Title: Framing the moron : the social construction of feeble-mindedness in the American eugenic era /
Authors: O'Brien, Gerald V.
Publisher: Manchester University Press ; Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan,
Year: 2013
Subjects: Sterilization, Involuntary; Persons with Mental Disabilities; Institutionalization; Eugenics; Sterilization, Involuntary history; Social Control, Formal; Persons with Mental Disabilities history; Intellectual Disability classification; Institutionalization history; Eugenics history; Eugenics United States History; Involuntary sterilization United States History.; Eugenics history.; Sterilization, Involuntary history.; Social Control, Formal.; Persons with Mental Disabilities history.; Institutionalization history.; Dehumanization; Eugenics in mass media.; Eugenics Social aspects United States History; Propaganda, American.; Metaphor Social aspects United States.; United States; United States
Abstract: Framing the moron details the variety of dehumanizing and fear-inducing rhetoric employed by the American eugenic movement during the early twentieth century, which led to tens of thousands of innocent people being involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated.
Contents: Metaphors and the dehumanization of marginalized groups -- The organism metaphor: the moron as a diseased entity -- The animal metaphor: the moron as an atavistic subhuman -- The war and natural catastrophe metaphors: the moron as an enemy force -- The religious and altruistic metaphors: the moron as an an immoral sinner and an object of protection -- The object metaphor: the moron as a poorly functioning human -- Conclusion.