Highly somatic, disgust is nonetheless social in its construction and consequences. Interfering in particular in the relational work of professionals in the careit puts social cohesion to the test by creating a boundary between bodies.
It is a bold bet to make disgust an object for the social sciences, as it seems to be a natural and universal reaction. Haven’t all men always known this violent repulsion in the face of dirt, starting with that of feces? Isn’t disgust this deeply incorporated defense mechanism that protects us from inedible foods? Undoubtedly, but its incorporation is also a social product. Aren’t we teaching children to distinguish between dirty and clean (don’t touch that waste, it’s poop!)? Disgust is thus revealed to be determined by our habits and our living conditions, undoubtedly more sanitized than before. Above all, it is a cognitive emotion, that is to say an emotion influenced by the meaning given to the object or the situation; thus we judge our baby’s diaper less disgusting than that of an incontinent patient in geriatrics. The disgusting object would then no longer be so so much in itself, but in comparison to others. The relational dimension of disgust, its inclusion in social relations, leads us to question both the social identities of people who are disgusted and those of people who are judged to be disgusting.
Professional hand-to-hand combat
Focused on the emergence of disgust in interactions between care or service professionals and different types of “bodies” – bodies degraded by suffering and social violence, bodies suffering from the disorders of old age, or even dead bodies – Social issues put to the test by disgustdirected by Dominique Memmi, Gilles Raveneau and Emmanuel Taïeb, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at professions that are subject to disgust due to the close combat that their work involves: funeral directors, surgeons, firefighters, social workers, ambulance drivers, caregivers in geriatrics, retirement homes, etc. The time spent alongside them allows researchers to finely identify the sources of hardship – the bodies but also the stigma attached to these professionals –, the conceptions of the activity, the strategies of distancing and, often, the euphemization or invisibility of disgust in professional interactions. Indeed, the veiling of disgust is the norm for these professionals, driven by a humanist ethic of respect and maintaining the dignity of others. This ethos makes their emotional work more delicate. Behind the scenes, some seek to attract a form of recognition by going against the norm: they show off their courage, adopt a bravado attitude, or even exaggerate the difficulty of their tasks. But others also hide their disgust out of shame about their activity, as if by taking care of these disgusting bodies, they themselves became impure or untouchable.
Disgust raises a series of professional problems that relate in particular to the distribution or delegation of “dirty work” (for example between old and new in the work collective), to the delimitation of professional territories (between nursing assistants and nurses or ambulance drivers), or to conflicts of perception between professionals and laypeople: thus surgeons in favor of organ donation studied by Michel Castra, who, without organ donations, perceive the dead body as doomed to uselessness, and who are disgusted – morally – by the refusal of families to proceed with the donations. But, and this is the whole point of putting the coordinators into perspective, these professional problems are revealed to be more broadly social and, therefore, political.
Social sensitivity and guilt
Norbert Elias had already pointed out that the process of “civilization” and “individuation” – the historical trend towards greater self-control – is accompanied in each person by an increased sensitivity in the relationship to oneself and to the body of others, and in particular by more marked reactions of modesty and embarrassment when faced with loss of control of the body. Following on from this work, the authors maintain that disgust is a more widespread reaction than before. Encouraged by the technical developments of the XIXe century like the sewer system, the Pasteur revolution, and perfumes, the trial of civilization would intimate to each one, to XXe And XXIe centuries, to control one’s body under penalty of social exclusion. This individual responsibility – or guilt – in fact causes, in those who do not or no longer have a “legitimate” body, a shame leading to self-exclusion. However, the process of civilization, according to Elias, is also marked by a growing discomfort with signs of superiority in interactions, including the expression of disgust. Professionals, at the same time more sensitive and less authorized to show their sensitivity, would reproduce in spite of themselves a domination that is still very real, but more hidden.
Disgust and division of labor
Recent changes in the division of labor complicate the situation. Care has become more professional, at the same time as the rate of female employment has increased. As the level of qualification also increases, the risk increases of seeing the least qualified relegated to the most disgusting tasks, which further compromises the recognition of both the arduousness of the work and the humanity of the stigmatized people. Symmetrically, the most qualified refuse to perform certain tasks deemed disgusting. The risks of mistreatment, especially in the context of budgetary restrictions, are not far away. Nor are the risks of professional disillusionment.
Romain Pudal’s analysis of disgust among firefighters is instructive in this regard. Firefighters, often from working-class backgrounds and attracted by the prestigious representation of “firefighters,” have to rescue victims from disadvantaged populations much more often on a daily basis than fight fires. These interventions blur the self-representations and the profession that firefighters had developed. On the one hand, while they thought they had to demonstrate “manly” skills, they actually have to take care of others, which they associate with feminine work. On the other hand, they intervene with populations to whom they are socially close by their origins, while having been able to distance themselves from them thanks to their profession. Their disgust here is the counterpart of their social advancement. Having at its core a deep fear of downgrading, it expresses in a way the horror for the people that firefighters could have become.
A dysfunction
This example illustrates a strong idea of the book: disgust is a “mixophobic” emotion. It reflects the fear of “symbolic contamination”, that of falling into social decline through proximity maintained with disgusting people. It appears when social distance is coupled with spatial proximity. Disgust is therefore not only an individual affect; it is shared by collectives, and reflects their positions in social space. Hence the notion of “class disgust”, which we find for example in the bourgeois disgust for the working classes in XIXe century, or even in the attitude of the Indian midwives studied by Clémence Jullien, who justify by a supposed educational function the expression of their disgust towards Muslim women in labour from underprivileged urban classes.
Disgust would therefore have the social function of marking distance and distinction. But in reality it is a question of dysfunction. A disruptive affect, it weakens the social bond. Integrated into political ideologies, it would justify all atrocities. Repulsive, it tends to veil its causes and effects and, therefore, to remain unthought.
And yet, it must be taken care of, on a daily basis, as the professionals analyzed in the book do. It must also be thought of in a historical and political perspective. The aging of the population and its poor health, on the one hand, and its precariousness, on the other hand, will increase the importance and, probably, the visibility of the social problem posed by disgust. Indeed, qualified personnel will be needed to take care of dependent elderly people, and funeral workers to deal with the 45% increase in the number of annual deaths predicted by demographers as a result of the arrival of the baby boom generations in old age. The social issue of disgust has not finished being posed, and the book coordinated by D. Memmi, G. Raveneau and E. Taïeb helps us to think about it.