Discussions about ableist language in philosophy have been both provocative and provoking. Readers of this blog might be interested to read an article on ableist language that appeared in Wednesday's online issue of The Washington Post. I like this article for a few reasons, one of which is that the author, Jessi Elena Aaron, manages to convey some important arguments about ableist language in a straightforward manner that does not sacrifice the complexity of the issues. Here is an excerpt from the article:
"Those who use these expressions tend to try to justify their use in one of two ways.
First, disability is (in their view) actually a bad thing. As one blogger explained:
It’s not okay to call a coward a pussy, or a bad thing gay, they argue, because there’s nothing bad about having a vagina or being homosexual. But there IS something bad about not being mobile! In fact, it’s no fun at all, just totally miserable. All other things held equal, isn’t it better to be not-lame than lame?
(It goes without saying that many people with disabilities would object to having their identity hijacked as the automatic stand-in for all things bad.)
Second, it can be argued – and with some legitimacy – that some of these terms no longer generally refer to disability. Languages change. New meanings emerge from old ones.
But that’s the point: new meanings are not random. Having undergone a process linguists call semantic bleaching, lame has lost some elements of its meaning over time. While physical impairment is no longer part of its (new) meaning, my study of its use in Time Magazine since 1923 showed that it has retained the social meanings associated with disability in the 20th century: awkwardness, stupidity, femininity, lack of social graces and sophistication, and more.
Today’s lame is an attitudinal echo."
You can read the entire article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/13/lame-stand-up-and-other-words-we-use-to-insult-the-disabled-without-even-knowing-it/
Shelley Tremain
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