“Philosophy . . .is a talk on a cereal box . . .”

The title is a quote from one of my theme songs, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians’ “What I Am”:

Content note: this essay discusses ableism, racism, antisemitism, anti-LGBT-bigotry, euthanasia, and animal cruelty.

I’ve said many times that much of the Western literary, philosophical, and theological canon is ableist. I have countless examples, and I know that many of my friends and readers aren’t on Twitter, so I wanted to organize some old thoughts here.

I always use books like Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury as examples of harmful, canonical ableism. I don’t necessarily think we must remove books like these from the canon. However, professors who teach these books but teach no disabled authors, or who don’t know how to discuss the ableism or at least let students discuss it, are perpetuating ableism.

Furthermore, academia has a double standard for whom they allow to write unclearly and still give the benefit of the doubt and consider “genius.” Consider Faulkner’s Benjy, the “idiot” implied in the Shakespeare quote that Faulkner references in his title. Benjy is still called experimental, but do academics try equally to understand the thoughts of real disabled people, especially those with IDD? This is a rhetorical question. Brilliant, disabled artist Karrie Higgins asks all the time: Who is allowed to experiment and have their experimental art recognized?

For Book Riot in July 2019, I mentioned solipsism, which I defined as “the philosophy that one’s own mind is all that can be known to exist.” I said: “I wasn’t familiar with the concept of intellectual ableism at the time. In retrospect, solipsism seems to suggest that some people — so-called ‘deep thinkers’ — are more alive or human than others. It is skepticism directed only against others.”

Our BR articles are so concise that I had to pick a short quote. This passage I quoted in Ian McEwan’s Atonement continues with a textbook example of solipsism: “But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had” (McEwan 34). Briony concludes this is probably untrue but has doubts. Regardless, her childish belief is that others lack inner lives as rich as hers, and her intelligence and talent equal superiority.

I’ve always found many ideas in philosophy inherently ableist. Descartes was not a solipsist, but ever since freshman college philosophy, I’ve always had an issue with “I think, therefore I am!” This is one of many philosophical credos that seem to follow logically but are actually fallacies. It sounds empowering, but it’s ableist. Let’s think through its implications. So, only articulating certain abstract thoughts makes us human? This is the summit of humanity? Nonverbal or IDD people are lesser? NO! Thinking in a certain way is not what makes us human or real.

I used Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go to refute the false idea that art, intelligence, ability, or any other quality or achievement is philosophically “what makes us human.” The metrics by which we try to “prove humanity” are elitist, ableist, racist, etc. and always exclude some humans, so let’s not.

Ph.D. candidate Amy Gaeta has Tweeted that the Turing test is inherently ableist because it posits the more intelligent and intelligible a machine becomes, the more sentient and humanlike it becomes.

Other people aren’t lesser if WE can’t understand or communicate with them. Communication and understanding always go both ways.

Further, further thoughts on the uncanny!

TW antisemitism, LGBTmisia, ableism

I have another example of the uncanny, but it’s vile, and that’s exactly my point. In 2004, when I was in Catholic high school, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released. We knew what Gibson was like: anti-LGBT, antisemitic, a fringe, extremist Catholic who believes Jews are the enemies of Jesus. My teachers attempted some serious “separate the art from the artist” doublethink because Gibson touted the “historical accuracy” of the movie: for example, having Latin and Aramaic dialogue.

In the movie, the Satan figure is played by a woman but is supposed to look genderless. I didn’t know words like genderfluid or nonbinary back then, so I described the film’s Satan as androgynous. Even then, as a cis het, disabled kid who made mistakes but tried to be an ally to my LGBT friends, whom I loved, I knew this was wrong. Gibson is using the uncanny, whether he intended it or not. He’s playing into some cis people’s unfamiliarity with seeing a gender nonconforming person and their ignorant prejudices that neither male nor female = weird! Wrong! Evil! And I thought that Gibson’s choice of symbolism was the actually evil part here.

The movie Satan also has a baby who looks prematurely aged and is supposed to represent sin. But disabilities like progeria and craniofacial conditions make people look prematurely aged. So, again, here’s the uncanny — ableism this time. The movie is using what audiences consider unfamiliar or strange, or this liminal space between familiar and unfamiliar. And that is the uncanny to symbolize evil.

You can say, No shit, Sherlock! A bigot made a bigoted movie? Sure, I’m not surprised, either. But before we think that these symbols are harmless, innate, or somehow biologically hardwired, think about the false prejudices they imply.

Jewish groups at the time also raised concerns about Gibson’s antisemitism and pointed out tropes like eye patches, Jesus and disciples distanced from other Jews, Jewish community considered collectively responsible for Jesus’ death….some of the most evil, harmful antisemitic tropes ever!

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Satan_(The_Passion_of_the_Christ)

https://www.ncronline.org/news/media/decade-later-passion-still-raises-questions-anti-semitism

Of Gods and Animals

The hierarchy of humans as superior to and distinct from other animals goes back to Aristotle and is found in later philosophies and religions, including Christianity. I mention this in my longer essay on the uncanny but wanted to expand on it. Sometimes these beliefs are why people say humans aren’t animals or “like (other) animals.” They might be thinking of religious beliefs in souls or the afterlife. Christianity also has the factor that God literally became a human, not another animal. But when European, Christian nations colonized, these ideas trickled into secular, “rational” culture and science. This is not “objectivity;” it’s a bias that we must view for what it is.

I love the Netflix show Explained, but I often find explorations of animal intelligence problematic. Basically, Western science’s inquiries of animal intelligence and AI apply the same colonial, ableist framework to animals and AI that they once applied to other humans. I’m not trying to conflate issues here, but there are some similar, underlying assumptions: intelligent = like us = therefore, good. It’s a fallacy. Burn it down.

The Explained episode on animal intelligence does address this. We used to call birds and octopuses’ reactions mere instincts, but they must require a specific type of intelligence. For more on the connection between animal rights and ableism, click here.

The experiments with chimps raised as human babies and taught sign language always bothered me. This basically ruined their lives and made them imprint on humans and be isolated from their ape families forever. And for what, our hubris?

Sign and oral languages are both human languages. Neither is superior. Apes’ vocal cords didn’t support speech, so researchers taught them sign language. But not a human sign language! They made up ape signs, then taught them to the apes…Doesn’t this defeat, or at least undermine, the hypothesis of their experiment?

Wake me up when you figure out how apes invent their own languages, if they do, instead of inventing a sign language to teach them. There’s so much projection, anthropomorphism, and conjecture here, like in the book The Soul of the Octopus. The author is not a scientist and spends the whole book speculating on octopus feelings and trying to befriend them. 🙄

I’m very disturbed by these criteria: (humanlike) intelligence and capacity to feel pain = more human or superior. Are we sure? Reduced capacity for pain could be advantageous in some ways but could also be a neurological disability and vulnerability.

There’s a headline in the episode: “personhood” and rights for elephant that passed the mirror test? (That is, it recognized itself in the mirror.)

Really, only for that one? Possibly the smartest one, at least in ways humans can measure?

If you believe more intelligent animals are better, do you necessarily believe the same about humans? Where does it end? Question the underlying assumptions. Question everything!

The episode does mention that many cultures and religions see humans and other animals as interconnected, and not as a hierarchy. Colonial ideas often disregard world-views that contradict theirs…Why are some white, abled vegans and animal rights activists so racist and ableist? There are many reasons! They disregard cultures and religions that hunt and farm respectfully and sustainably or believe in reincarnation across species…

Also, they value animals for their perceived intelligence, according to these ableist, Western values. Look at people like Peter Singer, perhaps my actual nemesis, who believes in animal liberation AND the right to euthanize disabled infants. Singer also believes that people with IDD have no sexual agency.

Have you noticed that researchers actually apply the IQ/mental age principle to animals too? This animal does not have “the intellect of a three-year-old child.” Stop. What would that even mean? Developmentally, we can be far ahead or behind the average in different ways. The animal has its own intelligence, not human at all.

Look at how we still treat other humans. Many still haven’t fully divested of the idea that abled, white, cis men are the arbiters of logic and rationality — and implicitly superior!

Remember what I said about Faulkner and Benjy? Not only does academia not want to hear real, disabled people’s thoughts, but they conversely consider some people’s opinions superior because they’re “genius,” educated, abled, etc. white men. Singer is a great example of this…

How dangerous would an uneducated, philosopher of color, and/or disabled person with these views be considered? This is a rhetorical question, as no one would take them seriously in the first place.

“Ad hominem” is usually used in the context of an attack. Don’t dismiss an argument because you hate someone, but don’t we have this weird double standard to tolerate people like Singer vs. everyone else? Isn’t that ad hominem acceptance? It’s canonizing privileged ideologues as geniuses.