Week 6 post

In the reading ““We Are Certain of Our Own Insanity”:Antipsychiatry and the Gay Liberation Movement, 1968-1980,” author Abram J. Lewis frequently makes the point that there are distinct groups with differing methodology within the same general movement against psychiatry, especially their inaccurate and damaging label of homosexuality as a mental illness. There is emphasis placed on the separation between people fighting for the official psychiatric position on homosexuality being a mental illness to be changed, and the people fighting against the institution of psychiatry as a whole so often creating bigotry in labels and suggested treatments of people. However there is also a separate distinction of groups within the reading: people who go about making change “the right way” by civilly critiquing the DSM, and the people who are instead fighting against the labels by being disruptive. A concern is placed on the people being loud and disruptive only making the stigmas against homosexuals worse damaging their entire position; however, there is a litany of historical evidence that shows many important movements only succeeded by being disruptive. Within the documentary Crip Camp, one of the largest causes for change was the sit-in within the San Francisco federal building which lasted 28 days that forced legislators to pay attention to them. It was a great deal more progress in a short amount of time because they did something that directly inconvenienced those apathetic to the movement. Similarly, Nestle–a company that has a history of practices that severely damage the communities around where they gather their supply for their products, does not willingly change business practices regardless of how unethical they are if it could hurt their bottom dollar. In 1977 there was a boycott of Nestle products until 1984 for their tactics with baby formula sales in developing countries causing women to stop naturally breast feeding to become reliant on a less healthy formula, a practice that ended up killing babies. It took significant backlash and people to boycott for them to finally follow the World Health Organization’s guidelines about marketing substitutions for breast milk to finally alter their practices. This process is described on their website in a misleading way to make it sound like they took the initiative to be better with the boycott having nothing to do with it, as well as leaving out the crucial detail of their baby killing. Later another boycott caused them to only adopt the responsible investment index from the Financial Times Stock Exchange, only after it started to impact support from their stakeholders. Sometimes when trying to spur systemic changes in governments or corporations, being disruptive is the most effective way to do so, and the sustainable agricultural movement may not be disruptive enough at present.