Later in this section I will make a claim that SRV is one of a bundle of approaches within the social sciences which try to answer the questions

The term that I use for the bundle of answers that answer this question for SRV and similar approaches is that they are 'Interpersonal Values Based Approaches to Society'

This nomenclature is intended to cover a wide variety of approaches to the description of treatment, positive and negative, of people within a society. A more complex description of the approaches (together with a brief description of other competing theories) is attempted below under the headings Values Based Theories and Interpersonal Values Based Theories on page * of this section.

SEE BELOW for more on this subject

Initially it is only important that you understand that this basket of approaches depend on interpersonal psychological interpretation of society by groups and individuals, and is based on the assignation of value, positive or negative, to people or groups of people, dependent upon these interpersonal inter-reactions.

As is described below, there are many historical IVBAs.

The two most common modern IVBAs are Normalization and Social Role Valorization.

In order to understand where SRV fits, we need to run a little ahead and look at its scientific underpinnings- Devaluation, Difference etc..

A Question of Difference

Objects differ in many aspects from one another. There are as many potential axes of difference as there are ways of describing an object- size, colour, weight, position, utility etc..

Recognising difference between objects is almost universally an activity that is seen as positive and desired.

Plants are objects and are accorded object status by most belief systems.

Some objects are animals. Differing belief systems accord differing status to animals than objects. Belief systems vary in the point on the phylo-genetic scale where animals are accorded differing statuses.

People are objects in this world although they are also accorded further recognition as ‘persons’, by differing belief systems. This ‘personhood’ varies in its meaning from time to time and culture to culture.

Recognising difference between persons is not always seen as positive and desired.

Some of these differences between persons have a ‘social utility’ enabling society to function smoothly. In Western civilization these ‘useful’ differences might include- ensuring that Universities admit people who are intelligent enough to benefit, ensuring that people receive appropriate medical input for a disease, ensuring that the strong and brave people become fire-fighters etc..

Some differences lack such social utility in Western civilization and are essentially stereotyping and as such are psychologically unsound within our culture- for instance, the policy of refusing to admit African-Americans to Universities in the sixties, denying heart surgery to people with Downs Syndrome or refusing to assess women for fire-fighting roles.

Some such differences may have an uncertain position between social utility and lack of social utility within a society, and remain the subject of internal societal debate. Examples of these in current Western Societies might be: Homosexual adoption, People who use or abuse of various drugs, people who break the law for moral reasons etc..

Such differences and variance in differences are socially constructed within each society and form part of the belief systems of each society.

The whole question of difference is covered extensively in a later section: 1. Difference, Deviance, Disability and Impairment.

A Question of Value

Value is a construct which describes how much a person or group will endeavour to obtain a certain object. Although this sounds like a concept based in Capitalism, it is in fact universal- how much effort is a person or group willing to apply to gain a certain end.

People as individuals may also be said to have ‘value’, and this can be determined in the same way as the value status of objects. This assessment of individual personal value does not indicate any absolute value of that person’s life, but merely reflects how much that person is valued by another person or group.

The value accorded to a person or object by an individual or group may be best assessed by the actions of that person or group. Many people will make value statements which are not backed up by their actions.

Devaluation may be said to occur when persistent low value is placed on a person or group by another powerful person or group.

Value and Devaluation will often be based on such differences described above.

Value and Devaluation is covered in depth in a later section: 2. Value and the Process of Devaluation.

A Brief History of Devaluation

All known human cultures have noticed differences between people, have placed value (positive or negative) on those differences, and have acted towards people according to these differences and values.

When these differences are valued negatively and society acts negatively towards such people, this is called societal devaluation and the people concerned have been societally devalued.

Throughout history there have been many instances of such devaluations, and many examples of responses to such devalued states.

Many of these responses have acted negatively on the devalued person.

Some responses have acted positively and sought to assist the person and society to rescue them from such a devalued state.

The most comprehensive description of such a process of devaluation and the potential for reversing the process is known as Social Role Valorization, described and developed by Wolf Wolfensberger.

Difference, Value, Theories and Responses

Values Based Theories

There are many different ways to approach an analysis of how people are and should be treated by society, that is to say, what value is accorded to individuals and groups.

For instance, a Marxist analysis would be based on how the economic deep structure of society determined the manner of responding to different classes of individuals. A Religious analysis might depend on the concept of ‘God’s Will’. A Capitalist analysis might depend on a concept of personal societal utility. A Liberal analysis might depend on a concept of Rights. All of these would result in a description of the methods and ends accorded to individuals and groups according to their ‘value’ within the social system. These Values would be determined by the Economy, by God, by Capital or by Rights.

Each of these methods have strengths and weaknesses and are not to be denied as providing relevant insights.

However, this current analysis is based on the concept of individual and group valuation processes- how individual and group psychological processes determine belief and action.

This does not deny Marxist Economic Determinism, nor Religious Determinism, nor Capitalist Utility, nor a Liberal Concept of Rights. These analyses may have their uses in their own areas of interest, but we are concerned here with how individuals as parts of groups react according to their individual and group psychological processes.

Interpersonal Values Based Theories

So, what we mean here by Interpersonal Values Based Theories, is those theories that use psychologically based descriptions of human behaviour when according value to individuals or groups.

This group of approaches will be abbreviated to IVBT.

These theories may be thought to originate with the change in the view of Humanity that emerged during the Renaissance and continued through the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.

(TO BE EXPANDED LATER)

SRV and Normalization as IVBTs

Normalization, originated by Bengt Nirje, and Social Role Valorisation, authored by Wolf Wolfensberger, are probably the best known recent manifestations of IVBTs.

IVBTs and the Concept of ‘Should’

There is a necessary dichotomy between the various IVBTs which describe the manner in which society and individuals value and devalue groups and people, and the idea that certain acts ‘should’ happen.

There is an essential difference between the scientific observations of the theory and the ideological desired outcomes.

The science of the IVBTs has nothing directly to say about desired outcomes. These ‘should’ concepts can only be grounded in the beliefs that individuals and groups have about the rightness of certain behaviours.

(It is important to differentiate between two uses of the would ‘Ideology’. When used about intended outcomes in the sense of conscious commitment to seek an outcome, it talks of intentions. There is another use of ‘Ideology’ often apparent in Marxian or other determinist approaches where it means the unconscious, unstated beliefs of a society.)

In his earlier formulations, Wolfensberger referred to SRV ideology; later descriptions of SRV have not only omitted this term, but have included specific statements that SRV is a Science and not an Ideology.

FIND REFERENCE TO SRV AS AN IDEOLOGY AND TO ITS LATER REFORMULATION.

CHECK ON THE KUHNIAN USE OF IDEOLOGY FOR REFERENCE

CHECK ON IDEOLOGY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (ON MY SHELVES) FOR MARXIAN REFERENCE. INCLUDE ADMISSION THAT SCIENCE MAY HAVE CONTAINED WITHIN IT AN IDEOLOGY BASED ON THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF HOW SCIENCE WORKS.

So, for instance, IVBTs may be equally used to avoid devaluation as in the ‘Moral’ parts of SRV or John O’Briens’s work on accomplishments, or they could be used as a base for planned and purposeful devaluation- for instance, the massacres in Rwanda or for re-creating a situation similar to the demonisation of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

It is only further moral decisions, outside of the ambit of science, that can decide the use of IVBTs, the theories themselves, because science, can say nothing about desired outcomes.

This is similar to, for instance, the discovery of nuclear fusion in the early nineteenth century. This was value-free- a scientific discovery ‘waiting to happen’. The technology that was applied to turn the scientific discovery into a weapon of mass destruction was dependent on a moral decision that this was the right thing to do. Moral philosophy can have little hold over the pursuit of knowledge, but may hold sway over the future uses of that knowledge.

An Introduction to IVBTs

Below will be found descriptions of the development and content of Normalization and SRV theories, together with brief summaries of other Interpersonal Values Based Theories.

(EXPAND INTRODUCTION)

Historical IVBTs

EXPAND AND WRITE BRIEF SUMMARY INCLUDING- Decline of religious determinism and emergence of an individual approach.

PROBABLY WRITE LATER PHILOSOPHY SECTION FIRST AND THEN BACK SUMMARISE HERE

Moral Therapy

Psychoanalysis

Reformatories

Shell-shock

Talking Therapies

Anti-psychiatry

Normalisation

O’Brien

SRV etc.

Other IVBAs

etc.

Summarising later section

Immediate Forerunners of Normalization- Grunewald and Bank-Mikkelson

WRITE BRIEF SUMMARY