New APPS

Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Mostly Philosophy.

recent posts

about

    Where is the line and why?

    One of the few productive things that came out of the recent kerfufle about ableism was a useful discussion of where we should draw the line between what seem like acceptable uses of terms like "blind review", on the one hand, and obviously offensive terms like "spaz,"  on the other.   And if we can find that line, why is the line where we think it is?

    I can think of three factors that might go into such a decision:

    1. One is whether the term is being used pejoritively.   So, calling an argument lame is bad because I am disparaging the argument.  Saying "Justice is blind" is ok, because this is a positive characteristic of justice. (The first example was given by Keith DeRose on facebook in response to Eric S's proposal along these lines.  The second was Mohan M's in a comment in a thread here.)

    2.  A second is whether the term has a non-metaphorical use that is not related to disability.   I don't think the word "blind" is first and foremost a word for a disability.   It is a word for being obscured from sight.  Blindfold is not referencing a disability at all.   The disability "blindness" is only one source of blinding.  So, on this view, it's ok to say that someone is blind to important considerations.

    3.  A third thing we might cite is a long history of detachment.  Calling an idea "crazy"  might seem ok to you because it has referred to a colloquial category for so long in the absense of referring to a clinical condition.

    What do people think?    Are any or all of these principled reasons one could use to distinguish offensive terms from acceptable ones?

    Posted in

    48 responses to “Where is the line and why?”

    1. Wannabe Hypatia Avatar
      Wannabe Hypatia

      My understanding about the use of the term “blind,” as in “blind to consequences” is that it connotes “ignorance,” thus contributing to the understanding of blind people as less intelligent, immature, and ignorant. This may or may not actually offend a blind person, but the idea is that since we have other perfectly good words, why not use them?
      I also think “crazy” is still quite debatable. “Crazy” is a term used to undercut the idea that people with various mental differences are less trustworthy, less able to be reasonable and rational. Since this group of people as well as blind people often suffer systemic disadvantages as well as victimization and stereotyping, again, since we have other perfectly good words, why not use them?
      The pejorative argument is interesting because you can imagine describing someone as “fat” in a non pejorative way, but you would need SO much contextual information to make sure it is received that way. People who use that term neutrally about their own bodies often have people say “Oh, don’t say that word” because to them it is inherently pejorative. Even “justice is blind” runs at least two risks; one, again, it is using “blind” to mean ignorant, and two, it is using a disability as some kind of inspirational standard. Many disabled people write on the topic of being held up as inspiration and how that belittles their humanity.
      I like the idea that you are trying to come up with some guidelines here, but once we start paying attention to language it becomes clear that between speaker’s intentions, metaphorical connotations, and sneaky pejoratives, there is more ways to go wrong than to go right. My suggestion is always to branch out and try to find new words. It’s not that hard. Philosophers have come up with “besires” and “epiphenomenalism” We are philosophers, aren’t we known for creative words?

      Like

      Reply
    2. Anonimal Avatar
      Anonimal

      There’s a fair amount of recent work done on derogatory language. I’m surprised that no one has picked up on it, particularly because there’s a distinction to be drawn between speech that someone might find offensive and speech that is actually derogatory. The distinction is important for what we might think are broadly “Millian” reasons concerning the use of public reason: closing down a discussion (when conducted in good faith) because one finds the topic offensive, though no derogatory intent is in play, is a sure way to stymy reaching truth or, more modestly, coming to recognize error. Simply making something taboo isn’t going to help much.
      But maybe I’m simply misinformed. It might be worthwhile having a look at what someone like Daniel Whiting would argue concerning the difference between offensive language, derogation, and semantic content. On his account, the difference hinges on an utterance’s conversational implicature(href=”https://www.academia.edu/1829455/Its_Not_What_You_Said_Its_the_Way_You_Said_It_Slurs_and_Conventional_Implicatures”> see a prepublication of his argument here, later published in Analytic Philosophy). I haven’t followed this literature closely or the dust up here, but from what I have gathered, much of the heat generated here seems to concern a failure to take something like this distinction into account.

      Like

      Reply
    3. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Can you say a little bit more about how that distinction helps here? The case of using ableist metaphors seems a bit different that simple cases of slurs, since the party who is either offended or derogated is not the same as the party to whom the word is being applied.

      Like

      Reply
    4. Rachel McKinnon Avatar
      Rachel McKinnon

      Wannabe has it right, I think. “S is blind to the consequences” is problematic because it portrays blindness as ignorance (or epistemic failing). That’s ableism. So those uses are out. That’s why “blind peer review” is problematic: it’s about reviewers being ignorant about the identity of the author (supposedly, anyway). Again, blindness as ignorance = ableism.

      Like

      Reply
    5. Daniel Nagase Avatar
      Daniel Nagase

      On the blindness issue: perhaps this a bit too crass, and it only focus on this specific topic, but I always thought of the “blind” in “blind peer review” as being literal, not metaphorical. As in, the reviewer literally can’t see who the author is. Would there be still a problem if the word were meant this way?

      Like

      Reply
    6. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Hi Daniel,
      Two things:
      1. I guess I don’t think that’s plausible. Suppose you found out that a journal that claimed it carried out “blind review” told the referees over the phone who the author was. Would you call them liars?
      2. The second thing you say is grist for my mill: if I can’t see something, I agree am literally blind to it. There is no metaphor for a disability in using the word “blind.”

      Like

      Reply
    7. Anonimal Avatar
      Anonimal

      I’m not sure that the case of metaphor and the case of slurs are all that different. One can use a slur without being aware of its derogatory force (e.g. a young adult or child who comes across Twain’s huckleberry Finn) and still conversatinally implicate derogatory content, in much the same way that one can use a metaphor without being aware of its e.g. ‘ableist’ implicatures.
      so my hunch is that the metaphor does not logically imply derogation, nor does its utterance in a context (appropriately specified, of course) conversationally implicate derogatory content. That people take offence is different matter entirely (and of course simply because one takes offence doesn’t entail that they are justified in doing so.)
      the main issue, I take it, concerns whether we think there’s some kind fo intrinsic semantic connection between slur, metaphor, or utterance, and the derogatorty content or force being conveyed. whiting’s analysis is to say that there is no such connection.

      Like

      Reply
    8. Sara L. Uckelman Avatar
      Sara L. Uckelman

      I hardly see how (1) and (3) can be maintained consistently: For example, if ‘crazy’ is sufficiently divorced from the mental condition for that to be acceptable, how is ‘lame’ not? When was the last time that you heard someone with difficulty/inability to walk non-ironically referred to as ‘lame’?

      Like

      Reply
    9. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Wannabe and Rachael: Ok, I guess I could be persuaded that its pernicious to use “blind” to mean “ignorant” even if I still maintained that “blind” was not a metaphor for a disability. But then by the same token, we probably shouldn’t call someone visionary to mean anything good.
      Sara: logically, that seems right. And you are surely right that we never hear the word “lame’ to refer to a medical condition anymore. But the words crazy and lame still sound different, at least to my ear. I was just trying to throw out possible explanations. Not necessarily to endorse them.
      Anonimal: that’s helpful. But suppose we follow your advice and distinguish offense from derogation, and agree that whether somone is offended is an empirical question, but whether they are derogated is a normal one and a different one altogether. What empirical facts do the normative ones supervene on? How do we determine which terms derogate and which don’t. Lots of people seem to have the intuition that there is a middle ground here, and it would be nice to know if there actually is one: is there a coherent way of insisting that some things that sound like ableist metaphors are derogatory and some aren’t? Or does one have to simply stamp one’s feet and appeal to one’s intuition?

      Like

      Reply
    10. r Avatar
      r

      If we are not to use any metaphors of vision to describe the mental, I wonder: are we also not to use any physical metaphors for mental action whatsoever? Consider, e.g., ‘reaching,’ ‘stretching for,’ ‘blocking,’ ‘supporting,’ ‘holding up,’ ‘tripping over,’ ‘circling around,’ ‘grasping,’ ‘pushing,’ ‘pressing,’ and so on ad infinitum. Given the range of physical disability, for any of these uses of language there will be people who are not capable of the physical version of whatever the phrase describes, though there is no reason to suppose they could not carry out the metaphorical cognitive operation.

      Like

      Reply
    11. Daniel Brunson Avatar
      Daniel Brunson

      Another criterion might be the availability of non-offensive alternatives, as in anonymous peer review. While I would not suggest that there is much correlation between offensiveness and available alternatives, surely it is a small thing to ask people to use ‘anonymous’ rather than ‘blind.’

      Like

      Reply
    12. Anon Avatar
      Anon

      Rachel McKinnon: “‘S is blind to the consequences’ is problematic because it portrays blindness as ignorance (or epistemic failing).”
      I’m a little unsure about this. Of course, ignorance is often portrayed pejoratively. But ignorance isn’t always or even usually an epistemic failing. Ignorance can even be positively understood, as in the example of blind review.
      And to be sightless is to be ignorant of visual information in a non-pejorative sense of ignorant (no implication of epistemic failing and no assumptions about the value of possessing such information).
      I can’t help thinking that this is a prejudice of philosophers and academics, who treat ignorance as intrinsically bad. I don’t think ordinary speakers share this prejudice.
      So, if implying ignorance isn’t always pejorative, is it still be ableist?

      Like

      Reply
    13. James Avatar
      James

      Ah, the myth of neutral language.
      A problem I see is that some in this discussion want to develop a normative framework for the authorization of words prior to the original contexts of those words. Because detaching words from their use is impossible, either making up such an a priori list will be impossible or the list will have to be infinitely long.
      Example: McKinnon says that “‘blind to the consequences’ is problematic because it portrays blindness as ignorance,” but why is ignorance problematic? Not because ignorance is a universal moral bad, but because she declares it to be. From the start she imports her judgment about ignorance as a failure (“epistemic failing”). But is ignorance really objectively bad as she means to make it sound? I’m ignorant of Rachael McKinnon’s identity, but that is certainly not a failure on my part nor a morally undesirable status. For whom and in what context does “blind peer review” mean “peer review with epistemic failing”? For nobody obviously. For most of us it means: peer review with the added benefit of reviewers not making judgments based on the identity of the author. In other words, in this case, their “ignorance” is good for them and the author–it is morally desirable.
      It appears to be McKinnon who finds herself with a negative association toward blindness (as a type of failure to know the fullness of knowable reality due to lack of sight), finds that negative association morally undesirable, and attempts to atone for those impure thoughts by rejecting certain key words that can take the fall for society’s injustice toward the blind. Anyway, in this case the solution is simple: substitute “anonymous” for “blind”. But the reason should not be McKinnon’s equation, blind = ignorance = failure = bad. That’s her rather odd judgment about what blindness and ignorance mean. Rather, the word substitution and self-censoring should happen because that use of “blind” is actually offensive or unjust toward people we care about, and we want to help promote linguistic-structural justice where we can.
      I get that there are some words whose historical use tends so obviously toward an undesirable, unjust connotation that it is for the benefit of all to not use them. And I get that with the evolution of identity groups and with new self-understandings of linguistic-structural injustices we should always be considering anew the effect of our word choices on those around us. But this particular strategy of trying to develop an a priori normative framework for word authorization, supposedly detached from original and natural contexts, and without recognition of one’s own linguistic baggage and importation of meaning to the discussion, this just doesn’t seem like a good strategy for what’s at stake.
      We could all move to talking in math. But what would we have achieved? Linguistic justice? Hardly. We would achieve only the self-deception of existing in some pure realm of information communication in which the only thing transmitted between speaker and hearer (excuse the analogy to auditory perception) are just the “facts”, while their meaning is given by each in the privacy of their personal space. It would be a deception because even something as neutral as information is always already socially-constituted, mediated by infinite contexts and spaces. Someone somewhere down the road (like someone who finds the reduction of human language to “information” to be an injustice) will certainly be offended by such neutral language and will ask that you find more meaningful and sincere words to use instead of “epistemic failing”.

      Like

      Reply
    14. Wannabe Hypatia Avatar
      Wannabe Hypatia

      To Anon: Many wouldn’t think of “ignorant” as pejorative, but since it often is and since blind people experience systemic social prejudices some of which play on the idea that they have immature intellects or are less than full people, why not use “anonymous” for “blind review”? For me there are the facts about what something might mean and then there is my political commitment to try to shift language (for what minimal effect it has, I agree) to shift how we think about dis/ability.
      I also think the same applies to “visionary.” Perceptual metaphors can’t help but be an important part of any discourse, the issue is that in the Western philosophical tradition vision is overwhelmingly used as the model of knowledge; “I see” “Jones’ view” and so on. The substantial literature discussing this refers to it as “occularcentrism.” If we varied our use more then I can see this as being a positive shift for philosophy not only because it would bring new metaphors in our thought, but it might also bring in new ways of thinking.

      Like

      Reply
    15. Anon Avatar
      Anon

      Wannabe Hypati,
      I agree that if the pejorative implications of ignorance cause the term to be harmful and their are alternatives, it make sense to use the alternatives, even if the pejorative connotations are not necessary.
      I didn’t mean to imply disagreement with McKinnon’s conclusion, which I’m still undecided about, just with that particular argument on its behalf.

      Like

      Reply
    16. Juan Avatar
      Juan

      “That’s why “blind peer review” is problematic: it’s about reviewers being ignorant about the identity of the author (supposedly, anyway). Again, blindness as ignorance = ableism.”
      I would have thought that ‘blind’ here was actually being portrayed as a virtue rather than a vice, just as the blindness of the Rawls’ representatives behind the veil of ignorance. This is a virtue because it involves ignoring irrelevant considerations.

      Like

      Reply
    17. Jean Avatar
      Jean

      I’m not sure what the first rule means to say. If it means to say we shouldn’t use “blind” in a derogatory, abusive way, then it’s surely right. You shouldn’t angrily attack someone by saying “You’re blind!” To my mind, “pejorative” does mean derogatory and abusive in that sort of a way. If the first rule means to say we should never use disability words in a way that insinuates that disabilities are bad, that’s another story. “The news fell on deaf ears.” That insinuates it’s better to register a message with our ears than not to. I think that’s true, and I think the vast majority of people agree. Of course, there’s a fine line between a pejorative (derogatory, abusive) use of a disability word and a use that merely conveys badness, so maybe we should err on the side of caution and avoid the words. But then again, maybe not, as I think people with disabilities feel all the more isolated, the more everyone is nervous about what they say and do around them.

      Like

      Reply
    18. Wannabe Hypatia Avatar
      Wannabe Hypatia

      There have already been arguments made about whether “blindness” can in any meaningful way be used as a virtue within a society of such systemic disadvantages to dis/abled people.
      Also, not knowing something is not the same as being blind. Not knowing something can only be a virtue in such restricted cases, no one is disputing that. However, just because there is a counterexample of such a kind and because a person could (though the concept is “veil of ignorance” not “veil of blindness”) use the term “blind” to refer to what a person shouldn’t know in the original position, doesn’t overturn the majority of usages of the term and a social discourse of meaning.
      The overwhelming everyday use of the term is to say things such as, “Are you blind?” to basically mean “Are you stupid?” Personally, I hold myself to a higher standard in my word choices.

      Like

      Reply
    19. Wannabe Hypatia Avatar
      Wannabe Hypatia

      For Jean: Do you have any proof that not using certain words makes dis/abled people feel more nervous? That seems like you are saying not using these words could contribute to their stigmatization, when actually these words often do contribute to their stigmatization. Words are important but they aren’t nearly the main way in which dis/abled people become isolated. They are often isolated because of a cultural aversion to dis/ability, reduced economic chances, spatial and structural barriers, and so on.
      For Everyone else:
      Honestly, I love philosophers’ distinctions and this has been fun, but this is a huge topic that so far: 1) doesn’t engage with relevant scholarship on dis/ability, 2) doesn’t include the ideas or experiences of dis/abled people/philosophers, and 3) is divorced from any data about the levels of discrimination faced by dis/abled people in society (isn’t this why we care to have this discussion or is it just about getting to use the words that one wants to?). I just don’t see how this discussion can proceed in a non-ad hoc way without at least coming to grips with at least one of these three issues I have outlined.

      Like

      Reply
    20. Anonymous Avatar
      Anonymous

      The overwhelming everyday use of the term is to say things such as, “Are you blind?” to basically mean “Are you stupid?
      When the phrase is used in this kind of exasperated way it means that given the fact that the person can see they are ignoring evidence that they should be aware of. If the person was to reply to the exasperated question ‘are you blind’ with ‘yes, I actually am blind’ then the implication would be that they are NOT stupid at all, but are simply not receiving visual input that a sighted person would.

      Like

      Reply
    21. Jean Avatar
      Jean

      “Are you BLIND?” has an obviously unacceptable pejorative use. “She turned a blind eye” usually just implies a blind eye misses some things, so turning a blind eye is bad. I agree we shouldn’t use “blind” pejoratively (i.e. insultingly).
      Wannabe, You misunderstood. It’s not the absence of certain words that I’m saying contributes (a little) to isolation, it’s the nervousness of people worrying about which words to use. You avoid people who make you feel nervous and incompetent, literally leaving them with less social contact. This is true in lots of contexts, like when people avoid the bereaved, for fear of “saying the wrong thing.” We have to strike a balance between learning what to say, to be sensitive and respectful, and not getting unduly obsessed with verbal niceties.

      Like

      Reply
    22. Juan Avatar
      Juan

      “There have already been arguments made about whether “blindness” can in any meaningful way be used as a virtue within a society of such systemic disadvantages to dis/abled people.”
      If someone claims that ‘blindness’ can never be used this way, then I take this as a counterexample.
      “Also, not knowing something is not the same as being blind. Not knowing something can only be a virtue in such restricted cases, no one is disputing that. However, just because there is a counterexample of such a kind and because a person could (though the concept is “veil of ignorance” not “veil of blindness”) use the term “blind” to refer to what a person shouldn’t know in the original position, doesn’t overturn the majority of usages of the term and a social discourse of meaning.”
      I did notice ‘ignorance’=’blind’ but thank you for making this clear. The point was that in both cases being unaware of certain features was a thing to aim for, i.e. a virtue.
      “The overwhelming everyday use of the term is to say things such as, “Are you blind?” to basically mean “Are you stupid?” Personally, I hold myself to a higher standard in my word choices.”
      You seem to suggest that one can’t use the one without using the other. This seems to go against what I take as the point of the initial post which was to find out which uses of these expressions are deplorable and which aren’t, since there seem to be clear cases of both.

      Like

      Reply
    23. r Avatar
      r

      “Honestly, I love philosophers’ distinctions and this has been fun, but this is a huge topic that so far: 1) doesn’t engage with relevant scholarship on dis/ability, 2) doesn’t include the ideas or experiences of dis/abled people/philosophers, and 3) is divorced from any data about the levels of discrimination faced by dis/abled people in society (isn’t this why we care to have this discussion or is it just about getting to use the words that one wants to?). I just don’t see how this discussion can proceed in a non-ad hoc way without at least coming to grips with at least one of these three issues I have outlined.”
      I think “you’re allowed to come back and talk only after you go away and read all my favorite books” may work for referee reports, but it’s not really reasonable for casual conversation. This place would certainly be a ghost town if people only commented on issues where they had a good grasp of the literature. Rather, I think one of the things spaces like this facilitate is experts making their expertise casually accessible by sketching major ideas and/or flagging the relevant positions, arguments, and ultimately particular works.

      Like

      Reply
    24. Christy Mag Uidhir Avatar
      Christy Mag Uidhir

      For those interested there’s some super sharp recent work on slurs by Luvell Anderson (Memphis) and Ernie Lepore (Rutgers):
      Luvell Anderson & Ernie Lepore (2013). What Did You Call Me? Slurs as Prohibited Words. Analytic Philosophy 54 (3):350-363.
      Luvell Anderson & Ernie Lepore (2013). Slurring Words. Noûs 47 (1):25-48.

      Like

      Reply
    25. John Avatar
      John

      Serious question: is calling something “anemic” and meaning this as a criticism an abuse of those with anemia?

      Like

      Reply
    26. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      I would say no, and the reason is that people aren’t anemic (strictly speaking), blood is anemic. We can think its bad to be anemic (a property only blood has) without thinking it is unequivocally bad to have anemia (a property people have). You would have to say something “has anemia” and mean it as a criticism for it to count as derogation of those people, and that expression doesn’t make much sense.

      Like

      Reply
    27. Kathryn Pogin Avatar
      Kathryn Pogin

      For anyone who is interested, there was an article on this topic by Sami Schalk in the October 2013 issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. It’s a quick read–so if you have limited time to look into the literature, this may be a good article to start with.
      The abstract:
      “This article examines the use of metaphors of disability in feminist texts. Starting from an understanding of feminism as a movement to end sex and gender oppression in the lives of all people, a movement aligned with anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-classist and anti-ableist movements, I make connections between sexist and ableist rhetoric in order to expose the political and intellectual repercussions for feminist work that relies upon metaphors of disability. I argue that most current uses of disability metaphors promote an ideology of impairment as a negative form of embodiment. In order to articulate my claims, I provide a close reading of extended disability metaphors used in work by bell hooks and Tania Modleski, identifying the implications about disability and problems that occur in their overall arguments when the metaphors are read from a disability studies perspective. The article ends by offering recommendations for a feminist philosophy of language, calling for a reflective political commitment by feminists to interrogate our theoretical assumptions and consider the effects of our language so as to prevent further marginalization of disempowered groups in general and disabled people in particular.
      Language is so central, so fundamental to social interaction, to our becoming who we are that no one interested in influencing and inflecting their society can ignore it.
      —Margaret Gibbon, Feminist Perspectives on Language”
      And here is the link: http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3874/3410

      Like

      Reply
    28. Happy medium Avatar
      Happy medium

      Lame is used in the literal sense in describing animals. I don’t know how that otherwise bears on the questions at hand.

      Like

      Reply
    29. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Other really good stuff on slurs generally, if we are throwing that out there, is by Chris Hom and Lynne Tirrell.

      Like

      Reply
    30. anonphil Avatar
      anonphil

      I’m trying to be serious, too. Let’s set aside the worry that people commonly refer to and think of themselves or others as being anemic, not merely as having anemic blood–and that common understandings of word usage, not underlying facts, drive derogation (e.g., being called a “witch” back in the day). So how about “allergic,” say, as in “allergic to hard work”?
      Those of us with moderate to severe allergies know how debilitating or life altering they can be. Presumably, there isn’t any “strict” sense in which people aren’t allergic–unless we’re now supposed to recognize a distinction between persons and their bodies.

      Like

      Reply
    31. Anonimal Avatar
      Anonimal

      On the run, so to be brief: I’m not sure I understand the ‘normal problem’ you introduce when you write,

      But suppose we follow your advice and distinguish offense from derogation, and agree that whether somone is offended is an empirical question, but whether they are derogated is a normal one and a different one altogether.

      My own sense is that both offense and derogation are empirical problems, but that there is a principled distinction to be drawn between them by appealing to various forms of implicature — e.g. conventional and conversational. I don’t see why that is insufficient. Why can’t I simply say that someone takes offense when they feel something is implicated, but it isn’t, whereas someone is genuinely derogated when it is — and the difference hinges on contextual features that inform a given communicative scenario; further, why would it be insufficient to say that someone can utter something derogatory without intending to (i.e. they didn’t mean to implicate it conversationally, but did so conventionally) because of operatant conventions of a given context to which the speaker was unconcscious of or not attending to?
      Some possible snags: (1) derogation would be contextual (same word in different contexts will do different work). So parsing out derogation and offense in advance of a given instance might not be possible (this strikes me as a virtue, though — why might we find a tatoo of ’88’ an instance of a slur in some parts of the USA isn’t something we’re likely to anticipate), And (2) The problem of unfortunate turns of phrase is precisely an empirical issue.
      And in Passing — the literarure mentioned about slurs (especially Hom and Tirrell, which is the antithetical view to the one I’m skecthing) is great stuff!

      Like

      Reply
    32. Mike Jacovides Avatar
      Mike Jacovides

      To be anemic is to lack blood. How could blood lack blood?
      I can see how ‘anemic’ might be applied in its figurative sense (lacking vigor, strength, or spirit) to blood, but that would be really confusing.
      (EW comment: From the NIH website: “Anemia is a condition in which your blood has a lower than normal number of red blood cells [or] hemaglobin.” So no, its not a condition in which the blood lacks bloood.)

      Like

      Reply
    33. Michael Kremer Avatar
      Michael Kremer

      Just about “anemia” and medical usage: Eric, The passage you cite is clearly referring to a condition of the patient in which the patient’s blood has lower than normal blood cell or hemoglobin count (“a condition in which your blood…” must refer to a condition you have). When my first wife was a cancer patient I certainly heard her doctors describe her as anemic many times; I don’t believe I heard anyone describe her blood as anemic. Here is the title of a paper on the NIH website: “Why is my patient anemic?” And here is another reference written and edited by MDs which claims to an approach to the anemic patient.

      Like

      Reply
    34. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Fair enough, but I still can’t shake the feeling that when you call something anemic, you are saying it lacks its expected power, and hence you are likening it to the blood of an anemic person, not to the person. That’s what matters to my claim, anyway.
      As for the allergy case, I think its neutral to say (metaphorically) that a person is “allergic to…,” because you can say that they are allergic to work, or allergic to dishonesty, or allergic to boring lunches. All the normative force comes from the thing you are being said to be allergic to, not from the claim of allergy.

      Like

      Reply
    35. anonphil Avatar
      anonphil

      “All the normative force comes from the thing you are being said to be allergic to, not from the claim of allergy.”
      How is this supposed to be different from the case of what one can be said to be blind to — as in “Lady Justice is blind,” or “The editors are committed to blind review”?

      Like

      Reply
    36. Jean Avatar
      Jean

      Serious question: is calling something “anemic” and meaning this as a criticism an abuse of those with anemia?
      There’s an important distinction between regarding a condition as bad and abusing the people who have it. I have been anemic. It’s a bad thing (it tends to make you feel sluggish and weak), and so calling things anemic is a way of finding a flaw in them. I’m only going to feel offended if “anemic” starts being used as a slur, in the manner of “retard” or “spaz”. But nobody uses it that way.

      Like

      Reply
    37. Chris Avatar
      Chris

      Eric,
      Why wouldn’t the move you make work for almost any condition? People aren’t blind, only eyes. When I call someone blind, I am saying that their eyes lack their expected power.

      Like

      Reply
    38. anon Avatar
      anon

      I’m not sure about the distinction of people vs blood being anemic. First, the meaning may be the same: “I am anemic” might be identical to “I have anemic blood.”
      Second, the distinction may be equally applicable to disabilities. For example, saying a person is sightless may be identical to saying their eyes lack the power of sight.
      Finally, I suspect that the extended use of “anemic” does in fact has negative connotations about persons with anemia, since physical fatigue is one of its primary symptoms. When many people say an “anemic” argument, I suspect they are comparing to people, not to blood.

      Like

      Reply
    39. ligurio Avatar
      ligurio

      So “able” comes from habilis (suitable or fit for) from habere (to hold, handle, have). By calling people disabled, we are calling them unsuitable or unfit for some activity x.
      We don’t use the word “disabled” to refer to a person’s unsuitability or unfitness for just any activity, though, but for activities the actualization of which seems inherent to adult members of the species homo sapiens. So, we call people who can’t see, walk, hear and so forth “disabled,” but not people who can’t play the piano, who can’t speak more than one language, etc. (They are called “Americans.” Sorry. Couldn’t resist.) What counts as a disability is a function of what we regard as those activities whose actualization is inherent to adult members of our species. But even though the number and kind of recognized disabilities changes, the principle governing our use of the term does not.
      It seems obvious to me that our use of the term “disabled” presupposes a concept of properly natural or biological functionality. And it equally seems obvious to me that, all things being equal, it is better to possesses such functionality–better to be able to see than to be blind, better to be able to hear than to be deaf, and so forth.
      “All things being equal” comes in when we recognize the ancient tradition of associating the greatest poets–and, in fact, seers–with biological blindness. The point being, of course, that Homer, being blind, cannot see the things that we see, but also and more importantly that he “sees” things that we cannot, and that these things are in fact superior to the objects of our vision. Hence, Homer and others have been properly regarded as visionaries even though–and in mysterious connection with–their being biologically blind.
      The same motif operates somewhat differently in the Gospels. There, Jesus cures biological blindness, but often points out what I take to be true: that it is much worse to be spiritually blind than biologically blind, and that it is often the case that the biologically blind–precisely because of their powerlessness and their exclusion from the social world–have insight into the workings of that world that others do not possess. It’s important to note that, at least in the case of the Gospels, Jesus does not thereby justify the exclusion of the biologically blind. Indeed, he rails against it. (There is recent scholarship, moreover, arguing that Jesus’ friend Lazaraus suffered from intellectual and physical disabilities, and that this fact explains the disciples’ ambivalence about going to visit him. The disciples are basically assholes.)
      My point is two-fold. First, it is insufficient to describe or portray disability purely as a function of arbitrary social oppression. The fact is that, even in Utopia, the blind will still not be able to see, and, even there, it will still be better–ceteris paribus–to be able to see. Some comments here and on Jon Cogburn’s earlier post seem to deny this point. Why? Second, suggestions like Rachel’s would not only consign almost the entirety of the Greek metaphysical tradition to the ableist dustbin–after all, there is virtually no text from that tradition which does not trade in analogies between seeing/understanding and blindness/ignorance–but would do so on very dubious historical and interpretive assumptions about the range and flexibility of our linguistic inheritance.

      Like

      Reply
    40. Michael Kremer Avatar
      Michael Kremer

      Eric: Believe me, a person who is anemic (unless she has been anemic for a long time already) lacks her expected powers. That is a pretty good description of the symptoms of anemia. I am not drawing any conclusions about the propriety of the use of the word “anemic” to describe a theory, by the way.

      Like

      Reply
    41. Michael Kremer Avatar
      Michael Kremer

      A case study: Shelley Tremain thinks that Leigh Johnson crossed the line with her reference to taking up arms in her post on Ferguson (see first comment here — I suspect this was the proximate cause of Jon Cogburn’s post to which this thread owes its existence). How many people here agree with Tremain, and why or why not? I think discussing this case may help to clarify the issues.

      Like

      Reply
    42. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      Ok, I withdraw my analysis of the anemia case.
      I’m also curious how people feel about Michael’s question.

      Like

      Reply
    43. anonymous prof Avatar
      anonymous prof

      It is unclear whether Tremain was objecting to the phrase “taking up arms” or to something that occurs in the body of the post: “…I worry our default commitments to both classical and neo-liberal conceptual apparatuses have effectively (and regrettably) blinded us…”
      I certainly hope it was the latter. That is, I hope we haven’t gotten to the point where we need to change our use of language to guard against other’s indulgence in false etymologies. (though the neologism ‘herstory’ and the occasional outrage at the use of ‘niggardly’ make me worry that this was indeed what she was after).

      Like

      Reply
    44. Michael Kremer Avatar
      Michael Kremer

      Shelley Tremain has informed me that what she objected to in Leigh Johnson’s post was the use of the term “blinded.” She did not say explicitly in her comment what she did not like, and I misunderstood. So please retract my question.

      Like

      Reply
    45. anon Avatar
      anon

      Liguria,
      “The fact is that, even in Utopia, the blind will still not be able to see, and, even there, it will still be better–ceteris paribus–to be able to see. Some comments here and on Jon Cogburn’s earlier post seem to deny this point. Why?”
      Although I actually agree that everything else being equal, it is better to have an ability than not, I do think I have some sense of why many doubt this. Whether or not I benefit from an ability doesn’t depend upon its intrinsic properties, but its utility or disutility toward the goals that make my life fulfilling. So, a given ability is only automatically beneficial if it is intrinsically useful toward an end that is necessary to human fulfillment. And we can, of course, doubt whether there are such ends and whether there are any abilities that are always conducive or obstructive of those ends. If seeing is not necessarily conducive to my happiness, or if seeing is not the sole ability conducive to the same aspects of my happiness, I might not be better in utopia with sight.
      As you say, “the term ‘disabled’ presupposes a concept of properly natural or biological functionality”, and so we might see this natural functionality as a kind of natural human end. But morally speaking, there’s no reason for me to consider the abilities and ends of natural selection as my moral ends. And there’s surely no reason to see them as intrinsically conducive to human flourishing or a well lived life.
      Having said that, I do think it’s hard to imagine naturally selected functionality not having an important connection to human flourishing, so the possibility that I can be happy without any given ability doesn’t I think show that in practice, everything else being equal, it’s preferable to have an ability than not.

      Like

      Reply
    46. anon Avatar
      anon

      Sorry, correction: “that in practice, everything else being equal, it’s not preferable to have an ability than not.”

      Like

      Reply
    47. TS Avatar
      TS

      Hi Eric
      What you say makes sense. What about a fourth rule –
      4) A term may be used if there is no adequate substitute. The thought being that one should not stunt and constrict human discourse and expression (a definite harm) unless doing so is clearly essential to prevent some greater harm. Calling a friend crazy for suggesting X (eg ‘Shall we invite P1 and P2 for dinner tonight?’) is a mode of communication which cannot be satisfactorily substituted with something else (other than something similar, such as ‘mad’).
      Here’s another example. If I say ‘She left me because I was blind to her problems’ then this means that they were there to be seen, by me and others, but because of a failure on my part, I did not see them, was not aware of them – and indicates that I can now see them. Saying ‘She left me because I was ignorant of her problems’ is not so richly communicative…
      It must be possible to improve the treatment of disabled people without disemboweling our language, which would impoverish and diminish our communication and thence our relationships with each other.

      Like

      Reply
    48. TS Avatar
      TS

      PS A single word can more than one meaning. People do not have any problem with keeping the meanings separate. If I said, ‘He walked her home and then they spooned.’ You would not reply (except as a joke perhaps) ‘What were they spooning?’ http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/spoon
      So we can surely use words, such as ‘blind’ or ‘crazy’ or ‘stunted’ in everyday discourse without it affecting how we think about and interact with disabled people, even in cases where we use the same terms.

      Like

      Reply

    Leave a comment