I agree with Mark that Vic's analysis is helpful. Can I just take up a few
points:
>It's curious, is it not, how some people are unable to fathom why people
>who take a materialist view of the world can also recognise the
>importance of 'attitudes' in facilitating or hindering change.
I think there is another way of looking at this. We can 'recognise' the
significance of something but, as Vic suggests in his defence of
materialism, not incorporate it in our ideology. We can also share the same
goals but take different paths to reach them. And it is possible that some
of us have the greatest of respect for materialist approaches whilst
believing that they are contingent and not the whole answer to our
emancipation. This becomes important when we recognise that some of the
very substantial barriers we face collectively are not structural but at
the very least, both structural and cultural. If this is the case - and yes
there are some who dispute this - then it seems that changing attitudes
itself has to move beyond a focus on structures.
>
>To me the issue is not whether or not we should be concerned about
>changing attitudes, but rather the question: 'change attitudes to what?'
> When the focus is on changing negative attitudes towards disabled
>people I think this misses the point, because this locates disability in
>the individual with an impairment and elevates the importance of
>non-disabled in our lives (eg. Goffman's downgrading of 'prejudice' in
>favour of 'stigma').
I confess to being a little confused by this statement. My understanding of
the social model is that 'disability' is located in society and impinges
upon people with impairments through institutionalised inequality which is
itself a product of capitalism. 'Negative attitudes' are located (mostly)
in people with abilities and often drive the erection of oppressive
barriers at local level. Vic may of course be referring to the issue of
internalised oppression (where 'disability' could be construed as being
located in the individual) and therefore part of disability. I think this
is probably an issue of which comes first, but I'm not sure that its
helpful to argue in this 'either/or' way.
This is where maybe grasping the idea of contingency is important. Vic's
argument is that we focus on 'changing attitudes towards the barriers that
impede disabled people's progress towards emancipation, then there is a
material (or real) focus for attitudinal change.' This is the goal which
all in the disability movement share (myself included). But there is no
doubt in my mind that emancipation means different things to different
contingencies in the movement and that the barriers themselves are not
always material (structural). The issue of 'changing negative attitudes
towards disabled people' (and challenging structures) must, I think, be
contextualised against macro-change in Western society which shows a
definite trend towards individualism (provoked in the UK by the materialist
values of years of right wing conservatism) and against collective
networking. This suggests a different kind of politics - one which
incorporates an understanding of diversity and which optimises the use of
diversity. It doesn't change the goals, only the processes by which some of
us achieve those goals.
This provides us with no lever for encouraging
>change other than appealing to the moral consciousness of (mostly)
>people with abilities possessing the negative attitudes. This turns
>attitudes into an abstract exercise and, of course, tends to get
>nowhere.
I would agree that this approach tends to get nowhere on its own but, as I
have argued elsewhere, we cannot afford to say that such an approach is
simply meaningless/abstract because this would be based on a fundamental
assumption that the barriers erected are all material barriers which
impinge on all disabled people in the same way, and that the strategies
proposed by the movement can be employed equally by everyone who is part of
it.
However, when Vic says:
>In my experience the language we use to focus attitudes on material
>targets for change can play a significant role in facilitating or
>hindering the rate of progress in the struggle for emancipation.
>
I couldn't agree more - as Vic's ironic use of 'people with abilities'
shows - and this goes well beyond the 'nice' and the 'nasty' words that we
use. Indeed, for some groups of disabled people who did not, in my reading
of Jane and Mike's book, figure prominently in the development of UPIAS'
Fundamental Principles, it is both their history and the key to the future.
Yet some people dismiss attempts to look at language performance as
political strategy and cultural production as examples of the 'abstract
exercise' that Vic refers to above, and therefore locate it outside the
movement. These people prefer not to see the danger of fragmentation as
these groups split off from the movement and pursue their own competitive
agendas WHICH ARE BUILT ON DIFFERENT GOALS. This means different languages,
and these language do not replace existing ones. They co-exist and in a
culture intent on fragmentation, this surely hinders the rate of progress?
Best wishes
Mairian
*********
"To understand what I am doing, you need a third eye"
*********
Mairian Corker
Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Postal Address:
111 Balfour Road
Highbury
London N5 2HE
U.K.
Minicom/TTY +44 [0]171 359 8085
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