Kate, I'm sure you're right that there's no such thing as a truly neutral
term. However, some seem to be less controversial than others (at least for
the present) and my plea was simply for terminology that allows us to talk
about disability in various settings (medical, psychological, academic, etc)
without getting sidetracked by unwinnable (and apparently unendable)
arguements. I want to be sensitive to people's feelings, but I also would
like to get on with business.
-Dick Jacobs
Kate Kaul wrote:
There is no such thing as a neutral review of meanings. It's not possible
to have neutral descriptive terms. Terms exist in linguistic and in
historical, social context. Introducing a term that's neutral would mean
separating ideas about something (disability is only one example) from
history and the rest of language. That's how we end up with terms that
are completely useless, or misleading ("physically challenged" springs to
mind). That's not to say that confronting offensive language isn't
important; in doing so, we confront offensive ideas. New terms and
language reflect (and sometimes offer opportunities to introduce) new,
sometimes optimistic, ideas about disability and its contexts. I think
maybe it's not crucial that we agree entirely -- and clearly we don't --
since disagreements over language are caught up in other disagreements.
But I do think it's important to respect people's attempts to name
themselves, even if these vary.
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