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Christmas In Purgatory: A Photographic Essay On Mental Retardation

Creator: Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan (authors)
Date: 1974
Source: Available at selected libraries
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There are adult residents at The Seaside, but not in the same dormitories, and programs for adults are also separate. Adults have different needs and the following may illustrate how some of these are met.

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One of our difficulties in photographing activities at The Seaside was our inability to take very many pictures of adult residents. Most of the adults at The Seaside are working during the day, on institutional jobs or out in the community. Some, who could not be returned to their own homes, live in a work training unit. Here they are with friends and co-workers under the careful supervision of a cottage mother and father. During the day they are on placement -- working in the community -- and in the evening they return to their "home" where they can receive special help and guidance in their successful attempts to integrate into normal communities and become contributing and useful members of society.

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PURGATORY II "Life is a struggle..."

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"Life is a struggle, but not a warfare."
John Burroughs

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The Seaside is people. It is small. It is expensive to operate, but it isn't as expensive as one might expect. The Seaside appropriates approximately twice the amount, per patient, that other institutions do. In contrast with per capita costs in penal institutions. The Seaside has a very modest expenditure. In terms of human suffering -- and the potential for human growth -- places like The Seaside are among the few really economical government-sponsored facilities of which we know.

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There is a shame in America. Countless human beings are suffering needlessly. Countless more families of these unfortunate victims of society's irresponsibility are in anguish for they know, or suspect, the truth. Unwittingly, or unwillingly, they have been forced to institutionalize their loved one into a life of degradation and horror.

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We challenge every institution in America to look at itself now. We challenge each institution to examine its programs, its standards, its admission policies, its personnel, its budgets, its philosophy, its objectives. We challenge every institution -- and every governor and every legislator -- to justify its personnel and their practices, its size and development, and its budget.

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Our experiences during Christmas, 1965, require our calling for a national examination of every institution for the mentally retarded in America -- an examination that will inspect the deepest recesses of the most obscure back ward in the least progressive state. We call for a national examination of state budgets for the care and treatment of the retarded. We hold each superintendent, each commissioner of mental health, each governor, each thoughtful citizen, responsible for the care and treatment of individuals committed for institutionalization in their state.

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AFTERTHOUGHTS

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"The triumph of evil requires only that good men do nothing.''

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Since we have visited the institutions described in this book, we have shown and discussed our story with a heterogeneous but carefully selected number of people. Their backgrounds range from those in very high public office to undergraduate college students preparing to be special class teachers. Editors of two of the largest and most influential news magazines previewed and discussed this book with us.

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Popular opinion convinced us that this story must be brought to the American people as soon as possible. In discussing this work with so many very knowledgeable persons, we were able to resolve some of our anxieties about the possible adverse reaction to the publication of this study. Further, we were able to conceptualize a plan to correct those conditions we observed.

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The major questions that dictated caution and deliberation before a thoughtful answer could be found were concerned with whether or not our work represented an invasion of privacy of certain individuals, on the one hand, and that the general public has a right to be protected from the knowledge of degradation, on the other. As far as invasion of privacy is concerned, we have learned that -- from a legal point of view -- this is a very ambiguous matter. Although we were forced to satisfy legal requirements for the insurance of individual's privacy -- hence, the masking of eyes of patients shown in Part I -- we must question privacy on moral grounds. We believe that the so-called privacy of the back wards of these institutions contributes to suffering, for outsiders do not know the conditions in these buildings and, therefore, do little or nothing to promote improvements. When privacy contributes to suffering, we must question the ideal of privacy. When privacy contributes to suffering, it loses its significance as a cherished privilege. For those who could so reason, we do not believe that there would be many in the institutions who would object to our exposure of these frightening conditions if such exposure offered some possibility for a better life for the residents. Lastly, as we discussed this issue with a number of people we began to wonder whose privacies were being protected, those institutionalized residents or the rest of us? This leads to the second consideration.

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