--- Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> wrote:
> Through this part of history it is fairly clear that
> disabled people
> were mostly segregated in both capitalist and
> socialist nations into
> institutions for the deaf, mentally retarded, blind,
> etc. There were
> workshops set up, sheltered workshops for the blind
> to make mops and
> brooms,
Marta, I will admit, with some embarassment, that I know nothing of the history of the deaf, mentally retarded, blind,etc in this country or any other country. I have no doubt that there were/are well-intentioned individuals within this country and others. However, if I am reading you correctly, their form of "rehabilitation" was related to making these groups more "productive", meaning in the case of capitalism to make these groups able to produce commodities to some extent. It's as if these "rehabilitators" strived to show, "look, these people aren't so bad after all...they can serve capitalism, too". In other words, their criterion of "good" is based on notions of commodity productivity.
Well, I presume that many of these groups were unable to "produce" commodities as quickly as the "normal" people. Notice that I enclose the word "normal" in quotation marks, because obviously normal in a commodity driven society means "those who can 'produce' commodities quickly and efficiently". Of course ANYONE who cannot do so is put into a ghetto and defined as anormal.
So, in spite of any well-intentioned individuals, when you live in a society in which the psychology considers commodity production as the highest good, or the development of the "productive sources" as the highest good, then folks like the blind, deaf, mentally retarded, etc are going to be viewed as flawed by that system and the people who cop to the ideology of that system; rehabilitators, who cop to that ideology, no matter how well intentioned, are only going to measure "progress" in terms of how much the "disabled" person can increase his/her work productivity. Correct me, if I am wrong in this..I am just making assumptions, jumping from the general to the specific.
Perhaps, if you would be so kind, you could point me to a good history of the disabled.
Thomas
===== "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."
"Money eats quality and shits out quantity" -William Burroughs
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