusive. Ford (Ford P1977 The Life of the Elephant Man' In QED: The True Story of the Elephant Man, London: BBC Learning Support NOT AVAILABLE)quotes Tom Norman, who gave Merrick a job as a performer, as saying that Merrick said that he ‘did not mind being displayed discreetly to a paying audience in the shop, but in the hospital he was stripped naked and felt like an animal in a cattle market.’

Also note take on Darke: (Darke P 1994 The Elephant Man (David Lynch, EMI Films): an analysis from a disabled perspective Disability and Society 9(3) 327-42 ARTICLE)

Marks notes p31 that Todd Browning’s 1932 movie ‘Freaks’ shows a less negative picture.

Marks does state p31 ‘…it is important not to romanticise the freak show, or exaggerate the extent to which performers gave genuine consent, or received true valorisation for their performances.’ He particularly notes that Bogdan’s account misreads the history in his determination to show positive outcomes.

Marks on Eugenics:

Marks p33

‘Eugenics is a term coined by Francis Galton in 1883 ‘to denote the principle of strengthening a biological group on the basis of ostensible hereditary worth’ (Lifton 1986 p24).’

Marks p34

‘Eugenics has presented itself as a rationally and scientifically based theory. However, as many biologists have pointed out, the premise that it is a good idea to prevent certain citizens from procreating, even if accepted, would not necessarily have any effect on the gene pool. Further, even if it were possible to remove certain hereditary impairments from the gene pool, we might find that protective functions against certain illnesses (associated with the impairments) would be lost through selection.’

NOTE TAKE ON LIFTON

Marks notes pp34-35

‘Eugenic policies have come to be associated with the horrors of forced sterilisation and mass murders in Nazi Germany. However, in their time eugenic theories were supported by a number of progressive social reformers, including Marie Stopes whose works on birth control was motivated by eugenics and Alexander Graham Bell, who was patron to Helen Keller , and Helen Keller herself who warned of the dangers of marriage between ‘normal people’ and deaf mutes. (Gallagher HG 1985 FDR’s Splendid Deception New York: Dodd, Mead and Company). The first forced sterilisation of ‘feeble-minded’ people was carried out in the early years of the twentieth century, in the USA (Kennedy 1942, Kanner 1942, Hubbard 1997). In 1907, Indiana became the first state to authorise the sterilisation of the ‘feeble-minded’ and the ‘hereditarily unfit’. …By 1958 over 60,000 American citizens had been forcibly sterilised. (Hubbard 1997). Thus, the disablism inherent in eugenic policies was not the product of a minority of racists and extremists, but has become an implicit part of popular Western cultural assumptions. The implicit and pervasive nature of eugenic philosophy in Western Society helps to explain some of the extreme violations carried out against disabled people in the twentieth century.’

NOTE TAKE ON GLOVER CAUSING DEATH AND SAVING LIVES

Good discussion on utilitarianism which backs Wolf’s views- Uses Teichman J 1996 Social Ethics Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Mailhot A 1995 Any choice you want as long as it’s death The Disability Rag and ReSource (sic) January/February. Get Marks out again for this section- in Plymouth University Library.

Marks notes p45:

‘When relationships are formed between people with learning difficulties and others, these are often not treated as being important. Research By Hollins (1989) (This reference not given in bibliography of book) has demonstrated that people with learning difficulties are often ‘protected’ from attending the funeral when a family member or lover dies or by being denied the opportunity to say goodbye when such a person moves away. Similarly, the experience a person with learning difficulties has when moving into a new institution is rarely explored. The attachment figures of people with learning disabilities, for example carers, are often seen by managers of institutions and services as being relatively interchangeable. ‘Basic needs’ such as physical care and ‘social training’ are prioritised above relational needs. Because of this assumption, the opportunity to grieve losses and separations is denied. People with learning difficulties may thus be told to ‘cheer up’ or be punished if their grief is expressed through ‘challenging behaviour’.’

Marks on Secondary Disability

Marks p46:

‘Our intelligence is not fixed and our capacity to think is shaped by the level of anxiety we experience and the uses we make of our mental functioning (Bion WR 1967 A Theory of Thinking, in Second Thoughts, New York: Jason Aronson).’

Marks suggests that people may become ‘stupid’ as a way of coping with conflicts. P46. He references Sinason Mental Handicap and the Human Condition 1992 London: Free Association Books (In Derriford and University Library)

Marks says: p47 ‘Sinason sees secondary handicap as a defence against or, in her more recent thinking, an actual expression of trauma. Secondary handicap involves the defensive ‘exaggeration of difficulties’ (Sinason 1992:7) ‘The word ‘stupid’ actually means ‘numbed with grief’. We are all aware of the meaning of the word ‘stupefy’’ (Sinason 1992: 31) She identifies a number of ways in which ‘stupidity’ can be used defensively to protect the self from trauma.’

Marks pp 47-48 lists these ways:

1/ Defense against the trauma of too much knowledge (sexuality, abuse) – leads to appearance of apparent innocence.

2/ Exaggeration of Stupidity to make the ‘normals’ seem stupid (elective mutism etc.) She quotes Sinason ‘it can be easier to behave like the village idiot and make everyone laugh than to expose the unbearable tiny discrepancy between normal and not normal on the human continuum.’ (Sinason 1992 21)

3/ A person with learning difficulties may develop secondary handicaps in order to appease a hostile world. (comparison between racist myths of the happy simple slave and the happy person with Down’s Syndrome- NOTE I HAVE INFORMATION SOMEWHERE ON THE RACIST BELIEFS- WHERE)

Chapter 3 Medicine and its allied professions:

Marks p 51:

‘Medicine’s drive to make normal that which it considers to be pathological and dysfunctional claims to be neutral. Yet in practice, medicine contains a series of latent normative assumptions about value, beauty and function which influence its practices.’

Marks p53:

‘Defining and assessing populations for mental, physical and intellectual normality has become a preoccupation of nation states and international bodies. Perhaps the most widely used and frequently contested international definition of disability is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) tripartite classification: impairment, disability, and handicap (Wood P 1981 International Classification of Impairment, Disability and Handicap World Health Organisation, Geneva). ‘Impairment’ refers to any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. ‘Disability’ is any restriction or lack- resulting from impairment- of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being. Finally, ‘handicap’ denotes any disadvantage to an individual resulting from an impairment or disability that limits or prevents the fulfilment of a role that is normal (depending on age, sex, social and cultural factors) for that individual. (Wood 1981).’

Marks notes p53 that although this is a considerable advance on previous models, it is still dependent on medical assumptions.

Marks also notes p54 that the WHO concentrates on prevention of impairment rather than on removing discrimination.

Reference to TF Bundy as English!! In Bilton T Bonnet L Jones P Skinner D Stanworth M Webster A 1996 Introductory Sociology 3rd Edition London: Macmillan p416

Marks on criticism of Parsons Sick Role p60:

She lists Marxist criticisms of functionalism for failing to address dysfunction of the social system.

She notes that the functionalist position of Parsons :

1/ relies on making clear distinctions between health and illness, disability and ability

2/ assumes cooperation between doctor and patient

3/ does not recognise the role of lay people in defining and treating illness

4/ the sick role is not necessarily applicable to disability.

5/ the rights and privileges which the sick role offers are not accorded equally to all illnesses (AIDS, Substance Dependency, Mental Illness etc)

Marks notes p62

‘ According to Frank (Frank AW 1991 From Sick role to Health Role: Deconstructing Parsons in R Robertson and BS Turner (eds) Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity London: Sage p207) ‘Parsons framed the notion of the sick role within a context of discipline (long before Foucault), but only after Foucault do the implications of Parsons become clear’. In other words, Parsons’ analysis of the sick role is not merely a normative analysis of how to deal with those people who cannot fulfil their social obligations; rather the concept of sick role offers a useful description of the way in which populations are regulated and made productive.’

Marks notes p62:

‘Medicalisation involves the ‘incorporation and redefinition of lay approaches towards illness and bodily processes’ such that they now fall under the ‘medical gaze, defined thereby as a form of illness and open to medical intervention’ (Bilton et al 1996 p430)

‘Since the eighteenth century, medicine has increasingly taken over the functions once carried out by religion and the law. Doctors have enormous regulatory powers. For example, in the system of criminal justice, psychiatrists may be called upon to assess the degree to which a defendant is resonsible for a crime, and doctors are required to validate claims for disability and sickness benefits as well as absence from work. Doctors are an important source of emotional solace and their pronouncements on diet and lifestyle have great moral authority. If one looks at certain life stages or experiences, such as pregnancy or ageing, the influence of medicalisation is most apparent. A range of conditions, which in the past might have been classified within a moral framework and have evoked censure – for example what have come to be seen as ‘mental illness’ and ‘attention deficit disorder’ – are nowadays more likely to receive pharmacological treatment. This expansion of medicine has had an enormous impact on disabled people.’

Marks summarises Illich etc p63-64:

1/ De skilling of populations

2/ Treating Patients as Passive

3/ Labelling

4/ Inflicting Physical damage on patients

5/ Failing to acknowledge its own aesthetic values

Marks then gives a critique of the medicalisation critique p71 et seq:

Although the medicalisation critique is valuable, it may:

1/ understate the curative power of medicine

2/ overstate the positions regarding power asymmetry and actual harm

done. (Also, giving power to a professional may be part of a healing

process)

3/ Over estimation of passivity of clients

4/ Opponents of labelling may make access to desired specialised services

difficult (statementing)

5/ It is increasingly out of date.

Marks Chapter 4 The Social Construction of Disability

Marks p77:

‘There has been a revival within social theory of interest in the concept of citizenship for examining the way rights and responsibilities are conferred on members of a political community. Citizenship confers a set of rights ‘both claimed by and bestowed upon all members of a political community … full citizenship rights are universalistic but restricted to ‘insiders’ in society’ (PukulskiJ 1996 Cultural Citizenship, Cultural Studies 1(1) 73-86)’

p77 ‘TH Marshall (1950 Citizenship and Social Class Cambridge: CUP) showed that , dspite their apparent universality, full citizenship rights are not equally distributed throughout the population of a state. For example, poor people have fewer opportunities to exercise the social and economic rights and responsibilities accorded to all members of a political community.’

Marks p78:

‘…disability is neither ‘natural’ nor essential, but rather that it is socially produced.’

P78 ‘Social Constructionism suggests that ‘the ways in which we commonly understand the world, the categories and concepts we use, are historically and culturally specific.’ (Burr V, 1995 An Introduction to Social Constructionism, London: Routledge)’

Marks pp78-79 describes Martha’s Vineyard and the normalisation of deafness (Groce, and also Shapiro JP1994 No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement’ New York: Times Books)

Marks p79 quotes Shapiro p86:

‘For 250 years, deafness was commonplace on Martha’s Vineyard. The first deaf resident, a fisherman named Jonathan Lambert, settled there in1694. He carried a recessive gene for deafness and, as a result of intermarriage among isolated islanders, this trait spread through generations of Lambert’s descendants. …By the middle of the nineteenth century, one in 25 residents of Chilmark was deaf, and in one neighborhood the ratio was one in four … the result was … the entire community learned to use sign language. … Hearing fisherman would use it to communicate from one distant boat to another. By mid 1800s, greater mobility slowed the pace of intermarriage, an the genetic anomaly that created the deaf community disappeared.’ (Query these dates)

Marks p79:

‘The social model, as formulated by activists and scholars in the UK, locates disability not in an impaired or malfunctioning body, but in an excluding and oppressive social environment.’

Marks p79 quotes Barnes C 1994 Disabled People in Britain and Discrimination: A Case for Anti-discrimination Legislation, London: Hurst and Company in association with BCODP):

‘the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the normal life of the community on an equal level with others due to physical and social barriers.’

Marks p80:

‘The whole question of defining normality became a central concern in the nineteenth century, alongside the rise of urbanisation and industrialisation. These developments can be said to have had a role in producing disability and not just because poor working conditions within factories produced many casualties. Mechanised production required a uniform work force, who could perform similar tasks and work was not organised to cater for the range of intellectual and bodily differences between people.’

Marks p81 quotes Topliss, quoted in Oliver 1990 p27:

‘Deafness, while working alone at agricultural tasks that all children learned by observation with little formal schooling, did not limit the capacity for employment too severely. Blindness was less of a hazard in uncongested familiar rural surroundings, and routine tasks involving repetitive tactile skills could be learned and practised by many of the blind without special training. The environment of an industrial society was however different.’

Marks p88 quotes Aspis quoted in Campbell and Oliver 1996:

‘Aspis, for example, has claimed that ‘people with learning difficulties face discrimination in the disability movement;’ stemming part from the (physically disabled’s) fear of being labelled ‘stupid, thick, mental and mad.’ By the non-disabled public.’

Marks p88:

‘…the social model has been criticised for adopting many of the values of capitalist society by prioritising work and independence.’

Marks p88:

She says that the social model is criticised for ‘its attempt to avoid medical criteria associated with the nature of impairment, (leading to) the key criteria for inclusion in the disabled people’s movement is that a person must ave a positive identity as disabled. However, many people with impairments and chronic illnesses would not necessarily identify themselves or be identified as disabled. The only way the social model has of dealing with such people seems to be to accuse them of ‘false consciousness.’

Marks p89:

‘Being disabled can be expensive. Access to technical aids and personal asistance can mitigate the effects of and overcome social barriers. Gallagher (2985) in his book, FDR’s Splendid Deception, showed how President Roosevelt was able to disguise the extent of his paralysis by mobilising enormous resources to manage his illness.’

Marks p90:

Racism shapes the experience of disability and the consequences for its subjects are similar. Baynton 1996 has shown how in nineteenth century USA both deaf people and native Americans were considered by many evolutionary psychologists to be lower down the evolutionary hierarchy because they used sign language rather than spoken language. Baynton notes ‘the power of speech seemed to be the only difference between reasoning beings and animals devoid of reason.(1996:49)’

Marks p91:

‘Paradoxically, subjecting children to high levels of protection may make them more vulnerable to risks. Kitzinger shows that panics about children’s safety on the streets often lead to new measures to control unsupervised movement of children. The problem with this is that the street rapidly becomes a no-go area, so increasing the vulnerability of lone children. Furthermore, exerting powerful control over children’s freedom of movement may undermine their capacity to develop a realistic understanding of the world. It may also, unwittingly, give the message to those who present a threat to children, that lone children are in some way inviting danger.’

Marks: p91:

‘Similarly, disabled people have been institutionalised for their own ‘protection’. Yet this process takes away the capacity of disabled people to make decisions for themselves, denies them a voice and makes them vulnerable to instututional abuse.’

Marks p93:

‘What…discrimination…over class, ‘race’, age, gender, and sexuality…share with the experience of disability is that they place citizens in a hierarchy of power and status. Those lower down the social hierarchy are accorded less autonomy over their lives, are subjected to greater control and are treated with less respect. Disabled people share these experiences with other oppressed groups.’

Marks Chapter 5 Dynamics of care and control

Marks notes p 95: ‘When we talk about meeting someone’s ‘needs’ we tend to assume that these needs can be ascertained objectively. As Slater points out "’need’ is a powerful concept … because it seems to anchor social claims in the realm of necessity or even nature: statements about needs are generally based on asumptions about what human beings or bodies ‘really are.’" (Slater D 1998 Needs/Wants In C Jenks (ed.) Core Sociological Dichotomies 1998 London: Sage) Professional assessments of the needs of their disabled ‘clients’ tend to therefore to be presented as if they are value-free and based purely on objective evaluation of these clients. The term ‘needs’ tends to be sharply differentiated from the term ‘demand’ or ‘want’, which is treated as if it is based on individual (and possibly idiosyncratic) subjective desires, and is thus seen as a ‘dispensable luxury’ rather than an essential requirement.’

SEE MY OTHER PAPER ON NEEDS AND WANTS

Marks notes p96: ‘Social model writers, such as Barton and Clough 1995, Barnes 1990 and Oliver 1990, argue that the concept of needs is socially constructed. By this they mean that what comes to be identified as a nd depends greatly on social organisation, power and ideology.’

Marks notes p 97: ‘We have all experienced absolute dependence dduring our early life because the human infant is incapable of looking after itself. Perhaps the avoidance of and hostility towards disabled people by non-disabled people is in part an expression of a disavowal of this state of dependency. It is interesting, for example, to note the linguistic association between infantile dependency and illness. Turner 1995 points out that "the English language does not differentiate between the nursing of babies and the nursing of the sick.(p144) Given the association and the way in which disability within a medicalising culture is treated as sickness, it is hardly surprising that the fear of returning to a infantile state of dependency is associated with disability and illness.’

Marks notes p 107: ‘… the value accorded to professionals and carers/assistants seems to mirror the value accorded to the people they work with. This can be expressed in several ways. Those working most closely with disabled people experience related forms of stigma. As Goffman puts it, the "loyal spouse of the mental patient, the daughter of the ex-con, the parent of the cripple… share some of the discredit of the stigmatised person.’ (Goffman 1963 p43.) Those working in the field of disability tend to be offered fewer opportunities for advancement and poorer working conditions.’

Marks notes p108: ‘Even within the prestigious profession of medicine, those doctors working in the area of mental health, learning disability and gerontology

(all of which are concerned to a great extent with disabling impairments) tend to be accorded lower status than doctors working within more ‘glamorous’ specialist areas…’

Chapter 6 Causes, complexity and process of categorising ‘impairment

Ma