Ok now I have calmed down I will attempt to be rational about this and
defend the need for academic models.
I will give an analogy.
We all know that an apple falls from a tree and strikes the ground without
the need to understand Newtonian mechanics, much less Einsteinian
realtivities critique of the same and quantum mechanics paradoxical conflict
with this in its turn.
However without some understanding of mechanics you would not be able to
build an engine that runs or a bridge that stands up in the wind. You would
be no further in your sphere of endeavors than a child with building blocks,
stacking them until they fall.
A mechanic who knows the practical rudiments, may be able to fix your car at
the side of the road, but without some background knowledge and the benefit
of the reserch of others he would not be able to build one that goes faster
or is more economical in its fuel use.
So it is with society, unless you attempt to understand its dynamics you
will not be able to make much difference in changing it.
I was literally explaining how I use and understand language and how I
cannot "read between the lines" whilst you were criticising me for pseudery.
how else can I attempt to explain my mindset to you other than by telepathy
????
You are also extremely arrogant in your assertions about what the vast
majority of disabled people think.
I suppose the vast majority of slaves were happy with there lot until those
pesky liberals came along ?
Obviosly if you include in your internal model of disability only a narrow
set of people who concur with your assertions because of the nature of there
impairment then you will be constricted in your conclusions.
Not all "disability" is loss this is a fundemental difference between those
who have impairments from erly on and those who aquire them later, both
gruops can lern from each other.
I for instance have never had binocular vision, I cannot comprehend how the
world looks to someone who has it. It is not loss because it was never there
it is difference because I have adapted alternate ways.
I do not experience my autism all I can see is the difference between the
life of a person who is more socially skilled and interactive than I.
Language in spite of my facility with it, is not my fundemental means of
cognition, it is an overlay which allows me to communicate. Language is an
adaptation to the world as a pair of glasses is.
Larry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Disability-Research Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Michael Morgan
> Sent: 09 February 2002 12:47
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Dear Brendan
>
>
> on 2/8/02 11:11 PM, Larry Arnold at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> This is precisely the sort of academic pseudery that Brendan
> complained of.
> Very simple ides encased in pretentious waffle. I take a very cynical view
> of the social model of disability and its applications. Academic hucksters
> (not all of whom are disabled/crippled/impaired) are carving out a nice
> living for themselves in 'disability studies' - and producing degrees not
> worth having - while the realities facing disabled people are ignored. It
> seems if the reality doesn't fit the ideology discard the reality when it
> should be the other way round.
>
> All definitions of disability must inescapably be rooted in impairment.
> We can argue that the end stage disabled person is a complex
> combination of
> causes, and some of these will be undoubtedly social. But, at
> the original
> level, impairment remains the primary cause of disability. When was the
> last time you saw a non-impaired disabled person?
>
> The vast majority of disabled people simply do not have a problem with a
> definition based on bio-medical impairment, and are also keenly interested
> in the medical side of disability. Moreover they experience disability at
> this level in exclusively pathological terms: as loss, as
> something which is
> inherently and unavoidably negative. They are, in a phrase, grown-up about
> it, and moreover view insistence on the social nature of disability with
> suspicion, as evidence of psychosocial denial.
>
>
> Michael Morgan
>
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