On the moral bankruptcy of Aristotelian theory of tragedy and disability

On the moral bankruptcy of the personal tragedy theory:

Towards a Brechtian model of disability politics

I am frequently confronted with a question that I can no longer ignore. People often ask me whether or not having an acquired or congenital disability is worse. And sometimes they outright tell me that having an acquired disability is worse, since I never knew what it was like to walk; and, owing to this fact, I don’t know what I’m missing. Let’s tackle this on three fronts.

First, anyone with the political backbone will tell you that the personal tragedy theory of disease is not helpful. It simply causes the process of narcissistic disavowal in the able-bodied majority, allowing them to legitimate the systemic oppression of those with nonnormative abilities. I would find it repugnant to participate in this unjust arrangement of society by legitimating the personal tragedy model. I’m not going to deny that sometimes I’m pissed off at the vicissitudes of fortune, as is everyone, but I’m considerably more angry at the social inequality I experience on a macro and micro level. It is not nature that creates the problem of disability, people,, including myself, do, and it’s about time we start taking responsibility for it. God knows we fight against everything else God’s patently absurd impotence is responsible for. I have absolutely no patience for the sentimental claptrap that says disability is a meaningful experience. It isn’t. It’s terrible, since life can be terrible. If you make a meaning out of it, it is only through a tremendous act of will to survive and thrive. If we think that tragedies have value, we would also have to do some comically odious intellectual gymnastics to find some significance in the pandemics that ravage our world. This naïve romanticism limits our ability to fight disease effectively and look at the underlying social causes. Some people may want to live in a fantasy land of intrinsic justice, but I don’t.

Second, I did have an accident: it happened to be earlier, but if we are using a tragic model, it was still unfortunate. It’s true; I did not have the pleasure of normative ability, so I don’t know the extent of that privilege. By the same token, however, persons with acquired injuries have benefited from a system that privileges able-bodied approximations for some significant portion of their lives. Conversely, I have never had the luxury of profiting from that system of oppression. Even so, I DO have a conception of what able-bodiedness is like. Unfortunately, the ideal is everywhere we go. How could I not have a conception? How could I not feel loss, when virtually everyone around me, from early childhood to the present, has something I do not and makes that fact known constantly? Moreover, during crucial years of upbringing, unlike many persons with acquired impairments, I had to endure tremendous stigma and underestimation on account of my nonnormative ability. While oppression in the present is, indeed, caustic to self-development, tremendous stigma in childhood is devastating. No wonder then that people with congenital disabilities often have different ways of being in the world, and often appear less normal to the able-bodied majority — they have simply been oppressed longer. This is not a mark of ontological difference; it is a mark of unjust social privilege. To be sure, I have not survived a single catastrophic event, but my life can be interpreted as coping with catastrophe; and so too can most people’s. Why we single some people out as survivors and others not says more about us than the object of study. The rhetoric of survival is not ethically permissible. If a person gains credit only for surviving a disease like cancer or some kind of accident, it implies that this person is somehow more worthy of life than those who did not or that she is somehow innately more meritorious than those who experience greater difficulty.

Again, my point is not that one is worse than the other. Instead, it is important to illuminate that you can use whatever rhetorical strategies you like. The persuasive tactics people often use only have power because the congenitally impaired are constructed as fundamentally other. We are essentially, not accidentally, tragic. The only reason my disability is important is because of circumstances I did not control. I do not relish it; I am not proud of it, per se. I would happily fix it, if this were possible. I say this, even though I recognize that it is a vital part of my life. This does not mean I am bitter or that I hate myself. It simply means that I am a pragmatic person, who loves life and wants to experience it to the fullest.

Third, as undeniably unpleasant as my disability can be, it seems insignificant compared to the other problems that human beings around the planet face daily. In some small way, I am grateful because, at least in part, it assuages my guilt for being European, and, therewith, profiting from a system of exploitation that has no intrinsic legitimation. Even so, this does not exonerate my culpability in the system. It seems hypocritical to care excessively that I’m in a wheelchair, when we live in a world where it is commonplace for children to be blown to pieces. I’m not cynical; I’m a realist. God is not coming back; no one is going to save us, so it’s time we go fucking balls deep in the excrement of life. That’s our only  chance of making it get better. Things don’t get better without action. Wake up! 

All things are nothing next to our inevitable and complete that destruction. We need to stop fabricating meaning in misfortune. It is not healthy. And in the long run, it creates more misfortune. Manufacturing the category of congenital and acquired perpetuates the narcissistic fantasy that disability is something accidental to the human condition. I’m sorry to say it isn’t. You will be disabled. You will die. Eventually, very few people will remember your accomplishments, and all that will matter are those moments where you decided to help people in need, regardless of their ability. You did this because you understood them as creatures who experience suffering and are, thereby, worthy of concern. Think about that, for that’s a lot more productive than having me entertain this narcissistic question. When I meditate upon tragedy, it is useful to consider Brecht. He opposed the Aristotelian model of| purgation and relief. Instead, his model of tragedy encourages distance, which asks the audience to critically examine the circumstances that produced tragedy, thereby, becoming mobilized for political action. It’s time we repudiate Aristotle in favor of Brecht. Perhaps then people will see this as a nonsensical, as well as morally bankrupt, question.