The best philosopher I know
So it’s Mother’s Day. And I thought I would explain why my
mother is the best philosopher I know, but I hope my
readers will permit me an important excursus, which will shed light, I hope, on
the principle argument
.
Yesterday, I had the misfortune to learn that several of the older
residents of the apartment building in which I live, who also have disabilities,
grew up in institutions. As a disabled person who is very young, one hears of institutions,
but one cannot imagine them. For better or worse, right or wrong, they are
socially constructed, though with considerable evidence, as horrible instances
of oppression, injustice and abuse. To me, they have always been the
unspeakable nightmare — the ineffable yet ever present perdition, against which
I have been, albeit with considerable help, crafting the salvation of a' ‘normal'
life’. Though I knew of'' institutions' as some perverse and daemonic Platonic
form of social discrimination, the notion that someone I knew, however
remotely, could have been subjected to that, in the far too recent past, made me
nothing short of physically ill. I cannot presume to imagine the full extent of
this experience, but I imagined being
African-American and seeing a museum exhibit of that odious trade which is a salutary scourge for anyone tacitly or
explicitly espousing the moral superiority of the' benevolent white race'. I
imagined those shackles rubbing my joints raw, the hot sun burning my flesh, as
though I actually were the raw meat people treated me like, and the poison of
the whip's teeth that ripped my back to shreds, as well as renting my
self-respect into countless miniscule pieces.
As fanciful or, indeed, disrespectful such similes may seem to
some, metaphors often have an uncomfortable truth. It is a monstrously ironic
fact that those institutionalized for the alleged reason that they could not contribute to the
labor market, often engaged in slave labor within the context of
institutionalized life; and in many cases, they provided exemplary, though
fetishized and exotic, case studies for the evolving logic of capitalism. And
this was, of course, in a time when the barbarity of slavery had long since
been abolished, while politicians and social engineers sang the siren call of
enlightenment. At the same time persons of color, women and gay people were
gaining long-overdue rights, many disabled people were unnecessarily confined
to institutions against their will. Regrettably, many still are, or many live
in conditions far worse, even in self-proclaimed progressive and multicultural
societies.
I expressed repugnance to an older disabled person, against
cowardly parents who opted for institutionalization. She, fortunately, was not
raised in an institution because of her courageous parents, who chose not to
surrender her to the care of the state. She advised me not to judge. “That’s
just what was done”, she said, “and the great majority of people thought they
were doing a kindness”, by abandoning and renouncing their children. How could
they have the knowledge required to raise a child with a disability? Who would want
or deserve such a burden? This task requires state efforts and expert
knowledges.
While I'm not denying the difficulty of making decisions regarding
your child's future or the power of social coercion, there are right decisions
and there are wrong ones. She compared it to the south, and said that the vast
majority of people supported slavery, as the morally justified discourse & practice.
Without an arrogant overestimation of my moral judgment, I would consider my
life not worth living, if I relented, for one instant, on being an abolitionist,
and my entire life has been about trying to stay just ever so slightly ahead of
the warm winds of change and peace. The Good and the Right must be the final
arbiters of history, otherwise humanity becomes, not the goal of philosophers,
but the gossip of the relativist. One may feel the breath of life, when
listening to the soft and often muted voice of reason within our hearts. So I
think those parents should feel great shame at what they did. Moreover, just as
I must remember, as a' white man,' that all of my privilege rests on the beaten
backs of''' colored races',’ the walking man’ must remember institutions as one
of the often forgotten malignancies of the dialectic of Enlightenment.
Also, this is why a have little patience, for those who have
internalized their oppression, and so advocate and accommodating politics toward
the able-bodied majority. I refuse to be involuntarily disabled, and so those
who wish to capitulate to the able-bodied majority can be a uncle Toms, if they
want, but freedom has never arisen from acquiescence. I have no truck with
resignation, since it is only by following the example of Rosa Parks that we
now have, in Ottawa at least, fully accessible transit. It is only by being’
out’ as disabled persons that we have gained the right to be out in public
without shame or fear. For this reason I both desire and demand liberation by
any means necessary, and I would gladly join the ‘Crippled Panthers’, if there
were such an organization.
Thankfully, though institutions were waning considerably, my mom
said no! She said no, even when many of my relatives thought
institutionalization was still something that you did. So the first thing I owe
to my mom is freedom in a literal sense, and for that alone I have
inexpressible gratitude. More broadly, however, growing up my mom ceaselessly
rejected the notion of an institutionalized life, while still working
tirelessly to accommodate my physical needs, in a way that is both extremely
effective and caring, demonstrating her fantastic skills as a mother and
exemplary professional skills as a nurse. I swear sometimes I think that my mom
believes, rather than presenting a handicap, my disability gives me some kind
of super power; I was never prevented from doing anything, or expected to do
any less. Consequently, our home remained a loving family, and I never felt
like I turned my family into a micro institution; for if anything, I was
expected to do more. So thank you, mom, for the more abstract freedom to not be
subject to the "subtle racism of lowered expectations”.
More broadly still, there is one last freedom
for which I must thank my mom and that is the freedom to learn how to be great,
a large part of which I learned from her. My mom is the best philosopher I
know. She is immensely courageous, wise, caring, just and truthful, dare I say
to a fault. She fights for all people and is a mother too many, proving that motherhood
is a subject position, rather than a biological role. She is authentic, dare I
say to a fault, and I have learned just as much from her weaknesses as I have
from her strengths, since she’s always insisted that parenting is a dialogical
process of mutual learning and improvement. She strives for excellence in all
things, and she rarely gives up on her own dreams or the ones of those she
loves.
So I guess what I’m most thankful for is that my
mom made sure I was pragmatic yet, unlike so many disabled people, not severely
touched by the scars of cynicism. The best freedom she gave me out of all of
them was the freedom to imagine. I can know that a better world is possible,
both for myself and for others, because together my mother and I work to make
that dream a reality. My mom is my best friend, since she is many things to
many people, and she remains an ageless lover of wisdom and a true citizen of
the world. Happy Mother’s Day to, my mom and all moms.
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