This is a stunning book which should be of interest to a far wider audience than historians of disability. Anyone interested in disability studies, and in racism, should read it. It is lavishly illustrated, and excellent value for money.
The book tells a complex story, of the ways ‘idiocy’ has been viewed over the past four centuries. Before I go further, I must explain that although ‘idiot’ is now a term of abuse, it is not possible to avoid using it in the context of this book – which is doing the important job of tracing its history.
Simon Jarrett’s theme is that in the eighteenth century ‘idiots’ were accepted as part of society. It was no idyllic existence, they could be the butt of jokes, or, if wealthy, targets for fortune hunters, but they were there, as workmates, neighbours, members of the community. He cites a wide range of sources, including Court Records and popular books of jokes, to show that ‘idiots’ were tolerated, even defended, by contemporaries. In an era of harsh punishment, judges were inclined to leniency if a person was defended by friends on the grounds of ‘idiocy’. They were seen as people, not as subjects suitable for medical intervention and cure.
Simon traces how, over the course of the nineteenth century, this easygoing tolerance gave way to something more akin to fear and loathing, aided and abetted by doctors laying claim to expertise on ‘idiots’. He uses literature to show how portrayals of idiots changed, for example the way Charles Dickens portrayed Barnaby Rudge, the hero of the novel of that name. Barnaby oscillates between a pitiable, permanent child and a frightening, unfathomable, threatening presence (p. 169).
These more threatening othering images paved the way for segregating people with disabled minds in institutions, a practice that prevailed as the preferred way of dealing with people with learning disabilities late into the twentieth century.
Finally, in Part 3 of the book, Simon tells what to me is a more familiar story, the influence of eugenics on public policy, the State’s adoption of institutions, the excesses of the Nazis and the oh so slow and partial return of the exiled disabled people to ‘the community’ which they had been forced to leave two centuries earlier.
Why should this appeal to a wide audience?
Firstly, Simon Jarrett is a talented historian who writes beautifully. At no point in its 352 pages does he indulge in the obscure jargon which delights too many academics. It is a readable book.
Secondly, this is the first time I have read an account which delves into the pre-institutionalisation era in such depth. It recasts the tale, not the one we tell ourselves that we moderns rescued people who our benighted predecessors had shut away, but of an era when people didn’t need ‘reintegrating’ or ‘including’, because they were just there. In this sense it tells an important story.
Thirdly, in a masterly chapter Colonies, Anthropologists and Asylums, Simon draws parallels between disablism and racism. What might be called ‘intersectionality’, though he does not use the word. I had been aware of some parallels – people with Downs being called Mongols (Mongolians), the twentieth century institutional model called a ‘colony’, but this book demonstrates the depth of ‘research’ which went into proving that white Europeans were the superior race by connecting idiocy and imbecility with black and brown peoples, as representing, respectively, primitive forms of human development, and primitive forms of human society. Some missionary societies even went so far as to explain the failures of their educational endeavours on the ineducability of ‘barbarians’ who, they claimed, like ‘imbeciles’ were not capable of learning – or if they did were likely to regress to their primitive state. Hence the justifications of empire have strong associations with ideas about idiocy and imbecility. This gives the book a striking topicality in the era of Black Lives Matter.
Fourthly, Simon Jarrett uses stories and images to humanise what is a serious history. Like the unforgettable Fanny Fust, a young heiress who her mother described as in a state of ‘total imbecility of mind’ (p. 38). In 1786 Fanny was abducted, spirited off to France where a priest was plied with alcohol to be persuaded to marry her to one of her kidnappers. If you want to know how the story ends, get the book. Suffice to say it sheds an interesting light on questions of mental capacity.
We are gradually discovering the value of disability history to give new ways of thinking about the past. This book is a great illustration.
Visiting Chair, History of Learning Disability, Open University, UK [email protected]@ 2021 Jan Walmsleyhttps://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2021.1890947