Stalking Ableism: Using Disability to Expose ‘Abled’ Narcissism, Part 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/zeronarcissists/comments/1gzvi5m/stalking_ableism_using_disability_to_expose_abled/

created by theconstellinguist on 25/11/2024 at 22:10 UTC*

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1: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fiona-Kumari-Campbell/publication/296970004%5C_%27Stalking%5C_Ableism%5C_using%5C_Disability%5C_to%5C_Expose%5C_%27Abled%27%5C_Narcissism%27/links/56dc289408aee1aa5f873a49/Stalking-Ableism-using-Disability-to-Expose-Abled-Narcissism.pdf

2: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fiona-Kumari-Campbell/publication/296970004_%27Stalking_Ableism_using_Disability_to_Expose_%27Abled%27_Narcissism%27/links/56dc289408aee1aa5f873a49/Stalking-Ableism-using-Disability-to-Expose-Abled-Narcissism.pdf

3: https://narcissismresearch.miraheze.org/wiki/AIReactiveCodependencyRageDisclaimer

4: https://narcissismresearch.miraheze.org/wiki/AIReactiveCodependencyRageDisclaimer

1. An act of speaking otherwise, this chapter shifts to a focus on abled(ness) to think about the production of ableism. We all live and breathe ableist logic, our bodies and minds daily become aesthetic sculptures for the projection of how we wish to be known in our attempt to exercise competency, sexiness, wholeness and an atomistic existence.

1. It is harder to find the language and space to examine the implications of a failure to meet the standard or any ambivalence we might have about the grounds of the perfectibility project.

1. Finally I will discuss the possibility of disabled people turning their backs on emulating abledness as a strategy for disengagement both ontological and theoretical.

1. An ableist perspective might propose that in a democracy disabled people should be treated fairly on the basis of toleration. Such a stance does not however suggest that disability is considered a reasonable and an acceptable form of diversity, or indeed that disability can be celebrated. Ableist thinking is based on a premise where all disability, irrespective of type and degree is assumed to be unacceptable. Disability is harmful and inter alia a form of harm. In my work I conclude that disability is both provisional and tentative – it is always subject to being erased if a solution comes along (cure, correction, elimination)

1. Ableism denotes the meaning of a healthy body, a normal mind, how quickly we should think and the kinds of emotions that are acceptable to express. The universal reach of reason gains potency when coupled to a self-assured individual autonomy. Reason as truth becomes discourse dependent and in turn generates notions of ‘disability’ and ‘ability’ (able-bodiedness). The human (adult) subject is assumed to be an independent centre of self-consciousness, who holds autonomy to be intrinsically valuable. Neo-liberalism’s normative citizen in the words of C. B. Macpherson (1964: 3) is a nominal ‘possessive individual’:

1. . Ableist belief values certain things as felicitous and particular sorts of contributions. Disabled people are often seen as a burden, a problem, a drain on the system, who make no civic contribution. According to this understanding of ableism, ‘disability’ refers to people who do not make the grade, are unfit in someway – and therefore are not properly human.

1. The nuances of ableism are not static; they are transcategorical, having specific cultural alignments with other factors such as race, gender, sexuality and coloniality. Compulsory abledness and its conviction to and seduction of sameness as the basis to equality claims results in a resistance to consider peripheral lives as distinct ways of being human lest they produce marginalisation

1. Pointing to difference can be quite dangerous on a number of grounds. Differences can be reduced to the lowest common denominator, with attributable and immutable (pigeonholing) characteristics that can become signs of deviancy or delight.

1. A call to sameness appears to be easier as these requests galvanise and rearticulate the normative even if such a norm is somewhat vacuous and elusive.

**Normalcy and anomaly can be conflated with disability and ability. For instance, something anomalous can be seen as pathological. For instance, the behavior mentioned on our Statement on Reddit shows how ability can be seen as disability simply because they have conflated anomaly with disability.** narcissismresearch.miraheze.org/wiki/StatementOnReddit

1. Studies in ableism (‘SiA’) attempts to shift our gaze from a disability pre-occupied minoritisation towards ableist normativity and concentrate on what the study of disability tells us about the production, operation and continuation of ableism which has all the population implicated. Instead of looking directly at disability, ‘SiA’’’ focuses on how the able, able-bodied, non-disabled identity is maintained. The direction is to examine elements of what is presented as ‘normal’ or aspirational. This approach not only rethinks disability, it provides a platform for reconsidering the way we think about all bodies and mentalities within the parameters of nature/culture. ‘SiA’ as a field of enquiry is concerned with the processes and effects of notions of normalcy and anomaly (disability).

1. Central to a system of ableism are two elements, namely, the notion of the normative (and normal individual) and the enforcement of a divide between a so-called perfected or developed humanity (how humans are supposedly meant to be) and the aberrant, the unthinkable, underdeveloped and therefore not really-human. The ableist divide can also capture asymmetrical relations based on differences of sex and (not white) race, which in different ways, in epistemology and social practices have been constituted as sites of aberrancy or disability. There are two features that produce ableism relations

1. Disabled people have not yet established their entitlement to exist unconditionally as disabled people. This ambivalent status means it is less certain whether we could regard disabled people’s lives as grievable or merely dispensable, a form of collateral damage in the pursuit of progress (cf. Butler, 2009).

1. It is not surprising that we receive mixed messages about disability – ‘be kind and nice to the disabled! … but there is no real right to exist, and how dare you be happy because of your disability and not in spite of it’.

1. Constitutions are related to the structure or attributes of an entity which shapes a characterisation. It is a division that requires people to identify with a category – ‘are you disabled or not?’ ‘Oh, no I am not disabled, I am ill or depressed!’, ‘I am able-bodied as I can do things’, please ‘tick the box’ say governments. For the ease of conversation we often feel the need to minimise any confusion. In traditional research design classes, students are encouraged to produce research that is coherent and has clarity about where people fit (participant sampling).

1. Enshrined in ableism is a metaphysical system which feeds into an ethics of disability. A critical question to be asked is what is the nature of the ethics or ethos invoked by ableist practices? Does ableism produce a form of narcissism in the disabled person or are ableist practices themselves essentially narcissistic?

1. Without rehashing their material, a psychology of narcissism asserts that disabled people are exemplary narcissists. In not being able to be cured, disabled people turn away from love of others towards themselves in a neurotic, disengaged form of self-gratification. Such a view reached its zenith in Australia in the professional indemnity insurance crisis of 2003–4, where ‘high’ disability compensation payouts were blamed for the collapse of a major insurer (Mendelson, 2008).

1. This theory of narcissism would appear to conflict with emerging research around the experiences of disabled people and internalised ableism which suggests that there are extraordinary attempts at engagement with the abled ‘Other’ and high degrees of precariousness around self-approval (Campbell, 2008; Reeve, 2006).

1. Indeed how is the very conceptualisation of ‘hearing’ framed in the light of discourses of ‘deafness’? In law the juridical notion of sanity depends upon a delimitation of the ‘insane’, ‘unfit’ and ‘incompetent’. A reframing of the question may expose underlying presuppositions about the grounds of pathology, reasonableness and mentality. By decentring abledness, it is possible to ‘to look at the world from the inside out)’ (Linton, 1998: 13) and unveil the ‘non-disabled/ableist’ stance. And in doing this act of inversion ableism ‘loses its crucial position as a pre-condition of vision and becomes the object of scrutiny’ (Haraway, 1989: 152).

1. Geodisability knowledge acts a bit like the McDonalds™ strategy – just as there are documents, devices and drilled people all around the globe who know how to prepare and deliver a tasty BigMac™ hamburger, geodisability knowledge acts as the landscape for thinking about disability and shapes the flows of consciousness around vitality. With the ICD-10 (International Classification of Disease 10) and ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) – disability collectors can visit services and assess funding applications around the globe and believe that there is an operational

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