Jason calls me a monkey. I contend that he is driving our blog toward a rather unattractive solipsism. Furthermore, I contend that he himself is rather unattractive.

Since we're talking about the blog on the blog, I've been meaning to tell you, readers, that all three of your authors are graduates of Unionville High School in Pennsylvania. I have imagined for quite some time that each of you is tormented by the absence of any justification for our combination of authors. I hope that the above fact will fit neatly in the spot where torment was.
posted by neel master at 1:09 AM

A New Vision For Mental Health Treatment Laws
LPS Reform Task Force

LPS stands for Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, which is the 1967 California law that directed the mass depopulation of the state's mental hospitals. The move was motivated by contemporary theories of social construction and cultural-epistemological relativism, especially the work of Erving Goffman. This report was written in 1995 as an evaluation of the outcomes of the policy.

To focus public and legislative interest on mental illness is a daunting task, but a necessary one in order for major legislative reform to take place. The Assembly Subcommittee on Mental Health, which Waldie chaired, set out to develop a working knowledge of contemporary thinking about mental illness and commitment. They reviewed the legal and scientific mental health research literature available to them at that time and conducted public hearings. The Subcommittee contracted with a private research firm, Social Psychiatry Research Associates of San Francisco, which defined itself as "researchers engaged in a series of social surveys generally focused on the community careers of people labeled as deviant." The mandate of the research firm was to assist in designing and completing a survey of the courts and to process and analyze the data collected. The findings were then synthesized into a document known as "The Dilemma Report."11 12

The research leader was Dorothy Miller, an adherent of Erving Goffman who postulated a phenomenological argument that denied mental illness as anything more than a condition caused by institutionalization. Goffman's theories permeated the Dilemma Report, just as they had flooded popular imagination through Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Another popular sociologist used as reference for the investigation was Thomas Scheff, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who esoterically promulgated a theory that while many people might exhibit symptoms of mental illness, these people are no more than residual rule breakers and mental illness only exists as a label -- or a definition -- by group culture for its "social losers." He later became known as the "father of the labeling theory."

Other influences included R.D. Laing, who argued that mental illness is a socio-political event and once compared schizophrenia to a self-enlightening acid trip, and Thomas Szasz, who published, in popular magazines, his flamboyant argument that mental illness is a myth used by totalitarian governments to gain social control.

The sociological confusion surrounding the nature of mental illness in the 1960s was well stated in The Dilemma Report which said, "The term 'mental illness' is a nonscientific, generalized popular label used to describe a wide range of behavior which is considered 'peculiar' or 'sick' or objectionable . . . it does not reveal the cause of any individual's difficulty. . . . It is also evident that when a person's behavior is labeled 'mental illness,' those who do the labeling are guided by their own concepts of what is normal and abnormal. Madness, like beauty, may exist in the eye of the beholder. . . .Despite all these uncertainties the general public, its elected representatives and civil servants have perpetuated the commitment court and mental hospital system as a means of disposing of a variety of disagreeable social problems."

posted by neel master at 8:45 PM

I'm at my uncle's house in Mahwah, NJ. My dad and my uncle have engaged in the same scripted affirmative action debate that they have nearly every time we meet. My uncle parrots D'Souza and Thomas Sowell and company while my dad claims that racism still exists and affirmative action is fair. The failure of political talk shows to promote real political discussion has never been so apparent. Common sense has failed; chaos reigns.

Ok. My few attempts to broaden or historicize or complicate their discussion have gone relatively unheeded, so I will have to find an outlet on the blog. So here are some nice links about affirmative action and what it all means.

The Future of Affirmative Action: Reclaiming the Innovative Ideal
Lani Guinier and Susan Sturm

Opponents successfully depict racial preferences as extraordinary, special, and deviant--a departure from prevailing modes of selection. They also proceed on the assumption that, except for racial or gender preferences, the process of selection for employment or educational opportunity is fair, meritocratic, and functional. Thus, they have positioned affirmative action as unnecessary, unfair, and even unAmerican.

Those of us pursuing the quest of racial and gender justice in a genuinely democratic society face a crucial challenge. How do we respond to this assault on affirmative action? How do we invite a deeper conversation and analysis of selection and admissions conventions in pursuit of fairness? Understandably, much of the response has been reactive. Supporters of affirmative action typically engage the debate on the terms defined by the assault: affirmative action must continue. It is fair. It is still needed to rectify continued exclusion and marginalization in the society.

Supporters of affirmative action have also put forward a critique of the fairness and functionality of existing merit standards. [FN8] They marshal considerable evidence showing that these standards exclude women and people of color, and that people who were excluded in the past do not yet operate on a level playing field. [FN9] They have also challenged the justification for relying on these exclusionary criteria; they argue that the selection criteria do not predict the future performance of candidates in the positions they seek to occupy. They then rely on this critique of the fairness and validity of existing merit standards to justify departing from those standards for women and people of color. Affirmative action is justified to level the playing field, to rectify the biases built into the existing selection system, and to remedy past and continuing exclusion or underrepresentation.

Despite the moral and empirical force of these arguments, there is a sense in which they are not being heard. They certainly have not reshaped the terms or tone of the public debate. The most compelling moral claims are simply dismissed as special-interest pleading. Part of the reason for this asymmetry is that proponents of racial and gender justice have responded to the debate only as it is framed by the current assault.

posted by neel master at 1:26 AM