Mike Clear wrote in response to Henry:
>in a general sort of way i was supporting your point about the difficulty
>of attitude change, by reflecting on mairian's charge that you might just
>be raising "the old spectre of Marx...again". from a slightly different
>angle i wanted to say, that if you were, this may not be such a bad thing.
>perhaps my comments are as much about how attitudes change and the most
>useful (as i see it) approaches to change.
There was no 'charge' intended here. I can see the value of Marxist
approaches but, as these postings demonstrate, Marxism is 'a contingent
discourse among other discourses', to quote Peter Leonard. I also agree
with Henry but I am suggesting that the difficulty with changing attitudes
is linked to using a materialist approach to do something its not intended
to do (see below).
>
>in disability politics and more generally i think there's an unwarranted
>commitment to attitude change (perhaps roughly an idealist position) at the
>expense of 'real' (concrete) change- this is very roughly a materialist
>position.
I'm not sure about this Mike - though I know there are others who disagree
- I think the UK position is absolutely the reverse of this. There is,
however, a strange paradox in using a materialist position to change
attitudes which are located in the metaphysical realm and transmitted
discursively. Certainly, as is suggested by Sarah, prolonged exposure to
disabled people CAN change attitudes in those who are exposed but is that
ALWAYS the case and does it not depend on what kind of exposure? My family
- who because of MY familiarity with THEM I can lip-read after a fashion -
after 47 years of 'experience' still talk to me through my partner, and
pointing this out makes no difference. Feminism and psychoanalytical
approaches would seem to have more to say about this (and I'm not talking
about an emphasis on 'the personal' either).
Your use of the term 'real' worries me however as that seems to reflect a
modernist position rather than a Marxist one. If I follow your argument,
'real' change, for me and countless others I think, would be changing the
way people communicate and not just about the provision of technological
aids or interpreters (which, by itself, is a cop-out) or an improvement in
the material circumstances of my life (which doesn't, as Mike Oliver hints,
necessarily improve communication). That seems to me to move beyond
materialism and so I disagree strongly with your next point.
it seems, from my experience, that people may change attitudes
>more or less, and this can 'soften' the experience of discrimination more
>or less, but exclusions and oppression persist while the basic material
>structures of society go unchanged. from this materialist view, attitudes
>are more likely to change because the material circumstances of life have
>changed.
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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