For me, the social model says simply:
Whenever you look at the difficulties DP experience, dont forget to factor in
the social realm: history, attitudes, beliefs, power relationships,
oppression, and interenalised oppression, design inadequacies reflecting the
aforementioned.
All the rest is commentary, informative, pleasurable, tedious, or whatever - a
social activity that keeps us happily discoursing, and interacting with each
other, whiling away the years, and spurring us to action, something that
provides a niche for demagogues, nit-pickers, detail-heads, text junkies,
research freaks,(most of which I happily confess to).
Then there is social model fundamentalism, and fundamentalism is a natural
part of life - we constantly have to monitor ourselves and others to escape
the tendancy to try and reduce the world to a few simplification. . Eg when
someone writes a text, and there in one sentence is the disclaimer, "that of
course, I'm not saying that biology is not a factor, or that there is no such
thing as pain", and then all the rest is devoted to trying to prove the
opposite.
But that's the problem of text and exegesis, and the futile attempt to
separate the intellect and the emotions - (which has caused the world so much
misery, (and still we persist!)) - one lone author must inevitably be forced
to simplify, egos must clash under the guise of 'reason'. That's why I say,
"Praise be to the internet, for new social movements like co-counselling, and
POP, where issues can get thrashed out by many voices, and with the full range
of human emotions attached, where it's no longer possible to control who may
speak and in what language".
Judy Singer
(It's OK, I know I'm in the wrong type of forum to be talking outside the
paradigm this way, but until I've finished setting up my middle-brow forum for
DP who want to engage with the broad intellectual issues in a no-holds-barred
emotional way and without needing to be able to 'talk the talk' ... I cant
find any other outlet for my energies and commitments to Disability Rights)
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