Mar 7, 2005
This just in: Not Everyone Thinks Just Like Me Yet
Lennard Davis, an English professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, believes that the new Clint Eastwood movie"Million Dollar Baby" points out that we need to make a new addition to our growing list of “studies” at the universities: disability studies.
Read Davis’s article, if you have the stomach for it, and make of it what you will. But here are a few thoughts I have.
First, there is no such thing as a “disability scholar and activist.” This is because you cannot both be a scholar and an activist: to the extent you are an activist, you are no longer a scholar. And indeed this fact is demonstrated by Davis’s argument that we need “disabilities studies” departments so that we can reform—not educate—students. Indoctrination, whatever its other merits, does not constitute education. The latter is what a scholar does, the former is what an activist does.
Second, what a slander on people Davis’s article constitutes. Without knowing me, for example, he claims I cannot speak to a black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled person without being conscious of the fact that that person is black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled. What he really means is not just that I am aware of this fact about people, but that I let it negatively affect what I say, do, or believe about them. The continuing efforts of people like Davis to the contrary notwithstanding, however, I actually do my best not to let such things enter into my thoughts or behavior. And I bet I am not the only one.
Third, it strikes me as more than a little absurd to excoriate people for viewing others as members of this or that race or “protected class,” while simultaneously advocating the proliferation of academic disciplines and departments whose sole reason for existence is to trumpet, perpetuate, and set in stone these distinctions and divisions. I can’t help but think that if we didn’t have the incessant drumbeat of race-sex-class-(and now)-disability, people wouldn’t pay nearly as much attention to such things.
One of my six-year-old son’s best friends is a seven-year-old boy with Down’s Syndrome. My son doesn’t know the other boy has Down’s. He just thinks he’s silly and fun, kind of like my son, so they get along famously. One of my eight-year-old son’s best friends is an Asian boy who speaks with a bit of an accent and is good at something no one else in their class is, origami. My eight-year-old doesn’t realize the other boy is Asian. He just thinks he’s cool, and so they have great fun together. And one of my eleven-year-old daughter’s least favorite people is a Chinese girl who lives across the street from us. It isn’t that my daughter cares, or even hardly notices, that she’s Chinese; it’s that they just don’t get along. This kind of sorting according to interests and personalities is perfectly natural; like what happens in markets, this process tends to steer people towards behaviors and relationships that are mutually beneficial.
Alas, however, there are people who do not want that kind of innocent sorting. By the time children get to college (if not earlier), they want young people trained not to see people as individuals but to see them as representatives of specific classes or groups, complete with group characteristics, historical grievances, and special sensitivities to perceived slights. So my kids can’t just see another kid as funny or cool or irritating; they have to be a disabled funny kid, an Asian cool kid, a Chinese irritating kid. Similarly, I can’t view this student merely as a hard worker or that one as a slacker: I have to constantly remind myself that they are members of this or that race or protected class; I have to tell myself that there are many things that are not allowed to be said or done in the presence of such people, and all these prohibitions are class-specific, ever-changing, and beyond dispute; and I have to monitor my speech and actions accordingly. Not much of a chance for a friendly relationship under these circumstances!
So it isn’t just that Davis is advocating yet another political, and thus noneducational, training camp at universities. It isn’t just that he’s trying to justify his own work not by its scholarly or educational value but rather by shaming people who disagree with his view with moral posturing and sermonizing (if you disagree with him, you are immoral and evil). It’s that he is actually contributing mightily to the poisoning of the human relationships he claims to protect.
I don’t like having to view people according to their group identities. And I especially don’t like the claim that my children can’t continue viewing other kids as just individuals with their various unique characteristics. When will these social reformers just mind their own business and leave others alone?
Read Davis’s article, if you have the stomach for it, and make of it what you will. But here are a few thoughts I have.
First, there is no such thing as a “disability scholar and activist.” This is because you cannot both be a scholar and an activist: to the extent you are an activist, you are no longer a scholar. And indeed this fact is demonstrated by Davis’s argument that we need “disabilities studies” departments so that we can reform—not educate—students. Indoctrination, whatever its other merits, does not constitute education. The latter is what a scholar does, the former is what an activist does.
Second, what a slander on people Davis’s article constitutes. Without knowing me, for example, he claims I cannot speak to a black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled person without being conscious of the fact that that person is black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled. What he really means is not just that I am aware of this fact about people, but that I let it negatively affect what I say, do, or believe about them. The continuing efforts of people like Davis to the contrary notwithstanding, however, I actually do my best not to let such things enter into my thoughts or behavior. And I bet I am not the only one.
Third, it strikes me as more than a little absurd to excoriate people for viewing others as members of this or that race or “protected class,” while simultaneously advocating the proliferation of academic disciplines and departments whose sole reason for existence is to trumpet, perpetuate, and set in stone these distinctions and divisions. I can’t help but think that if we didn’t have the incessant drumbeat of race-sex-class-(and now)-disability, people wouldn’t pay nearly as much attention to such things.
One of my six-year-old son’s best friends is a seven-year-old boy with Down’s Syndrome. My son doesn’t know the other boy has Down’s. He just thinks he’s silly and fun, kind of like my son, so they get along famously. One of my eight-year-old son’s best friends is an Asian boy who speaks with a bit of an accent and is good at something no one else in their class is, origami. My eight-year-old doesn’t realize the other boy is Asian. He just thinks he’s cool, and so they have great fun together. And one of my eleven-year-old daughter’s least favorite people is a Chinese girl who lives across the street from us. It isn’t that my daughter cares, or even hardly notices, that she’s Chinese; it’s that they just don’t get along. This kind of sorting according to interests and personalities is perfectly natural; like what happens in markets, this process tends to steer people towards behaviors and relationships that are mutually beneficial.
Alas, however, there are people who do not want that kind of innocent sorting. By the time children get to college (if not earlier), they want young people trained not to see people as individuals but to see them as representatives of specific classes or groups, complete with group characteristics, historical grievances, and special sensitivities to perceived slights. So my kids can’t just see another kid as funny or cool or irritating; they have to be a disabled funny kid, an Asian cool kid, a Chinese irritating kid. Similarly, I can’t view this student merely as a hard worker or that one as a slacker: I have to constantly remind myself that they are members of this or that race or protected class; I have to tell myself that there are many things that are not allowed to be said or done in the presence of such people, and all these prohibitions are class-specific, ever-changing, and beyond dispute; and I have to monitor my speech and actions accordingly. Not much of a chance for a friendly relationship under these circumstances!
So it isn’t just that Davis is advocating yet another political, and thus noneducational, training camp at universities. It isn’t just that he’s trying to justify his own work not by its scholarly or educational value but rather by shaming people who disagree with his view with moral posturing and sermonizing (if you disagree with him, you are immoral and evil). It’s that he is actually contributing mightily to the poisoning of the human relationships he claims to protect.
I don’t like having to view people according to their group identities. And I especially don’t like the claim that my children can’t continue viewing other kids as just individuals with their various unique characteristics. When will these social reformers just mind their own business and leave others alone?