Here's some food for thought...
"In many ways, the resistance to sympathetic or, indeed,
immanent critique, symptomatizes the academic residue of an identity
politics that thinks that critique only and always weakens a movement
rather than understanding that the democratic and non-dogmatic future
of any such movement depend precisely on its ability to incorporate,
without domesticating, challenges from its own alterities. If to wage
such a critique is to be construed as having "broken" with the
movement in question, then it seems that lines of loyalty become
indistinguishable from positions of dogmatic refusal."
-Judith Butler, "Against Proper Objects"
Richard Light wrote:
>
> Mark
>
> I am not sure that you and I haven't compared notes on this before and, at
> the risk of becoming the dis-res list's 'bogey man', I feel compelled to
> respond to your posting. I should also emphasise that most of the
> frustration vocalised in this posting is NOT a direct result of what you
> say, but symptomatic of the long-term trends on the list.
>
> As previously proposed (but far from universally welcomed), if discussion of
> the social model is to have meaning, it is fast becoming necessary to
> differentiate between social model as theoretical device and social model as
> human rights device (this links to another recent posting where 'social
> model' was discussed as if it were distinct from a human rights approach -
> frequently vocalised or not, the social model is applied in the human rights
> sense by disabled people everyday and around the world. As the social model
> was developed by people rejecting the oppression of institutionalised
> 'care', it's difficult for me to see it as anything other than a clarion
> call for human rights).
>
> It is abundantly clear that 'social model as theory' is synonymous with UK
> government policy - it means whatever the latest focus group says it means.
> The problem is that when d.p. who are primarily activists (rather than
> primarily theorists - emphasis on 'primarily' before the list is swamped
> with individuals seeking to prove their activist credentials) read some of
> the claims made for the social model, we wonder where such views came from.
>
> Part of the problem is that to make the social model insight meaningful to
> ordinary disabled people across the world, it is discussed and used in very
> different ways to the exclusive academic environment. Put simply, many of
> us are working on the 'disability = social consequences of impairment'
> formula. Simple, easily communicated but loathed by some academics.
>
> Whilst the cyclical and often heated discussion of the social model goes on
> in academe, the very different perspective it allows from that offered by
> dominant ideology ensures that disabled people continue to welcome it and
> apply it on a regular basis.
>
> I have been with disabled people from, for example, former Eastern Bloc
> countries, the African and Indian continents and seen the social model's (as
> human rights device) continuing ability to promote and sustain a social
> movement. The danger is that the social model (as theory) will become so
> refined and bear so little resemblance to the social model as human rights
> device that the two become so fundamentally different as to be entirely
> alien.
>
> Consensus on these issues will never be unanimous because for all the
> academic's claim to 'objectivity', our views are heavily influenced by our
> politics. On that basis, I willingly concede that I am persuaded by
> materialist accounts and have no cause to reject such accounts in my day to
> day work.
>
> As to the individual claims you make for the social model, we would need to
> spend some considerable time comparing authority and structuring our
> arguments to make progress there. I do not reject your views, but I weep
> when I see an important social and political tool ascribed with
> characteristics that are alien to what I experience.
>
> To the relief of you all, this will probably be my last posting on the
> subject. What seems to 'matter' on the dis-res list (i.e. the subjects that
> achieve the greatest number of replies) is so at variance with what
> 'matters' to the disabled people I seek to serve; the claims, counter-claims
> and rebuttals on the list so vitriolic and unhelpful, I am fast reaching the
> conclusion that it is not the place for me. I await the responses that
> justify my claim.
>
> While we fiddle with semantics and schisms on this list, disability rights
> legislation is being massacred by the courts (US in particular) and disabled
> people are again facing the curse of eugenics (although breathe a sigh of
> relief, this is NEW eugenics!) with the practical result that we are
> routinely assessed as 'unworthy' of costly treatment, or even nutrition, in
> hospitals around the world.
>
> I willingly defer to the huge intellects represented on the list but simply
> ask: 'do you stop to consider whether what you do benefits, harms or does
> absolutely nothing for disabled people?' Disabled people have been fighting
> the vested interests and arrogance of 'professionals' since they first
> sought to end the abuse of institutionalised 'care'. Might it be the case
> that the academic endeavours the movement spawned are now simply another
> barrier for disabled people to cross? Deeply ironic or what.
>
> The movement that I am a part of is proud, inclusive and supportive, it is
> clearly there, rather than on this list, that I belong (cries of 'hear,
> hear' swell in the crowd).
>
> Richard Light
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