28 February 2009
Standpoint Theory
I was just thinking about how we were talking about the Garland Thomson reading in class and standpoint theory earlier when I was talking to one of my best friends. She has Interstitial Cystitis. She's been extremely frustrated lately with the doctors here because her doctor where we're from in Columbia has seen and dealt with IC before but none of the doctors here seem to know what she's talking about and even when they get her medical records they are pretty much unable to help at all. She just said something that made me think of standpoint theory when we were talking about all of this because she said, "I know that it's not all that common, but I just forget that a lot because my mom has it, and my sister has it, and one of her friends has it." I just know we were talking about how when you're not in the majority you see things in a different light. It's not like it's an incredibly common problem and yet it's harder for her to see the problem with diagnosing and treating this because she feels like it is much more common than it really is.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I think standpoint theory is intriguing. When I looked up standpoint feminism on Wikipedia, part of the description said "women hold a different type of knowledge." I can relate to the idea of your experiences altering your knowledge and the way you consider a situation as opposed to others.
ReplyDeleteI had a very heated debate with a friend on facebook the other day concerning the change in Pentagon policy to allow photos to be taken of dead Soldiers' caskets. His viewpoint was more objective, but all I could think about was the way I couldn't find the words to describe what it feels like to be there when a Soldier's remains come home, what it's like to share a young widow's grief, the family that draws together internally within the Army to gather around that family and give honor to its own. My standpoint is clearly different, my set of knowledge more intimate and humanistic than his. I hold a different type of knowledge that can only be gained through firsthand experience.
In Ancient Christianity, there was a heretic group called the Gnostics. There are several elements to Gnosticism, but the root idea was this concept that humans were divine beings trapped in a material world and salvation could only be found through realizing and understanding this. The knowledge (root word of Gnosticism)could not be "taught." You could be told of it, but you could not be made to understand it. I think this is similar to the precept of standpoint theory. You understand something a certain way because of who you are, you can tell someone your view and you can try to make them understand but the only way it is truly understood is through personal experience.
The idea of disease is so interesting. I could see how standpoint theory is enacted among people with diseases and or disabilities. THinking about Becca's post, I wonder how people who for instance are blind and the perspective of disability from their standpoint. This is especially a thought because some people are born blind while others go blind and even more so the time frame of blindness, whether it's temporary or permanent. This especially relates because I thought it was possible for it to be corrected. Hmmm??
ReplyDeleteGood point, LC! This leads to another thought. Who makes the judgment call when a disability *can* be corrected? Like my son's birthmark can be removed, yet he (nor I for that matter) doesn't think it's an impediment. He could care less about it being removed. Clearly, we all watch a lot of Law and Order :) I am reminded of an episode I watched in which a parent was taking his/her (I can't remember which parent) to a specialist to have his deafness reversed. The other parent (who was also deaf) didn't think deaf equaled wrong and hearing equaled right. He/She ended up killing the doctor. Through the episode, there were all these people who had taken a position on whether deafness should be corrected because it could be corrected.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a very interesting point. I think that it has a lot to do with social norms and perhaps the level of influence that they have over the individual. I think that in your son's case (and yours...and mine, for that matter), the birth mark is not a "disability" but others might definitely see it as being an impediment. There's just not a level of influence over him of what those people might think about it, so it's still not anything that needs to be corrected. And who's to say that it's really "correcting" it anyways? I like that you asked who makes the judgment call of when it CAN be corrected and hinted at the question of what is ACTUALLY an improvement.
ReplyDelete