Dear cripples and friends of cripples: breath a bit, imagine a moment when contrarian intellectual principles stood for possibility (as opposed to post-modernity’s dystopia and suspicion.) Theodor Adorno: “Intelligence is a moral category.” One’s stance toward the function of thought shouldn’t be overlooked. If you’re a person with a disability its important to hold some ideas about human progress.
Here I’m thinking of Walter Benjamin’s assertion: “The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.”
In the US we are witnessing an election in which neo-conservative rhetoric about the provision of social services, especially for the elderly and people with disabilities, has been presented as the main ingredient in the Republican party’s reaction against taxes and the role of government. In this way the GOP is arguably the most post-modern political party you can find, for its embrace of trans-national capital, deregulation, the shipment of jobs oversees, and of union busting at home are built on dystopic visions of capital–that is, capital must always be in the hands of those who will grow it–government intervention on behalf of the poor and the infirm is now officially a matter of suspicion.
For suspicion one may substitute cultural relativity–you see those people over there? They’re none of our business. Or, conversely, they’re our business only if they get in the way of business. Bush’s war in Iraq was about business, and Christopher Hitchens got it wrong. It was never a war of liberation. If Adorno was right, and I think he was, the moral category must include an appreciation of people who cannot rightly speak for themselves–especially in the age of trans-national capital and reductionist rhetorics about human progress. In our post-modern age capital is largely concerned with gobbling up the planet’s resources (China in Africa, America at the North Pole).
Against this stands the movement toward human rights–concurrent with the United Nations charter on the rights of people with disabilities. And here at home, tied to the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is unlawful to throw people with physical or mental disabilities into the streets though the people behind Paul Ryan’s plan haven’t fully conceived of the matter. The GOP’s plan to lop 30% off the top of Medicare, slash Medicaid, and then give the rest back to the states is likely illegal.
And so my argument is that people with disabilities may be holding the moral cards in what is otherwise a dark time. I am not sentimental. I do not believe the goal of life is to lose teeth and still smile. But this is a time when groups like ADAPT and NAMI and Blinded Veterans of America, and Paralyzed Veterans of America, the AAPD, and many other groups, can drive a moral conversation in a cynical age.
Planet of the Blind 