Dependence & Disability (was Re: Catherine, can't you read? was Re: No Sex Please - We're Post-Human!)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Feb 19 05:22:57 PST 2001


Kelley writes:


>initially, Catherine wanted to know what was pleasurable about
>dependence (your claim; and a one unsupported by existing empirical
>evidence, particularly in the context in which you made it). she
>also wanted to know what MP had to do with it. it was in response
>to your challenge to maure3n where she spoke of children's lengthy
>dependence on adults as "traumatic" -- a word she put under erasure
>for a reason, no doubt.

You appear to conflate (A) the avoidance of circular reasoning with (B) the provision of empirical evidence, but (A) and (B) are not the same.

"Can dependence be a pleasurable condition?" One can ask this question as an empirical question as you seem to insist, of course, but my intent was & is to ask this question as a matter of social theory (for theory can tell us as-yet-non-empirical possibilities). If you or Catherine is willing to make _a non-circular theoretical argument_ that dependence can never be pleasurable & that it is always hierarchical & therefore objectionable, I'm all ears.

It seems to me that if dependence is always hierarchical & therefore objectionable, lives of disabled people, for instance, are doomed to be bleak for ever, regardless of particular ensembles of social relations, but I don't think that is the case. You and Catherine, of course, may think otherwise, though you two have not explained why.


>it appears we are back to the Yoshie and Carrol attack Routine.

Pointing out a circular reasoning, in my opinion, does not constitute an "attack." This being a "free country," however, naturally you are free to say that it does. Perhaps Doug should make it part of the rules of discussion here: "Pointing out circular reasoning & other logical problems is a flame & should be avoided." :)

Yoshie



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