Hello John and all
> As I am neither disabled nor an academic, but a retired hands-on engineer, I
> have a somewhat different view of the world than you have.
>
Hmmm, I'm not so sure that your disability status (disabled or
non-disabled) or your employment record (engineer) should automatically be
seen as causal factors in your world view. By trade I was a motor mechanic
(not a very good one) and by job I am a bureaucrat.
> Oppression to me implies a force. Delving into high school physics, a force
> is made up of two components: mass and acceleration: f = m x a.
> The way oppression is being presented is as a directional force which means
> that the acceleration component which is directional as well as quantitative,
> is quite substantial. It also implies that the acceleration component
> represents a deliberate act.
>
> The effect of a relatively large acceleration factor and small mass can be
> quite devastating ... It is however also vulnerable as the acceleration
>component can be eroded, change directionally, or be scattered.
>
> The alternate scenario is where an equal force is made up of an
> infinitesimally small acceleration factor, and hence an enormous mass.
> Oppression just sits there, it is not going anywhere, nor does it intend to.
> Why should it?
Yes, it seems that we do have a different view of power. Mine can be spelt
out as follows.
What is power?
Historically power has been thought about in many different ways, and
various ideas of power and how it operates influence current thinking.
Here are two examples:
An individual model of Power
Power can be described as a commodity in the possession of individuals that
can be given or taken away. Power in this sense can be explained as a
force used by A to make B to do something that B would not otherwise do.
Compliance is enforced through fear of the consequences for example an
employee may undertake a task at their managers request because they will
be disciplined if they donıt, or an individual in debt to a loan shark will
make payments because physical violence is threatened to defaulters.
Power is thus a thing held by some individuals; it is used intermittently,
through real or threatened punitive action, to gain very specific ends.
A Social Model of Power (Foucault's model?)
Power is not a thing that belongs to individuals it cannot be given or
taken away. Rather, power rules the action of individuals and society
indeed, it is the rules. The building material of this form of power is
language and meaning.
The rules are sustained through the knowledge that gives them legitimacy
and are subject to negotiation and change. They may change gradually to
reflect shifts in historical consensus or rapidly in response to social
upheaval and crisis for example in times of war or economic collapse.
Collective knowledge(s) shape the rules and set the social boundaries that
distinguish right from wrong, norm from deviance, ideal from actual.
Social power is therefore rooted in the material structures of the social,
cultural and economic institutions that regulate; its effects are constant.
For example, a debtor repays what is owed and an employee does what they
are asked to because their motivations and actions are shaped and described
through a complex web of rules and social interactions and not simply
because of the threat of force. Similarly, a manager may have the
authority to instruct employees, however the policies procedures and
practices of the organisation will determine the content of their
instructions (the logic, reasoning or analysis used). The manager would
soon loose their authority if they deviated too far from the established
rules.
In short, individuals do not possess power in this sense of the word,
rather they draw on the power built into the knowledge(s) of the
organisation they can move into (and out of) powerıs sphere of influence.
> I believe that the oppression we are dealing with is ... a
> very large rock of public indifference and ignorance sitting in the middle
> of the road. With the very limited mass the disability movement has it would
> take a very large acceleration component to move the rock out of the way.
> Not a realistic option. What is a realistic option however is to keep on
> chipping away at this rock, breaking bits off, and reducing its mass over
> time to a level where it can be moved. It will take a lot longer, it may be
> generational, but - to mix my metaphors - the bits chipped away may form a
> sound basis for the construction of our yellow brick road into the future.
To maintain your 'rock' metaphor - in a social approach to power, the rock
would be the dominant medical / individual approach to disability (a
disability discourse). The task of organisations of disabled people and
their allies is, as you rightly say, to chip away at the rock. However,
(and this is where the rock metaphor fails) the rock isn't a single solid
and visible mass - it has been carved, by numerous social masons
(scientists and welfare professionals), into building blocks which underpin
many of our welfare institutions - the rock is everywhere, in the language
of social workers, the structure of health service provider organisations
and the legislation constructed to 'care for' disabled people, there
families and friends. A further difficulty is that disabled people's
organisations can be tempted to use the chips of broken rock to build their
own structures, which simply maintain the mass of the individual approach.
One other thing to keep in mind is that there are lots of different rocks
(Discourses) which are strewn across the social landscape - and picking the
right type of rocks to chip at or build with is a real sod of a job.
Regards
Alden
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