----- Original Message -----
From: natasha kraus <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: Disabling Societies
> And as a sociologist and critical social theorist, I have to ask if this
> result couldn't be the effect of a greater homosocial environment during
> "personality/psychic development"
...
> Why the need to take sociobiologists' theories seriously in any way
> whatsoever? I ask this seriously, as a recent joiner to this listserv, on
> which numerous posts over the last week have referred to sociobiological
> theories as if they hold legitimacy.
I don't think either biological or social theories of the 'origin' of
homosexuality are very interesting in the context of comparisons with
disability issues. We don't ask about the specific cause of a person's
impairment before we discuss the person's disablement, and we don't decide
whether or not one's oppression is 'deserved' by how one's impairment was
caused.
I think Gregor is intrigued with the "gay gene" because we know that there
are genes "for" certain impairments. There would be rhetorical parallels
with arguments about selective abortions, for example. Those parallels might
have uses in political debates. But the nature/nurture dichotomy is bogus
all the way down. No interesting traits are purely genetic, or purely
environmental. The Social Model of disability is important only because the
dominant ideology depicts disability as purely biological. I look forward
to the day when the Social Model is so dominant that someone has to come up
with a theory of the Biological Construction of Disability.
Ron
--
Ron Amundson
University of Hawaii at Hilo
Hilo, HI 96720
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