Contagion and the National Body: The Organism Metaphor in American Thought 1138306223, 978-1138306226

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Table of contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
References......Page 14
1 Introduction to Metaphor Theory: Its Use in Public Policy......Page 16
Metaphors, Problem/Group Framing and Social Policy......Page 18
Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Public Policy......Page 19
Metaphor Priming and Beliefs About Policy Solutions......Page 21
Metaphors and the Framing of Marginalized Groups......Page 22
References......Page 25
2 Overview of the Organism Metaphor......Page 28
Brief History of the Organism Metaphor......Page 30
Embodiment and the Organism Metaphor......Page 33
Analysis of the Organism Metaphor......Page 35
Relationship to Alternative Pejorative Metaphors......Page 36
References......Page 38
3 Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods......Page 42
Restrictive Immigration Period......Page 43
The Anti-Asian Movements in the United States......Page 45
The Eugenic Alarm Era and the “Menace of the Feeble-Minded”......Page 47
Anti-Semitism in the United States......Page 50
The “Red Scare” and Subsequent Anti-Communist Movements......Page 52
Discrimination Against African-Americans......Page 55
Notes......Page 58
References......Page 59
External Origin of the Contaminating Entity......Page 62
Diagnostics and Marking......Page 66
Non-Assimilation: Alien Nature as an Essential Quality......Page 73
References......Page 77
5 Metaphoric Disease-Making......Page 81
The “Other” as a Diseased Sub-Population......Page 82
Related Metaphors......Page 83
Disease-Inducing Environments and Disease Etiology......Page 86
Disgust and the Organism Metaphor......Page 90
References......Page 91
Ingestion, Dispersion, and the Organism Metaphor......Page 95
Related Metaphors......Page 99
References......Page 104
Miscegenation......Page 108
Birth Differential......Page 110
Animal Metaphors in Relation to Disease Spread......Page 113
Non-Physical Forms of Transmission......Page 115
The Unilateral Nature of Transmission......Page 116
Blood and Transmission......Page 118
Blood Poisoning and Dose Insensitivity......Page 119
Decay of the Social Body......Page 120
References......Page 122
8 Metaphorical Public Health Responses......Page 127
Registration and Surveillance......Page 128
Segregation, Ghettoization, and Quarantine......Page 130
“Second-Level” Penetration (Self-Isolation)......Page 131
Elimination......Page 132
Reification of the Organism Metaphor......Page 134
References......Page 136
Conclusion......Page 139
References......Page 142
Index......Page 144

Citation preview

CONTAGION AND THE NATIONAL BODY THE ORGANISM METAPHOR IN AMERICAN THOUGHT Gerald V. O’Brien

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Contagion and the National Body

Drawing on the work of George Lakoff, this book provides a detailed ­analysis of the organism metaphor, which draws an analogy between the national or social body and a physical body. With attention to the manner in which this metaphor conceives of various sub-​groups as either beneficial or detrimental to the (social) body’s overall functioning, the author examines the use of this metaphor to view marginalized sub-​populations as invasive or contagious entities that need to be treated in the same way as harmful bacteria or pathogens. Analyzing the organism metaphor as it was employed in the service of social injustice through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States, Contagion and the National Body focuses on the alarm eras of the restrictive immigration period (1890–​1924), the agitation against Chinese and Japanese populations on the West Coast, the eugenic period’s targeting of feeble-​minded persons and other “defectives,” periods of anti-​Semitism, the anti-​Communist movements, and various forms of racial animosity against African-​Americans. Gerald V.  O’Brien is Professor and Department Chair of Social Work at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA, and author of Framing the Moron:  The Social Construction of Feeble-​Mindedness in the American Eugenic Era.

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Contagion and the National Body The Organism Metaphor in American Thought Gerald V. O’Brien

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First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Gerald V. O’Brien The right of Gerald V. O’Brien to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​30622-​6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​14163-​3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Out of House Publishing

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Dedicated with love to Kathryn and the late Daniel O’Brien, and Donald and Jacqueline McGurk.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction

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1 Introduction to Metaphor Theory: Its Use in Public Policy

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2 Overview of the Organism Metaphor

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3 Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods

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4 Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness”

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5 Metaphoric Disease-​Making

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6 Penetration of the Social Body

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7 Decay of the Social Body

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8 Metaphorical Public Health Responses

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Conclusion

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Index

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Acknowledgments

Much of the research and writing of this book was completed during a sabbatical in 2013. I’m grateful to the SIUE College of Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee and the University administration for supporting this sabbatical. I especially want to thank the faculty of the Department of Social Work and particularly Dr.  Kathleen Tunney for her assistance in covering my teaching and administrative duties during this semester. Thanks to all my faculty colleagues at the University, College and Department level who have supported my research over the years. Special thanks to the various graduate assistants who have assisted me, either in accessing sources or providing feedback on or editing chapters. This includes Samantha Gill, Carolyn Florczyk, Erin Steingruby, and Amanda Feldhaus. Kelly Lasiter, our administrative assistant, has done much within the department to make my job easier, and I greatly appreciate her support. I would like to acknowledge the authors whose writings led me in the direction of this work. I  have been inspired over the years by a broad range of scholars in areas such as historical studies, disability history, and social justice. These include the late Steven Jay Gould, Wolf Wolfensberger, Zygmunt Bauman, and Burton Blatt, as well as James Trent, Sam Keen, Robert Proctor, and Sander Gilman. Metaphor scholars were obviously very influential in the creation of this book, and I am grateful to George Lakoff, Mark Landau, Andreas Musolff, Jonathan Charteris-​Black, and Paul Rozin for their research. There is a lot of groundbreaking work currently being published on the impact of metaphors on our social and political life, and I  could easily extend this list. Thanks also to my fellow eugenic/​disability scholars who accompanied me on a month-​long seminar in Germany in 2004. They and this experience contributed greatly to my understanding of social justice and the mechanisms supporting dehumanization and oppression. Some of the work in this book was previously published in revised version in several journals. Thanks to Taylor and Francis, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, and the Journal of Social Work Education for allowing me to use some of this material within the text.

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x Acknowledgments Finally, I want to take this opportunity to state how grateful I am to my family. My wife Jean has always been extremely supportive of my work even though it often takes me away from other, more important, things, and I am deeply grateful to her. Thanks to my children, Kevin, Mark, and Shannon, as well as Jade and Quinn. Thanks also to my extended family, and especially my parents and in-​laws to whom this book is dedicated. I have had incredible support over the years and am grateful to everyone who has expressed an interest in my work.

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Introduction

In his 1997 book Postmodernity and Its Discontents, the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman expanded on Mary Douglas’s (1966) seminal writings on purity and our inherent need to control those things (or persons) that seem out of order or threatening to our personal space or boundaries. He wrote that “[s]‌weeping the floor and stigmatizing traitors or banishing strangers appear to stem from the same motive of the preservation of order, or making or keeping the environment understandable and hospitable …” (Bauman 1997, p. 8). As others have done, he compares the “strangers” in our world to dirt, filth, and bacteria, noting that it’s No wonder the locals of all times and places, in their frenzied efforts to separate, confine, exile or destroy the strangers compared the objects of their exertions to vermin and bacteria. No wonder, either, that they compared the meaning of their own action to hygienic routines; they fought the “strangers,” convinced that they defended health against the carriers of disease. (Bauman 1997, p. 10) This book is about the strangers in our lives, those social sub-​ groups who unknowingly foster anxiety and confusion, who need to be labeled, sequestered, tracked, and controlled, lest they become lost within the social body and invite contagion and corporeal damage. The organism metaphor (though it’s often referred to by other terms) has been the subject of a large array of writings over the years. While I  draw on many of these previous works, here I primarily consider the impact of the organism metaphor on at-​ risk, “deviant,” or vulnerable populations. These groups, often referred to as marginalized because they live at (or beyond) the margins of civilized society, have frequently been subject to measures of social control, often in the guise of protective public policy measures. Arguments related to the organism metaphor (along with other pejorative metaphor themes) have often served as a principle mode of rationalizing such measures. I also connect this thematic concept with recent scholarship in metaphor analysis, especially related to the “priming” of conceptual metaphors and

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2 Introduction what this research might mean for the decisions we make in our everyday lives, as well as the broader social policy implications. This research provides some early evidence that even subtle social cues may connect with ingrained metaphoric ways of viewing the world around us and impact the decisions we make. Certainly politicians and other political stakeholders embrace this idea to some degree, given the attention and money that is directed toward even subliminal forms of image-​making. Continued research along these lines may also provide important insights on the nature and extent of implicit bias as well as methods of counteracting it. The work draws largely on primary source material from the alarm periods that are described in Chapter 3. The book had its origin in my early research on the American eugenics movement and its efforts to involuntarily sterilize, institutionalize, and otherwise restrict the rights of persons who came to be labeled as morons or feeble-​minded. Moreover, the notion of moronity was elastic enough to be gradually expanded and take in a wide range of outsiders and social “deviants” (O’Brien 2013). In analyzing the writings of important eugenicists, I was struck by the frequent utilization of similar metaphor themes and descriptive phraseology, and particularly by the various ways that themes related to the organism metaphor were employed to sanction aversive eugenic proposals. Since the targets of eugenic control were viewed as diseases in the body of the nation, and female morons specifically were seen as corrupting the race, involuntary sterilization was considered just as reasonable as sterilizing medical equipment to ensure bodily integrity. I set about comparing and contrasting how the metaphor was differentially employed across other alarm periods, as well as how it inter-​related with other pejorative metaphor themes, such as war, object, and animal metaphors. My sense was (and remains) that the organism metaphor was not just another means of denigrating vulnerable populations for the purpose of supporting aversive measures, but has held, across times and cultures, to be a central mode of augmenting fear and providing a vehicle through which public anger could be channeled. As described in the book, the organism metaphor is a particularly compelling thematic device for denigrating vulnerable populations because it connects, largely in ways that we aren’t even fully conscious of, with inherent fears of disease and the corruption of our physical bodies. Invasion from the “outside,” whether it be by aliens, germs, bugs, forms of brainwashing or propaganda, or any other hazard, is the stuff of nightmares and countless science fiction books and movies. The organism metaphor as it is employed in opposition to immigrants and other “foreign” bodies exploits these fears in a variety of ways that are described within this book. Chapter 1 of the book provides a general overview to the importance of metaphors, especially in how marginalized groups are described and in calls for their control, particularly through the development of restrictive public policies. Chapter 2 specifically takes up the organism or state/​body metaphor, looking at the history of the metaphor and further delineates the analysis that is at the center of this book. Chapter 3 details the alarm periods that are

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Introduction 3 primarily used throughout the text to explicate the various ways in which the organism metaphor has been employed in the cause of supporting stigmatization and societal injustice. While many readers are likely quite knowledgeable of some of these periods, the chapter provides context for the analysis sections. Chapters 4 and 5 more specifically consider the nature of the organism metaphor in relation to dehumanization, and provide a “jumping-​off ” point for Chapters 6 to 8, which serve as the primary analysis chapters. These chapters look at the organism metaphor from a chronological perspective, beginning with the identification of the potentially contagious organism, and moving through fears regarding potential penetration, spread, infection, and eventual decay of the social body. While the alarm periods that I  draw on for explication of the organism metaphor are a century old, give or take a few decades, readers should have very little difficulty finding numerous contemporary parallels. This is particularly true in regard to immigrant/​refugee issues: while the faces and nations of origin may change over time, the rationales for restriction are largely the same. Indeed if, as some of the hypotheses described in the book suppose, our fear of foreigners is largely subconscious and connected to the more “primitive” areas of our brain, then the particular rationales in support of protection of the social body that are indicative of any given xenophobic period may differ only superficially from the rationales of other times and places. In many of his writings from later in life, Bauman frequently used the metaphor of the “liquid” age that we have entered. He contends that much of the free-​floating anxiety that people feel today relates to a constantly changing world which we have a difficult time fully grasping. While the world has always evolved, this evolution has in the past been gradual enough that people could adapt to changes, albeit often with difficulty. We may be moving beyond this point, or at least are fearful that we soon will. As many writers have pointed out, in anxious times we search for scapegoats that can provide a ready explanation for our anxiety and offer some temporary relief in the knowledge that something or someone is responsible for our fears. As is the case with a physiological illness, a metaphoric social sickness requires a diagnosis, and even a wrong diagnosis can provide a measure of comfort that a cause is established and therefore treatment is possible. As Walter Lippman(1922) wrote almost a century ago, the “fiction is taken for truth because the fiction is badly needed” (p. 19). If indeed the liquid age we have entered enhances the need for scapegoats it is essential that we understand those political and societal factors that place marginalized groups in the position of being targeted for surveillance and control. My hope is that this book provides at least a little insight in this quest.

References Bauman, Zygmunt. 1997. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. New  York:  New  York University Press.

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4 Introduction Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Lippman, Walter. 1922. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. O’Brien, Gerald V. 2013. Framing the Moron:  The Social Construction of Feeble-​ Mindedness in the American Eugenic Era. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

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1  Introduction to Metaphor Theory Its Use in Public Policy

Of all of the political spats that have taken place in the United States over the past few decades, among the more amusing ones was the DemocRAT controversy from the 2000 election. While many made light of the irritation expressed by Democrats over the matter, or even said their resentment was purely the result of an overactive imagination or product of a victim mentality, this incident highlights some important aspects of public policy in regard to the utilization of metaphors. The 30 second commercial that initiated this dispute was sponsored by the Republican National Committee and was critical of candidate Al Gore and the Democrats. Within the course of the commercial, the word DEMOCRATS fades away at one point, but not in its entirety. For a brief moment, no more than a blink of the eye, the word “rats” remains on screen (Berke 2000). Democrats cried foul. Republicans argued that there was no intention to put forth a comparison, and the voting public was largely bemused at politics as usual.1 It certainly seems reasonable to assume that a metaphoric connection was intended here (Democrats as rats), considering the amount of money paid to develop and air such commercials and the huge political stakes involved. One might think that commercials related to presidential races are reviewed closely prior to being placed on the air. Additionally, the use of rats as a pejorative point of comparison has a long history. In fact, of all negative and disgusting animal metaphors, the employment of rats may have the most predominant role in denigrating various groups. Such comparisons were frequently utilized during the anti-​Chinese era (1870–​ 1890) on the West Coast, and for many Americans, the belief that Chinese immigrants made rats a normal part of their diet was enough to mark them as a lower form of humanity (Metrick-​Chen 2012, p. 207), especially since “foreigners who eat exotic, unsafe food might be associated with food-​ borne contagions” (Paprocki 2014, p. 223). It wasn’t just coincidental that a well-​known rat poison from the period included a Chinese man on its advertising, and it was a bit unclear whether its motto, “they must go,” was directed more at the actual vermin or the metaphorical one (Metrick-​Chen 2012, p.  208). Rats also constituted one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite ways of describing Jews and their presumptive impact on society (Keen 1986,

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6  Introduction to Metaphor Theory p. 61).2 Rats are loathsome, dirty, and cowardly (they hide from us until it’s time to strike), and are associated with sewage, waste, and poverty-​stricken environments. For reasons that are likely associated more with their overall repugnance rather than their actual characteristics, rats are also used to describe treachery and deception (“I smell a rat,” “ratting someone out,” “he’s a rat fink”), which are among the worst of human failings. More than this, of course, they are disease carriers, transmitting germs from the outside (the home, the body, the nation) to the inside. They break through protective boundaries and inject contagion. While ostensibly an animal metaphor then, rats are also frequently used within the context of the organism metaphor, as a disease vector that can infect and even destroy a human body. Perhaps most importantly, like many organism metaphor images, they inject fear on a largely subconscious level; they usually remain in hiding, and we can’t see the transfer of disease that they are responsible for. Additionally, we have a primal fear which we only partially understand of anything that may try to break our skin or otherwise inject contaminants into our body. While mice are viewed as an annoyance requiring traps, rats are a high-​priority threat requiring an expert exterminator and complete protection of the perimeter of one’s property and even the surrounding neighborhood. Considering this history, then, one might be wary of buying into the argument that this comparison was simply a coincidence. When a politician or political party compares its opposition to an eagle that will be inadvertent: we really like eagles. While amusing, this example provides a good introduction to the use of metaphor in politics. At their most basic level, metaphors involve an effort to describe or frame a person, group, object, or even concept through comparison with something else. This may be accomplished for explanatory purposes, as when highly technical scientific or medical phenomena are explained through well-​known comparisons (e.g., the Human Genome project as a form of “mapping,” a “blueprint to the human body,” or effort to find the biological “Holy Grail”) (Nelkin and Tancredi 1989, p. 14; Semino 2008, p. 146). Santa Ana (2002) notes that paradigm shifts in science are largely explained to the public through the employment of metaphors (p.  34). In most cases, however, metaphoric comparisons, particularly in the policy arena, are invoked for evaluative or ideological purposes, as a means of providing support or opposition for a particular position, group, or policy option. The remainder of this chapter will provide a general overview of conceptual metaphor theory and the employment of metaphors within the context of analyzing social problems and related social policies, particularly in situations where the control of a specific marginalized population is a possible outgrowth of such a policy. Following this, in Chapter 2, I will more fully discuss the history and contemporary importance of the organism metaphor, and its relationship to alternative forms of dehumanizing metaphoric themes.

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Introduction to Metaphor Theory 7

Metaphors, Problem/​Group Framing and Social Policy3 Donald Schön (1979) wrote that metaphors constitute “the carrying over of frames or perspectives from one domain of experience to another” (p. 254). According to the late paleontologist Steven Jay Gould (1995), the term metaphor derives from the Greek and means to carry across or transfer something (pp. 443–​444). At its most basic level metaphor is a rhetorical vehicle for using one thing (a source domain) to describe another (a target domain). In the example described above, rats constitute the source domain and Democrats the target. The primary rationale for the metaphor, then, is to “carry over” or transfer important though often covert and highly emotive aspects of the source object (e.g., threat, cowardice, sneakiness, disease, contagion, waste) onto the target (O’Brien 2009). Metaphors may therefore be viewed as a powerful method of synthesizing and framing, in an easily understood and compact “package,” a specific description or, especially in the case of political usage, an ideological position relative to social problems or groups (Charteris-​Black 2004; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Importantly, since they often “work” on a largely subconscious level, these connections don’t even have to always make logical sense. To quote Lori Bougher (2012), “[d]‌espite its pervasiveness in cognition, metaphorical reasoning … is largely an ‘implicit procedure’ … that is so ubiquitous it can often go undetected” (p. 148). As Kövecses (2010) notes, metaphors are generally unidirectional, with the source domain giving meaning to the target domain, but not the other way around. People may use parasites to describe people “on welfare,” but won’t really use welfare recipients to give meaning to what a parasite is. Source metaphors are also usually more concrete than the target, and, as noted, such images are frequently used to describe more intangible or complex phenomenon (p. 6). Those who perceive metaphors as simply providing an interesting, novel, or picturesque mode of describing people and issues with little real impact fail to understand their true importance (Ellwood 1995). Lakoff and Johnson, in their groundbreaking 1980 book, Metaphors We Live By, write that “metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p.  3). Santa Ana (2002) likewise wrote that not only do metaphors shape common daily discourse between humans, but they also lay “a cognitive foundation for higher-​level everyday human understanding” (p. 32). In addition to linguistic metaphors (Democrats are rats, welfare recipients are parasites, etc.), scholars frequently point out the importance of more broad “conceptual metaphors,” which relate not just to a metaphorical term or phrase, but to a general way of thinking about the relationship between the source and target domains on a broad level (Allbritton 1995). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) are credited with laying the groundwork for conceptual metaphor theory. Conceptual metaphors may certainly be fostered through the

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8  Introduction to Metaphor Theory utilization of relevant linguistic metaphors, but also in a myriad of other ways (Kövecses 2010). The belief that those on “welfare” are parasites, for example, may be supported by case examples and news reports of individuals acting in a particular manner that supports the metaphor, through the belief that they are dependent on and even harming us, their hosts, as well as by the fact that persons in poverty may be presumed to live in vermin-​infested environments. Along with providing a general “frame” or backdrop against which the target is described, conceptual metaphors “can influence the way information [about the target] is processed and represented in memory” (Kövecses 2010, p. 38). In other words, additional knowledge about the person, group, or event is often cognitively processed based on how well it “fits” with the existing conceptual image that one has already embraced. Landau and Keefer (2014) discuss this in terms of conceptual “mapping.” When a particular source domain is accepted as a salient means of describing the target domain, we may, even without consciously knowing it, selectively focus on those elements or characteristics of that target that support the connection. When thinking of welfare recipients, for example, we may be more likely to take note of or remember those cases from the headlines where specific situational elements fit well with the parasite metaphor. The more “apt” the metaphoric connection becomes, the more natural it will be for us to intuitively discover additional connection points (Jones and Estes 2006). As will be discussed later in this book, this is especially true of the organism metaphor since it relates to “primitive” emotions such as disgust, fear, anger, and revulsion, which are hard-​wired but largely subliminal, and since humans have a built-​in psychological as well as physical need to protect ourselves and our loved ones from perceived contagion and threats. As De Vos and Suárez-​Orozco (1990) wrote, “[o]‌nce conditioned to feel disgusted in reference to certain groups of individuals, objects, or practices, people resist later rational attempts to redefine affected groups, practices, or objects as ‘nondirty.’ Later thought does not overcome continuing feelings of social revulsion and disgust” (p. 131; see also O’Brien 2009). Paul Rozin (2001) likewise noted that a central aspect of presumably contagious entities is permanence; once an entity (or person) is accepted as being dirty or contaminated, our minds will continue to view it that way, regardless of efforts at “purification” (p. 33).

Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Public Policy Andreas Musolff (2010) notes that if “metaphors structure our worldviews, they are clearly of fundamental importance in political ideology and their critical analysis can provide ‘particular insight into why the rhetoric of political leaders is successful’ ” (p. 14). The importance of metaphoric language and concepts in public policy may be implied by the rapt attention and substantial resources that politicians and other stakeholders give to those who study and advise them regarding political rhetoric. Those who analyze the public

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Introduction to Metaphor Theory 9 response to political talking points or deconstruct metaphoric framings of social issues, such as Frank Luntz on the right and George Lakoff on the left, have become very influential, both in electoral campaigns as well as in interest group politics. Beginning with the 1994 Contract with America, which gave the Republicans control of the House of Representatives, Luntz (2007) has been heavily involved in analyzing political talking points and helping to develop the phrases that many Republicans employ on an ongoing basis. One of the many examples of this is the estate tax verses the death tax. For several decades the former term was used to describe the taxes that those who inherit large sums of money are required to pay. The latter, however, is the current preferred term, at least for conservatives. While most people are fine with taxing estates, which bring to mind grand mansions on acres of manicured grounds, they may think it unreasonable to tax someone at his/​her death. This portends the heavy hand of government reaching into places where it doesn’t belong, and even “getting us” once we have passed from this world. As noted, Lakoff can be referred to as the father of conceptual metaphor theory, and he contends that conservative politicians and other stakeholders have been much more successful than their liberal counterparts in driving specific policy agendas because they are more savvy about the impact of metaphors on the construction of policy frames. While many have traditionally viewed public policy as being directed primarily by rational approaches which involve critical thinking and the careful balancing of the strengths and deficits of a policy proposal, many social issues are largely driven by emotional appeals and subconscious beliefs, hopes, and fears, often encapsulated through simple language and images. Elena Semino (2008) notes that “language plays a central … role in politics, and … much political action is, either wholly or partly, linguistic action” (p. 85). In his more recent writings such as The Political Mind (2008), Lakoff argues that our brains are actually “wired” differently based in part on our personal experiences and the stimuli that we have absorbed over the years. Life experiences, including the language and thoughts we are exposed to, serve to solidify specific neuronal pathways that impact our beliefs and decision-​making. The more we are exposed to similar environmental stimuli, he contends, the more these specific neural pathways are strengthened. To say that metaphors have great significance within the policy arena is an understatement. Policy debates that appear within the Congressional Record or in any public forum are often laced with potent metaphors (see Ellwood 1995; Lakoff 1995). This is particularly the case when such policies or proposals relate to forms of social control of vulnerable or marginalized groups. Those policymakers who are best able to utilize linguistic and conceptual metaphors in framing issues are the most apt to garner public support for their positions (Santa Ana 2002). As Luntz (2007) wrote, “those who define the debate will determine the outcome” (p.  170). Keith Cunningham-​Parmeter (2011) points out that even that governmental body which is normally perceived to be the most objective and rational, the U.S. Supreme Court, frequently

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10  Introduction to Metaphor Theory infuses derisive metaphorical descriptions of marginalized populations in its own decision statements, and is quite receptive to metaphoric appeals within arguments. To expand on a point, metaphors are an especially important component of social policy when political stakeholders must evoke “strong emotional responses in listeners” (Ellwood 1995, p. 95), and “tap primitive and infantile ways of thinking” (Levin 1971, p. 144). Jonathan Charteris-​Black (2011), in his analysis of the metaphor themes that have been used by various politicians, notes that these themes often provide a “link between semi-​conscious cultural knowledge of myths and conscious political ideologies” (p. 325). Most of the metaphors that are included in political speeches and writings, he notes, are “entrenched” or well-​understood within the culture, as opposed to novel comparisons, since it’s desirable that people intuitively accept the metaphor without really giving much thought to it (Charteris-​Black 2004). Specific metaphor themes may also be chosen based on the background and interest of the politician, to connect with a particular audience, or due to the timeliness of events. Regarding the latter, for example, Ziv Eisenberg (2012) points out that infectious/​disease metaphors that were used in conjunction with the Red Scare of 1919–​1920 certainly were more “potent” than they otherwise would have been because of the “influenza panic of 1918–​1919” (p. 107). As mentioned above, Schön (1979) noted that one benefit of metaphor use within the policy arena is to vastly simplify very “complex, uncertain, and indeterminate” situations (p. 266). Wars, for example, are extraordinarily complicated undertakings which require a massive degree of intelligence, planning, logistics, and military analysis and result in numerous challenges related to international and corporate relationships. Once a decision to go to war is made, though, the public (as well as other nations) must be “sold” on the idea. In conjunction with any rational explanations for the decision, a host of metaphors will be invoked to vilify the enemy and present the conflict as a necessary means of maintaining national integrity and ensuring self-​ preservation (Keen 1986). The public will be forced to take sides on the issue, and both neutrality as well as opposition to the decision to wage war can be framed as weakness, cowardice, or even a veiled form of treason. Along with many of the other metaphor theorists noted in this chapter, Charteris-​Black (2004) contends that the deconstruction, or in-​depth analysis, of language and images, allows us to understand how metaphoric manipulation occurs and what role particular metaphors play in supporting specific policies and stakeholders. Metaphor Priming and Beliefs About Policy Solutions Importantly, there has recently been an accumulation of empirical research demonstrating that metaphors do indeed seem to greatly impact our opinions about policy issues and the treatment of various groups vis-​à-​vis public policy (Weinberger and Westen 2008). Interestingly, some of these studies relate

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Introduction to Metaphor Theory 11 fairly directly to the organism metaphor, as I’ll discuss in greater depth in Chapter 2. These studies provide strong support for the supposition that differential problem or issue framings may well influence the specific course of political action a person might support related to a particular issue. Landau, Sullivan, and Greenberg (2009), for example, wrote that “studies of metaphoric representation of social concepts show that manipulating perceptions related to one concept directly affects perceptions related to a dissimilar concept in metaphor-​consistent ways” (p. 1421). In other words, when subjects are “primed” in a certain way, or asked questions or presented with information that includes subtle metaphors, they reflexively draw on these metaphors as a guide to how they will respond to subsequent questions, even if these later opinions are not consciously associated with the prompt. Other studies provide support for the importance of even subtle metaphor priming. Thibodeau and his co-​authors (2009) noted that in their study of crime policies that respondents were more likely to choose a policy alternative that coincided with the prime phrase that was given to subjects. When crime was characterized in “bestial” language, “get tough” policies such as imprisonment were apt to be chosen. When it was perceived as a “virus” affecting the community, however, educational and public health options were embraced. These authors also found that the effects of the metaphor were largely subconscious, since during debriefing most of the subjects stated that they weren’t aware of the priming terms nor their relationship to the various policy options. Importantly, “when people were presented with a metaphorically-​ framed crime problem and then given the opportunity to gather further information about the issue, participants chose to look at information that was consistent with their pre-​existing metaphoric frame” (Thibodeau and Boroditsky 2011, p. 2). In regard to the development or revision of social policy, then, metaphors may not only provide meaning about the alleged “essence” of a concept, group, or social problem, but may also carry overt or underlying messages about the recommended modes of treating or responding to it through a specific policy “pathway” (Schön, 1979). Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011) contended that “shifts in metaphors are often accompanied by shifts in policy” (p. 1) and this is in no way coincidental. If we embrace a metaphor frame that describes drug users as criminals this leads to vastly different policy responses (as well as funding and service pathways) than if such persons are portrayed as diseased. We also can draw hard-​and-​fast lines between those who abuse legal verses illegal drugs, develop different frames for each sub-​group and treat them in divergent ways based on this differential framing. This is an important issue which will be revisited periodically later.

Metaphors and the Framing of Marginalized Groups Pejorative metaphor themes have been employed over the course of time in similar ways for the purpose of denigrating different devalued populations

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12  Introduction to Metaphor Theory or for other ideological purposes (O’Brien 1999, 2009). The metaphoric framings which are “apt to be thrust upon deviant persons … transcend time, distance and culture” (Wolfensberger 1972, p.  16). Discussing genocide, Daniel Goldhagen (2009) wrote that “[t]‌ he logic that led to one eliminationist assault provides the rationale for new and future ones” (p.  302). In his book Faces of the Enemy, Sam Keen (1986) describes the use of metaphoric images in war propaganda posters from a variety of nations and time periods. As he notes, “the hostile imagination has a certain standard repertoire of images it uses to dehumanize the enemy” (p. 13; see also O’Brien 1999). Pejorative metaphors often serve a dual purpose of both supporting the existing negative stereotypes of marginalized groups while at the same time buttressing the entrenched positions of those who stand to profit, economically, politically, or otherwise, through the public embracement of such images. While we tend to think of stereotyping or scapegoating in a wholly negative sense, there is often a substantial amount of money to be made from such activities, since investigation, surveillance, and control infrastructures often follow such “diagnostic undertakings” and social control policies. Such policies also serve to provide cover for those in power and divert the public’s anger, contempt, or fear in a desired direction. Widely accessible forms of mass media, such as magazine, newspaper, movie, and television depictions, may present metaphorical images that either support or stand in opposition to prevailing stereotypes of devalued groups. In many cases a particular pejorative metaphor theme will be employed in order to gain ratings or enhance sales. For example, drawing on the “welfare” example delineated above, a news program about “welfare” that highlights the poor as reproducing like rabbits or an all-​consuming virus (e.g., focusing on a single-​parent family with fourteen children) will gain more viewers than if a small family is the object of attention, since the former example elicits anger, and thus enhances potential viewership. It makes little difference that the smaller family more closely resembles reality. Additionally, conceptual metaphors that support our prevailing view of the world provide comfort to us and support consistency. Along with others, William Brennan (1995), David Livingstone Smith (2011), Daniel Goldhagen (2009), and Haig Bosmajian (1983) have all described how particular denigrating themes have functioned as source domains in relation to differing “out-​groups.” Brennan (1995) noted that often “the most significant factor determining how an object will be perceived is not the nature of the object itself, but the words employed to characterize it” (p. 1). These authors provide detailed descriptions of what Brennan refers to as “semantic warfare” (p. 12). Especially in a nation that purports to embrace human rights, those who engage in violence or denigration or who advocate social control measures against others do not want to be perceived as acting inhumanely or without compelling justification. Therefore, whenever widespread efforts are made to

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Introduction to Metaphor Theory 13 control or disparage stigmatized persons, various rationales are employed to portray the target group as a threat to society, a sub-​human entity, or both (Brennan 1995; Goldhagen 2009; O’Brien 1999). Such efforts are especially prevalent within the context of “alarm periods,” which are characterized by a passionate display of anger and fear regarding the harmful societal impact of presumably disturbing or destructive target groups. Often referred to as “moral panics,” such periods are marked by media sensationalism and public policy discussions that center around the possible restriction of the rights of target group members, through their removal from the community by placing them into asylums, ghettos, work or internment camps, prisons, or similar segregated environments, deporting them from the nation altogether, reducing their freedom to assemble, speak, or procreate, increasing government surveillance of their activities, or, in the case of the most flagrant alarm periods, killing them outright. Bosmajian (1983) claims that the “distance between the linguistic dehumanization of a people and their actual suppression and extermination is not great; it is but a small step” (p. 29). In his book Worse than War, Daniel Goldhagen gives special attention to pejorative “language and visual images” that have played an important role in characterizing societal sub-​groups and also carry with them subconscious ideological undercurrents about how such persons are to be treated. As he writes, “[l]‌anguage is the principal medium for preparing people to support or perpetrate mass murder and elimination, because it is the vehicle for conceptualizing, conveying, and making persuasive the necessary prejudices and ideas” that set the stage for mass killing (Goldhagen 2009, pp. 311–​312). He adds: Any study of mass murder and elimination that fails to give primacy to language and imagery as their generative medium and to the specific beliefs that people, through language, relate to one another and thereby reinforce, denies the fundamental reality of how people, whether leaders or followers, become cognitively, (to a large extent) psychologically, and emotionally prepared to give themselves to the violent elimination of others, and how people become mobilized to attack, dragoon, expel, or kill others. (Goldhagen 2009, p. 313) Certainly there are many other social, economic and political factors that come into play in determining the type or degree of adverse policies or actions that might be taken or allowed to occur against a particular target group than simply the employment of dehumanizing rhetoric or images. Such images, however, do seem to be a staple of virtually all large-​scale oppressive actions. While widespread pejoration in word or image may not lead to the next genocide, there are very good reasons for those marginalized groups who are on the receiving end of such animosity to be fearful of the widespread use of such rhetoric or images.

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14  Introduction to Metaphor Theory The importance of metaphoric images in the social policy arena is no longer questioned. What is left for debate is how important such images are. It is incumbent on all political stakeholders (and this means all of us) to be capable of deconstructing metaphoric terms and images, and to understand how these are employed in order to manipulate us. Those metaphoric themes that negatively impact the image we have of marginalized persons or that provide a foundation for their control or the restriction of their rights should be subject to particular attention, since we well know from past experience that these can damage people in very meaningful way.

Notes 1 In an interesting study on the RATS commercial and metaphor “priming,” Weinberger and Westen (2008) found that subliminal messaging could impact how people viewed political candidates, especially if subjects didn’t already have strong feelings about the candidates. 2 Chapter 11 of Hitler’s Mein Kampf is particularly rife with organism metaphor examples, and also includes a selection comparing Jews to rats. For Hitler’s experience with rats in WWI, see Neumann (2009, p.  159). For the rat metaphor, see Smith (2011, p. 139). 3 Some of the content in this section was previously included in O’Brien (2009).

References Allbritton, David W. 1995. “When Metaphors Function as Schemas: Some Cognitive Effects of Conceptual Metaphors.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10: 33–​46. Berke, Richard L. 2000, September 12. “The 2000 Campaign:  The Ad Campaign; Democrats See, and Smell, Rats in G.O.P. Ad.” The New York Times. Bosmajian, Haig A. 1983. The Language of Oppression. Lanham, MD:  University Press of America. Bougher, Lori D. 2012. “The Case for Metaphor in Political Reasoning and Cognition.” Political Psychology 33: 145–​163. Brennan, William. 1995. Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Press. Charteris-​Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2011. Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor (2nd ed.). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Cunningham-​Parmeter, Keith. 2011. “Alien Language: Immigration Metaphors and the Jurisprudence of Otherness.” Fordham Law Review 79: 1545–​1598. De Vos, George and Marcelo Suárez-​Orozco. 1990. “Sacrifice and the Experience of Power.” In Status Inequality:  The Self in Culture, edited by George De Vos and Marcelo Suárez-​Orozco, pp. 120–​147. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Eisenberg, Ziv. 2012. “Red All Over:  Protecting the American Body Politic from Infection in the Early Twentieth Century.” Endeavour 36: 106–​116. Ellwood, William N. 1995. “Declaring War on the Home Front: Metaphor, Presidents, and the War on Drugs.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10: 93–​114. Goldhagen, Daniel J. 2009. Worse Than War:  Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. New York: Public Affairs.

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Introduction to Metaphor Theory 15 Gould, Steven J. 1995. Dinosaur in a Haystack. New York: Harmony Books. Hitler, Adolf. 1925/​1971. Mein Kampf (reprint ed.). Trans. by Ralph Manheim. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. Jones, Lara L., and Zachary Estes. 2006. “Roosters, Robins, and Alarm Clocks: Aptness and Conventionality in Metaphor Comprehension.” Journal of Memory and Language 55: 18–​32. Keen, Sam. 1986. Faces of the Enemy. New York: Harper and Row. Kövecses, Zoltán. 2010. Metaphor:  A Practical Introduction (2nd ed.). New  York: Oxford University Press. Lakoff, George. 1995. “Metaphor, Morality, and Politics, or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals in the Dust.” Social Research 62: 177–​213. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2008. The Political Mind. New York: Viking Press. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Landau, Mark J., and Lucas A. Keefer. 2014. “This is Like That: Metaphors in Public Discourse Shape Attitudes.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8: 463–​473. Landau, Mark J., Daniel Sullivan, and Jeff Greenberg. 2009. “Evidence that Self-​ Relevant Motives and Metaphoric Framing Interact to Influence Political and Social Attitudes.” Psychological Science 20: 1421–​1427. Levin, Murray B. 1971. Political Hysteria in America. New York: Basic Books. Luntz, Frank. 2007. Words That Work. New York: Hyperion. Metrick-​Chen, Lenore. 2012. Collecting Objects/​Excluding People. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Musolff, Andreas. 2010. Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. New York: Routledge. Nelkin, Dorothy and Laurence Tancredi. 1989. Dangerous Diagnostics:  The Social Power of Biological Information. New York: Basic Books. Neumann, Boaz. 2009. “The Phenomenology of the German People’s Body (Volkskörper) and the Extermination of the Jewish Body.” New German Critique 36: 149–​181. O’Brien, Gerald V. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body:  The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded.’ ” Mental Retardation 37: 188–​200. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2009. “Metaphors and the Pejorative Framing of Marginalized Groups: Implications for Social Work Education.” Journal of Social Work Education 45: 29–​46. Paprocki, Maciej. 2014. “Infecting the Body Politic? Modern and Post-​Modern (Ab)use of Immigrants Are Invading Pathogens Metaphor in American Socio-​ Political Discourse.” In Cognitive Linguistics in the Making, edited by Kinga Rudnicka-​Szozda and Aleksander Szwedek, pp. 211–​230. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Rozin, Paul. 2001. “Technological Stigma:  Some Perspectives from the Study of Contagion.” In Risk, Media and Stigma:  Understanding Public Challenges to Modern Science and Technology, edited by James Flynn, Paul Slovic, and Howard Kunreuther, pp. 31–​40. London: Earthscan Publications Ltd. Santa Ana, Otto. 2002. Brown Tide Rising:  Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Schön, David A. 1979. “Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-​Setting in Social Policy.” In Metaphor and Thought, edited by Andrew Ortony, pp. 254–​283. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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16  Introduction to Metaphor Theory Semino, Elena. 2008. Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Smith, David L. 2011. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Thibodeau, Paul H., and Lera Boroditsky. 2011. “Metaphors We Think With:  The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning.” PLoS ONE 6: e16782. Thibodeau, Paul H., James L. McClelland, and Lera Boroditsky. 2009. “When a Bad Metaphor May Not Be a Victimless Crime.” In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, edited by Niels  A. Taatgen and Hedderik van Rijn, pp. 809–​814. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. Weinberger, Joel and Drew Westen. 2008. “RATS, We Should Have Used Clinton: Subliminal Priming in Political Campaigns.” Political Psychology 29: 631–​651. Wolfensberger, Wolf. 1972. Normalization. Toronto:  National Institute on Mental Retardation.

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2 Overview of the Organism Metaphor1

It often seems that we can’t pick up a newspaper, listen to talk radio, or watch a social policy discussion on television without being subjected to yet another social problem or “deviant” sub-​group that is presented as a cancer within our society or an invasive virus we must fear. We are awash in cancers. I certainly don’t intend here to make light of the actual experience of cancer, but rather to highlight the fact that in our culture it has become what one might refer to as a “master” or “core” metaphor. We might even think that it has come to be employed so much that its potency should diminish. Yet it remains in full force, always available to be connected to another problem or population that supposedly threatens us and from which we must take immediate action, lest we invite contagion. As time has progressed it has become increasingly obvious that the organism metaphor has a great deal of “staying power.” Rather than being outmoded through overuse, it seems that this metaphor theme only continues to expand, ironically much like a cancer or virus itself. As medical historian Lewis Thomas wrote in 1984, “[c]‌ancer is feared by everyone. And this fear is reaching epidemic proportions. Not the disease itself –​there is no such thing as a cancer epidemic … But the fear of cancer is catching, and the country stands at risk of an epidemic of apprehension. The earth itself is coming to seem like a huge carcinogen” (quoted in Stein 1990, p. 86). Arnold Weinstein (2003) wrote that ideas related to contagion and infection are constantly circulating and “permeate everyday thinking in American society” (p.  113).2 “Somehow,” Cristina Vidruţiu (2010) added, “plague has made its way in different fields; after contaminating literally mankind, it infiltrated language, contaminated the ways in which we perceive different things, and established new categories of scapegoats … [and] new ways of imprisonment” (p.  295). Finally, Mayer and Weingart (2012) write: It is almost impossible to find a field of contemporary debate in which the virus does not appear. In the last hundred years, the trope of the virus and the notion of virulence have traveled from immunological treatises to computer handbooks, from philosophical reflections to postmodern literary texts, from political pamphlets about globalization and modern

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18  Overview of the Organism Metaphor warfare to pseudo-​sociological speculations about the transfer of ideas and cultural concepts. (Mayer and Weingart 2012, p. 41) According to the late University of Chicago sociologist Donald Levine (1995), the organism metaphor draws on the conceptualization of the nation or community as analogous to a holistic biological body, and particularly to our human bodies. Individual humans and what are considered to be homogenous groups are perceived to be constituent components of this organic social body. As with our own bodies, some parts of the social organism may not be taken to be highly valuable or important, while other parts are viewed as essential to the continued functioning of the organism. A prevalent theme in the use of the organism metaphor, as one might guess, is the possible contamination of the healthy segments of society by the unhealthy segments. As Lise Noël (1994) wrote, those devalued “out-​groups” that can be perceived as invasive and destructive tumors or parasites can be acted on with relative impunity. Intolerance, she contended, “takes on an almost immunological form, with the healthy antibodies of society violently rejecting what it perceives as ‘foreign’ elements” (p. 19; see also O’Brien 1999, 2010). As a heavily medicalized society there is an important reciprocal relationship between our conceptualization of health/​illness and how we interpret our overall culture. “Standards of health” are in part reflective of our “culture’s core values” (Freund, McGuire, and Podhurst 2002, p.  126), and our “physical body is a potent symbol” of how we as a social body identify ourselves and are identified by others (p. 144). In Illness as Metaphor, Sontag described this connection between health and individual/​communal identity. All widely known diseases come with what one might refer to as “conceptual baggage,” including cultural beliefs and myths along with metaphorical (mis) understandings of those diseases. To quote Deborah Lupton (1994), “Sontag was one of the first modern critics to cogently argue [that] disease is rendered through the use of metaphor” (p. 57). The conceptual meaning that a culture applies to a particular disease condition also often “enhances the suffering caused by the illness itself ” (Davis 2002, p. 828), and the observable physiological indicators of various diseases may carry with them their own metaphorical meaning to people. The hair loss that comes from chemotherapy, for example, may symbolize “the dehumanizing and desexualizing effects of cancer,” or may be analogized with unseen internal changes and losses (Gwyn 1999, p. 213). The metaphors that are tied to various conditions may foster a range of concerns and presumptions related to treatment, coping, and disclosure. As is particularly important for this book, Barry Glassner (1999) contended that, Not only do we use metaphors to help us understand fatal illnesses that most of us are poorly equipped to comprehend scientifically, we also create certain illnesses, what I call “metaphoric illnesses,” to help us come

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 19 to terms with features of our society that we are unprepared to confront directly. (Glassner 1999, p. 153)

Brief History of the Organism Metaphor The organism metaphor has existed in various guises for millennia. Musolff (2009) writes that “[t]‌he mapping of body-​related concepts onto political entities is one of the most famous, and notorious, conceptual metaphors in the history of ideas” (p. 233). Plato, Aristotle, and other early philosophers discussed the analogous relationship between the human and social bodies (Honohan 2008). The purity codes in the Christian Bible, particularly Leviticus, as well as other religious-​based purity codes, provided important early rules for engaging with the outside world, including “foreign” peoples, in a way that didn’t invite either spiritual or physical contamination (Aho 2002; Beck 2011; Douglas 1966). Such codes frequently included the categorization of others based on presumptive degrees of actual or symbolic contagion. In her classic book Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas (1966) wrote that the “person under taboo [unclean] is not regarded as holy, for he is separated from approach to the sanctuary, as well as with contact with [other] men” (p. 10). She added that “there can be a marvelous correspondence between the avoidance of contagious disease and ritual avoidance” (p. 29). At the beginning of Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes extensively employs the organism metaphor, noting that the commonwealth or state is an “artificial man.” He delineates the ways that various elements of the political unit relate to the human body, with the leader as a soul, wise counselors as the memory, and sedition as a form of sickness (Hobbes 1651/​2002, p. 9; see also Banks 2009, p. 216; Geary 2012, p. 127). Jonathan Harris (1998) noted that in Great Britain “[t]‌hroughout the Tudor and Stuart period, an unprecedented and sustained series of exchanges took place between medical and political institutions and their discourses” (p.  19), and a central component of this “borrowing” was the use of the human body as a descriptor for the social body. He adds that prior to this time, bodily diseases were largely viewed as being caused by a humoral imbalance, but beginning in the 1500s this changed to infection and disease being viewed as arising from contagious entities outside the body. Employment of the organism metaphor for specific social or political purposes has a long history in the United States as well as other nations, as for centuries undesired groups have frequently been compared to vermin, disease, or associated with filth and decay. David Smith (2011) quoted the British poet Christopher Brooke, who wrote in the 1600s and described Native Americans as “dregs” and “garbage” who had “[s]‌prung up like vermine of an earthly slime” (p. 81). Smith provides a number of additional examples to demonstrate that such linguistic devices cut across time and culture. For many

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20  Overview of the Organism Metaphor writers, the body/​nation metaphor was employed to describe the importance of the entirety of the nation working together to reach specific goals, under the assumption that no part of the body would want to harm the larger organism on which it was dependent (Coker 1910/​1967, p.  123). For “[s]ocial groups and classes cannot be at war with each other for the same reason that one hand cannot fight the other or the heart rebel against the stomach” (Ringmar 2008, p. 59). Another use of the metaphor has been to describe how each part of the human body has its own specific role to play (some underappreciated), just as each individual in the nation had (or should have) a specific defined role (Coker 1910/​1967, p. 127). Thus the metaphor has often been employed to support a “natural” or pseudo-​scientific rationale for the discriminatory assignment of duties and maintenance of social inequities. Coker wrote that “Herder, Lessing and others set forth the dependence of the individual upon history and society, and maintained that the individual is completely himself only in so far as he fulfils [sic] his part in the whole of which he is an organic element” (p. 19). Kings, dictators, and other leaders have not only been often seen as the “head” of state, but also as a living, breathing symbol of the nation as a whole. Even in more modern times leaders may be viewed as national symbols. As Frank Costigliola (2014) noted, the body of the president as a metaphor for the nation took on a higher degree of salience during the Great Depression and World War II. Franklin Roosevelt understood the importance of being seen by the public as overcoming his polio as his body was a powerful, tangible symbol of his attempt to bring about a national recovery in the midst of the Great Depression. Costigliola describes the great lengths to which Roosevelt went to hide the actual extent of his disability so that he could maintain the illusion that he was winning the battle over polio, and so that he didn’t look weak, at least in the eyes of the public, when compared to Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and other leaders. Use of the organism metaphor gained prominence in the last half of the nineteenth century in the United States with the expansion of scientific and medical research. Following the Civil War, widespread awareness of the germ theory of disease and thus contagion and its prevention paved the way for a rapid growth in medical and scientific discoveries, and supported the expansion of the public health movement (Cassedy 1991; Lupton 1994; Paprocki 2014). Douglas (1966) contended that knowledge of the “bacterial transmission of disease” constituted “the most radical revolution in the history of medicine” (p.  35). In her book The Gospel of Germs (1998), Nancy Tomes provides an in-​depth overview not only of the germ theory “revolution,” but also of how the focus on antiseptics and sanitation came to dramatically impact everyday life in the United States and other Western nations. Hospital and clinic development flourished starting in the late 1800s (Cassedy 1991), and as the public’s attention was progressively drawn to medical innovations and research over the following decades, the utility of a medical/​sanitation model as a proper way of framing the world was increasingly

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 21 embraced. As Fatović-​Ferenčić (2008) wrote, the “organicistic approach to society and social diseases at the turn of the twentieth century shaped both the unquestionable faith in the importance of disease prevention.… Thereby, the metaphor ‘society as an organism’ became a specific cultural ethos of [the] health protection movement” (p.  709). While she was speaking here of the impact of the medical model in Croatia, it held true for the United States also. DuPuis (2015) adds that the discovery of germ theory “enabled a particular class to claim authority and to embrace purity as something that excluded those who did not adopt a particular way of life. Through the vision of scientific sanitary and nutritional expertise, middle-​class fear of dirt, germs, and contamination led to new forms of purification” as well as updated, scientifically valid reasons for maintaining social and geographic boundaries “as infectious agents threatened to obliterate these borders” (pp. 77–​78). As one might assume, fear about possible disease transmission was especially an important focal point when it was directed at immigrants and the exotic diseases that they might be subject to and attempt to surreptitiously bring into the country. The “construction of immigrant neighborhoods as malignant growths from which a host of ills flowed, and of immigrants as the infecting agents who carried this contagion to the American city and society, must be evaluated in the context of the developments in public health” (Park and Kemp 2006, p. 721). Once immigrants came to be viewed as the primary purveyors of contagion, efforts were made to project a foreign identity onto other denigrated target groups. The more disease and public health became associated with migration, the more apt disease metaphors seemed to be as a way of framing immigration in general and the deleterious impact of immigrants on American cities. One of the most important advocates of the organism metaphor was the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, who wrote in 1904 that “a society as a whole, considered apart from its living units, presents phenomena of growth, structure, and function, like those of growth, structure, and function in an individual body” (Spencer 1904, p. 301). In considering this analogy, he added that a “metaphor, when used to express a real resemblance, raises a suspicion of mere imaginary resemblance; and so obscures the perception of intrinsic kinship” (p. 301; see also Coker 1910/​1967; Levine 1995). Just as he believed in a correlation between sociology and biology, Spencer saw a close connection between society and biological organisms. Spencer’s view that the social body was encouraging the growth of malignant sub-​populations (e.g., through the provision of welfare benefits or ill-​conceived efforts by the government to protect people from their own poor decisions) was in keeping with this medicinal orientation to the healthy functioning of a community (O’Brien 1999). As will be delineated at some length throughout this book, concepts such as disgust, pollution, and contagion are integral to the organism metaphor. Counter to these fears are notions of cleansing and purity. Certainly it was the Germans under Hitler who most aggressively embraced the view that a strong analogy can be made between the state and a physical body. The

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22  Overview of the Organism Metaphor Nazi use of shower rooms in their “race-​cleansing” operation, for example, had a rather obvious dual meaning. As Paul Weindling (1989, 2000) notes, the incineration units also projected a notion of sanitation, as fire has often been used as a symbol of purification and holiness. Along with Koenigsberg (1975), Musolff (2016), Neumann (2009), and others, Weindling (1989, 2000) has extensively described the Nazi view of the “Volkskörper,” or “people’s body.” As he makes clear throughout his early manifesto Mein Kampf, Hitler perceived the German nation as an organic entity that was only as strong as its people, and which had been weakened over time by an accumulation of organic components that were useless to the state and indeed threatened large-​scale contamination.3 As Robert Proctor noted in his book The Nazi War on Cancer (1999), there was little difference in the philosophy of the Third Reich between public health efforts directed at mitigating carcinogens in the population and the need for the state to take drastic action against these parasitic sub-​populations.

Embodiment and the Organism Metaphor An important facet of the organism metaphor is the concept of embodiment. As humans evolve we come to understand the world through our bodies and our interactions with and responses to external stimuli (Charteris-​Black 2004, p. 246; Kövecses 2010, p. 16). Maggie Kilgour (1990) wrote that the opposition of inside and outside is among the most basic and infantile ways of understanding the world (p.  4). This idea was also explored by Freud. She notes that inherent anxiety arises from the fact that “the perception of the body as a rigidly defined unit is itself not immutable” (p. 239). Lori Bougher (2012) added that “[t]‌he main premise of embodiment is that human cognition is constrained by our concrete, sensorimotor experiences, which form the basis of our understanding of more abstract, higher-​level thinking” (p. 150). As will be further discussed later, while we would like to maintain a strict demarcation between our bodies and the outside world, we are beset by the inherent fear of contagion from outside entities. Some have described our physical bodies as an example of a “container” metaphor, which has “an interior, and exterior and a boundary surface” that separates the two (Semino 2008, p. 95). Everything in the world is inside or outside the container, and we must maintain rigid control over the boundary. Whether considering the physical human body or the body of the nation; “[t]he crossing of boundaries is essential to the creation of panic. When the edge of safety cannot be defined, people react in ways that are not necessarily rational” such as “cordoning off suspect populations [and] creating artificial boundaries that create the illusion of safety ….” (Humphreys 2002, p. 847). One way that embodiment has been studied empirically is through what Risen and Critcher (2011) refer to as “visceral fit.” These authors studied whether individual decision-​making would be impacted by the relationship between bodily sensations and specific related hypothetical socio-​political

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 23 situations. For example, they found that persons who were placed in warm rooms were more apt to gauge global warming to be a notable concern than subjects placed in cooler spaces. They note that in a number of research studies such as this where “scent or tactile sensation indirectly activates the concept,” the judgment and/​or behavior of subjects is impacted by the sensory manipulation (p. 778). In his book I Is an Other, James Geary describes a number of studies that provide evidence for this connection between bodily states and judgment. Kövecses (2010) notes that “a large portion of metaphorical meaning derives from our experience of our own body” (p. 16) and James Aho (2002) adds that “human anatomy and physiology routinely are employed in a metaphorical way to understand collective life” (p. 9). An example that Mark Landau and his co-​authors provide to explain this is particularly instructive in part because it closely parallels the subject of this book. In this study, the authors begin with the assumption that people who are highly concerned about threats to their own bodily integrity will be more negative in response to the prospect of “illegal immigration” into the United States. The researchers surveyed a number of subjects, and included language within the questions that (for the experimental group, at least) subtlety frame the United States as similar to a physical body. This framing, the authors found, activates fears of physical contagion greater than was seen in the control group, and thus leads to harsher feelings about migrants. The authors conclude that the “need to protect one’s own body against contamination will result in more negative immigration attitudes … when the United States is  metaphorically framed as a body” (Landau, Sullivan, and Greenberg 2009, p. 1423). Zhong and House (2013) write in some depth about the moral aspects of our feelings regarding pollution and purity, focusing primarily on these as metaphoric concepts, and Lee and Schwarz (2010) add that our sense of morality is closely connected to our need for bodily cleanliness or purity. In an experiment they conducted, subjects who were required to engage in an immoral act were also asked to rate products, including hand sanitizer and mouthwash. Those subjects who typed an immoral message (e.g., filled with lies or slurs) on the computer were more apt to rate hand sanitizer as a desired product, while those who were asked to read such a message rated mouthwash as highly desirable. The authors note that persons who engage in immoral or guilty acts wish to cleanse that part of the body “responsible” for the action. Pertinent to scapegoating, certain studies demonstrate that we may also be able to purify ourselves to an extent, or feel a higher degree of morality, by focusing on the immoral acts of another and seeing that person punished (Rothschild, Landau, Keefer, and Sullivan 2015; Zhong, Strejcek, and Sivanathan 2010). The examples provided in this section relate to the issue of metaphor priming, which was discussed in Chapter 1. Metaphor theorists might contend that as we move through life we are constantly primed in ways that we aren’t even aware of to accept certain metaphoric ways of viewing the world.

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24  Overview of the Organism Metaphor These examples also closely relate to magical thinking, or the belief that a connection exists between our bodily actions and phenomena outside our bodies. We refuse, for example, to wash our lucky hat when our sports team goes on a winning streak, are more likely to believe that the winning lottery number will be chosen if we are holding our ticket etc. (Hutson 2012).

Analysis of the Organism Metaphor It is useful to consider the organism metaphor chronologically, progressing from efforts to identify potentially dangerous entities, to the penetration and spread of the entities within the social body, the threatened contamination of “healthy” societal elements, and ending with the eventual death and decay of the heretofore healthy organism (O’Brien 2010). It is this approach which is taken in Chapters 5 through 8 of this book. From the perspective of the organism metaphor, the only way to protect the healthy social body is to ensure that probable disease-​carrying elements are identified and do not penetrate the community/​national boundaries, or, failing this, that such elements are isolated from the rest of the community. Thus policies related to institutionalization, segregation, imprisonment, deportation, surveillance, or even elimination of the unhealthy organisms are the forms of social control that most readily derive from the organism metaphor. Many of these actions may be described as a form of “quarantine,” necessary for the purposes of community protection. Just as the civil rights of a person with a communicable disease may be abrogated for the good of the collective, so may the civil rights of persons with contagious metaphoric diseases be rescinded in various ways. It goes without saying that “the elimination of a disease … [is] something that is inherently ‘right’ and legal.” This is an important reason why the organism metaphor “is so persuasive in the communication of ideologies” (Charteris-​ Black 2009, p. 98). As further described in Chapter  4, the organism metaphor includes the drawing of boundary lines between the “pure” and “impure” members of society, and regulates interactions across these lines. Additionally, these boundary lines are monitored by the revulsion and disgust that members of the normative community have for those sub-​populations that remain outside the perimeter of such lines (Beck 2011, p. 26). To quote David Sibley (1995), “[p]‌ortraits of minorities as defiling and threatening have for long been used to order society internally and to demarcate the boundaries of society, beyond which lie those who do not belong” (p.  49). Martha Nussbaum (2004) and William Miller (1997) both write about the relationship between disgust and social boundary development and maintenance. The former notes that from our youth we are taught to practice a form of disgust-​based social subordination known to all societies, creating groups of humans who allegedly bear the disgust-​properties of foulness, smelliness, contamination. These subordinate humans

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 25 create, so to speak, a “buffer zone” between the dominant humans and the aspects of their animality that trouble them. (Nussbaum 2004, p. 97) Miller for his part contends that feelings of disgust convey “a strong sense of aversion to something perceived as dangerous because of its powers to contaminate, infect, or pollute by proximity, contact, or ingestion” (Miller 1997, p. 2). Moreover, he notes that these feelings of revulsion “have intensely political significance” (p. 8), as they undergird the development and maintenance of a hierarchical social structure and “righteously presented claims for superiority” (p. 9), as well as lending support to various forms of segregation and social control.

Relationship to Alternative Pejorative Metaphors Aversive metaphor themes often grade over into and support one another. Three particular metaphor themes that are frequently associated with the organism metaphor are animal, military, and object metaphors. As noted in Chapter 1 in the discussion of rat metaphors, a number of writers have described how the targets of dehumanizing rhetoric are often compared to particularly repugnant animals that are either parasitic, harmful (e.g., termites), or symbolize deterioration or “low” environs or groups (Keen 1986; Levin 1971; O’Brien 1999). These animals are viewed as inconsequential and may even be microscopic, and therefore can be killed with impunity. Moreover, their extermination can be justified by the argument that they pose a threat to public health and the integrity of the social body. As Sam Keen (1986) wrote, “the lower down in the animal phyla the images descend, the greater sanction is given to the soldier [or social control agent] to become a mere exterminator of pests” (p. 61). Russell (1996) adds that there was a reciprocal relationship during WWI and WWII between the military and pesticide companies, since killing enemy combatants and destructive insects seemed so similar. These metaphors grade over into medical metaphors as the organisms become ever smaller and inconsequential, becoming, in the end, germs, viruses, and cancer cells. Animal metaphors also relate to horizontal or linear orderings of societal sub-​groups such as racial hierarchies or, as further explained later, the Great Chain of Being (O’Brien 1999). The organism metaphor also overlaps with the war or military metaphor. The various bodily “defenses” take aim at “invasive” entities and engage in a fight for survival. The body is frequently perceived as a “nation state at war over its external borders containing internal surveillance systems to monitor foreign intruders” (Lupton 1994, p. 64). As Lupton notes, this image pertains to anxieties to do with xenophobia, invasion, control and contamination. The ideological work performed by such imagery is to make violent

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26  Overview of the Organism Metaphor destruction seem ordinary, prosaic and domesticated, and xenophobia acceptable…. In the arena of public health, military imagery also serves to justify the intervention of the state in the everyday habits of its citizens, granting power to external agencies to control individuals’ bodies in the interests of the health of the body politic. (Lupton 1994, p. 66) Richard Gwyn (1999) added that the combination of medical and military metaphors “dovetailed neatly with the late nineteenth-​century view of the nation state as a living body (the ‘body politic’), an organism subject to varied forms of assault from foreign powers” (p. 208). Medical metaphors may lend themselves to therapeutic, assistive, or helpful policy responses. When they are described through the prism of war or military metaphors, however, the policy response is clear; the invasive organisms must be kept from entering the body or, once inside, excised from it. When this is not possible, they must be either contained or destroyed. As a number of writers have noted, especially in the contemporary disability studies movement, often the fight against a disease grades over into pejorative aggressive rhetoric that is directed at those people who presumably have the disease (Stein 1990, p. 90). As Martin Pernick (1996) wrote in his book The Black Stork, the targets of eugenic control “did not simply have a disease, they were the disease” (p.  95). Margrit Shildrick (2001) added that disabled bodies of all types are often treated as if they are contagious (p. 158). One additional principal means of diminishing the status of marginalized individuals is through employment of the object metaphor wherein they are referred to, compared to, or treated as devalued inanimate objects. Much has been written in the medical literature regarding the objectification of patients by viewing and referring to them as their diagnosis (e.g., the diabetic in room 419). Howard Stein (1990) wrote that through “the political use of the ‘cancer’ metaphor in describing threats … to the ‘health’ of various ‘bodies politic,’ … [w]‌hole categories of people are depersonalized [and] stripped of their humanity” (p. 88). Another method of objectification is the development within the culture of a “value hierarchy,” wherein humans are differentially valued based on their presumptive abilities, assets, or characteristics. One specific example of this metaphor that closely relates to the organism metaphor is the use of horticultural analogies to characterize the adverse impact of particular groups on the community. They may be referred to as rapidly growing weeds taking over productive or aesthetically pleasant grounds, as was typical in eugenic writings, or as diseased branches that threatened the health of the tree of humanity and needed to be pruned (O’Brien 2011). The Nazis frequently employed such horticulture metaphors alongside their widespread utilization of the organism metaphor. As Michael Burleigh (2000) wrote, “[t]otalitarian regimes are sometimes described as ‘gardening states,’ which sought to transform society by eradicating those they regarded as ‘alien’ or ‘unfit,’ so that the ‘fit’ might flourish” (p. 344).

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 27 This section has only provided a brief selection of the various ways by which the organism metaphor is employed, often in combination with additional metaphor themes, to pave the way for social control measures. Additional examples will be provided throughout the book. Chapter 3 will provide an overview of the “alarm periods” from which most examples of the organism metaphor will be drawn. Following this, Chapters 4 and 5 provide a more in-​depth overview of the organism metaphor, and Chapters  6 through 8 describe the various ways in which the metaphor has been employed, organized by the disease course (penetration, spread, decay, and public health response).

Notes 1 Some of the content in this section was previously included in following works by the author: “Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare (2010); and “Protecting the Social Body: The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded,’ ” Mental Retardation (1999). 2 Not only is such rhetoric standard practice, but as Cynthia Davis (2002) alludes to, the terminology that is utilized (e.g., an apocalyptic contagion) is increasingly alarmist in order to stand out among all the other cancers and contagions we face (pp. 829–​830). 3 Koenigsberg’s Hitler’s Ideology (1975) provides an in-​depth analysis of the use of the metaphor throughout the book.

References Aho, James. 2002. The Orifice as Sacrificial Site: Culture, Organization, and the Body. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Banks, Kathryn. 2009. “Interpretations of the Body Politic and of Natural Bodies in Late Sixteenth-​Century France.” In Metaphor and Discourse, edited by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, pp. 205–​218. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Beck, Richard. 2011. Unclean:  Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. Bougher, Lori D. 2012. “The Case for Metaphor in Political Reasoning and Cognition.” Political Psychology 33: 145–​163. Burleigh, Michael. 2000. The Third Reich: A New History. New York: Hill and Wang. Cassedy, James H. 1991. Medicine in America: A Short History. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Charteris-​Black, Jonathan. 2004. Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ______​. 2009. “Metaphor and Political Communication.” In Metaphor and Discourse, edited by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, pp. 97–​115. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Coker, Francis W. 1910/​1967. Organismic Theories of the State:  Nineteenth Century Interpretation of the State as Organism or as Person (reprint ed.). New  York: AMS Press.

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28  Overview of the Organism Metaphor Costigliola, Frank. 2014. “Roosevelt’s Body and National Power.” In Body and Nation: The Global Realm of U.S. Body Politics in the Twentieth Century, edited by Emily S. Rosenberg and Shanon Fitzpatrick, pp. 125–​146. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Davis, Cynthia. 2002. “Contagion as Metaphor.” American Literary History 18: 828–​836. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. DuPuis, E. Melanie. 2015. Dangerous Digestion:  The Politics of American Dietary Advice. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fatović-​Ferenčić, Stella. 2008. “ ‘Society as an Organism’:  Metaphor as Departure Point of Andrija Štampar’s Health Ideology.” Croatian Medical Journal 49: 709–​719. Freund, Peter E.  S., Meredith B. McGuire, and Linda S. Podhurst. 2002. Health, Illness, and the Social Body:  A Critical Sociology (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-​Hall. Geary, James. 2012. I Is an Other. New York: Harper. Glassner, Barry. 1999. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. New York: Basic Books. Gwyn, Richard. 1999. “ ‘Captain of My Own Ship’: Metaphor and the Discourse of Chronic Illness.” In Researching and Applying Metaphor, edited by Lynne Cameron and Graham Low, pp. 203–​220. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Harris, Jonathan G. 1998. Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic: Discourses of Social Pathology in Early Modern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hobbes, Thomas. 1651/​2002. Leviathan (reprint ed.). Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press. Honohan, Iseult. 2008. “Metaphors of Solidarity.” In Political Language and Metaphor: Interpreting and Changing the World, edited by Terrell Carver and Jernej Pikalo, pp. 69–​82. London: Routledge. Humphreys, Margaret. 2002. “No Safe Place: Disease and Panic in American History.” American Literary History 14: 845–​857. Hutson, Matthew. 2012. The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking. New York: Hudson Street Press. Keen, Sam. 1986. Faces of the Enemy. New York: Harper and Row. Kilgour, Maggie. 1990. From Communion to Cannibalism: An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Koenigsberg, Richard A. 1975. Hitler’s Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology. New York: The Library of Social Science. Kövecses, Zoltán. 2010. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Landau, Mark J., Daniel Sullivan, and Jeff Greenberg. 2009. “Evidence that Self-​ Relevant Motives and Metaphoric Framing Interact to Influence Political and Social Attitudes.” Psychological Science 20: 1421–​1427. Lee Spike W.  S., and Norbert Schwarz. 2010. “Dirty Hands and Dirty Mouths: Embodiment of the Moral-​Purity Metaphor Is Specific to the Motor Modality Involved in Moral Transgression.” Psychological Science 21: 1423–​1425. Levin, Murray B. 1971. Political Hysteria in America. New York: Basic Books. Levine, Donald N. 1995. “The Organism Metaphor in Sociology.” Social Research 62: 239–​265. Lupton, Deborah. 1994. Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body in Western Societies. London: Sage Publications.

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Overview of the Organism Metaphor 29 Mayer, Ruth and Brigitte Weingart. 2012. “Discursive Contamination: Terrorism, the Body Politic, and the Virus as Trope.” In Machine, Bodies, Genders, Technology, edited by Michaela Hampf and MaryAnn Snyder-​Körber, pp. 137–​155. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. Miller, William I. 1997. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Musolff, Andreas. 2009. “Metaphor in the History of Ideas and Discourses: How Can We Interpret a Medieval Version of the Body-​State Analogy?” In Metaphor and Discourse, edited by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, pp. 233–​247. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2016. Political Metaphor Analysis:  Discourse and Scenarios. London: Bloomsbury. Neumann, Boaz. 2009. “The Phenomenology of the German People’s Body (Volkskörper) and the Extermination of the Jewish Body.” New German Critique 36: 149–​181. Noël, Lise. 1994. Intolerance: A General Survey. Trans. by Arnold Bennett. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-​Queen’s University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2004. Hiding from Humanity:  Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Brien, Gerald V. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body:  The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded.’ ” Mental Retardation 37: 188–​200. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2010. “Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 37: 95–​114. _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ . 2011. “Anchors on the Ship of Progress and Weeds in the Human Garden:  Objectivist Rhetoric in American Eugenic Writings.” Disability Studies Quarterly 31. Accessed from www.dsq-​sds.org/​article/​view/​1668/​0. Paprocki, Maciej. 2014. “Infecting the Body Politic? Modern and Post-​ Modern (Ab)use of Immigrants Are Invading Pathogens Metaphor in American Socio-​ Political Discourse.” In Cognitive Linguistics in the Making, edited by Kinga Rudnicka-​Szozda and Aleksander Szwedek, pp. 211–​230. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Park, Yoosun and Susan P. Kemp. 2006. “ ‘Little Alien Colonies’:  Representations of Immigrants and Their Neighborhoods in Social Work Discourse, 1875–​1924.” Social Service Review 80: 705–​734. Pernick, Martin S. 1996. The Black Stork:  Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915. New York: Oxford University Press. Proctor, Robert. 1999. The Nazi War on Cancer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ringmar, Erik. 2008. “Metaphors of Social Order.” In Political Language and Metaphor: Interpreting and Changing the World, edited by Terrell Carver and Jernej Pikalo, pp. 57–​68. London: Routledge. Risen, Jane L., and Clayton R. Critcher. 2011. “Visceral Fit: While in a Visceral State, Associated States of the World Seem More Likely.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100: 777–​793. Rothschild, Zachary K., Mark J. Landau, Lucas A. Keefer, and Daniel Sullivan. 2015. “Another’s Punishment Cleanses the Self: Evidence for a Moral Cleansing Function of Punishing Transgressors.” Motivation and Emotion 39: 722–​741.

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30  Overview of the Organism Metaphor Russell III, Edmund P. 1996. “Speaking of Annihilation: Mobilizing for War Against Human and Insect Enemies, 1914–​ 1945.” The Journal of American History 82: 1505–​1529. Semino, Elena. 2008. Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Shildrick, Margrit. 2001. “Vulnerable Bodies and Ontological Contamination.” In Contagion:  Historical and Cultural Studies, edited by Alison Bashford and Claire Hooker, pp. 153–​181. London: Routledge. Sibley, David. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion:  Society and Difference in the West. London: Routledge. Smith, David L. 2011. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Sontag, Susan. 1990. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. New  York: Anchor Books. Spencer, Herbert. 1904. The Study of Sociology. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Stein, Howard F. 1990. American Medicine as Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Tomes, Nancy. 1998. The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vidruţiu, Cristina. 2010. “The Cultural History of a Recurrent Epidemic: The Story of Plague.” Philobiblon 15: 290–​295. Weindling, Paul. 1989. Health, Race, and German Politics Between the National Unification and Nazism, 1870–​1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2000. Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe: 1890–​1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, UK. Weinstein, Arnold. 2003. “Afterword: Infection as Metaphor.” Literature and Medicine 22: 102–​115. Zhong, Chen-​Bo and Julian House. 2013. “Dirt, Pollution, and Purity: A Metaphoric Perspective on Morality.” In The Power of Metaphor:  Examining Its Influence on Social Life, edited by Mark J. Landau, Michael D. Robinson, and Brian P. Meier, pp. 109–​131. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Zhong, Chen-​Bo, Brendan Strejcek, and Niro Sivanathan. 2010. “A Clean Self Can Render Harsh Moral Judgment.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46: 859–​862.

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3  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods

As noted in Chapter  2, aversive metaphor themes primarily arise within the context of alarm periods, which are characterized by marked hostility against or fear of a specific societal sub-​group or closely aligned groups. These periods generally grade over into one another and are often marked by similar patterns of metaphor usage. In analyzing the organism metaphor in Chapters  4 through 8, I  will primarily utilize examples drawn from the alarm periods described in this chapter, heavily utilizing primary sources. On occasion, however, I  will pull in additional examples for the sake of comparison. While these examples are all based on historical periods in the United States, there certainly is a degree of cross-​cultural universality to the employment of the metaphor. While certain specific uses of a particular metaphor may be culturally based (again, for example, the representation of the eagle in the United States), for the most part their use is quite similar across differing cultures and periods (Talebinejad and Dastjerdi 2005). As noted in Chapter 2, this is particularly true in relation to the organism metaphor, in part because of the importance of embodiment, or our natural ability to draw analogies based on our own bodily experiences and anxieties. While much of the information here may be familiar to readers, a general overview of these alarm periods will be beneficial in understanding the context within which these images were employed. This chapter, then, will focus on the following: ( a) the restrictive immigration period (1890–​1924); (b) the agitation against Chinese (1870–​1890) and Japanese (1900–​1945) on the West Coast; (c) the eugenic period’s targeting of feeble-​ minded persons and other “defectives” (1900–​1930); (d) anti-​Semitism in the United States (1910–​1945); (e) the anti-​Communist movements in the country (1915–​1920; 1930–​1942; 1947–​1960); (f) the various forms of racial animosity against African-​Americans, especially during the first half of the twentieth century.

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32  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods

Restrictive Immigration Period Immigration restriction or the deportation of “undesirable” elements of a population form one of the most pervasive means of controlling the demographics of a nation (Mayo-​Smith 1890). Certainly there are valid rationales for limiting the movement of persons into a country, especially when it is beset by overpopulation or massive congestion in large urban areas. States and localities too may attempt to restrict movement into their territories in order to minimize the number of undesirable persons, as with the early settlement laws designed to control beggars. Calls to control immigration into the United States arose during the second half of the nineteenth century, as many feared that the influx of foreigners would overwhelm “American” values and augment social problems such as poverty and crime. Xenophobia, the fear of foreigners, came to a head during the first quarter of the twentieth century. While the rush to develop firm immigration policies was due to a large number of factors, certainly the combination of the quantity and quality –​or at least presumed quality –​of the immigrant class was of primary importance. In regard to quantity, following the turn of the century, the country often approached or surpassed a million immigrants a year (Shipley 1906, p.  160). These numbers were difficult to adequately process, especially given a relatively new bureaucratic infrastructure related to immigration. In addition to the rapidly increasing number of immigrants into the country, many writers expressed concern about the deteriorating quality of those who chose to migrate. Much of this anxiety resulted from the evolving nature of immigration. Following the 1880s, the majority of those coming to the United States were arriving not from the Western and Northern European nations that had originally populated the land, and, as some would write, “built the country.” These nations, including England, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian nations, were sending a decreasing proportion of immigrants, while much higher proportions were coming from Eastern and Southern European nations, such as Russia, Italy, Austria-​Hungary, Poland, and the Balkans (Garis 1924). These groups would be described in the writings of immigration restriction advocates as the “old” and the “new” immigration. Congregating in urban areas rather than spreading themselves throughout the nation, it was also feared that these new immigrant groups would not assimilate, and would come to “take over” large eastern cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. A pressing concern about the new immigrants was that they were physically, mentally, and morally inferior to the older immigrant class. Studies purported to show that recent immigrants were populating mental institutions in much greater percentages than “native” stocks, and that the intelligence quotient of Southern and Eastern European immigrants was markedly lower than that of more traditional immigration populations.1 The supposed criminality of immigrants was also a prevalent theme in restrictionist writings, and statistics

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 33 that seemed to reinforce this contention were frequently cited to support calls for restriction (Shipley 1906). While the number and presumptive quality of the “new” immigrants were primary rationales for restricting their entrance into the nation, additional fears magnified the threat. Many workers were afraid that low-​paid foreigners were taking the jobs of Americans, a concern that was especially strong at a time when unions were struggling to gain a foothold. The effect of the immigrant on the nation’s system of government, especially through the voting process, was also a source of concern. It was too easy, many restrictionists wrote, for new immigrants to receive naturalization papers, and then to be provided with token incentives by corrupt party loyalists in return for their vote (Schwab 1893). With the exception of anti-​ Chinese legislation, the early immigration restriction policies in the United States focused not on race or nationality but rather on those immigrants who possessed “undesirable” characteristics such as insanity or feeble-​mindedness, and those with potentially contagious diseases (Fairchild 1926, pp.  108–​116). In order to pressure the steamship companies to abide by conditions of restriction, legislation included penalties for transporting a deportable immigrant, so long as the condition of the passenger was apparent at the time of departure (Hall 1913, p. 741). In such cases the steamship company could be forced to take the individual back to his/​her homeland without reimbursement. Prior to the race-​based restrictions of 1921, probably the most controversial measure to restrict immigration was the literacy test. Many advocates of restriction argued that such a test would be beneficial in diminishing the percentage of immigrants of “inferior” quality or from undesirable countries (Congressional Record 1923, p.  4714; Hall 1913, p.  749). First proposed in 1896, literacy test bills passed one or both houses of Congress on a number of occasions. The policy was not signed into law until 1917, however, when Congress overrode a presidential veto (Hall 1913, p. 743). Immigrants were not required to be able to read English, but had to prove they could read in their native language (Wallis 1921, p. 436). Following World War I, concerns about the likely “flood” of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe increased dramatically, especially given a large number of war refugees, and public support for more restrictive measures grew to a fevered pitch (Garis 1924). Additionally, the Red Scare of 1919 led to concerns about the migration of socialists and anarchists into the United States. The 1921 Immigration Restriction Act was passed and signed into law in response to this ostensible need to legislate a more sweeping policy. The primary component of the 1921 law was the development of a national origin quota, whereby annual immigration from each specific country would be limited to 3% of the total number of foreign-​born persons from that nation who were living in the United States according to the 1910 census (Congressional Record 1921, pp. 1434–​1443). While some expressed concern about the alleged racist nature of the law or that it was largely an anti-​Semitic

34

34  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods measure, it garnered overwhelming public support, and passed Congress with little difficulty. Because of the national quotas, immigration from “undesirable” nations was strongly curtailed, while nations such as England, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian nations rarely even came close to meeting their quotas (Paradise 1922, p. 505, p. 508). In 1924 several important changes were incorporated within the more permanent revision of the restriction law. While the 1921 bill used 1910 as the census date from which quotas would be set, the latter bill used the 1890 census. Obviously, since fewer Southern and Eastern Europeans were in the country in 1890, the percentage of immigrants from these countries that would be included in the overall quota was reduced even more. Also, the percentage of immigrants allowed entrance was reduced from 3% to 2% of persons from each nation who were residing in the country (Garis 1924). As the eugenicist and immigration restrictionist Madison Grant (1933) wrote, this law not only sharply reduced immigration, but also “favored the European Nordic, whose people made the United States what it is,” as opposed to those belonging to other races, who “were late comers and intrusive elements” (p.  271). Since quotas were determined on a month-​by-​month basis, ships carrying immigrants from those countries whose numbers were most restricted would race to New York Harbor in the first hour of a new month, as “a single minute would make a tremendous difference in the lives of hundreds of immigrants” (Paradise 1922, p. 505).

The Anti-​Asian Movements in the United States While the movements on the West Coast in opposition to Chinese and later Japanese immigration are certainly closely related to the previous section, they deserve separate attention since various elements of these movements differed significantly from East Coast opposition to European immigration. The immigration of Chinese people into the United States expanded greatly between 1850 and 1880, fostered in part by the need for inexpensive labor to build the railroads and engage in other large-​scale construction projects, and many also came to California in search of gold. As increased numbers of immigrants arrived, calls for restriction exacerbated. Limitations were supported by members of the working class in large part based on the contention that Chinese labor reduced pay scales (Kraut 1994, p. 80). The Chinese in America also came to be viewed as a separate and unassimilable race. A U.S. Senator from California, for example, wrote in 1906 that there was a “vast abyss” that separated the Caucasian and Asian races (Perkins 1906, p.  15). Chinese immigrants were stereotyped as conniving, opium-​addicted, lazy, and disease-​ridden. In regard to the latter issue, prominent cases of Chinese immigrants with contagious diseases, such as Chick Gin, further reinforced the notion that Chinese immigrants posed an imminent threat to American society (Kraut 1994).

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 35 As with agitation for restriction against Eastern and Southern European immigrants on the East Coast, restrictionists in California argued that China had been taking advantage of the open borders in the United States by engaging in “supported” immigration, purposefully sending its criminals and paupers to the country (Holder 1900, p. 216). Unhappiness in California spread, and by the middle of the 1880s citizens in many communities were taking the law into their own hands, burning down Chinese neighborhoods and forcing their population out, and in some cases even killing them outright (Pfaelzer 2007).2 In one of the earliest immigration restriction policies in the country, the Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese immigration into the United States was largely eliminated (Wu 1972, p. 70). In fact, as Ryder (1921) wrote, Japanese immigration was supported in part by the vacuum that had been created by diminishing Chinese “coolie” immigration. While much of the population, especially in California, supported restrictions, businesses here and on the East Coast frequently desired and at times financially supported cheap immigrant labor to stem the movement toward unionization. Japanese immigration into the United States was initially similar to that of the Chinese. They were used largely as agricultural laborers in California and Hawaii (Ryder 1921), and most intended on working the farms on a temporary basis and then returning to Japan; however, many remained (Takaki 1989). As with xenophobia on the East Coast, and the earlier movement against the Chinese, fear and anger related to Japanese immigration rose in conjunction with increased numbers, as well over 100,000 Japanese were living on the West Coast by the 1920s, along with a similar number in Hawaii. In fact, in Hawaii the Japanese population had come to surpass Whites by a wide margin, and those supporting restrictive measures argued that this fate would befall California and other areas of the West if an exclusion policy was not passed (Rowell 1913). The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 provided the motivation for the first major effort to control the rights of Japanese in California, as in its aftermath pressure was placed on the school system to accommodate all children with fewer resources, which included putting Japanese children into schools with White children. This incited the public, and through the ensuing “Gentleman’s Agreement,” Japan promised to limit the migration of its laborers to the United States. This, however, failed to restrict Japanese immigration to a large extent (Brooks 1907). While Japanese immigrants were initially viewed as cheap labor to help with farm work, many demonstrated the skills to manage their own land, and Japanese ownership of arable land in California grew steadily during the first few decades of the century. Afraid of a large-​scale Japanese takeover of California farmland, the 1913 California Anti-​Alien Land Bill prevented anyone who was not a citizen of the United States from owning land. Since Japanese immigrants were not considered citizens, they therefore could not gain that right (Feldstein 1972, pp. 230–​232). In addition to the threat of economic competition, the Japanese were seen as

36

36  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods being irreligious, immoral, and threatening to the American culture and way of life (Brooks 1907). Fear of and oppression against the Japanese in the country increased during the lead-​up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then exploded. The popular image of them, including those who had been born in the United States and never set foot on Japanese soil, as spies and traitors was rapidly accepted on the West Coast in part because it nicely coalesced with decades of anti-​Japanese propaganda. On February 19, 1942, Franklin Roosevelt signed a relocation order for Japanese living in California; and from 1942–​1946, approximately 110,000 Japanese were incarcerated and sent to various internment camps (Iglehart 1942, p. 649). This relocation initiative was said to be a military necessity and required for public safety, though neither German-​nor Italian-​Americans were punished in such a way. Persons of Japanese descent in California were given one week to get whatever small amount of money they could for their businesses, homes, farms, and possessions, after which they were to move to an internment camp. Relocation centers were built in ten different states in the western United States, including Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, Idaho, California, and Wyoming. The camps started to close in 1944, but it was impossible for those who had been interned to regain what they had lost (Takaki 1989).

The Eugenic Alarm Era and the “Menace of the Feeble-​Minded” By the time the genetic findings of Gregor Mendel were rediscovered in 1900, the groundwork for the eugenics movement in the United States had already been established. Mendel’s laws, however, provided much needed scientific validation for the assumptions of the eugenicists (Kevles 1985). These professionals, many of whom were scientists and physicians, believed that, as in animal and plant breeding, social control of the fecundity of the members of the human race could lead to an overall improvement of the species, along with a decline in social problems such as criminality, immorality, feeble-​mindedness, insanity, and poverty. Eugenicists felt that if those with desirable characteristics could be encouraged to increase their rate of reproduction (positive eugenics), and those with undesirable characteristics could be restrained from breeding (negative eugenics), traits of the former would be increasingly preserved in the population, while those of the latter would be gradually diminished. Although eugenic notions were present prior to the 1900s,3 no widespread movement developed. This was due in part to the strong influence of Christianity in Western cultures, with its admonitions against state control of human reproduction. The primary barrier standing in the path of such a movement, however, was the lack of awareness of genetics that existed prior to the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws. Eugenic proposals that were made prior to this time existed primarily in the form of utopian essays (Hertzler 1965, pp. 288–​289).

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 37 The eugenicists of the twentieth century would draw heavily on the writings of England’s Thomas Malthus (1798/​1967) and the social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer (1904).4 A central focus of Malthus’s population theory was the high procreation rates of the “unfit” segments of society, as well the presumed ill-​effects of welfare provisions for the poor. Such provisions, most eugenicists contended, would only provide an incentive for the poorer classes to increase their progeny.5 Predating the eugenicists, Malthus believed that the various classes of society were largely immutable and based on inherent laws of nature. The social Darwinists who would follow Malthus shared his concern that support for the poor and social reforms, such as health and sanitation programs, would both diminish the death rates and increase the birth rates among the least desirable segments of the community. As Herbert Spencer, the foremost progenitor of social Darwinism, wrote in 1904, there is an habitual neglect of the fact that the quality of a society is physically… morally and intellectually [lowered] by the artificial preservation of those who are least able to take care of themselves. … There is no greater curse to prosperity than that of bequeathing [our future descendants] an increasing population of imbeciles and idlers and criminals. To aid the bad in multiplying is, in effect, the same as maliciously providing for our descendants a multitude of enemies. (Spencer 1904, pp. 313–​314) While Malthus and the social Darwinists would both have a significant degree of influence on the eugenic focus on nature over nurture, the presumed hierarchical structure of the social system, and the potential harmful effects of tinkering with inherent social processes, the greatest impact on the movement was made by Francis Galton. Born in 1822, and a half-​cousin to Charles Darwin, he made important contributions to the allied fields of eugenics (including developing the term itself) and biometrics, the latter term describing the measurement of human characteristics.6 Galton’s influence was so great that he is often referred to as the “Father of the Eugenic Movement.” In the United States, the Eugenic Record Office, under the direction of Charles Davenport, was the most important institution devoted to eugenics. The Record Office was formed in 1910 with the intent of becoming a central registry for genealogical records. It also carried out research in human genetics, trained field workers to collect information regarding the hereditary transmission of specific (primarily negative) traits within families, and supported legislation furthering eugenic aims, such as involuntary sterilization and restrictive marriage laws (Davenport 1910). While Davenport and other eugenicists stressed the importance of positive eugenics, their primary focus was on ensuring that feeble-​minded persons and other “undesirable” groups would not be able to propagate their kind. Many eugenicists assumed that negative traits were closely aligned with one another, and primarily resulted from feeble-​mindedness or low intelligence

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38  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods (Goddard 1914). More specifically, it was widely believed to be the moron, the “highest functioning” and presumably most dangerous sub-​group of “the feeble-​minded,” which posed the greatest threat to society (O’Brien 2013).7 Many such individuals could, eugenicists argued, pass as “normal” within the community, and therefore were not subject to forced institutionalization, sterilization, and other measures to restrict their breeding. They were believed to propagate at a much greater rate than the overall population, and since feeble-​ mindedness was primarily considered a hereditary condition, the children of such persons would also presumably be feeble-​minded. Eugenicists and social Darwinists held that the concerns first put forth by Malthus regarding the adverse societal impact of “poor laws” were becoming reality, and that the increased propagation of unfit individuals relative to the rest of society was causing severe damage to those nations that unwittingly supported the proliferation of such persons through “social reforms” (Goddard 1912/​1925). As a result of presumptions regarding both the destructive potential of the feeble-​minded as well as their fecundity, many viewed this portion of the population as the greatest threat to American society during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Speaking of the targets of eugenic control, Charles Davenport (1910) wrote ominously that “society must protect itself; as it claims the right to deprive the murderer of his life so also it may annihilate the hideous serpent of hopelessly vicious protoplasm” (p. 129). The eugenic family studies were a central component of the eugenics movement in the United States, and a major factor in bringing home to the public and policymakers the presumptive harm of spreading degeneracy. Starting with the Jukes study in the late 1800s, and reaching their peak with the Kallikak and Ishmael studies during the first decades of the twentieth century, these studies of family lines were taken to provide evidence that moronity and other negative traits did indeed run in certain families throughout multiple generations (Dugdale 1877; Goddard 1912/​1925).8 Eugenic sterilization laws would be implemented in over half the states, and by the time the movement ran its course, approximately 70,000 Americans would be sterilized without their consent or, in some cases, even without their knowledge, for eugenic reasons. Many others were forced into institutions or restricted from marrying, and in the case of the former, often their freedom would only be arranged after agreeing to “voluntary” sterilization (Reilly 1991; Trent 1994). Eugenic sterilization laws would also pave the way for the later coerced sterilization of women as a means of reducing state welfare payments. As noted in the immigration section, eugenic rationales were also called upon to support the restrictive immigration policies of the 1920s. While the eugenic alarm period waned in the United States around the time of the Great Depression, German eugenicists applauded U.S.  efforts to control the quality of its population, and longed for a national program of their own (Kühl 1994). They began to fashion eugenic policies immediately following the election of Adolf Hitler in 1933. Hitler’s own interest in

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 39 eugenics was clearly stated a decade prior to his chancellorship throughout the pages of Mein Kampf (1925/​1971, pp. 402–​406, pp. 439–​441). The Nazi sterilization program was directly based on the state policies in the United States, and during the period of Nazi control, hundreds of thousands of Germans were forcibly sterilized, mainly persons who were diagnosed as either mentally ill or intellectually disabled (Proctor 1988). In 1939, the Regime began its formal “T-​4” euthanasia program, whereby gas chambers were installed in six asylums, and “disabled” persons were transported to these facilities in large numbers and killed. Thus the programmatic expertise for efficient mass killing that would characterize the Holocaust was developed (Burleigh 1994). Once the war was over and the extent of Hitler’s programs against persons with disabilities was known, eugenics became inextricably tied to the Nazi program. However, with the re-​emergence of “quasi-​eugenic” technologies such as prenatal testing, pre-​implantation embryo screening, genetic engineering, and egg and semen banks, debates have re-​emerged regarding the relationship between these contemporary procedures and previous forms of eugenics (O’Brien 2011).

Anti-​Semitism in the United States As was the pattern with prejudice against many other immigrant groups, anti-​ Semitism in the United States grew in large measure with the rapid expansion of Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe from 1880 to 1920. Jewish immigration was largely welcomed during the middle decades of the 1800s. This was in part because relatively few Jews were arriving in the country, and thus they did not pose an important economic threat. Additionally, those who did migrate were largely from Western Europe, and were assumed to be assimilating fairly easily, along with other Western European immigrants. Other immigrant groups, such as Irish Catholics, bore the brunt of nativist animosity on the East Coast at the time (Smertenko 1949). There were both “push” and “pull” factors fostering the increase in Jewish immigration in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The former included the maltreatment of Jews, in the form of massacres, pogroms, discrimination, and expulsions, in Russia and other parts of Europe. Pull factors included the comparatively welcoming attitude in the United States, job opportunities, and the organization of Jewish groups in both Europe and America that provided financial and other forms of support to incoming immigrants (Curran 1975, pp. 113–​114). As with the response toward other immigrant groups, the degree of animosity directed at Jewish immigrants related to such issues as their congestion or spread within various parts of the country, presumptions related to their ability to assimilate and the extent to which they exhibited normative “American” values and behaviors, as well as their presumed impact on the American labor force. For the most part Jewish immigrants settled in large urban areas, especially New York City. Along with perceived differences between themselves and the

40

40  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods “native” population, as well as inter-​marriage fears, this lack of dispersion led to concerns that the Jewish population in the nation would not assimilate into the American “melting pot.” In addition to this, Jews were frequently targeted for discrimination and prejudice because of their presumed “uncouth” habits, the belief that they were taking over large areas of industry, and the fear that they were Bolshevists or were more loyal to “international Jewry” than to the United States. Discrimination against the Jews in the United States during the last decades of the nineteenth century and first few decades of the twentieth was much more insidious than in European nations, especially Czarist Russia. While instances of formal discrimination against Jews occurred prior to the turn of the century, it wasn’t until the 1920s that anti-​Jewish discrimination became a large-​scale social issue. Anti-​Semitic prejudice within the country led to housing segregation as well as the creation of “Gentile-​only” resorts, and restrictions on entry into a number of colleges (Lisberger 1932). In the United States, most of those who supported restrictive measures against Jews placed the blame for anti-​Jewish feelings not on religious differences but on the various rationales delineated above (White 1904). The International Jew, one of the most blatant anti-​Jewish publications in the country, noted that “[t]‌he Jewish Question is not in the … Jew’s entirely unobjectionable Mosaic religion; it is in something else, and that something else is the fact of Jewish influence on the life of the country where the Jews dwell; in the United States it is the Jewish influence on American life” (The International Jew 1922, p. 41, italics in original). The International Jew was a series of four publications that had originated as editorials in the Dearborn Independent newspaper; it was underwritten by Henry Ford, the most important supporter of anti-​Semitism in the United States between the First and Second World Wars (“Henry Ford’s …” 1920). As a leading figure in the movement against Jewish influence in the country, Ford would come to be praised by Adolf Hitler in his early manifesto Mein Kampf (Hitler 1925/​1971, p. 639). So inspired was Hitler by Ford’s writings that upon coming to power, the Fuhrer awarded him the “Grand Cross of the German Eagle” (Dinnerstein 1994, p. 83). Like Hitler, Ford supported the authenticity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a pamphlet which purportedly was developed in Europe by a covert group of leading Jews, and was said to spell out their plans for world conquest. Many anti-​Semites believed that the Jews had engineered the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, and were planning on carrying out similar revolutions throughout the world (Dinnerstein 1994). The Jew as socialist was closely related to internationalism, Zionism, and the perceived goal of a one-​world order. Along with Ford, Father Charles Coughlin was a leading figure in fomenting anti-​ Jewish feeling in the country. The Catholic priest had a radio show that attracted a very large following, and supported many of the claims put forth earlier by Ford. He specifically focused on the ill-​effects of

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 41 Jews on the nation’s economic policy, and he also supported the legitimacy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to Donald Strong (1941), Coughlin’s weekly newspaper, ironically entitled Social Justice, was “the most widely read anti-​Semitic periodical in America” (p. 59), and Strong adds that many of Coughlin’s assertions were directly taken from Nazi propaganda (p.  61). Organized anti-​Semitic groups like the Silver Shirts, the German-​ American Bund, and the Paul Reveres would reach their peak of influence in the United States during the early years of the Great Depression, when fear-​mongering over competition for jobs and the control of the economy were most potent. These were also the years when Nazi influence was on the rise in Germany. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of American anti-​Semitism is that when the doors into the United States were effectively closed to virtually all Jewish immigrants by the 1921/​1924 immigration acts, most of those Jews in Europe who saw the writing on the wall and sought to leave the continent a decade later found no nation willing to take them in. Most other countries refused to be flooded with refugees, and they could point to the U.S. policy as providing support for this position. Hitler himself praised the U.S. immigration policy in Mein Kampf (Hitler 1925/​1971, pp. 439–​440). Markel and Stern (2002) wrote that in some South American nations that refused to accept Jewish émigrés, this refusal was often “couched in metaphors of disease and biological inferiority” (pp. 769–​770).

The “Red Scare” and Subsequent Anti-​Communist Movements While concerns about anarchists and socialists within the United States predated the 1917 Russian Revolution, it was this event that turned this fear into a full-​scale national panic. Anti-​Communism in the United States would wax and wane until the end of the Cold War, reaching its highest points during the Red Scare (1919–​1920), the period between the beginning of the Great Depression and the United States entry into World War II (1929–​1942), and during the McCarthy era (1948–​1960). The inclusion of anti-​Communism here does not suggest that I believe the fear of Communism within the United States was a matter of pure hysteria or was completely an artifact of social construction. Certainly there was good reason at various times for politicians and the public to be concerned about the growth of Communism internationally as well as its incursion within the country. There are, however, important rationales for including this historical material here. While valid reasons existed at various times for organizing against Communism, propagandists often relied not only on facts and hard evidence but rather on rhetoric and fear tactics to foster their efforts. This fear, moreover, allowed propagandists to greatly expand the scope of who could be considered a potential Communist, and many exploited the opportunity to inveigh against liberalism, left-​leaning professors and teachers, atheists and agnostics, and others who could be considered “pinkos” or “fellow travelers.”

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42  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods Advocates of social control of a particular group are often best served by vague labels such as socialist, terrorist, or moron. Reasons for this purposeful ambiguity will be delineated in Chapter 4. Certainly the great irony of anti-​ Communism was that individual freedoms (e.g., speech and assembly) were controlled in the name of “protecting freedom and democracy.” As noted above, the economic and labor arguments that supported calls for immigration restriction were fed by the Russian Revolution and subsequent Red Scare. During this time socialism became inextricably linked with radical labor unionizing, and especially the international Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union. The struggle for union control between “American” unions such as the American Federation of Labor and the IWW fed existing fears of immigrants, especially those who might have anarchistic or socialist tendencies. Related to this, many heads of industry became increasingly concerned following the turn of the century about the growing unionism among immigrants, especially since many immigrant unions, such as the IWW, were more militant than those that were composed primarily of non-​immigrants (Calavita 1984, pp. 74–​81). The Red Scare of 1919–​1920 was largely an outgrowth of these concerns, as many believed that the threat of Russian incursion within the country would come through labor organizing and control. Industrialists who wanted to obstruct union organizing of all types exploited this fear by tying all unionization to Communism. Murray Levin (1971) described the hysterical response to the Communist menace that characterized the period, as well as the repressive policies that followed in its wake. Levin contended that the Red Scare was in large part “a passionate crusade to eliminate an imaginary threat” (p. 4). Much of the hysteria of the Red Scare period was the result of opportunism on the part of both industrialists and politicians. The movement to identify Communists and restrict their influence was led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover, who was appointed in 1919 by the Department of Justice to spearhead anti-​radical intelligence, leading to the development of the FBI (Levin 1971, pp.  4–​5, pp.  50–​52). Early in 1920 the “Palmer raids,” designed to catch and punish Communists, took place throughout the country. These raids led to thousands of arrests, and many of those taken into custody who were immigrants were later deported to their country of origin. In addition, numerous states passed “criminal anarchy laws” which restricted the rights of those thought to be Communists. Most states also passed legislation to forbid persons from flying the Red flag, and subjected anyone who did so to arrest. According to Levin, over 1,000 persons were subsequently arrested for breaking this law (Levin 1971, pp. 55–​57, pp. 63–​64). The Red Scare was short-​lived, dying out by the end of 1920. Its impact would be long-​lasting, however, as it would set the foundation for the anti-​ Communist movements that would follow later in the century. An important force in directing these movements, Hoover’s FBI, would be a direct outgrowth of the Red Scare. Among other affects, the period would also foster

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 43 the expansion of “the KKK and [other] super-​patriotic societies, the growth of the open shop movement, the dramatically rapid decline in union membership and union influence, the growing conservatism and red-​baiting of labor, [and] the rash of antistrike legislation” (Levin 1971, p. 87). While there are similarities and differences between this first wave of anti-​Communism in America and those that would follow in the 1930s and 1950s, the latter two had a greater basis in fact than did the Red Scare, as Communism was a more realistic threat to the nation during the Great Depression and the post-​ war years, and Russia was a much greater military power during the later movements. The second major anti-​Communist crusade arose following the Great Depression. Fed by the economic devastation of the early 1930s, as well as increasing war concerns in Europe, many feared that Communists within the country would exploit the public discontent and economic uncertainty to recruit members to their cause, and were infusing socialist rhetoric into public discussions related to welfare provision, civil rights, and other social issues. Again a major focus was on Communist “penetration” of the unions. Labor agitation and strikes were frequently blamed on Communist influence. Other writers contended that Stalin’s organization within America was attempting to place concealed Communists in a large variety of key positions within governmental agencies, including the Roosevelt administration and the Supreme Court, the media and motion picture industry, energy plants and areas of the military-​industrial complex (“Is There a Red …” 1930). As noted in the previous section, there was a large degree of overlap between anti-​Communist and anti-​Semitic propaganda, and each reinforced the other. A particular concern was that “Red propaganda” was infiltrating the universities and secondary schools. Those who were opposed to not only Communism but any ideology that seemed similar to it argued that “pink professors” were unknowingly being used as tools by the Party to spread their propaganda, under the guise of “open thinking,” “liberalism,” “free speech,” and what today would be referred to as an embracement of diverse perspectives. Others wrote that the Communists in America were attempting to gain the support of African-​Americans in the country, through the NAACP or other advocacy groups. It was assumed that those who were subject to prejudice and discrimination, and often lived in poverty, would likely be willing allies when the time came for a Communist takeover of the nation. Fear of Communism in the late 1930s and early 1940s was also partially due to the perception many had that Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were socialistic in nature, as well as by the entry of the Soviet Union into World War II on the side of the Germans. While America was officially neutral at the start of the war, there was a great deal of concern in the country that once the United States entered it, presumably on the side of Britain and France, the Communists in the country would do their part to sabotage the war effort. Once Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviets joined the allied cause. With the United States entrance into the war as an ally rather than an

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44  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods enemy of the Soviets, overt anti-​Communism within the country subsided a bit. Even as the two sides celebrated victory in Europe, however, fear and loathing of Communism quickly reappeared. The major effort to detect Communist sympathizers in the movie industry was made in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and led to blacklisting and concerns about the impact of the anti-​Communist movement on freedom of expression (Navasky 1980). Joseph McCarthy, the senator from Wisconsin, began his campaign against Communists in the government during the same period. Among other targets, a number of government workers who were alleged to be homosexuals were terminated from their jobs, since many assumed that even if they weren’t Communists their “sexual deviancy” made them prime targets for foreign blackmailers, and thus security risks. “It is a known fact,” Senator McCarthy wrote in 1952, “that espionage agents often have been successful in extorting information from them by threatening to expose their abnormal habits” (pp. 30–​31). Again in the 1950s colleges and universities, as well as high schools and even elementary schools, were specific targets of a supposed Communist “invasion,” and a number of teachers were fired after being accused of teaching socialist propaganda (Schrecker 1986). The Reds were again said to have penetrated important civil rights groups, and were augmenting anger among Blacks in order to sow discord within the nation. As was the case in the 1930s, those inveighing against the Communist menace contended that liberalism, in both the schools and in the cause of integration, along with the expansion of the “welfare state” and other measures of social reform, were blazing the path for a socialist takeover of the country (Hargis 1960). Both the Cold War against the Soviet Union as well as a more muted brand of anti-​Communism would continue well beyond the 1960s, and strong undercurrents of it continue to affect our political environment today.

Discrimination Against African-​Americans I obviously don’t have the space to adequately recount, even superficially, the long history of prejudice and discrimination against African-​Americans in the United States. For the purpose of analyzing the organism metaphor, there are several specific aspects of this history which I  will briefly review, these include: ( a) housing discrimination and segregation within public accommodations; (b) the “Great Migration” of African-​Americans from the South to northern urban cities; (c) the separation of blood for transfusion purposes; (d) anti-​miscegenation laws. To a large extent, housing discrimination against African-​Americans can be divided into three stages, formal city laws separating the races, resident-​based

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 45 restrictive covenants, and finally, more indirect means of ensuring restriction. Early in the twentieth century many cities had written into law the separation of residential areas by race. As James Loewen (2005) points out, even some communities that were integrated after the Civil War forced out their Black population, in part because they were often employed as strike-​breakers. Since such policies had the force of law, they constitute de jure (by law) discrimination. In many cities those areas designated for African-​Americans became overcrowded, especially with the onset of the Great Migration in the 1910s. A number of minorities looking to move beyond these designated areas filed lawsuits, and in 1917 the Supreme Court struck down such laws in the Buchanan v. Warley case (“Anti-​Negro Covenants II” 1947). The law continued to be tested, however, for a number of years, and many communities found ingenious ways around it. Interestingly, these laws were primarily opposed not because of an interest in social justice, but rather because they impinged on the inherent right of residents, rather than the city, to have control over private property (Vose 1959). Once cities could no longer legally discriminate by race, residents took matters into their own hands, and many private restrictive covenants were used to control integration. Through these covenants, landowners were required to promise that they would not sell their house to a minority. In many communities residents were under pressure to ensure that such agreements were included in their deeds (McKenzie 1994; Vose 1959). Real estate agencies also steered clients of different races to specific parts of the community, as they understood that showing a “white” house to an African-​American family would harm their efforts to work with other owners in the immediate vicinity. With “White flight” from urban areas, especially after WWII, many residents moved into racially homogenous suburbs and developed zoning laws and community protection organizations that surreptitiously sought to keep African-​Americans or other minorities from moving in. One primary indirect method of segregation was the refusal to develop subsidized housing within communities. Some areas simply resorted to violence to maintain racial separateness (Loewen 2005). Racial separation was also maintained by means of the Jim Crow laws. Importantly, practices such as separate drinking fountains forced persons who were unfamiliar in a community and whose racial identity was questionable to self-​identify. As noted, many of the issues that related to housing segregation arose in part from the Great Migration of African-​Americans from the South to urban cities in the North, starting around 1916 (McKenzie 1994). Cities such as St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh saw a large increase in their minority populations with this movement. The migration was caused in large part by increased mobility options (e.g., automobiles), problems related to southern agriculture (e.g., boll-​weevil epidemic), blatant racism and violence (e.g., lynchings), and the belief that these urban centers held more opportunities and better treatment for African-​Americans (Hawkins 1973). The war was also a factor, since the combination of restricted immigration and American

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46  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods workers becoming soldiers led to a diminished labor supply that could be filled by the migrants. Among other factors, restrictive covenants were motivated in many cases by this influx of Southern Blacks into northern cities, as it fostered fear and prejudice in these “receiving” cities, and also led to concerns about competition for jobs and the depression of the wage scale (McKenzie 1994). While the movement of African-​Americans to northern cities was lessened during the Great Depression, it picked up again as the economy improved toward the end of the 1930s (Smith 1966). The race-​based separation of blood for use in transfusions was particularly an issue during World War II, when soldiers often required transfusions due to their injuries. As Susan Lederer (2008) points out, Whites were concerned about the transfusion of African-​American blood not only because of outright racism, but also due to concerns about the transmission of first syphilis and later sickle cell anemia. Red Cross officials continued to segregate blood by race even after medical research demonstrated that there was no appreciable racial blood difference (Lederer 2008, p.  115). In response to efforts to halt the practice, one southern legislator held that Communists “were trying to browbeat the American Red Cross into taking the labels off … so it will not show whether it is Negro blood or White blood.” “This seems,” he continued, to be a scheme designed “to mongrelize this Nation” (Feldstein 1972, p. 287; see also Lederer 2008, pp. 120–​122). When the Red Cross finally removed racial labels from donated blood, many southern states responded by opening their own blood banks and refusing to take blood from the Red Cross (Lederer 2008). While anti-​miscegenation was frowned upon or simply not allowed in many states prior to the turn of the century, such laws came to be formalized in the 1910s and 1920s, partly as an outgrowth of the eugenics movement and concerns about “race suicide” through mixed marriages. To be effective, such laws required some means of classifying race other than through simple observation. In other words, as with any racially-​based policy, anti-​miscegenation laws experienced implementation difficulties when the officials who carried them out came across people who didn’t obviously fall into a specific racial category, often because of mixed heritage. As Harriet Washington (2006) noted, by the early twentieth century, “Black skin could no longer consistently and reliably designate a Negro, so it was critically important to find other means of detection” (p. 99). A number of states attempted very unscientific methods of categorization. In one such case, for example, a woman who was refused a marriage license had her hairdresser testify against her, saying “she could tell [the defendant] was of mixed blood from the size of the half-​ moons on her fingernails” (Newbeck 2004, p. 69).9 The most extensive system of racial classification was developed in Virginia, where those classified as Caucasian were banned from marrying persons with “even ‘one drop’ of non-​Caucasian blood” (Black 2003, p. 165). The policy driving the law, the Racial Integrity Act, became effective in 1924 (p.  168).

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 47 Virginia officials maintained a registry of the presumed race of all residents, and required newcomers to submit to “inspection.” The policy was targeted at inter-​marriage of Whites with not only African-​Americans but also Native Americans. The Virginia law was challenged in court by Richard and Mildred Loving, an inter-​racial couple who married outside the state in 1958, and were subsequently imprisoned for breaking the law and then forced to move out of Virginia. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of the Lovings and struck down such laws as unconstitutional (Newbeck 2004). There are certainly parallels between the various periods described in this chapter, both in regard to the public fear and/​or anger of the groups in question, as well as the metaphors that were employed to support repressive measures. As will be further discussed in Chapter 4, what one may refer to as the “repressive infrastructure” that is designed and operationalized in response to a particular group will often be retooled for use against other out-​groups, or will attempt to reenergize itself by combining multiple stigma categories together or find novel ways to exploit public fear or anger. The immigration restriction industry within the country (not only those formally hired to investigate and judge immigrants, but politicians whose call for restriction has been an important platform measure, writers and speakers who made a living inveighing against immigration, etc.), for example, was energized by the Yellow Peril, the Red Scare, eugenic fears, and anti-​Semitism, along with more rational concerns such as the rise in immigrant numbers. As will be further delineated in the following chapters, national panics carry with them not only denigrating stigmatized messages about marginalized groups, often recycled from previous alarm periods, but they also serve the financial and bureaucratic interests of particular corporate and political powers.

Notes 1 A large amount of secondary literature has been written related to the intelligence testing of immigrants. See, for example, Kevles (1985) or O’Brien (2013). 2 As Pfaelzer, among others, noted, these murders were generally not prosecuted, in part because for much of this period of time Chinese immigrants were not held to be credible witnesses in court, and often legally couldn’t even testify. 3 While the term eugenics was not created until toward the end of the 1800s, the philosophy of controlled human breeding is long-​ standing. Plato (1986), for example, supported state-​controlled marriage in The Republic (p. 240). 4 For more on the early influences on eugenics, see Gould (1981). 5 While Malthus had little to say about eugenics itself, mainly because he lived well before Mendel’s laws were known, he did write that an “attention to breed” could lead to a “certain degree of improvement similar to that among animals …” (Malthus 1798/​1967, p. 9). 6 For his major eugenic writings, see any of the Galton sources noted in the references. Page  17 of Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1907) includes the first use of the term “eugenics.” 7 In the United States the feeble-​minded category included three sub-​categories. Morons were the “highest functioning” of the sub-​groups, followed by imbeciles and idiots.

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48  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 8 A seminal secondary source on the studies is Rafter’s (1988) book White Trash. 9 Interestingly, this wasn’t the only time this rather odd form of categorization was employed. According to Robert Proctor (1988), a physician in the Third Reich claimed that he could delineate which persons were of Jewish ancestry “by the ‘half-​moon’ at the base of the fingernails” (p. 110).

References “Anti-​Negro Covenants II.” 1947, August. The American City 62: 125–​126. Black, Edwin. 2003. War Against the Weak:  Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. Brooks, Sydney. 1907, February 9.  “Japan and the United States.” The Living Age: 328–​331. Burleigh, Michael. 1994. Death and Deliverance: “Euthanasia” in Germany 1900–​1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Calavita, Kitty. 1984. U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor:  1820–​1924. London: Academic Press, Inc. Congressional Record. 1921, May 13. Volume 61, Part 2, 67th Congress, 1st Session: 1434–​1443. Congressional Record. 1923, February 26. Volume 64, Part  5, 67th Congress, 4th Session: 4714. Curran, Thomas J. 1975. Xenophobia and Immigration, 1820–​1930. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. Davenport, Charles B. 1910. “Report of Committee on Eugenics.” American Breeders Magazine 1: 126–​129. Dinnerstein, Leonard. 1994. Antisemitism in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Dugdale, Richard L. 1877. “Hereditary Pauperism.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 81–​99. Boston, MA: Press of George H. Ellis. Fairchild, Henry P. 1926. Immigration:  A World Movement and Its American Significance. New York: The Macmillan Company. Feldstein, Stanley (ed.). 1972. The Poisoned Tongue:  A Documentary History of American Racism and Prejudice. New York: William Morrow & Co. Galton, Francis. 1870. Hereditary Genius. New York: D. Appleton and Co. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1904. “Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims.” The American Journal of Sociology 10: 1–​25. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1907. Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (2nd ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Garis, Roy L. 1924. “America’s Immigration Policy.” The North American Review 220: 63–​77. Goddard, Henry H. 1914. Feeble-​Mindedness: Its Causes and Consequences. Norwood, MA: Norwood Press. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1912/​1925. The Kallikak Family (reprint ed.). New  York:  The Macmillan Company. Gould, Steven J. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Grant, Madison. 1933. The Conquest of a Continent. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Hall, Prescott F. 1913. “The Recent History of Immigration and Immigration Restriction.” Journal of Political Economy 21: 735–​751.

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Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods 49 Hargis, Billy J. 1960. Communist America: Must It Be? Berne, IN: Economy Printing Concern. Hawkins, Homer C. 1973. “Trends in Black Migration from 1863 to 1960.” Phylon 34: 140–​152. “Henry Ford’s Anti-​Semitic Crusade.” 1920. Current Opinion 69: 222–​225. Hertzler, Joyce O. 1965. The History of Utopian Thought. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc. Hitler, Adolf. 1925/​1971. Mein Kampf (reprint ed.). Trans. by Ralph Manheim. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co. Holder, Charles F. 1900. “America’s Treatment of the Chinese.” The North American Review 171: 214–​220. Iglehart, Charles. 1942. “Citizens Behind Barbed Wire.” The Nation 154: 649–​651. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume IV: Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States. 1922. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. “Is There a Red Peril Here?” 1930. The Literary Digest 104: 9–​10. Kevles, Daniel J. 1985. In the Name of Eugenics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Kraut, Alan M. 1994. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace.” New York: Basic Books. Kühl, Stefan. 1994. The Nazi Connection:  Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Lederer, Susan E. 2008. Flesh and Blood: Organ Transplantation and Blood Transfusion in Twentieth-​Century America. New York: Oxford University Press. Levin, Murray B. 1971. Political Hysteria in America. New York: Basic Books. Lisberger, Carolyn. 1932. “Living on the Quota.” The North American Review 234: 117–​123. Loewen, James W. 2005. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: Touchstone Books. Malthus, Thomas R. 1798/​1967. An Essay on the Principle of Population (reprint ed.). New York: Dutton. Markel, Howard and Alexandra M. Stern. 2002. “The Foreignness of Germs:  The Persistent Association of Immigrants and Disease in American Society.” The Milbank Quarterly 80: 757–​788. Mayo-​ Smith, Richmond. 1890. Emigration and Immigration. New  York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons. McCarthy, Joseph. 1952. The Fight for America. Milwaukee, WI:  Educational Foundation, Inc. McKenzie, Evan. 1994. Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press. Navasky, Victor S. 1980. Naming Names. New York: Penguin Books. Newbeck, Phyl. 2004. Virginia Hasn’t Always Been for Lovers. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. O’Brien, Gerald V. 2011. “Eugenics, Genetics and the Minority Group Model of Disabilities: Implications for Social Work Advocacy.” Social Work 56: 347–​354. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2013. Framing the Moron: The Social Construction of Feeble-​Mindedness in the American Eugenic Era. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Paradise, Viola I. 1922, March. “Three Per Cent.” Harper’s Monthly: 505–​514. Perkins, George C. 1906. “Reasons for Continued Chinese Exclusion.” The North American Review 183: 15–​23. Pfaelzer, Jean. 2007. Driven Out:  The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House.

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50  Brief Overview of Relevant Alarm Periods Plato. 1986. The Republic. Trans. by Desmond Lee Harmondsworth. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd. Proctor, Robert. 1988. Racial Hygiene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rafter, Nicole H. 1988. White Trash. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Reilly, Phillip R. 1991. The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rowell, Chester H. 1913. “The Japanese in California.” The World’s Work 26: 196–​200. Ryder, R. W. 1921. “The Japanese and the Pacific Coast.” North American Review 213: 1–​15. Schrecker, Ellen W. 1986. No Ivory Tower:  McCarthyism and the Universities. New York: Oxford University Press. Schwab, Gustav H. 1893. “A Practical Remedy for the Evils of Immigration.” Forum 14: 805–​814. Shipley, Maynard. 1906. “Effects of Immigration on Homicide in American Cities.” Popular Science Monthly 69: 160–​174. Smertenko, Johan J. 1949. “Have Jews a Divided Loyalty?” Harper’s Magazine 19: 46–​53. Smith, T. Lynn. 1966. “The Redistribution of the Negro Population of the United States, 1910–​1960.” The Journal of Negro History 51: 155–​173. Spencer, Herbert. 1904. The Study of Sociology. New York: D. Appleton and Co. Strong, Donald S. 1941. Organized Anti-​Semitism in America:  The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930–​1940. Washington, DC:  American Council on Public Affairs. Takaki, Ronald. 1989. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin Books. Talebinejad, M. Reza and H. Vahid Dastjerdi. 2005. “A Cross-​Cultural Study of Animal Metaphors: When Owls are Not Wise!” Metaphor and Symbol 20: 133–​150. Trent Jr., James W. 1994. Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Vose, Clement E. 1959. Caucasians Only:  The Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Restrictive Covenant Cases. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Washington, Harriet A. 2006. Medical Apartheid:  The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Harlem Moon. Wallis, Frederick A. 1921. “Treating Incoming Aliens as Human Beings.” Current History 14: 434–​445. White, Arnold. 1904. “The Jewish Question: How to Solve it.” The North American Review 178: 10–​24. Wu, Cheng-​Tsu (ed.). 1972. Chink:  Anti-​Chinese Prejudice in America. New  York: Meridian Books.

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4  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness”

An important pre-​condition in the targeting of invasive, destructive, and metaphorically contagious sub-​ populations is the development of some form of diagnostics and tracking, just as in epidemiology. Individuals and groups that are so identified are placed on (or outside) the boundaries of the social system, and thus become “marginalized,” or placed on the margins of society.1 A variety of indicators or characteristics may feed such diagnostics, but foremost is a perceived divergence from what is taken to be the normative national or social identity. These differences may be physiological, behavioral, racial/​ethnic, religious or ideological, and the more stigma identifiers a person is given, or the more widely these are known, the more solidified their positioning as tangential members of the community. This chapter will detail the methods and important elements related to such diagnostics, and will detail some of the quandaries that potentially marked individuals often find themselves placed in.

External Origin of the Contaminating Entity The perceived foreign origin of the target group is a central feature of the organism metaphor. Just as those elements that adversely affect the human body are usually seen as arising from outside the organism itself, so too those groups that infect the social body are considered as having a foreign nature (O’Brien 1999). Like a plague, potentially contagious social groups are invariably viewed as coming from somewhere else. “[T]‌here is a link,” Susan Sontag (1990) said, “between imagining disease and imagining foreignness” (p. 135). Eric Hoffer (1951) added that “The ideal devil is a foreigner.” “In order to qualify as a devil,” he noted, “a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry” (p.  87). Sam Keen (1986) also held that a prime example of the organism metaphor is expressed in the way modern allopathic medicine thinks about disease and the way propagandists think about welfare. … Disease is largely considered something that strikes us from the outside. The germ, like the enemy, is an outside aggressor that will overwhelm us if we allow our defenses to wane.

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52  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” Cancer, like communism, is an irrational force against which we launch crusades and war. Evil comes from without. (Keen 1986, p. 64) Soffer and Ajzenstadt (2010) write that particular disease conditions (as well as the people who harbor them) are more apt to be given a “foreign” identity if the condition or diagnosis is highly contagious and/​or heavily stigmatized. They describe HIV as a disease that inevitably seems to come from elsewhere. While their research focused on Israeli views of HIV, certainly there is a close similarity to how the condition has been viewed in the United States. These authors compare HIV with heart disease. Since the latter is not contagious, and usually is associated with non-​stigmatized groups, it is not perceived to have a foreign origin. Thomas Yingling added that “American feeling for the body inscribes disease as foreign and allows AIDS to be read therefore as anti-​ American” (quoted in Bennett 2009, p. 94). The foreign nature of the corrupting social entity is most clearly seen in immigration debates, since the “undesirable elements” in question are indeed foreigners. To quote Markel and Stern (2002), [at] many points over the past century, some people have wanted to exclude persons perceived as foreign, inassimilable, and dangerous to the country’s social, political or economic fabric. Metaphors of germs and contagion have never lurked far beneath the surface of such rationales. (Markel and Stern 2002, p. 780) As Adams (1908) noted over a century ago, the view that disease arose from somewhere else wasn’t confined to the nation as a whole. It was often normal for states to blame their neighbors as the source of various contagions. “No State,” he said, “wishes to discover the germ in its own veins, but is quite willing … to point out the bacillus in the system of its neighbor” (pp. 247–​ 248). The extent to which the member of another nation, race, or culture may be viewed as a foreigner from the perspective of the receiving nation depends on many factors. Language, personal characteristics, values, customs, religion, socioeconomic standing, the state of the economy, and other individual or cultural attributes can all be important factors in how immigrant groups are received in their adopted homeland. During the immigration restriction era in the United States, the “new” immigration was a source of alarm not only because they were coming from elsewhere, but moreover because they were said to be “alien in thought as well as birthplace” (Leighton 1922, p. 115), “alien in language and in spirit, with racial imprints which can be neither burned out nor bred out” (Cannon 1923, p. 330) and “utterly alien to all American ideals” (Ellis 1923, p. 86). Those advocating restrictive measures contended that the new immigrants were persons who might technically become American citizens, but they still would not really be Americans. While the melting-​pot image was widely utilized

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 53 in regard to immigration, the truth is that there was no reciprocity inherent in how Americans understood the melting pot. Incoming immigrants could blend into the mix, but could not disturb its original flavor. In 1923, the year before the permanent immigration act was implemented, Lewis Gannett (1923) wrote that, Anglo-​Saxon Americans have small interest in the “melting-​pot” except as a phrase. They do not want to be fused with other races, traditions, and cultures. If they talk of the melting pot they mean by it a process in which the differences of the immigrant races will be carried away like scum, leaving only the pure ore of their own traits. (Gannett 1923, p. 330) By congregating together, immigrants were said to be refusing to merge with the larger population, and thus maintaining alien behaviors and values, building barriers that were “not easily penetrated by American ideals of well-​being and citizenship” (Coulter 1904, p. 732). While it’s true that the supporters of immigration restriction were descended from immigrants themselves, they argued that their own ancestors assimilated with their adopted homeland, and thus were unlike these new immigrants who chose to maintain a foreign identity. “Our whole purpose,” James Davis (1922) wrote in the Outlook, “must be to Americanize the alien before the alien alienizes America” (p. 260). As the predominant outside entity from which the nation needed to protect itself, or at least control their entrance into the social body, immigrants were often viewed as carriers or sources of other aversive traits, including socialism, Zionism, criminality, insanity, atheism, and immorality. There was a particularly close relationship between the eugenics and immigration restriction movements, and researchers contended that the new immigration was rife with a wide variety of social problems that were much rarer in the older immigrant population. As early as 1890 one supporter of restriction argued that we must move on the general government to shut down the flood-​gates through which rushes upon us the torrent of impure blood from the east and from the west. If we are to remain the dumping-​ground of all nations, we cannot build prisons, insane hospitals, and retreats for the defective classes fast enough to supply the demand. (Mott 1890, p. 36) As moronity came to be viewed as the primary target of eugenicists and the major problem from which other social problems devolved, the immigrant population came to be increasingly viewed as being largely feeble-​minded. As Calavita (1984) wrote, “the eugenicists emphasis on the need to ‘breed out’ defective genes coincided well with the New England elite’s sense of the imminent danger of race destruction” (p. 107). Moreover, she noted, studies related

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54  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” to the genetic transmission of deficiencies among immigrants “removed the blame for social injustices from the socioeconomic order and placed it unambiguously on defective individuals” (p.  107). Since moronity was viewed as intractable, such persons could not be rehabilitated or educated, and their descendants would not only share their deficiency, but potentially spread it through the remainder of the population. In his 1923 book, A Study of American Intelligence, Carl Brigham publicized the results of World War I  intelligence tests that were given to military recruits. These tests seemed to support the hypothesis that an overwhelming percentage of recent non-​ Nordic immigrants were indeed morons. Aside from providing justification both for eugenic policies such as involuntary sterilization as well as immigration restriction measures, the “moronization” of immigrants served to support the view of the alien as the principal destructive threat to the national body in two important ways. First, it seemed to justify the belief that these immigrants could not assimilate into American life. Since moronity, as noted previously, was viewed as an inherently genetic quality, such persons could never be helped by Americanization programs or other forms of education or training. Secondly, as further described in Chapter 7, lower status immigrants were already viewed as prolific breeders. Adding the tag of the moron onto such persons redoubled the fear that these were individuals who were likely to spread their degenerate germplasm throughout the nation, since eugenicists had been arguing for decades that a central feature of feeble-​mindedness was rapid (as well as careless) reproduction. The perception that the target person or group is, metaphorically if not in actuality, a foreign element, may exist even when the person was born and raised as a standing member of the community. Martin Barr and Walter Fernald, two early administrators of institutions for feeble-​ minded persons, as well as leading eugenicists, each described the alien nature of their charges (O’Brien 1999). Shortly before the turn of the century, the former wrote that the imbeciles belonged “to an abnormal race and must be forever set apart with his own” (Barr 1898, p. 482), and Fernald (1904), the administrator of a Massachusetts institution, added that “[a]‌feeble-​minded child is a foreign body in a family or a modern American community” (p.  382). Henry Goddard, who created the term “moron” to identify this class of persons (1910, p. 27), said that the “feeble-​minded child is a foreigner who does not speak our language and hence cannot obey our commands or follow our directions” (Goddard 1907–​1908, p. 23). Just as other forms of deviance, “defectiveness,” or disease are often given a cause arising outside the individual, family, or even national body, Communism was also viewed as alien to the true nature of Americans. Foreign policy expert George Kennan (1953) wrote during the McCarthy era that Communism was a “species of foreign demon” (p. 10). In her book Teachers of Destruction, wherein she focused on the widespread infiltration of socialism on college campuses, Alice Widener (1970) was befuddled.

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 55 Talking about students who were demonstrating, she repeatedly asks, “where did they come from?” (pp. 26–​27). It was inconceivable to her that socialism would take root in children who were raised in traditional American families. Writing several decades prior to the Russian Revolution, Richmond MayoSmith (1890) similarly contended that “[s]‌ocialism and anarchism are not plants of American growth nor of Anglo-​Saxon origin. They are not natural to the American Mind” (p. 88).

Diagnostics and Marking2 In order to effectively delineate which societal elements may be harmful to the social body, some form of diagnostics is called for. In many cases, multiple stakeholder groups are incentivized (financially, occupationally, politically, or socially) for the development of a diagnostic program, since a large infrastructure of professionals is likely to be deployed to develop classification systems and measures, implement aspects of the program, and ensure that some form of tracking is in place. It does little good to give someone a particular diagnosis or identification unless this follows the person, just as a major rationale for diagnosis in toxicology is not only to determine what external entities constitute harmful “pathogens,” but also to pinpoint where they congregate, when and how they transfer across the biological or social organism, the various ways they might pose a threat, and how prevention activities should be carried out. Often large bureaucratic entities have their beginning in such social diagnostics: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, was initiated during the Red Scare in order to identify presumed socialists and anarchists. Similarly, branches of the new field of social work were developed during the early decades of the twentieth century in part to assist with national efforts related to eugenic diagnostics, the movement of Japanese and Japanese-​Americans into internment camps, and other types of social control activities (Kennedy 2008; LaPan and Platt 2005; Park 2008). As Charles Tilly (2005) noted, “political actors including governments always acquire investments in us-​them boundaries and/​or programs for their alteration” (p. 174). From the standpoint of social control, the best form of diagnostics or “identity-​making” has (or is perceived to have) some degree of objective or scientific validity, but is at the same time flexible enough to allow for a wide net, so that the target group in question can be enlarged as needed. The former requirement allows diagnosticians to contend that proposed control measures are not the result of personal, race, or class prejudice but rather are based on objective or factual criteria. David Smith (2011b) discusses this in terms of “artificial” verses “natural kinds.” The former are largely culturally-​defined categories, while the latter exist outside human culture, “in nature.” The job of social diagnosticians often is to find a way to justify artificial categorization (e.g., based on race, ethnicity, social class, intelligence, religion) by providing “evidence” in support of the view that the important qualities that characterize and demarcate various groups are natural or intrinsic (p.  96). As he

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56  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” writes, humans are “natural-​born essentializers. We spontaneously divide the world into natural kinds to which we attribute hidden [and often nefarious] essences” (p. 100). Since, as noted above, jobs, money, prestige, and other benefits may flow from diagnosing those individuals and groups that purportedly pose a threat to the public, we can safely assume that the threat will be enlarged in part to continually feed this expanding bureaucracy. This expansion, however, must be within the bounds of believability. Support for both eugenic policies as well as McCarthyism began to weaken when it became obvious that the number of first morons and then Communists had expanded well beyond what was credible. In regard to the former group, Angela Smith noted that during the 1920s and 1930s there was a pervasive fear among the population that “normal” persons might find themselves or family members counted among the targets of eugenic control, “and thus might find themselves excluded from the ideal national body” (Smith 2011a, p. 101). The deployment of a group of “professionals” and a co-​existing institutional infrastructure allows propagandists to develop their own brand of nomenclature, diagnostic tactics, and rituals, etc. (Gambrill 2012). The more “professionalized” diagnostics becomes, the less appropriate it is for non-​professionals to question it. This supports the belief that, similar to medicine and other technological or scientific areas, the identification and marking of group members is to be left in the hands of these professionals. An anti-​Communist publication asked, “how does one detect a concealed Communist?” “It is not easy,” was the reply, “and certainly should never be tried by amateurs” (“A Manual for Survival” 1961, p. 35). Bosmajian (1983) noted that by comparing target groups to microorganisms or bacteria, which are “invisible to the naked eye,” social control agents put forth the notion that it required a high level of expertise to identify members (p. 25). A classic example of a form of diagnosis that fits the above criteria were the early IQ tests utilized by eugenicists. While supporters argued that these tests accurately measured inherent intelligence, and thus were an excellent gauge not only of one’s abilities but moreover of a person’s future potential, they were in actuality highly biased in favor of upper-​middle-​class White American cultural values. Steven Jay Gould (1981a) describes the degree to which new immigrants (even ones who could not read or speak English) were required to have intimate knowledge of even the most trivial aspects of American popular culture in order to score well on the tests. As Gambrill (2012) noted, conditions such as feeble-​mindedness (today referred to as cognitive, developmental, or intellectual disability) or mental illness exist along a scale. Diagnostics, however, allows us to set hard-​and-​fast barriers between the “normal” and “abnormal” areas of what in actuality is a fluid and ever-​changing continuum. This is in addition to the fact that the qualities or characteristics that are central to such categories are often never well defined in the first place. As alluded to previously, the employment of disparaging metaphors as a means of describing an undesirable target group does more than simply

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 57 classify the group as outside the societal norm and provide covert rationales for their possible control. Such metaphors also serve as a principle method by which those who want to expand their power or sphere of influence attempt to legitimize their role as definers of the group or framers of the social problem(s) that target groups are presumably responsible for. Once group categories are developed, differences can be viewed as essential markings or a “master status” (Goffman 1963; Soffer and Ajzenstadt 2010). It is a short step once this happens to sanctioning differential treatment of persons related to the category they fall into or where they are placed on a hierarchical continuum. Separation of people into “us” verses “them” categories forces all citizens to take a side and embrace a black or white view of what may be an extraordinarily complicated phenomenon. Henri Zuckier (1996) wrote that “[t]‌he struggle against the outsider is foremost a struggle for identity” (p. 1117), and Lise Noël (1994) added that “[b]efore being stripped of their property or rights, the oppressed are robbed of their identity.” “The dominator,” she continues, “defines this identity in their stead, reducing it to a difference that is then labeled inferior” (p. 79). Michel Foucault (1965), Irving Goffman (1963), Thomas Szasz (1970), and others have noted that in the medical field, as well as psychiatry and other professions that are marked by the labeling of human conditions by established experts or authority figures, such diagnoses, while they may benefit the “patient” in certain ways, also reinforce the power relationship between the diagnosed person and the “expert.” Identifying the other is not only an important means of attempting to exert power over them, but may even carry with it presumptions of property rights (Gambrill 2012; O’Brien 2009). According to Bosmajian (1983), “[t]‌he magic of words and names has always been an integral part of both ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ societies.… [F]rom the very outset, in Genesis, naming and defining are attributed a significant potency” (p. 1). Through our definitions we not only describe how persons are to be viewed and treated by others, but we also place limits on the range of their behaviors and opportunities (p. 5). As Paulo Freire (1986) wrote, persons who seek to objectify or control others through labeling inadvertently force a label onto themselves (as oppressors, owners, masters, etc.) and thus also limit the range of their own actions as well as their personal identity, thereupon thwarting their potential for growth and limiting the range of “acceptable” activities or behaviors that they may engage in. NAACP spokesperson William Pickens wrote in 1924 that the contention that one man should not have absolute control over another man is not merely for the good of the one who is the object of that control, but also for the good of the one who exercises that control. Irresponsible power will warp the soul and ruin the character of any man. … Slavery degrades master and slave. (Pickens 1924, p. 384)

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58  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” Any interest a person in such a position may have needs to be muted if it doesn’t co-​exist well with the authoritarian role that one takes on. According to role or identity theory, the various roles that one inhabits need to “fit” or co-​exist well with one another. A pacifist who is offered a job in a weapons factory, for example, may experience a degree of role discomfort or ambiguity. This is particularly important for the current study since those who engage in controlling or restricting others need to be able to rationalize this behavior in order to maintain congruence between their various roles. Metaphors in particular serve as a “powerful social tool for facilitating categorization, creating and maintaining stereotypes, and justifying the existing social system” (Maass, Suitner, and Arcuri 2013, p. 158). Stereotyping allows us to “perceive members of our own group as individuals, but see other groups as more or less homogenous” (Smith 2011b, p. 90). Since stereotyping constitutes an important form of objectification, even what one might consider to be “positive” stereotypes are apt to be viewed by their targets as denigrating. A  pertinent contemporary example is the “model minority” metaphor that is often imposed on Asian-​ Americans.3 As a number of examples within this book attest, frequently it’s true that what are normally taken to be positive attributes are given a negative spin when used to describe devalued groups. The efforts by marginalized community groups to reestablish their own social identity therefore form a central theme in contemporary scholarship on prejudice and discrimination. Much of the current writing in disability studies, for example, deals with this issue. Some persons with a disability, such as many individuals who are deaf, do not even consider themselves disabled, and resent efforts by others to define them that way (Lane 1993). Even many persons who self-​identify as disabled do not necessarily consider it to be their primary identifying attribute, even if others consider it to be. Additionally, in cases where persons do identify their disability as a core feature of their identity, the meaning that the condition has is often very different from that which observers assume, especially since many non-​disabled persons tend to “awfulize” disabilities and only see their negative consequences. Disablement is particularly important in reaffirming other forms of categorization, since a disabled identity is often grafted onto the “other,” further drawing them apart as outside the mainstream (Gilman 1988, 1984). Identifying the presumably threatening target group as deviant or apart from the norm is an important means of supporting the “foundational values” of the prevailing status quo, or of reinforcing expected normative cultural behavior (Zuckier 1996, p. 1118). It also provides a key method of establishing the parameters for determining national or community identity. Jackie Hogan (2009) writes that the collective national identity provides the foundation for an implicit connection between the members of that culture. Throughout our lives we are bombarded by “narratives of national belonging by portraying certain characteristics, activities, and affiliations as natural, normal, and preferred.” “Groups which are politically and economically marginalized,” she

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 59 continues, “tend also to be marginalized within the national imaginary. Their contributions, their histories, and sometimes their very existence are symbolically muted or disparaged” (Hogan 2009, p. 1). Additionally, in times of war or national crisis, an “aggressively conformist nationalism” may arise. Those groups that are not conspicuously “American” may feel pressure to embrace such an identity, even if it means limiting or hiding other aspects of their identity. Metrick-​Chen (2012) added that being considered an American has been “perceived as a contract –​an agreement to a value system rather than, as in other nations, exclusively a circumstance of birthplace” (p. 204). Marking community members as belonging to a denigrated sub-​population that exists outside the societal mainstream not only “proclaim[s]‌the superiority of the oppressor’s identity over that of the ‘other,’ ” but also “places responsibility for the inferior position of the oppressed squarely on their own shoulders” (Noël 1994, p. 7). As Lise Noël wrote, once the members of marginalized groups “embark on the path toward rejection of their alienation, the challenge for the oppressed is to expose the relativity of the various identities and the subjective foundations of the judgments determining social hierarchies” (p. 7; see also Freire 1986; O’Brien 2009). Furthermore, when such members fight in opposition to this stigmatized identity, this behavior, which is presented as radical or asocial, often only serves to support the perception that they are indeed outside the normative community. Martin Luther King Jr. realized, for example, that a more aggressive response to discrimination, such as was advocated by the Black Panthers, would only confirm the pre-​existing stereotype of Blacks (especially males) as hostile threats to society. This type of catch-​22 is pervasive in the medical literature, where inveighing against a diagnosis or treatment, especially related to mental illness, is one indicator that the label does indeed fit (Szasz 1970). Those who refuse to internalize their negative identities fall into the “bad patient” role, which further supports the presumption that a government-​sanctioned authority should take control of their rights. As noted, an important form of classification is the development of hierarchical systems that inherently equate more (money, intelligence) or higher (status, social class) with one’s rightful place in society. The Great Chain of Being, a major philosophical construct that has found acceptance in one form or another throughout the ages, is an example of such a continuum. The Chain is conceptualized as a vertical scale on which all physical and spiritual (e.g., angels, saints, God) entities are placed according to their level of perfection, complexity, or perceived valuation. According to Arthur Lovejoy, humans were traditionally viewed as holding a place in the middle of the Chain, since, through our dualistic nature as physical and intellectual beings, we link the “animalistic” and the “spiritual” segments of the continuum (Lovejoy 1966, p. 193, p. 198). Those groups and individuals that are assumed to be closer to our animalistic past are obviously placed lower on the “human section” of the Chain, while the “more evolved” members of the species are placed on the opposite end.

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60  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” Placement on the scale may be based on intellectual capacity, social or economic class, or other variables that are deemed important within a particular culture. Many of the early scales of humanity developed by racial anthropologists employed this notion of a vertical ordering of social sub-​ groups, and it remains with us today in various guises (Haller 1971; Musolff 2010). As one might assume, those groups that are portrayed as less fully human don’t have to be accorded the full complement of human rights (Gould 1981a, 1981b). Especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, polygenists argued that African-​Americans (and for some, other racial groups as well) were so divergent from Whites that they constituted a separate species which arose through differing evolutionary lines (Washington 2006). While much was made of the “bestial” nature of slaves, this perception continued well into the twentieth century, and in some unenlightened quarters, it still continues today.4 The group may also be infantilized, as was frequently the case with feeble-​minded persons, who needed adult control regardless of their age. Similarly, in 1904 an article in the Outlook magazine included the following: Many philanthropists in trying to aid the negro have forgotten that they were dealing with a child-​race, and have made the mistake of trying to use the same rules and principles which they would adopt in governing a people behind whom were centuries of civilization. … [They are] a mass of grown-​up children from whom all the wholesome restraint found in slavery had been removed and nothing substituted; that they possessed grown-​up desires and passions but only the judgment and will-​power of children. (Smith 1904, pp. 728–​729) William Miller (1997) describes the relationship between the organism metaphor and social dominance within society, writing that emotions “like disgust and contempt, make possible social orderings of particular stripes, and that it behooves social and political theory to care about these emotions and how they structure various social, moral, and political orderings” (p.  18). Questions about the nature of the kinship between various racial groups and what this might mean for public health policy were pervasive through the first decades of the twentieth century. While much of the involuntary medical experimentation conducted during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used African-​Americans as test subjects, some questioned this practice not on humanitarian grounds but rather because, they argued, the findings from these subjects might not be generalizable to Whites due to the vast difference between the races (Washington 2006, p. 74). A major problem with diagnostics or other identification techniques obviously pertains to entities or groups that lay on or close to the boundaries separating such persons from the mainstream population. Even during the eugenic era, intelligence testers realized that various persons could be

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 61 slightly over or under the IQ ceiling for moronity. As will be taken up in Chapter 8, many eugenicists invoked the organism metaphor in arguing that the various forms of social control policies or “social surgery” needed to be employed to take action against all individuals that might possibly be diagnosed as members of a target group, just to be certain that all potentially contagious persons were included. Allowing persons who are possibly diseased to escape detection and control measures, it was often argued, could jeopardize the entire monitoring process. Thus even those who associated with the members of targeted populations were suspect. As will be discussed more fully below, in her description of “racial identity” trials in the United States, Ariela Gross (2010) noted that one of the primary means of determining race for persons of uncertain heritage and visage was through their social contacts, since these were structured according to the parameters of the Jim Crow laws. While we might assume that it would be the most radical or easily identifiable group members that invite the greatest fear, it often is the opposite: those members who are most difficult to diagnose. Presumptive members of a target group who either cannot readily be identified or simply haven’t yet been identified solicit fear in the same sense asymptomatic carriers of disease invite panic because they may be persons with whom we are in contact. As William Miller (1997) noted, the “dangerous and contaminating are those things which don’t fit within the ordering structures. The anomalous thus becomes polluting” (p. 43). Irish immigrant Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) became a fearful symbol not so much because she carried typhoid, but rather because she herself displayed no physical manifestations of the disease (Mendelsohn 1995). To eugenicists, morons were perceived to be a greater source of contamination than both imbeciles and idiots, who were more obviously feeble-​ minded, not only because they procreated more, but also since they graded into the “regular” population. Speaking of the insidious threat of feeble-​minded persons, Goddard (1912/​1925) ominously warned his readers that there were “Kallikak families all about us” (p. 71). Discussing Jews who tried to “pass,” one writer noted in 1936 that “the slightly alien disturbs him [the average man] far more than the totally alien” (Stolberg 1936, p.  767). Speaking of Jews in Nazi Germany, Neumann wrote that “[o]‌nce they began to lose their alienness, they emerged as an existential threat to the Volkskörper (body of the people or nation). The Nazis certainly perceived the Jews as losing their physical otherness because of assimilation, social integration, and even conscious efforts on their part to disguise themselves” (Neumann 2009, p.  74). If the normative social identity is constructed in part in contrast to another group, as the “other” becomes more assimilated, this normative identity may be questioned. In many cases such passing is obviously discouraged by punishing, often in very harsh ways, those who are found to have attempted to cross socially-​ constructed borders. Often too those who have been diagnosed as being outside normative society are physically marked in some way, required to register

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62  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” or “carry papers,” or made to conform to various social etiquette behaviors in order to formalize their status.

Non-​Assimilation: Alien Nature as an Essential Quality As alluded to above, it is important that threatening individuals or sub-​groups not only be viewed as foreign to the existing population, but this alien nature also needs to be seen as permanent; these are not foreigners who could assimilate into American culture or even have descendants who would more closely approximate the average American. As Bauman wrote, the “blemishes of a certain category of people cannot be removed or rectified … [and] they remain beyond the boundaries of reforming practices, and will do so for ever” (quoted in Snyder and Mitchell 2006, p. 110). Their differences should be perceived as “essential, biological, [and] natural” (Hogan 2009, p.  79). To quote Goldhagen (2009); “[t]‌he dehumanized, putatively bereft of fundamental human attributes owning to their biology, cannot be reformed, reeducated, civilized or transformed through any process into full human beings” (p.  322). Invasive and destructive entities such as cancer cells and viruses aren’t amenable to change once they have taken root inside the body, and they aren’t going to be less destructive with time if left alone. The only approach is either to eliminate them or, barring this possibility, ensure that they cannot spread within the body. Jeffrey Bennett (2009) added that many marginalized populations have never trusted scientific and medical authorities in large part because they have “been constructed as less than human in scientific and medical rhetorics, being understood as impure, prone to sickness, and sexually imbalanced.” Moreover, he continues, these “qualities were inexorably tied to the ‘essential’ identity of the people under scrutiny, ontologically secured by the fortitude of scientific scripture” (p. 85; see also Washington 2006). Not only did eugenicists argue that morons would remain morons, they also promised that their children and most other descendants would also be feeble-​minded. So certain were they of this truth that when a married couple who had been so diagnosed had a “normal” child, many eugenicists simply assumed that the mother had been unfaithful and had an extramarital affair with a more intelligent male (Goddard 1913). This was a natural hypothesis for them considering the presumed moral laxity of such women. In fact, some eugenicists supported “degeneration theory,” whereby the children of “defectives” were assumed to have an even greater degree of abnormality than their parents, and the degree of degeneracy would increase with each succeeding generation (Gelb 1995). The perception of Jewish immigrants as inherently and irrevocably different than Americans was widespread during the immigration alarm period. As Henri Zuckier (1996) wrote, Jews were viewed as “the most universal and most intimate outsider in the Western mind, the consummate carrier of ‘differentness’ ” (p. 1120).5 The Jews, it was widely noted, had never assimilated

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 63 themselves within the nations in which they lived, and maintained their “distinctive identity,” as well as “the ethics of the stranger” (The International Jew 1920, p. 13). For some, this “race solidarity” was said to be due to religious dictates related to race purity, and for others it reflected a response to common plight (Smith 1891, p.  138). Anti-​Semitic restrictionists, however, saw it as a massive conspiracy, in keeping with the overall goal of Jewish world domination. Regardless of the reason, even if they attempted to assimilate, it was argued that they could only do so on a superficial level. Their essence would always remain Jewish. “So long as a trace of Jewish nationality remains,” Smith wrote, “the Jew cannot be a thorough Englishman or American” (Smith 1891, p. 142). Many European and American anti-​Semites followed the lead of Ernest Renan, Houston Stewart Chamberlain and other early “racial anthropologists” in their belief that Jews were not only religiously but also racially divergent from non-​Jews, and immigration restrictionists frequently contended that Jews from Eastern Europe had an Asiatic origin, and thus should be included with other Asiatics as an inassimilable immigrant stock (Singerman 1998, pp.  343–​344). Burton Hendrick (1907), one of the most vocal anti-​Jewish writers in the United States during the first decades of the twentieth century, wrote that New  York, because of its growth in Eastern Jewish immigrants, was rapidly becoming a city not only of Hebrews but of “Asiatics” (p. 310). Both Chinese and later Japanese immigrants were also charged with being incapable of assimilation, largely due to their race. As was the case with Jews, this was taken to be an essential quality that could never change. In discussing persons of Chinese heritage, an 1879 article noted that “there is nothing in human character, on the face of the whole earth so stable, so fixed, and sure and changeless, as the character of a Chinaman” (cited in Carlson and Colburn 1972, p. 177). Decades later a California legislator shared his opinion that the Japanese in the state composed “a permanently foreign element” (Phelan 1919, p. 323), and another said that “[y]‌ou cannot regenerate a Jap, convert him, change him, and make him the same as a white man any more than you can reverse the laws of nature” (cited in Feldstein 1972, p. 278). Of course the primary method of assimilation for such divergent groups was inter-​ marriage with “Americans.” This obviously was anathema to restrictionists of all types, and will be explored in greater depth in Chapter 7. This was particularly true in relation to miscegenation between “Whites” and “Blacks,” since these were viewed as the most dichotomous couplings. Many polygenists went so far as to contend that such relationships were a form of bestiality. As alluded to above, even though the vast majority of African-​ Americans had been born in the United States (as had their ancestors for generations), they remained foreigners in the social body (Fisher 1896, p. 625). When identified groups did attempt to assimilate, this was especially threatening, since such conformity brought them closer to the boundary line separating them from the “normal” population, and might call into question the essential differences between various groups, as well as whether such

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64  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” presumably discrete categories were indeed distinct in the first place. As noted above, Jews were often criticized for attempting to “pass” as gentiles, or for having “Gentile fronts” operating their businesses. The British-​French writer Hilaire Belloc decried “crypto-​Judaism” which he described as “the presence everywhere throughout Western Europe of men in important public positions who passed for English, French or what not, but were really Jews” (Belloc 1922, p. 49). Volume IV of Henry Ford’s The International Jew (1922) noted disapprovingly of Jews who attempted to deceive the public by changing their names or the names of their businesses (pp. 109–​110). This fear of the unmarked Jew in society was long-​standing, as Zuckier (1996) noted: The imaginary Jew typically represents … an “invasive” danger, an unmarked antagonist ever ready to surreptitiously “pass” into society, penetrate, and pollute it. In the Middle Ages, the popes consistently warned of the danger that because Jews are indistinguishable from the general population, they might surreptitiously induce Christians into sexual intercourse and other reprehensible actions. (Zuckier 1996, p. 1141) There are certainly a myriad of examples of African-​Americans who attempted to “pass” as White in order to gain jobs, housing, and other benefits. In 1898 John Durham wrote that one issue that was at the same time a side-​effect and cause of antipathy against Blacks was that the “number of men and women who ‘go over to the white race’ is increasing.” “Men and women of spirit,” he continued; “struggle against the conditions of negro life; and in desperation, when their complexions and their hair permit, they simply enter general competition and remain silent” (Durham 1898, p. 231). Such efforts to pass were part of a vicious cycle, as they obviously augmented both prejudice against the group as well as efforts to further circumscribe and segregate its members. They therefore allowed victims of social control themselves to be blamed for restrictive measures. At times of widespread discrimination, assisting groups in passing is often a growth industry. Early in the twentieth century, for example, physicians in “Boston and New  York offered … sensational claims about the successful transformation of black skin into white skin using the burning/​bleaching process of the x-​ray” (Lederer 2008, p. 166; see also Dorman, 2011; Washington 2006, p.  266), and a few decades later many plastic surgeons benefited from rhinoplasty designed to make Jewish women, especially actors, appear less Jewish (Schrank 2007). Since the mixed-​race children of Whites were often not viewed as their “legal” ancestors, and many states disallowed cross-​racial marriages, as well as for other civil rights purposes (e.g., voting, jury service), a number of court cases during the first half of the twentieth century focused on efforts to properly categorize “racially-​ambiguous” persons. Ariela Gross (2010) provides a compelling overview of these “racial identity trials” in her book What Blood Won’t Tell. In addition to problems related to the legal standing of

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 65 the progeny of a cross-​racial union, some of these trials also attempted to determine which ethnic groups could be included within the “White” race. As noted above, the social prescriptions and “association etiquette” that were part and parcel of the Jim Crow South were often used as evidence of racial identity within some of these trials. A number of the issues discussed within this chapter relate to the concept of a “double bind.” For our purposes here this is described as a situation that marginalized populations are placed into where there is no good decision option available to them; whichever way they respond they are either solidifying and reinforcing the measures that restrict them and the prevailing stereotype, or breaking the law or inviting another form of retribution upon themselves. One example of the type of double bind that African-​Americans were frequently placed in pertained to housing. When the Shelley’s, the defendants in an important restrictive covenant case, were in court after efforts to purchase their house in a “White” area was challenged, it was divulged that the actual purchaser was a White friend. While they were accused of fraud by using a “straw party” to purchase their house, they countered that even if African-​ Americans could legally move into the area, they could not secure bank financing, and thus were forced to have a more “acceptable” person acquire the loan on their behalf (Vose 1959, pp. 109–​110). Similarly, Japanese frequently worked land under American names. In these cases, policies had been passed or unofficial forms of discrimination (e.g., boycotts) initiated in order to limit the opportunities for farmers of Japanese descent. When they took the risk to deceive in order to cross these hurdles, this was interpreted as evidence to justify the belief that such persons were conspiratorial, underhanded, and not to be trusted. The “common charge against the outsider is his manifest difference and his refusal to blend in. The Jew, however, provoked as much apprehension by trying to assimilate and submerge his alleged differences as he did by displaying them” (Zuckier 1996, p. 1143). When Jews congregated among themselves, they were snobbish and race-​centric, and yet when they attempted to integrate, they were held in contempt for trying to conceal their “true nature” (Cohen 1998, p. 278). In order to maintain its integrity, the social body designates specific agents or institutional entities to identify and track foreign and non-​normative bodies that may threaten contamination and the (metaphoric) spread of disease within the broader community. These agents, which include law enforcement and border patrol forces, diagnostic professionals, and a cadre of social control experts and corporations or political units, are tasked with ensuring that target group members exhibit the degree of physiological, ideological, and value conformity necessary to become safely absorbed within the social body. Whether a disease is metaphoric or physical (or some combination thereof), the body that carries it has a much greater chance of harming the larger social body that it enters rather than being redeemed by it, and thus must be rigidly controlled. As further discussed in the following chapters, the old saying that “we are what we eat” plays itself out in the nation as a whole, and our shared

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66  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” cultural identity is under threat should the larger metaphorical and bounded body that we all share become infected by invading foreign pathogens.

Notes 1 Mary Douglas discusses societal boundaries and the fears that co-​exist in relation to societies’ margins at some length in her book Purity and Danger (1966). 2 Some content in this section was originally published in the author’s “Metaphors and the Pejorative Framing of Marginalized Groups,” Journal of Social Work Education (2009). 3 One drawback of this “positive” metaphor, for example, is that Asian youth may be led to believe that their success in academics is not due to their own initiative, but rather is “in the genes,” or at least due in large part to cultural attributes. 4 For the continued relevance of the “Negro as sub-​ human” trope, see Goff, Eberhardt, and Jackson (2008). 5 The “eternal separateness” of the Jews had been long discussed in European anti-​ Semitic writings, and this certainly informed the view in the United States. See, for example, Chapter 2 of Goldhagen (1996).

References Adams, Samuel H. 1908. “Guardians of the Public Health.” McClure’s Magazine 31: 241–​252. Barr, Martin W. 1898. “Defective Children:  Their Needs and Their Rights.” International Journal of Ethics 8: 481–​490. Belloc, Hilaire. 1922. The Jews. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Bennett, Jeffrey. 2009. Banning Queer Blood: Rhetorics of Citizenship, Contagion, and Resistance. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Bosmajian, Haig A. 1983. The Language of Oppression. Lanham, MD:  University Press of America. Brigham, Carl C. 1923. A Study of American Intelligence. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Calavita, Kitty. 1984. U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor:  1820–​1924. London, UK: Academic Press, Inc. Cannon, Cornelia J. 1923. “Selecting Citizens.” The North American Review 217: 325–​333. Carlson Lewis H., and George A. Colburn (eds.). 1972. In Their Place: White America Defines Her Minorities, 1850–​1950. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cohen, Naomi W. 1998. “Antisemitism in the Gilded Age:  The Jewish View.” In Anti-​Semitism in America, edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock, pp. 263–​286. New York: Routledge. Coulter, Ernest K. 1904. “Alien Colonies and the Children’s Court.” The North American Review 576: 731–​740. Davis, James J. 1922. “Immigration and Naturalization.” The Outlook 131: 256–​260. Dorman, Jacob S. 2011. “Skin Bleach and Civilization:  The Racial Formation of Blackness in 1920s Harlem.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 4: 47–​80. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Durham, John S. 1898, February. “The Labor Union and the Negro.” The Atlantic Monthly 81: 222–​231.

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 67 Ellis, William T. 1923, August 25. “Americans on Guard.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 23, 80, 83, 86. Feldstein, Stanley (ed.). 1972. The Poisoned Tongue:  A Documentary History of American Racism and Prejudice. New York: William Morrow & Co. Fernald, Walter E. 1904. “Care of the Feeble-​Minded.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 380–​390. Boston, MA: Press of George H. Ellis. Fisher, Sydney G. 1896. “Immigration and Crime.” Popular Science Monthly 49: 625–​630. Foucault, Michel. 1965. Madness and Civilization. Trans. by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books. Freire, Paulo. 1986. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New  York:  The Continuum Publishing Corp. Gambrill, Eileen. 2012. Propaganda in the Helping Professions. New  York:  Oxford University Press. Gannett, Lewis S. 1923. “Is America Anti-​Semitic?” The Nation 116: 330–​332. Gelb, Steven A. 1995. “The Beast in Man:  Degeneration and Mental Retardation, 1900–​1920.” Mental Retardation 33: 1–​8. Gilman, Sander. 1984. “Jews and Mental Illness: Medical Metaphors, Anti-​Semitism, and the Jewish Response.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 20: 150–​159. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1988. Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Goddard, Henry H. 1907–​1908. “Psychological Work Among the Feeble-​Minded.” Journal of Psycho-​Asthenics 12: 18–​30. _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ . 1910. “Four Hundred Feeble-​ Minded Children Classified by the Binet Method.” Journal of Psycho-​Asthenics 15: 17–​30. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1913. “The Hereditary Factor in Feeble-​Mindedness.” The Institution Quarterly 4: 9–​11. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1912/​1925. The Kallikak Family (reprint ed.). New  York:  The Macmillan Company. Goff, Phillip A., Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Melissa J. Williams, and Matthew C. Jackson. 2008.  “Not Yet Human:  Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization, and Contemporary Consequences.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94: 292–​306. Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma:  Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-​Hall. Goldhagen, Daniel J. 1996. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2009. Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity. New York: Public Affairs. Gould, Steven J. 1981a. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1981b. Ever Since Darwin:  Reflections in Natural History. New  York: W.W. Norton and Co. Gross, Ariela J. 2010. What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haller Jr., John S. 1971. Outcasts from Evolution:  Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority, 1859–​1900. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Hendrick, Burton J. 1907. “The Great Jewish Invasion.” McClure’s Magazine 28: 307–​321.

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68  Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” Hoffer, Eric. 1951. The True Believer. New York: Harper and Row. Hogan, Jackie. 2009. Gender, Race and National Identity: Nations of Flesh and Blood. New York: Routledge. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume I. 1920. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume IV: Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States. 1922. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. Keen, Sam. 1986. Faces of the Enemy. New York: Harper and Row. Kennan, George. 1953. “The Nature of the Challenge.” The New Republic 129: 9–​12. Kennedy, Angie C. 2008. “Eugenics, ‘Degenerate Girls,’ and Social Workers During the Progressive Era.” Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 23: 22–​37. Lane, Harlan. 1993. The Mask of Benevolence:  Disabling the Deaf Community. New York: Vintage Books. LaPan, Amy and Tony Platt. 2005. “ ‘To Stem the Tide of Degeneracy’: The Eugenic Impulse in Social Work.” In Mental Disorders in the Social Environment, edited by Stuart A. Kirk, pp. 139–​164. New York: Columbia University Press. Lederer, Susan E. 2008. Flesh and Blood: Organ Transplantation and Blood Transfusion in Twentieth-​Century America. New York: Oxford University Press. Leighton, Etta V. 1922. “Our Immigration Problem.” The New  York Times Current History 16: 115–​117. Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1966. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. A Manual for Survival. 1961. Wheaton, IL: Church League of America. Maass, Anne, Caterina Suitner, and Luciano Arcuri. 2013. “The Role of Metaphors in Intergroup Relations.” In The Power of Metaphor: Examining Its Influence on Social Life, edited by Mark J. Landau, Michael D. Robinson, and Brian P. Meier, pp. 153–​ 177. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Markel, Howard and Alexandra M. Stern. 2002. “The Foreignness of Germs:  The Persistent Association of Immigrants and Disease in American Society.” The Milbank Quarterly 80: 757–​788. Mayo-Smith, Richmond M. 1890. Emigration and Immigration. New  York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons. Mendelsohn, J. Andrew. 1995. “ ‘Typhoid Mary’ Strikes Again:  The Social and the Scientific in the Making of Modern Public Health.” Isis 86: 268–277. Metrick-​Chen, Lenore. 2012. Collecting Objects/​Excluding People. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Miller, William I. 1997. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Mott, R. A. 1890. “Remarks of R. A. Mott.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 35–​37. Boston, MA: Press of George H. Ellis. Musolff, Andreas. 2010. Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. New York: Routledge. Neumann, Boaz. 2009. “The Phenomenology of the German People’s Body (Volkskörper) and the Extermination of the Jewish Body.” New German Critique 36: 149–​181. Noël, Lise. 1994. Intolerance: A General Survey. Trans. by Arnold Bennett. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-​Queen’s University Press.

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Diagnosis and Categorization of “Otherness” 69 O’Brien, Gerald V. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body:  The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded.’ ” Mental Retardation 37: 188–​200. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2009. “Metaphors and the Pejorative Framing of Marginalized Groups: Implications for Social Work Education.” Journal of Social Work Education 45: 29–​46. Park, Yoosun. 2008. “Facilitating Injustice:  Tracing the Role of Social Workers in the World War II Internment of Japanese Americans.” Social Service Review 82: 447–​483. Phelan, James D. 1919. “The Japanese Evil in California.” The North American Review 210: 323–​328. Pickens, William. 1924. “The Community and Racial Problems: The Negro and the Community.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, pp. 381–​ 388. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schrank, Bernice. 2007. “ ‘Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Race’:  Jewish Stereotypes, Media Images, Cultural Hybridity.” Shofar 25: 18–​42. Singerman, Robert. 1998. “The Jew as Racial Alien:  The Genetic Component of American Anti-​Semitism.” In Anti-​Semitism in America, edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock, pp. 343–​368. New York: Routledge. Smith, Angela A. 2011a. Hideous Progeny:  Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, C. C. 1904. “Helping the Negro to Help Himself.” The Outlook 78: 727–​730. Smith, David L. 2011b. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Smith, Goldwin. 1891. “New Light on the Jewish Question.” North American Review 117: 129–​143. Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. 2006. Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Soffer, Michael and Mimi Ajzenstadt. 2010. “Stigma and Otherness in the Israeli Media’s Mirror Representations of Illness.” Qualitative Health Research 20: 1033–​1049. Sontag, Susan. 1990. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. New  York: Anchor Books. Stolberg, Benjamin. 1936. “The Jew and the World.” The Nation 142: 766–​770. Szasz, Thomas. 1970. The Manufacture of Madness:  A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement. New York: Harper and Row. Tilly, Charles. 2005. Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties. Boulder, CO:  Paradigm Publishers. Vose, Clement E. 1959. Caucasians Only:  The Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Restrictive Covenant Cases. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Washington, Harriet A. 2006. Medical Apartheid:  The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Harlem Moon. Widener, Alice. 1970. Teachers of Destruction: Their Plans for a Socialist Revolution. Washington, DC: Citizens Evaluation Institute. Zuckier, Henri. 1996. “The Essential ‘Other’ and the Jew:  From Antisemitism to Genocide.” Social Research 63: 1110–​1152.

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5  Metaphoric Disease-​Making

As a sub-​group that is separated from the “normal” population through some form of “professional” or quasi-​scientific identification and diagnosis, the target group is frequently perceived as a diseased or potentially diseased entity. As noted in Chapter  2, medical terms, analogies, and concepts were increasingly applied during the late 1800s and into the 1900s, in conjunction with the expanding medicalization of society. A close conceptual relationship arose between actual and metaphoric disease, and this certainly was a principal reason for the widespread utility of the latter. As immigrants and related target populations came to be viewed as potentially infectious bodies, the fear of actual contagion gave way almost imperceptibly to concerns over a wide variety of different forms of metaphoric contagion. Over time, Paprocki (2014) notes, “the metaphor stating that foreigners are vectors of transmission of pathogens underwent what I term metaphor contraction: With prolonged use, it was easier and easier to drop the middle of the phrase and simply state that foreigners are pathogens” (p. 220). Invisible but deadly germs such as syphilis, cholera, and diphtheria paved the way for the germs of socialism, race dilution, moronity, and parasitism. Gregg (2004) wrote that “[d]‌iseases within the body are easily transformed metaphorically into unnatural, foreign substances that have the potential to spread with a certain inevitability” (p. 67). Americans feared immigrants and other undesirable groups, for example, not only because of the germs that caused contagious diseases, but additionally because of “the germ of anarchy” and the fact that the freedoms found in America presented “favorable media for its growth” (McLaughlin 1903, p. 231). While many of the examples that are included in this chapter focus on actual disease processes, most also either implicitly or explicitly support the perception that the dangers posed by the group in question move beyond matters of physical disease contagion. The examples here and in other chapters also highlight the fact that there is not only a close conceptual connection between physical and metaphoric disease, but also that there is a circular relationship between the various aspects of disease and out-​group status. The members of target groups are viewed as more apt to be subject to disease, both real and metaphorical, and such assumptions further distance

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 71 them from “normalcy.” Since Chapters 6 and 7 will delineate in greater depth how the various stages of the organism metaphor (penetration, contagion, decay) were described within restrictionist writings, here I will only provide a brief introduction to the metaphor, laying out a few general issues. The first section will describe in a broad sense the employment of the organism metaphor, and is followed by a brief section that details related metaphorical concepts. The section on disease-​inducing environments and disease etiology considers how discussions about these important issues, especially as they related to marginalized groups, were carried over from medicine and public health to the sphere of metaphoric disease.

The “Other” as a Diseased Sub-​Population The specter of disease, penetration, spread, and eventual decay of the social organism was so widespread in the writings of various alarm periods that this language frequently characterized the most important metaphorical trope or theme that was used to support control movements. They weren’t just unusual rhetorical flourishes, but a major thematic element. Consider an article written in 1954 by former President Herbert Hoover impugning the Communist menace. Within this short four-​page speech, he contends that the “Socialist virus and poison gas … have spread into every nation on earth,” that the “bloody virus” which was “radiating from Communist Russia” was “rotting the souls of two-​fifths of all mankind.” Fortunately, he noted, the rank and file of our people were “immune from this infection,” but “other varieties of [the] Karl Marx virus” were arising from “fuzzy-​minded intellectuals” and other liberals. This was very worrisome, he said, because “only a drop of typhoid in a barrel of drinking water poisons a whole village” (Hoover 1954, pp. 679–​682). Moreover, some of these phrases (e.g., socialist infections) were repeated multiple times. In many of the writings of various alarm periods medical and biological metaphors were not just one of a number of pejorative metaphor themes, but provided the major way of describing target groups and highlighting public fear. As noted in Chapter 2, the ascension of science in the early part of the twentieth century, especially genetics1 and public health, played an important role in the employment of the organism metaphor within the context of both the immigration and American eugenics movements, and the infrastructures (e.g., forms of testing and diagnostics, institutional development, involuntary medical sterilization) that arose from control policies that were largely connected to medical and scientific fields. Regarding eugenic control, for example, those who were classified as feeble-​minded were said to be “a festering ulcer on our country’s breast” (Kirkbride 1911, p. 228), and “an insidious disease affecting the body politic” (Huntington 1935, p.  45). Leon Stern (1922), talking about the “Bilder clan,” a “dysgenic” family on which he conducted eugenic research, said that to “dig into the records of their social life is to dig into an ulcer in the community that is spread and ramified” (p. 188). In the same

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72  Metaphoric Disease-Making vein, Martin Barr (1902), who operated an institution in Pennsylvania, wrote that “[w]‌herever defect or disease rests unguarded, it becomes a festering sore, sure to eat as a canker or in some sudden unexpected outbreak to cause ruin to many” (p. 163). As further discussed in Chapter 8, eugenicists and other social control agents viewed themselves as quasi-​physicians; as protectors of the social body. While contagious diseases were, as one might guess, particularly apt to be employed in framing marginalized groups, diseases that were not necessarily transmissible, such as cancer, also fit the bill. Since cancer may surreptitiously spread throughout the body once it gains a foothold, it presents much the same metaphorical image as a disease that is spread person-​to-​person. As with contagious conditions, cancer is usually viewed as having a foreign origin and arising outside the individual. While we look for ways to treat the individual with cancer, we also search for carcinogenic elements within the environment as causal agents. As noted previously, the particular diseases that are often employed in the context of the organism metaphor tend to be highly stigmatized conditions, or they are diseases that are exotic and foreign or closely associated with lower-​class sub-​groups or spaces. The general population may feel somewhat immune to such conditions since they are presumed to not impact those in their social circle. As with HIV/​ AIDS, they will likely place blame on those out-​groups which are afflicted with the disease when it begins to break through these perceived social boundaries. This perception of immunity not only provides a false sense of security, but is often “reified” or made real when members of the “general public” refuse to acknowledge the disease in their own ranks because of shame and stigma. Goodwin and Chemerinsky (2016), for example, note that smallpox was unreported among middle-​class Whites during the early 1900s because of the association of the disease with African-​Americans (p. 963).2

Related Metaphors A number of specific linguistic metaphors that might be contained under the organism metaphor heading weren’t diseases per se, but were closely related to them. One of the most frequent of these was the individual as parasite, eating away at the foundations of the nation that had been constructed by its Anglo-​Saxon founders (Musolff 2016). African-​Americans were said to be parasitical because, while they might engage in hard labor, they relied on the thinking and planning of others in order to survive. Conversely, Jews were stereotyped as parasitical for the opposite reason, leaving heavy labor to others and benefiting (e.g., through banking and investing) from the exploitation of their labor. The Jew was referred to as an “exploiter of inferior peoples, a person who attaches himself to the body of an industrious people and, by superior persistence, and cunning, extracts the profit of its toil” (Hendrick 1923, p. 274). This view of the Jew as parasite was pervasive in Europe long before Hitler’s rise to power, and was exported to

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 73 the United States during the first decades of the century. In 1904 a Russian official was quoted as follows in an article published in the North American Review: The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic; for their sustenance they require the presence of another race as “host,” although they remain aloof and self-​contained. Take them from the living organism, put them on a rock, and they die. They cannot cultivate the soil. (cited in White 1904, p. 14) In his 2010 book, Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust, Andreas Musolff writes that “body-​illness-​parasite metaphors provided not just a propaganda ornament [for Hitler] but were at the core of his racist ideology” (Musolff 2010, p. 7). Interestingly, similar to in Nazi Germany, anti-​Semitic writers in the United States demeaned Jews because they presumably couldn’t engage in that most “American” of labors, farming, and thus were parasitic on those who grew crops. Conversely, Japanese in the country were denigrated because they were too successful at farming, posing unfair competition. This again points to the double bind that marginalized populations are often placed in, criticized regardless of what they do. New immigrants were considered good candidates to become public charges who drained “the National or community wealth,” and who took from but never gave anything back to the community (Davis 1922, p. 257; Ross 1913, p. 229). They were said to be parasitic entities, even when they did engage in labor (Roberts 1924, p. 8). Feri Weiss (1921) wrote that those who populated “ ‘Little Italy,’ ‘Little Ghetto,’ ‘Little Hungary,’ or any other ‘little’ colony in New York or Kalamazoo” were “parasites on the oak of national prosperity, and should be eradicated” (pp. 200–​201). Since such ethnic enclaves were often largely self-​contained (often due to housing and other forms of discrimination) and their inhabitants frequently poor, they weren’t viewed as supporting the larger economy or engaging in a meaningful way in the life of the nation. This perception was especially fostered by the stereotype of immigrants who came to the country to make money, but did not intend to become permanent citizens. These immigrants placed the money they earned in banks “back home” to support family members or save a nest egg on which they could return to their native lands and retire in comfort. Such immigrants, while they were engaged in labor, were still viewed as parasitic in their refusal to either acculturate themselves or feed the American economy. “Every mail,” Warne wrote (1913/​1971), “takes thousands of dollars to Italy, Austria-​Hungary, and Russia where they are placed as savings in the banks of the principle cities in the emigration districts, these having on deposit millions of dollars earned in America” (p. 173). One recommendation for restricting immigration was to ensure that potential citizens did intend to remain in the country, and thus support the economy of their adopted land which was paying for their labor (O’Hara 1916, p. 300).

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74  Metaphoric Disease-Making Obviously, target group members who did not work were even more apt to be perceived as parasites (O’Brien 1999). Eugenicists noted that feeble-​minded persons were “barnacles upon our civilization” (Kite 1913, p. 10), “a parasitic class,” which was allowed to “breed like lice” and a “fungus growth” that was “fastening itself upon the unfortunate community” (Sanville 1915, p. 667). Caroline Robinson (1938) described the effect that such “degenerate” elements of the population had on taxpayers by saying that the latter were “already supporting one public parasite per solvent family” (p. 260). Feeble-​minded persons were not just benign parasites that could exist side-​by-​side with the host with no harm being done. Rather they were said to be “sapping at the vigor, the health, the happiness, the social morality, and the civic cleanliness of the nation” (Cole 1914, pp. 498–​499).3 Eugenic measures such as sterilization, wrote Sherbon (1929), would ensure that the “unfit” could be preserved but would “not retaliate by devouring their host,” which was the community within which they lived (p. 28). Communists, especially those hidden within the body of the nation, were also described as a parasite. Articles such as one that appeared in Business Week (1953), entitled “Combing Communists Out of GE,” bring to mind a host of lice in a corporate body. Usually, however, they were seen as a more purposefully destructive parasite. An anti-​Communist article published at the beginning of the McCarthy era was titled “Target for Termites” (Fairless 1951), wherein they were compared to “A Red Army of Trained Termites” who were attempting to destroy “America’s industrial machine” (p.  339). Gregg (2004) writes that these termites were said to be “secretly and darkly eating into the foundations and roof beams of everything that the American heart has held dear and sacred” (p. 64). In 1959, an article delineating the potential destructive impact of hidden Communists on Christianity in the nation was titled “Termites of the Cross” (1959). In response to the threat to Christianity, the Reverend Billy Graham (1954) wrote that religious revivals would “purge America of the rats and termites that are subversively endeavoring to weaken the defense of this nation from within in order that it may fall prey to the international revolution of the Communist plot” (p. 46). Here again the metaphor graded over to describe not just Communists but also Eastern European Jews. A book that was published during the anti-​ Communist era that coincided with the Great Depression described itself as a “Study in Modern Termites of the Homo Sapiens Type.” Prior to its narrative, this work, which was published by the World Alliance Against Jewish Aggressiveness, included the copy of a newspaper clipping about a termite infestation in Greenwich Village. The obvious rationale for this inclusion was to form a conceptual relationship between these termites and Eastern European Jews, who had also “infested” the Village, along with other areas of the city. In its pages the book provides in-​depth descriptions of the various types of Communist Jewish termites, including “Conspiring Termites,” “Religious Termites,” and “Jewish Movie Termites” (Are These Things So? 1934). Immigrants were also described as “white ants” who were “eating away the political structure” of the nation (“The Harm of Immigration” 1893,

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 75 p. 43), “a big swarm of mosquitoes, infested with malaria and yellow fever germs” (Weiss 1921, p. 207), and “infected with spiritual hookworm” (Ross 1913, p. 229). Again, these are all animals, mostly “invasive” species, which are destructive but not highly sapient or presumed to be of any benefit to the environment or to humans. It was not only appropriate to take action against such entities, but unreasonable to be expected to live with them. Additionally, one of the more potent subconscious fears humans have is of microscopic parasites or small animals burrowing into our bodies and growing or, even worse, reproducing. This fear is particularly palpable since many generations of such animals can reproduce exponentially in a very short period of time. As noted in Chapter 7, obviously a conceptual connection is rendered here with the presumptive rapid reproduction of foreigners, racial minorities, persons diagnosed as feeble-​minded, or other out-​groups. An interesting example of the juxtaposition of destructive insects with a marginalized population can be seen in the “boll-​weevil problem” in areas of the South, and its impact on exacerbating the migration of African-​ Americans to northern cities. Some writers seemed to present this as one pest driving out another. One writer noted that many of the regions in question had “always teemed with an overwhelming mass of Negro labor,” and he implied that the forced migration due to the influx of the boll weevil, and its destructive impact on the cotton crop, would perhaps have a positive unintended consequence (for White Southerners, at least) of driving this “Negro mass” up north (Shaffer 1923, p. 404).4

Disease-​Inducing Environments and Disease Etiology5 Just as real contagious diseases were taken to breed in foreign “hotbeds” or other places where target groups congregate, and transmitted into the nation surreptitiously, so too was metaphoric disease. The fear of diseased immigrants who were poised to spread infection among the American public was heightened by descriptions of the “dirty” conditions in which many immigrants lived, prior to, during, and following their transport to the country (McLaughlin 1903, p. 237). While the United States was a “new and clean country,” James Davis wrote, “life in foreign lands among filth and dirt brought upon the countries of the Old World great plagues of typhus, cholera, leprosy, tuberculosis, and many other diseases” (Davis 1922, p.  257). Other supporters of immigration restriction noted that the true description of the unsanitary “practices that prevail east of the Adriatic would be unprintable” (Ellis 1923, p. 86), and that the immigration reaching American shores was “flowing toward us from sources beyond the jurisdiction of modern sanitation” (“Are we Facing …” 1905, p. 1) and from “stagnant reservoirs” (Frazer 1923, p.  105) characterized by “medieval notions” of health and cleanliness (p.  102). Undesirable immigrants themselves were characterized as human waste or refuse (“Keep America ‘White’ ” 1923, p. 400; Weber 1892, p. 424).

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76  Metaphoric Disease-Making The ocean voyage, especially for immigrants of limited means, was itself unhygienic and brought risk of infection. Immigration Commissioner Frederick Wallis described the condition of one of these boats in a 1921 article: Not long ago I  took some Congressmen on a ship which had 1,923 steerage passengers. We had been on the boat only a few minutes when every one had to make for a pothole. The stench was unbearable, and the conditions indescribably filthy. Men, women, and children were sitting in the dark on the floor in the passageways, eating their supper out of a bucket with spoons. Many were eating from the same bucket. It was so dark on the boat that we stepped upon people sitting on the floor. (Wallis 1921, p. 442) The characterization here, especially the final portion of the quote, again brings to mind rats or other “low animals.” By the end of their voyage, many immigrants were filthy and “vermin infested.” They and their luggage required disinfection and fumigation (Wallis 1921, p.  445). Due to the potential for infection during the voyage, it was suggested that immigrants be inspected not in U.S. ports upon arrival, but rather overseas at ports of departure (Schwab 1893, p. 807). Advocates of restriction generally held that target groups were responsible for the filthy environments they resided in. The following depiction of Japanese immigrants was included in an article from the American Defender, a California-​based publication that was particularly vocal in its opposition to Japanese immigration: Wherever the Japanese have settled, their nests pollute the communities like the running sores of leprosy. They exist like the yellowed, smoldering discarded butts in an over-​ full ashtray, vilifying the air with their loathsome smells, filling all who have the misfortune to look upon them with a wholesome disgust and a desire to wash. (cited in McWilliams 1935, p. 735) This quote provides a particularly good example of the close connection between actual and metaphoric disease. Indeed, it’s somewhat difficult to tell where the former leaves off and the latter begins. As the quote also demonstrates, there is little difference between the disease and the filth components of the organism metaphor. The perception of the target group as dirty or filthy is often a precursor to viewing members as a diseased entity (Selzer 1972, pp. 44–​49). It also serves to reinforce the animalistic metaphor that such persons are sub-​human beings who neither deserve nor appreciate humane treatment or reasonable living conditions. Since filth causes disease, those social groups that live in unsanitary conditions are more likely to carry and spread disease. Indeed, their

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 77 predilection to filth may be said to imbue them with a tolerance or immunity to the diseases they carry. The Negro was said to have “brought malaria and the hookworm from his native jungle,” and “the immune Negro could carry virulent malarial organisms in his blood stream without discomfort to himself.” As a result of this it was “impossible to estimate the damage that has been done to the white people of the South by the diseases brought by an alien race” (Nesbitt 1913, p. 74). Even though most African natives were brought to the Americas as slaves, here they are presented as unwitting perpetrators. Even when they had built up immunities to either the actual or metaphoric diseases they carried, however, target group members were often viewed as particularly susceptible to contracting and transmitting such conditions, due largely to their presumed physical and psychological weaknesses (Washington 2006, p. 147). Numerous American anti-​ Semitic publications were quick to note the filthy conditions within which the stereotypical “Jew” preferred to live. Jewish ghettos were “packed from basement to roof with swarming, unwashed humanity,” and those who were unfortunate enough to enter such a tenement would encounter a “mal-​odourous atmosphere … so thick with putrescent exhalations as to suggest the idea that you could cut it with a knife” (cited in Selzer 1972, pp. 44–​45). The “unwashed” state of both the Jews in New York City and the Japanese in California was especially a concern because of their involvement in growing or selling food products, which might easily serve as a vehicle for intentional or accidental contamination. “Thousands of human beings are sickened and sent down to their graves every year in New York,” one writer noted, “by the fruit, the fish, the poultry, and the meat peddled by the Jew of the Ghetto” (cited in Selzer 1972, p. 46). These concerns coalesced well with conspiracy theories related to the Red Scare and the Yellow Peril, and to many it went without saying that this disease spread was not necessarily accidental. Following Pearl Harbor, some in California believed that poisoning of crops would be one way that resident Japanese would weaken the population and thus pave the way for a Japanese invasion (Hauser 1941, p. 689). The filthy environments within which many of the poor feeble-​minded were said to live presumably subjected them to the full range of transmissible diseases. “Have you ever, anywhere, and under any circumstances,” MacMurchy (1916) wrote, “smelt anything to compare with the indescribable, compressed, complex, horrible odor of the air in one of these abodes of the feeble-​minded?” (p. 232). A central feature of the eugenic family studies was the graphic depiction of the sub-​human, primitivistic environs of “rural morons.” These studies were replete with photographs and descriptions of broken-​down shanties, unsanitary conditions, and children who lacked even the most basic hygiene. Following is the description of one such home that eugenic researcher Elizabeth Kite visited as part of the Kallikak study: The hideous picture that presented itself as the door opened to her [the field worker’s] knock was one never to be forgotten. … In one arm she

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78  Metaphoric Disease-Making [the “imbecile” mother] held a frightful looking baby, while she had another by the hand. Vermin were visible all over her. In the room were a few chairs and a bed, the latter without any washable covering and filthy beyond description. … The oldest girl, a vulgar, repulsive creature of fifteen, came into the room and stood looking at the stranger. She had somehow managed to live. (Goddard 1912/​1925, pp. 73–​74) As Nicole Rafter (1988) pointed out in White Trash, her book on the eugenic family studies, such images abound in these studies (pp.  26–​28). Feeble-​ minded persons “ ‘mate’ and ‘migrate,’ ‘nesting’ with their ‘broods’ in caves and ‘hotbeds where human maggots are formed’ ” (p. 26). Rafter added that such images not only suggest danger, “they also imply that the cacogenic would hardly notice if they were treated as less than human” (p. 26). It was in this pervasive image of the feeble-​minded as a filthy, vermin-​ridden sub-​ human that the organism metaphor merged with the animal metaphor. The famous polemicist H. L. Menchen (1937), in justifying a proposed sterilization program for the rural poor, many of whom he presumed to be feeble-​ minded, wrote that: The birth rate, down in those pious and malarious wastes … is precisely what the traffic will bear, and if it were not for the fact that the death rate, especially among children, is also inordinate, the region would swarm like a nest of maggots. (Menchen 1937, p. 399) Communism was also said to thrive in filthy environments and backwater hellholes. Kenneth Goff wrote that “Communism is aware of its depraved existence, but that does not bother it, because it adores depravity in the same manner that a grub worm delights in its own form of existence” (Goff 1960, p.  141). Those people who lived in greatest poverty were viewed as especially ripe for Communist control, and “[t]‌he best way to fight Communism is to dry up its breeding spots” (A Manual for Survival 1961, p. 40; see also Schwartz 1953, p.  85). Communism was not simply contracted innocently based on one’s proximity to the disease source. Its spread was well-​planned, and those who might be infected were knowingly playing with fire, and the nation needed to be concerned about “a flood of undesirables inoculated with the virus of Bolshevism and Communism” (cited in “An Alien Antidumping Bill” 1921, p. 13). While filthy environments certainly may cause actual disease conditions, it’s also true that in a great many cases those who are living in poverty and segregated from the larger community are forced into such conditions. Even in these situations, however, they are generally held responsible for creating the environments that they find themselves forced into. The depictions of “ethnic” enclaves suggested “that immigrants were somehow responsible for creating

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 79 and perpetuating the terrible conditions in which they lived” (Park and Kemp 2006, p.  713). As Harriet Washington (2006) noted, the “tendency to see environmentally and socially triggered illnesses as inherent defects of Blacks is a troublingly persistent trend in American medical research” (pp. 152–​153). This issue will be taken up again in Chapter 8 within the context of reification of the organism metaphor. Finally, as Júlia Tololí (2007) noted, the diseased nature or infectious threat of lower-​class urban communities is often described by urban planners in a way that supports the “sanitation” of such neighborhoods through gentrification and other forms of large-​scale redevelopment. Just as a person’s body may be “taken over” by the state to protect the public from contagion, so can the community use its power of imminent domain to take ownership of private property that is deemed to pose a health threat to the broader community.

Disgust and the Organism Metaphor Many of the issues described in this chapter, whether they relate to the body (or social body) of the alien entity or the abodes they establish and inhabit, relate clearly to disgust. Because of its important role in our reaction to devalued populations, a brief overview of this emotion is in order. Paul Rozin, who has likely engaged in more disgust-​oriented research than any other scholar, notes that the term disgust originated in relation to food ingestion and concerns about how to protect our bodies from inedible or poisonous food.6 The term has evolved to become a more broad emotional reaction, but the protection of our bodies from physical or moral contagion is still a central feature (Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley 2009, p. 12). The closing off of the body is typified, for example, by the fact that the normal reaction of humans to things which we judge to be disgusting is to minimize the facial entryways to our body (e.g., by squinting eyes, scrunching our nose, tightly closing our mouth, etc.) and thus protecting ourselves from these contaminants (Chapman and Anderson 2013; Pizarro and Inbar 2015). Rozin and his co-​authors (1992) contend that our disgust sensitivity is so acute that people have a negative visceral reaction to items that haven’t yet been tainted, but may be in the future. For example, he and his research collaborators found that many people are fearful of wearing a new piece of clothing if told that a person with HIV will later wear it. In a number of his writings Rozin discusses the relationship between physical and interpersonal or moral disgust. Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley (2009), for example, note that research demonstrates that “disgust sensitivity is positively correlated with negative attitudes to foreigners, immigrants, out-​ groups, and deviant individuals” (p.  20). This closely relates to the studies that were noted in Chapter 2 conducted by Mark Landau and his associates, which compare the adverse reaction research subjects have to bodily contagion to the more broad socio-​cultural fear of immigrants or refugees. Current research on disgust sensitivity may also provide some insight into the nature of implicit bias. I’ll pick up on Rozin’s research in Chapter 8 in the

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80  Metaphoric Disease-Making discussion of dose insensitivity and the relationship between this concept and miscegenation fears. Much as we are wary of food that seems odd, unusual, or could be tainted, and are instinctively repelled by all matter of gross and disgusting animals and objects, we are suspect of those individuals who attempt to assimilate into the social body, especially if they may appear marked, or, to use Goffman’s term, “spoiled.” Small destructive animals such as worms and parasites are particular sources of fear because it’s difficult to adequately identify them. These low animals grade over into bacteria and microscopic germs, and not only can they replicate quickly once in the body, but they are indicative of those spaces that we need to refrain from entering. Moreover, those marked persons who inhabit such environments themselves take on this stigma, and contact with them may be just as dangerous as entering the contaminated spaces themselves.

Notes 1 While the structure of DNA wasn’t discovered until the 1950s, and therefore one could argue that the “genetics revolution” really began then, scientific interest in genetics became important with the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws in 1900, and was a foundational concern of the eugenics movement. 2 This continues today, with, for example, the refusal of families to note any allusion to HIV in death notices. 3 For a fascinating example of an actual parasite as an analogy for a feeble-​minded family, see the discussion of the “Tribe of Ishmael” section in Rafter’s White Trash (1988). 4 In fact, Coffee County Alabama erected a monument to the boll weevil. While this was ostensibly in recognition of the fact that the invasive insect had forced the community to diversify its agricultural economy and expand its economic base through widespread peanut farming, certainly the impact of the boll weevil on the African-​American population was another reason to “honor” the pest (see Giesen 2011, pp. 122–​124). 5 Some of the information in this section was included in the author’s 1999 article “Protecting the Social Body …”. 6 Thus the term is related to words such as gustable (able to be tasted), or gustation (the act of tasting).

References “An Alien Antidumping Bill.” 1921, May 7. The Literary Digest 69: 12–​13. Are These Things So? 1934. Woodhaven, NY: World Alliance Against Jewish Aggressiveness. “Are We Facing an Immigration Peril?” 1905, January 29. The New  York Times, Section IV: 1. Barr, Martin W. 1902. “The Imbecile and Epileptic Versus the Tax-​Payer and the Community.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 161–​165. Boston, MA: Press of George H. Ellis. Chapman, Hanah A., and Adam K. Anderson. 2013. “Things Rank and Gross in Nature:  A Review and Synthesis of Moral Disgust.” Psychological Bulletin 139: 300–​327.

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 81 Cole, Leon J. 1914. “The Relation of Philanthropy and Medicine to Race Betterment.” In Proceedings of the First National Congress on Race Betterment, pp.  494–​508. Battle Creek, MI: Race Betterment Foundation. “Combing Communists Out of GE.” 1953, December 19. Business Week: 29–​30. Davis, James J. 1922. “Immigration and Naturalization.” The Outlook 131: 256–​260. Ellis, William T. 1923, August 25. “Americans on Guard.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 23, 80, 83, 86. Fairless, Benjamin F. 1951. “Target for Termites.” Vital Speeches of the Day 17: 339–​341. Frazer, Elizabeth. 1923, August 25. “Our Foreign Cities:  Chicago.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 14–​15, 102, 105. Giesen, James C. 2011. Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton, Myth, and Power in the American South. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Goddard, Henry H. 1912/​1925. The Kallikak Family (reprint ed.). New  York:  The Macmillan Company. Goff, Kenneth. 1960, December. “Communism’s Depraved Soul.” The American Mercury: 138–​142. Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma:  Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-​Hall. Goodwin, Michele and Erwin Chemerinsky. 2016. “No Immunity: Race, Class, and Civil Liberties in Times of Health Crisis” (book review). Harvard Law Review 129: 956–​996. Gregg, Richard B. 2004. “Embodied Meaning in American Public Discourse during the Cold War.” In Metaphorical World Politics, edited by Francis A. Beer and Christ’l De Landtscheer, pp. 59–​74. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Graham, Reverend B. 1954. “Satan’s Religion.” The American Mercury 79: 41–​46. “The Harm of Immigration.” 1893, January 19. The Nation 56: 42–​43. Hauser, Ernest O. 1941. “America’s 150,000 Japanese.” The American Mercury 53: 689–​697. Hendrick, Burton J. 1923. “The Jews in America II: Do the Jews Dominate American Finance?” The World’s Work 45: 266–​286. Hoover, Herbert. 1954. “The Protection of Freedom.” Vital Speeches of the Day 20: 679–​682. Huntington, Ellsworth. 1935. Tomorrow’s Children: The Goal of Eugenics. New York: John Wiley & Sons. “Keep America ‘White’!” 1923. Current Opinion 74: 399–​401. Kirkbride, Mary B. 1911. “The Army of Sorrow.” The Survey 26: 228. Kite, Elizabeth S. 1913. “The ‘Pineys.’” The Survey 31: 7–​13. MacMurchy, Helen. 1916. “The Relation of Feeble-​ Mindedness to Other Social Problems.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 229–​235. Chicago, IL: The Hildmann Printing Co. A Manual for Survival. 1961. Wheaton, IL: Church League of America. McLaughlin, A. J. 1903. “The American’s Distrust of the Immigrant.” Popular Science Monthly 62: 230–​236. McWilliams, Carey. 1935. “Once Again the ‘Yellow Peril.’ ” The Nation 140: 735–​736. Menchen, H. L. 1937. “Utopia by Sterilization.” The American Mercury 41: 399–​408. Musolff, Andreas. 2010. Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. New York: Routledge. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2016. Political Metaphor Analysis:  Discourse and Scenarios. London: Bloomsbury.

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82  Metaphoric Disease-Making Nesbitt, Charles T. 1913. “The Health Menace of Alien Races.” The World’s Work 27: 74–​78. O’Brien, Gerald. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body: Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the Menace of the Feeble-minded.” Mental Retardation 37: 188–200. O’Hara, Frank. 1916. “The Restriction of Immigration:  A Medley of Arguments.” The Catholic World 104: 289–​302. Park, Yoosun and Susan P. Kemp. 2006. “ ‘Little Alien Colonies’:  Representations of Immigrants and Their Neighborhoods in Social Work Discourse, 1875–​1924.” Social Service Review 80: 705–​734. Paprocki, Maciej. 2014. “Infecting the Body Politic? Modern and Post-​Modern (Ab)use of Immigrants Are Invading Pathogens Metaphor in American Socio-​ Political Discourse.” In Cognitive Linguistics in the Making, edited by Kinga Rudnicka-​Szozda and Aleksander Szwedek, pp. 211–​230. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang. Pizarro, David A., and Yoel Inbar. 2015. “Explaining the Influence of Disgust on Political Judgment.” In Social Psychology and Politics, edited by Joseph P. Forgas, Klaus Fiedler, and William D. Crano, pp. 163–​172. New York: Psychology Press. Rafter, Nicole H. 1988. White Trash. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Roberts, Kenneth. 1924, February 2.  “Slow Poison.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 8–​9, 54, 58. Robinson, Caroline H. 1938. “Toward Curbing Differential Births and Lowering Taxes II: Eugenic Custody for Unfit Breeders.” Journal of Heredity 29: 260–​264. Ross, Edward A. 1913. “American and Immigrant Blood.” The Century Magazine 87: 225–​232. Rozin, Paul, Jonathan Haidt, and Clark McCauley. 2009. “Disgust: The Body and Soul Emotion in the 21st Century.” In Disgust and Its Disorders: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment Implications, edited by Bunmi O. Olatunjo and Dean McKay, pp. 9–​26. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Rozin, Paul, Maureen Markwith, and Carol Nemeroff. 1992. “Magical Contagion Beliefs and Fear of AIDS.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22: 1081–​1092. Sanville, Florence L. 1915. “Social Legislation in the Keystone State: A Program on Behalf of the Mentally Unfit.” The Survey 33: 667–​670. Schwab, Gustav H. 1893. “A Practical Remedy for the Evils of Immigration.” Forum 14: 805–​814. Schwartz, Fred. 1953. “Blueprint for Conquest.” The American Mercury 77: 83–​88. Selzer, Michael (ed.). 1972. Kike: A Documentary History of Anti-​Semitism in America. New York: World Publishing. Shaffer, E. T. H. 1923, September. “A New South: The Negro Migration.” The Atlantic Monthly 132: 403–​409. Sherbon, Francis. 1929. “Eugenics and Democracy:  Are the Two Compatible?” Eugenics 2: 28–​29. Stern, Leon. 1922. “Heredity and Environment: The Bilder Clan.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, pp. 179–​189. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press. “Termites of the Cross.” 1959, December. American Mercury: 61–​66. Todoli, Júlia. 2007. “Disease Metaphors in Urban Planning.” Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines 1: 51–​60. Wallis, Frederick A. 1921. “Treating Incoming Aliens as Human Beings.” Current History 14: 434–​445.

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Metaphoric Disease-Making 83 Warne, Frank J. 1913/​1971. The Immigrant Invasion (reprint ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Washington, Harriet A. 2006. Medical Apartheid:  The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Harlem Moon. Weber, John B. 1892. “Our National Dumping-​Ground:  A Study of Immigration.” The North American Review 154: 424–​430. Weiss, Feri F. 1921. The Sieve. Boston, MA: The Page Co. White, Arnold. 1904. “The Jewish Question: How to Solve it.” The North American Review 178: 10–​24.

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6  Penetration of the Social Body

Obviously, the fear of penetration of the national body by undesirable alien elements highlighted the need for increasing scrutiny of immigrants at ports of entry starting in the 1880s. This entailed not only medical inspections of immigrants but also attempts to capture stowaways, as well as intensified efforts over time to examine baggage, animals, and plants. A secondary concern was tightening up enforcement of the national borders apart from these ports of entry. As immigration became more restrictive, surveillance of the Canadian and Mexican borders was also increasingly important. “Now that we are tightening the restrictions and trying to partially dam the stream,” a house member said during debate on the 1921 Act, “the pressure at the weak points will be greater” (Congressional Record 1921, p. 1437). As noted in Chapter 4, as medical inspections came to be routinized as a typical component of receiving immigrants into the nation, the connection between foreigners and disease became formalized. As actual disease, or the threat thereof, became established in the public consciousness as a normal way of conceptualizing immigration, as well as the identification of presumably “foreign” bodies within the nation, metaphorical employment of medical concepts was increasingly embraced. The ingestion, digestion, and incorporation of such entities within the national body became a matter of increasing public concern.

Ingestion, Dispersion, and the Organism Metaphor1 James Aho (2002) describes the relationship between bodily orifices and formal and informal societal gateways, writing as follows: I take our private exit and entry zones, our orifices, to stand for the doorways out of and penetration routes into the social bodies of which we are members. And further, I interpret the disciplines imposed on eye, mouth, anus, genitals, ear, nose, and pore to symbolize efforts by groups to stave off contamination, invasion, or absorption by other groups. (Aho 2002, p. 10)

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Penetration of the Social Body 85 To expand on a thought discussed in Chapter 5, just as certain parts of the human body (e.g., mouth, nose, anus, vagina) provide a point of contact with the outside world, and thus require constant though often subconscious vigilance in order for us to maintain a degree of purity (Nussbaum 2004, p. 92), the places of entry into the nation or community must be under constant surveillance. The mouth, and the process of eating, provides a particularly apt metaphor for the concept of ingesting either beneficial or harmful alien elements into the social body. As Martha Nussbaum (2004) noted, “[d]‌isgust concerns the borders of the body: it focuses on the prospect that a problematic substance may be incorporated into the self. For many items and many people, the mouth is an especially charged border” (p. 88). Supporters of early immigration restriction policies in the United States prolifically employed metaphors of ingestion of various groups by the national body, and this image was closely related to the melting-​pot vision of all Americans fusing together and impacting one another in an essential way. As immigrants were “digested” or “absorbed” by the national body, they might –​if there were too many of them or they were of “poor quality” –​cause disease or discomfort to the country. Supporters of immigration restriction laws wrote that Americans wanted “a law that will … give America a chance to digest the millions of unassimilated, unwelcome and unwanted aliens that rest so heavily in her” prior to taking on a great many more (Roberts 1924, p. 58), and that “the stomach of the body politic [was] filled to bursting with peoples swallowed whole whom our digestive juices do not digest” (Strother 1923, p. 634). Cornelia Cannon (1923) focused on the disease element of the organism metaphor when she warned against the large number of immigrants, writing “we have begun to gag a bit over the size and quality of the dose.” “Is it simply,” she wondered, “that the food is strange and alien, or does it possibly contain poisons against which we have no antidote?” (p. 325). Henry Fairchild (1926), a staunch supporter of immigration restriction policies, contended that “there is such a close resemblance between a human society and a living organism that the analogy if not abused may serve a distinct purpose in clarifying the concepts involved” (p.  398). In 1907 George Chatterton-​Hill drew an analogy between the ingestion of food by the body and the integration of immigrant groups within the nation. He contended that both certain foods as well as immigrant classes could have a harmful impact on the body. Just as we desire food that provides energy and nutrition, we should also desire immigrants who energize the social body. Those immigrant populations that would not serve to enhance the health of the nation should not be ingested, or need to be excreted rather than incorporated (Chatterton-​ Hill 1907, pp. 257–​261; see also O’Brien 2003). Likely due in part to their involvement in farming and other areas within the food industry, the Japanese were particularly characterized as a source of national indigestion (O’Brien 2003). A  cartoon that appeared in The Literary Digest in 1924 showed Uncle Sam at a dinner table refusing a plate of “Japanese immigration,” stating that the food would give him “digestive

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86  Penetration of the Social Body trouble” (“End of the …” 1924, p. 15); and Miriam Deford (1935) contended that most Americans during the 1930s viewed the Japanese as “an indigestible ingredient in the national hash” (p. 332). The Chinese in California had also been characterized as a “cold pebble in the public stomach that cannot be digested” (cited in Jensen 2004, p. 330), and during the Red Scare, one anti-​ Communist writer noted that the fear of socialism was greater since “we have among us an undigested mass of millions of aliens” (“The Enemy Within …” 1919, p. 737). Frank Sargent, the commissioner general of immigration, said in 1905 that though the nation was blessed with an “iron constitution,” it could not “safely swallow such an endless course dinner … without getting appendicitis” (cited in “Are We Facing …” 1905, p. 1). Not only the nation but smaller bodies could also suffer indigestion if they had to assimilate too large a “helping” of a specific sub-​group. In support of Harvard’s efforts to maintain a small quota of Jewish students, one writer noted that “Jews are an unassimilable race, as dangerous to a college as indigestible food to a man” (Ham 1922, p. 226). The ingestion component of the organism metaphor held that foreign entities had to identify completely and merge seamlessly with the rest of the national body; thus there was little room for the diversity that one might interpret would be included in the image of the melting pot. As one immigration restrictionist wrote, the only way in which we could “assimilate” alien races, that is, convert them into our own life and not be converted into theirs, would be by eating and digesting them, thus destroying their protoplasm, hereditary traits, instincts, and cultures, and out of the elements of these building up our own organization. (Conklin 1921, p. 357) Food not only should be nourishing to the body, but distributed evenly throughout the organism in order to maintain healthy proportions. It was in large part due to the inability to properly digest or absorb the immigrant that an important focus for many restrictionists was on the proper distribution of new Americans throughout the country, especially away from urban centers and toward those rural areas where low-​wage work was required. Jews and Chinese in particular were derogated for “massing” in ethnic enclaves. Speaking of the former, Burton Hendrick (1923) wrote that “[a]‌ny race fifty per cent. of whose people live in one city, and the remaining fifty per cent. in other large American cities, can hardly be regarded as having becoming flesh of the flesh of the American body” (p.  377). As further described in Chapter  7, other groups, such as the Japanese on the West Coast, were a source of fear because they did spread out throughout the region, just as cancers grow and expand prior to spreading out throughout the body. Thus the organism metaphor morphed to fit the stereotypical characteristics of differing target groups.

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Penetration of the Social Body 87 A localized “sore” on the surface of the national body (e.g., the development of an enclave of uninvited and undesirable immigrants, such as Chinatowns or “Little Italy”) could be viewed as an indication of an “out-​group” infection (Craddock 1995; O’Brien 2003). A tract that discussed Communist incursion was titled “Disease in Our Flesh” (Sisk 1961) and The International Jew (1920) warned that the Jews had caused a sickness in the German national body, as indicated by the fact that “a[n]‌eruption has broken out on the surface of the body politic” (p.  23). Supporters of restriction warned that, barring better efforts at control, the United States would suffer a similar fate to other nations that had fallen to Communist incursion. Anti-​Communist writings noted that sores, bruises, or “soft spots” on the social body also invited unwanted entry. Communists, for example, were said to “rally uncleanly to every sore spot” and “drop poison in every bruise” (cited in Gregg 2004, p. 64). As with a presumably destructive bacteria, virus, or carcinogen, while the identification of potentially destructive immigrants may be presented as a difficult task, it is immeasurably easier than rooting out the infectious agent once it enters that body. As further discussed in Chapter  8, public health measures at the source or prior to penetration are viewed as much more effective than waiting for later points (e.g., spread and contagion) in the infection process to try and contain the problem. To expand on a previous point, many immigration restriction supporters advocated sending U.S. inspectors to the immigrant’s nation of origin. This would presumably not only be more effective than trying to identify “diagnosable” immigrants in the sea of humanity at Ellis Island, but would also allow such inspectors to get an idea of the “health” of the environments from which immigrants came. In much the same way, anti-​Communists often discussed the need for American intervention in those foreign nations that might “breed” Communism, in order to prevent its growth before it became a threat to the country. Importantly, prior to being able to diagnose a particular medical condition through internal investigations and measures (e.g., blood or tissue analysis), external indicators of the disease are used by physicians and other medical professionals as the primary diagnostic method. Arriving immigrants were subject to a close but quick physical observation for blemishes or other signs of possible underlying disease prior to either being “released” to the general population or placed in quarantine for a more thorough inspection. Considering the large number of incoming newcomers, a superficial bodily check had to suffice. Similarly, during the eugenic era, various bodily indicators were examined as a possible sign of feeble-​mindedness, mental illness, or other target conditions. To a certain extent this was a hold-​over from earlier pseudo-​scientific theories such as phrenology and craniometry, where either the shape of the head, the design of the skull, or overall cranial capacity was used as an indicator of underlying propensities or conditions (Gould 1981). A number of racial anthropologists in the United States and Europe engaged in a large variety of physical measures in an effort to determine racial, ethnic, or other forms of classification, in large part in order to

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88  Penetration of the Social Body justify measures of social control and differential treatment (Proctor 1988). Certainly the hope of many of these diagnosticians was that eventually some medical or scientific procedure would “prove” whether someone of questionable status could be accurately included as a member of the target group. Until such a development came about, drawing preliminary hypotheses from external indicators was seen as the best option. Much as the inherent but hidden elements of the individual might be postulated from what was observed on the surface of the body or through certain character traits, on a more macro level penetration by the undesirable group is marked by a changing physical landscape. Just as social control agents endeavor to diagnose internal tendencies or identities through surface “readings,” they also attempt to classify or judge the health of a geographic area through superficial observation. Non-​English storefronts and signs, as well as the speech of the local community, and businesses that cater to a specific “non-​American” clientele, have often served as observable signs of an underlying “disease.” Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves may be construed to be blights that have taken over previously pristine land. After returning to the United States after several decades away, Elizabeth Pennell wrote that she felt like a stranger in her native country, as it had been so completely overrun by foreigners (Pennell 1918). People form a sense of personal identity in part by the spaces they (or their ancestors) have inhabited, and when these spaces become tainted, this may negatively impact one’s sense of identity.

Related Metaphors The metaphor of the nation as a house is closely connected to the metaphor of the nation as a body (Santa Ana 2002, pp.  80–​81). Harvard professor Earnest Hooton, for example, noted that eugenics was a form of “biological housecleaning” (“Biological Purge …” 1937, p. 1). In her book Eugenic Design, Christina Cogdell (2004) compares the “streamlining” movement of the 1920s and 1930s with eugenics. Just as good American families desired clean, sanitary, well-​maintained homes with attractive, streamlined, and properly-​ working kitchen appliances; a primary goal of the eugenics movement was to design the most efficient type of human, or to allow only such persons entry into the country. Fiction writer Owen Wister (1921) co-​joined the nation as home metaphor and the animal metaphor by stating that immigrants, described as an overwhelming number of cuckoos, had taken over the nest of the American eagle, and were therefore threatening the nation’s future (p. 47). Within the context of the house metaphor there is constant vigilance over the maintenance of property and structural borders, and “gatekeeping” is a frequently used linguistic metaphor to refer to control of entryways (Lee 2002). Anti-​Communist writings bore titles such as the “The Enemy Within Our Gates” (1919) and “Communism at the Gates” (1932), and one writer warned of the “enemy at our portals” (Braden 1953, p.  432). Communist dupes were said to be “opening the gate,” and persons on the other side who

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Penetration of the Social Body 89 were formerly “isolated and treated as a malignant disease [have] been permitted to come out of quarantine” (Hadley 1931, p.  10). Whether talking about the human body, a building structure, or the nation, real or metaphorical “cracks and holes … expose its occupant to the outside world” (Lupton 1994, p. 56). “Defensible space” is a term used to describe the ability to control access to one’s private property or a communities’ borders (Newman 1972); on a macro level it could relate to the capability of a nation to control access to the interior of the country. Harper and Raman (2008) note that throughout the twentieth century national and other borders had been continually “redrawn in ways that determine rights of citizenship and even more profoundly, the very ‘borders’ of what constitutes ‘humanity’ itself ” (pp. 4–​5). Moreover, this reconstitution of borders is not only a way to manage citizenship and reinforce perceptions of nationalism, it is at the same time a means of restraining any foreign entity that “has been pathologised as a disease-​ carrying threat to the nation state” (Harper and Raman 2008, p. 5). Immigration restrictionists frequently employed medical or biological terminology to describe the penetration of the national body by undesirable foreign populations (O’Brien 2003). In 1923, Elizabeth Frazer wrote in the Saturday Evening Post that her research on immigration was designed to “investigate the foreign colonies imbedded in the fair physical corpus of New  York.” She had wondered “what would show up if we put an actual wriggling cross-​section of life under the microscope and took a squint through the lens?” (Frazer 1923, p. 6). As with Ellis Island, most national entryways include antechambers and quarantine bays where “questionable” immigrants may be segregated for a time in order to ensure further inspection. Thus the entryway serves as a “ ‘purifying filter,’ where strangers under arrest would be confined to prevent them contaminating civil society” (Sibley 1995, p. 53). Object metaphors were also frequently invoked within the context of immigration restriction. Because of the large number of immigrants and the superficial bodily inspection process, immigrants were apt to be objectified and the process compared to passing judgment on import goods. Those directing the inspection process “used the automobile metaphor at great length in describing Ellis Island inspections, and justifying the use and the efficacy of the glancing appraisal employed by inspectors to recognize defective bodies” (Dolmage 2011, p.  32). An article supporting the restriction of Japanese immigrants noted that “[e]‌xcluding Japanese coolies,” was “no more an insult to the Japanese nation than excluding Japanese goods” (“A Review of the World” 1907, p. 239). Military terminology was also frequently employed to describe the incursion of undesirable groups. Communists, for example, were said to be establishing “beachheads” in South America from which they could begin their occupation of the United States (Braden 1953, pp. 434–​435). As one might guess, “invasion” was the preferred term to describe the threat posed to the nation by undesirable immigrants. Anti-​immigration articles and books had titles such as “The Great Jewish Invasion” (Hendrick 1907) and

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90  Penetration of the Social Body “The Immigrant Invasion” (Warne 1913/​1971). Supporters of restrictive measures contended that “[a]‌r mies equal in size to the one we sent to France [during the First World War] land every two years on our shores” (Conklin 1921, p. 353) and that “like the hordes of old they are destined to conquer us in the end, unless by some miracle of human contriving we conquer them first” (Cannon 1923, p. 330). Frank Julian Warne (1913/​1971) said that the foreign invasion of the United States was “equal to one hundred and fifty full regiments of one thousand each.” Therefore, he continued ominously, these foreigners “were double the entire fighting strength of the United States Army” (p.  2). Is it necessary, he queried, that “the invader should come in warships instead of in the steerage hold of steam vessels before the migration can be called an invasion?” (p.  7). In 1892 a former New  York congressman intoned that restrictive immigration laws “were more necessary than forts and ships against hostile invasions” (cited in Curran 1975, p.  118). As was the case with many eugenicists, Harry Laughlin believed that over the course of time inferior immigrant groups often supplanted the dominant and stronger racial group in a country. Therefore, he noted, immigration constituted an “insidious invasion just as clearly as … the invading army” (“Europe as an Emigrant…” 1924, p. 1305). Often these military metaphors stood side-​by-​side with closely related organism metaphors, as when one supporter of Chinese restriction said that the public health threat posed by the Chinese was greater than if “the hordes of Genghis Khan should overflow the land, and with armed hostility devastate our valleys with the sabre and the firebrand” (Kraut 1994, p. 81). In response to East Coast immigration, restriction was supported since “American workingmen and workingwomen must be protected from “an invasion that would be worse than a plague” (“The Threatened …” 1920, p. 9). As alluded to in Chapter 2, military metaphors are often utilized in relation to group incursion in part because they overlap a great deal with and support the organism metaphor. One has only to look to Nazi rhetoric for proof of this. So extensive was their use of both forms of rhetoric in describing similar social issues that they were largely interchangeable.2 For example, German physicians were often portrayed as biological soldiers protecting the national body from pollution and disease (Aly, Chroust, and Pross 1994), and Hitler viewed himself as the most important public health official protecting the state from infection (Weindling 2000, pp. 19–​20). As noted in Chapter 2, it isn’t surprising that killing chambers were disguised as showers nor that pest control chemicals were utilized to murder people in these facilities (Aly, Chroust, and Pross, 1994; Musolff 2010; Weindling 2000). Invasion metaphors were particularly apropos since xenophobia reached its zenith on the heels of the First World War, when concern arose not only about the flood of refugees from war-​torn Europe, but additionally the potential inclusion of concealed Communists within this deluge. On the West Coast, invasion and other military metaphors were frequently employed during the lead-​up to World War II, especially in conjunction with anti-​Japanese

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Penetration of the Social Body 91 agitation. As has been discussed previously, metaphors tend to be particularly “potent” when there is what one might call a “reified correlate.” When epidemics are raging, disease metaphors are likely to be in vogue, and when the nation is fearful of military attack, invasion and other metaphors are embraced as apt ways of describing social problems. Published close on the heels of both the end of World War I as well as the Bolshevik revolution, the second volume of The International Jew (1921) held that the Jewish-​Socialist conspiracy was “like a moving army, which having done duty in Europe for the subjugation of that continent, is now being transferred to America” (p. 8). According to those opposed to Communism, one of the major problems with a free nation like the United States was that once socialists broke through the nation’s barriers, which they could easily do, they had the ability to insert themselves practically anywhere without notice. As with other biological terminology, “penetration” was a favored term in describing the potential threat of embedded Communists. Talking about “Joe Kowalski, the ‘little Stalin’ of Michigan,” Spolansky (1951) said that “[f]‌or more than three decades, this almost legendary Communist brain-​truster had buried himself in America’s vital organs and had resisted all attempts to pry him loose” (p. 41). As further described in Chapter 7, the physical penetration of the social body by Communists was to be followed by an “ideological penetration” (Braden 1953, p. 432), whereby they inserted their “poisonous” doctrines into vehicles for information dissemination, such as university classes and the news media. Another interesting biological metaphor employed by Spolansky (1951) in relation to Communist penetration was the “nucleus.” Once a nucleus, or small group of Communists, had penetrated sensitive or important corporate or government spaces, they could cause untold havoc on the nation once they received word to act (pp.  45–​46). Employing a similar linguistic metaphor, another writer noted that small Communist working groups were referred to as cells (Mayer 1952, p. 67). These terms didn’t always carry a negative connotation, as Communist writings themselves frequently referred to such biological metaphors. Jews too were said to be constantly invading the colleges with subversive ideas. As a result of this “[t]‌he sons of the Builders, the Makers, are being subverted to the philosophy of the destroyers” (The International Jew 1920, pp. 48–​49). As Jews were said to be taking over the various forms of media within the country, it was argued that internationalism, Zionism, and other “Jewish ideas” were inevitably making their way into movies, editorials, radio broadcasts, and other forms of mass media, often in very covert ways (“Anti-​ Semitism and its Cure” 1926). As with other such invasive ideals, propagandists maintained that the Jews could not win a fair fight, pitting their own philosophy against American or Christian ideals, and thus they needed the mass media in order to spread their subliminal messages (The International Jew 1922, pp. 47–​52). As with certain paranoid propagandist fantasies, this belief wasn’t entirely fabricated, and was a natural side-​effect of discrimination. As socialism and

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92  Penetration of the Social Body its by-​products (liberalism, diversity, etc.) were increasingly attacked during the McCarthy era, and blacklisting and media censorship expanded; writers, directors, and others increasingly felt compelled to use metaphors and other covert means to push “inappropriate” messages.3 This again calls to mind the issue of double binds. By forcing writers and directors to take such deceptive measures, control agents would be able to point to a number of real-​ world examples to support their contention of subliminal exploitation by the mass media. Because of this physical and ideological penetration by both Communists and Jews, the nation was vulnerable to being corrupted from the inside, a form of infiltration referred to by anti-​Communists as “boring from within” (Hargis 1960, p.  18). Unbeknownst to most Americans, there were said to be “the equivalent of some twenty combat divisions of enemy troops on American soil” (Hargis 1960, p. 19) who, on orders from Moscow or Berlin, “… can jam the wheels of American production and paralyze our national defense” (High 1941, p. 122). According to Fairless (1951), this would be “one great, all-​out sneak attack –​a gigantic Pearl Harbor” (p. 339). Like an invasive virus, Communists didn’t just seek to infiltrate the social body, but to drive themselves deep enough that it would be “impossible to root out the infiltration” (Hargis 1960, p. 72). As has been widely discussed in relation to fears leading up to Japanese internment, this view of penetration into sensitive military and industrial sectors was a pressing rationale for internment (“The Nisei …” 1940). Since it was widely presumed that Japanese or Communists who were situated in such positions were required by their leaders to remain inconspicuous, restrictionists didn’t need to point to any evidence of sabotage or incitement as justification for the fear they were warning Americans against. In the ultimate “no-​ win” situation, the potential for treachery by Japanese within the country was virtually proven by this lack of coordinated activity. As “[t]‌he Commanding General of the Western Defense Command stated, ‘[t]he very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken’ ” (cited in Thomas and Nishimoto 1946, p. 5). He added that it was “ominous” that no examples of disloyalty had been reported among the Japanese (Bendetsen 1942, p. 541). California Congressman John Costello said in the Congressional Record that the Japanese were “too smart” to engage in “individual acts of sabotage” (Congressional Record 1921, pp. 1434–​1443). The best way for them to serve Japan was to be docile and act in secret, thus all remained suspect. Once again the double bind was at work; Japanese were suspect if they engaged in “suspicious” activities, but also if they were completely acquiescent. As shadowy, difficult-​to-​detect invasive organisms that settled into the social body waiting for a chance to wreak havoc, undesirable social elements were often compared to the Trojan horse. “[U]‌ninvited and unwanted,” the Soviets were attempting to “unload a gigantic Trojan horse in our midst” (Nutter 1959, p.  300). J.  Edgar Hoover called the Communist Party in the

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Penetration of the Social Body 93 United States a “Trojan horse of disloyalty, coiled like a serpent in the very heart of America” (cited in Hargis 1960, p. 17); and a 1952 book describing the Communist menace was entitled New Footprints of the Trojan Horse (Mayer 1952). As with many of the examples discussed in this book, this one intertwines the war and organism metaphors. While it typically describes an interesting historic tactic of war, the concept of the Trojan horse is also frequently used in medicine to describe invasive disease phenomenon, such as the HIV virus. Such entities can settle in the body, replicating unknowingly for years or even decades before they are diagnosed. Contagion and disease spread are impossible if the organism maintains its purity, and thus we must be hyper-​vigilant in controlling boundaries and entryways. Anything (or person) that is viewed as possibly harmful to the organism is suspect and subject to exclusion or at least surveillance and quarantine. Of course the fear is exacerbated because we understand that purity is only a theoretical construction and taking strenuous efforts to maintain purity is a fool’s errand. At any given time we all have countless bodies taking up shop beneath our skin that are uninvited, unwanted, and which we would find disgusting if we viewed them under a microscope. Reproducing as freely as they like, these stowaways go unnoticed. With very few exceptions, they do us little harm and may even benefit the body in ways we don’t really understand. We can live much more securely, though, if we continue to believe they don’t exist, and that we can adequately control their access to our interior.

Notes 1 Some of the content of this section was originally published in the author’s article “Indigestible Food, Conquering Hordes, and Waste Materials,” Metaphor and Symbol (2003). 2 There is a good amount of literature related to this. The best source is probably Musolff (2007). 3 One of the more compelling examples of this is The Twilight Zone, which was able to discuss a number of topics that would have been otherwise censored because they were presented as “science fiction” (see Hoppenstand 2004).

References Aho, James. 2002. The Orifice as Sacrificial Site: Culture, Organization, and the Body. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Aly, Götz, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross. 1994. Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene. Trans. by Belinda Cooper. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. “Anti-​Semitism and its Cure.” 1926, June 12. The Literary Digest 89: 30–​31. “Are We Facing an Immigration Peril?” 1905, January 29. The New  York Times, Section IV: 1. Bendetsen, Karl R. 1942. “The Japanese Evacuation:  Democracy Protects Basic Rights of Evacuees.” Vital Speeches of the Day 8: 541–​544.

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94  Penetration of the Social Body “‘Biological Purge’ is Urged by Hooton.” 1937, February 21. The New York Times, Section II: 1, 3. Braden, Spruille. 1953. “The Communist Threat in the Americas.” Vital Speeches of the Day 19: 432–​437. Cannon, Cornelia, J. 1923. “Selecting Citizens.” The North American Review 217: 325–​333. Chatterton-​Hill, George. 1907. Heredity and Selection in Sociology. London: Adam and Charles Black. Cogdell, Christina. 2004. Eugenic Design:  Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. “Communism at the Gates.” 1932, March. The Living Age 342: 87–​88. Congressional Record. 1921, May 13. Volume 61, Part  2, 67th Congress, 1st Session: 1434–​1443. Conklin, Edwin G. 1921. “Some Biological Aspects of Immigration.” Scribner’s Magazine 69: 352–​359. Craddock, Susan. 1995. “Sewers and Scapegoats: Spatial Metaphors of Smallpox in Nineteenth Century San Francisco.” Social Science & Medicine 41: 957–​968. Curran, Thomas J. 1975. Xenophobia and Immigration, 1820–​ 1930. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. Deford, Miriam A. 1935. “The Japanese in Hawaii.” The American Mercury 35: 332–​340. Dolmage, Jay. 2011. “Disabled Upon Arrival:  The Rhetorical Construction of Disability and Race at Ellis Island.” Cultural Critique 77: 24–​69. “End of the ‘Melting-​Pot’ Theory.” 1924, June 7. The Literary Digest: 15. “The Enemy Within Our Gates.” 1919, December. The North American Review 210: 736–​738. Europe as an Emigrant-​Exporting Continent and the United States as an Immigrant Receiving Nation. 1924, March 8.  U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. Testimony of Harry H. Laughlin, pp. 1231–​1318. Fairchild, Henry P. 1926. Immigration:  A World Movement and Its American Significance. New York: The Macmillan Company. Fairless, Benjamin F. 1951. “Target for Termites.” Vital Speeches of the Day 17: 339–​341. Frazer, Elizabeth. 1923, June 16. “Our Foreign Cities:  New  York.” The Saturday Evening Post 195: 6–​7, 136–​138, 141–​142. Gould, Steven J. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Gregg, Richard B. 2004. “Embodied Meaning in American Public Discourse during the Cold War.” In Metaphorical World Politics, edited by Francis A. Beer and Christ’l De Landtscheer, pp. 59–​74. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Hadley, Edwin M. 1931. T.N.T. Chicago, IL: The Tower Press, Inc. Ham, William T. 1922. “Harvard Student Opinion on the Jewish Question.” The Nation 115: 225–​227. Hargis, Billy J. 1960. Communist America: Must It Be? Berne, IN: Economy Printing Company. Harper, Ian and Parwathi Raman. 2008. “Less Than Human? Diaspora, Disease and the Question of Citizenship.” International Migration 46: 3–​26. Hendrick, Burton J. 1907. “The Great Jewish Invasion.” McClure’s Magazine 28: 307–​321. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1923. “The Jews in America:  The Menace of the Polish Jew.” The World’s Work 45: 367–​377.

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Penetration of the Social Body 95 High, Stanley. 1941. “We Are Already Invaded.” The Reader’s Digest 40: 123–​126. Hoppenstand, Gary. 2004. “Editorial: Television as Metaphor.” The Journal of Popular Culture 37: 561–​563. The International Jew:  The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume I. 1920. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume II: Jewish Activities in the United States. 1921. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume IV: Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States. 1922. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. Jensen, Derrick. 2004. The Culture of Make Believe (2nd ed.). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Co. Kraut, Alan M. 1994. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace.” New York: Basic Books. Lee, Ericka. 2002. “The Chinese Exclusion Example:  Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882–​1924.” Journal of American Ethnic History 21: 36–​62. Lupton, Deborah. 1994. Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body in Western Societies. London: Sage Publications. Mayer, Herbert C. 1952. New Footprints of the Trojan Horse: The Communist Program to Conquer the World. New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, Inc. Musolff, Andreas. 2007. “What Role Do Metaphors Play in Racial Prejudice? The Function of Anti-​Semitic Imagery in Hitler’s Mein Kampf.” Patterns of Prejudice 41: 21–​43. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2010. Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust: The Concept of the Body Politic. New York: Routledge. Newman, Oscar. 1972. Defensible Space:  Crime Prevention Through Urban Design. New York: Macmillan. “The Nisei:  California Casts an Anxious Eye Upon the Japanese-​Americans in Its Midst.” 1940, October 14. Life 9: 75–​82. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2004. Hiding from Humanity:  Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nutter, Charles. 1959. “The Struggle for Survival.” Vital Speeches of the Day 25: 300–​303. O’Brien, Gerald V. 2003. “Indigestible Food, Conquering Hordes, and Waste Materials: Metaphors of Immigrants and the Early Immigration Restriction Debate in the U.S.” Metaphor and Symbol 18: 33–​47. Pennell, Elizabeth R. 1918. “A Stranger in My Native Land.” North American Review 207: 880–​890. Proctor, Robert. 1988. Racial Hygiene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. “A Review of the World.” 1907, March. Current Literature: 239. Roberts, Kenneth. 1924, February 2.  “Slow Poison.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 8–​9, 54, 58. Santa Ana, Otto. 2002. Brown Tide Rising:  Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Sibley, David. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion:  Society and Difference in the West. London: Routledge. Sisk, John P. 1961. “Disease in Our Flesh.” The Commonweal 74: 143–​146. Spolansky, Jacob. 1951. The Communist Trail in America. New York: The Macmillan Company. Strother, French. 1923. “The Immigration Peril.” The World’s Work 46: 633–​637.

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96  Penetration of the Social Body Thomas, Dorothy S., and Richard S. Nishimoto. 1946. The Spoilage:  Japanese-​ American Evacuation and Resettlement. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press. “The Threatened Inundation from Europe.” 1920. The Literary Digest 67: 7–​9. Warne, Frank J. 1913/​1971. The Immigrant Invasion (reprint ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Weindling, Paul J. 2000. Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe:  1890–​ 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wister, Owen. 1921. “Shall We Let the Cuckoos Crowd Us Out of Our Nest?” American Magazine 91: 47.

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Once the “diseased” sub-​group has penetrated the social body, especially in what are presumed to be disconcerting numbers, concerns arise related to its possible spread, and fears of contagion take hold among the general population. Primary forms of transmission of the deleterious traits that characterize the group include spread through miscegenation or mixed marriages and through very high levels of procreation among group members, especially when compared to the “normal” population. Spread can also occur through the widespread dissemination of “poisonous” information, or other forms of cultural or educational contagion that threaten to eat away at the national identity. Over the course of time blood has played a particularly important conceptual role within the context of both real and metaphoric contamination, so this issue is also discussed in this chapter. Finally, supporters of social control measures will argue that if the spread of the deleterious target group is not stopped, the end result will be the eventual decay of the social organism.

Miscegenation As noted previously, miscegenation constitutes a particularly disconcerting form of transmitting metaphoric diseases through the social body. By creating racial fusions, such couplings constitute a primary means of calling into question the simplistic racial and ethnic classifications that support boundary development and maintenance. Large-​scale fears of miscegenation within a society point to, among other things, a crisis of racial, ethnic, or national identity. For many restrictionists, the desire a person might have to engage in sexual relations with a member of a specified target group, and especially an individual belonging to a different race or class, was evidence enough to assume some form of underlying mental defect or hidden aberrance. Such desire in itself was enough reason to move an undiagnosed individual to “questionable” status. Hypothesizing why Martin Kallikak would possibly have sexual relations with a “feeble-​minded bar maid,” Goddard (1915) asked, “[m]‌ay not the moral condition and character which

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98  Decay of the Social Body allowed him to commit this immoral act have been the tick that indicated his simplex character?” (p. 310). In contending that a hidden recessive trait caused Kallikak (and presumably untold others) to act on such deviant emotions, the germination of moronity was driven into dark recesses of the body, augmenting fear and further supporting the need for diagnostic specialization. As noted previously, many immigration restrictionists were very familiar with the writings of Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and others who warned of the detrimental effects of “improvident race mixing” on nations. De Gobineau, the father of the “racial hierarchy,” wrote his major work on the subject, The Inequality of Human Races, in the mid-​nineteenth century. According to the French scholar, all great societies, including ancient Greece and Rome, became great because of the racial makeup of their citizenry. These nations degenerated, however, as their members bred with persons having less desirable racial characteristics. De Gobineau’s writings would greatly influence those who advocated immigration restriction, as well as the American eugenicists and other supporters of racial segregation (O’Brien 1999; Roberts 1924). Many of those who wrote during the era believed that some form of race mixing was beneficial to the country, but that in order to be worthwhile to the national organism, the newer racial elements should be physically, psychologically, and even ideologically similar to the “native” stock, and be superior representatives of their own race. Like an infectious disease that threatened a healthy community, however, those with poor racial qualities threatened to spread throughout the social body, causing widespread racial or blood pollution (Singerman 1998, p. 351). The authors of some of the eugenic family studies were especially likely to note when miscegenation had taken place within “dysgenic” families, as they were apt to assume that this “racial sin” began or exacerbated the families’ decline, or, as noted above, was a certain indicator of underlying moronity or another “mental” illness (Rafter 1988, pp.  7–​8). For no true American, they said, would want to have sexual relations with a person of another race. Michael Guyer (1913), for example, noted that the Tribe of Ishmael, a “degenerate” Indiana family, was the result of “the progeny of a neurotic man and a half-​breed woman” (pp. 40–​41). Madison Grant, a leader among American eugenicists and race theorists, was particularly concerned about Jewish “hybrids,” noting that inter-​marriages with Jews were ensuring that the “ ‘dwarfish stature, peculiar mentality and ruthless concentration on self-​interest’ of the Jew was in the process of being ‘engrafted upon the stock of the nation’ ” (cited in Ewen and Ewen 2006, pp.  294). Being an early conservationist, it’s certainly not surprising that Grant would employ a horticulture metaphor such as this (Spiro, 2009). Inter-​marriage between Japanese and Whites was compared to mixing oil and water. The offspring was “neither Japanese nor American, but a fearsome monstrosity” (Gulick 1914, p.  18). As was the case in Europe

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Decay of the Social Body 99 prior to Hitler’s rise, the language of disease was frequently invoked in the United States in discussing Jewish race mixing, with one author, for example, contending that other races needed to “be kept immune from further Jewish intermixture” (Bard 1927, p. 500).

Birth Differential A central argument for stringent immigration restriction measures was that the so-​called “native” Americans, and especially those in the higher classes, were having fewer children, while the less desirable social classes, including immigrant families, were expanding at a much greater rate. This issue was introduced in Chapter 2 in relation to Thomas Malthus’s population theory, which was expounded upon by eugenicists and racial anthropologists. In his book The Sieve, Weiss (1921) discussed several cases of potentially deportable immigrants who slipped through the system. In discussing one such case, involving a Russian woman with an “idiotic” child, he wonders what became of them. He speculated that the boy may “produce a whole regiment of idiots, drunkards, lunatics, public charges, in the next fifty years, who would cost the state thousands of dollars to support” (p. 88). Along with Malthus, the most important influence for spreading the birth differential fear was General F.  A. Walker (O’Brien 2013a). Walker was the superintendent of the census in 1870 and 1880, and later president of the American Economics Association. He focused his attention on what he considered to be particularly disconcerting demographic trends for the nation (Holt 1913, p. 473). According to Walker, even though millions of immigrants had entered the nation since the 1850s, the population of the country was barely more than it would have been with no immigration had the “native” population continued to procreate at its former rate. In other words, Walker contended that the “native” population was restricting its own birth rate, in part because of fears that their children would not be able to enter into labor competition with foreigners (Young 1922, p. 418). Walker’s writings would lead immigrant restriction advocates to contend that “every wave of inferior immigration to some extent sterilizes every stratum of our population above it; so that the question is not of adding new racial elements, but of substituting the new for the old” (Hall 1921, p. 604, see also O’Brien 2013a). It wasn’t, many wrote, that “American” children did not have the skills or abilities to compete with foreigners, but rather that they were more civilized, and could not live and work in the substandard conditions that foreigners were accustomed to (Holt 1913, pp. 472–​473). It wasn’t just that Euro-​Americans were less capable of living in hardship because of their higher culture, some actually implied an advanced physical evolution that disadvantaged the more privileged races in certain spheres of labor when they came into competition with more “animalistic” groups. Americans were said to have difficulty keeping up with the farm labor of first the Chinese and later Mexicans “due to [the] crouching and bending habits” of these other groups, to which they

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100  Decay of the Social Body were “fully adapted, while the white is physically unable to adapt himself to them” (cited in Lee 2002, p. 46). Walker’s arguments bolstered the race suicide fears that took hold during the early decades of the twentieth century, and were exacerbated by the growing birth control movement (Roberts 1914, p.  346). While Margaret Sanger and others argued that birth control could be a positive factor in reducing race suicide, eugenicists and immigration restrictionists for the most part felt that such voluntary methods would be used much more by the “responsible” members of the population, and thus exacerbate these problematic demographic trends. Sanger herself agreed that “morons” would refuse to access such options, and needed to be forcibly sterilized or institutionalized. “Every feeble-​minded girl or woman … of the moron class,” she suggested, “should be segregated during the reproductive period” (Sanger 1922/​1969, p. 101; see also O’Brien 2013b). The eventual over-​running of the nation by undesirable groups was often highlighted by shoddy demographic data designed to heighten the fear. Harry Laughlin contended that if reproduction rates remained unchanged, the descendants of new immigrants would be a majority of the population within four generations (Laughlin 1930, p.  167). Charles Davenport, Laughlin’s superior at the Eugenic Record Office and the leading figure in the American eugenics movement, added that “at present rates of reproduction, 1,000 Harvard graduates … would have only fifty descendants two centuries hence, whereas 1,000 Rumanians … in Boston, at their present rate of breeding, would have 100,000 descendants in the same space of time” (cited in Stoddard 1923, p. 113). A key argument of Japanese restrictionists in California was that the relatively high birthrates among Japanese in the state would lead to an eventual territorial conquest of the choice farmland in the state (Rowell 1920, p. 64). Thus the birth differential argument frequently invokes military metaphors, as it provides yet another way of viewing the group as engaging in an insidious invasion. The spread of undesirable populations through the social organism will eventually overwhelm the “native” population. Thus the rapid growth of alien “colonies” once they become established is often presented as similar to cancerous growths within the social body. The following quote demonstrates this comparison to cytology: In every city the tendency of the foreigners is to colonization. The units cohere, the mass crystallizes, and stands apart from other elements of the population. It is a process of segregation. A  nucleus comes from Europe and takes up a house; other groups, coming from the same village or province, gather around this center; it grows, pushing out the former occupants of the block, working ever from the inner courts and alleys out to the main streets or avenues, until at length the block becomes preponderatingly foreign, and stands there, as related to the city, like a flint surrounded by a bed of chalk. (Roberts 1914, p. 160)

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Decay of the Social Body 101 As noted in Chapter 6, military metaphors not only serve as apt descriptions of invasion from outside the country, but also from within. As the out-​group advances like an invading army the majority retreats: Fifteen years ago Harlem as it is today did not exist; …It has grown continuously, swollen by additions from without. As the colored area grew, it has pressed against contiguous white territories. Block after block gave way. Stubbornly each block yielded. White people did not want to see their neighborhoods turn black. First one street was set as the “dead line” … of the Negro advance, and then another. Always there were outposts, colored families breaking over the bounds and invading territory hitherto exclusively white. (Lane 1925, p. 694) Because of this unrelenting expansion, even those who felt they lived far away from such threats would eventually be confronted by them. Charles Davenport warned that “[n]‌o one should deceive himself by thinking that because this is happening in a far-​away rural district it does not affect him. The imbeciles and harlots and criminalistic are bred in the hollow, but they do not all stay there” (Davenport 1912, p. 1845). In another work Davenport (1913) noted that the spread of moronity in any portion of the nation should concern everyone, since such families “are not confined to one State; they spread out over the country” (p. 411). As introduced in Chapter  4, the specter of cancer was specifically used to highlight the rapid spread of moronity throughout the nation (O’Brien 1999). Feeble-​minded individuals were said to be “spreading like cancerous growths, disturbing the social life and infecting the blood of whole communities” (Stoddard 1923, p. 94, p. 106) and they were “not unlike the wild cells of a malignant growth which devour and destroy their host and thus, eventually, themselves” (Sherbon 1929, p. 29). Arthur Holmes (1914), describing feeble-​minded persons, stated that while “[a]‌few segregated and magnified germs are interesting objects of agreeable study, … a colony of the same germs become a horrifying mass of cancerous corruption” (p. 158). Finally, Ellsworth Huntington (1935) said that “crime and dependency keep on increasing because new defectives are born, just as new cancer cells remorselessly penetrate into sound tissues.” He went on to contend that “[i]t would by no means be a misnomer to call the American Eugenics Society a Society for the Control of Social Cancer” (pp. 45–​46). In the United States as well as Nazi Germany, this presumptive rapid procreation of undesirable groups relative to the desirable segment of the community was highly gendered. Females were objectified as responsible for race suicide on both ends. Women such as Deborah Kallikak and Carrie Buck were the primary symbols utilized by eugenicists and others to augment fear of racial conquest through expansive irresponsible breeding. The birth differential fear also, however, paved the way for the objectification of upper-​and

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102  Decay of the Social Body middle-​ class White “American” women, who were scolded for attending college and seeking options outside of the traditional roles of wife and mother, and were reminded that their primary duty was as a breeder in the battle to maintain the nation’s racial integrity. It certainly isn’t surprising that responsibility for race suicide was placed at the feet of women, and especially those women who wanted to attain a greater degree of control over their own lives. In an article that appeared in American Motherhood (1914), for example, Theodore Roosevelt supported the new occupational opportunities offered to women, but only so long as they didn’t diminish their primary role as mothers. In her analysis of the portrayal, in eugenic family studies, of those “unfit” mothers who were highly fecund, Elizabeth Yukins (2003) describes at some length the extent to which such women “were pathologized as dangerous biological contaminants.” She noted that disease-​related biological metaphors were primarily employed to describe the sexual behavior of “lower-​class” women (p. 165). It was a short step from seeing such women as sources of sexually transmitted diseases to viewing them as toxic entities in a more overarching sense. Eugenicist Alexander Johnson (1915) stated, for example, that feeble-​minded women “constitute a graver danger to the prosperity of the state than … a native pestilence” (p. 137).

Animal Metaphors in Relation to Disease Spread As noted, supporters of restrictive measures buttressed their fear of the transmission of deleterious conditions through examples of families in target populations with huge numbers of children. Such cases were taken as representative of the larger group, and reinforced the view that these persons could rightly be viewed as “low animals” or microorganisms, reproducing exponentially. There were said to be “settlements of the foreign-​born in our Middle West in which the typical woman dies trying to bring into the world a twelfth, fifteenth or twentieth child” (Ross 1922, p. 242). For many the remarkable fertility of the moron was demonstrated by cases of supposedly feeble-​minded parents, especially mothers, with huge numbers of children. Michael Guyer (1913) wrote of such a woman who bore twenty-​three children (p. 37). A central element of the “Great Chain of Being” is that those entities that fall higher on the Chain, or are perceived as being the most advanced, have fewer progeny than those that fall lower, or are more “primitive.” This continues to play a role in our view of divergent human populations. Rafter (1988) wrote that the “general unchastity that characterizes” the feeble-​minded within eugenic family studies was “an animal reversion, which can be paralleled in lower animals” (p. 53). The perception of Jews, Japanese, and African-​Americans as rapid procreators supported the general image of them as lower on the scale of humanity. As noted in Chapter 2, there is a great deal of overlap in certain respects between the organism and animal metaphors, and the birth differential

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Decay of the Social Body 103 argument is a prime example. The contention that undesirable social groups are spreading like a cancer or virus is not substantially different than the view that they are reproducing like rabbits, mice, or termites. Birth differential arguments supported the presumption of animalistic hyper-​sexuality among certain groups. This “sub-​human” form of sexuality was largely unencumbered by individual conscience or social decorum. While in the case of African-​American males comparisons were made with “rapacious” great apes, with other target groups, rabbits constituted the rapid procreators of choice: On January 20, 1942, … a Dr.  W.  R. Livingstone addressed a group at Oxnard, California, to the effect that “unless adequate preventive measures are enforced, the Japs will eventually overrun California and the Pacific Coast just as the rabbits, brought to Australia, have overrun that Island.” (Grodzins 1949, p. 49) In a similar quote, Charles Davenport (1913) noted that voluntary birth control or restrictive marriage laws would have little impact on reducing the spread of moronity since such persons would procreate regardless of restrictive legislation: Some years ago some rabbits were introduced into Australia, and these rabbits multiplied tremendously and overran the country. Now, I  can imagine an Australian lawmaker securing the passage of a law to the effect that these rabbits will not breed any more, thus helping to solve the problem of the destruction of the country by rabbits. This law is about as sensible as a law against the reproduction of defectives …. (Davenport 1913, p. 404) Animal metaphors were not only used to highlight excessive reproduction among target groups. In an interesting animal metaphor related to disease transmission, the Jew/​Communist was referred to as a “malarial-​mosquito” who was spreading germs in the form of the agitation of Southern Blacks to engage in civil disobedience and disrupt society (cited in Wakefield 1960, p. 398). Invasive animals were often juxtaposed alongside marginalized groups in part to highlight the harmful qualities of the latter. As noted in Chapter 5, African-​Americans who were moving into northern communities during the “Great Migration” were migrating in advance of the boll weevil,1 and were even referred to as “ ‘boll weevil’ Negroes” (Bruere 1923, p.  433). Likewise, both Japanese beetles and Japanese immigrants were perceived as dual threats to California and other western states. As Shinozuka (2013) notes in discussing the latter, the “movement of Asian bodies alongside the increasing traffic that included goods from Asia and Asian insects provided the symbolic imagery with which federal officials envisioned these alien invaders” (p. 832). She further notes that the juxtaposition was particularly apt given the impact of both

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104  Decay of the Social Body types of “invaders” on farming in the western states, and the rapid reproduction of the beetles was a thinly veiled rational for supporting immigration restriction. Anderson (2017) added that invasive insects (and by extension, we may presume, invasive populations) “are ambassadors of entropy, appearing in large numbers during floods, wars, economic decline or other periods of disorder –​associated with disaster but also bringing the risk of ‘natural disaster’ with them” (p. 16). Another animal metaphor often employed to push across the fear of inundation is the octopus, reaching out for unsuspecting bodies. The Kallikaks and similar families were said to be “constantly sending out their tentacles into the higher biological strains” (Young 1922, p.  431), and Communists were also frequently described in this way (Marcus 1953, p. 120).

Non-​Physical Forms of Transmission Although its growth was from “mind-​control” and the spread of “misinformation” rather than from massive propagation or miscegenation, Communism was also framed as an encroaching threat that was likely to contaminate the healthy segments of society. From the Red Scare to the McCarthy era, anti-​ Communist measures were supported by maps that depicted the rapid spread of Communism throughout the world. Such maps present the impression of a spreading epidemic that threatens to overwhelm a community or nation unless protective measures are taken. Similarly, the ominous growth and movement of African-​Americans during the period of the “Negro Migration” was often depicted through maps that displayed the spread of the Black population over time by black dots of various sizes on areas of the United States. This gradual darkening of the nation over time left an unmistakable message that there were few “clean” or “pure” regions of the nation left (Smith 1966, pp. 161–​162). The conceptualization of the “domino theory” as a form of contagion, which was invoked to support the Vietnam War, was an obvious example of the organism metaphor, as those nations which “touched” Communist countries might fall prey to the infection. As Charteris-​Black (2009) wrote, “The metaphor of communism as a disease communicated a particular political argument –​i.e. the speed and inevitability of the spread of communism that entailed the need to take remedial action. The metaphor of the domino theory communicated the political argument that if one country fell to communism then so would its neighbors” (p.  108). Fred Schwartz (1953) contended that other than the Soviet Union, no other country had fallen to Communism unless it shared a border with a Communist nation (pp. 87–​88). During the Korean War one anti-​Communist wrote that the real “battleground over which they fight is the human mind, and their conquest of a single red-​blooded American brain cell may be more significant, in the last analysis, than a shift of ten miles on the battlefront in Korea” (Fairless 1951,

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Decay of the Social Body 105 p.  340). Again, a biological metaphor was used to refer to this process, as Budenz (1954) wrote the following during the middle of the McCarthy era: All groups which the Communist Party is seeking to penetrate are termed “mass organizations” in Communist parlance, and by Red penetration and eventual control they are to be made into “transmission belts” for broadening the influence of the Party. In Foundations of Leninism, Stalin lays down this use of “transmission belts” by a centralized, disciplined Party as an essential feature of Communist efforts. (Budenz 1954, p. 35) The word “poison” was frequently used to refer to potentially “harmful” information, as when “liberal” educators spread “the false and dangerous poison” that had been fed to them by Communists, or when the latter are referred to as “the disseminators of poison gas” (Hargis 1960, p. 61). Hadley (1931) noted that while poison that was “administered through the stomach is not contagious,” the poison that had been “lodged in the brain at these hotbeds of Socialism [colleges and universities] spreads, and should it break [out] in [an] epidemic no army can effect a quarantine” (p. 12). Speaking of “ultra-​red” unionization pamphlets, Frazer (1923) contended that this “inflammatory rot” was “as poisonous and destructive in its effects as typhus germs” (p. 88). Former President Woodrow Wilson argued that “hyphenated Americans … have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life” (cited in Jensen 2004, p. 493), and, according to Kenneth Burke (2006), Hitler referred to “the infection of ‘Jewish’ ideas such as democracy” as the “spiritual equivalent” of “ ‘blood poisoning’ by inter-​marriage” (p. 152).

The Unilateral Nature of Transmission2 An important issue related to the perception of transmission within the context of the organism metaphor is that there is usually no reciprocity involved. Bad blood contaminates good blood, “other” races bring down “our” race. Certainly this isn’t surprising, since the fear of the contaminating group would be diminished if this wasn’t the case. It is compellingly ironic that while the outsider is always taken to be a fundamentally weaker entity, his/​her blood or racial attributes seem to be much more virulent than the dominant group. Miller (1997) writes that to those advocating restriction and control, “[t]‌he world is a dangerous place in which the polluting powers of the low are usually stronger than the purifying powers of the high” (p. 9; see also Beck 2011, pp. 27–​28). Eugenic writings highlighted this adverse impact of “lower” races or classes. According to Henry Goddard (1912/​ 1925), the author of the infamous Kallikak family study, the “cacogenic” or defective descendants of Martin Kallikak, the families’ originator, appeared to have little if any of his positive characteristics after his blood had been “contaminated by that

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106  Decay of the Social Body of the nameless feeble-​minded girl” (p.  69). Michael Guyer (1927) pointed out that when others mated with members of the Kallikak family, instead of “redeeming the tainted stock,” the “new blood … itself became vitiated” (p. 347). In a different work Guyer wrote that “we cannot continue to drink the sluggish blood of the pauper and the imbecile into our veins and hope to escape unscathed” (Guyer 1913, p.  46). Discussing the Jukes, another “dysgenic” family, a leading eugenicist contended that “a sound, energetic stock [was] ruined by an infusion of Jukes blood” (Stoddard 1923, p. 247), and drawing on an early, simplistic form of Mendelism, many eugenicists perceived the human species to be composed of “pure” and “impure” strains, and the primary goal of eugenics was to ensure that “the family lines of pure strain shall not be contaminated” (Gosney and Popenoe 1930/​1980, p. 7). Immigration restrictionists sounded a similar refrain, not only arguing that miscegenation was bad because it would dilute “American” qualities, but more so because it would overcome them. Foreigners, it was argued, had “permeated the people of the Western Hemisphere with their racial strain” (Warne 1913/​1971, p. 8). Restrictionists warned that the natural result of an “indiscriminate mixing of races” would be “mongrelization” and “the reversion to a primitive, generalized type of the species” (Fairchild 1926, p. 409). As noted above, most early cultural or racial anthropologists contended that racial crossings would only be beneficial so long as the groups were not dramatically divergent in “quality.” (Chamberlain 1913, pp. 275–​285). When they weren’t, the “lower” groups would likely be predominant. Refusing to restrict immigration would ensure that “the tall, big-​boned, blue-​eyed, old-​fashioned ‘white’ American” would be “bred out entirely by little dark peoples” (“Keep America ‘White’ ” 1923, p. 399). To reiterate a point made in Chapter 4, for those groups that were viewed as different or foreign in elemental and unchanging ways, obviously an amalgamation could not occur through inter-​marriage or efforts to assimilate. Since that which made these groups different from “Americans” was essential and unchanging, the offspring would take after one or the other of the parents. Thus it was contended that in relations between Jews and non-​Jews, only Jewish children would be born (Are These Things So? 1934, p. 288).3 In Nazi Germany there was also a great deal of fear that “the Jews possessed a dominant gene that consistently trumped the Aryan” (Biale 2007, p. 143). Thus their race purity laws could be presented as a form of racial protection. According to Singerman (1998), many race theorists held that “the indelible Jewish racial type was transmitted over the generations and emerged dominant even in spite of marriages with non-​Jews and in defiance of marginal racial admixture” (p.  346). As was the case in Nazi Germany, many anti-​ Semitic writings in the United States held that Jews were corrupting the blood of the nation while also maintaining the purity of their own race. These seemingly contradictory ideas could be embraced at the same time if one assumed that “Jewishness” was always predominant, regardless of the coupling. The issue of dose insensitivity that is described below supports this notion that

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Decay of the Social Body 107 regardless of how small the degree or amount, a tainted individual was thoroughly tarnished and largely irredeemable. Of course, as alluded to above, in the case of both African-​Americans and Jews, the pervasive stereotypical image of hyper-​sexuality and prepotency were highly gendered, as it was males who were put forth as primarily responsible for their spread. Whereas such an image fostered the “animalization” of African-​American males, in the case of Jews it was largely conspiratorial and planned, as part of their plot to infect the nation with their Jewish “essence” to prepare the way for a Jewish-​Communist takeover in keeping with the precepts of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Blood and Transmission Blood serves as a potent metaphor for transmission of undesirable qualities for a large number of reasons. First, blood has long been employed to delineate the identity of not only individuals but social bodies as well, and deterioration, pollution, or dilution of the blood of a nation portends their eventual downfall. Secondly, prior to the discovery of genes, blood was taken to be the substance that transmitted heritable characteristics through the population from one generation to the next. As Mitchell Hart (2009) wrote, even long after it became proven that genes carried hereditary traits from one generation to the next, “popular ideas and images continue to see blood as a medium for the transmission of identity” (p.  2). Finally, as some of the examples below point out, like poison, blood was an important concept to describe the potentially destructive impact of various groups, especially those with a presumptive foreign origin, because of its fluid nature. Since immigrants normally travel overseas or cross rivers, water serves as an important metaphor in images that denigrate them, as migrants may be referred to as wetbacks or boat people and fears arise as the “seepage” of immigrants across borders portends a break in the levee or dam (“California’s Anti-​Japanese Campaign” 1920, p.  15; see also Santa Ana 2002, pp.  72–​74). Just as massive “[b]‌odies of water are difficult to hold back,” (Cunningham-​Parmeter 2011, p. 1563), blood, along with any dangerous entities contained within it, is difficult to control because of its fluidity (Lederer 2013, pp. 254–​255). Due to their non-​ solid nature, blood and other bodily fluids “collapse boundaries and cross streams of unrelated individuals” (Lederer 2008, p. 110). This image of the target group as a devastating flood or tide was invoked even when the group didn’t necessarily traverse bodies of water to do its damage. Regarding the “Negro Migration” of the 1920s, for example, one writer noted that this mass movement “may alter the entire aspect of the racial question in America, and possibly swell into one of those mighty floods which, like the flight of Tater tribes, changes history” (Shaffer 1923, p. 403). The spread of immigrant traits within American society was described through the influx of foreign blood, which was threatening to swamp the “original” racial characteristics of America. The “foreign blood” that was

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108  Decay of the Social Body entering the body of the nation needed to be absorbed as “further transfusion is anything but desirable,” opined a letter in the Washington Herald (cited in “The Threatened Inundation …” 1920, p. 9). One writer contended that “new blood” was only desirable if it was properly distributed throughout the nation, “to prevent the formation of clot-​like ‘foreign colonies’ ” (cited in Singerman 1998, p.  363). Immigrants were described as a “stream of impurity” (“An Alien …” 1921, p. 13) that needed to be thoroughly filtered (“Europe as an …” 1924, p. 1262), a “tide of pollution” that had to be purified (Ellis 1923, p. 80), and a “turgid stream of undesirable and unassimilable human ‘offscourings’ ” (“Keep America ‘White’ ” 1923, p. 399). Water is frequently used as a metaphor for salvation, purification, and cleansing (Beck 2011, p.  38), and pollution through metaphorically diseased sub-​populations therefore mitigates these beneficial attributes. To quote Beck, “the morality/​cleansing metaphor is deeply rooted in the life of the body, in this case our primitive experiences with dirt, water, and hygiene. As they say, cleanliness is next to godliness” (Beck 2011, p. 44). In her book Eugenic Design, Christina Cogdell (2004) describes the importance of the stream metaphor in eugenics, as it relates both to maintaining the purity of the human bloodstream but also the streamlining, or the efficient production of the species. Blood Poisoning and Dose Insensitivity An especially important issue in blood and other forms of contamination, whether metaphoric or real, is the issue of dose insensitivity. Richard Beck (2011) provides an interesting example of this concept, which was originally investigated by Paul Rozin and his co-​authors in a series of experiments. Imagine, Beck says, that I offer “you a glass of juice. But before I hand the glass over to you I  drop a cockroach in the juice, stir it around, and then remove the bug from the glass? Will you drink the juice?” (p. 22). As he writes, many people would refuse to drink the juice, and this would be true even if the cockroach had been dunked in a large vat of juice instead of a small glass, or if the juice was filtered several times. “Judgments of contamination,” he continues, are largely “impervious to logic and reason” (p. 23). Indeed, as noted elsewhere within this book, the notion that concerns over bodily contamination act in a largely subconscious manner supports the widespread use of the contagion metaphors to denigrate marginalized groups. Dose insensitivity also closely relates to the issue discussed above related to the unilateral notion of transmission. To Whites who were paranoid about racial dilution, it didn’t really matter how much “African or Asian” blood mixed with “White” blood, adulteration would remain; thus the importance of the “one-​drop” rule in relation to racial integrity legislation. To those obsessed with racial segregation, one drop of Negro blood “was more powerful than the Jupiter ‘C’ rocket” (cited in Lederer 2008, p. 129). Lederer writes that a South Carolina legislator said that he “would refuse the blood

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Decay of the Social Body 109 from a black donor even [if it] meant his own certain death” (p. 129). Because of dose insensitivity, those persons and groups who were difficult to classify or seemed to fall on category boundaries “had to be defined as black in order to preserve the notion of pure whiteness” (Gross 2010, p. 88).

Decay of the Social Body An 1862 article opposing continued Chinese immigration was entitled “Chinese Immigration and the Physiological Causes of the Decay of a Nation” (cited in Kraut 1994, p. 81). Under a diagram of the Kallikak family, eugenicist Albert Wiggam (1924) refers to the “bad” side of the Kallikak family as “nation-​ destroying descendants” (p. 8). For many advocates of restriction the eventual outcome of a nation’s or communities’ refusal to recognize and take action against the target group was degeneration followed by death of the social body. California Congressman James A.  Johnson claimed that the price of allowing residence to “the Hottentot, the cannibal from the jungles of Africa, the West India Negro, the wild Indians, and the Chinaman” would be a youth suffering from “rotting bones, decaying and putrid flesh, poisoned blood, leprous bodies and leprous souls” (cited in Kraut 1994, p. 83). Of course in this example one could consider the vibrant youth to be a metaphoric stand-​in for a previously healthy America. Writers described in lurid detail the fate of other previously great nations or communities that did not adequately defend themselves from the invasive, corrupting target group, and paid a heavy price for their inaction (Stoddard 1922, pp. 280–​286). Just as the bodies of those who have succumbed to disease provide a lesson in preventive medicine or public health, and serve as cautionary tales whose warnings we must attend to, so too does the fall of nations communicate important facets of the actions that must be taken to preserve national health and security. As noted previously, many agreed with de Gobineau and other race theorists that nations such as ancient Greece and Rome had fallen because of race degeneration and the spread of diseased or inferior blood within the population. These writers held that racial mixing doomed these great civilizations, and would do so in the United States unless great care was taken to protect the racial composition of the nation. The degenerate race, de Gobineau (1966) wrote, “and his civilization with him, will certainly die on the day when the primordial race-​unit is so broken up and swamped by the influx of foreign elements, that its effective qualities have no longer a sufficient freedom of action” to maintain a highly civilized culture (p. 25). Lothrop Stoddard (1923) wrote as follows in describing race mixing: “This insidious disease, with its twin symptoms the extirpation of superior strains and the multiplication of inferiors, has ravaged humanity like a consuming fire, reducing the proudest societies to charred and squalid ruin” (p. 88). After the turn of the century, Americans on the West Coast were warned that the race mixing that characterized the Hawaiian Islands was its own fate

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110  Decay of the Social Body if it did not pass and enforce laws to keep out the Japanese (Rowell 1920). Those on the East Coast were similarly informed that the Jews and other Eastern European groups had already taken over New  York, and that the process of alien defilement was well underway in other large cities. As noted in Chapter  6, these examples point out not only that the target group had “spoiled” choice land within the country, but moreover that these were properties that had originally been developed by the “builders” of the nation. In his 1909 book, Expansion of Races, Charles Woodruff provided a particularly clear example of the organism metaphor in relation to immigrant Jews: The same law applies to the Jew as applies to a bacillus or any other organism which may be beneficial if few and in place, but deadly if numerous and out of place. … Just as soon as he becomes so numerous as to be an economic disease he is eradicated. The persecution of the Jew, then, is and always has been a natural law, because it is necessary for survival of the supporting organism. (Woodruff 1909, p. 383) Several pages later, Woodruff contends that Poland had “died of this ethnic infectious disease” (p. 385).4 Likewise, over a decade prior to Hitler’s chancellorship, The International Jew (1920) held that “[t]‌he main source of the sickness of the German national body is charged to be the influence of the Jews” (p.  23). These authors contended that a similar fate would befall the United States if it did not limit Jewish immigration. Another unflattering portrait, aptly entitled “The Conquest of America,” presented an America that was already in the process of being conquered by the alien Jew. Comparing nations to organisms, Herman Scheffauer admonished: In a cosmic sense and to the eye of historical time nations are but vast and loosely constructed organisms subject to all natural laws of growth and decay, and to many ills and disasters, and for each in turn the great clock of eternity must strike twelve. This is true even of the once dominant race within a nation. When it is no longer strong or worthy to rule, then conquest comes, though it may not come as of old, by fire and sword, but by a gradual permeation of vigorous alien people. (cited in Singerman 1998, pp. 353–​354) Being members of a massive conspiracy, the Communists in the country, along with their unwitting dupes, were taken to be engaged in a planned effort to bring about deterioration of the country. After infiltrating sensitive areas of the nation they would begin “their erosion process.” According to Claude Bunzel (1959), the end result was given a name that was decidedly in keeping with the organism metaphor  –​“decomposition” (p.  73). Once the process was complete there would be no need to even attack the United States, it would “fall like an overripe fruit into” their hands (Marcus 1953,

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Decay of the Social Body 111 p.  118). The anti-​Communist Manual for Survival (1961) heavily employed organism-​metaphor terminology in describing how the Communists were planning to take over the nation. Once large segments of the community were “neutralized” by infighting and liberal ideology, the deadly virus of demoralization and defeatism must be injected into the blood stream of the nation’s morale. Basic faiths such as religion and patriotism must be leached away and thoroughly rotted through so that when the final blow comes a badly divided, confused and demoralized people are incapable of forming any united front against the Communist enemy. (Manual for Survival 1961, p. 52) Some groups, it was assumed, such as the Communists and the Japanese during the Second World War, were purposefully planning to carry out activities that would lead to the eventual decay of the national body. Other denigrated groups, such as most immigrants and those who were labeled as feeble-​minded, were taken to be largely oblivious to the threat they posed. In either case, however, the need to protect against their destructive influence was a necessary means of community and national preservation. Those who failed to see this were viewed as dupes, pawns, or worse, traitors, willing to invite a social or racial contagion that would “de-​Americanize” the country and strike at the heart of all that our ancestors had suffered to create. It would, propagandists often maintained, put their own families and children at risk.

Notes 1 In fact, the boll weevil was able to do double duty as a source of comparison. It was not only used in relation to African-​Americans, who were perceived as being so weak that they were being displaced by microscopic insects, but since it arose from Mexico it was employed to heighten fears of the impending migration of Mexicans. Just as the boll weevils were tearing up cotton crops, it was argued that hordes of Mexicans were coming across the border to take the jobs of “American” farm workers. 2 Some content in this section was originally published in the author’s 1999 article “Protecting the Social Body …”. 3 Some Nazi race theorists took this even farther, writing that if an Aryan woman had sexual relations with a Jew, this would so infect her that it would “corrupt her blood forever,” and she could only bear Jewish children thereafter, even if later sexual encounters were with Aryan men (cited in Thurston 1935, p. 101). See also Chapter 4 of Biale (2007). The belief also finds its way into more contemporary white supremacist writings (for an example, see Ezekiel 1995, p. 48). 4 I credit Robert Singerman for calling my attention to this source, in his “The Jew as Racial Alien” (1998, p. 352).

References “An Alien Antidumping Bill.” 1921, May 7. The Literary Digest 69: 12–​13. Anderson, Bridget. 2017. “The Politics of Pests: Immigration and the Invasive Other.” Social Research 84: 7–​28.

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112  Decay of the Social Body Are These Things So? 1934. Woodhaven, NY: World Alliance Against Jewish Aggressiveness. Bard, Josef. 1927. “Why Europe Dislikes the Jew.” Harper’s Monthly 154: 498–​506. Beck, Richard. 2011. Unclean:  Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. Biale, David. 2007. Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bruere, Martha B. 1923, July 15. “The Black Folk Are Coming On.” The Survey: 432–​435. Budenz, Louis F. 1954. The Techniques of Communism. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company. Bunzel, Claude. 1959. “Enemies of Human Freedom.” The American Mercury 89: 70–​85. Burke, Kenneth. 2006. “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle.” In Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion:  New and Classic Essays, edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, pp. 149–​168. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. “California’s Anti-​ Japanese Campaign.” 1920, July 31. The Literary Digest 66: 14–​15. Chamberlain, Houston S. 1913. Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. Trans. by John Lees. New York: John Lane Co. Charteris-​ Black, Jonathan. 2009. “Metaphor and Political Communication.” In Metaphor and Discourse, edited by Andreas Musolff and Jörg Zinken, pp. 97–​115. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Cogdell, Christina. 2004. Eugenic Design:  Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Cunningham-​Parmeter, Keith. 2011. “Alien Language: Immigration Metaphors and the Jurisprudence of Otherness.” Fordham Law Review 79: 1545–​1598. Davenport, Charles B. 1912, March 2. “The Nams: The Feeble-​Minded as Country Dwellers.” The Survey 27: 1844–​1845. _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ _​ . 1913, September. “Importance of Heredity to the State.” The Indiana Bulletin: 394–​413. Ellis, William T. 1923, August 25. “Americans on Guard.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 23, 80, 83, 86. Europe as an Emigrant-​Exporting Continent and the United States as an Immigrant Receiving Nation. 1924, March 8.  U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. Testimony of Harry H.  Laughlin, pp. 1231–​1318. Ewen, Elizabeth and Stuart Ewen. 2006. Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality: A History of Dominant Ideas. New York: Seven Stories Press. Ezekiel, Raphael S. 1995. The Racist Mind:  Portraits of American Neo-​Nazis and Klansmen. New York: Viking. Fairchild, Henry P. 1926. Immigration:  A World Movement and Its American Significance. New York: The Macmillan Company. Fairless, Benjamin F. 1951. “Target for Termites.” Vital Speeches of the Day 17: 339–​341. Frazer, Elizabeth. 1923, June 30. “Our Foreign Cities:  Pittsburgh.” The Saturday Evening Post 195: 23, 85, 88, 91, 94. Gobineau, Arthur de. 1966. The Inequality of Human Races. Trans. by Adrian Collins. Los Angeles, CA: Noontide Press.

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Decay of the Social Body 113 Goddard, Henry H. 1915. “The Possibilities of Research as Applied to the Prevention of Feeble-​Mindedness.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 307–​312. Chicago, IL: The Hildmann Printing Co. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1912/​1925. The Kallikak Family (reprint ed.). New  York:  The Macmillan Company. Gosney, E.  S., and Paul Popenoe. 1930/​1980. Sterilization for Human Betterment (reprint ed.). New York: The Macmillan Company. Grodzins, Morton. 1949. Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gross, Ariela J. 2010. What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gulick, Sidney L. 1914. The American-​ Japanese Problem. New  York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons. Guyer, Michael F. 1913. “Sterilization.” In Proceedings of the Wisconsin Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 33–​60. Madison, WI: The Bobbs-​Merrill Company. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1927. Being Well-​Born: An Introduction to Heredity and Eugenics. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-​Merrill Company. Hadley, Edwin M. 1931. T.N.T. Chicago, IL: The Tower Press, Inc. Hall, Prescott F. 1921. “The Present and Future of Immigration.” The North American Review 213: 598–​607. Hargis, Billy J. 1960. Communist America: Must It Be? Berne, IN: Economy Printing Company. Hart, Mitchell B. 2009. “ ‘Jewish Blood’: An Introduction.” In Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in History, Religion, and Culture, edited by Mitchell B. Hart, pp. 1–​13. London: Routledge. Holmes, Arthur. 1914. “Eugenics.” The Institution Quarterly 5: 151–​161. Holt, William L. 1913. “Economic Factors in Eugenics.” The Popular Science Monthly 11: 471–​483. Huntington, Ellsworth. 1935. Tomorrow’s Children: The Goal of Eugenics. New York: John Wiley & Sons. The International Jew:  The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume I. 1920. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. Jensen, Derrick. 2004. The Culture of Make Believe (2nd ed.). White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Co. Johnson, Alexander. 1915. “The Case of the Nation vs. the Feebleminded.” The Survey 34: 136–​137. “Keep America ‘White’!” 1923. Current Opinion 74: 399–​401. Kraut, Alan M. 1994. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace.” New York: Basic Books. Lane, Winthrop D. 1925. “Ambushed in the City: The Grim Side of Harlem.” Survey 53: 692–​694. Laughlin, Harry H. 1930. “The Control of Trends in the Racial Composition of the American People.” In The Alien in Our Midst, edited by Madison Grant and C. S. Davison, pp. 158–​179. New York: The Galton Publishing Co., Inc. Lederer, Jenny. 2013. “ ‘Anchor Baby’:  A Conceptual Explanation for Pejoration.” Journal of Pragmatics 57: 248–​266. Lederer, Susan E. 2008. Flesh and Blood: Organ Transplantation and Blood Transfusion in Twentieth-​Century America. New York: Oxford University Press.

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114  Decay of the Social Body Lee, Erika. 2002. “The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882–​1924.” Journal of American Ethnic History 21: 36–​62. A Manual for Survival. 1961. Wheaton, IL: Church League of America. Marcus, J. Anthony. 1953. “It is Five Minutes to Midnight.” Vital Speeches of the Day 20: 117–​122. Miller, William I. 1997. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. O’Brien, Gerald V. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body:  The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded.’ ” Mental Retardation 37: 188–​200. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2013a. Framing the Moron: The Social Construction of Feeble-mindedness in the American Eugenic Era. Manchester: Manchester University Press. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 2013b. “Margaret Sanger and the Nazis: How Many Degrees of Separation?” Social Work 58: 285–​287. Rafter, Nicole H. 1988. White Trash. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Roberts, Kenneth. 1924, February 2.  “Slow Poison.” The Saturday Evening Post 196: 8–​9, 54, 58. Roberts, Peter. 1914. The New Immigration. New York: The Macmillan Company. Roosevelt, Theodore. 1914. “Twisted Eugenics.” American Motherhood 38: 308–​312. Ross, Edward A. 1922. “Controlled Fecundity.” The New Republic 29: 242–​246. Rowell, Chester H. 1920. “California and the Japanese Problem.” The New Republic 24: 64–​65. Sanger, Margaret. 1922/​1969. The Pivot of Civilization (reprint ed.). New York: Maxwell Reprint Company. Santa Ana, Otto. 2002. Brown Tide Rising:  Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Schwartz, Fred. 1953. “Blueprint for Conquest.” The American Mercury 77: 83–​88. Shaffer, E. T. H. 1923, September. “A New South: The Negro Migration.” The Atlantic Monthly 132: 403–​409. Sherbon, Francis. 1929. “Eugenics and Democracy:  Are the Two Compatible?” Eugenics 2: 28–​29. Shinozuka, Jeannie N. 2013. “Deadly Perils:  Japanese Beetles and the Pestilential Immigrant, 1920s–​1930s.” American Quarterly 65: 831–​851. Singerman, Robert. 1998. “The Jew as Racial Alien:  The Genetic Component of American Anti-​Semitism.” In Anti-​Semitism in America, edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock, pp. 343–​368. New York: Routledge. Smith, T. Lynn. 1966. “The Redistribution of the Negro Population of the United States, 1910–​1960.” The Journal of Negro History 51: 155–​173. Spiro, Jonathan P. 2009. Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Press. Stoddard, Lothrop. 1922. The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-​Supremacy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1923. The Revolt Against Civilization. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. “The Threatened Inundation from Europe.” 1920. The Literary Digest 67: 7–​9. Thurston, Ralph. 1935. “The Nazi War on Medicine.” The New Republic 84: 100–​102. Wakefield, Dan. 1960. “Eye of the Storm.” The Nation 190: 396–​405. Warne, Frank J. 1913/​1971. The Immigrant Invasion. New  York:  Dodd, Mead & Company. Weiss, Feri F. 1921. The Sieve: Boston, MA: The Page Co.

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Decay of the Social Body 115 Wiggam, Albert E. 1924. The Fruit of the Family Tree. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-​ Merrill Company. Woodruff, Charles E. 1909. Expansion of Races. New York: Rebman Company. Young, Kimball. 1922. “Intelligence Tests of Certain Immigrant Groups.” The Scientific Monthly 15: 417–​434. Yukins, Elizabeth. 2003. “Feeble-​ Minded White Women and the Spectre of Proliferating Perversity in American Eugenics Narratives.” In Evolution and Eugenics in American Literature and Culture, 1880–​1940: Essays on Ideological Conflict and Complicity, edited by Lois A. Cuddy and Claire M. Roche, pp. 164–​186. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.

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8  Metaphorical Public Health Responses

The importance of identifying and segregating or otherwise controlling the various forms of deviancy and degeneracy that were said to be threatening the nation was clearly spelled out in the following quote that described a eugenic family study: The objects of the investigation …. were, first, “to know the sources of the contamination that is polluting the stream of our social life”; second, “to cleanse or cut off the sources of pollution”; third, “to quarantine until cured all who have been infected.” This is an allegorical way of putting the problem, but the parallel between the prevention of breeding of anti-​social stock and the location and stamping out of disease at its source, is so close that the analogy is a good one. (“The Need for Further Study …” 1925, p. 77)1 Within the context of the organism metaphor, those who advocate social control measures often overtly or discretely describe themselves as physicians or public health professionals and their primary aim as protecting the health of the community. As alluded to in Chapter 5, it wasn’t coincidental that Kenneth Burke (2006) referred to Adolf Hitler as a “medicine man” (p. 149) nor that a 1935 German health magazine reads “Adolf Hitler, Doctor of the German People” (Proctor 1988, ­figure  11). Within the context of the alarm periods discussed in this book, control agents also frequently described their work as a form of medicine. Discussing his efforts to identify Communists, for example, one writer said that his job was to engage in the “slow and painstaking job of uncovering the seat of the infection” (Spolansky 1951, p. 46) that threatened the nation. It’s similarly true that “claims to protect the public’s health frequently have served as proxies for bias, discrimination, and nativism. Many people of color and vulnerable minority groups have been caused great harm in the name of advancing and protecting the public’s health” (Goodwin and Chemerinsky 2016, p. 964). The social control of the target group is often simply viewed as a form of community medicine. As with any other form of medicine, the initial question was whether those who were diagnosed could be effectively treated.

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Metaphorical Public Health Responses 117 Given the assumed permanence of these conditions, the answer was generally “no.” Even if such persons appeared “cured” through superficial examination and entered the societal mainstream, they would always remain suspect. Prior to the turn of the century, Martin Barr (1897) suggested some type of campaign against the feeble-​minded in writing that “it does seem absurd that while we wage war upon microbes and bacilli, we turn loose this worse than leprosy to poison the very springs of life” (p. 7). He similarly stated five years later that “we guard against all epidemics, are quick to quarantine smallpox, and we exclude the Chinese; but take no steps to eliminate this evil [feeble-​mindedness] from the social body” (Barr 1902, p. 163). An anti-​Communist writer remarked that deportation of assumed “Bolsheviki” was “as necessary as cauterizing a wound to prevent gangrene” (cited in Levin 1971, p. 26). The initial form of restriction or social control is gatekeeping, which has already been covered, particularly in Chapter  5. In a free nation like the United States, however, most restrictionists believed that gatekeeping would not be a highly effective form of control, especially since so many of those targeted for control were already in the country, freely procreating. Therefore alternative methods of community protection were recommended. These included registration and surveillance, segregation and ghettoization, and extermination. An additional issue that will be discussed in this chapter that pertains to control measures is the concept of metaphor reification.

Registration and Surveillance Just as persons with certain infectious diseases were required by the state to be registered for public health purposes, some eugenic advocates recommended the same for those with feeble-​mindedness and other degenerate conditions. Walter Fernald (1915), the influential administrator of a Massachusetts institution, said that a precedent had been set for registration of the feeble-​ minded, since “state commissions for controlling the gypsy moth and the boll weevil, [and] the foot-​and-​mouth disease” already existed (p.  291; see also Fernald 1912, p.  93). A  Canadian eugenic advocate argued that the registration of morons would provide a great deal of benefit in keeping track of those with other contagious conditions, such as sexually transmitted diseases, since there was so much overlap between the two groups (MacMurchy 1916, p. 231). Of course it makes little sense to require the registration of marked groups unless some form of surveillance and/​or restriction is attached to it (O’Brien 1999). Marginalized groups in particular tend to be wary, and often for good reason, of any governmental desire for registration, even when, as will be taken up below, it is based on presumably innocuous or altruistic motives. Supporters of such policies have often argued that justification for registration and surveillance were indicated by the fact that we didn’t know exactly

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118  Metaphorical Public Health Responses how many target group members there were in the United States, and thus we didn’t fully understand the extent of the impact (or threat) they posed. The second volume of The International Jew (1921) ominously questioned whether secrecy regarding demographic numbers was part of a larger Jewish conspiracy:  “How many Jews are there in the United States? No Gentile knows. The figures are the exclusive property of the Jewish authorities” (p. 7, see also p.  18). Throughout the various anti-​Communist movements in the country, movement leaders argued that all “subversive” organizations had to be registered with the federal government. In 1940 this came to pass with the signing of the Voorhis Act, which was named after a California congressman (A Manual for Survival 1961, p. 68). The first step in any public health movement is to know the extent of contagion, and thus registration is taken as a reasonable measure if the group is a public health threat. While those who were identified as members of target groups were assumed to be contagious in various actual and/​or metaphoric ways, others close to them also needed to be closely monitored for signs of “disease.” While the following quote details the concerns surrounding liberals, civil libertarians, and others with potential “Communistic” tendencies, it bears close resemblance to the need for continued surveillance in the case of spreading disease: Careful watch must be kept over people who call themselves liberals, for a liberal is really a Communist in disguise. The foreign-​born and the Negroes also bear watching –​the foreign-​born because they undoubtedly have brought some revolutionary and un-​American ideas with them to this country and the Negroes because the Communists plan to use them as the shock troops of the revolution. (cited in Strong 1941, p. 151) As noted in Chapter  4, once a stigmatized identity is formalized efforts may be made to “widen the net,” and the associates, family members, etc. of marked individuals may be concerned about their own status. During the eugenic era, for example, it was common for eugenicists to recommend the sterilization or at least the surveillance of presumably “normal” parents who had given birth to a child that was thought to have an intellectual or other inherited disability. Registration is often put forth as being in the best interest of the group in question. From registering resident Chinese over a century ago to ensure that they were in the country legally (and thus wouldn’t be deported) to recent efforts to require Hispanic immigrants to produce documentation for the same reason. As noted above, those who are forced to register in any way tend to be highly suspicious about what are presumably altruistic motives. Such registration has frequently been the initial step in control of the group, and has led to the other modes of restriction to which we now turn.

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Segregation, Ghettoization, and Quarantine The restriction of various groups from the larger community was often referred to by social control supporters as a form of quarantine. Many of those who spoke out against the Communist menace in America, for example, advocated such measures to ensure that those infected with a socialist ideology did not contaminate others. Joseph McCarthy (1952) quoted the FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, as writing that “[v]‌ictory will be assured once Communists are identified and exposed, because the public will take the first step of quarantining them so they can do no harm” (p. 8). A “quarantine or economic boycott against Communism,” Lawrence (1960) wrote, means “isolating the virus of evil in the international situation and preventing the germs of an epidemic from spreading into the free world” (p. 112). He added in a follow-​up article that the policy of quarantine against the Communist menace was originally developed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. He quoted the former president as justifying the policy by contending “the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease” (Lawrence 1961, p. 96). Two decades before the McCarthy era, Edwin Hadley (1931) wrote that Communism was a growing threat. While it, he said, had formerly been treated as a “malignant disease,” it had recently been permitted to “come out of quarantine,” and was thus spreading at a rapid rate (p. 10). The first volume of Henry Ford’s The International Jew (1920) included an interesting public health example that supported the segregating of Jews. The book contended that in those nations that were aware of the Jewish threat, “[t]‌he social system had encrusted around the Jew, keeping him in a position where, as the nations knew by experience, he would be less harmful. As nature encysts the harmful foreign element in the flesh, building a wall around it, so nations have found it expedient to do with the Jew” (p.  28). Regarding Japanese immigrants, one writer noted that if open borders were allowed, the “numbers who would come would be greater than we could encyst” or absorb (Scherer 1916, p. 72). Similarly, the French writer Hilaire Belloc (1922) wrote that the segregation of Jews “may be hostile. … the building of a fence around it, as it were, solely with the object of defending the organism which reacts against invasion, and suffers from the presence within it of something different from itself ” (p. 10). Restrictive immigration laws would also serve to protect the nation from the large growing mass of feeble-​minded and defective immigrants who were “supplanting good stocks.” As Lothrop Stoddard (1922) wrote: Just as we isolate bacterial invasions, and starve out the bacteria by limiting the area and amount of their food supply, so we can compel an inferior race to remain in its native habitat, where its own multiplication

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120  Metaphorical Public Health Responses in a limited area will, as with all organisms, eventually limit its numbers and therefore its influence.2 (Stoddard 1922, pp. 259–​260) The forced institutionalization of persons with feeble-​mindedness was also described as a public health imperative, especially since degeneracy was viewed as transmissible through heredity (O’Brien 1999). Fernald (1912) wrote of feeble-​minded persons that “the segregation of this class should be rapidly extended until all not adequately guarded at home are placed under strict sexual quarantine” (p. 93). Following the Kallikak family study, the governor of New Jersey recommended segregating the Pine Barrens, where most of the family still resided, from the rest of New Jersey for public health purposes (McPhee 1968, p.  52). “Some day,” Seth Humphrey (1913) added, “we will follow up and isolate the carriers of mental defect for the same reason that we now follow up and isolate the carriers of smallpox or plague. The sum of human misery in this country due to every contagious disease is not one-​tenth that entailed by inherited mental defect” (p. 462). Some eugenicists suggested that institutions be located only in remote areas, as if the placement of such facilities in or even close to urban settings created a health risk to the surrounding population even if the residents were kept segregated (Trent 1994, p. 143). One recommended that a national institution be developed on an isolated island (Hague 1914, p. 42), and another noted the recommendation that “an institution for women of child-​bearing age [be] located on waste land in a territory removed far from civilization” (“Minutes of the Association” 1917, p. 22). During the earlier anti-​Chinese movement a similar argument was made. Noting that Chinatown “cannot be rendered sanitary except by its total obliteration,” it was recommended that its population be removed to a distant and otherwise unpopulated area of the country (“The Chinese Cannot Come” 1902, p. 5). Ghettoization, either of African-​Americans, Jews, or other groups, is obviously an important means of such quarantine. As noted below, confinement of groups to cramped, segregated quarters often ensures that they indeed do eventually become a public health threat. As Michel Foucault noted in his book Madness and Civilization, once institutions, ghettos, and other geographic spaces became identified as a place for stigmatized individuals, they tend to continue to be peopled with marked groups, unless sanitized by a large-​scale renovation. As he wrote in describing poorhouses and leprosariums, the “nineteenth century would consent, would even insist that to the mad and to them alone be transferred these lands on which, a hundred and fifty years before, men had sought to pen the poor, the vagabond, the unemployed” (Foucault 1965, p. 57). “Second-​Level” Penetration (Self-​Isolation) What I  am referring to as second-​level penetration occurs once the potentially contaminating sub-​ population has already breached the countries’

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Metaphorical Public Health Responses 121 borders in untoward numbers, and citizens assume that national-​level control is fruitless and quarantine of the group is either impolitic or unfeasible. At this point many will seek a protective space within the country. These spaces may be protected by physical barriers such as fences or walls (e.g., gated communities), they may be located in remote areas away from specific undesired populations, or insulated from contaminating persons by means of “community protection” policies that restrict entrance to outsiders. Such communities will often not be easily accessible by mass transit, and its citizens will refuse to develop low-​income housing developments or other services that assist or seem to attract those in poverty. A number of “back-​door” methods to restrict access, often in the form of restrictive zoning policies will also be enforced. The development of segregated communities where exclusion was reinforced by either restrictive covenants, covert or overt agreements between community leaders and real estate companies, or simply through threats has been a primary form of such second-​level protection. “White flight” did not just relate to the fear of an expanding African-​American population. During the first decades of the twentieth century “Christians deserted residential and resort areas when they became ‘infested’ by Jews” (Cohen 1998, p. 264). The use of a term (infested) that relates to contagion and pest control is obviously in keeping with the organism metaphor. It also implies that fumigation or some form of sanitation may be in order. Thus restricting Jews was not seen as a form of invidious discrimination, for “[m]‌any Americans resent with special bitterness the intrusion of Jews into circles where they are not wanted. But it cannot be said too often that social discrimination is not anti-​Semitism. It is rather a form of social protection” (Boas 1921, p. 661).

Elimination3 Obviously the most controversial means to protect society from potentially infectious sub-​populations is to perform a radical “surgical” intervention to exterminate the infectious portion of the social body. The British social Darwinist Herbert Spencer (1893) discussed this surgical analogy in his book Social Statics: We should think it a very foolish sort of benevolence which led a surgeon to let his patient’s disease progress to a fatal issue, rather than inflict pain by an operation. Similarly, we must call those spurious philanthropists who, to prevent present misery, would entail greater misery on future generations. … Blind to the fact that under the natural order of things society is constantly excreting its unhealthy, imbecile, slow, vacillating, faithless members, these unthinking, though well-​meaning, men advocate an interference which not only stops the purifying process, but even increases the vitiation. (Spencer 1893, pp. 150–​151)

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122  Metaphorical Public Health Responses Dr.  Harry Haiseldon was one of the few eugenic supporters in the United States to openly advocate euthanasia as a eugenic measure, and he clearly invoked the organism metaphor by contending that the death of inferiors “is the great and lasting disinfectant” for the race (cited in Pernick 1996, p. 84). While few mainstream American eugenicists publicly supported euthanasia, many did invoke thinly veiled eliminationist rhetoric (O’Brien 1999). “Death,” said Leon Cole (1914), invoking an unusual medical metaphor, “is the normal process of elimination in the social organism, and … in prolonging the lives of defectives we are tampering with the functioning of the social kidneys” (p. 503). As in Nazi Germany, this rhetoric fostered the view that eliminating or preventing the birth of degenerates was an important element in purification or cleansing the community of its inferior elements. In 1929 Harry Laughlin of the Eugenic Record Office wrote an article for a German Journal, wherein he stated that “[t]‌he racial hygienist as a biologist regards the development of eugenic sterilization as the effort of the state ‘organism’ to get rid of its degenerate members” (cited in Kühl 1994, p. 25). Lothrop Stoddard (1923) similarly stated, a full ten years before Hitler was elected the German chancellor, that the “elimination of inferiors is a process of race cleansing” (p. 245) and that eugenic policies would “cleanse the race of its worst impurities” (p. 252). Discussing unrestricted immigration, Thomas Darlington (1906) asked what “is the remedy for this danger to our national body?” Noting that “internal remedies” were not “curative” (p. 1262), he highlighted the need for immigration control policies by declaring that Americans “must at once face the situation, realize the serious nature of the disease that threatens our national life and boldly apply the knife. Active measures must be taken to save the country from this threatening peril” (p. 1269). Harvard professor and leading eugenicist Earnest Hooton added that “a biological purge is the essential prerequisite for a social and spiritual salvation” within the country, and society “must stop trying to cure malignant biological growths with patent sociological nostrums.” “The emergency,” he concluded, speaking of the procreation of the unfit, “demands a surgical operation” (“Biological Purge …” 1937, p. 2). Involuntary eugenic sterilization in particular was touted as a public health measure when invoked for eugenic purposes. This could be viewed as a form of “benign elimination,” since it sought not to kill the members of target groups, but rather ensure that they wouldn’t spread their deleterious traits to others through procreation (O’Brien 1999). As noted previously, Martin Pernick (1996) wrote in his book The Black Stork that a close conceptual relationship existed between germs and “germ plasm,” which described genes during the better part of the eugenic era. Both “enabled diseases to propagate, spreading lethal contamination from guilty to innocent bodies,” and both could be effectively eradicated by means of sterilization” (p. 52). Many eugenicists therefore argued that heritability was really no different than any other form of disease transmission, and needed to be treated as such (pp. 52–​ 53). In its 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged the societal benefits of involuntary sterilization by comparing the procedure to

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Metaphorical Public Health Responses 123 compulsory vaccination. Citing the earlier Jacobson v. Massachusetts case, the Court held that “the police power of the State must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety” (cited in Dudziak 1986, p. 858; see also Goodwin and Chemerinsky 2016). E. S. Gosney (1934), the president of the Human Betterment Foundation and leader of California’s sterilization campaign, quoted a Viennese surgeon who supported sterilization because he said it was “the duty of medicine to prevent disease and this is one means of prevention” (pp. 18–​19). When a social body, like a physical one, was confronted with a threatening and potentially contaminating invasive growth, one couldn’t quibble too much about diagnostic exactness. It was best to err on the side of safety rather than individual rights. In relation to not only the diagnosis itself but how marked individuals were to be treated, some invoked the organism metaphor, arguing that if a tumor needed to be removed from a body, a wise surgeon would as a matter of course remove some “normal” tissue surrounding it. Here the organism metaphor overlapped with the war metaphor. “False positives” are, one might argue, an unfortunate but necessary side-​effect in social as well as medical diagnostics, not unlike innocent war casualties. Regarding concerns that large-​scale eugenic programs might wrongly diagnose some “normal” persons, leading to their sterilization or institutionalization, Francis Sherbon (1929) contended that “[t]‌he surgeon removes much normal tissue with the cancerous growth but feels justified in that he knows no other way of saving the organism itself ” (1929). She expressed the hope that at some future date a safer and more accurate method of treating both cancer and social degeneracy would be discovered (O’Brien 1999). Until this occurs, however, “the radical operation” was the only viable option for both (p. 28). It was better, then, to place all resident Japanese, including those born in the United States, into prison camps, rather than painstakingly trying to ferret out the real threats. Even in a nation that prides itself on human rights and due process, in the midst of a presumptive civil emergency, the burden of proof is placed squarely on those who are targeted for control. Of course such individuals have little chance of proving their innocence. As noted earlier, to some advocates of Japanese internment the fact that there was virtually no evidence of treason was virtual proof that the population was conspiring, waiting for the right moment to attack. Moreover, like Communists and Jews, their presumed inherent dishonestly or trickery was enough to convince restrictionists that accurately diagnosing threatening individuals would be very difficult, if not impossible.

Reification of the Organism Metaphor Interestingly, those sub-​groups that are targets of the organism metaphor as a primary means of social construction are often relegated to environments where they are apt to become infected with communicable diseases or

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124  Metaphorical Public Health Responses parasites, thus reifying the metaphor. Ghettos, tenements, reservations, detention centers, prisons, asylums, and similar locations, as well as the vehicles used to transport people to such environments, are often characterized by unsanitary and unhealthy conditions. As contamination rates within such segregated environments increases, the perception that the group itself is infectious –​and that their segregation is rightly a public health rather than a social or political concern –​becomes validated. While Jews, for example, were referred to as “lice” and “bacteria” prior to their placement in German ghettos and work camps, this metaphor was no doubt strengthened when they were placed in these environments where they naturally acquired parasites and contagious diseases. Likewise, those who have been labeled mentally retarded have, throughout the past century, been confined to institutional environments that served to ensure that group members would indeed become a public health menace. This isn’t to imply that such placement occurs for the express purpose of reifying the metaphor. Nevertheless, the relationship between rhetoric that emphasizes images of contagion and contamination and the eventual infectious condition of group members cannot be lost on those who engage in or support social control measures. Eisenberg (2012) noted that one thematic means of comparing supposed Communist sympathizers to infectious entities was to depict them in cartoons and other images as heavily bearded and dirty, especially since facial hair came to be associated with germs during the first quarter of the twentieth century. As he notes, purported Communists who were displayed to the public were often not allowed to bathe or shave for several days in order to support the prevailing image (p. 107). Target group members have often been photographed or described when they have been through traumatic experiences such as long, cramped ocean voyages, after being in confinement for weeks or months, etc., and these images then come to symbolize the class at large and support the demeaning stereotypic images that are proffered. Moreover, those who desire that these images be embraced are often responsible for the framing and dissemination of such images in the first place. David Sibley (1995) discussed this vicious cycle in relation to the widespread belief in many parts of Europe that gypsies were rightly identified “with residues and residual spaces.” As a result of this, “the fear of ‘polluting Gypsies’ leads to attempts by the dominant society to consign them to residual spaces where the stereotypical associations are confirmed” (p. 58). Similarly, when Chick Gin, a Chinese resident of San Francisco, was discovered to have the bubonic plague in 1900, the entire Chinese section of the town was roped off (Kraut 1994, p. 84). Given the fact that thousands of Chinese residents were placed in quarantine along with an infected person, it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of new cases would be fellow Chinese (Kraut 1994, p. 96). This certainly served to solidify in the public mind the association of Chinese immigrants with contagious disease. Restrictive social policies frequently served to reify the prevailing image of the outsider as a potential source of contagion. Areas such as Chinatowns

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Metaphorical Public Health Responses 125 and ghettos were often heavily congested because of laws that restricted these populations to very specific, often small, areas of a city. Sanitation policies were frequently such that lower-​class ethnic enclaves or low-​income areas received little support in refuse or sewage removal. Therefore these areas (and the people housed there) often came to be viewed as dirty or contagious. Additionally, tenement builders had inherent economic incentives to place as many people in as small a space as possible, often with little ventilation from outside air. There are many additional examples of metaphor reification that could be cited. Perhaps the close connection between public health measures against “invasive” populations and fumigation/​sanitation can best be seen, though, in the Nazi use of an insecticide, Zyklon B, in the extermination camps. According to Bridget Anderson (2017), the product had previously been used, at lower dosages presumably, for “delousing Mexican immigrants to the United States in the 1930s” (p. 19).4 Preventive public health measures were put forth as the only viable way of saving the nation that was under siege by undesirable sub-​groups. Even when measures went against the public’s sense of morals, in troubling times difficult actions had to be taken. Segregation and quarantine measures would assist in the reification of stigma also, by removing such persons or drawing boundaries around them. Such measures supported the notion that target populations were apart from the normal community and could only be approached with great caution. Various etiquette standards, as with the Jim Crow laws, provided specific guidelines for how and where one could interact with target group members across real or imaginary boundaries, along with the appropriate means of engagement that were allowable to ensure that metaphoric disease spread did not occur.

Notes 1 “Piney” was a derogatory term for the families who lived in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, where field workers under Henry Goddard studied the Kallikak and other “dysgenic” families. 2 I credit Edwin Black for drawing my attention to this quote, in his War Against the Weak (2003, p. 133). 3 Some of the content of this section was originally published in the authors Protecting the Social Body … (1999) and Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor (2010). 4 The original source Anderson draws from for this information is Romo (2005).

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126  Metaphorical Public Health Responses Belloc, Hilaire. 1922. The Jews. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. “‘Biological Purge’ is Urged by Hooton.” 1937, February 21. The New York Times, Section II: 1, 3. Black, Edwin. 2003. War Against the Weak:  Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. Boas, Ralph P. 1921, May. “Jew-​ Baiting in America.” The Atlantic Monthly 127: 658–​665. Burke, Kenneth. 2006. “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle.” In Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion:  New and Classic Essays, edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, pp. 149–​168. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. “The Chinese Cannot Come.” 1902, January 4. Harper’s Weekly: 5. Cohen, Naomi W. 1998. “Antisemitism in the Gilded Age: The Jewish View.” In Anti-​ Semitism in America, edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock, pp. 263–​286. New York: Routledge. Cole, Leon J. 1914. “The Relation of Philanthropy and Medicine to Race Betterment.” In Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Betterment, pp. 494–​508. Battle Creek, MI: Race Betterment Foundation. Darlington, Thomas. 1906. “The Medico-​ Economic Aspect of the Immigration Problem.” The North American Review 183: 1262–​1271. Dudziak, Mary L. 1986. “Oliver Wendell Holmes as a Eugenic Reformer: Rhetoric in the Writing of Constitutional Law.” Iowa Law Review 833: 833–​867. Eisenberg, Ziv. 2012. “Red All Over:  Protecting the American Body Politic from Infection in the Early Twentieth Century.” Endeavour 36: 106–​116. Fernald, Walter E. 1912. “The Burden of Feeble-​Mindedness.” Journal of Psycho-​ Asthenics 17: 87–​99. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1915. “What is Practical in the Way of Prevention of Mental Defect?” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 298–​307. Chicago, IL: The Hildmann Printing Co. Foucault, Michel. 1965. Madness and Civilization. Trans. by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books. Goodwin, Michele and Erwin Chemerinsky. 2016. “No Immunity: Race, Class, and Civil Liberties in Times of Health Crisis” (book review). Harvard Law Review 129: 956–​996. Gosney, E. S. 1934. “Eugenic Sterilization: Human Betterment Demands It.” Scientific American 151: 18–​19, 52–​53. Hadley, Edwin M. 1931. T.N.T. Chicago, IL: The Tower Press, Inc. Hague, W. Grant. 1914. The Eugenic Marriage. Volume I. New York: The Review of Reviews Company. Humphrey, Seth. 1913, April. “Parenthood and Social Conscience.” Forum: 457–​464. The International Jew:  The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume I. 1920. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Volume II: Jewish Activities in the United States. 1921. Dearborn, MI: The Dearborn Independent. Kraut, Alan M. 1994. Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace.” New York: Basic Books. Kühl, Stefan. 1994. The Nazi Connection:  Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Lawrence, David. 1960. “Why Not ‘Quarantine’ Them?” U.S. News and World Report 49: 112. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1961. “Is War the Only Way?” U.S. News and World Report 51: 96.

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Metaphorical Public Health Responses 127 Levin, Murray B. 1971. Political Hysteria in America. New York: Basic Books. MacMurchy, Helen. 1916. “The Relation of Feeble-​ Mindedness to Other Social Problems.” In Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 229–​235. Chicago, IL: The Hildmann Printing Co. A Manual for Survival. 1961. Wheaton, IL: Church League of America. McCarthy, Joseph. 1952. The Fight for America. Milwaukee, WI:  Educational Foundation, Inc. McPhee, John. 1968. The Pine Barrens. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. “Minutes of the Association.” 1917. Journal of Psycho-​Asthenics 22: 20–​37. “The Need for Further Study of the Piney Families.” 1925. Eugenical News 10: 77–​78. O’Brien, Gerald V. 1999. “Protecting the Social Body:  The Use of the Organism Metaphor in Fighting the ‘Menace of the Feeble-​Minded.’ ” Mental Retardation 37: 188–​200. ______. 2010. “Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 37: 95–114. Pernick, Martin S. 1996. The Black Stork:  Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915. New York: Oxford University Press. Proctor, Robert. 1988. Racial Hygiene. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Romo, David D. 2005. Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez: 1893–​1923. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press. Scherer, James. 1916. The Japanese Crisis. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Sherbon, Francis. 1929. “Eugenics and Democracy:  Are the Two Compatible?” Eugenics 2: 28–​29. Sibley, David. 1995. Geographies of Exclusion:  Society and Difference in the West. London: Routledge. Spencer, Herbert. 1893. Social Statics (abridged and revised ed.). New York: D. Appleton and Co. Spolansky, Jacob. 1951. The Communist Trail in America. New York: The Macmillan Company. Stoddard, Lothrop. 1922. The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-​Supremacy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. _​_​_​_​_​_​. 1923. The Revolt Against Civilization. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Strong, Donald S. 1941. Organized Anti-​Semitism in America:  The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930–​1940. Washington, DC:  American Council on Public Affairs. Trent Jr., James. W. 1994. Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Over time a large variety of restrictive policies and informal social practices have been implemented that correspond with the various components of the organism metaphor. These have been designed in part to ensure that devalued societal sub-​groups either don’t enter the social body or remain “in their place,” which is, conceptually if not geographically, on or even beyond the periphery of “civilized” society. The portrayal of devalued or stigmatized persons as threats to the integrity of the social body unconsciously activates a similar response than what occurs in attempting to protect our physical bodies from threats posed by the incorporation of potentially harmful external agents. Whether they are gates, walls, highways, rivers, or easements, borders and buffer zones provide a sense of comfort, and must be continually monitored and controlled. To again quote Mary Douglas (1966), “pollution is a type of danger which is not likely to occur except where the lines of structure, cosmic or social, are clearly defined.” We prefer to think, though we know it isn’t true, that both the bodies and the spaces we occupy, including the nation, have a degree of “purity” that is protective and staves off deteriorating influences. We also are comforted in the belief that we have much greater control over the maintenance of this pure state than is actually the case. The people, places, and customs that we count as being unusual, bizarre, or abnormal may not only fill us with a sense of disquiet but may also arouse curiosity and even excitement. This is true, though, only when we approach such phenomenon on our own terms and maintain control of how and where the interaction occurs. As Douglas (1966) noted, the problem with dirt and other contaminants wasn’t that they existed, but rather that they didn’t remain within their proper place. Ambiguous, anomalous, or “freaky” bodies have not only been acceptable in most cultures, so long as they remain in their artificial predetermined spaces (asylums, ethnographic exhibits, prisons, freak shows, portraits in medical textbooks, the visual objects of medical rounds, etc.), but they have often served an important purpose by delineating the need for boundary maintenance and a large socially-​subsidized class of boundary maintenance professionals. What are taken to be aesthetic abnormalities or aberrations have often been viewed, and not just in a metaphorical sense, as points of contagion, or

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Conclusion 129 at least they have brought to mind the possibility of such. Perhaps the most tangible example of this was in the case of “maternal impressions,” whereby frightening images, and particularly of impaired bodies or faces, could be permanently imprinted onto the developing fetus (Bogdan 1988, pp.  110–​ 111). Differences of various kinds are discomforting in part because, even when not overtly fear-​inducing, they are inherently annoying, as they counter our natural tendency to easily compartmentalize and categorize. Discomfort arises with the realization that we can’t always count on social boundaries to protect us from that which is anomalous and should be attached to other spaces. While the examples cited throughout this book are largely historical, the many ways that they have invoked the organism metaphor remain with us in various guises today, and many readers no doubt have been mindful of the many contemporary parallels one could point to as emblematic of the “staying power” and elasticity of the organism metaphor. Among the most pressing examples, at least in the United States, is the current immigration debate. As noted, many recent publications have discussed the employment of the metaphor in this context. Another current example is the same sex marriage debate. The issue of penetration is central to both the fear of “illegal immigrants” within the nation and the process of sexual coupling, especially among gay males. Fluidity is also important, both because immigrants generally cross bodies of water (and are depicted as diluting the blood of the nation) and because the exchange of fluids is a central aspect of sexual intercourse. This is especially true in regard to gay males, as the HIV era has fostered the fear of not only interpersonal exchange of bodily fluids, but the larger fear that such contaminated fluids will imperceptibly leak across real or imaginary boundaries and harm the “general public.” There are certainly a number of additional examples that one can think of whereby elements of the organism metaphor are employed as a principle source of opposition to the rights of minority populations. Understanding metaphor themes and how they relate to past instances of dehumanization and perhaps how they have assisted in “softening the ground” for aversive social policies gives us some insight into the contemporary utilization of similar tropes. This is particularly true since many such images and phrases continue to operate outside our conscious awareness. When the Obamas were compared to non-​human simians, which unfortunately happened all too frequently, those making these comparisons often responded that critics were being hyperbolic and they meant nothing racial by the comparison; yet the analogy has a long and broad history, and at various times in our lives has seeped into our subconscious. As Goff and his co-​authors (2008) noted in their research, most of us retain a general understanding of the connection, even if we either don’t recognize it or don’t admit it, and it serves as an important element of inherent bias (see also Lott, 1999). This is just one of many examples of metaphoric connections that are part of our collective unconscious. While the “black man as ape” analogy

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130 Conclusion is ostensibly an animal metaphor, it carries with it aspects of the organism metaphor, as it brings to mind the proper boundaries of the human species and the possibility that this boundary is permeable, especially through human cross-​mating with apes. While metaphors and metaphoric priming may indeed have an impact on the opinions that people have of various social and political issues, and therefore on the policies that are put into place, a few caveats should be noted. First, metaphor scholars generally agree that priming is most (and perhaps only) effective on individuals who either are largely unaware of an issue or don’t have a strong opinion about it already. While adjusting the temperature in a room, up or down, may impact how some persons perceive climate change, those who have already made up their minds aren’t likely to change them based on such an experiment. There are also questions about whether such priming has long-​term impact. In the political arena such messages are constantly repeated in order to augment the effect. Secondly, metaphors are only one way that people are dehumanized, and their effectiveness in any given situation depends on the confluence of a wide range of interacting factors. It’s certainly true that regardless of how widely disseminated “parasite,” “bacteria,” or “cancer” metaphors are, a plethora of interwoven economic, social, and political factors serve to enhance or dull their influence. A political term that comes to mind here is “legs,” as in whether a scandal or story has legs, or is apt to remain in public consciousness for more than a brief time. Some images stick, some don’t, and those that do may have only limited impact, especially when we consider the large number of issues that compete for our attention. While denigrating metaphoric images may or may not have a substantive, much less dramatic, impact on the treatment of marginalized populations in particular situations, it does seem to be true that in the vast majority of cases where there is wide-​scale social control and maltreatment, this is preceded and accompanied by such images. We lose an important part of ourselves as individuals and a collective body if we mistreat persons without cause, and, in cases where justifying cause is wanting or evidence in support of such treatment is ambiguous, we often turn to image-​making and fear-​based rhetoric, often employing the ominous dread of insidious invasion from without. As we’ve seen from recent examples such as West Nile, Zika, and Ebola, contagion scares carry with them a need to engage in mass prevention activities even when other threats (e.g., gun violence, drug over-​prescription, heart disease) are far greater. The nature of contagion itself and the fear that it will quickly move beyond our ability to control it, its invisibility and “liquidity,” its ability to equally strike all sectors of the community once it’s no longer effectively contained within marginalized spaces, and the fear that the infection may contain some of the essence of the marginalized groups that serve as its perceived vectors; all these factors make metaphoric contagion a particularly potent mode of dehumanization, a “master” trope in the pantheon of denigrating concepts.

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Conclusion 131

References Bogdan, Robert. 1988. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Goff, Phillip A., Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Melissa J. Williams, and Matthew C. Jackson. 2008. “Not Yet Human:  Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization, and Contemporary Consequences.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94: 292–​306. Lott, Tommy L. 1999. The Invention of Race:  Black Culture and the Politics of Representation. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

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Index

agriculture 35, 45, 80 Aho, J. 19, 23, 84 Ajzenstadt, M. 52, 57 alarm periods: anti-​Asian 34–​6; anti-​Communist 41–​4; anti-​ Semitism 39–​41; defined 2–​3, 13, 31; eugenic era 36–​39; immigration restriction 32–​34; racism 44–​47 alien 2, 59, 84–​88; African-​ Americans as 77; Asians as 103; communists as 54, 86; feeble-​ minded as 54; immigrants as 52–​54, 62–​66, 85–​86, 100, 110; Jews as 61, 110 Anderson, B. 104, 125 animal metaphors 25, 75–​76, 78, 80, 88, 102–​104, 130; apes 103, 130; boll weevil 45, 75, 80, 103, 111, 117; octopi 104; parasites 7–​8, 18, 25, 72–​75, 78, 80, 124, 130; rabbits 12, 103; rats 5–​7, 14, 74, 76; termites 25, 74, 103 anti-​miscegenation laws 44, 46, 63, 80, 97–​98, 104, 106; see also blood poisoning or pollution anti-​Semitism see alarm periods ape see animal metaphors Are These Things So? 74, 106 assimilation 61–​62, 80, 106; of African Americans 64; of Asians 34, 63; of immigrants 32, 52–​54, 85–​6; of morons 54; see also ingestion, digestion and incorporation bacteria 1, 20, 56, 80, 87, 130; immigrants as 119; Jews as 124 Barr, M.W. 54, 72, 117 Bauman, Z. 1, 3, 62 Beck, R. 19, 24, 105, 108

Bennett, J. 52, 62 birth differential 99–​103 blood poisoning or pollution 77, 98, 101, 105–​109, 111, 129; transfusions 45–​46 boll weevil see animal metaphors Bosmajian, H.A. 12–​13, 56–​57 Bougher, L.D. 7, 22 boundaries and borders 24, 55, 61, 130; and contamination 6, 21, 72, 85, 93, 107, 109, 129; and embodiment 22, 85; and marginal groups 51, 61, 63, 66, 97; as protective barrier 24–​25, 65, 88–​89, 125, 128–​129 Braden, S. 88–​89, 91 Brennan, W. 12–​13 Brigham, C.C. 54 Brooks, S. 35–​36 Buck v. Bell decision 122 Budenz, L.F. 105 Burke, K. 105, 116 Burleigh, M. 26, 39 Calavita , K. 42, 54 California Anti-​Alien Land bill 35 cancer 17, 18, 25–​27, 62, 72, 86, 103, 123, 130; Asians as 86; Communism as 51–​52; feeble-​minded as 100; immigrants as 100 categorization see classification Charteris-​Black, J. 7, 10, 22, 24, 104 Chatterton-​Hill, G. 85 classification 19, 55–​59, 64, 87, 109, 129; feeble-​mindedness 2, 47, 56;racial 46, 64, 97, 109; see also passing cleansing and purity 19, 21, 75, 88, 104, 106, 108, 128; and margins/​borders 1, 66, 85, 93; and morality 23, 108; racial purity 21–​22, 63, 106, 108, 116, 122 Cogdell, C. 88, 108

134

134 Index Cohen, N.W. 65, 121 Coker, F.W. 20–​21 Cole, L.J. 74, 122 community protection policies 116–​117, 119–​122 conceptual metaphor theory 6–​8; and public policy 8–​10 Congressional Record 9, 33, 84, 92 Conklin, E.G. 86, 90 contagion see spread Costigliola, F. 20 Coughlin, C. 40–​41 Darlington, T. 122 Davenport, C. 37–​38, 100–​101, 103 decay, organism metaphor and 3, 21, 24, 97, 109–​111 defensible space 89 de Gobineau, A. 98, 109 DemocRAT controversy 5–​7 diagnostics or marking 3, 12, 51, 55–​62, 116, 123; and boundaries 56, 60–​61, 123; and Communists 56; and feeble-​minded 56, 71, 75, 97–​98, 123; and identity 59; and immigrants 87–​88; and objectification 26, 57 disabilities, persons with 20, 26, 39, 58 also see moronity or feeble-​mindedness disease, organism metaphor and 2, 6, 10–​11, 18–​21, 27, 70–​72, 116; African-​ Americans 77–​78; Asians 34, 76–​77, 87–​88, 124; and borders 1, 6, 24, 61, 65, 72, 93, 97, 109; Communism 54–​55, 71, 78, 87–​89, 105, 118–​119; disability 26; feeble-​minded 2, 71–​72, 77–​78, 98, 102, 117, 120, 122–​123; filth 76, 78; immigrants 21, 33, 51–​52, 70, 75, 84–​85 87; Jews 41, 77, 99, 110, 118; reification 91, 123–​124; see also bacteria; cancer; decay, organism metaphor and; HIV/​AIDS; public health, organism metaphor and; spread or contagion; virus disease-​ inducing environments 71–​72, 75–​80, 123–​124 disgust, organism metaphor and 8, 21, 24–​25, 60, 79–​80, 93 Dolmage, J. 89 domino theory 104 dose insensitivity 80, 106, 108–​109 double bind 65, 73, 92

Douglas, M. 1, 19–​20, 66, 128 Durham, J.S. 64 Eisenberg, Z. 10, 124 elimination, organism metaphor and 13, 24, 62, 117, 121–​123 embodiment, organism metaphor and 22–​23, 31 Eugenic Record Office 37, 100, 122 eugenics 2, 46, 80, 88, 100, 108; defined 36 9, 47; family studies 38, 98, 104–​106, 109; and heredity or genetics, 36–​37, 39, 54, 71, 80, 120; immigration and 53, 71, 100; Nazi 38–​39; see also moronity or feeble-​mindedness; sterilization, eugenic Exclusion Act of 1882 35 Fairchild, H.P. 33, 85, 106 Fatović-​Ferenčić, S. 21 Fernald, W.E. 54, 117, 120 food, filth and 5, 77, 79–​80, 85–​86 Ford, H. 40, 64, 119 foreign entity, target group as 3, 18–​19, 21, 51–​55, 62, 70, 72, 89, 106 Foucault, M. 57, 120 Frazer, E. 75, 89, 105 Freire, P. 57, 59 Gambrill, E. 56–​57 gates and gatekeeping 84, 88, 117, 121 Gelb, S.A. 62 genetics or heredity 71, 80, 86, 107; and eugenics 36–​38, 71, 120 Gin, C. 34, 124 Glassner, B. 18–​19 Goddard, H.H. 38, 54, 61–​62, 78, 97, 105, 125 Goffman, E. 57, 80 Goldhagen, D.J. 12–​13, 62, 66 Gould, S.J. 7, 56, 60, 87 Graham, Rev. B. 74 Grant, M. 34, 98 Great Chain of Being, the 25, 59, 102 Great Depression, the 20, 38, 41, 43, 46, 74 Great Migration, the 44–​45, 103 Gross, A.J. 61, 64, 109 Guyer, M.F. 98, 102, 106 Gwyn, R. 18, 26 Hadley, E.M. 89, 105, 119 Haiseldon, Dr. H. 122

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Index 135 Hargis, B.J. 44, 92–​93, 105 Harper, I. 89 Harris, J.G. 19 Hart, M.B. 107 Hendrick, B.J. 63, 72, 86, 89 Hitler, A. 5, 14, 20–​22, 38–​41, 72–​73, 90, 99, 105, 110, 116, 122 HIV/​AIDS 52, 72, 79–​80, 93, 129 Hobbes, T. 19 Hogan, J. 58–​59, 62 Hooton, E. 88, 122 Hoover, H. 71 Hoover, J.E. 42, 92, 119 horticulture metaphor 26, 98 house (nation as) metaphor 88 Humphrey, S. 120 Humphreys, M. 22 Huntington, E. 71, 101 identity, organism metaphor and 18, 51–​53, 55, 57–​59, 61–​62, 88 Immigration Restriction Acts of 1921 and 1924 33–​34, 41, 84 immunity, disease 72, 77 infantilization 60 infection see spread or contagion ingestion, digestion and incorporation 79, 84–​86, 128; see also assimilation intelligence testing 47, 54, 60 International Jew, The 40, 63–​64, 87, 91, 110, 118–​9 invasion metaphor see military metaphors, invasion and Japanese internment 36, 55, 92, 123 Jim Crow laws 45, 61, 65, 125 Kallikaks see eugenics, family studies Keen, S. 5, 10, 12, 25, 51–​52 Kilgour, M. 22 Kite, E.S. 74, 77–​78 Kövecses, Z. 7–​8, 22–​23 Kraut, A.M. 34, 90, 109, 124 labor unions 33, 35, 42–​43, 105 Lakoff, G. 7, 9 Landau, M.J. 8, 11, 23, 79 Lane, H. 58 Lane, W.D., 101 Laughlin, H.H. 90, 100, 122 Lawrence, D. 119 Lederer, S.E. 46, 64, 107–​109 Levin, M.B. 10, 25, 42–​43, 117

Levine, D.N. 18, 21 Lippman, W. 3 Lovejoy, A.O. 59 Loving case 47; see also anti-​miscegenation laws Luntz, F. 9 Lupton, D. 18, 25–​26 McCarthyism 41, 44, 54, 56, 92, 119 McLaughlin, A.J. 70, 75 MacMurchy, H. 77, 117 McWilliams, C. 79 Mallon, M. (Typhoid Mary) 61 Malthus, T.R. 37–​38, 47, 99 Manual for Survival 56, 78, 111, 118 marginalization 1, 9–​14, 51, 58–​59, 117 Markel, H. 41, 52 Mayer, H.C. 91, 93 Mayer, R. 17–​18 Mayo-​Smith, R. 32, 55 medical experimentation 60 medical inspections, immigration and 76, 84, 87, 89 melting pot 40, 52–​53, 85–​86 Menchen, H.L. 78 Mendel, G. 36, 47, 80, 106 metaphors 2–​4, 6–​8, 31, 129–​130; defined 7–​8; emotional impact of 10; priming 10–​11, 23–​24, 130; and public policy 2, 5–​6, 8–​11; and stereotyping 11–​14, 23, 58, 130; see also animal metaphors; conceptual metaphor theory; military metaphors, invasion and; object metaphors; organism metaphor; reification, metaphor Metrick-​Chen, L. 5, 59 military metaphors, invasion and 25–​26, 89 91, 100–​101 Miller, W.I. 24–​25, 60–​61, 105 Mitchell, D.T. 62 morality 23, 108 moronity or feeble-​mindedness 2, 38, 47, 53–​54, 61–​62 Musolff, A. 8, 19, 22, 60, 73, 90, 93 Neumann, B. 14, 22, 61 New Deal 43 Noël, L. 57, 59 Nussbaum, M.C. 24, 25, 85 O’Brien, G. 2, 7, 12, 14, 21, 24–​26, 38–​39, 51, 54, 85, 89, 98, 101, 117, 120, 122–​123

136

136 Index object metaphors 26, 89 objectification 26, 57–​58, 89, 101 octopi see animal metaphors organism metaphor 1–​3, 17–​18, 24–​27; defined 6, 17–​18; and dehumanization 1, 3, 66, 72; and disgust 78–​79; and embodiment 22; history of 19–​22; Hitler 14, 21–​22, 90, 116; and medicine 20–​22, 25, 55, 61, 71, 116; see also decay, organism metaphor and; disease, organism metaphor and; penetration, organism metaphor and; reification, metaphor; spread or contagion Palmer raids 42 Paprocki, M. 5, 70 parasites see animal metaphors Park, Y. 21, 55, 79 passing 61, 64 Pearl Harbor 36, 77, 92 penetration, organism metaphor and 24, 84, 87–​88; by Communists 43–​44, 91–​2, 105; by immigrants 89, 129; by Japanese 92; by Jews 64, 92 Pernick, M.S. 26, 122 Pfaelzer, J. 35, 47 Pickens, W. 57 poison, organism metaphor and 5, 71, 77, 79, 85, 97, 117; by Communists 87, 91, 105 polygenists 60, 63 Proctor, R. 22, 39, 48, 88, 116 Protocals of the Elders of Zion 40–​41, 107 public health, organism metaphor and 11, 20–​21, 60, 71, 87, 116–​120, 123–​125 purity see cleansing and purity quarantine 24, 93, 119, 120–​121, 125; of Chinese 124; Communism and 89, 105, 119; of feeble-​minded 116–​117, 120; immigrants and 87, 89; see also segregation rabbits see animal metaphors race suicide 46, 100–​102; see also birth differential racial anthropologists 60, 63, 87, 99, 106 Rafter, N.H. 48, 78, 80, 98, 102 Ramen, P. 89 rats see animal metaphors

registration 117–​118; see also classification reification, metaphor 72, 124 Roberts, K. 73, 85, 98 Roberts, P. 100 Robinson, C.H 74 Roosevelt, F.D. 20, 119, 36, 43 Roosevelt, T. 102 Rowell, C.H. 35, 100, 110 Rozin, P. 8, 79, 108 Ryder, R.W. 35 Sanger, M. 100 Santa Ana, O. 6–​7, 9, 88, 107 Scheffauer, H. 110 Schon, D. 7, 10–​11 schools, Communist penetration of 43–​44, 105 segregation 24, 117; of African-​ Americans 44–​5, 108; of feeble-​ minded 120; of Jews 40, 119; and reification 124–​125; see also quarantine self-​isolation 120–​121 Selzer, M. 76–​77 Semino, E. 6, 9, 22 Shelley v. Kraemer case 65; see also anti-​miscegenation laws Sherbon, F. 74, 101, 123 Shinozuka, J.N. 103 Sibley, D. 24, 89, 124 Smith, A. 56 Smith, C.C. 60 Smith, D.L. 12, 14, 19, 55, 58 Smith, G. 63 Snyder, S. 62 social Darwinism, 21, 37–​38, 121 Soffer, M. 52, 57 Sontag, S. 18, 51 Spencer, H. 21, 37, 121 Spolansky, J. 91, 116 spread or contagion 24, 70, 87, 93, 97–​105; and African-​Americans 77, 103–​104; and Asians 76, 103; and Communists 71, 78, 104–​105, 118–​119; and feeble-​minded 54, 72, 97–​99, 101, 103, 120, 122; and immigrants 75, 98–​100, 107–​108; and Jews 77, 107, 119; and miscegenation 97–​98, 109; and race suicide 99, 109 Stein, H.F. 17, 26 stereotypes: African-​American 59, 65, 107; Asian 34, 58; immigrant 73;

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Index 137 Jewish 72, 77, 107; metaphor and 12, 58, 65, 86, 124 sterilization, eugenic 2, 54, 71, 74, 78, 100 118, 122–​123; history 37–​38; Nazi 39 Stern, A.M. 41, 52 Stoddard, L. 100–​101, 106, 109, 119–​120, 122 Strong, D.S. 41, 118 surveillance see registration termites see animal metaphors Tilly, C. 55 Tololí, J. 79 Tomes, N. 20 Trent Jr., J.W. 38, 120 Trojan horse metaphor 92–​93 Virginia Racial Integrity Act, the 46–​47; see also anti-​miscegenation laws; Loving case virus 11–​12, 17, 25, 62, 87, 103; Communism as 71, 78, 92, 111, 119 Voorhis Act 118 Vose, C.E. 45, 65

Walker, F.A. 99–​100 Wallis, F.A. 33, 76 Warne, F.J. 73, 90, 106 Washington, H.A. 46, 60, 62, 64, 77, 79 water: immigration and 107, 129; organism metaphor and 108, 129 Weindling, P.J. 22, 90 Weingart, B. 17–​18 Weiss, F.F. 73, 75, 99 Widener, A. 54 Wiggam, A.E. 109 Wister, O. 88 Woodruff, C.E. 110 World War I 14, 25, 33, 40, 54, 90–​91 World War II 20, 25, 40–​41, 43, 45–​46, 90, 111 Wu, C. 35 Yellow Peril, the 47, 77 Yukins, E. 102 Zionism 40, 53, 91 Zuckier, H. 57–​58, 62, 64–​65

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