xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>This is not meant to be crass or rude but having worked for 12 years with
>some 'abnormal' behavior or another I have a personal bias towards going
>back
>to the terms idiot, imbecile and moron. Think about it, everyone can
>realate
>to these words because at one time or another we have had to navigate
>social
>situations that contained an individual who fit one of these categories.
>Am
>I being insensitive for noticing these differences? I am not saying that
>I
>am annoyed or even troubled that some of these people are out in public.
>I
>am merely stating an observation that the categorization of the mentally
>ill
>into these Historical references would be helpful in providing more
>realisitic service delivery. The realism would be a result of the common
>understanding of the terminology.
eric,
i am compelled to interrupt this thread...compelled. i am passionate about
the value of difference, and this may indeed mark me as an "idiot" or an
imbecile, or a moron. but whoa. dude.
the socially mobilized strategies of ignorance are valuable to understand
as metaphors, speech, history, political privilege, and so on = but they
are NOT, in my opinion, valuable as tools in themselves.
there is no such person or animal as an "imbecile" or an "idiot" or a
"moron."
we may resort to such language in intimate contexts of interpersonal
criticisms, but these
are not DIAGNOSTIC concepts, these as slurs.
you may be insensitive to noticing the difference qualities of people as a
value,
but this is not to say you a different person for judging difference in
terms of a personal standard or quality.
- you are perhaps ignorant, in that you don't really understand enough
about the complex interactions of the individual with existence,
social-cultural-historical-institutional-political-familial-generational-genetic-and
so on.
these are interactive processes that produce what might be conventiently
reduced to "mental illness" but which also indicate a fantastic failing in
science and the general relation between humanity and science,
in terms of so-called progress. we cannot explain hatred and prejudice
any more than we can explain
a refusal to learn or understand (ignorance) concepts and ideas that
exceed the limits of
everyday speech and ideology.
thus, for me, the personal self is the only source of coming to terms with
these infinities.
and frankly, with my experience,
i've yet to meet a person who has warrated name-calling in any diagnostic
sense of the term,
and i do recognize these terms "imbecile, idiot, moron" as name-calling,
in the same vein as "fag, dyke, queer" or "LOSER" or "nerd" or "freak" and
so on...
certainly, in intimate conversation, i might say "so-and-so is an idiot"
without
pretending to qualify them. i might dislike people,
but that's LIFE. not science.
diane
and shit, someone, PLEASE, i really need a crayon back in my brain because
this so-called grown-up stuff is *hard*...!!!!
"I want you to put the crayon back in my brain."
Homer Simpson
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
vancouver, bc
mailing address: 46 broadview avenue, montreal, qc, H9R 3Z2
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 01 2001 - 01:02:17 PDT