AIDS in Social Theory

Since the early 1980s, America has faced a dilemma in public health that is seen in epidemic proportions. That dilemma, under the rubric of the disease known as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) has, in the views of many, become one of the most visible and potentially serious health hazards in contemporary society. In fact, the subject of AIDS has engendered not only public health policy, but brings to the forefront many aspects of sociological theory about the way individuals are treated by society, and the way societies at large deal with medical crises.

Using the major social theories of the time, in 1959 sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) criticized and amplified some of the major arguments against the trends in modern thought. In his work, Mills identified two major traditions that he believed were vital in the development of a modern, workable theory of society. The first was the tendency, particularly from the implications and writings of Karl Marx and Max Weber, to manipulate the evidence of history and society in such a way as to make initial theories "fit" into preconceived notions of society. The second, identified as an even larger block to press in the identification and elaboration of sociological theory, was called the Grand Theory. In this, Mills likely meant that the primary goal of the social disciplines should be that of the identification and further development of a "systematic theory of the nature of man and society" (p. 23).

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sidered, at the outset, that AIDS was a "gay disease," and therefore did not place too much emphasis on either its control or eradication. Even members of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta recognized that AIDS was highly infectious, and urged that the government take steps to inform and protect the public. AIDS, many said, may be centered in the homosexual community at this time (early 1980s), but it was likely to spread into the mainstream population in the near future. Thus, rather than subjugating a single population group, it would be necessary to curtail the exploitation of the individual, and focus the available resources on the options (Shilts, 1987, pp. 121-125; 171-173). Emile Durkheim (1984) believed that social solidarity was engendered by the collective conscience and that this led to a distinct pattern in society that he called "normal" and "pathological." Societies were likened to the human organism, in that they could be healthy or sick. For Durkheim, one of the reasons that modern societies were actually "sick" was that they disallowed many of the needs of the individual in favor of those for the collective. In this, there are also secondary factors which add to the nature of society and the individ

Category: Medical - A