Thoughts on the distance between theory in the academy, and reality
"on the street".
I have been looking at ways in which theory that is supposedly being
popularly disseminated & put into action, seems to "fizzle" before it
gets to realisation.. At least, the "fizzle" seems much easier to show
with 'progressive' theory, than with 'traditional' or 'conservative'
theory.
If you're analysing "what is" (like the medical model being used in a
bureaucracy).... it's relatively easy to look at existing policies &
practices, and then work backwards, to state what seems to be the
thinking behind it. But if you want to look at people trying to make
constructive change, and trace theory to popularisation to 'reform'
applications in the real world, it's real easy to find "less than meets
the eye". Marx said some great sounding things, then "Marxists" did
something worse. Certain righteous political people today have learned
to recently add "people with disabilities" into their summarizing lists
of who they're concerned about; but then they "forget" real fast, their
organisations often create and maintain every kind of accessibility
barriers.
So, is the whole idea, or hope, implied in so many posts, that
innovative DS theory can be the start or underpinning of change,
over-rated?
Do higher levels of theorisation inherently get more remote from all but
the writers? Do we get to the point, where like Einstein's E=MC
(squared), there are only 2 or 3 people in the world who are thought to
understand it? And how can, even the more simple theories -- connect
with larger numbers of people.... if different people define key terms
differently?
I've been "educated" to now think that "PWD" is the best, proudest term.
(With "disabled" sometimes OK, maybe to just avoid repeating a 3-word
term endlessly, when writing.) I've been "educated" to use words like
this: "Impairment (intrinsic bodily condition) + Barrier (attitudinal
or physical) = "Disability" .
Then I open a book from only a few years ago, "With The Power of Each
Breath, A Disabled Women's Anthology" (Cleis Press, San Francisco)....
and read the following paragraph, which totally unravels what I've
"learned":
Quote:
"A few years ago, a classmate asked that I not refer to her as disabled.
It offended her. She considered herself a person with a disability, she
said, and would not be reduced to her deafness. (Note: small-d is how
it's written. Up to this point, all is in synch with my DS readings &
other activist sources. But beyond this point, the vocabulary
definitions all contradict what I've learned....) A disability, she
explained is a physical or mental impairment. A handicap is a set of
social conditions which impede our independence. Disabilities become
handicaps only when we allow them to become insurmountable Then we
become disabled; we become our disabilities."
Huh?
Now, from reading everything but the nouns.... I can follow what Debra
Connors is saying here.
But, what I call "Barrier" she calls "Handicap". What I call
"impairment" she calls "disabilities" (2nd to last sentence.). What I
call "disability" she calls "Handicaps". The phrase "only when we allow
them to become insurmountable" is vague enough (who is the "we"?) to not
only encompass "Barriers" but maybe other factors, too. Compared with
what I have "learned", this paragraph seems to play "musical chairs"
with term definitions.
. . . . . . .
It's been said that any physicist who 'really' understands atomic
fission, can explain it to a ten year old child.
Disability theory isn't like micro-chip engineering, where if only a few
people understand the latest innovation, it can still be put into
real-world mass applications.
I guess I am developing a POV, in which the value of disability theory
is proportional to it's clarity, brevity & understandability. And in
which an ounce of action, can still easily outweigh a pound of theory,
in terms of change-making effect.
Jim Davis
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