First of all apologies to lynne for not replying to her very interesting
response to my earlier post, I will hopefully soon when I have the energy to
do myself justice.
Deborah, my post wasn't really meant to be a comment about the conference
you mentioned of which I know nothing. It was meant as something of a
polemic in the hope of stirring up a debate about these therapies and human
sciences in general but particularly in regard to disability. Though I'd
like to ask one question, if psychoanalysis doesn't regard itself as a type
of science, what does it regard itself as? That's a genuine question. I
don't wish to get into semantics, but perhaps my understanding of the term
science is different to yours. Even Marxism and these other social schools
of thought you mention come under the banner of human or social sciences.
But, as you perhaps are saying, even though this conference you mention is
populated by people I would regard as human scientists they are in fact not
discussing human science or if they are, they are not analysing and
objectifying someone else but themselves (for a change?).
All the best,
Adam
----- Original Message -----
From: Deborah Marks <[log in to unmask]>
To: Adam Greenow <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: conference on body
> Hi Adam
>
> I am not sure if your message is referring to the same conference I
> mentioned. The conference I mentioned doesn't have an
> 'object' of study in the sense you suggest.
> It is really aimed at therapists and academics who want
> to deconstruct mind-body splits and re-evaluate psychoanalytic ways of
> thinking about perception, difference and experience in relation to the
> body.
>
> As you will see from the programme, its not about disability and there is
> only one workshop (mine) which addresses disability and it is grounded
very
> much in a critical social perspective. It may be of interest to some
people
> on this list. There
> are a number of researchers on this forum interested in theorising the
body.
>
> I just feel puzzled about why you think this conference claims to be
> scientific.
>
> My concern is there are so many so-called scientific medical and
> psychological conferences that assume disability is pathological and
located
> within an individual rather than socially constructed. The conference I
> mention is not one of these. The two keynote speakers, Suzie Orbach and
Bob
> Young. (as well as being psychotherapists) are political radicals. Suzie
is
> a feminist, and founder member of the woman's therapy centre. Bob is a
> Marxist. They have spent decades challenging a range of social
oppressions.
>
> I think it is helpful to make links with such activists in thinking
> critically about disability, in a wide range of contexts.
>
> Finally please don't worry, I don't take your remarks in the least bit
> personally,
> since I don't think we've met!
>
> Best wishes
> Deb Marks
>
>
> >Hopefully Deborah will forgive me for taking up this opportunity of
> >responding to her post to try and raise a discussion that I feel needs to
> be
> >raised in the interests of a struggle. It isn't meant as a personal
attack,
> >it just happens to be a convenient time for me to air my thoughts on this
> >subject and hopefully provoke some debate. I am myself, in a sense, a
> >member of one of the 'sciences' that I am about to attack. But I am also
in
> >a strange position of being one of the objects of these sciences also.
> >
> >Perhaps I am at heart a cynic, but these conferences, that are
continually
> >advertised on this list, seem to be the problem rather than the solution.
> >These human practices that desire the status of science are a self
> >fulfilling prophecy that see disabled people or some other varied group
of
> >people as the target of their work. But in reality the thing that they
have
> >problematicised and chosen as their object of scrutiny does not in fact
> >exist in reality except to the extent that it has been created by these
> >objectifying practices. Instead of studying the object of these practices
> >(which is a cycle of inquiry with no end), should we not as people who
are
> >seeking some sort of liberation (?) be analysing the practices themselves
> >and how through some particular historical formation they have come to
> claim
> >some sort of sovereignty over our lives? Surely these practices are the
> very
> >enemy that have created us, made us into objects; into things that have
an
> >existence when before we did not exist or were comfortably invisible to
> >their gaze?
> >
> >Yet, we persist in using the paradigm of the oppressive regime and
continue
> >to objectify ourselves as well as allowing others to objectify us in a
> >particular manner. Is it not time that we assigned these gurus of the
> >disabled, sick and abnormal to their rightful place alongside TV
> evangelists
> >and other quacks? This is not to have a go at anyone in particular who
> >attends these conferences but it is to ask a question of the gurus who
> claim
> >some unique insight into the condition of those it has chosen to sustain
in
> >the first place. It is to ask disabled people also (as they have been so
> >designated) to turn away from this bizarre formation of human sciences
that
> >lay claim to some hidden truth of something that is only in reality just
a
> >mental simulacra. Namely the false designation of a multitude and variety
> of
> >people as disabled or mad or abnormal.
> >
> >What ever we are as 'disabled people' (or cripples or whatever the buzz
> word
> >might be) it is varied and multiple to the extent that we do not exist as
a
> >category in reality except at a particular moment when these sciences
> >through their function designated us, herded us, objectified us and coded
> us
> >as objects of their inquiry. To try and discover a truth in an object
that
> >doesn't exist is like trying to find gold in the middle of a rainbow. It
is
> >like asking for some significance in a gust of wind. In short it is a
> >complete and contingent nonsense. But more than this it is a technology
> that
> >continues to delineate and divide. It creates a space for us that is on
the
> >edge, but worse an enclosed space on the edge that we cannot even escape
to
> >enter into a new domain. In the new domain where the abnormal could be
> >normal and the disabled non disabled? Not even that, but where these
false
> >oppositions and categories did not even exist. In this utopia there can
be
> >no room for false dichotomies and labels. That which doesn't exist cannot
> be
> >studied; indeed generalisations cannot be studied for generalisations are
> >merely a semantic thing rather than a tangible reality. What is abnormal
is
> >part of what it means to be normal; a unity that we have chosen to divide
> in
> >the name of a strange science. We are in short a people who have been
> >oppressed by semantic word games that have become reified to the extent
> that
> >they have become the truth. Perhaps we cannot see that which is so
obvious.
> >Perhaps having a broken leg means that one has a broken leg; perhaps
having
> >difficulty with hearing, simply means having difficulty with hearing. Is
> >that possible? Is it necessary to then take these conditions and analyse
> >them as part of something larger, something that is the domain of
> particular
> >sciences with the result that this myth constructs someone with a broken
> leg
> >as not simply someone with a broken leg but someone who is sick,
oppressed,
> >in need of therapy etc. And so these practices make a truth out of the
> >disabled condition that the problem naturally seems to be in the domain
of
> >the object rather than in the practice that created the object (people)
in
> >the first place. And thus the object people cannot see that liberation is
> >simply to deny the part of their reality which was constructed *for
them*.
> >It is perhaps to refuse the techniques and language of these sciences, to
> >spit at labels and to be simply someone with a spinal injury or a
> difficulty
> >in speaking.
> >
> >To put it succinctly, why should we allow these sciences ownership over a
> >problematic part of our lives that they created in the first place? That
is
> >the question I would like to pose to the list. Is it possible to escape
> from
> >a trance that we believe to be a reality? Can we imagine a time when we
are
> >not categorised and studied and would that time be preferable to the
> >present?
> >
> >Adam
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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