Critique of Post-Modernism
D. Andrew Dickinson
library on post modernism (as well as Michel Foucault) I was wondering
whether someone here would oblige me with a short critique of post-
modernism as it would apply to Sociology. Actually I would appreciate
any comments on either Foucault and post-modernism. Thanks.
Andrew Dickinson
Omar Haneef '96
> Andrew Dickinson
Well Foucault says that Madness and Man are both constructed ideas,
that all institutions perpetuate the dominant power structures which are
embedded even in language and are re-enforced by physical threats.
There! And he had to write 6 books to say all of that. I gave it to
you in a sentance! That's brevity, eh?
-Omar Haneef
P.S. FIND A BETTER LIBRARY!!!
Andy Perry
wrote:
Foucault rocks! (You did say *any* comments...)
But seriously. I don't know exactly what you mean by sociology, or at
least where you want to situate it in relation to, say, ethnography and/or
cultural studies. So, this may not be at all what you're looking for.
However, you might want to check out "Some Functions of Feminist
Criticism, or The Scandal of the Mute Body" by Tania Modleski (October 49,
Summer, 1989). It's an intervention in feminist ethnography, which raises
several important issues that you might or might not care about.
--
Andy Perry "This life has been a test.
Brown University Had this been an actual life,
Dept of English you would have received instructions
Andrew...@Brown.edu OR on where to go and what to do."
st00...@Brownvm.bitnet -- Angela Chase
SamuelV158
(March 1994) which criticizes Foucault from a social science perspective.
See: Fictions of Emergence: Foucault/Genealogy/Nietzsche by Adam Smith.
"Michel Foucault's genealogies, due to their reliance on Nietzschean
accounts of the violent origins of human culture, present a problematic
description of the emergence patterns of resistance and domination." Etc.
...
Lois Shawver
: Unfortunately, some people actually are mad like some people actually
: are disabled, i.e. missing mental faculties as some people have
: missing limbs. Foucault's disavowal of a dynamic relationship between
: an objective reality and subjective understanding leads to real
: clinical problems. I belive in Italy they actually let some people go
: with disastrous results both for the patients and the public.
Sounds pretty tentative to use as evidence for your pragmatic argument,
E. Give us something more solid to chew on and I think you'll get a
counterargument for your reply.
..Lois
Ian P Wright
> ... Foucault says that Madness and Man are both constructed ideas,
> that all institutions perpetuate the dominant power structures which
> are embedded even in language and are re-enforced by physical threats.
Like most `postmodernists' (although Foucault disliked this term) he
is one-sided: madness is viewed as a social construction that serves
institutional power interests. Because madness is, in this sense, a
fiction, he arrives at a radical conclusion -- let the `mad' free.
Unfortunately, some people actually are mad like some people actually
are disabled, i.e. missing mental faculties as some people have
missing limbs. Foucault's disavowal of a dynamic relationship between
an objective reality and subjective understanding leads to real
clinical problems. I belive in Italy they actually let some people go
with disastrous results both for the patients and the public.
Cheers,
-E.
Ian P Wright
> Sounds pretty tentative to use as evidence for your pragmatic argument,
> E. Give us something more solid to chew on and I think you'll get a
> counterargument for your reply.
I was tentative because I have no evidence for the Italy debacle. This
anecdote was told to me by an acquaitance who has recently studied
Foucualt and his influence on clinical psychology. However, I have
no reason to believe he was lying.
But I still think the analogy holds, without the need for recourse
to pragmatic arguments. If you put a one-legged man in a 100m race he
will come off worst. If you put someone who has missing mental faculties
into society at large, he will come off worst. _Some_ mental illnesses
are not a social construction.
I expect some people will now try to argue that the 100m race or the
behavioural norms of society are socially constructed. In that case
we're all mad, and it becomes only a matter of difference and degree.
But then we're back to square one: difference becomes the objective
basis for diagnosis. Which, of course, it always has been.
-E.
Lois Shawver
: Deconstruction is as I see it utterly
: pointless without a coherent plan for reconstruction.
Unless, of course, we are caught in a trap. If we are inprisoned in a trap,
we might figure a way out before doing a floor plan for a new home.
And, if we find our way out of this language trap, all of us do not
need to hammer nails into the new construction.
If there are separate tasks,
Let there be a division of labor.
There can be potters making pots
And gardeners tending gardens,
Even someone, or a committee,
to choose the seeds for this new beginning.
Russell Turpin
In article <3at308$m...@crl5.crl.com>, Lois Shawver <rath...@crl.com> wrote:
> If we use the term in this accepted sense, then saying that
> there are people who are truly mad has nothing to do with
> whether their condition is 'socilaly constructed.' Both
> can be the case. ...
"Truly"?
Really "truly"??
It seems to me that Lois Shawver has stumbled across the dividing
line between modern and postmodern, and fallen down on the side
she wasn't expecting. There is nothing particularly postmodern
about recognizing that the language we use to talk about ships or
sealing wax, knee crossing or madness, electricity or culture,
entangles description, habit, prejudice, tacit assumption,
normative stance, etc. What *is* postmodern (it seems to me) is
to deny that we can distinguish these different elements.
"Truly," whether of knee-crossing or madness, is not "truly," it
is merely a matter of assigning rhetorical privilege. The modern
philosopher agrees with Shawver, that the development of the
knee-crossing rhetoric that she describes is *not* just about
what true knee-crossing, but rather is the building of a rhetoric
having all the elements I note above, with only historical
relationship to true knee-crossing. The postmodernist raises his
eyebrows and adds: "Truly? Nonsense! That is just modernist
presumption."
Russell
--
"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers.
My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
-- Flannery O'Connor
Lois Shawver
We were talking about the social construction of mental illness, and you
said:
: Possible physical sources of deviance, such as missing limbs, malfunctioning
: nervous systems, genetic disorders, malformed brain stems, missing brain
: fragments, diseased neurons etc., can result in behavioural
: phenomena that is
: designated as mad. How these individuals are treated, valued, viewed will be
: open to the possibility of social construction. However, unless physical
: cures
: are effected, changing the discourse about them will not change their
: conditions of existence.
To use the word 'cure' already reflects a social construction of the
'difference' as a deviance or disease, as do each of the kinds of
'deviance' that you have named. I am not complaining, understand, about
the way you have constructed them, which is accordance with our culture
and perhaps most cultures, but noticing it. Take 'missing limbs' for
example. We could certainly imagine a culture in which this was a sign
of widom or upper class, as the Chinese use to treat 'malformed feet' in
women, and wrap their feet in order to 'deform' them.
But to notice that these human differences are socially constructed by
our highlighting them as differences that are important and unfortunate
is not to argue you should ignore these differences or construct them
differently.
It is, however, to be wary of any account of things that would not notice
that these differences were 'socially constructed.'
: Cognitive sources of deviance, which are due to
: peculiarities in the functioning of the mind, will be much more open
: to social
: construction, especially when the role of self-image is considered and the
: complex interactions between beliefs, desires and goals.
I agree that there is something different going on her and building on
these in the creation of personalities - as we did in the case of the leg
crosser. Psychological language has considerable room for constructing
people in a remarkably aribtrary way at times, which has all sorts of
consequences.
: Returning to my leg crossing. If my leg crossing is due to some kind
: of neural
: damage then altered discourse will not make me cross my legs less.
Don't buy this common assumption without considering a counter
alternative. If you have neural damage that makes you 'want' to cross
your legs, we might well imagine that 'talk' would help you navigate around
that desire, and, even, learn to overcome your neurally based inclination
to cross your legs. Are you with me?
: Schizophrenia ... is a good example
: of the problem of determining origins. In this case social construction
: undoubtedly plays a very big role. However, there is a subset of mental
: patients who, for all intents and purposes, can be diagnosed as `mad'
: (although the correct term should be ill, which already reveals the role of
: social construction). Ignoring the problem, letting them free,
: talking about
: the problem differently, etc. etc. will not significantly alter their
: condition.
I think it would be foolish to let some people free just because we have
'deconstructed' madness. I believe that deconstructing the problem does
not imply a 'solution' or a 'cure' for the problem that we irresistably
find ourselves constructing. It does, however, give us a little distance
that might enhance our ability to find solutions (from within the frame
of reference), or to notice that we do not need to define the situation
as a problem in need of cure, that it is just, in a particular case,
traditional to treat the difference as 'problematic.'
: But, fundamentally, I agree that a lot of what constitutes madness
: in our mental institutions today is nothing of the sort, and the
: locking up of these individuals serves a social and political function.
This treats madness, again, as a 'figment of our imagination' rather than
a social construction. Can you see that?
: However, the slogan of letting them all free is far
too simplistic,
I wholeheartedly agree, but just keeping them locked up is too
simplistic as well. There is a much bigger question here of what to do
than whether we remove them from society until they no longer worry us.
This is especially true for violent people. I do some ideas on how
they should be handled, by the way, if you're interested. That might
lead to a useful dialogue.
Thanks, by the way, for engaging in such a thoughtful discourse with me.
..Lois
Lois Shawver
I would be happy to have you upload it to this newsgroup, or, perhaps, to
respond again in this forum.
Notice I have started a new thread, 'social constructionof mental
illness' to respond to the last part of yournote.
..Lois
Ian P Wright
Sorry. Long reply.
> I suggest we being by creating a common vocabulary between us. In my
> book, "social construction" does not equal "figment of the imagination."
> It means to highlight certain features and label them so that they
> represent them whole and then talk about them as though they were
> independent of the labeling. So, for example, if I noticed you cross your
> legs a lot, I might start calling you a 'leg crosser' and then others
> would have their attention called to this and note it, too. In school or
> work we might put you in a class of 'leg crossers' and convince you that
> even if you didn't cross your legs you were at heart a leg crosser.
> Finally, when we do a movie about the leg crosser, and you're the one the
> movie's about, you are completely socially constructed as a 'leg crosser.'
Ok. My notion of `social construction' was one-sided too. If Foucault
believes that the precondition for social construction is a real
phenomenon (my leg crossing) then I have no disagreement. That this
real phenomenon does not sufficiently constrain subjective interpretations
provides the possibility for social construction. However, if this is
the case, then it mustn't be forgotten when discussing social construction
that, at root, it is based in real phenomena. My frequent leg crossing
may have been noticed in the first place because of its deviance from
the norm. Similarly for the various, diverse, and historically contingent
interpretations of `madness'.
> If we use the term in this accepted sense, then saying that there are
> people who are truly mad has nothing to do with whether their condition
> is 'socilaly constructed.' Both can be the case. If we were to use the
> term to mean 'figment of our imagination' then you are winning your
> argument by setting up a strawman. So, I'm assuming you're with me in
> how this term is defined.
Yes I am.
> The question then becomes if we change the way they are socially
> constructed, will they stop being mad. To return to our analogy. If we
> stop noticing that you cross your legs, and stop calling you a leg
> crosser, and no longer put you in a separate category in the community
> because of it, will you cross your legs less? Will your leg crossing be
> less noticeable to the rest of us, less worrisome?
Here we've got to the nub of the problem. The issue can begin to be
resolved by considering types of abnormal behaviour and their possible
origins. If we consider origins of deviance (and by this I mean
strictly, and simply, difference from the average, without any implied
value-judgement) as a movement from the physical to the cognitive to the
social we should be able to distinguish different types of pathologies,
and correspondingly different opportunities for social construction and
interpretation. Determining origins is problematical; however, this difficulty
doesn't mean that origins are illusory.
Possible physical sources of deviance, such as missing limbs, malfunctioning
nervous systems, genetic disorders, malformed brain stems, missing brain
fragments, diseased neurons etc., can result in behavioural phenomena that is
designated as mad. How these individuals are treated, valued, viewed will be
open to the possibility of social construction. However, unless physical cures
are effected, changing the discourse about them will not change their
conditions of existence. Cognitive sources of deviance, which are due to
peculiarities in the functioning of the mind, will be much more open to social
construction, especially when the role of self-image is considered and the
complex interactions between beliefs, desires and goals. At this level
clinical psychology is currently craft and not science. At the social level
we really are in the realm of social construction, where having an alternative
lifestyle can often be enough for whole groups of people to be considered mad
and a danger to society.
Returning to my leg crossing. If my leg crossing is due to some kind of neural
damage then altered discourse will not make me cross my legs less. It will
make me feel better if people stop pointing it out to me, and stop making
films about me. But the condition will remain. If my leg crossing is due to
some cognitive aberration (for example, I may be an obsessive-compulsive who
is caught in some kind of infinite loop) then, I would think, altered
discourse about my condition could have a casual effect on its development.
If I cross my legs because I have been reared by a strange, religious sect who
believe that leg crossing is a formula for a sin-free soul then religious
tolerance would undoubtedly make my lot a happier one.
The problem with the leg crossing example is that is a trivial and a socially
neutral behavioural characteristic. Schizophrenia, however, is a good example
of the problem of determining origins. In this case social construction
undoubtedly plays a very big role. However, there is a subset of mental
patients who, for all intents and purposes, can be diagnosed as `mad'
(although the correct term should be ill, which already reveals the role of
social construction). Ignoring the problem, letting them free, talking about
the problem differently, etc. etc. will not significantly alter their
condition. These are the broken ones. These are the ones that need to be
looked after. However, I am Foucaultian in the sense that I think such
individuals will be very much in the minority.
> Given this more meanngful definition of the term 'social construction'
> are you suggesting that letting out the people who are currently called
> 'mad' will not reduce their madness (regardless of how thoroughly they
> are 'socially constructed' by our habits of labeling them)? It's a
> rational argument. I'm just checking if it's yours. Don't let me put
> words in your mouth.
I think I've answered your final question by complicating matters.
But, fundamentally, I agree that a lot of what constitutes madness
in our mental institutions today is nothing of the sort, and the
locking up of these individuals serves a social and political function.
However, the slogan of letting them all free is far too simplistic,
and could lead to the most vulnerable members of society having a very
bad time of it indeed. I'm thinking now of the British Government's
`Care in the Community' policy, which is precisely this idea of letting
the `mad' free. This policy was driven by the need to save
money and not from considerations of Foucaultian social construction.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Foucault was used to give the policy
an academic gloss. One poor and confused individual climbed into a
lion's enclave at a zoo and was mauled to death.
Cheers
-E.
Alektra
writes:
>Take 'missing limbs' for example. We could certainly imagine a culture
>in which this was a sign of widom or upper class, as the Chinese use to
>treat 'malformed feet' in women, and wrap their feet in order to 'deform'
>them.
Another example, this one from our own culture, is the difference between
attitudes toward eyeglasses & wheelchairs. Eyeglasses are interpreted
(often & regardless of what the wearer wants) as a sign of intellect,
marketed as fashion accessories, & sometimes worn where there is no need
to. Wheelchairs (often & regardless of what the user wants) are
interpreted as a sign of mental retardation, marketed as "rehabilitation"
products, recommended as a last resort by doctors, & often greeted with
terror by those facing the prospect of using them.
But of course, the situation is the same: people get around more easily
using them if they have a physical condition assisted by such equipment. A
wheelchair user is considered defective in comparison to walking people,
but not considered active in comparison to having to stay in an armchair.
Alektra
(Ian P Wright) writes:
>One poor and confused individual climbed into a lion's enclave at a zoo
>and was mauled to death.
>Cheers
LOL!
Lois Shawver
: >Take 'missing limbs' for example. We could certainly imagine a culture
: >in which this was a sign of widom or upper class, as the Chinese use to
: >treat 'malformed feet' in women, and wrap their feet in order to 'deform'
: >them.
: Another example, this one from our own culture, is the difference between
: attitudes toward eyeglasses & wheelchairs.
Yes, the fact that we can point to a real feature in our environment when
we are talking about something (a missing limb, a crippled leg, dimished
vision) hardly dictates what we make of it. It's what we make of it that
allows us to 'construct it.' Social construction is not concerned with
creating an illusion that things we imagine in our minds exist in the
world. It is concerned with the way we human assign meaning and create
concepts for viewing the world, concepts which engage us.
I took my dog for a walk today. While I was noticing the people and the
stores, he was sniffing the lamp posts. The same world was there for both
of us in a sense, but we constructed it differently. When we got to the
newspaper stand, I looked at the headlines. He smelled the traces of
urine on the legs of the stand. I never do that. The fact that the same
world is there for us both is, therefore, misleading. We construct it
differently in our minds. (Yes, MY dog has a mind.)
..Lois
re...@utdallas.edu
> Alektra (ale...@aol.com) wrote:
> : >Take 'missing limbs' for example. We could certainly imagine a culture
> : >in which this was a sign of widom or upper class, as the Chinese use to
> : >treat 'malformed feet' in women, and wrap their feet in order to 'deform'
> : >them.
> : Another example, this one from our own culture, is the difference between
> : attitudes toward eyeglasses & wheelchairs.
> Yes, the fact that we can point to a real feature in our environment when
> we are talking about something (a missing limb, a crippled leg, dimished
> vision) hardly dictates what we make of it. It's what we make of it that
> allows us to 'construct it.'
This idea seems a bit too extreme in your emphasis on the societal
influences of the construction. Being biological creatures, we are
predisposed to construct some things in certain ways. You seem to
suggest that such construction isn't part of the meaning-system, that it
is instead a constant for all cultures to view as each particular culture
dictates. Various deviances from the biological normatives (speaking
statistically) are certainly interpreted differently by different
cultures, but there is a delimiting function on the interpretations by
the `deformity.' Thus, a culture that possesses extremely ambulatory
requisites will view leg amputations as being more problematic than
vision problems that can be repaired by glasses (assuming they possess
glasses). What I'm attempting to get at is that there is not free reign
for biological determinants and there isn't free reign for societal
determinants, but an interaction between both forces.
Social construction is not concerned with
> creating an illusion that things we imagine in our minds exist in the
> world. It is concerned with the way we human assign meaning and create
> concepts for viewing the world, concepts which engage us.
I largely agree with you, but, as I hope I illustrated above,human *minds*
(qua society) are not the sole creators of our realities, i.e. minds
possess some groundwork for their structures. Your ignoring the
biological structuring within meaning is illustrated in the following
example:
> I took my dog for a walk today. While I was noticing the people and the
> stores, he was sniffing the lamp posts. The same world was there for both
> of us in a sense, but we constructed it differently. When we got to the
> newspaper stand, I looked at the headlines. He smelled the traces of
> urine on the legs of the stand. I never do that. The fact that the same
> world is there for us both is, therefore, misleading. We construct it
> differently in our minds. (Yes, MY dog has a mind.)
> ..Lois
My criticism depends on your definition of mind: If you mean by "mind" a
structure which possesses a neuronal basis biologically predisposed to
pick up on regularties and properties in the environment (be they
cultural, perceptual, or what have you), then my criticism is obviated.
However, if you mean that the mind is a controlling, determining force
that is somehow separated from the biological, then I believe my
criticism has some merit.
As much as I tend to agree with your posts, it took one of (possible)
disagreement to get me off of my duff and respond to you. I hope you
have time to respond.
Charles
Lois Shawver
We were talking about the extent to which our worlds are psychologically
(or socially) constructed.
The crux of your critique was here:
: I largely agree with you, but, as I hope I illustrated above,human *minds*
: (qua society) are not the sole creators of our realities, i.e. minds
: possess some groundwork for their structures.
I do agree. Our bodies give us a certain predisposition to construct the
world a certain way, but language has a powerful impact on how we
construct it, and this impact creates a layer of meaning over and above
whatever results from a biologicalpredisposition.
Even though we may be predisposed to find it inconvenient to lose a leg,
even that can take on different meaning in different cultures and language
systems.
Imagine a twelve year old boy who can't stand to inhale cigarette smoke
(because he is biogically set up to make that uncomfortable until he is
addicted) might well be inclined to overcome his initial distaste if
someone were to construct smoking as 'something adults do.'
We use language to mold and shape our perceptions as they are initially
constituted by our biological givens. (You couldn't put a spin on
smoking that would make it appeal to my dog.) But the final socially
constructed outcome is far removed from what it would have been if there
had been no language system to cast the world into a world of web
of linguistic meanings..
..Lois
Omar Haneef '96
> Ultimately, Leshan & Margeneau suggest that the only meaningful
> test of a reality construct is one of pragmatism -- is it useful
> in the domain toward which it is directed?
> Cris
This is really getting to the heart of the argument. In the end it
doesn't seem to matter whether someone is crazy because of biological or
social reasons. What is important, as Foucault would claim (can I drop just
one name that we seem to know), is that we decide what is madness based on
(yawn) what is not socially acceptable. So even if there were two people A:
half a brain missing, can't see colour, terrible at math and speech but a
very sweet, nice chap and B: Brilliant genius and artist who kills people on
the weekends, then we would label B insane and lock him up and A would be a
nice old chap free to raom the streets. It is important to realise that B is
not being locked up for being different or strange or bad but because B
kills on the weekends and we don't want to be killed. Desire is the ultimate
truth. The value of this stance surfaces when we consider C. C: A harmless
fellow who INSISTS that he is a teapot ("C'mon bud. Just pick me up and pour
me out!") The importance of realising WHY we lock up B prevents us from
locking up C because C, you see, is not harming anyone. He is living his own
arbitrary reality and there is no real way of knowing WHO the crazy one is
(that is to say maybe everyone really is a teacup and everyone is in on the
fact that we are teacups but *I* am the only one who thinks we are humans so
they - all you guys - just humour me). Ultimately pragmatism decides who we
lock up.
Given this case, does this mean that we only lock up, in asylums,
people whose actions we disaprove of? Should we abandon asylums and build
prisons instead? What is the difference?
Well, I would argue that the difference comes about when people are
unhappy. If B were perfectly happy killing people on the weekends then
prison is the place for him/her but if B (or A or even C) were desperately
unhappy and wanted the world resignified in such a way that they could bear
to deal with social interactions (ah! The bliss of it!) then they would find
a psychologist or asylum useful. B could go to the asylum and slowly have
his personality remolded by the asylum so he would be a different, happier
person who no longer felt the urge to kill on the weekends and now just eats
fast food instead (sinking his teeth into the meat somehow sublimates the
urge to kill). So madness is now defined as a state of unhappiness that the
patient wants to do something about. Of course if person B wants to change
the world around him instead of changing himself then he is not mad but
merely unhappy. Madness, then, is a condition one must impose on oneself.
Hope the grammar all works out.
-Omar Haneed
No more, the text is stupid.
-Shakespeare (from Othello or Hamlet, can't quite remember)