Trapped In Mental Anguish — Chapter. 2

Written by Andi Bazaar & Co-wrote by Oliver Schofield Tydalé | July 23, 2022

“Philosophers need to recognize and take responsibility for the way they not only reproduce systemic ableism, but expand and worsen its effects.”

HERE’S 1 OF 3 FOLLOW UP ARTICLE ON SYSTEMIC ABLEISM:

1. Why the focus on philosophy?
2. In the past decade-and-a-half, feminist philosophers have been paying a lot of attention to epistemic oppression.
3. Some would claim that accountability mechanisms related to the content of academic work would be unacceptable violations of academic freedom.

Both philosophers in general and some specific philosophers in particular are complicit in the legislated murders of disabled people in Canada. Of course, philosophers who support the MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying) legislation in Canada don’t think anyone is being murdered because they think those murdered have made a “free choice to end their suffering."

Such philosophers ignore or minimize, the role of social injustice in creating that suffering. When a disabled person wants to end their life because of suffering caused by social injustice they are not making a free choice, the choice is made as a result of the lack of freedom those social injustices impose.

We already have confirmed cases of people asking for and being granted, MAID due to legislated poverty (that is, poverty that results from lack of commitment to addressing ableism in employment along with insufficient social assistance rates).

Jocelyn Downie and Udo Schüklenk claim concerns about coercion aren’t warranted because (1) a handful of justices have “reviewed the evidence,” for that conclusion and have found it wanting and (2) that many recipients of MAID have been younger, reasonably well-off financially, not institutionalized and married.

They don’t bother to engage with the disabled communities’ criticisms of the evidence they mention nor criticisms of its interpretation as evidence against concerns of coercion because of (2) they conclude that “MAID is unlikely to be driven by social or economic vulnerability.” Apparently disabled people who are young, not institutionalized and married are thereby protected from ableism and social injustice. It’s common to see sloppy work when someone is expressing ableism (or otherwise discriminatory ideas) since such work fails to properly engage with the relevant marginalized community.

Such as the work of bioethics who pretend that the field of disability studies either doesn’t exist, is somehow illegitimate or is irrelevant to their work (not all that dissimilar to certain attitudes toward critical race theory) but it isn’t just philosophers such as Udo Schüklenk that produce work explicitly about MAID type legislation that are complicit. Philosophers that promote problematic understandings of concepts that support Downie and Schüklenk’s arguments are complicit as well.

As are philosophers that refuse to address the ableism and other forms of discrimination, within the discipline of philosophy which to be blunt is most philosophers.

We need fair and equitable representation of disabled and other marginalized people, within philosophy departments and in other positions of power, such as editorial review boards, within the discipline and we need it now.

We also need fair and equitable representation of subfields such as philosophy of disability, finally, we need ways to hold philosophers accountable for the harm they cause since they clearly aren’t interested in finding ways to hold themselves accountable.

There is far too much focus on the role of politicians in creating and maintaining social injustices and far too little on the role played by academia and in particular, the arts also humanities.

1. WHY THE FOCUS ON PHILOSOPHY?

• partly because i’m a philosopher and so consider addressing ableism in philosophy as part of my responsibility of addressing ableism more generally.
• partly because ethicists or bioethicists have a lot of power in deciding what studies on human populations are acceptable and which are not, these decisions can both have significant discriminatory effects and promote discriminatory ideologies.
• partly because philosophers particularly ethicists, have been increasing taking on and sharing a moral role that used to be the sole domain of organized religion. a role philosophers may emphasize when it’s beneficial to do so but downplay to avoid responsibility.
• partly because philosophers make a very deliberate choice to exclude both members of marginalized communities and their concerns in refusing to put out job postings for philosophers of disability, philosophers of race, etc.

Feminist philosophers who are primarily white, non-disabled, cishet, etc; women understand the importance of doing work in such subfields. Yet feminist philosophers are, overall just as bad as anyone else at engaging in gatekeeping and exclusionary practices.

If philosophers cared about addressing social injustices beyond those that affect them personally, they would occasionally have job posting specifically for people working on social issues beyond gender. Their work on gender would also recognize non-binary gender identities even work calling outing lack of diversity in philosophy is lacking in diversity. In a 2017 article on lack of diversity in philosophy, Ian James Kidd seems to think that philosophy only needs more cishet women and more racialized philosophers.

There’s no mention of, for example: (non-binary gender identities, disability, or class.) — this exclusion means that much important work on oppression is often unpaid. Feminist philosophers, rightly, complain about various kinds of unpaid epistemic labor but they sure as hell don’t mind when they’re not the ones doing the unpaid work.

In the past decade-and-a-half, feminist philosophers have been paying a lot of attention to epistemic oppression.

It’s a little ironic given the extent to which they contribute to epistemic oppression and interesting that they’re creating tools that can be turned back on them to underscore their own discriminatory epistemic practices.

Feminist philosophers ought to be leaders in addressing epistemic oppression and yet, according to some sociologists "philosophy is worse than any other arts and humanities field for lack of diversity."

I think universities need a department that does general work on oppression, including epistemic oppression. The department should be multidisciplinary and should focus on those whose experiences are not well represented elsewhere.

Members of marginalized communities are not only excluded from disciplines such as philosophy that are not, in general focused on issues of marginalization. These exclusions extend to academic disciplines that are focused on issues of marginalization.

For example, disability studies is largely focused on the experiences and concerns of white, affluent, physically disabled people. There is significant lack of representation of those who are multiply marginalized or those whose disabilities are non-physical creation of a department specifically for work on oppression that is not well-represented in academia will allow such work to be pursued without first having to address issues of exclusion in each relevant discipline.

Additionally, I think due to the intersecting nature of systems of oppression that having a variety of departments with somewhat narrow focuses (disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, etc.) and no department with a more general focus is problematic.

That is, we should have both sorts of departments and as issues of exclusion are addressed in various fields, cross appointments between the general department and other relevant departments should become more numerous. That should in turn, (I would hope) lead to more intersectional approaches in every discipline.

In order to bring this about, I think protests as well as faculty and student walk-outs are appropriate. I also think completely shutting down universities through walk-outs until concrete action is taken is also appropriate. Most universities are public institutions that have a responsibility to serve everyone, shutting them down until they are willing to fulfill that responsibility is reasonable.

It’s also worth pointing out that academics are, generally trained by other academics at universities. Universities have no room to claim that the responsibility to address oppression carried out by academics somehow lies elsewhere.

They also have no room to claim there aren’t enough qualified people to fill all the positions that should be created if all universities created general departments to study oppression, even if true, it would be a result of the epistemic oppression within universities.

Finally, I have no sympathy for concerns about cost here. If universities were forced to pay for their share of the harm caused by systemic oppression and all the individual harms they’ve caused particular marginalized students, the cost would be astronomical.

to be continued…

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Co-wrote)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Journalist/Consulting/Model)
• Timothée Freimann schofield (Photographed)
• Style and GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan & Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph
• In collaboration with The Me: You Can’t See