Mairian,
[snip]
> If this 'difference' or 'centre' is framed in minority group discourse (and
> I'm not saying this is how YOU see it), this is where I (and, I think,
> Barnes, Oliver etc) would disagree. UK theory, founded on UPIAS'
> Fundamental Principles document, sees social exclusion as a primary form of
> disabled people's oppression and there are elements of BCODP's policy which
> argue equally strongly for inclusive education. In the recent past there
> has been some resistance in the USA to our term 'inclusion' but this is yet
> another term that we use differently over here and it does NOT mean
> assimilation. Also I can see that there would be a middle way - that is
> inclusion as a collective rather than on an individual basis. What I would
> say is politically narrow in its focus is separatism based on identity
> politics, because it doesn't on the basis of sociohistorical evidence
> eliminate discrimination and, therefore, oppression - indeed it frequently
> reproduces it - and it compromises questions of rights.
The "difference" between pwd and others does not assume or require
exclusion or inclusion. It is a recognition of a "difference" by which we
can identify pwd. The personal is political
[snip]
> It should be possible to see disability theory as multi-stranded with the
> different strands used to conceptualise different dimensions of the
> relationship between disabled people and society, culture or whatever you
> want to call it.
We agree.
[snip]
> I note Teun van Dijk's (1998) comment that:
>
> 'as a general concept, ideology is hardly more vague that similar Big Terms
> in the social sciences and the humanities. In many respects, the same holds
> for such notions as 'society', 'group', 'action', 'power', 'discourse',
> 'mind', 'knowledge', among many others. These notions defy precise
> definition and seem to happily live the fuzzy life inherent in such
> catch-all terms that denote complex sets of phenomena and that are the
> preferred toys of philosophers and scholars in the humanities and the
> social sciences. Where 'ideology' differs from these other general notions,
> however, is that its commonsense usage is generally perjorative ....
> Definitions generally are hardly adequate to capture all the complexities
> of such notions. Indeed such fundamental notions are the objects of inquiry
> for theories and whole disciplines.... In sum, the various versions of the
> concept of ideology are simply scholarly constructs of competing theories.'
Well, in the discipline of political science, ideology does not have a
perjorative meaning. It describes value systems such as fascism,
democracy, communism, and the like.
[snip]
> Do you mean interpersonal relationships primarily between disabled and
> non-disabled people (though of course, as Finkelstein has noted, there is
> hierarchical organisation of impairments in the disability movement). Are
> you saying that Deaf culture is a negative value judgement as something
> that is produced through interpersonal relationships between some deaf
> people, or that the disability movement as produced from interpersonal
> relationships between people with different impairments, is built on
> negative value judgements?
I am saying that when a person notes a difference which is then equated
to disability that person views the pwd in a negative way.
[snip]
> As I've said
> before, I want to see this mailbase as a forum for considered debate not as
> a means of making cursory comments - but perhaps that is because this is
> the only forum where I can experience equality on my own 'textual' terms.
> That's another reason why I'm interested in Derrida - but that's another
> story.
I understand that you want this mailbase for considered debate, but I
want it to be a place for casual conversation about mutually interesting
topics. Hmmmmm, what is to be done?
David
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