Thinking about ablist language

[sqbr]

This post is for blogging against disablism day. I'm pretty new to thinking about disability in any serious way so this may all be bunk.

I was plotting out a post in my head the other day and the phrase "I am rather tone deaf to the nuances of american cultures" popped into my head. "Hmm" I thought "Is that ablist language? Do tone deaf people really count as disabled? Would they care? Where do you draw the line?"

And I had a bit of an epiphany. To a certain extent it doesn't matter: while one of the major reasons for avoiding ablist language is to avoid contributing to social bias and discrimination against those disabled people who suffer them, the very idea of using a real illness as a metaphor for a negative trait is indicative of deep problems with the way our society views illness.

Unfortunately, I am low on spoons, so I can't quite articulate my point, but I'll take a punt and try to flesh it out another day.

I think a good example which illustrates my point is "colourblind racism". Briefly: This is when someone "doesn't see" the race of the people they interact with, and so ends up supporting the status quo ie racism and not making allowances for the different experiences people have because of their race.
The reason this term is unfair to colourblind people is that they don't go around saying "I don't see colour! We should all act like colour doesn't exist! You people insisting that red and green traffic-lights mean different things are the real problem!". In my experience they aware of and acknowledge that their vision is flawed, and learn to work around it.

Ablist language works on the assumption that people who have lack certain abilities (whether this makes them disabled or not) are inherently less worthy, and incapable of being as good as anyone else at things involving that ability.

Aaaand that's about the end of my spoons. If you're interested in the topic, have a look at Feminists are fine with being bigots if it’s just ableism which has links which lead to more links... and then I ran out of link clicking spoons :)

Comments

Re: transhumanism

[aquaeri]

I'm hoping the derailing is okay given I've added the "subject". (otherwise: sqbr feel free to kick us out and make us go play elsewhere)

That definition doesn't help me at all. What is "the human condition"? How could anyone possibly begin to even think about defining "the human condition" without including our ability to reason and our ability to change our circumstances? Aren't those things pretty close to the core of what it means to be human? And what does "transcend" mean, apart from being a word with a high "warm fuzzy impressiveness" factor? Is this a sales pitch?

(I hope this doesn't feel like a personal attack; it's an attempt at a fairly close to realistic impression of the sorts of things that went through my head when I read that bit, slowed down enough to be written out.)

Also, don't know if you know, but might be relevant: I'm an evolutionary biologist and partly as a side effect of my training, partly as a deliberate exercise because I liked the effects, I've to some extent re-wired my brain to look at the world from an evolutionary perspective and that does mean there are things that are "perfectly obvious" to "normal" people that make no sense to me.

Re: transhumanism

[attentive]

Not a sales pitch, in fact I'm not a "transhumanist" myself, though I find some of the ideas around it fascinating.

I think it's pretty clear. There are various mental models of what a "human" is that include a range of capabilities and distinctive traits. Typical ideas delineating between humans and animals include use of language, ability to reason, ability to build and use tools, etc. As someone with related training you already know that all of those are actually rather blurrier than they might seem at first bluff.

The models are often implied rather than defined because of the difficulty of defining them. "What is it to be human?" is still one of those Big Not Properly Answered Questions.

These models, often implied, also include limits on our traits and capabilities: we can't breathe underwater, live forever, stop aging, remember endless facts, do arithmetic as fast as our personal computers, render multiple layers of geographical data into a coherent map image in our heads and then "think" it over to the person standing next to us.

So under the definition cited transhumanists look at limits like these (not these exact limits) -- limits that are implied in prevailing models of humanity -- and propose that they can be overcome by the application of the tools we have to hand, summarised by "reason". In overcoming them we would become "transhuman" in the sense that we "cross" some boundary of present humanity as perceived by consensus, but remain "human" in some other more profound sense that, I presume, is even more difficult to define.

Still clear as mud? Sorry about that :-)

Re: transhumanism

[sqbr]

While I do find this conversation interesting, and it's not the really bad sort of derailing, it probably should be taken elsewhere. This is a "Blogging against Disablism Day" post after all.

(I'm still playing around with how strict I'm going to be, but if I don't make an effort to enforce the rules now I'm going to fall to bits when I encounter narky defensive people who refuse to admit they even are derailing)

But if you drop a link saying where the conversation is going I may pop in once I've had a chance to read the article :)

Re: transhumanism

[attentive]

While it's only us talking here at this moment I think, you're right. I might take the opportunity to back off and plonk this stuff (together with a link to the article) in a proper blog post. Ideally I would've read Political Liberalism by then, but I doubt that'll happen. It looks long and hard.

Of course, if I start to talk about the intersection of actual capability with ablist prejudice from a transhumanist perspective, or if I do my whole problematising dialogue bit, I'll probably end up composing something seriously offensive. Maybe you should just let me fizz out here where fewer people are going to be affected. *sigh*

Re: transhumanism

[sqbr]

Maybe you should just let me fizz out here where fewer people are going to be affected. *sigh*

That's not exactly what I had in mind when I tried to set this up as a safe space :P

You could always talk with aquaeri via instant message, I've done that with conversations that might offend passers by.

EDIT: And thinking about it some more, I really am rather annoyed that you hold yourself to a higher standard on your lj, where it's your subscribers who may be hurt and the comments are your responsibility, than you do on my dw, where it's my subscribers who may get hurt and the comments are my responsibility. One of the primary reasons I started this journal was because people told me privately that the thoughtless comments others made on my lj meant they weren't comfortable speaking up, you can't assume that the people speaking are the only ones paying attention.

Re: transhumanism

[attentive]

I feel a bit ruffled by those remarks. I usually hold myself to a higher standard in posts than I do in comments, as do most bloggers. As do you, so far as I can make out. That's unlikely to change.

As I see it, I haven't made thoughtless comments on this post, I've given my views in good faith and in a temperate way.

Re: transhumanism

[sqbr]

Ah crap, sorry, I misunderstood your point. I agree, nothing you've said here has been too bad (well, apart from being a bit off topic here and there) I'm not sure I can quite articulate what it is I thought you saying, I have been in the worst mood recently, it's making me view everything with a very jaundiced eye. Thankyou for replying so politely.

That said, while my comments are definitely much more slapdash and unstructured than my posts, I do hold myself to a higher standard of not-being-offensive in conversations like this than I do on my lj eg if I was a white person coming into a conversation about race on the journal of a POC.

Re: transhumanism

[attentive]

Don't worry about it. I need to stop commenting on your posts I think, problem is you're one of the few people still writing interesting posts on my f-list. I think I'm just responding for the sake of it a lot of the time, which is no way to carry on a discussion with people who have genuine sensitivities.

Re: transhumanism

[sqbr]

problem is you're one of the few people still writing interesting posts on my f-list

Well I can hardly argue with that sort of self justification :D

I guess you have to figure out for yourself the best way to control your behaviour and experience. I found I had to blanket ban myself from any discussion forum without comment threading since otherwise I got drawn into Every Single Argument.

I'd hate for you to stop commenting on all my posts altogether, since you often have really interesting things to say, but that's one of the points of me having two journals.