A few lines that I pick on from Erik's comment:
"If the motivation for prevention were tied to a view of human life which
held its purpose to be the maximum development of human potential (i.e.
physical, spiritual, psychological,
intellectual) then such prevention and inclusion would be compatible
concepts, showing them to be not exclusively disability issues at all but
issues affecting everyone.
So the two concepts of prevention and inclusion are contradictory
depending on whose interests they serve and on what value frameworks are
adopted. They are complementary within an inclusion paradigm which holds
to notions of diversity, equal intrinsic value of human individuals and
a life of purpose and meaning through the development of human potential."
My thoughts:
Why do we have to maximize human potential? - Erik makes it sound like
humans are a resource to be fattened for exploitation. I think that the
belief that an "inclusion paradigm which holds to notions of diversity"
would be contradictory if it also held that human potential be maximized.
If all or most human beings are maximized for their potentials, then how
are we different and diverse? Are we then not "maximizing" all humans
towards a common apex of human development? Where is the diversity in
that??
Perhaps I am inaccurately juxtaposing paragraphs here. In that case,
here's another point to consider: who gets define when and how human
potential is being defined or not? To suggest that prevention and
inclusion, two of the most controlling concepts for any liberatory theory,
might be reconciled along lines of yet another concept that is similarly
subject to power plays and status quo is to chase one's tail.
I agree with Erik in so many other ways, especially with respect to the
attitude of reconciling somehow these notions of prevention and inclusion,
since both offer good things. Doing so seems to require some kind of
understanding and advocacy of people as integrated and connected with one
other. But I think that Paul's use of "pain" as tool for achieving this
end is a far more safe method, though not unproblematic, as it turns on
something that we all we experience in our lives, one way or another.
Best,
Alexa Schriempf
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