>Doyle
>Do I seem to be attacking Jim? I don't want to hurt
him. I want people who
>use the metaphor of disability as the "margin" to be
aware of the content of
>their words.
I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this. I don't think there is any harm per se. Though, I would like to remind you that not once but twice you have referred to me, as a person and not just my ideas, as 'obsessive compulsive.' So I guess that you are quite guilty of unconsciously deploying metaphors of disability without being cognizant of doing so.
Aside from that though, what I'm driving at is the fact that any of us who wish to point out how language can do harm must take care about how we criticize others. I'm certain that you've experienced times when someone has pointed out unconsious sexism, racism, classism, etc on your part. It can feel unfair when your arguments are sidetracked completely off topic.
So, what I'm saying is that it might be a good idea to be cognizant of this. There is of course the argument that the burden of being careful shouldn't be placed on the oppressed party(ies); that the work of change and being careful belongs to the person you're criticizing for unconscious sexism, racism, etc.
I do think you were trying to be careful when you noted that you didn't think that Jim was purposefully being unfair to disabled people or thought they they were inferior. Nonetheless, this *does* come off as patronizing and he responded accordingly.
A couple of thoughts that might relate to other threads, might start new ones:
1] I'm wondering how we adjudicate competing claims for respect. And, I'm wondering if respect is all that each party really wants. Is it possible to conclude this discussion in such way that both your position (you don't want people to deploy metaphors of disability) AND Jim's position (he wants to deploy them b/c he does think that, say, sight is preferable to blindness) are respected?
2} I'm not sure how and why we should and even if we can cleanse language of metaphors. Consider your post: you've used the word "margin" as in the margin of a paper, of a text, as in 'buying on the margin' You've used 'raising consciousness' which suggests several different usages: consciousness raising in the feminist movement, raising something hidden in the recesses of the unconscious, indeed an entire philosophy of consciousness which postrucs have rejected in favor of the use of 'subjectivity' and 'subject position' You used the phrase "following a script" which is suggestive of the script in a play, a movie script, as 'fake' as 'forced' as 'not real' I used military metaphors which you picked up on: "attacked" and later "deployed"
SnitgrrRl
, his words aren't negative, they just fairly and
>precisely characterize POMOs. To a certain extent
this was a side issue of
>just raising consciousness. But I don't want him to
feel attacked.
>
>Doyle
>S & B is certainly the main content of what he wrote
about. So? Am I
>supposed to follow a script? Haven't you felt like
saying something
>tangental? Frances got on my case about this same
sort of thing when I
>brought this disability as the metaphor for the
margin up to Max. You know
>it is funny, but Max listened to me with respect, and
he respectfully call
>me a builder of mountains out of molehills. I guess
that is all I want is
>respect for my point of view. What is the harm.
>regards,
>Doyle
2}