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-* This discussion of Robert B. Edgerton's paper, Mental Retardation in Non-Western Societies -- Toward A Cross-Cultural Perspective of Incompetence, was presented at the Conference on Socio-Cultural Aspects of Mental Retardation, Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn., June 1968 and will be included as a chapter in; H. C. Haywood (ed.) Social-Cultural Aspects of Mental Retardation. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, in press.

-** Professor of Human Development, The Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.-

Dr. Edgerton has provided in his paper a very exhaustive compilation of information on mental retardation among primitive men. I share his regret that hardly any information has been collected on a systematic basis, and since civilization is rapidly extending its outreach, the urgency of research efforts in this particular area cannot be overstressed.

In order to broaden the base of our discussion to some extent, I would like, first of all, to introduce additional materials from some developing countries. I am using this term because I question the practice of equating "non-western" or "non-European" with underdevelopment, and because the term "society" connotes a unitary structure which does not exist as soon as we move beyond the confines of the anthropologist's paradise, the small South Sea islands.

In reality we still have in certain European countries areas of gross cultural underdevelopment. On the other hand, in some non-European countries typically viewed as areas of extreme deprivation in terms of food, clothing, housing, health and education, one finds urban centers with highly developed health, welfare and education services. As far as mental retardation is concerned, one of the most striking contrasts is presented by Brazil where Rio de Janeiro and particularly Sao Paulo are metropolitan areas with some outstanding services for the mentally retarded, yet in northern Brazil there are regions of the most extreme deprivation and starvation. While in India mental retardation developments are of more recent origin, it is safe to predict that in the near future one will find there a situation rather similar to that in Brazil.

Throughout the world very considerable progress has been made during the last decade or two in the area of mental retardation and one of the main forces in this advance has been a most interesting social phenomenon, the organized effort of parents of the mentally retarded, efforts that now can well be described as a worldwide movement.

One can only hope that in the near future, while the raw data are still obtainable, a social anthropologist will undertake a study to determine the factors that were at work when following World War II literally around the globe in countries large and small, developed and developing, parents began to rise up demanding proper attention to their retarded children's problems. (1) One point is clearly established: There was no organization, public or private, which stimulated or fostered the almost explosive force of this movement. With but few exceptions the efforts were indigenous to the various countries as far as the job of organizing was concerned. Now there exists the International League of Societies for the Mentally Handicapped with parent sponsored member societies in nearly fifty countries from Malaysia to Ecuador, from Yugoslavia to the Philippines.

Documentary evidence from the various countries tends to demonstrate an astonishing similarity not only in the motivation of the founding members of these groups but also with regard to their goals and methods. While this matter certainly deserves to be studied more in detail, all indications point to certain basic factors common to the experience of having and caring for a retarded child, be it in Indonesia, the United States, Spain or Poland, even though there are striking individual differences in the response of parents to this experience -- from extreme grief and anxiety and feelings of worthlessness, leading either to rejection or overprotection of the child on the one hand, to a positive acceptance on the other hand, resulting in a resolve to help this child and others of similar handicap. Obviously the manifestation of these varying parental reactions is influenced by prevailing cultural factors but the early history of the parent movement in many countries clearly shows how the initiating and organizing group proceeded in the face of overwhelming societal obstacles and tabus -sic-.

One significant phenomenon in this context is the transformation of parental reaction to what has been considered a very personal experience into a "consumer group" response. A recent report from India (2) states "one sure thing is that parents (of mentally retarded children) seek help as never before," while from Nigeria comes this comment (3) "The clinic was founded primarily to help emotionally disturbed children, but the pressure from parents to do something for their retarded children, most of whom had been sent away from ordinary schools where they had failed to profit by standard methods of teaching, has been such that the mentally handicapped children had to be taken."

(3) Ransome-Kuti, O., Lagos Institute of Child Health, unpublished memorandum, February 1967.

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The supposition suggests itself that having a retarded child is an experience of such intensity and universal qualities that it can transcend the existing societal behavior patterns.

Although the organizations of parents of mentally handicapped children have been a key factor in the recent increase of interest and of services, such developments have occurred also in countries where there is no such parent group. Kenya e.g. reports that the mentally retarded child presents "a very troublesome problem." (4) "In the villages there is a high incidence of subnormality, one cause of which are birth injuries due to prolonged labor and the absence of available medical treatment. There is also a high incidence of fever of various kinds and if a child contracts such an illness he may be left for days before medical help is sought or procured." (5)

(5) Hale, Judith A., Training Scheme for Teachers of Mentally Handicapped in Kenya. Teaching and Training, VI, 2, 1968.

Dr. R. J. Hayden, Senior Medical Officer, Nairobi City Council, presented the following statement at a WHO-UNICEF Seminar in Nairobi, February 1967:

"In some ways, handicapped children in urban surroundings fare better than their country cousins, and in some ways very much worse. Those who fare better have profited by development, improved planning and community service that urbanization can bring if it is prosperous and brings with it a scattering of wise philanthropic leaders. Those who fare worse, are the children who would have been absorbed and supported by their own long standing tribal and family units, in quiet rural surroundings where the hurly-burly of modern-city life would not have highlighted what the child could NOT do, but where the community would have been very content with what the child could do...."

"The mentally subnormal children in the city, of which there are a large number, have a bad time. In some ways, they have not received much attention here in Kenya -- there is no Society for Mental Health or for the Mentally Disabled as yet. However in other ways, prevention as a result of good antenatal and maternal care is very possible in urban surroundings and is certainly improving here. Children are found earlier by Medical Officers and Health Visitors and are often taught to walk and use their limbs. The Health Visitor also can play a large part in encouraging the best out of a mentally subnormal child at home, particularly by encouraging the parents to play their part. Here in Nairobi are two privately run schools for mentally subnormal children... These two schools hope to amalgamate towards the end of this year and it is hoped that then the united school may expand and also run more economically...."

"In an urban area these children fare badly.. They have no space in which to wander, their living conditions are confined and so they are a source of irritation to families in contact with them. If they wander, they are a source of danger to themselves and others as a result of road accidents and other urban dangers.... Causes of the high number of mentally handicapped children are varied. There are mongol children though not in large numbers, there is familial mental subnormality, there are cases of injury to the brain by anoxia in the prenatal period and at the time of birth, there is birth injury, and there are the results of encephalitis and meningitis in quite large numbers. In fact, the number of mentally subnormal children has been badly underestimated, mainly because so far so little can be done to help. I have on my Nairobi register twice as many mentally handicapped as deaf children and I have not yet started really to look for them, though I shall be doing so in the coming year."

In Indonesia educational facilities for the mentally retarded are being developed in various urban areas throughout the country, under both public and private auspices, including some privately sponsored day schools for the moderately and severely retarded. Although in general the physical and vocational rehabilitation field has in most countries been slow to respond to the needs of the mentally retarded, Indonesia has been an exception and the Indonesian Journal of Rehabilitation has over the past several years included a section on mental retardation.

The following report from "Sumber Asih," a school for moderately and severely retarded children started eleven years ago in Djakarta by two mothers and now serving one hundred children, conveys the thinking of a local parent group:

Care for the Mentally Subnormal in Indonesia

"In Indonesia nowadays the process of 'acculturation' is in full swing. With the country folk or social lower class in big cities the educable child is not marked. In this community one lives according to traditional rules; personal decisions are not demanded. And there is work as much or as less as for the normals..."

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"In the society of intellectuals the educable child is entirely out of place. He cannot meet the demand for middle school or university where even at the lower school he already has his difficulties. Desperate parents seek their help in private lessons or if possible in schools for educable children. But at the sight of trainable children, who are sometimes admitted too in these schools, these parents get deterred."

"The trainable child in general is only 'taken care of.' This might be done in 'joint' families, but with progressing acculturation and better medical care (formerly they died very young) the trainable child presents its problem. The child is mostly hidden. The parents are twisted by the conflict of guilt and shame just as is the case in other countries. Another factor is that the chances for a good marriage for the daughter are minimized by the presence of a retarded brother or sister."

"In intellectual circles in Indonesia too the question is raised: 'Who will take care after our child when we are no more?' Social and cultural development exclude brothers and sisters for this purpose. There are parents who accept their retarded child as he is. They integrate him in the family and make efforts to send him to a special school. Also in them lives the complex of disgrace, guilt and shame, but they are able to open themselves for advice and guidance."

"The condition of the retarded child of the economically deprived in big cities is worse than that with the peasantry: lack of fresh air and mostly hidden."

"The pioneers for the care of the mentally subnormal are Indonesians and Chinese. Their religion is: Mohammedan, Protestant, Catholic. The greatest part of these humanists are ex-pupils of the pre-war Christian schools. They give their energy and make their efforts to break the barriers by introducing the retarded children to the society as human beings who have their full right and place under the sun."

"Indeed, care for the handicapped in Indonesia now is in the air."

Similar material is on hand from such countries as India, Thailand, Nigeria and from numerous Latin American republics. However, the two brief accounts from Kenya and Indonesia should suffice to indicate that social scientists interested in cross-cultural exploration of the impact of mental retardation under still existing primitive societal circumstances in this era of steady movement towards industrialization and urbanization can now enlist the aid and resources of public and private organizations as these are taking the first steps toward provision of services. However, as in so many other fields, progress is swift and these opportunities for study will diminish.

Before going on to a comparative discussion of some of the more specific phenomena, I would like to call attention to a very interesting development in which economic factors related to labor supply have produced in highly developed countries circumstances which have resulted in an avoidable increase of mental retardation. The reference here is to the importation by highly industrialized Central European countries of large numbers of unskilled laborers from Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. A study from Switzerland (6) points out e.g. that by the sixth school year the children of Spanish workers in Switzerland have more than twice the rate of retardation than Swiss children. What are the contributing circumstances? Typically these workers are housed in wooden barracks erected at the fringe of cities. The mothers, who would not work in Spain, do work in Geneva. Both parents are poorly educated; the mothers, in particular, speak little French, and this language difficulty accentuates their social isolation which is intensified by the fact that it is the father who does the shopping for the family. Neither parent gets to know the social and cultural resources of the community. Stringent Swiss regulations (reflecting narrow economy-mindedness and lacking social responsibility) forbid the entry of the family's dependents into Switzerland until the parents have worked there for three years. This, of course, results in added serious disadvantage to the children's development. While the mother works, the children, once permitted to come to Switzerland, are taken care of by the grandmother who typically speaks only Spanish. The seriousness of the problem can be judged from the fact that in some public schools in Switzerland more than one third of the children in the early elementary grades do not speak the language in which they are taught.

In Germany, where similar conditions prevail as a result of large-scale importation of foreign workers, such children in at least one city are getting special lessons twice weekly from teachers of their own homeland, employed by the school authorities in order to counteract to some extent this cultural isolation and the resulting inferior intellectual performance. (7)

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Israel is another country which has had a substantial immigration of an unskilled working population coming from countries with different languages and primitive socio-cultural conditions. Israel's large-scale efforts to deal with this situation provide significant materials for studies on the relationship of mental retardation to socio-economic and cultural deprivation.

Attention should also be called in this context to an excellent recent study by Charles Meisgeier on the problem of minority groups in Texas, under the title "The Doubly Disadvantaged -- A Study of Socio-Cultural Determinants in Mental Retardation." (8) His data regarding the Latin American minority group are particularly valuable. He states "If we think of the Negro and Latin American population of Texas as states within a state -- and this is not too fanciful since they are groups of significant size, concentrated in certain sections and separated by barriers, -- we have a picture of a significant segment of our national territory and population characterized by gross deprivation and disadvantaged in every area -- physical, medical, economic, educational, social and political."

Much as is the case with the Spanish worker in Switzerland, Meisgeier documents the great problems faced by this population due to their inability to speak English, their lack of knowledge of the social and cultural resources, in particular also the health and welfare agencies, and their inability to communicate adequately once they have been specifically directed to such an agency.

The foregoing examples related to cultural and socio-economic deprivation resulting in mental retardation of a mild degree. Comments are now in order on the first one of the common assumptions about mental retardation in the primitive world quoted by Dr. Edgerton, namely that the profoundly retarded are typically killed, an assumption for which he found no conclusive support. What needs to be pointed out here is that the desirability of killing profoundly retarded individuals is a question which is being raised in the United States periodically to this very day, and actual instances of such individuals having been killed by members of their family have been reported from all sections of the country. Furthermore, there are strong indications that some physicians will directly or indirectly cause the death of an infant who in their opinion is destined to be grossly retarded. It is significant that a major television series entitled "The Defenders," dealing with simulated court cases from the current American scene, began years ago with a drama in which a physician deliberately killed an infant born with mongolism in order to relieve the parents of this burden. While the story had the case brought to court and the physician convicted, the author strongly implied that it was unfortunate the law had to take this course.

A recent major article in The Atlantic (9) , written in part by the father of a new born child with mongolism, in part by a professor of theology, unequivocally recommends that all such children be killed at birth. The theology professor flatly stated that a child with Down's syndrome (mongolism) "is not a person," and that therefore the killing in such a case was justified, while "there is far more reason for real guilt in keeping alive a Down's or other kind of idiot.." The June issue printed a number of letters disagreeing with the article but also one letter from a mother bitterly complaining that her doctor had rushed her two-day old infant, born with mongolism, to an emergency operation when she felt that he should not have "bothered." Similarly a psychiatric journal (10) recently quoted a psychiatrist superintendent of a state institution for the mentally retarded as calling profoundly retarded individuals "sub-human" and "human vegetables" and implying that they had no right to live.

(10) Conditioning the Retarded May be Inhumane Procedure. Frontiers of Hospital Psychiatry, 5,5, January 1968.

The point to be made here is simply that what Dr. Edgerton reported as the actions of primitive men is replicated still today under the most advanced condition of so-called civilization.

In this connection it is well to recall, in order to put matters in a broader perspective, that until only a few years ago a large number of states in the U.S.A. had statutory provisions denying medical and surgical treatment under the crippled children's legislation to any child "not of sound mind." A recent book entitled Dehumanization and the Institutional Career (11) provides further documentation of "civilized" man's inhumanity to man in dealing with the retarded.

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On the other side of the coin, the belief of some primitive people that the severely retarded were divine creatures also finds its parallels in modern life in the U.S.A. Within the Roman Catholic church there is a strong movement referring to the mentally retarded as "Holy Innocents", and contemporary literature in this country, both Catholic and Protestant, includes many autobiographical accounts or parent guidance materials describing the mentally retarded child as "a special gift of God" -- a privilege bestowed on the faithful.

However, again in keeping with Edgerton's observation that among primitive men reaction to the mentally retarded is usually on a continuum from favorable to unfavorable, so also in developed countries such as the U.S.A. can be found a viewpoint opposite to that of the "Holy Innocents", namely the retarded child being ascribed to the parents as punishment visited upon them for their sins. (12)

Interesting from a religious point of view is also the work of the anthroposophical movement in the field of mental retardation. Their very positive attitude toward the retarded person and their insistence on his dignity and his right to an ethical approach and an aesthetic environment (which has led to some outstanding care programs under anthroposophical direction in several countries) undoubtedly can be related to their belief in reincarnation.

There is a definite connection between the religious and the health aspects of mental retardation. Edgerton refers to examples where the mentally retarded person is considered to have healing powers but conversely retardation is also seen as the object of the witch doctor or magic healer even after medical treatment of illness has been successfully introduced. In Nigeria this is so deeply rooted that the Department of Psychiatry, of the University of Ibadan, in the development of out-patient clinics in certain villages has utilized the services of the traditional healer or witch doctor in epidemiological studies, community attitude surveys and social and group approaches. The Nigerian psychiatrist. Dr. T. A. Lambo (13) comments "without their help we would not have known how and where to look".

Meisgeier (14) provides us in this context with interesting material from the Mexican-American groups in Texas, based on an earlier study by Fantini. (15) Mental illness and mental retardation are considered a "mal puesto", an unnatural disease, and it is the "curandero", the folk-healer, to whom they turn first for help. Combined with the fatalism which pervades the life of this population group, this has resulted in failure of efforts to introduce programs of rehabilitation as well as prevention. One wonders whether Texan physicians would ever consider the approach utilized by their Nigerian colleagues, namely to accept as a reality the population's faith in the healer and to try to win him over and work through him.

(15) Fantini, A. E., Illness and Curing Among the Mexican-Americans of Mission, Texas, unpublished master's thesis. University of Texas, 1962.

Two additional comments suggest themselves in a discussion of this aspect of Edgerton's paper -- the first is the increasing recognition of the role malnutrition plays in the etiology of mental retardation. Recent communications from Nigeria (16) and from Kenya (17) refer to protein-caloric malnutrition of varying severity up to the fully blown Kwashiorkor which in its early stages can be reversed through a high protein diet resulting in physically and mentally fit children, but which after prolonged exposure eventually brings permanent damage. With regard to the Mexican-American group, Benjamin Pasamanik (18) called attention to this problem already seventeen years ago and the point was recently reiterated by Meisgeier, while Cravioto (19) has demonstrated the connecting link between inadequate diet and inadequate intellectual performance through studies in Mexico and other Latin American countries. The most recent reports on the unexpectedly large degree of malnutrition and actual starvation in the United States suggest that this factor should receive far more careful consideration in assessing the results of socio-economic and cultural deprivation in the U.S.A.

(17) supra 5

(18) Pasamanik, Benjamin, The Intelligence of American Children of Mexican Parentage -- A Discussion of Uncontrolled Variables. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 46., 1951.

(19) Cravioto, J. and Robles, B., Evolution of Adaptive and Motor Behavior During Rehabilitation from Kwashiorkor. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 35, 3, April 1965.

The second point refers to confusion between mental retardation and mental illness. In some of the examples given by Edgerton one wonders whether in the minds of the observers there was a sufficient differentiation between the "idiot" and the "maniac". Maisgeier points out that among the Mexican-Americans the more severely retarded are often mistakenly categorized as "loco" (crazy) and a similar report has come from India. Even many relatively intelligent people in the U.S.A. are confused about the difference between mental retardation and mental illness.

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Yet for those involved with the problem, such as for instance parents of afflicted children, there is a very definite qualitative differentiation between mental illness and mental retardation. Furthermore, there is distinct difference of opinion as to whether the one or the other is socially more "acceptable". A more detailed cross-cultural study on this qualitative differentiation should produce interesting results.

Indeed, beyond the specific differentiation between mental retardation and mental illness there lies the intriguing question regarding the existence of a hierarchy or handicaps in general, on the one hand in the eyes of the general public, on the other in the minds of the handicapped persons themselves.

Edgerton's story of the retarded boy leading about the blind man actually hits very close to a much debated question that has wide practical significance in vocational rehabilitation: Is it possible to "mix" people with different handicaps, including the mentally retarded, in a sheltered workshop? I was told the story of a man of normal intelligence who had had an arm amputated and who had been trained by the rehabilitation agency as a spot-welder. In the sheltered workshop the only job requiring spot-welding involved metal chairs and a mentally retarded young man with mongolism was assigned the task of lifting the chairs on to a work table so the welder could perform his task. At first both men objected strenuously to this arrangement -- the welder because he felt he was being demeaned by having to work with such a misfit and the young man because he was terrified of the welder's torch. However, with the encouragement of the staff, the two became reconciled to the situation, the welder because of the steady work performance by his partner, while the latter was pleased with the social recognition this assignment gave him. When the amputee eventually left the workshop, the young man with mongolism asked for and was given the welding assignment at which he became proficient.

The problem of providing employment opportunities for the handicapped, including the mentally retarded, has led to an interesting development in Poland: Invalids' Cooperatives run their own factories and have become a recognized part of the nation's productive capacity. While at first limited to the physically handicapped, the Cooperatives recently have begun to include the mentally retarded though at first in segregated units or in one or two cases, in special units together with the mentally ill.

Discrimination among those discriminated against by the general public as "deviants" deserves further analytic study not only with regard to acceptance of the mentally retarded by persons with other mental or physically handicaps but, indeed, also with regard to acceptance of the severely retarded by those with lesser degrees of intellectual handicaps. Edgerton's significant study on stigma in the lives of the mentally retarded (20) and, indeed, the whole area of the self concept of the mentally retarded (21) have obviously great significance for strategies in rehabilitative efforts, particularly the selection criteria to programs of care and training.

(21) Cobb, Henry V., The Self Concept of the Mentally Retarded. Rehabilitation Record, 2,3, May-June 1961.

Edgerton arrives at the conclusion that something more than a simplistic environmental deterministic formula must be invoked to account for the differential treatment accorded the mentally retarded in the world's non-Western societies and that the answer must lie somewhere in the complex web that unites culture and social organization. A recent Expert Committee of the World Health Organization (22) parallels this thought by the statement that "Criteria of mental retardation do not relate only to the individual and his handicap but may also reflect the complexity of the demands that society makes upon the individual as well as the threshold of its tolerance for deviation." But what causes this threshold of tolerance? Why has Spain, with a considerable (though now rapidly diminishing) rate of illiteracy, a low tolerance of intellectual deficit, designating as retarded (subnormal) even those with relatively minor intellectual deficiency, when Denmark and Sweden, with a high level of literacy, are far more tolerant of variation in intellectual performance and as a result arrive at their much discussed low rate of incidence and prevalence? The need for further study in this direction is obvious.

With regard to the fourth assumption put forth by Dr. Edgerton, namely that the mildly retarded do not constitute a social problem, I would like to address myself in particular to the problem of productivity -- one of the salient factors leading to social acceptability. In a paper on the problems in special education of children in the multi-cultural society of Israel, Emmanuel Chigier (23) describes Israel's problem in trying to integrate the children of immigrants coming from countries with low levels of cultural expectations and adds that these problems are likely to increase as the country progresses technologically toward automation. In other words, here again is the thought referred to repeatedly by Edgerton, that as society gets more advanced in technology, the intellectually limited population will increasingly become misfits. Yet, it can hardly be disputed that hunting game or locating water or (as was pointed out) steering a canoe over long distances without a compass requires a great deal more intelligence than wiping oil from a big drill press or riding every day 20 blocks on a bus.

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The crux of the problem to which Chigier refers seems to be much more related to Lewis Dexter's thesis that much of society's problems in the area known as deviance (handicap, disability) are of its own making. It is by no means necessary that technical advances complicate life -- the opposite can be achieved: The orthopedically handicapped provide a good example. A thoughtless society erected buildings, built sidewalks, busses and other conveyances, which quite unnecessarily complicated movement and, indeed, made some of these facilities inaccessible. The worldwide campaign of recent origin to remove architectural and other technical barriers will have far-reaching effects in decreasing the degree of handicap for large numbers of physically handicapped people. By the same token, technology can be used to widen opportunities for the intellectually handicapped rather than to narrow them. Teaching machines are one example, special safety and control features on machines are another. Mass production permits use of persons with a minimum range of aptitude to earn a living by performing just one simple routine task on a complicated machine. And mass transportation can facilitate his commuting to work. The newly developing skills in urban planning can come into play here -- there is no reason why housing for handicapped persons cannot be planned, keeping in mind commuting needs and transport facilities. And automated employment agencies could locate job opportunities fitting for different types of handicaps. Indeed the U.S. Government has demonstrated in recent years how many jobs, which formerly seemed quite out of reach, can well be filled by employees who are mentally retarded.

Actually there is at least as much reason to worry about the effect of increasing automation on gifted and creative minds. Some of them, of course, find increased challenges in the many uses of automation in general and the computer specifically. But others do not find satisfaction in that and, indeed, resent being automated. How will the social anthropologists of the future look on our "flower children" and their search for a more simplistic and responsive society?

On the basis of a study of 1,000 cases of mental retardation in Karachi, Dr. K. Zaki Hasan (24) concludes that the nature of the problem in the developing countries is much the same as it is in other parts of the world where it has been studied in greater detail.

"The physical and psychological characteristics of mental retardation are similar except that there may be perhaps a higher proportion of cases of mental retardation whose etiology may have an infective basis. The problem is further complicated by the lack of awareness in the population about the problems of the mentally retarded and the unavailability of facilities for the diagnosis and guidance about management of such cases."

"The main problem arises from the lack of attention to the problems coupled with lack of facilities and trained personnel, thus creating a vicious circle. This again is rooted in the economic situation in which the government and the social welfare agencies in the developing countries find themselves. Most of the developing countries of the world are able to allocate only a small proportion of funds at their disposal to public, health. This also explains the meagreness of epidemiological data and reliable statistics from the developing countries. It is essential that the importance of the problem should be emphasized to the governments and to point out that from three to five percent of their population may be affected by mental retardation. On the face of it, this alone is a sufficient reason for any government to take more interest and to allocate larger sums towards developing programmes concerned with mental retardation in their respective countries."

The significant point about this statement by Dr. Hasan is, of course, that what he describes as the particular problems of developing countries could well be a description of the situation in any number of states in the U.S.A. or in various European countries which merely underlines the first point.

Edgerton believes, and I think correctly so, that any social system can make behavior into a social problem. And I also agree with him that in determining societal differences we have been too concerned with environmental factors and the degree of technological achievement and, due to this preoccupation, have paid insufficient attention to more subtle qualities in the life of a nation or a tribe which would help us to understand why the citizens on developing Truk Islands and those in highly developed Denmark both have a far more positive and generous attitude toward the mentally retarded than countries in a similar developmental stage.