Thanks for the pointer to the argument re the elderly. That I take to be a real advance in our discussion.

Just to clarify something on my side. I have nothing against academic thinking per se. Being able to step back and examine a topic critically, systematically and with at least a degree of dispassion is a vital step in all sorts of right directions.

Also, I am not for a moment saying that women got the vote because women are a majority. If that were the case, several thousand years of radical male chauvinist piggery associated with traditional agrarian societies the world over (especially in East Asia, my own regional specialty) wouldn’t have happened. What I am saying is that the women who fought for the right to vote were fighting for the rights of a majority. That made it possible to build a movement big enough to win the vote.

One of the things that is brilliant about thinking about the disabled and the elderly at the same time is that it substitutes “We are all in this together” for what are too often heard (do note, I’m not saying intended) as pleas for pity for people in special circumstances. The latter leads to compassion fatigue, the former to “Yes, this is a problem for all of us.” That’s good politics.

And also, no I have never read Sermon on the Mount 😉

Substantially, there is already thinking in disability studies that does what you are looking for, based around the idea of the elderly. Everyone who lives long enough becomes an elderly person. And every elderly person becomes physically impaired as they age, and within our society, that leads to disability. This argument leads to the conclusion that (Almost) everyone therefore becomes a disabled person. This also applies in a pragmatic way to a lot of policy. A lot of changes that help disability people also help the elderly. Think about your Korean subway example–who else benefits from less stairs and more elevators, better access to the subway? Elderly people who can’t handle stairs are pretty candidates. What is the implication of all of this? Disability is not a minority issue. In fact it affects much more than 50% of the population, it affects almost everyone (except perhaps those who die young and die very quickly). Further, to the extent that this thinking displaces the idea that the “majority” is a young, healthy, white (in the case of the US) male, when in fact, this type of person is most definitely a “minority,” it helps all other kinds of “minorities” as well.

Not all disability studies scholars and disability activists think this is a useful way to think. Some see it as counter-productive to blur the lines between the dominant majority and disabled people as an identity. Others think that this argument naturalizes disability by bridging it to the “natural” ageing of the elderly. These are good arguments, and they have counter-arguments. But the point I want to make is that the ideas do matter.

I’m just brainstorming here, and there must be better ideas out there. What about an alliance between the disabled and Native Americans. Both are shunted aside, confined to institutional spaces (hospitals=reservations?), denied equal opportunities….are minorities who could use allies….

My argument here is not against the disabled or those who work on their behalf. My target is an academic habitus that assumes that getting the ideas right will, ipso facto, make the world a better place. Ever read the Sermon on the Mount? How has that worked out?

It’s a simple, brutal fact. The likes of Judith Butler, et al, may be impressive to a handful of academics. They don’t control the votes, the cash, or the crowds to be politically effective. Facts like these are not good to think. They don’t feel good at all. But they are the awful urgencies of the moment in which we find ourselves. If we fail to consider them, where does that leave us?

Insofar as disability studies is a kind of identity politics, it tends to be clustered on the left, in the way you put it. This again is kind of taken for granted, I think, but might help to be spelled out explicitly. Of course, there can be conflicts. Feminism has a stake in a women’s choice to control her body, ie have an abortion. Disability activists have a stake in opposing practices that could be labelled eugenicist. But, like there have been efforts to combine say feminism with black activism, or feminism with queer theory, there are also efforts to combine disability theory with, say, feminism (The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability by Susan Wendell is what immediately comes to mind to me). Except as a rhetorical move to sort of dismiss disability studies/activism, I don’t see much sense in saying that it is aligned with the right-wing.

As far as your final point about a “wider focus”, I must admit it irked me a bit. It could be I misunderstand you. I’m not sure how to address the question about ethnography, because it seems to me like saying “but it seems to me a feminist anthropology needs ethnography with a wider focus than just about the women.” The answer there would be, I suppose, a perplexed look with a “yes and no” and that would be the same here. As far as the hook for people who see disability as a low-priority issue, again, imagine framing this as “what is the hook for people who think that women are a low-priority issue.” Again, a rather disturbing question to attempt to answer, when you put it quite that way. For the hardcore activist, I guess they would kind of feel “Well, to hell with you! You are a low-priority issue to me as well!” Not necessarily a constructive attitude, but not an altogether unexpected one.

Shadings may be as important as black and white distinctions. I think of my daughter, who is firmly pro-choice,anti-death penalty, ex-military, has recently had a favorite, but very sick, pet put to sleep, and would never consider doing the same to one of her children. Philosophical wrangling is fun, but I sense the need for ethnography with a wider focus than the disabled and those who care for them. Where is the hook that will move people for whom the disabled are now a low-priority issue to (I borrow the late Paul Wellstone’s words), “energize, mobilize” and, then, “organize”?

Anyway, as far as abortion, moral philosophy, etc. in relation to disability, this is a nice series of posts (not mine, just sharing the link) based on a conference from a while back :
http://whatsortsofpeople.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/thinking-in-action-10-pack/

But just to clarify, is there a coalition specifically about abortion? Or just because both are “pro-life” in a vague sense? If the latter, then why not the same worry about people against the death penalty, anti-war activists, and any other “pro-life” group. Maybe I am missing the point though.

Is it possible to build a case around “thinking, feeling, responsible human being” that would Stephen Hawking, injured vets, and the folks with cerebral palsy we met in Seoul? I’m focusing here not on the logical boundaries where philosophical debates hang up but, instead, on the emotional center of the idea.

I do see there are definite connections in stance between anti-abortion folks and disability activists (since a lot of disability activists are against selective abortion that targets certain kinds of people i.e. potential down syndrome etc.), and that can feel disquieting for a lot of people I guess. But again I don’t see how that link bears on the issue of abuse that happens inside “care” institutions. Or the subway example. Those people that chain themselves to doors seem to be, in quite an uncontroversial way, human beings. In fact, it seems like most people, apart from vets, generally assume that they should not be physically abused by public institutions and that they should get the same access to general public services as anyone else. Black people don’t need to go to war to win individually the privilege to sit wherever they want on the bus. So I guess maybe I am missing it. What exactly is the dilemma?

I’m not suggesting that we identify the value of a life; I’m suggesting that we think more carefully about the differential ways we value the lives and deaths of differentiated kinds of people and what the implications of that are.

So no, I do not think we should look for some biological threshold between life and non life. I’d go further than that. While it can be an important political and legal strategy, I think its a bad idea on a philosophical/analytical level to try and define the parameters of life, biometric/biologically or otherwise, even if we’re not going to understand the value of “it” as a zero sum (Agamben’s discussion of Karen Quinlan in the last part of “Homo Sacer” elaborates some reasons why, but again I don’t want this conversation to become about death).

I think this approach to a singular definition of life is a bad and incoherent idea on a legal level too: In the U.S. corporations have protections as legal persons, and there are countries where Great Apes have basic rights and abortion is also legal. I don’t see how a single definition of a legal rights bearing entity (“a life” or “a person” or “a citizen”) makes sense.

And it is a great and dangerous irony when rights–which are granted based on juridical/legal status (along the axis of citizenship)–are extended or retracted based on ‘purely’ biological bases. The tragic examples are too many to mention, but I’d direct those interested in contemporary examples to Miriam Ticktin’s work on refugees in France and Dideir Fassin’s critique of humanitarianism as a politics of life.

On the soldier point, it hides more than it reveals to keep saying that “we owe them.” What is owed (Money? Bumper sticker displays? Attention? Political will? Respect?)? Who is the “we” (Pentagon? U.S. Citizens? Supporters of a military engagement? Opponents?)? When (In peace time? War time? During recruitment? During deployments? After injury? After discharge?) Why (Contractual obligation? Guilt? Civic duty?)? And according to whose social logic does this economy of value make sense?

Thanks for adding the story of Korean disability activists to the mix. Very cool strategy.

And yes, here’s to unresolved philosophical conundrums: they are the most productive kind!

Like the pro-lifers, you are making an unconditional claim, that people with disabilities are, nonetheless, people and should be accorded the same rights and respect as any other human being. It is possible, however, to raise the same sorts of questions that come up, for example, in debates about early vs late-term abortion. Is there some definable boundary between fully human but as yet not fully developed or disabled human beings and biologically homo sapiens organisms that are, nonetheless, not human at all? E.g., in a brain dead, vegetative state like Terry Schiavo.

I have no easy answer to this dilemma. There may not be one. What I do have is a vivid memory of a trip to Seoul earlier this year, where Ruth and I were shown around by a young Korean anthropologist who is closely connected to the disabilities rights movement in Korea. She arranged for us to attend the very political wedding of two victims of cerebral palsy who had fought for the right to leave the institutions to which they had been confined and make a life of their own in a place of their own. The wedding was held outdoors in a public park, at least half the crowd were in wheel chairs, and entertainment was provided by singers and dancers who frequently participate in political demonstrations. Afterwards our friend told us that disabled activists demanding wheelchair access to subways and other public facilities in Seoul are among the most successful activist groups. Why? They chain themselves to doors, blocking normal traffic. The police arrest them, but then have a problem. Seoul has no wheelchair accessible cells in its prisons. As a result, the protestors are inevitably scolded but let off and back demonstrating the next day.

There may be important lessons to learn from examples like these, even if, at a philosophical level, conundrums remain unresolved.