Can we medicalize society?

Continuing my medicalization kick (and because I haven’t talked about Huck Finn in a while), a recent post at Slate highlights the way that the behaviors that we have medicalized in children today, such as ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, likely existed long before our labels.  While this is not a surprise, the conclusion brings up an interesting point:

But if the children and the parents are familiar, the society surrounding them is not. In fact, Tom Sawyer turns out fine in the end. In 19^th-century Missouri, there were still many opportunities for impulsive kids who were bored and fidgety in school. The very qualities that made him so tiresome—curiosity, hyperactivity, recklessness—are precisely the ones that get him the girl, win him the treasure, and make him a hero. Even Huck Finn is all right at the end of his story. Although he never learns to tolerate “sivilization,” he knows he can head out to “Indian territory,” to the empty West where even the loose rules of Missouri life won’t have to be followed.

Nothing like that is available to children who don’t fit in today. Instead of striking out into the wilderness like Huck Finn, they get sent to psychologists and prescribed medication—if they are lucky enough to have parents who can afford that sort of thing. Every effort will be made to help them pay attention, listen to the teacher, stop picking fights in the playground, and rightly so. Nowadays, there aren’t any other options.

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The tests are biased

… against students who don’t give a shit!

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Dying with dignity

While I am not particularly old, I have been doing some adult-like things lately and even planning for my own demise.  Despite my relative youth, the recent health of my grandparents has me considering the negative aspects of long life.  A few years ago my grandmother had a heart attack, since which she has been on medications that may have contributed to the stroke she had last year.  Most recently, it was determined that one of her medications is preventing her heart from working effectively.  While I am not anti-medicine (or anti-vaccination, for that matter), there has to be a point at which the medicalization of old age becomes counter productive.  (Maybe we all need to think a bit more about the old woman who swallowed a fly.)  I recognize that it is easy to make these sorts of proclamations while one is healthy and relatively youthful, but I hope that in my old age I am willing to convince others to let me put aside the drugs and, if necessary, die.

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ASA successes

I’ve spent some time criticizing the ASA (and a few of its members) lately, but I actually did accomplish things in Atlanta that made the trip a success.  Some of these were simple things like catching up with friends from grad school and getting up for 8:30 sessions despite late nights with said friends, but I also started to do a bit more to make a name for myself apart from my graduate institution.  Some of my overall satisfaction following this year’s conference may be due to changes in the way I approached session attendance.  In the past I attended a number of sessions with one or two papers that looked interesting and found myself suffering through the other presentations wondering why I was there.  This year I was much more careful about the sessions that I chose to attend and the result was that I attended far fewer sessions that felt like a waste of my time.  Another frustration in the past has been the role of discussants who I saw as taking valuable time away from Q&A.  This year, the discussants that I saw, including the one in my own session, focused on providing feedback that actually seemed relevant and useful, though I still wish there had been more time for Q&A.  In all, the conference seemed to be a success and I’m glad that I went.  I am also thankful for the hamster tubes that allowed me to cover a relatively large area without going outside.

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Presentation provisions

While I’m criticizing the ASA, I may as well state that it is time for the ASA to ensure that a laptop will be available for presenters to use in all sessions.  There were several times when the current policy of “bring one if you want one” caused problems before or during a session.  The solution to this problem may be as simple as requiring presiders to arrange for one to be present (either by bringing their own or arranging for a presenter to bring one and then informing the other presenters that one will be available) but the time has come where electronic presentations are the norm rather than the exception.  The availability of projectors in recent years (I’m pretty sure that I presented in Montreal using an overhead projector) is a positive sign that the use of audio and video in addition to PowerPoint presentations will one day breathe new life into presentations (and likely herald a new era of presentations going over their allotted time).

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Unisexing the women’s restrooms

One of the things that struck me about this year’s ASA conference was the bizarre attempt to demonstrate how progressive sociologists are by designating some of the restrooms in the Marriott as unisex.  On the surface, this seems like a case of sociologists walking the walk, and a friend of mine even remarked how cool this was when he saw them for the first time, but the execution of this idea was severely lacking.  The main problem was that the restrooms designated as unisex were the women’s restrooms.  On some level this makes sense because the Marriott restrooms featured fully enclosed rooms with toilets rather than the partial walls of a typical bathroom stall.  The men’s rooms, however, featured urinals (as men’s rooms typically do), which would have opened up anybody using them to exposure to the opposite sex.  I assume this is the reason that only women’s rooms were designated as unisex, but by doing this the ASA created a situation in which men could use the men’s restrooms, check themselves out in the mirror, etc. without the potential for this backstage behavior to be seen by women, but women who wanted to use a restroom in the same area could not.  Despite his initial excitement, my friend later admitted that he had not used the unisex restrooms, opting for the nearby men’s rooms instead.  Whether or not many men used the unisex restrooms, the ASA denied women some measure of privacy that it did not deny men.  I guess this is another example of the ASA’s good work.

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“Famous” sociologists

Aside from hearing about the latest research in one’s area of interest and worrying about the academic job market, I think that one of the most interesting aspects of attending ASAs comes through encounters with “famous” sociologists.  Obviously, some sociologists have published more visible work than others, but the likelihood of somebody’s sociological fame extending out into the real world is near zero.  Despite the media blitz surrounding Gang Leader for a Day, for example, I highly doubt that Sudhir Venkatesh gets recognized on the street.

I wonder if this lack of recognition outside of sociology is what causes some big-name (or even medium-name) sociologists to be such ridiculous assholes.  While lots and lots of well-known people are nice, interested, and respectful, there seems to be a handful of status-happy tag checkers who give everybody else a bad name.  One such person stepped between a friend and I and the person we were talking to and was reportedly delighted at the fact that she ended our conversation by doing so.  In fact, the conversation had been rather awkward (as conversations with that person tend to be) and this bout of jackassery provided us with a good opportunity to continue on our pursuit of lunch.

If you ever catch yourself thinking that you’re a famous sociologist, I think that the key is to put this thought in perspective.  While the individual described above and others like her may think, “I”m a famous sociologist, bitch!” the rest of us are thinking, “You’re just a famous sociologist… asshole.”

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I’ve never heard of that

I’ve stated in the past that I don’t mind when people look at my nametag at ASA.  Of course, I may be a little more aware of tag checking than I was when my institutional affiliation was slightly more impressive, but if you are going to create a social situation in which people are required to wear nametags, it is pretty ridiculous to think that nobody is going to look at them.  What I do find offensive is when I introduce myself to somebody and after telling them where I work they say, “I’ve never heard of that.”  I know that sociologists have a reputation for being socially awkward, but what kind of asshole thinks that they have heard of every school in the country?  This year, I have decided that my official response to this statement is going to be, “Now you have.”  I’ll refrain from adding, “Asshole.”

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Going for a cover-all?

Usually, when people make bingo cards for events they are focused on things that may happen during the course of the event.  Looking at the card for this year’s ASA conference, however, it appears that one would have to go out of the way not to score a bingo.  Many of these spaces are akin to “Steve Jobs wears black mock turtleneck.” Hell, I’m not even there yet and I’ve already done a few of them.

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Hotlanta

I suppose that the good thing about this summer’s heat is that the temperature in Atlanta is not much worse than the temperature anywhere else.  Of course, given that I’m probably not the only person who will be staying at one of the ASA hotels for less-than-ASA prices, Atlanta may become a semi-annual destination.

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