Discourse Ks – Gonzaga Debate Institute 14
Development
Shell
1AC’s use of “development” presumes a natural state and model for progressive
change that locks in exploitation
Cleaver, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of
Texas at Austin 1995
[Harry M., 30 Apr 1995, University of Waterloo, “NAFTA, Capitalism and Alternatives, Debate,
VIII/1,” https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/NAFTAmail/msg00023.html, accessed 7-514, J.J.]
The problem is with the word "development". This term assumes that there is some natural
"progressive" form of social change ("development" implies a perfect "natural" state that beings are
attaining--such as a human child "developing" into an adult), and the "model" always seems to be
whatever happens to be the most "advanced" society at the time--ignoring all moral and practical
questions about what we mean by "advancement". So, several years ago, when socialism still seemed
to be "advanced", people thought there were "two models of development". Now, by the same twisted
logic there is only one. But this presumes that "capitalism" IS "development" and thus a priori "good".
Can we escape from this logic? I don't know.
John: I agree that, at least at level of the choice of language, there is a real problem with using the
word "development". The problem is above all its heavy, historically accumulated, load of ambiguity.
The word has meant so many things to so many different people, that when we use the word we wind
up talking about the word instead of what we want to be talking about, namely how peoples lives can
be made better, or what is preventing them from achieving such improvement (however defined).
There is a very nice essay by Gustavo Esteva on the problems associated with this word "development"
in a book I have refered to before: Wolfgang Sachs (ed) THE DEVELOPMENT DICTIONARY, London:Zed,
1992. Among other points, Gustavo make one which you do: that the concept development has
increasingly been associated with movement toward some ideal model. He traces the evolution from
its biological origins through its application to the social sphere in the 18th Century to the present. His
primary concern, however, is the use of the term in the Post WWII era as "development" became the
goal and "underdevelopment" the scourge of humankind. In a paper I wrote for a conference in Mexico
some years back (1985, just after the earthquake), I discussed another of your points, namely that part
of the Cold War involved a struggle between "two models of development", i.e., capitalist and
socialist, but argued, as I have been doing in this thread, that the two models were really only
variations on a common core and neither led anywhere beyond the current morass of exploitation,
brutality and suffering with which we are all too familiar.
Vote negative to refuse the affirmative’s myth of development.
Rahnema, Fmr. UN ambassador and professor @ American University of Paris, 1997
[Majid, ‘Towards Post-Development: Searching for Signposts, a New Language and New Paradigms’, The
Post-Development Reader]
If the post-development era is to be free of the illusions, ideological perversions, hypocrisy and
falsehoods that pervaded the development world, the search for signposts and trails leading to a flow of
'good life' (the fidnaal° in Dadacha's language) should be informed by an entirely new rationale and set
of assumptions. This should help, at the local and transnational levels, the jen and the min to rediscover
themselves, to learn from each other, to explore new possibilities of dialogue and action, and to weave
together relationships of a different kind, transcending the present barriers of language, and thereby
going beyond the paradigms that the development era has so persistently maintained for the last fifty
years. The search for new possibilities of change. The end of development should not be seen as an end
to the search for new possibilities of change, for a relational world of friendship, or for genuine
processes of regeneration able to give birth to new forms of solidarity. It should only mean that the
binary, the mechanistic, the reductionist, the inhumane and the ultimately self-destructive approach
to change is over. It should represent a call to the 'good people' everywhere to think and work together.
It should prompt everyone to begin the genuine work of self-knowledge and `self polishing' (as the
ahle sayqal do, according to Rilrni), an exercise that enables us to listen more carefully to others, in
particular to friends who are ready to do the same thing. It could be the beginning of a long process
aiming at replacing the present 'clis-order' by an 'aesthetic order' based on respect for differences and
the uniqueness of every single person and culture. On powerlessness and the 'mask of love' A first
condition for such a search is to look at things as they are, rather than as we want them to be; to
overcome our fears of the unknown; and, instead of claiming to be able to change the world and to
save 'humanity', to try saving ourselves from our own compelling need for comforting illusions. The
hubris of the modern individual has led him or her to believe that the existential powerlessness of
humankind can usefully be replaced with compulsive ‘actomania'. This illusion is similar to the modern
obsession with fighting death at all costs. Both compulsions tend, in fact, to undermine, disfigure and
eventually destroy the only forms of power that define true life. Paradoxically, it is through fully
experiencing our powerlessness, as painful as that may be, that it becomes possible for us to be in tune
with human suffering, in all its manifestations; to understand the 'power of the powerless' (to use
Vaclay Havel's expression); and to rediscover our oneness with all those in pain. Blinkered by the
Promethean myth of Progress, development called on all the 'powerless' people to join in a world-wide
crusade against the very idea of powerlessness, building its own power of seduction and conviction on
the mass production of new illusions. It designed for every taste a 'mask of love' — an expression coined
by John McKnight" to define the modern notion of ‘care' — which various 'developers' could deploy
when inviting new recruits to join the crusade. It is because development incarnated a false love for an
abstract humanity that it ended up by upsetting the lives of millions of living human beings. For half a
century its 'target populations' suffered the intrusion in their lives of an army of development teachers
and experts, including well-intentioned field workers and activists, who spoke big words — from
conscientization to learning from and living with the people. Often they had studied Marx, Gramsci,
Freire and the latest research about empowerment and participation. However, their lives (and often
careers) seldom allowed them to enter the intimate world of their 'target populations'. They were good
at giving people passionate lectures about their rights, their entitlements, the class struggle and land
reform. Yet few asked themselves about the deeper motivations prompting them to do what they were
doing. Often they knew neither the people they were working with, nor themselves. And they were so
busy achieving what they thought they had to do for the people, that they could not learn enough from
them about how actually to 'care' for them, as they would for their closest relatives and friends whom
they knew and loved. My intention in bringing up this point is not to blame such activists or field
workers — many of them may have been kind and loving persons. It is, rather, to make the point that
'the masks of love' to which they became addicted prevented them discovering the extraordinary
redeeming power of human powerlessness, when it opens one's soul to the world of true love and
compassion. Similar 'masks of love' have now destroyed the possibilities of our truly `caring'. Thus, when
we hear about the massacres in Algeria, Rwanda, Zaire, the Middle East or Bosnia, or the innumerable
children, women and men dying from starvation, or being tortured and killed with impunity, we feel
comforted and relieved when we send a cheque to the right organization or demonstrate on their behalf
in the streets. And although we are fully aware that such gestures are, at very best, like distributing
aspirin pills to dying people whom nothing can save; although we may have doubts as to whether our
money will reach the victims, or fears that it might even ultimately serve those governments,
institutions or interests who are responsible for this suffering; we continue to do these things. We
continue to cheat ourselves, because we consider it not decent, not morally justifiable, not 'politically
correct', to do otherwise. Such gestures, which we insist on calling acts of solidarity rather than
‘charity', may however be explained differently: by the great fear we have of becoming fully aware of
our powerlessness in situations when nothing can be done. And yet this is perhaps the most authentic
way of rediscovering our oneness with those in pain. For the experiencing of our powerlessness can
lead us to encounter the kind of deep and redeeming suffering that provides entry to the world of
compassion and discovery of our true limits and possibilities. It can also be the first step in the direction
of starting a truthful relationship with the world, as it is. Finally, it can help us understand this very
simple tautology: that no one is in a position to do more than one can. As one humbly recognizes this
limitation, and learns to free oneself from the egocentric illusions inculcated by the Promethean myth,
one discovers the secrets of a power of a different quality: that genuine and extraordinary power that
enables a tiny seed, in all its difference and uniqueness, to start its journey into the unknown.
“Development Discourse Bad” 
Development discourse
Cornwall, Professor of Anthropology & Development at University of Sussex, & Eade,
International Development and Humanitarian Fields Writer, 2010
[Andrea & Deborah, 01 Nov 2010, Deconstructing Development Discourse Buzzwords and
Fuzzwords, p. 1, Oxfam GB, http://www.guystanding.com/files/documents/Deconstructingdevelopment-buzzwords.pdf, accessed 7-5-14, J.J.]
Words make worlds. The language of development defines worlds-in-the-making, animating and
justifying intervention in currently existing worlds with fulsome promises of the possible. Wolfgang
Sachs contends, ‘development is much more than just a socio-economic endeavor; it is a perception
which models reality, a myth which comforts societies, and a fantasy which unleashes passions’
(1992:1). These models, myths, and passions are sustained by development’s ‘buzzwords’. Writing
from diverse locations, contributors to this volume critically examine a selection of the words that
constitute today’s development lexicon. Whereas those who contributed to Sachs’ 1992 landmark
publication The Development Dictionary shared a project of dismantling the edifice of development,
this collection is deliberately eclectic in its range of voices, positions, and perspectives. Some tell tales
of the trajectories that these words have travelled, as they have moved from one domain of discourse to
another; others describe scenes in which the ironies – absurdities, at times – of their usage beg closer
critical attention; others still peel off the multiple guises that their words have assumed, and analyze the
dissonant agendas that they embrace. Our intention in bringing them together is to leave you, the
reader, feeling less than equivocal about taking for granted the words that frame the world-making
projects of the development enterprise
Alternative
Alternative problematizes the discourse of development
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
The approach of this study draws in particular on the insights of Michel Foucault, whose forceful
articulation of an intrinsic and irreversible relationship between power and knowledge is of immense
value to the analysis of development and North-South relations. According to Foucault, power and
knowledge are intimately connected and directly imply one another, so that ‘there is no power relation
without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not
presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations (1991: 27). This close relationship
between power and knowledge alerts us to the fact that the problematization of a particular aspect of
human life is not natural or inevitable, but historically contingent and dependent on power relations
that have already rendered a particular topic a legitimate object of investigation. Underdevelopment
and poverty, in other words, do not exist as Platonic forms; they are discursive constructs and their
constitution as objects of scientific enquiry can be understood only in the context of the prevailing
balance of forces at the time of their formation. An analysis informed by such insights does not accept at
face value any particular categorisation of the world, but seeks instead to establish how certain
representations became dominant and acquired the position to shape the ways in which an aspect of
social reality is imagined and acted upon. As Escobar (1995) argues, thinking about development in
terms of discourse enables us to maintain a focus on power and domination, while at the same time
exploring the discourse’s conditions of possibility as well as its effects. It allows us to ‘stand detached
from [development], bracketing its familiarity, in order to analyse the theoretical and practical
context with which it has been associated’ (Foucault, 1986: 3). In other words, development emerges
as culturally and historically contingent, and the focus shifts from ‘what is’ to how subjects are formed
within this discourse as developed and underdeveloped. This conception of the relationship between
power and knowledge enables us to expose the political and strategic nature of discourse previously
regarded as existing independently of power relations by virtue of their presumed scientific nature,
and to ask instead ‘whom does discourse serve?’ (Foucault, 1980: 115).
Impact: Colonialism
Development is colonial and seeks to finish the West’s model of colonialism
Biccum, Assistant Professor of History at the Public Affairs Center Wesleyan, 2002
[April R., 2002, “Interrupting the Discourse of Development: On a Collision Course with
Postcolonial Theory”, Culture, Theory & Critique, 43 (1), Taylor & Francis Ltd., accessed 7-5-14,
J.J.]
There is no consensus in the field of Postcolonial Studies either about its object of study or the
terminology it uses to describe both itself and its various objects. The field can be loosely
characterised as a series of debates around who is `postcolonial’, when is the `postcolonial’, and what
it means to be `postcolonial’. In a recent article in Third World Quarterly entitled `Development Studies
and Postcolonial Studies: Disparate Tales of the Third World’, Christine Sylvester (1999) notes the
complete lack of critical engagement between Development Studies (which I would extend to include
Political Studies in general) and Postcolonial Studies. Sylvester proposes that there is a gap where
these two fields of inquiry could fruitfully be brought into conversation with one another. She points
out that, where Development Studies as a discipline is historically unapologetic in its Eurocentrism,
Postcolonial Studies has in recent years come under fire for its theoretical self- reflexivity and lack of
political engagement. According to Arturo Escobar, the number of `third-world’ voices calling for a
dismantling of the entire discourse of Development is fast increasing (Escobar 1995: 15). And as
Sylvester points out, most of today’s Development work either makes no mention of the colonial
period or makes no apology for it [. . .] One gets the impression that the structural adjustment wing of
mainstream Development studies aims to finish once and for all the task of fitting the colonies to the
still-modern models of Western political economy. (Sylvester 1999: 717).
The discourse of development leads to a dominant framing of certain countries and
areas over others, and portrays some as the “rescuer”
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
The order of discourse is telling. ‘Underdeveloped areas’ are portrayed as passive, as victims of
diseases, poverty and stagnation. Their inertia stands in sharp contrast to the dynamism and vitality
of the ‘developed areas’, and the USA in particular. These areas can embark upon ‘bold programmes’,
and their technical knowledge and scientific advances are constantly expanding, always reaching new
highs. This in turn enables them to rescue the ‘underdeveloped areas’ from their ‘misery’, to deliver
them from their primitiveness to modernity; to the era of ‘technical knowledge’, ‘scientific advances’,
‘greater production’, and ‘personal freedom and happiness for all mankind’.
Impact: White Supremacy
Development logics extend white supremacy
Biccum, Assistant Professor of History at the Public Affairs Center Wesleyan, 2002
[April R., 2002, “Interrupting the Discourse of Development: On a Collision Course with
Postcolonial Theory”, Culture, Theory & Critique, 43 (1), Taylor & Francis Ltd., accessed 7-5-14,
J.J.]
Richard Dyer in White theorises the mechanisms of white supremacy as an idea which rests upon the
paradox of being at once both present and absent, both of the body and transcending the body,
`never reducible to the corporeal’ (Dyer 1997: 14) and yet fully able to organize the material into
projects of imperialism. In his words: `it has enterprise’ (Dyer 1997: 15). Dyer gives a thumbnail sketch
of the `white’ or `white supremacist’ ideal which registers itself as a dynamic of aspiration and
transcendence whereby material achievement can be construed as the temporary and partial triumph
of mind over matter, the progressive, developmental nature of which is of necessity continually
deferred. Dyer identifies in the dualistic nature of whiteness, the control of mind over body, that the
appeal to the non- corporeal, the disembodied enterprise of whiteness, is a threat to its reproduction.
`The very thing that makes us [sic] white [that is, control, aspiration and asexual disembodiment]
endangers the reproduction of whiteness’ (Dyer 1997: 27). Whiteness and the West need to reproduce
themselves without being `contaminated’ at the level of the body. The trope of enterprise comprises
the characteristics of energy, will (control of self and others), ambition and the ability to `see things
through’. The effects of enterprise are `discovery’, science, business, wealth creation, the building of
nations, the organization of labor, in a word, Development .
Biccum, Assistant Professor of History at the Public Affairs Center Wesleyan, 2002
[April R., 2002, “Interrupting the Discourse of Development: On a Collision Course with
Postcolonial Theory”, Culture, Theory & Critique, 43 (1), Taylor & Francis Ltd., accessed 7-5-14,
J.J.]
The ambivalence around reproduction and what I have called the politics of not resembling rest upon
the fact the un/underdevelopment of the `third world’ is a reminder to the `developed world’ of all
that it needs in order continually to reproduce itself. And yet the logic of modernity demands that
Development spread the world over, so that when the `third world’ persistently does not resemble
the `first’, it gives the lie to the notion of universal Development . The result is that this failure to
resemble becomes a source of deep anxiety to the Western episteme because the logic of a universal
subjectivity, the unquestionable value of Development and the spread of the Western model
necessitate that the `third world’ resemble the `first’. This notion of an inevitable enterprise—the
figure of a universal humanity to be realized in the providently and fatefully sanctioned enterprises of
`white’/ European people— works in the context of Development theory if and only if the necessity of
colonial conquest, the violent necessity of subordination, is written out of the equation. Herein lies a
second aspect which undermines the `myth of historical origination— racial purity, cultural priority’ in
the inevitable/necessary tension. At the heart of white supremacy and the Western telos is anxiety for
a non-existent originary presence. It is for this reason that the figure of the colonial moment, when it
is actively, purposefully remembered and theorized together with the figures of modernity and
Development, can serve to shatter the illusion of Western supremacy culminating in Development.
The strategy of thinking together reveals the absurdity of the project of global Development and
thereby the staging of the historicist narrative becomes exposed. The critique of modernity articulated
by Postcolonial Studies— that it is a teleological self-construction predicated on the principle of an
elision— has the potential to deconstruct and dismantle the entire idea of `Development’ and hold
neo-classical, liberal, neo-liberal and some Marxist strands of Development thinking accountable for
their complicity in the continuities in global power.
AT: Permutation
Development and colonial discourse is linked, it assumes there is a “less developed”,
which is problematic
Biccum, Assistant Professor of History at the Public Affairs Center Wesleyan, 2002
[April R., 2002, “Interrupting the Discourse of Development: On a Collision Course with
Postcolonial Theory”, Culture, Theory & Critique, 43 (1), Taylor & Francis Ltd., accessed 7-5-14,
J.J.]
Arturo Escobar's thesis in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmasking of the Third World is
that the discourse of Development is a discursive construct which produces its object - the 'third
world' (Escobar I995: 11). Escobar comes close to concretising the link between Development and
colonial discourse and makes use of Homi Bhabha’s description of colonial discourse, making the
crucial point that the construction of the 'third world' ii Development literature is a process of the
recognition and construction of difference and is subsequent disavowal. He argue:
Development assumes a teleology to the extent that it proposes that the 'native' will sooner or later
be reformed; at the same time, however, it reproduce endlessly the separation between reformers
and those to be reformed by keeping alive the premise of the 'Third World' as different and interior,
as having a limited humanity in relation to the accomplished European. Development relies on this
perpetual recognition and disavowal of difference. (Escobar 1995: 53)
Development constitutes itself via the creation of degenerative type which it can then treat and
reform (Escobar 1995: 41). The category 'less developed' becomes a trope within Development
literature which assumes the existence of an aboriginal economy, a peasant population with
'traditional' modes of agricultural production, and a national economy whose task it is the national
government's to develop (Escobar 1995: 47).
AT: Case Outweighs/Prefer Specificity – Takes out Solvency
The term development excludes and delegitimizes certain interventions and practices.
It is a prior question to evaluating the legitimacy of evidence.
Crush, CIGI chair in global migration and development at the Balsillie School of
International Affairs, ‘95
[Jonathan, Power of Development, page 5, KEC]
The texts of development have always been avowedly strategic and tactical- promoting, licensing, and
justifying certain interventions and practices, delegitimizing and excluding others. An interest in how
the texts of development write and represent the world is therefore, by extension, an interest in how
they interact with the strategies and tactics of their authors and with those who loan them authority.
What is expertise, after all? And why is there so much of it inside of what James Ferguson (1990) aptly
calls ‘the development machine’? Why does expertise license certain forms of speech and not others?
What do the texts of development not say? What do they suppress? Who do they silence- and why?
Analysis of discourse of development is prior question - Development gives objects
and concepts an order, allowing some to be thought and said while excluding others.
This discourse is a prior question to any action.
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
To A. Escobar, development was not merely the result of the combination, study, or gradual
elaboration of the elements (some of these topics had existed for some time: capita! formation,
technology, population and resources, monetary and fiscal policies etc.); nor the product of the
introduction of new ideas (some of which were appearing or perhaps were bound to appear); nor the
effect of the new international organizations or financial institutions (e.g., the UN, World Bank and
IMP which had some predecessors such as the League of Nations). It was rather the result of the
establishment of a set of relations among these elements, institutions and practices and of the
systematization of these relations to form a whole. And the development discourse was constituted
not by the array of possible objects under its domain but by the way in which it was able to form
systematically the objects of which it spoke, to group them and arrange them in certain ways , and to
give them a unity of their own. To understand development as discourse, one must look not at the
elements themselves but at the system of relations established among them. It is this system that
allows the systematic creation of objects, concepts, and strategies; it determines what can be thought
and said . These relations - established between institutions, socio-economic processes, forms of
knowledge, technological factors and so on - define the conditions under which objects, concepts,
theories, and strategies can be incorporated into the discourse (ibid, pp. 40-41).
AT: Alternative Can’t Solve Aff/Aff DA to Alt.
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
Edward Said argues in the introduction to Orientalism that there is ‘no such thing as a delivered
presence; there is only a re-presence, or a representation’ (1979: 21). The study of development has
traditionally paid little attention to the politics of representation, as the practical challenges of
development have been perceived as far too urgent to allow for a ‘purely academic’ or even esoteric
concern with words and discourse. A focus on representation, however, does not ,deny the existence
of a material world or the very real experience of poverty and suffering by millions of people. Nor is
an analysis that focuses on discourse by its nature any less motivated by a desire to see a world free
from human misery than the conventional development text. Instead such analyses suggest that
because objects and subjects are constituted as such within discourse, an understanding of the
relevant discourses is a necessary part of any attempt to change prevailing conditions and relations of
power.
AT: “Sustainable” Development Solves
Ethnocentric values underly the term development. Use of the word requires one to
obey certain hegemonic structures
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
In his book Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Arturo Escobar
has given us an important and exciting take on issues of Third World development and its altel11atives.
He indisputably provides some exciting and significant new insights along with the Western models to
achieve the so-dreamed “development”. Although the results of these western-driven interventions
over decades have usually been catastrophic for Third World’s populations and cultures, Western
‘experts’ keep coming to the Third World and elaborating new forms of discourses on development,
now addressing objects like sustainable development, women and development and poverty
eradication – all ethnocentric and based on western values.
In Arturo Escobar’s (1995: 17-18) words, the emergence and consolidation of the discourse and strategy
of development in the early post-World War II period, as a result of the problematization of poverty that
took place during those years. It presents the major historical conditions that made such a process
possible and identifies the principal mechanisms through which development has been deployed... to
speak development, one must adhere to certain rules of statement that go back to the basic system of
categories and relations that defines the hegemonic worldview of development, a worldview that
increasingly permeates and transforms the economic, social, and cultural fabric of third world cities
and villages, even if the languages of development are always adapted and reworked significantly at
the local level.
Exploration
Shell
“Exploration” discourse is founded off of hegemonic structures that seek to colonize
and to cast a fake conception of the land being explored
Freund, Undergraduate & Law Studies at University of Michigan, 2001
[Toby, Fall 2001, Michigan Journal of History, “The Occidental Tourist: Discover, Discourse, and
Degeneracy in South Africa,”
http://michiganjournalhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/freund_toby_the_occidental_touri
st-1.pdf, accessed 7-6-14, J.J.]
European exploration of the non-Western world sought to assign foreign lands and peoples a place
within the Occidental paradigm and Eurocentric cosmos. As such, colonial hegemony was largely
achieved through the sometimes deliberate, often unconscious processes of systemization by which
European explorers and thinkers configured the external world. Recent postcolonial historiography
treats the discourses of exploration and travel writing as, “a malign system constituted by diffuse and
pervasive networks of power.”1 The periphery emerged to invent the metropolis, nature was
discovered to offset civilization, and the unearthing of savage humanity created the sophisticated and
reasoning man. The power of these images resided in the West’s assumed prerogative to identify,
name, and in so doing invest with significance that which it observed on the colonial frontier.
However, these were merely perceived dichotomies, the meanings of which were continuously
redefined and contested by the various actors in specific historical dramas and discursive enterprises.
Colonialism is an unacceptable ethical violation.
Shaikh, Producer Democracy Now, 2007
(Nermeen, @ Asia Source, “Interrogating Charity and the Benevolence of Empire”, Development 50, p.83
– 89)
It would probably be incorrect to assume that the principal impulse behind the imperial conquests of
the 18th and 19th centuries was charity. Having conquered large parts of Africa and Asia for reasons
other than goodwill, however, countries like England and France eventually did evince more benevolent
aspirations; the civilizing mission itself was an act of goodwill. As Anatol Lieven (2007) points out, even
'the most ghastly European colonial project of all, King Leopold of Belgium's conquest of the
Congo, professed benevolent goals: Belgian propaganda was all about bringing progress, railways and
peace, and of course, ending slavery'. Whether or not there was a general agreement about what
exactly it meant to be civilized, it is likely that there was a unanimous belief that being civilized
was better than being uncivilized – morally, of course, but also in terms of what would enable
the most in human life and potential. But what did the teaching of this civility entail, and what were
some of the consequences of changes brought about by this benevolent intervention? In the realm of
education, the spread of reason and the hierarchies created between different ways of knowing had at
least one (no doubt unintended) effect. As Thomas Macaulay (1935) wrote in his famous Minute on
Indian Education, We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us
and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in
opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the
country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and
to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.
This meant, minimally, that English (and other colonial languages elsewhere) became the language of
instruction, explicitly creating a hierarchy between the vernacular languages and the colonial one. More
than that, it meant instructing an elite class to learn and internalize the culture – in the most expansive
sense of the term – of the colonizing country, the methodical acculturation of the local population
through education. As Macaulay makes it clear, not only did the hierarchy exist at the level of language,
it also affected 'taste, opinions, morals and intellect' – all essential ingredients of the civilizing process.
Although, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak points out, colonialism can always be interpreted as an
'enabling violation', it remains a violation: the systematic eradication of ways of thinking,
speaking, and being. Pursuing this line of thought, Spivak has elsewhere drawn a parallel to a healthy
child born of rape. The child is born, the English language disseminated (), and yet the rape, colonialism
the enablement (the violation), remains reprehensible. And, like the child, its effects linger. The
enablement cannot be advanced, therefore, as a justification of the violation. Even as vernacular
languages, and all habits of mind and being associated with them, were denigrated or eradicated, some
of the native population was taught a hegemonic – and foreign – language (English) (Spivak, 1999). Is it
important to consider whether we will ever be able to hear – whether we should not hear – from the
peoples whose languages and cultures were lost? The colonial legacy At the political and administrative
levels, the governing structures colonial imperialists established in the colonies, many of which survive
more or less intact, continue, in numerous cases, to have devastating consequences – even if largely
unintended (though by no means always, given the venerable place of divide et impera in the arcana
imperii). Mahmood Mamdani cites the banalization of political violence (between native and settler) in
colonial Rwanda, together with the consolidation of ethnic identities in the wake of decolonization with
the institution and maintenance of colonial forms of law and government. Belgian colonial
administrators created extensive political and juridical distinctions between the Hutu and the Tutsi,
whom they divided and named as two separate ethnic groups. These distinctions had concrete
economic and legal implications: at the most basic level, ethnicity was marked on the identity cards the
colonial authorities introduced and was used to distribute state resources. The violence of
colonialism, Mamdani suggests, thus operated on two levels: on the one hand, there was the
violence (determined by race) between the colonizer and the colonized; then, with the
introduction of ethnic distinctions among the colonized population, with one group being
designated indigenous (Hutu) and the other alien (Tutsi), the violence between native and settler
was institutionalized within the colonized population itself. The Rwandan genocide of 1994,
which Mamdani suggests was a 'metaphor for postcolonial political violence' (2001: 11; 2007), needs
therefore to be understood as a natives' genocide – akin to and enabled by colonial violence against the
native, and by the new institutionalized forms of ethnic differentiation among the colonized population
introduced by the colonial state. It is not necessary to elaborate this point; for present purposes, it is
sufficient to mark the significance (and persistence) of the colonial antecedents to
contemporary political violence. The genocide in Rwanda need not exclusively have been the
consequence of colonial identity formation, but does appear less opaque when presented in the
historical context of colonial violence and administrative practices. Given the scale of the colonial
intervention, good intentions should not become an excuse to overlook the unintended
consequences.
Links
The discourse of exploration produces its objects of inquiry.
Johnston, researcher in areas of social geography, ‘10
[Ronald J., The Dictionary of Human Geography, Travel Writing, KEC]
Within human geography, interest in travel writing has had a number of different foci. Among these has
been a renewed interest in records and writings produced under the signs of exploration and science,
but now read critically as texts, using the resources of the literary as well as the historical disciplines to
disclose the multiple ways in which the discourse of exploration and enumeration worked to produce
its objects of inquiry. As the discourse of Orientalism prevent ‘the Orient’, for example, so the
discourse of tropcality produced ‘the tropics’ (Driver and Martins, 2005). Such studies feed into an
interest in the spaces through which scientific knowledges are produced, the channels through which
they circulate and the centers at which they accumulate.
Discourse of exploration historically ensured that explorers reflected institutional
ideas of class, science, and colonization.
Ryan, Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures at University of Otago, ‘96
[Simon, The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia, pg. 31, KEC]
It is more productive to eschew analysis of Sturt’s or Grey’s opinions- to treat them as individual foiblesand instead examine how class-based institutions were instrumental in reproducing social formations
in the discourse of exploration. The institutions with which explorers were inevitably involved not
only regulated the method and reportage of exploration and ensured that explorers reflected
institutional ideas of class, science, and colonisation, they were also central in creating the unified
author/ explorer figure. The remainder of this chapter shows how this attempt at authorial unity was
made at an institutional as well as textual level, and ultimately how it unravels in the textual playing out
of the journal.
The discourse of exploration has been used to justify dominium over “others”
Arias, active member of KU at the university, national, and international levels,
Melendez, Professor of Colonial Spanish American Literatures and Cultures and a
Conrad Humanities Scholar at the University of Illinois, ‘02
[Santa, Mariselle, Mapping Colonial Spanish America: Places and Commonplaces of Identity,
Culture, and Experience, page 121, KEC]
Well beyond this representation, the discourse of exploration and conquest became the vehicle to
describe personal experiences and the newly encountered space and, more important, to persuade on
political issues concerning dominium over the new lands and the American Indian subjects.
Colonialism
The images that exploration discourse produces are ones of inferiority that highlights
the different landscape in a problematic way
Freund, Undergraduate & Law Studies at University of Michigan, 2001
[Toby, Fall 2001, Michigan Journal of History, “The Occidental Tourist: Discover, Discourse, and
Degeneracy in South Africa,”
http://michiganjournalhistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/freund_toby_the_occidental_touri
st-1.pdf, accessed 7-6-14, J.J.]
During the late fifteenth century, Western explorers departed from Europe in search of an oceanic route
to the Far East. This movement led to the collision of diverse peoples and cultures from throughout the
globe over the next several centuries. Europeans sought both a western passage to the East across the
Atlantic, and an eastern route to the Indies around the southern tip of Africa. These two approaches
to maritime exploration produced two divergent discourses within which Western men of “reason”
and “civilization” came to imagine the world and its inhabitants. As the colonial world emerged in the
Americas, spawning European fantasies and restructuring global relationships in its wake, a very
different, perhaps anomalous engagement began in southern Africa, one discursively negotiated
within a unique dialectic that varied in its semantics from the contemporary conversations
surrounding the New World. While the discourse of America eroticized the colonial landscape,
imposing on native peoples the images of exotic difference, the discourse of South Africa developed
within a framework of human similitude that touted African inferiority and degeneracy.
Gendered Language
Notes from Eric B.
1: Don't Use Gendered Language in the First Place, If you know that you use it often in
your vocabulary focus on eliminating it entirely or at least in any achedemic activity.
2: If you use Gendered Language Correct yourself (or your partner): if you accidentally
call someone by the wrong gender pronoun or refer to a group of both genders as
“Guys” than fix it. The first step toward eliminating this language is fixing it and
constantly correcting yourself or others.
3: Apologize: If someone reads a gender language argument against you or your
partner the first thing to do is apologizing for your discourse. This apology should be
sincere and should acknowledge that Gendered Language is bad: this is an important
step to not seem like a sexist or an ignorant person. Explain how you acknowledge
your discourse and will change it but, that the ballot isn’t a helpful way to create
change.
4: Go for the policing argument: One of the strongest and most legitimate arguments
to combat a ballot against you is to argue that punishment or policing of language is
bad. There are a lot of legitimate reasons this is true and there is a debate to be had.
5: Learn from your mistakes: the first thing you should learn if you are dropped on
Gendered language is that you need to fix you discourse. If you don't personally
believe calling people by the wrong gender pronoun is wrong than at least
acknowledge that you cannot do it in debate and that it is offensive.
Shell
Masculine generics perpetuate sexism and exclusion
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 13-14, ESB)
One way in which language can be considered sexist is that, at a symbolic level, it makes women seem
invisible. One aspect of the invisibility of women in language is their absence as the subjects of stories
or topics of articles. Some empirical evidence of women's absence was provided by Caldas-Coulthard
(1995), who analysed the content of a sample of American newspapers. Caldas-Coulthard found that
news items were more likely to be written by men than women and were also more likely to be about
men. Furthermore, Caldas-Coulthard found that men were more often quoted as saying things than
women and were more often attributed as being the agents of action than women. Hence, in news
reports women are not only ignored by not being the writers and subjects of stories, but are also
marginalised by being denied the role of active agents. Religion has long been criticised for effectively
undermining women's existence through language style choices. For example, Miller and Swift (1976)
criticised major Western religions for their patriarchal world view which, they argued, gets maintained
by the use of metaphors and symbols that are male-oriented. Referring to God with words such as
father and king evokes the image of a god that is male ± a myth that is attacked in feminist humour (e.g.
when God created man she was only joking) and by those directly involved in religious organisations
(see Gross, 1996). Feminist activists such as Dale Spender have responded to women's exclusion. The
response has included writing books that recover and publicise stories about and by women ± stories
that have, for a number of different reasons, been hidden and forgotten. In her book Man-made
language Spender (1980) argued that just because women, historically, have not been the in ̄uential
thinkers and have not had the opportunities to in ̄uence language does not mean that women have not
had great thoughts or held important theories of language. Rather the knowledge that women have
produced and the meanings they have generated have not always entered the public arena like those
produced by men. The reason for women's relative invisibility in the public arena is that women have
not always had straightforward access to the technologies and institutions that transmit information
from one generation to another. A well-documented aspect of women being ignored in language is the
use of masculine forms, such as `chairman', `mankind', `guys', `helmsman' and `®reman', when
referring to people in general or a person whose gender is unknown or unspeci®ed. Conventionally
these forms, called masculine generics , are the grammatically correct way to generally refer to an
unspeci®ed person or to a group of people. But of course such words are also masculine-speci®c terms
and can be interpreted as excluding women. Arguably, terms such as `chairperson', `humans' and
`helm' are more neutral than their masculine generic equivalents because they have no gender marking.
As a speech communication community we have a special obligation to reject
gendered language
West and Pagano 92
(Terry L. and Laura A., “Gender-Specific Language in Intercollegiate Debate: A Preliminary Investigation”,
Oct, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (78th, Chicago,
IL, October 29-November 1,
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/81/b2.pdf
As academic debate professionals within the field of speech communication, this imprecision alone is
ample justification to examine the pedagogical needs which exist in our community regarding gender
exclusive language. Sprague (1975) contends that the speech communication discipline is uniquely
suited to focus upon issues of language, arguing that "avoidance of the question on the grounds that
'it's trivial to quibble over words' is so antithetical to the traditional stance of our discipline that it
raises the suspicion that self-interest may be overriding scientific inquiry" (p. 41). Randall (1985)
further supports this call to duty, noting our discipline's particular concern about "clarity, objectivity,
and precision," as justifying action against sexist language (p. 131-132).
Additional rationale supports examination of the impact of gender exclusive language in academic
debate. Specifically, research indicates that gender exclusive language is harmful to women in
particular and society in general. Martyna (1978) presents empirical evidence that use of masculine
generic referents results in predominantly male images among college students (p. 137). Henley (1987)
reviewed literature from numerous studies including Martyna's and found that gender exclusive usage
detrimentally affects women's self-esteem and general beliefs about women's ability to perform
certain jobs. Memory and comprehension, clearly significant to any pedagogy of learning, were also
found to be adversely affected by the masculine generic form, and achievement levels of female
students were directly enhanced by use of female-inclusive language (p. 7). The importance of these
exclusionary effects is also felt in a larger societal context. Linguist Deborah Cameron (1985) contends
that feminists must explore the role of language in supporting patriarchy so that they may overcome
oppression (p. 3). She specifically analyzes the development of masculine generics, and concludes that
they have prevailed because of their sexist nature, reinforcing and reinforced by the patriarchy (pp. 6366). Randall (1985), after examining Bodine's article detailed earlier in this essay, concludes that "the
use of masculine pronouns to refer to both sexes . . . is blatantly sexist, since it asks us to change
widespread, long-lived spoken and written habits, to shift from a true generic [the singular "they") to
one that eliminates females",(p. 131). Given the above analysis it is hardly surprising that Blaubergs
concludes, "sexist language by its existence reinforces and socializes sexist thinking and practices"
(Gastil, 1990, p. 630).
Further evidence of the negative impact of gender exclusive language abounds. Gastil (1990) showed
that "for both men and women he produces mostly male images with a few mixed images, scant female
images, and few images of themselves" (p. 638). Gastil further relates what has become known as the
"Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis"--our grammar shapes our thought (p. 630). Performing a statistical analysis
of variance to analyze the effect of generic pronoun usage on perception, he concludes that the
generic "he" indeed contains a male bias, and that the deterministic hypothesis is plausible (p. 639).
We find more support for linguistic determinism from Richmond and Gorham (1988), who claim that
while "linguists disagree on how, and how much, words affect perception, . . . most agree they do" (p.
142). The consensus in favor of the deterministic hypothesis is an important one. While genderspecific language may affect society by direct discrimination as described above, determinism has a
more subtle effect upon each individual. The importance of this effect is developed by Sprague (1975),
when she writes "much of the task of education is to encourage each student to develop a positive and
viable self-concept" (p. 41). If linguistic determinism is true, and if the numerous examples of empirical
research showing the sexism inherent in gender-specific language are to be believed, we are bound
once again to incorporate the pedagogical justifications explained by Sprague and others in abolishing
use of the masculine generic. Only then can we work toward a system of language which does not
"determine" that men are important, and women are not.
Link: He, Him, His
Generic use reinforces male as norm
Goueffic Linguistic Analyst ‘96
(Louise, BA graduate studies in France. Breaking the patriarchal code. Pg. 13-14: 1996. Accessed
7/4/14, ESB)
From the I 960s until today, such-questioning has involved a shift from looking at gender bias in
language as an abstract system, to looking at bias in language use and at potentially sexist discourses,
which may be obvious, or subtle, or even unarticulated. We will deal with the latter in Chapter 3, and
in the rest of this book. There are a number of areas that have been highlighted regarding the former,
i.e. gender bias in language as an abstract system. One of them is the problematic use of pronouns,
particularly the (arguably) generic use of 'he', 'him', 'his' to refer to both men and women. Feminists
such as Spender (1990) believe that language is man- made, with male forms being seen as the norm
and female ones seen as deviant. Some have claimed that the use of generics 'he'/,him'/,his', as well as
'man'/'mankind' and expressions like 'the man in the street', to refer to both men and women,
reinforces this binary understanding of norm and deviance, promotes male imagery, and makes
women invisible. These claims exemplify the 'dominance approach' (see Chapter 2), in that the use of
generic expressions is seen to be preventing women from expressing and raising consciousness about
their own experience, and perpetuating men's domi- nance and exploitative behaviour. In addition to
the male being treated as the norm or unmarked term and to women being hidden behind such
terminology, feminists have objected to the use of generic expressions such as 'man', saying that they
are not true generics (Graddol and Swann, 1989). Spender illustrated this with an example that is
acceptable in English: 'Man is the only primate that commits rape'; and an example that is not: 'man
being a mam- mal that breastfeeds his young'. Another example where it becomes obvious that 'man'
is not a true generic is the sentence 'Man has difficulty in childbirth' (Hekman, j 990). In addition to
criticisms regarding the restriction and exclusion of women, the use of generics can be misleading and
confusing. For a detailed discussion and a number of examples in this area, which has been the subject
of much controversy, see Graddol and Swann (1989). For a thorough investigation into gender-variable
pronouns and gender marking in languages other than English, see Hellinger and Hadumod (2001).
Other areas of bias in the English language as an abstract system include the fol- lowing: sex
specification in the language (e.g. the now outdated 'authoress', or the use of 'she' to refer to
countries, boats, motor cars); gratuitous modifiers (Miller and Swift, 1981) that diminish a person's
prestige, drawing attention to their sex (e.g. 'woman doctor' /'lady doctor') - and while historically the
focus for those opposing sexism has been on discrimination against women rather than men, another
example of a modifier would be the phrase 'male nurse'; lexical gaps or under-lexicalization, for example
having many more terms for promiscuous women than for men (Stanley, 1977) and no female
equivalents of terms such as 'henpeck', 'virility', 'penetration'; semantic derogation (Schulz, 1975),
where a term describing a woman initially has neutral connotations, but gradually acquires negative
connotations, and becomes abusive or ends up as a sexual slur (e.g. 'lady', 'madam', 'mistress', 'queen
'); relatedly, there are many more negative terms for women than for men, particularly pertaining to
sexual behaviour and denoting women as sexual prey (Cowie and Lees, 1987; Cameron, 1992);
asymmetrically gendered language items, i.e. single words used to describe women, for which there is
no equivalent for men, and vice versa. For example, the use of 'fireman'/'policeman'/'chairman' (prior
to linguistic intervention, see next section); the use of 'Mrs ' to label only women, thus arguably
reinforcing a patriarchal order; and the difference in status between lexical items such as 'master',
'bachelor', 'governor', 'god', 'wizard', and their female equivalents; connotations of language items,
such as 'girl' (which may sometimes indicate immaturity, dependence, triviality, e.g. compare
'weatherman' to 'weathergirl'); 'lady' and 'woman', both of which are often used euphemistically for
decorum or to obscure 'negative' associations with sexuality and reproduction; and the nurturing
connotations of 'mothering', compared to those of the term 'fathering' . As will become evident later,
bias in the language does not necessarily entail bias in language use, and as we will also see in Chapter
3, sexist discourses mayor may not draw on sexist language items. Words have more than one meaning,
and language users' intentions are obscure and unpredictable.
Link—You guys/man
Calling everyone you guys is extremely sexist and demeaning
The Writing Center 2010 (The Writing Center, University of North Carolina. “Gender-Sensitive
Language.” February 11, 2010. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/gender-sensitive-language/,
Accessed 7/4/14, ESB)
Like gendered pronouns, gendered nouns can also provide a stumbling block for the gender-savvy
writer. The best way to avoid implications these words can carry is simply to be aware of how we tend
to use them in speech and writing. Because gendered nouns are so commonly used and accepted by
English writers and speakers, we often don't notice them or the implications they bring with them. Once
you've recognized that a gender distinction is being made by such a word, though, conversion of the
gendered noun into a gender-savvy one is usually very simple. "Man" and words ending in "-man" are
the most commonly used gendered nouns, so avoiding the confusion they bring can be as simple as
watching out for these words and replacing them with words that convey your meaning more
effectively. For example, if the founders of America had been gender-savvy writers, they might have
written " . . . all people are created equal" instead of " . . . all men are created equal . . .." Another
common gendered expression, particularly in informal speech and writing, is "you guys." This expression
is used to refer to groups of men, groups of women, and groups that include both men and women.
Although most people mean to be inclusive when they use "you guys," this phrase wouldn't make sense
if it didn't subsume women under the category "guys." To see why "you guys" is gendered male,
consider that "a guy" (singular) is definitely a man, not a woman, and that most men would not feel
included in the expression "you gals" or "you girls." Another example of gendered language is the way
the words "Mr.," "Miss," and "Mrs." are used. "Mr." can refer to any man, regardless of whether he is
single or married—but women are defined by their relationship to men (by whether they are married or
not). A way around this is to use "Ms." (which doesn't indicate marital status) to refer to women.
Sometimes we modify nouns that refer to jobs or positions to denote the sex of the person holding that
position. This often done if the sex of the person holding the position goes against conventional
expectations. To get a sense of these expectations, think about what sex you would instinctively assume
the subject of each of these sentences to be: The doctor walked into the room. The nurse walked into
the room. Many people assume that doctors are men and that nurses are women. Because of such
assumptions, someone might write sentences like "The female doctor walked into the room" or "The
male nurse walked into the room." Using "female" and "male" in this way reinforces the assumption
that most or all doctors are male and most or all nurses are female. Unless the sex of the nurse or
doctor is important to the meaning of the sentence, it can be omitted. As you work on becoming a
gender-savvy writer, you may find it helpful to watch out for the following gendered nouns and replace
them with one of the alternatives listed below. Check a thesaurus for alternatives to gendered nouns
not included in this list.
Link—you guys
Changing language is the first step to break down male based generics
Kleinman Professor of sociology 07
(Sherryl, Professor in Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, “Why Sexist Language
Matters.” March 12, 2007. http://www.alternet.org/story/48856/, Accessed 7/4/14, ESB)
Gendered words and phrases like "you guys" may seem small compared to issues like violence against
women, but changing our language is an easy way to begin overcoming gender inequality. For years
I've been up inches of space in the newsletter of a rape crisis center? Because male-based generics are
another indicator -- and more importantly, a reinforcer -- of a system in which "man" in the abstract
and men in the flesh are privileged over women. Some say that language merely reflects reality and so
we should ignore our words and work on changing the unequal gender arrangements that are reflected
in our language. Well, yes, in part. Link—noun, pronoun
Impact – Women in Debate
Bjork and, Ouding former debaters, ‘01
(Rebecca S., and Jenni,“Women in Debate: Reflections on the Ongoing Struggle”,
http://web.archive.org/web/20011012220529/members.aol.com/womynindebate/article3.htm,
Accessed 7/5/14, ESB)
Throughout my years of high school and intercollegiate debate, I have repeatedly heard accounts of
discrimination against women, sexual harassment, and unnecessary gossip. I have no doubt that most
of the debaters and coaches reading this article have heard about or experienced such incidents. The
intent behind this compilation is not to inform the debate community that sexism exists, but rather to
present a wide variety of personal views and experiences related to the issue of women in debate.
My hope is that upon reading the following essays, men and women alike will take the time to think
about the issues presented and perhaps even discuss them with other debaters. The following
accounts offer insight into the matter of sexism in debate-what "sexism" really means and why it has
become an issue well as suggestions as to how the entire debate community can begin to deal with
the frustration many women feel as they struggle to excel competitively.---Jenni Ouding, University of
Michigan
REBECCA S. BJORK While reflecting on my experiences as a woman in academic debate in preparation
for this essay, I realized that I have been involved in debate for more than half of my life. I debated for
four years in high school, for four years in college, and I have been coaching intercollegiate debate for
nine years. Not surprisingly, much of my identity as an individual has been shaped by these experiences
in debate. I am a person who strongly believes that debate empowers people to be committed and
involved individuals in the communities in which they live. I am a person who thrives on the intellectual
stimulation involved in teaching and traveling with the brightest students on my campus. I am a person
who looks forward to the opportunities for active engagement of ideas with debaters and coaches from
around the country. I am also, however, a college professor, a "feminist," and a peace activist who is
increasingly frustrated and disturbed by some of the practices I see being perpetuated and rewarded
in academic debate. I find that I can no longer separate my involvement in debate from the rest of who
I am as an individual .Northwestern I remember listening to a lecture a few years ago given by Tom
Goodnight at the University summer debate camp. Goodnight lamented what he saw as the debate
community's participation in, and unthinking perpetuation of what he termed the "death culture." He
argued that the embracing of "big impact" arguments--nuclear war, environmental destruction,
genocide, famine, and the like-by debaters and coaches signals a morbid and detached fascination with
such events, one that views these real human tragedies as part of a "game" in which so-called "objective
and neutral" advocates actively seek to find in their research the "impact to outweigh all other impacts"-the round-winning argument that will carry them to their goal of winning tournament X, Y, or Z. He
concluded that our "use" of such events in this way is tantamount to a celebration of them; our
detached, rational discussions reinforce a detached, rational viewpoint, when emotional and moral
outrage may be a more appropriate response. In the last few years, my
academic research has led me to be persuaded by Goodnight's unspoken assumption;
language is not merely some transparent tool used to transmit information, but rather is an
incredibly powerful medium, the use of which inevitably has real political and material
consequences. Given this assumption, I believe that it is important for us to examine the
"discourse of debate practice:" that is, the language, discourses, and meanings that we, as a
community of debaters and coaches, unthinkingly employ in academic debate. If it is the
case that the language we use has real implications for how we view the world, how we
view others, and how we act in the world, then it is imperative that we critically examine
our own discourse practices with an eye to how our language does violence to others. I am
shocked and surprised when I hear myself saying things like, "we killed them," or "take no
prisoners," or "let's blow them out of the water." I am tired of the "ideal" debater being
defined as one who has mastered the art of verbal assault to the point where accusing
opponents of lying, cheating, or being deliberately misleading is a sign of strength.But what
I am most tired of is how women debaters are marginalized and rendered voiceless in such
a discourse community. Women who verbally assault their opponents are labeled "bitches"because it
is not socially acceptable for women to be verbally aggressive. Women who get angry and storm out
of a room when a disappointing decision is rendered are labeled "hysterical" because, as we all know,
women are more emotional then men. I am tired of hearing comments like, "those 'girls' from school X
aren't really interested in debate; they just want to meet men." We can all point to examples (although
only a few) of women
who have succeeded at the top levels of debate. But I find myself wondering how many
more women gave up because they were tired of negotiating the mine field of
discrimination, sexual harassment, and isolation they found in the debate community. As
members of this community, however, we have great freedom to define it in whatever
ways we see fit. After all, what is debate except a collection of shared understandings and
explicit or implicit rules for interaction? What I am calling for is a critical examination of
how we, as individual members of this community, characterize our activity, ourselves, and
our interactions with others through language. We must become aware of the ways in
which our mostly hidden and unspoken assumptions about what "good" debate is function
to exclude not only women, but ethnic minorities from the amazing intellectual
opportunities that training in debate provides. Our nation and indeed, our planet, faces
incredibly difficult challenges in the years ahead. I believe that it is not acceptable anymore
for us to go along as we always have, assuming that things will straighten themselves out.
Impact – Exclusion
Using masculine generics excludes women and makes men feel superior
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 27-28, ESB)
An explanation that has been put forward to account for sex differences in the interpretation and
recall of information written using masculine generic forms is that the meaning associated with
masculine generics is different for men and women (Spender, 1980). For men, words marked as
masculine are always inclusive of them, regardless of whether they are being used in a gender-speci®c
or generic way. So, masculine words tend to make men think of themselves, and men will tend to use
masculine forms in a gender-speci®c way. Women are more likely to use masculine terms in a more
truly generic way because that is the only way that they may include themselves in the reference
group. Consistent with this expla- nation, sex differences have been found in the interpretation and use
of masculine generics. Moulton, Robinson and Elias (1978) found that women used fewer masculine
generic forms and more true generics than men. Martyna (1980b) found that women were more likely
to draw a generic interpretation from `he' and `man' than were men. Nevertheless in Martyna's study
masculine generic forms were interpreted more often as sex-speci®c than gender-inclusive.¶ Some social
psychological research suggests that girls may be personally as well as cognitively disadvantaged by the
use of masculine generic forms. Henley, Gruber and Lerner (1988) measured self-esteem among school
children who had read stories using masculine or neutral pronouns. They found that boys had more
positive change in self-esteem in the masculine pronoun condition, while girls had more positive selfesteem change in the neutral pronoun condition. Consistent with Henley et al.'s ®ndings were those of
McArthur and Eisen (1976) who found that pre-school boys' achievement and perseverance were
increased by hearing a story about male accomplishment, and girls' achievement was increased by
hearing a story about female accomplishment. These kinds of research highlight the importance of
language in the development of children's understanding of themselves as gendered in a patriarchal
society.¶ Another line of research on masculine generics has investigated how speakers are evaluated.
For example, Johnson and DowlingGuyer (1996) found that participants in their study expressed less
willingness to see counsellors who used masculine generic forms and rated them as more sexist than
counsellors who used more neutral terms. In addition, Johnson and DowlingGuyer found that the impact
was most evident with women and feminist participants, who expressed even less con®dence in counsellors using masculine generic forms than in those using more inclusive language. Interestingly, no such
negative evaluation was found for speakers using masculine generics in the context of religious sermons
(Greene and Rubin, 1991)!¶ The effectiveness of communication in some contexts seems to be
in ̄uenced by the use of masculine generic forms. In a study of persuasion, Falk and Mills (1996) found
that the use of masculine generic forms inhibited the persuasion of women and not men. Women
respondents did not consider appeals using masculine pronouns as being directed towards them.
McConnell and Fazio (1996) found that participants' beliefs about sex roles, rather than their own sex,
in ̄uenced how persuasive participants found a message. Those with more traditional gender-role
beliefs were more in ̄uenced by language using masculine generic forms than parti- cipants with more
liberal beliefs. The main message from work on masculine generics is that, when used, they tend to
exclude women and they promote an androcentric view of the world. Virtually every published study on
the topic has shown that mas- culine generics tend to be interpreted as masculine-speci®c (Falk and
Mills, 1996). The consequences are far-reaching ± the use of masculine generic forms may impact on
women's ability to recall material (e.g. Crawford and English, 1984) and even have a negative effect on
girls' self-esteem (e.g. Henley, Gruber and Lerner, 1988). Thus, the social psychological research forms a
useful body of evidence to support feminist calls for language change.
Gender Discourse empowers strong social exclusion of non-male bodies
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 76,77, ESB)
The term discourse is variously used in the gender and language ®eld. It may be used in a linguistic
sense to refer to language beyond that of words. Or it may be used in a poststructural sense to refer
to broad systems of meaning. The different uses of the term discourse embrace two senses of gender
as a social construction. On the one hand, gender is constructed in the ways it is described in talk and
texts. On the other hand, gender as a concept is itself constructed ± a social meaning system that
structures the way we see and understand the world.¶ Research has moved from language to
discourse (in the ®rst sense of the term mentioned above) by considering how language in use re ̄ects
and perpetuates gender stereotypes. So while early gender and language work documented how
individual words could be considered sexist (see Chapter 1), later work examined how texts were
constructed in sexist ways. A wide range of different areas of language use has been examined for
sexism, including comic strips (Thaler, 1987), children's literature (Cooper, 1987), birthday cards
(Brabandt and Mooney, 1989), Japanese women's maga- zines (Hayashi, 1997), American popular songs
(Butruille and Taylor, 1987) and political speeches (Jansen and Sabo, 1994). The constructionist lesson
to be gleaned from this research is that sexist language is not just a matter of negative words for
women, but of how language, in a variety of everyday contexts, constructs gender in stereotyped
ways that ultimately disadvantage or demean women.¶ A context where sexist discourse is rife is in
linguistic representations of women in the media. Studies of sports and wildlife programmes have
analysed those genres and found evidence of explicit sexism. For example, an American study by
Messner, Duncan and Jansen (1993) analysed the verbal context of televised coverage of women's and
men's athletic events. They found that female athletes and Black American male athletes were more
often referred to by their ®rst names than white male athletes. All female athletes and Black American
male athletes were referred to as girls and boys respectively. In addition, the achievements of female
athletes were interpreted in terms of luck more than the achievement of males.
Impact – Patriarchy
Language can be used as a tool to empower patriarchy
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 2-4, ESB)
Feminist language researchers established that men's power was mani- fested in language in a number
of complex ways. Spender (1980) identi®ed one of these when she argued that in the past men have
had control over language (as philosophers, orators, politicians, grammarians, linguists, lexicographers
and so on), so they encoded sexism into language to con- solidate their claims of male supremacy.
Spender's work highlighted an important avenue for feminist action: to ensure that women are involved
in all facets of language and communication. Recording women's views and disseminating accounts of
their experiences are important strategies for ensuring equitable and accurate representation of women
in texts. The importance of being involved with developments in language and com- munication was
discussed in Spender's (1995) more recent work on gender issues and the internet. Spender argued that
women must be involved as users and innovators of the world wide web; otherwise it will develop to
serve and promote men's interests over women's.¶ Spender's (1980) work attended to the
powerfulness of those who can exercise some degree of control over language. People with public
speaking rights, those who record and communicate ideas, and the information-rich are all in a
position to exercise some power over language ± to use the power of language and communication to
promote particular social and cultural beliefs and suppress others. However, language is not just a
tool for manipulating meaning, nor merely a vessel for the containment of ideas. Another source of
power is how language is used by speakers when communicating with each other.¶ The idea that
there is power in language use was an important part of early research on gender differences in speech
styles. For example, one suggestion was that men used interruption as a way of wielding their power
over women in conversation (Zimmerman and West, 1975). Another way in which power may be
expressed in language use is in the way people address each other. Conventionally in English it is more
formal and respectful to refer to another using a real name rather than a nickname. However, those in
positions of power are more able to ignore convention. Men, on the whole, are more likely to challenge
norms of language and communication because they are generally in more powerful positions than
women. For example, bosses (probably male) may refer to workers, using their nicknames or terms of
endearment, but not the reverse. Men are more likely to break a social norm of inattention between
strangers by making street remarks or wolf whistling, because they have more power. Lakoff (1973,
1975) strongly endorsed the idea that language re ̄ected women's secondary status in society. According
to this mirror model, the few words that refer to strong, intelligent, sexually active, independent women
and the plethora of negative and sexual terms just re ̄ected nega- tive attitudes towards women in
society (Stanley, 1977). More frequent comments about how women look and what men do are a form
of power because they set up the desired attributes expected of each gender (Miller and Swift, 1976).¶
Early feminist language research ®rmly established that patterns of lan- guage and communication
re ̄ected gender differences in social power and the different cultural values associated with women and
men. However, many feminists wanted to argue that language not only re ē cts men's power but actively
establishes and maintains negative attitudes towards women and their secondary social status. Thus an
early debate was about the signi®cance of sexist language and gender differences in speech. The issue
was whether language just re ̄ected men's power or whether it also perpetuated it.
AT: Discourse Doesn’t Create Reality
Language has power and material consequences especially with gendered language
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 77,78 , ESB)
Some discourse analytic work not only examines linguistic constructions of gender but also considers
how they operate to reproduce the dominant social order. For example, Lees (1983) discussed how the
threat of remarks works to control women's behaviour. Lees found that young British women were
very careful of how they behaved towards young men for fear of being labelled a slag. Referring to
verbal sexual abuse, Lees (1997) argued:
Therefore language (or the discourse of female reputation in par- ticular) acts as a material discourse
with its own determinate effects, acting as a form of control over their emotions and passions and
steering girls into subordinate relationships with men.
(Lees, 1997, p. 4) The idea that discourses about gender have material consequences is key to
understanding why the notion of gender differences tends to function practically to disadvantage
women. The use of the term discourse in this sense acknowledges the power in language to shape
thoughts and guide behaviour. Lees refers to the discourse of female reputation having material effects
on girls. The following section introduces the idea that gender differences in language are not so much a
description of how women and men speak but more a discourse that has material consequences.
Discourse isn’t representative it is the concept of gender itself
Weatherall, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wellington ‘02
(Ann, Gender, Language and Discourse, P. 80, ESB)
An aspect of the discursive turn is that it moves away from the idea of language as simply a system of
representation, towards the notion of language as discourse, where discourse is used in a
constructionist sense: the categories in language don't re ̄ect the world but constitute it. Thus gender
is not just re ̄ected in language but the concept of gender is itself constituted by the language used to
refer to it. In this section the concepts of sex and gender are re-examined in order to consider in what
sense they can be understood as constructed rather than natural concepts. Since around the 1960s an
important distinction has been drawn between sex as biological and gender as social. This distinction
was, and continues to be, important in challenging arguments that use biology to rationalise and police
people's lives. For example, men's `natural' ration- ality and women's natural emotionality can (and
have) been used to justify their relative roles ± for example, in public and private life. From the
perspective of biological determinism, any man or woman defying the natural order of things is deviant
or just plain mad. However, when roles such as housewife or breadwinner are viewed as the result of
social learning rather than biology, there are more possibilities for change. Women can be engineers,
doctors and politicians; men can be nurses, secretaries and homemakers. It is not biology but social
learning that limits what women and men think they can do. Thus gender has been construed as the
social `trimmings' of sex and it has been assumed that the social is more malleable and less
foundational than the biological. A social constructionist sense of gender as discourse offers a radical
critique not only of biological determinism but also of the sex/gender distinction. Instead of viewing
sex as primary and biological while gender is secondary and social, the order is reversed and the
boundaries made less distinct. A constructionist view is that social and cultural beliefs are primary and
cannot be separated from biological `knowledge'. The mean- ings associated with the two gender
categories unavoidably cloud every aspect of thought, perception and behaviour.
AT: Not Our Intent
Words are tools that can be used to demean people
Mastrine, is a writer and PR professional based in PA, 2013
[Julie, August 13, “Dude, Man Up: An Exploration of Gendered Language.” Thought Catalog. from
http://thoughtcatalog.com/julie-mastrine/2013/08/dude-man-up-an-exploration-of-genderedlanguage/, Retrieved July 5, 2014, WZ]
Walking down the street often takes a lot out of me. Sometimes, the conversations I overhear are
enough to make me cringe and want to run away to the dark safety of my bed and maybe a box of
cookies.
Too often, leaving my house and interacting with society means being subjected to subtle verbal cues
that the speaker in question does not, in fact, view me (or anyone else who isn’t a heterosexual
cisgender white male) as a fully functioning human being capable of complex thoughts.
My friends and I recently met a few guys at the bar and went back to their place for more drinks. When
we heard them routinely referring to each other as “faggots,” we asked them to kindly stop demeaning
each other’s masculinity by using words that have historically been used to justify discrimination. Their
reply was standard:
“Aw, we don’t really mean it though. I swear I don’t have a problem with gay people, it doesn’t affect
me at all. I don’t care if someone’s gay.”
This response makes me fume. No matter how much people want to deny it, words are powerful and
have real meaning. When people use “faggot” as an insult and insist they “don’t really mean anything”
by it, they’re attempting to rid themselves of responsibility by denying years and years of oppression
and hate crimes.
What’s more: it’s also insulting to anyone with a feminine gender identity. Consider that homophobia
may be closely linked to (or even rooted in) misogyny. Sure, maybe dudes don’t care about dudes having
sex with other dudes. But they are threatened by men acting feminine — it directly disrupts the gender
dichotomies they’ve been programmed to accept. Underneath that “casual” and “harmless” insult,
they’re expressing that they see femininity as a weak trait — something over which to hold power.
Something to suppress and contain.
Internalized misogyny is a helluva drug.
And demeaning language isn’t limited to gay individuals — it extends to all of us who claim space as
gender fluid or feminine. Whether in the classroom, in a bar, or walking down the streets of my town,
I’ve heard women and men alike refer to other women as “sluts,” I’ve heard classmates taut art and
fashion as “girly shit,” I’ve heard coaches tell their players not to “throw like a girl,” I’ve heard friends
tell each other to “man up” or “grow some balls.” It’s tiring and insulting, because pegging femininity
and feminine words as negatives have a real impact on how we see individuals who identify that way.
People don’t have a hard time believing the usage of words like “slut” and “whore” can be directly
linked to violence against women, but what about the more subtle ways in which we reinforce
inequalities through gendered language? What often goes unnoticed is the pervasive use of “men” as
the default all throughout the English language. When we talk about people’s professions, we default to
the man doing the job — postman, fireman, congressman, freshman, chairman. And because the English
language lacks a plural “you,” those of us who aren’t prone to referring to groups of people by saying
“ya’ll” (or “yins,” if you’re from Pittsburgh) will generally default to “you guys.” I’ve done it. My friends
do it. Most people I know do this, and it isn’t respective to my corner of the universe — English speakers
use these male generics the world over. Heck, even the word woman is included under the generic term
man.
For centuries, grammar books, teachers, and professors have told writers and students to use the
referential pronoun “he” when referring to a person in general. Studies have shown that people default
to “he” nearly automatically when referring to people in high-status occupations like a doctor or
lawyer, and shift to “she” when talking about secretaries, clerks, or nurses. Feminine terms are often
infantilized and trivialized — the term “boys” is rarely used to describe grown men. They don’t have “a
boys’ night” or indulge in “boy talk.” The term “girls,” on the other hand, can be used to describe
women of all ages — heck, HBO’s Girls is the prime example, but women of all ages can fit in some “girl
talk” at the office or “go out for drinks with the girls.”
Words aren’t just meaningless sounds we emit. When we place male-centric words as the default or
norm, we peg maleness as the dominant group, effectively “other”-izing groups who don’t fit that
standard. This is a subtle yet effective way to invisibilize the struggles of marginalized groups,
struggles that are directly related to power structures manifested across economical, political, and
societal stages dominated by men. And when we demean or trivialize a group’s experiences, it makes
it that much easier for the group in power — the default — to justify violence or other harm against
that group. They are reduced to the “Other,” the subhuman.
Gendered language constructs are so deeply imbedded, plenty of people want to know just what the big
deal is — why should we care about subtly gendered language when there are bigger problems in the
world, like the wage gap, violence, or rape? Yes, these problems deserve equal and perhaps even more
pertinent attention, but these are problems that won’t be solved overnight. Something we can solve
overnight is changing the way we refer to one another, and shunning language constructs that place
women, LGBTQ individuals, and other marginalized groups at the bottom rung of the social ladder.
I know it isn’t easy to eradicate harmful patterns from our vernacular. But I’ve met plenty of people who
have admitted to making a concerted effort to eradicating insulting words from everyday use. Among
them, the term “retarded,” which, while not linked to gender, is still a hugely prevalent, ableist insult.
One of my friends has her roommate make her pay a quarter as a reminder to stop each time she refers
to something she dislikes as “retarded.”
So is it really so much trouble to make a conscious effort to think critically about the words coming
out of our mouths and the political implications behind them? No more of this “they’re just words. It
doesn’t mean anything.” Words are symbols of meaning — that is literally their evolutionary purpose.
Words convey our prejudices, our fears, our anxieties.
When we look at gender patterns in language, we can begin to see the harmful ideas forming a fabric
— a blanket of oppression that extends to all English speakers.
The good news is that blanket is something we can lift right now. The power is literally at the tip of
our tongues
AT: No Alternative
Alternative  There are several other ways you can address people using neutral
terms
The Writing Center, University of North Carolina, 13
[The Writing Center (n.d.).” “Gender-Sensitive Language”, The Writing Center, from
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/gender-sensitive-language/, Retrieved July 6, 2014, WZ]
A pronoun is a word that substitutes for a noun. The English language provides pronoun options for
references to masculine nouns (for example, “he” can substitute for “Tom”), feminine nouns (“she” can
replace “Lucy”), and neutral/non-human nouns (“it” stands in for “a tree”), but no choice for sexneutral third-person singular nouns (“the writer,” “a student,” or “someone”). Although most of us
learned in elementary school that masculine pronouns (he, his, him) should be used as the “default”
in situations where the referent (that is, the person or thing to which you’re referring) could be either
male or female, that usage is generally considered unacceptable now. So what should you do when
you’re faced with one of those gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous situations? Well, you’ve got a few
options . . .
1. Use “they”
This option is currently much debated by grammar experts, but most agree that it works well in at least
several kinds of situations. In order to use “they” to express accurately gender relationships, you’ll need
to understand that “they” is traditionally used only to refer to a plural noun. For example,
Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were famous “first-wave” American feminists. They were
also both involved in the Abolitionist movement.
In speech, though, we early twenty-first century Americans commonly use “they” to refer to a singular
referent. According to many grammar experts, that usage is incorrect, but here’s an example of how it
sounds in our everyday speech:
If a student wants to learn more about gender inequality, they should take Intro to Women’s Studies.
Note that in this example, “a student” is singular, but it is replaced in the second sentence by “they,” a
plural pronoun. In speech, we often don’t notice such substitutions of the plural for the singular, but in
writing, some will find such substitutions awkward or incorrect. Some people argue that “they” should
become the default gender-neutral pronoun for English writing, but since that usage can still sound
awkward to many readers, it’s best to use “they” only in plural situations. Thus, one other option the
gender-savvy writer may choose to employ is to make her/his sentence plural. Here’s one way that can
work:
A student’s beliefs about feminism may be based on what he has heard in the popular media.
can become
Students’ beliefs about feminism may be based on what they have heard in the popular media.
2. Use she or he or she/he.
There is another, simpler option the gender-savvy writer can use to deal with situations where a
pronoun needs to refer to a person whose gender isn’t known: write out both pronoun options as “she
or he” or “she/he.” For example,
Each student who majors in Women’s Studies major must take a course in Feminist Theory. She or
he may also get course credit for completing an internship at a local organization that benefits women.
OR
Each student who majors in Women’s Studies major must take a course in Feminist Theory. She/he may
also get course credit for completing an internship at a local organization that benefits women.
3. Alternate genders and pronouns
You may also choose to alternate gendered pronouns. This option will work only in certain situations,
though—usually hypothetical situations in which the referent is equally likely to be a male or a female.
For example, both male and female students use the Writing Center’s services, so the author of our staff
manual chose to alternate between masculine and feminine pronouns when writing the following
tutoring guidelines:
Respond as a reader, explaining what and how you were/are thinking as you read her texts so that she
can discover where a reader might struggle with her writing.
Ask him to outline the draft to reveal the organization of the paper.
Ask her to describe her purpose and audience and show how she has taken them into account in her
writing.
Explain a recurring pattern and let him locate repeated instances of it.
Of course, this author could also have included both pronouns in each sentence by writing “her/his” or
“her/him,” but in this case, alternating “he” and “she” conveys the same sense of gender variability and
is likely a little easier on the reader, who won’t have to pause to process several different options every
time a gendered pronoun is needed in the sentence. This example also provides a useful demonstration
of how gender-savvy writers can take advantage of the many different options available by choosing the
one that best suits the unique requirements of each piece of writing they produce.
4. Eliminate the pronoun altogether
Finally, you can also simply eliminate the pronoun. For example,
Allan Johnson is a contemporary feminist theorist. This writer and professor gave a speech at UNC in
the fall of 2007.
Note how the sentence used “this writer and professor” rather than “he.”
Many people accept the negative stereotype that if a person is a feminist, she must hate men.
could become
Many people accept the negative stereotype that feminist beliefs are based on hatred of men.
Note how the second version of the sentence talks about the beliefs. By avoiding using the pronoun
“she,” it leaves open the possibility that men may be feminists.
Ableist Language
Shell
Link – Their speech contained ableist discourse <specific link>
Use the ballot to reject ableist rhetoric in every instance
Cherney, Wayne State University, 11
[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsqsds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
If we locate the problem in disability, then the ableist absolves his or her responsibility for
discrimination and may not even recognize its presence. If we locate the problem in ableism, then the
ableist must question her or his orientation. The critic's task is to make ableism so apparent and
irredeemable that one cannot practice it without incurring social castigation. This requires substantial
vigilance, for ableist thinking pervades the culture. For example, as I write this, I am tempted to use
medical metaphors to explain the task and script something like "we cannot simply excise the tumor of
ableism and heal the culture, for it has metastasized and infiltrated every organ of society." Yet this
metaphor relies on an ableist perspective that motivates with the fear of death and turns to medical
solutions to repair a body in decay. Using it, I would endorse and perpetuate ableist rhetoric, just as I
would by using deafness as a metaphor for obstinacy ("Marie was deaf to their pleas for bread") or
blindness to convey ignorance ("George turned a blind eye to global warming"). The pervasiveness of
these and similar metaphors, like the cultural ubiquity of using images of disabled bodies to inspire
pity, suggest the scale of the work ahead, and the ease with which one can resort to using them warns
of the need for critical evaluation of one's own rhetoric. Yet the task can be accomplished. Just as
feminists have changed Western culture by naming and promoting recognition of sexism, the glass
ceiling, and patriarchy—admittedly a work in progress, yet also one that can celebrate remarkable
achievements—we can reform ableist culture by using rhetoric to craft awareness and political action.
Link – Blind/Blindness
The term “blindness” ingrains the oppression of those with no sight – implying their
lack of sight is a flaw
James, Bitch Magazine writer, 09
[Rachel, 8-19-09, Deeply Problematic, “‘Blinded by privileged’: ableist language in critical discourse”,
http://www.deeplyproblematic.com/2009/08/blinded-by-privileged-ableist-language.html, Accessed 74-14, CX]
Using the term "blindness" to reflect mishaps of privilege is a way to further ingrain the oppression of
those with little or no sight. By constructing the disablity of blindness as something that an ignorant
person needs to educate themselves about, that someone needs to overcome, it minimizes the
permanence of lack of sight and turns it into a fault, a flaw. It's also constructing blindness as
something that needs to be fixed, as something that leads to misery and inflicted hurt, rather than
part of a full and happy life. It's even more problematic when the "privilege-blindness" is constructed
as willful - putting one's blinders on to avoid looking at uncomfortable truths. This supposes that the
disability of blindness is somehow false or temporary.
This may seem as if I'm somehow overly concerned with minutiae, but it's necessary to be careful about
my language when I'm discussing how to end or mitigate oppression. "Lame" and "retard" have become
thoroughly unacceptable in progressive discourse, but we are turning another word into a slur by saying
that being "blind" is a status to be avoided, something that will hurt others. Blind has been turned from
a word describing disabilities into a pejorative attacking ignorance. It's made being blind synonymous
with stupidity and having sight synonymous with truth.
When I say that I must open my eyes to oppression, I must see my own racism, I must stop being
blinded by my cis privilege, what am I saying about the people who are literally blind? Are they
included in the discussion of working towards a better world, or does their blindness prevent them
from truly seeing oppression? Why are my views on oppression and racism and sexism insights?
The stigmatization of blindness has very real consequences that significantly impair and impact the blind
community. As Alena recently wrote:
Have you ever noticed that calling someone blind is like calling them a four letter word? It's like being
blind is so bad that we have to cover it up by calling people visually impaired or low vision because
that is some how better than being called blind....I bring this up, because as I mentioned in an earlier
post, braille literacy amongst blind children in the U.S. is only 10%. I feel, and many people probably
agree that one of the reasons why literacy is so low is because parents, teachers, and school
administrators don't want to label a child as "blind" if they have any vision. Everyone knows that only
totally blind children need to learn how to read braille, right? Wrong.
I try to be very, very careful with language. I would guess that at least a quarter of my substantive
analytical posts have to do with using language carefully and trying not to hurt people with it and my
unearned privilege - of size, race, or cis-ness. Ableism is an especially obscuring privilege that I need to
work hard to overcome, and the more careful I can be, the better. And there are other ways to say that
you've messed up, that you missed something that you didn't notice before: obscure, block, hide,
suppress.
Is this hard? Yes. The language of sight is everywhere in discussing our understanding - insights, being
able to see someone's point, etc. And I'm not totally sure that "to see" meaning "to understand" is
necessarily privileging sight to the degree that "blinded by privilege" is - it seems that "see" is something
that blind people are understood to be able to do, in the sense of understanding.
"See" may very well be problematic, but it's an ingrained and widely used word that needs a larger
discussion than just this. But "blinded by privilege" is a construction used frequently in an antioppression, critical context, and it wields problematized disabilities to describe other issues. It's
oppressive language deployed specifically in the context of a fight against that very scheme of
oppression. "Blinded by privilege" turns a description of a disability and actively turns it into a slur.
In discussion of "blind" as ableist language in another context, Shelley said in a well-received comment
at Feminist Philosophers:
What is actually going on is that blindness is being metaphorically equated with not knowing, with not
having knowledge, or not having knowledge of something: blindness is not knowing, blindness is
ignorance, blind people cannot be knowers.
In response, Roy over at "No Cookies for Me" drew a comparison to left-handedness:
It got me thinking about the use of the term "right" to mean "opposite of left" as well as "correct."
Couldn't someone who is left-handed reason that "left" equals "wrong"?
“Blind” Link
Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010
[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your
metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/,
Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
Blind - I bet you can’t count the number of times you’ve heard this one – blinded by viewpoints, blind
to miss facts, blind to misunderstand intentions, blind to misread things, so on. It’s definitely a
favorite metaphor. I count short-sighted in the same category, as short-sighted originally means
nearsighted (as in, someone who can only see the shorter distances, not the longer ones). Similarly,
long-sighted originally means farsighted (as in, someone who can see things at greater distances, but
not up close – someone who needs reading glasses). We use sight metaphors to a ridiculous extent in
our lexicon. And through all of these, we imply that people who are blind or nearsighted are
incapable of planning, unable to comprehend the information available, so naive as to misunderstand
the motives of others, and similar issues that have NOTHING to do with sight!
Link – Crutch
“Crutch” metaphors have an ableist attitude
Feather, Anti-oppression Activist, 09
[Sasha, 11-9-9, Forward, “Guest Ableist Word Profile: Crutch”,
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/09/guest-ableist-word-profile-crutch/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
The metaphor implies that crutches are universally bad and that they prevent the user from moving
onto the next stage of development.
There are underlying messages within this attitude that one should rely upon the self and not be using
outside help or tools to deal with problems. All of this is ableist, and falls in line with similar
prejudices against medications. If you cannot support yourself, well then, there must be something
morally wrong with you: this is the message of our ableist society.
Link – Crippled
“Crippled” Link
Kali: Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010
[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your
metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/,
Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
Crippled – this one gets used ALL THE TIME. The city was crippled by an unexpected snowstorm. The
political entity is crippled by corruption. So-and-so was crippled by a powerful emotion. The poor are
crippled by their lack of savings. I’ve even heard references to people being crippled by scruples.
Here’s the thing – crippled has a pretty specific physical meaning – it’s a physical disability, usually
related to walking. What being a crip really means is that you have to get creative about how you do
things and how you get around. It doesn’t mean that you’re unable to do things! I think these
metaphors that tell us an entity or person is incapable of doing ANYTHING (or at least, anything useful)
really emphasize that being crippled is being useless. And as someone who identifies as a crip, I can tell
you I’m damnwell not useless! I do a great many things, including my work at a legal center for people
of limited means and my disability advocacy, that I think have a great impact on the world.
Link - Hysterical
The word “hysterical” is both sexist and ableist
Jean, Disabled Feminists writer, 09
[Abby, 10-13-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Hysterical”,
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/13/ableist-word-profile-hysterical/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
Today’s word: hysterical. There are a lot of different contemporary definitions of the word (MerriamWebster, Cambridge, Encarta), but the theme among all of them is emotions that are extreme and
unmanageable. A movie described as hysterically funny is likely funnier than most and may cause you to
laugh uncontrollably and snort soda out your nose. Someone at a funeral who is crying loudly and who
cannot seem to stop crying would likely be described as crying hysterically. But while your mental
picture of the movie-goer laughing hysterically could have been either a man or a woman, the person
hysterical with grief or worry is much more likely to be a woman than a man. That’s no accident – the
history of this term is very gendered.
The word itself is derived from the Latin word hystericus, meaning “of the womb,” and from the Greek
word hysterikos, meaning “of the womb, suffering in the womb,” from the Greek word hystera, meaning
“womb.” And they understood the uterus to be the direct cause of hysteria. As Hannah S. Decker writes,
“Various ancient Greek philosophers and physicians, including Plato, had argued that the uterus is an
independent entity within a woman’s body… these thinkers concluded that the uterus had an ardent
desire to create children. If the womb remained empty for long after the owner’s puberty, it became
unhappy and angry and began to travel through the body. In its wanderings it pressed against various
bodily organs, creating “hysterical” — that is, uterus-related — symptoms.”
So when someone on a blog tells me to chill out because it sounds like I’m hysterical about an issue, the
etymological meaning is that my failure to put a baby in my uterus (which has independent will and
agency inside my body) has caused it to become angry, loose itself from its mooring, and start floating
around inside of my body until it bangs into my brain and starts making me unreasonably upset.
There’s also a strong historical tradition of labeling women as “hysterical” in order to silence,
marginalize, or even kill them. During the Roman Catholic inquisitions, thousands of European women
were tortured and burnt as witches because they were thought to show signs of hysteria. But it was
during the Nineteenth Century that things really got going. Some doctors considered the force of the
uterus so powerful that it might overcome the brain and cause a woman to have pathological sexual
feelings, “requiring” the physicians to “medically manipulate” the genitals in order to release the woman
from control of her uterus. Yes, you read that right, the doctors were obligated to fondle their patients
sexually for their own medical good. Conveniently, both mental or emotional distress and any physical
symptom could be an indication of a woman’s hysteria, so doctors could diagnose literally any woman as
hysterical.
Once hysterical women were no longer burned at the stake, the most common treatment was to send
them to bed or to an asylum to prevent any activity or thought that would inflame their hysteria. This
was an extremely effective way to marginalize or silence women, as any protest that she was not
hysterical would be seen as conclusive proof that the diagnosis of hysteria had been correct. This meant,
practically, that any woman categorized as hysterical was forever silenced and lost all credibility.
That’s a whole big mess of etymology and history, so let’s unpack that a bit. When I am told I am
hysterical, there is both 1) the implication that I am excessively or unreasonably emotional AND 2) the
implication that my condition is unique to my femaleness. It’s also 3) implied that hysterical
statements (or even statements from hysterical people) should be discounted and hysterical people
need to change in order to participate in the discussion, or should be removed from it entirely. Now
let’s look at each one of those individually.
The first is a criticism of and dismissal of my personal emotions based on the observer’s judgment on
whether they conform to what “normal” or “reasonable” emotions would be for that situation. The idea
of “extremeness” is built into every definition of the word, implying that there is an assumed agreedupon “normal” range for emotions. In the past, that likely meant “emotions acceptable to white men
with money.” Currently, though, the idea is strikingly parallel to current definitions of mental disabilities
and mental health diagnoses in the DSM-IV, which require that a specific set of symptoms “must cause
significant impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning” in order for a person to
meet diagnostic criteria. This means that thee idea of emotions that are outside the “normal” range of
experience to the degree that they affect a person’s function is the very definition of mental illness. So
the accusation of “hysteria,” with the implication that the hysterical person has abnormally extreme
emotions, is very clearly an accusation of mental illness. And remember part 3 — the conclusion that a
hysterical person (or a person with a mental disability, by equivalency) should be discounted in
discussions because of their hysteria/disability. THAT IS ABLEIST.
But that’s not all. The other implication of the term is that this over-emotional condition is a uniquely
female condition and is caused directly by female reproductive organs being sad about not having a
baby. While that’s not literally how it’s meant today, it still feels like a slightly nicer way of saying “you’re
just upset because it’s that time of the month,” another way to marginalize and dismiss females based
explicitly on their femaleness. It’s a way to say “that sounds like something a woman would say when
she’s being super woman-y and influenced by being a woman.” And again, this is assumed to be a
reason to discount the information or perspective offered and to exclude that person from the
conversation. THAT IS SEXIST.
And here’s where the intersectionality comes in. Hysterical is a handy dandy insta-dismissal that slams
two marginalized groups at the same time – and it only works because to be related to either group is
considered to make you lesser. It also means that this word, with its invocation of both ableism and
sexism, is particularly sharp when aimed at women with disabilities. That’s why arguments like “It’s
sexist because it makes all women sound like crazies! Who’d want to be a crazy!” are extremely
problematic – not only does the word rely on both sexism and ableism, it relies on the interaction
between those two axes of oppression to be a super strong word.
Link – Lame
Lame is inherently ableist
Smith, Say Media Social Justice Editor, 09
[S.E., 10-12-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Lame”,
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/12/ableist-word-profile-lame/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
“Lame” is an ableist word. It’s an ableist word because it assumes that having difficulty walking is
objectively bad, and that therefore, a word which is used to describe difficulty walking can be safely
used as a pejorative to mean “this is bad.” Using “lame” reinforces ableism in our culture by
reminding people that disability is bad, and that it’s so bad that it can be used as a shorthand code to
talk about bad things in general. Incidentally, the related “lame-brain”? Also ableist. Just so we’re all
clear on that.
“Lame” Link
Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010
[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your
metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/,
Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
Lame – I’ll admit, part of my hatred for this one stems from its use in my own family, and finding it over
and over again in my own language. Lame means having an altered gait, typically a limp. If you don’t
believe me, ask someone who deals with horses what it means for a horse to be lame. Now we use it
for all kinds of different meanings – stupid, foolish, clumsy, easily injured, ridiculous, unfair, etc. A
lame call in a sports game, a lame excuse, a lame-o who just doesn’t get it, etc. Notice how having an
altered gait – like me – suddenly gets turned into all these nasty negatives? Listen for people using the
word lame around you. I bet they aren’t using it to literally mean a limp, and that what they’re using
it for is more negative.
Link – Mad/Crazy
“Mad/Crazy” Link
Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010
[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your
metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/,
Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
Mad/crazy – Here’s one we use to a ridiculous extent in our language. I’m crazy-busy. Work was crazy
today. …and then she just went crazy! I am just crazy about this designer. You’re driving me crazy!
The way they treated her was just crazy. That idea is just crazy. Political opponants are crazy. (most
of which you can substitute mad for crazy and get the same meaning) Yeah, that’s not exactly the same
as mad or crazy meaning someone who is experiencing psychosis (a break with reality) or neurosis (not
a full break with reality, but having an altered relationship with reality). These words originally mean
someone who has some kind of mental illness, and are being reclaimed as such. Most uses of crazy
are dismissive, ways to marginalize people and ideas. Using them for negatives has obvious problems,
but what about positives like ‘crazy about this designer’? Well, it still means ‘overly’ or ‘too much’ –
when we say things like that, we mean ‘I’m excited about this designer beyond reason.’ See how even
that seemingly positive thing slides around to a negative?
Link - Paralysis
“Paralysis” metaphor is overtly ableist
Gent, PhD – Special Education, 10
[Pamela,– severe disabilities, in Stewart and Webster’s Problematizing Service-Learning: Critical
Reflections for Development and Action, p233]
We have said students are "paralyzed perfectionists" (Higgins 8c Boone, 2003, p. 139), "feel paralyzed,
unsure of where to start or what to do," (Maryland Student Service Alliance, 2004, p. 2), "become
paralyzed by a sense of impotence, rage, and cynicism" (McNall, 1999), and "are crippled by an
amazingly constricted frame of reference" (Barilen, 2003, p. 107). People whose impairments have
resulted in paralysis would tell us that their paralysis is not the result of feelings, rage, perfectionism,
or their frame of reference. They would also tell us that it is ableist to assume that the type of
temporary inactivity suggested in these quotes is in any way similar to their own lived reality.
While many of us would question the use of overtly racist or sexist language in our classrooms, we may
never have questioned the use of such ableist language.
Link – Retard/Retarded
Using the word “retard” in a figurative context is ableist because it implies that
retardation is bad and should be something excluded and avoided
Jean, Disabled Feminists writer, 09
[Abby, 10-16-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Retarded”,
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/13/ableist-word-profile-hysterical/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
This medical definition is certainly not what’s intended in contemporary uses of the word. If I say “I saw
Zombieland and it was totally retarded,” I am not saying that I think the movie had a low IQ and I
observed significant limitations in adaptive functioning. (That doesn’t even make sense.) I am saying that
I thought the movie was bad, uninteresting, boring, nonsensical, repetitive, and a waste of my time and
money. But for me to mean any of those things by using the word “retarded,” I and the person to whom
I’m speaking have to share the assumption that being retarded is bad and that people who have mental
retardation are stupid, uninteresting, and a waste of my time. Similarly, if I say “LAPD Chief Bratton’s
views on homeless policy are retarded,” I mean that they are poorly informed, poorly thought out,
and will be ineffective. For me to mean that, the person to whom I’m speaking has to share the
assumption that people with mental retardation are poorly informed, think poorly, and will be
ineffective.
The term is used so broadly in contemporary conversation that usage is no longer based primarily on
assumptions about specific behaviors of people who have mental retardation – just the general
assumption that retardation is bad, something to be avoided, and things, ideas or people described as
retarded should be excluded from the attention of non-retarded people. At this point, the
connotation is simply “that’s bad and you should ignore it.” (See the Urban Dictionary entry for the
term, which describes it as meaning “bad” in literally hundreds of different ways.) And that is ableist –
using a word that not only describes but is the actual medical diagnosis of a mental disability to mean
“bad and ignorable.” Using the term reinforces the implicit assumption that mental disabilities are
bad and that people with mental disabilities should be excluded and ignored because of their
disabilities. And that affects all people with mental disabilities, not just those diagnosed with mental
retardation or another developmental disability. (Although it is especially difficult for family members
of people with developmental disabilities.)
“Retarded” Link
Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010
[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your
metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/,
Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
Retard/retarded – (I am using the whole word only for clarity; I’ve written other social justice related
pieces about how awful and hurtful this word is.) Just mentioning this one makes my blood boil, in part
because we generally don’t use this one as much of a metaphor. When we say someone is a retard, we
mean that they have so low an IQ as to fall into the category that used to be labled ‘mental
retardation’. We mean they’re stupid, they’re foolish, they’re naive, they’re incapable… but mostly
that they’re stupid. Plenty of people will argue that the way we use the word today doesn’t tie back
to those roots, but think critically about the last time you heard someone use that word – I bet it was
to belittle someone’s intelligence.
Link - Weak
The word “weak” centers around the idea that disability is bad, and is inherently
ableist
Smith, Say Media Social Justice Editor, 09
[S.E., 11-2-9, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Weak”,
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/02/ableist-word-profile-weak/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
It’s worth discussing why “weak” is ableist before plunging into its history. The reasons this word are
ableist get at the crux of the ableist identity of many words: Because it centers around the idea that
Disability Is Bad. Disability is so bad, in fact, that it can be used as a shorthand to refer to something
viewed as bad, unpleasant, or unworthy. Disability status, or symptoms of a disability, are so awful
that they can be used as an insult.
“Weak” entered English in the 1300s, courtesy of Old Norse. The word was initially used in the sense of
something soft or pliant. By the 1300s, it was being used to refer to moral failings as well as physical
ones, and along the way it spawned the idea that to be strong is to be good, and to be weak is to be bad.
“Weakness” is still used in a diagnostic context today, in discussions of situations in which patients
lack physical strength.
Numerous disabilities are associated with physical weakness. For people with these disabilities,
hearing “weak” used as an insult is not very pleasant, as you might imagine. Thus, it’s a word we would
like to avoid using when it is not appropriate, if possible, since we don’t want to go around suggesting
that physical weakness is something so deplorable that it’s appropriate to use the term “weak” to
describe things which are unpleasant, boring, bad, dull, etc.
Link – Analogies
Analogies Bad
May, Syracuse University Women’s and Gender studies Associate Professor, and Ferri,
Syracuse University School of Education Associate Professor, 2005
[Vivian M., Beth, 2005, “Fixated on Ability: Questioning Ableist Metaphors in Feminist Theories of
Resistance,” Prose Studies, 27: 1 & 2, page 123-124,
https://www.academia.edu/227091/Fixated_on_Ability_Questioning_Ableist_Metaphors_in_Feminist_
Theories_of_Resistance, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]
As general rhetorical and epistemological practices, analogies and metaphors are so common they
often go unnoticed as if they were “dead”—seemingly without origin or history (Mairs, The View 215).
We therefore find it necessary to begin by addressing the question, “What are some of the risks of
analogy, anyway?” Ellen Samuels, for example, notes the “vexed issue of analogy . . . [which] cannot be
extracted from the tangled history of the use and abuse of such identity analogies in past liberation
movements” (234). Borrowing “evidence” from somebody else’s experiences of, say racism, to
illuminate our own experiences of sexism or homophobia can be a form of what Spelman describes as
“boomerang perception”—I take one look at another and come right back to myself (Inessential 12).
This way of thinking about differences does not require one to depart in any way from oneself: instead,
another’s difference becomes a means of shoring up the self-same. The difference in experience or
corporeality becomes defined by its mirror-function. María Lugones argues that this way of reading
another and her experiences can be understood as an “arrogant” rather than “loving” and “worldtraveling” form of perception (390–95). Lugones underscores that within frames of arrogant perception,
her person gets turned into a tool for another’s analysis. Similarly, Paul Long more critiques the
pedagogical function and mode of address of charity telethons. Telethons display people with
disabilities as “less fortunate and afflicted” and encourage the grateful and “fortunate” viewer to feel
better about him/herself by acting in a benevolent way to help redeem others by means of a cure.
Therefore another problem with the “boomerang” involved in analogizing is that its rhetorical and
epistemological structure relies upon notions of use, of using other persons and/or their experiences.
In other words, analogy can be a means of objectifying or exploiting others. This creates and requires
distance between selves and worlds even though it seems like a form of connection, of bringing
differences together. Moreover, the comparative nature of analogical thinking requires that we
conceptually retain each “side” of the analogy as separate and distinctly different. Thus, analogy relies
on given categories of differentiation, identity, and experience, in order to work. These categories
(and their distinctness or separateness, rather than their interactive, intersecting qualities) become
further naturalized with each comparative use. Our concern is that this sedimentation impedes our
capacity to rethink relations between systems of domination and between self and other in more
radical ways. An over-reliance on stale modes of address reifies disability as a problem/need or as a
“vehicle of other people’s redemption” (Longmore), which stymies possibilities for imagining
alternatives or for redeploying disability metaphors in ironic or agential ways that disrupt simplistic
equivalences between disability and social death.
In addition to the fairly abstract issue of upholding as “real” constructed categories of experience and
identity, such that their nuances, contexts, and interconnected histories disappear, the other problem
with analogies involves the conceptual separation required for them to work. Consider again race-sex
analogies, which many have critiqued, the most infamous query perhaps being that of Sojourner Truth
asking, “and ain’t I a woman?” (36) As Jean Fagan Yellin, for instance, demonstrates in her book, Women
and Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in American Culture , 19th and 20thcentury U.S. race-sex
analogies required homogenous notions of race and of sex or gender to work, an insight also
suggested by the provocative title of the book, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but
Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. Because race is understood to signify black men and
gender white women, black women disappear altogether. Spelman therefore argues that analogies
tend to support a dualist metaphysics in which each aspect of our identities seems like a separate
“bead” in a pull-apart “pop-bead necklace” (Inessential 15, 136). Moreover, because race-sex analogies
tend to reify “race” as non-whiteness and “gender” as non-maleness, those who live with and gain
advantage from privilege remain unmarked by race and/or gender.
Thus not only do black women, for example, disappear in the context of 19th and 20th century race-sex
analogies, but the intersectional nature of identity, the insidious workings of power, and the
complexity of simultaneous privilege and oppression (Barbara Smith xxxii) all become impossible to
consider. Within race-sex analogies, then, it becomes difficult to acknowledge the fact that we are all
raced and gendered and that these are imbricated not separable identities and experiences. Of
course, another dilemma with analogy stems from its reliance on duality, of two elements in
comparison: the intersectional nature of more than two categories of identity or experience is
impossible to consider. Race-sex analogies therefore tend to suppress anything that doesn’t seem to
be “about” race or gender: class, sexuality, nation, disability, and more, are obscured and
intersectional approaches to change are hindered by a sequential, dualist approach.
Voting Issue
Ableist rhetoric entrenches an ableist mindset – challenging it is key
Cherney, Wayne State University, 11
[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsqsds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
In this essay I analyze ableism as a rhetorical problem for three reasons. First, ableist culture sustains
and perpetuates itself via rhetoric; the ways of interpreting disability and assumptions about bodies
that produce ableism are learned. The previous generation teaches it to the next and cultures spread
it to each other through modes of intercultural exchange. Adopting a rhetorical perspective to the
problem of ableism thus exposes the social systems that keep it alive. This informs my second reason
for viewing ableism as rhetoric, as revealing how it thrives suggests ways of curtailing its growth and
promoting its demise. Many of the strategies already adopted by disability rights activists to confront
ableism explicitly or implicitly address it as rhetoric. Public demonstrations, countercultural
performances, autobiography, transformative histories of disability and disabling practices, and critiques
of ableist films and novels all apply rhetorical solutions to the problem. Identifying ableism as rhetoric
and exploring its systems dynamic reveals how these corrective practices work. We can use such
information to refine the successful techniques, reinvent those that fail, and realize new tactics. Third,
I contend that any means of challenging ableism must eventually encounter its rhetorical power. As I
explain below, ableism is that most insidious form of rhetoric that has become reified and so widely
accepted as common sense that it denies its own rhetoricity—it "goes without saying." To fully
address it we must name its presence, for cultural assumptions accepted uncritically adopt the mantle
of "simple truth" and become extremely difficult to rebut. As the neologism "ableism" itself testifies,
we need new words to reveal the places it resides and new language to describe how it feeds.
Without doing so, ableist ways of thinking and interpreting will operate as the context for making
sense of any acts challenging discrimination, which undermines their impact, reduces their symbolic
potential, and can even transform them into superficial measures that give the appearance of change
yet elide a recalcitrant ableist system.
Alternative Solves
The alt is key to make debate a more welcoming space for those who are differently
abled
Cherney, Wayne State University, 11
[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsqsds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
Similarly, ableist rhetoric often dictates realizing ability as arising directly and simply from the physical
body, employing a warrant that specifies "body is able." The social systems of sport provide an
excellent example, for these activities privilege particular skills or physical capacities by rewarding
their presence or performance within the structure of a game. Without the sport of golf, having the
capacity to club a small white ball extremely accurately over long distances would be meaningless; only
in the context of the game does this become an ability that elevates the victorious winner to obtain
rewards of fame and wealth. The rules of such games create spaces where particular performances
appear salient, which shape expectations of bodily capacity, and which identify as "disabled" or
"incapacitated" those whose bodies do not or cannot participate.
As I argue elsewhere, this rhetoric played a central role in the 1998-2001 controversy over whether
professional golfer Casey Martin should be allowed to use a cart during play in Professional Golf
Association (PGA) events as an accommodation for his disability.21 Arguments opposing Martin's case
frequently depended on the rhetorical norm "body is able" by locating his ability entirely in his body;
sport's presumed celebration of natural physical prowess obscures the ways rules always already
privilege some physical capacities over others. Presuming that the rules created a "level playing field" to
which everyone had equal access, advocates for the PGA argued that "fair play" required that nobody be
given the unfair advantage of using a device that others were not allowed to employ. Although the
decision to grant his accommodation was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, the widespread
opposition to Martin's case showed the depth of this norm's pervasiveness. As this case demonstrates,
the ableist equation of ability and body protects ableist institutions and architecture from scrutiny,
locating as simple knowledge the clearly questionable assumption that one's abilities inhere in one's
physical corpus. As the capacities privileged, rewarded, and normalized by cultural systems that depend
on their presence and performance, "abilities" are thoroughly social constructs communicated
rhetorically. Knowing them as such reverses the ableist episteme that "body is able," opening to critique
potentially any claim that some skill should be favored over others.
In this article I analyze "normal is natural," a third rhetorical norm that obscures as "natural law" the
ideological preference for things "normal." Like "deviance is evil" and "body is able" this warrant justifies
ableist discrimination by providing rationale for subordinating disabled people. It works by deploying the
idea of the normal body as a fact of nature, thereby absolving responsibility for employing it in medical,
scientific, political, and religious institutions. According to this norm, valuing normal bodies and
devaluing "abnormal" bodies reflects sensible awareness of the way things naturally work instead of
employing questionable ideology. Presumably dispassionate and objective science that merely
describes natural law presents the idea of the normal body as "objective truth." Normality thus
becomes an inherent and relatively unquestionable characteristic, appearing against a framework
grounded in scientific certainty. Historically, society often declaims discriminatory assumptions as
scientific fact. As Robert Garland observes: "Modern science has often served merely to reinforce our
cultural presuppositions."22 Scientific or medical evidence can redefine what counts as normal because
generally the culture considers these approaches (at least when conducted "objectively") to merely
report "facts." In contrast, social criticism and commentary (particularly when conducted "subjectively")
struggle for legitimacy. This tends to bury and protect the roots of ableist discrimination. As Abby
Wilkerson argues, this division between the natural and the social works "to obscure the social origin
of practices that differentially harm members of oppressed groups, while making these harms appear
to be 'facts of nature.'"23
Impact - Oppression
Ableism is a system of oppression and that must be conquered
Siebers, University of Michigan Literary and Cultural Criticism Professor, 09
[Tobin, 10-28-09, Disability Aesthetics, “The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification”,
http://www.isu.edu/~garijose/Pages/Course%20Syllabi/PDF/Aesthetics/SiebersDisabiityA2.pdf, Pg 26,
Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
Oppression is the systematic victimization of one group by another. It is a form of intergroup violence.
That oppression involves “groups,” and not “individuals,” means that it concerns identities, and this
means, furthermore, that oppression always focuses on how the body appears, both on how it appears
as a public and physical presence and on its specific and various appearances. Oppression is justified
most often by the attribution of natural inferiority—what some call “in-built” or “biological”
inferiority. Natural inferiority is always somatic, focusing on the mental and physical features of the
group, and it figures as disability. The prototype of biological inferiority is disability. The
representation of inferiority always comes back to the appearance of the body and the way the body
makes other bodies feel. This is why the study of oppression requires an understanding of
aesthetics—not only because oppression uses aesthetic judgments for its violence but also because
the signposts of how oppression works are visible in the history of art, where aesthetic judgments
about the creation and appreciation of bodies are openly discussed.
One additional thought must be noted before I treat some analytic examples from the historical record.
First, despite my statement that disability now serves as the master trope of human disqualification, it is
not a matter of reducing other minority identities to disability identity. Rather, it is a matter of
understanding the work done by disability in oppressive systems. In disability oppression, the physical
and mental properties of the body are socially constructed as disqualifying defects, but this specific
type of social construction happens to be integral at the present moment to the symbolic
requirements of oppression in general. In every oppressive system of our day, I want to claim, the
oppressed identity is represented in some way as disabled, and although it is hard to understand, the
same process obtains when disability is the oppressed identity. “Racism” disqualifies on the basis of
race, providing justification for the inferiority of certain skin colors, bloodlines, and physical features.
“Sexism” disqualifies on the basis of sex/gender as a direct representation of mental and physical
inferiority. “Classism” disqualifies on the basis of family lineage and socioeconomic power as proof of
inferior genealogical status. “Ableism” disqualifies on the basis of mental and physical differences, first
selecting and then stigmatizing them as disabilities. The oppressive system occults in each case the fact
that the disqualified identity is socially constructed, a mere convention, representing signs of
incompetence, weakness, or inferiority as undeniable facts of nature.
As racism, sexism, and classism fall away slowly as justifications for human inferiority—and the critiques
of these prejudices prove powerful examples of how to fight oppression—the prejudice against disability
remains in full force, providing seemingly credible reasons for the belief in human inferiority and the
oppressive systems built upon it. This usage will continue, I expect, until we reach a historical moment
when we know as much about the social construction of disability as we now know about the social
construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Disability represents at this moment in time the final
frontier of justifiable human inferiority.
Ableist language excludes those who are differently abled and perpetuate violence
and oppression
Cohen-Rottenberg, The Body Is Not an Apology content manager and writer, 13
[Rachel, 9-14-13, Disability and Representation, “Doing Social Justice: Thoughts on Ableist Language and
Why It Matters”, http://thebodyisnotanapology.tumblr.com/post/86596200516/doing-social-justicethoughts-on-ableist-language-and, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
When a critique of language that makes reference to disability is not welcome, it is nearly inevitable
that, as a disabled person, I am not welcome either. I might be welcome as an activist, but not as a
disabled activist. I might be welcome as an ally, but not as a disabled ally. I might be welcome as a
parent, but not as a disabled parent. That’s a lot like being welcomed as an activist, and as an ally, and
as a parent, but not as a woman or as a Jew.
Many people have questions about why ableist speech matters, so I’ll be addressing those questions
here. Please feel free to raise others.
1. Why are you harping so much on words, anyway? Don’t we have more important things to worry
about?
I am always very curious about those who believe that words are “only” words — as though they do not
have tremendous power. Those of us who use words understand the world through them. We use
words to construct frameworks with which we understand experience. Every time we speak or write,
we are telling a story; every time we listen or read, we are hearing one. No one lives without entering
into these stories about their fellow human beings. As Arthur Frank writes:
“Stories work with people, for people, and always stories work on people, affecting what people are
able to see as real as possible, and as worth doing or best avoided. What is it about stories – what are
their particularities – that enables them to work as they do? More than mere curiosity is at stake in this
question, because human life depends on the stories we tell: the sense of self that those stories impart,
the relationships constructed around shared stories, and the sense of purpose that stories both propose
and foreclose.” (Frank 2010, 3)
The stories that disability metaphors tell are deeply problematic, deeply destructive, and deeply
resonant of the kinds of violence and oppression that disabled people have faced over the course of
many centuries. They perpetuate negative and disempowering views of disabled people, and these
views wind their ways into all of the things that most people feel are more important. If a culture’s
language is full of pejorative metaphors about a group of people, that culture is not going to see those
people as fully entitled to the same housing, employment, medical care, education, access, and
inclusion as people in a more favored group.
Ableist language inherently causes negativity towards the differently abled
Schalk, Indiana University Department of Gender Studies Professor, 13
[Sami, 2013, Disability Studies Quarterly, “Metaphorically Speaking: Ableist Metaphors in Feminist
Writing”, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3874/3410, Accessed 7-4-14, CX]
Disability rhetoricians have brought attention to the fact that "when Americans think, talk, and write
disability, they usually consider it as a tragedy, illness, or defect that an individual body 'has,'… as
personal and accidental, before or without sociopolitical significance" (Wilson and Lewiecki-Wilson
2001, 2). In other words, when disability is used in figurative and metaphorical ways, it is primarily
understood in terms of inability, loss, lack, problems, and other forms of negation (Titchkosky 2007, 8).
Although, unlike gender, disability is not centrally implicated in the basic grammatical system, the use of
disability as a metaphorical construct is nonetheless prevalent and implicit in our language. Just as a
word such as seminal has lost its original etymological connection (in this case, to male ejaculation) in
our contemporary connotations, so too many words that refer to disability have transitioned from
medical discourse into common speech and slang and have lost their linguistic connection to the
original referent. In this regard, Jay Dolmage (2005, 113) gives as examples the words crippled,
retarded, and handicapped, to which I would add idiot (once a medical category of cognitive disability),
dumb (once used to refer to lack of oral speech communication, as in the phrase "deaf and dumb"),
lame, crazy, and insane. Though most of these disparaging words are no longer generally recognized as
connected to, or associated with, specific impairments, they have nevertheless retained connotations of
insult, inability, and lack due to more widespread negative conceptions of disability. This, then, is
indirect ableism. Vidali, May and Ferri, and Dolmage are among the disability studies scholars who have
explored disability metaphors, that is, the way that metaphors of disability are used as a source
domain that confers negativity upon things not themselves directly associated with disability due to
the retention of broader negative cultural connotations of disability itself. As I indicate above, the
work of these scholars has tended to deal primarily with conventional, rather than creative, metaphors
by citing a variety of brief examples, rather than considering the role that these metaphors play within
the wider context of the original text's argument. By analyzing the creative disability metaphors of
"emotional cripples" and "the mute body" in the feminist texts of hooks and Modleski, I expand on the
work of these scholars, modeling a process of transgressive reading that reveals how extended disability
metaphors impact the overall argument of the texts. Knowles and Moon (2006, 12) note that metaphors
allow an open-endedness that is less precise than literal language, which gives metaphor its creative,
emotional, and intellectual potential. A transgressive reading of disability metaphors mines these
creative, emotional, and intellectual potentialities with a "commitment to retelling the stories of
disability in such a way that resists the illusion that disability is a limit without possibility" (Titchkosky
2007, 131).
Impact - Exclusion
Ableist metaphors perpetuate false ideas about disabilities and create spaces of
exclusion
Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005
[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts:
Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse
University, page 107-109, KMM]
In the English language, using disability as a metaphor, an analogy and a derogatory term is common.
Examples of such phrases and terms include: lame idea, blind justice, dumb luck, felt paralyzed,
argument fell on deaf ears, crippling, crazy, insane, idiotic and retarded.
One might argue that using these words without relating them to particular individuals is not offensive.
However, using disability as an analogy not only offends certain individuals, but it also impedes clear
communication, perpetuates false beliefs about disability and creates an environment of unease
and exclusion.
Disability Denotes Deficiency
Disability has negative connotations when used metaphorically, while the real experience of living with
a disability can be quite enriching and empowering. In all the examples above disability is used in a
value-laden way. “Lame idea” means bad idea or one that is not constructed in a sufficient and
persuasive manner. When we call a notion or act “idiotic/moronic/ retarded” we are trying to convey
the message that the idea or notion is ill-conceived, lacking in thought or unintelligent. When we
describe someone as “blind” to a fact (for example, men are blind to sexist practices), we mean that
they are lacking knowledge or have no notion of what transpires around them. “Crazy” means
excessive or without control. None of these signifying phrases carries positive and empowering
interpretations.
As educators, we must bear in mind that disability labels have a history, and that those labels have been
highly contested over the decades. These words were actually created to describe people with different
abilities as inferior within particular value systems. For instance, the words “moron,” “idiot” and
“imbecile” were used throughout the 20th century as medical classifications to denote different levels of
intellectual deficiency. Later on, all these terms were conflated under the umbrella of “mental
retardation” (Clark & Marsh, 2002).
The category of mental retardation, by itself, is highly contested for its reification of all perceived
differences in cognitive abilities into one unified category. The important fact here is that mental
retardation is a social construction, not a real condition that is innate in people’s minds. The only
requirement for inclusion in this category is deviation from a norm (usually prescribed by the use of IQ
test) and perceived incompetence. Mental retardation is by itself a linguistic metaphor that means
“cognitively delayed.” When used metaphorically in everyday speech, “retarded” stands for slow or
underdeveloped thought processes.
When we use terms like “retarded,” “lame” or “blind”— even if we are referring to acts or ideas and
not to people at all— we perpetuate the stigma associated with disability. By using a label which is
commonly associated with disabled people to denote a deficiency, a lack or an ill-conceived notion,
we reproduce the oppression of people with disabilities. As educators, we must be aware of the
oppressive power of “everyday” language and try to change it.
Ableist language is detrimental to education and non-exclusionary communication
Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005
[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts:
Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse
University, page 114-115, KMM]
The language that we use in our classrooms has far-reaching implications on the education of
students. Just as we would not tolerate sexist, misogynist or racist language, we must not tolerate
disabling imagery and phrases. In particular, we should not contribute to reproducing it. Disability is
not merely a metaphor or an analogy, but it is an identity for some of us as well as for some of our
students. Disability is defined almost arbitrarily and the line between the disabled and the nondisabled
is not a clear one. We must not assume disability, or the lack of it, by mere observation. Abelist
language can be offensive and hurt some of our students while interfering with our original messages.
We can either create barriers to communication or we can create classrooms in which we all feel
equally challenged.
Ableist rhetoric reinforces false notions of disabilities and normalizes them into
learning
Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005
[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts:
Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse
University, page 109, KMM]
We learn about disability through everyday use of language. In the same way that racist or sexist
attitudes, whether implicit or explicit, are acquired through the “normal” learning process, so too are
negative assumptions about disabilities and the people who are labeled as having them. Our notions of
people who are blind, deaf or labeled as mentally retarded come into play when we use disabling
phrases, and these notions are usually far from accurate. They do not convey the complexity of living in
a society that regards people with disabilities as the Other on the basis of perceived mentally or
bodily difference.
The use of disability as a metaphor perpetuates false beliefs about the nature of impairment and
disability. People who are blind, for example, do not lack in knowledge; they simply have different
ways of obtaining it. Paralysis does not necessarily imply lack of mobility, stagnancy or dependence
since there are augmentative instruments, such as wheelchairs and personal aids, that secure
independence and mobility. The continued use of disabling language in the classroom perpetuates
ignorance and misconceptions in regards to the lived experience of people with disabilities.
AT: Language has Fluid Meanings
Ableist metaphors are not floating signifiers, they represent and perpetuate real
suffering
Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005
[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts:
Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse
University, page 110-111, KMM]
Using disability as a metaphor to represent only negative aspects of a situation is problematic. It is
made worse by the fact that blindness, deafness, paralysis, etc., are not floating signifiers , but have
real referents behind them—people with disabilities. When using disabling language, we do not only
de-value the lived experience of people with disabilities, but we also appropriate these lived
experiences for our own use. This means that disabled people have been presented as socially flawed
able-bodied people, not as people with our own identities. As responsible instructors, we must ask
ourselves, when was the last time we discussed disability in our classrooms, not as metaphors, but as
lived experiences?
The consequences of this exclusion are that most students know disability only metaphorically (unless
they have disabilities themselves), and that we fail them as teachers by not providing descriptions of
what disability actually means to the people who embody it. As critical teachers, we should counteract
the use of disability as a metaphor in everyday language, in media and in literary representations. This
pedagogical goal can be achieved by introducing more complex accounts of the disability experience
through autobiographies, guest speakers or critical accounts by people with disabilities or by scholars of
disability studies.
To make matters more complex, we must consider that some of our students might have disabilities
themselves. These can be hidden and not visible. When we use disabling language, we alienate our
students from our arguments and from feeling included in the classroom. As a wheelchair user, I find
that when people use terms like “crippling” or “disabling” as rhetorical devices, I am distracted from the
discussions. I cannot listen to arguments that make their point by using my identity as a rhetorical
device. When a student tells me, “‘I didn’t know what do. I was paralyzed,” I think to myself, “funny, I’m
paralyzed, but I do know what to do.” I stop listening to my student’s complaint and feel offended by
the conversation. When this happens, I feel “mugged by a metaphor” in the words of Wahneema
Lubiano (1996). 1
AT – Not How It’s Used Now
Despite modern usage, ableist language still inherently entrenches the idea that those
who are differently abled are lesser
Jean, Staff writer, 09
[Abby, 11-11-09, Bitch Media, “The Transcontinental Disability Choir: What is Ableist Language and Why
Should You Care?”, http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-transcontinental-disability-choir-what-is-ableistlanguage-and-why-should-you-care, Accessed 7-4-14,CX]
A lot of people argue that while these words may have been associated with disabilities in the past,
modern usage has diverged so dramatically from those past uses that the words no longer have any
relation to disability. This is usually just not true. For instance, the Mirriam-Webster definition of
"lame" lists the primary definition as "having a body part and especially a limb so disabled as to
impair freedom of movement." The official psychiatric diagnosis is still "mental retardation." But
regardless of whether the term is currently used in a disability context, the current meanings of the
word to mean flawed, weaker, irrational, or otherwise lesser than an expected standard. That
connotation provides meaning to the word - and is the core of the ableism that makes the word
problematic.
Generic
Alternative: Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discursive analysis is key to debunk the hidden meanings behind words
McGregor, Mount Saint Vincent University Department of Education Professor, 03*
(Sue, 2003, kappa omicron nu fórum, “Critical Discourse Analysis-- A Primer”,
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
The critical science approach holds that people need to think about improving their living conditions
rather than accepting and coping with their present conditions. That improvement is contingent upon
people being conscious of social realities that exploit or dominate them and then demanding
liberation from these forces. A critical science perspective helps us gain: (a) personal freedom from
internal constraints such as biases or lack of a skill or point of view and (b) social freedom from
external constraints such as oppression, exclusion, and abuse of power relations (Gentzler, 1999;
McGregor, 2003). This paper has illustrated that there is a method that can be applied to debunk the
hidden ideological meanings behind the written and oral word— it is critical discourse analysis . CDA
does not provide answers to the problems but does enable one to understand the conditions behind the
specific problem—the deep, ideological roots of the issue (Palmquist, 1999). It can be carried out in
various institutional settings or on various social, political, and critical issues by paying attention to
the details of what social members actually say and do (van Dijk, 1999). Starting with the full text,
working down to the individual word level, one can peel back the layers to reveal the “truth behind the
regime”—the profoundly insidious, invisible power of the written and spoken word.
Discursive violence is used to perpetuate the dominance of the elite over marginalized
peoples
McGregor, Mount Saint Vincent University Department of Education Professor, 03*
(Sue, 2003, kappa omicron nu fórum, “Critical Discourse Analysis-- A Primer”,
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
One of the central attributes of dominant discourse is its power to interpret conditions, issues, and
events in favor of the elite. The discourse of the marginalized is seen as a threat to the propaganda
efforts of the elite. It is for this reason that home economists must engage in critical discourse
analysis—to make the voice of the marginalized legitimate and heard and to take the voice of those in
power into question to reveal hidden agendas and motives that serve self-interests, maintain
superiority, and ensure others’ subjugation (Henry & Tator, 2002). CDA helps make clear the
connections between the use of language and the exercise of power (Thompson, 2002).
Understanding the Theory of Critical Discourse Analysis
Discourse refers to expressing oneself using words. Discourses are ubiquitous ways of knowing, valuing,
and experiencing the world. Discourses can be used for an assertion of power and knowledge, and
they can be used for resistance and critique. Discourses are used in everyday contexts for building
power and knowledge, for regulation and normalization, for the development of new knowledge and
power relations, and for hegemony (excess influence or authority of one nation over another). Given
the power of the written and spoken word, CDA is necessary for describing, interpreting, analyzing,
and critiquing social life reflected in text (Luke, 1997). CDA is concerned with studying and analyzing
written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality, and
bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced, and transformed within specific
social, economic, political, and historical contexts (Van Dijk, 1988). It tries to illuminate ways in which
the dominant forces in a society construct versions of reality that favor their interests. By unmasking
such practices, CDA scholars aim to support the victims of such oppression and encourage them to resist
and transform their lives (Foucault, 2000), the central tenet of critical theory and the critical science
approach (McGregor, 2003).
Stemming from Habermas’s (1973) critical theory, CDA aims to help the analyst understand social
problems that are mediated by mainstream ideology and power relationships, all perpetuated by the
use of written texts in our daily and professional lives. The objective of CDA is to uncover the
ideological assumptions that are hidden in the words of our written text or oral speech in order to resist
and overcome various forms of power over or to gain an appreciation that we are exercising "power
over,” unbeknownst to us (Fairclough, 1989)1. CDA aims to systematically explore often opaque
relationships between discursive practices, texts, and events and wider social and cultural structures,
relations, and processes. It strives to explore how these non-transparent relationships are a factor in
securing power and hegemony, and it draws attention to power imbalances, social inequities, nondemocratic practices, and other injustices in hopes of spurring people to corrective actions (Fairclough,
1993).
There are three central tenets of CDA (Fairclough, 2000). Discourse is shaped and constrained by (a)
social structure (class, status, age, ethnic identity, and gender) and by (b) culture . Home economics,
comprising members from across the social structure (but mainly white, middle class, women), has a
professional culture, which shapes and constrains its discourse. What we say as home economists, is
shaped by our professional culture, socialization, and member profile (social structure). (c) Discourse
(the words and language we use) helps shape and constrain our identities, relationships, and systems of
knowledge and beliefs. As home economists, our identities, the nature of our social relationships, and
our knowledge and belief systems are shaped and constrained by the language and words espoused by
us and by others.
Discourse Shapes Reality
Discourse shapes reality— Language creates our perception of the world around us
McGregor, Mount Saint Vincent University Department of Education Professor, 03*
(Sue, 2003, kappa omicron nu fórum, “Critical Discourse Analysis-- A Primer”,
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
In plain language, CDA makes visible the way in which institutions and their discourse shape us ! FSC
professionals work in, and for, institutions including business, government, the media, education,
health, and social welfare institutions. Most especially, we work with and for the family as a social
institution. All of this discourse shapes us, and we shape it. CD analysts ask the question, “How are we
made in our culture?” (Foucault, 2000). As family and consumer scientists, we can approach this two
ways: (a) how are we made family and consumer scientists/home economists and (b) how do
FCS/home economists affect the way others are made in the culture? CD analysts assume that
discourses articulate ideological interests, social formations, and movements within a field (Luke, 1997).
It stands to reason, then, that discourse within the field of family and consumer sciences is indicative of
prevailing ideologies in the profession. As we examine what our language reflects about our
community’s practice and beliefs, we inevitably discover how and why these practices and beliefs are
(re)produced, resisted, changed, and transformed (Remlinger, 2002). Brown (1995, 1993) discussed the
notion of whether home economics is a community of practice, raised some doubts about this, and then
challenged us to critically examine the concepts, beliefs, and values that guide our action (1993, p.193).
Indeed, our journals, newsletters, e-lists, online material, editorials, conference proceedings, textbooks,
book reviews, and lecture material constitute an order of discourse, a network of diverse genres and
discourse styles (Fairclough, 2002) that make up the FCS social practice. What would we find if we
examined the words flowing from this home economics professional order of discourse? What would
we find about our professional mission, values, beliefs, and philosophy relative to power relations,
social conditions, equity, and justice as these impact family well-being? Are we really part of the
solution, or as Brown (1993) so uncomfortably alleged, part of the problem? The power of the
meanings attached to our, and others’, words merits our analysis of our genre. Fairclough (1995) and
Wadok and Ludwig (1999) caution that different readers may interpret text differently. At this stage of
the game, this difference can be our strength to help us expose the deep meanings behind our words,
codified practices, and habits of language. Remember— our words are never neutral . Our words
convey how we see ourselves as a profession, our identity, knowledge, values, beliefs, and our
truths— our discourse permeates everything we do . We know ourselves (and others know us) by the
positions we construe through our particular discourses and the kinds of practices they support (Rupert,
1997).
Matters for policymaking
Language matters and has power— we must monitor our language to prevent
oppression
Shepherd, Lecturer in International Relations and International Law, 2010
(Laura, March 2010, International Committee Red Cross, “Women, armed conflict and language –
Gender, violence and discourse”, http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/irrc-877-shepherd.pdf,
date accessed 7-4-14, CLF)
In our personal lives, we know that language matters, that words are constitutive of reality. There are
words that have been excised from our vocabularies, deemed too damaging to use. There are
forbidden words that children whisper with guilty glee. There are words we use daily that would be
meaningless to our grandparents. Moreover, the cadence and content of our communications vary by
context; words that are suitable for the boardroom may not be appropriate for the bedroom or the bar.
In our personal lives, we admit that words have power, and in Formal politics we do the same. It is not
such a stretch to admit the same in our Professional lives. I am not claiming that all analysis must be
discourse-theoretical – must take language seriously – to be policy-relevant, for that would clearly be
nonsense. I am, however, claiming that post-structural theories of language have much to offer policy
makers and practitioners, and arguing that in order to understand how best to implement policy we
first need to understand ‘how’ a policy means, not just what it means . That is, we must understand a
policy before we can implement it. This article argues that we need to engage critically with how that
understanding is mediated through and facilitated by our ideas about the world we live in. If we are to
avoid unconsciously reproducing the different forms of oppression and exclusion that different forms
of policy seek to overcome, we need to take seriously Jacques Derrida’s suggestion that ‘il n’y a pas de
hors-texte’.5
Discourse analysis is necessary to productive policy discussions
Shepherd, Lecturer in International Relations and International Law, 2010
(Laura, March 2010, International Committee Red Cross, “Women, armed conflict and language –
Gender, violence and discourse”, http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/irrc-877-shepherd.pdf,
date accessed 7-4-14, CLF)
Policy documents are, among other things, discursive practices, and can be read in this way, with a
view to asking what is in some ways the most directly political – and policy-relevant – question: how
is it that the reality we take for granted, which includes disparities of power and multiple forms of
(sometimes violent) oppression, come to be accepted as such? This special issue of the Review draws
attention to many ways in which gendered logics produce (in)equality and order social life; through the
analysis of policy governing women and war, the present essay seeks to contribute a discoursetheoretical perspective in keeping with this theme. Crucially, the distinctively poststructural form of
policy analysis I outline here highlights the ambiguities and tensions inherent in any policy document
and offers usable strategies for negotiating these, mediating the implementation of policy in a
productive and potentially transformative way. The essay is divided into three substantive sections. In
the first section, I map out a poststructural approach to discourse that, I argue, facilitates particular
kinds of analysis of policy documents and other relevant political materials. The second section then
provides an illustrative account of the theory presented, through the analysis of Chapter 5.10 of the
United Nations Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards,8 which is entitled
‘Women, gender and DDR’. In the final section I offer some concluding remarks and suggest some
potentially fruitful avenues for future research.
A2: Words are Neutral
Words are never neutral—Discouse Matters
McGregor, Mount Saint Vincent University Department of Education Professor, 03*
(Sue, 2003, kappa omicron nu fórum, “Critical Discourse Analysis-- A Primer”,
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
Discourse analysis challenges us to move from seeing language as abstract to seeing our words as
having meaning in a particular historical, social, and political condition . Even more significant, our
words (written or oral) are used to convey a broad sense of meanings and the meaning we convey
with those words is identified by our immediate social, political, and historical conditions. Our words
are never neutral (Fiske, 1994)! This is a powerful insight for home economists and family and
consumer scientists (We could have a whole discussion about the meaning that these two labels
convey!). We should never again speak, or read/hear others’ words, without being conscious of the
underlying meaning of the words. Our words are politicized, even if we are not aware of it, because
they carry the power that reflects the interests of those who speak. Opinion leaders, courts,
government, editors, even family and consumer scientists, play a crucial role in shaping issues and in
setting the boundaries of legitimate discourse (what is talked about and how) (Henry & Tator, 2002).
The words of those in power are taken as "self-evident truths" and the words of those not in power are
dismissed as irrelevant, inappropriate, or without substance (van Dijk, 2000).
*Last Date Cited
AT: Apology
Apologies mean nothing when there’s a ballot on the line—2012 Republican Primary
proves
Kornacki, Salon writer, 11
[Steve, 5-10-11, Salon, “When it’s an apology, and when it’s a pander,”
http://www.salon.com/2011/05/10/apologize_pawlenty/, accessed 7-5-14, PAC]
It’s hardly unusual for a politician to offer an apology. Usually it’s for some kind of personal
shortcoming or for a “gaffe” of some sort — an intemperate comment, maybe, or an off-color joke
uttered into an open mic. It’s also not unheard of to hear genuine contrition for being on the wrong
side of an issue (even if this most often comes from retired pols who are suddenly mindful of the
damage that a career full of pandering might do to their place in history).
But Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who is trying very, very hard to win the Republican
presidential nomination, reminded us last week of another type of politician’s remorse: the pander
disguised as an apology.
“I was wrong, it was a mistake, and I’m sorry,” Pawlenty said during a debate last Thursday. He was
talking about his previous insistence that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem worth tackling
with cap-and-trade legislation. When Pawlenty first articulated this view a few years ago, it was a
thoroughly mainstream sentiment, even within the Republican Party. Now it isn’t. Why? Because with
a Democrat in the White House, the GOP base now demands reflexive, unyielding opposition to any
and all “Democratic” policies. Obama and his fellow Democrats support cap-and-trade — therefore, the
Republican base hates it. (This phenomenon is hardly new.) Thus, Pawlenty is now furiously apologizing
for admitting that global warming is a serious, man-made problem that demands action.
What’s more, he’s betting that his willingness to say “I’m sorry” will provide a favorable contrast to
Mitt Romney, who has thus far refused to apologize to Republican primary voters for the universal
healthcare law he signed in Massachusetts five years ago — which included an “individual mandate.”
Instead, Romney has framed the Bay State’s program as an “experiment” that produced some good
results and some bad.
Answers
Development
No Link – Not about Ocean
Evidence assumes land-based, anti-poverty development, not ocean
Richard, Professor, Earlham College, Peace and Global Justice Studies, ‘95
[Howard, September 1995, Howard Richards, “The Nehru Lectures,”
http://www.howardri.org/Lec1.html, accessed: July 5, 2014, KEC]
I use the word "development" in spite of its drawbacks because it is the word commonly and officially
used worldwide to describe efforts to end poverty. I use the term because I want to stay in touch with
the mainstream while trying to change its direction. I use it, too, because whatever else development
may be about, it is about economics. Today social and educational issues are economic issues, and
vice-versa. Although there may have been a time when religious and cultural values determined
educational and social philosophy, I do not believe I exaggerate when I say that today the practical and
effective educational and social philosophies are increasingly driven by what is taken to be economic
reality; and inspired by economic theories that prescribe what is to be done about that reality. The term
"development," which in turn is associated with the idea of a "development model," helps us to
remember that wherever we go in our contemporary world we are never far from the pervasive
influence of economics. I will support the view that, because of the basic structure of modern society,
economics must be dealt with in order to deal successfully with literacy, child care, gender, race, caste,
ethnic conflict, environment or other issues.
No Link
Development lacks a single definition
Naz, Research Associate, Centre for Development Governance, Dhaka Bangaldesh, ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
Since the Second World War, development has been synonymous with economic, social and political
change in the countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. These
countries have been variously labelled as underdeveloped, less-development, developing, the Third
World and the South. They are a diverse group but united in their commonly declared commitment to
development. But, there is no consensus about the meaning of development. It is a contested concept
and there have been a number of battles to capture its meaning. Turner and Hulme (I997) reviewed
the ideological engagements of development as follows
Link Turn
Term necessary for coherent policy discussion
Richards, Professor of Peace and Global Justice Studies @ Earlham College, 95
(Howard,. “Education for Constructive Development” http://www.howardri.org/Lec1.html)
I use the word "development" in spite of its drawbacks because it is the word commonly and officially
used worldwide to describe efforts to end poverty. I use the term because I want to stay in touch with
the mainstream while trying to change its direction. I use it, too, because whatever else development
may be about, it is about economics. Today social and educational issues are economic issues, and
vice-versa. Although there may have been a time when religious and cultural values determined
educational and social philosophy, I do not believe I exaggerate when I say that today the practical
and effective educational and social philosophies are increasingly driven by what is taken to be
economic reality; and inspired by economic theories that prescribe what is to be done about that
reality. The term "development," which in turn is associated with the idea of a "development model,"
helps us to remember that wherever we go in our contemporary world we are never far from the
pervasive influence of economics. I will support the view that, because of the basic structure of modern
society, economics must be dealt with in order to deal successfully with literacy, child care, gender,
race, caste, ethnic conflict, environment or other issues.
Development Discourse Good
“Development” is a valuable term, it should be used in debate
Story, Kutztown University, 1995
[Victor O., 1 May 1995, University of Waterloo, “NAFTA, Capitalism and Alternatives, Debate,
VIII/1,” https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/NAFTAmail/msg00023.html, accessed 7-514, J.J.]
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/NAFTAmail/msg00023.html
I disagree. The normative term is "modernization" and that term is wrought with ethnocentric
implications when it is applied to anything more than technological change. Development however is
a valuable term, it carries weight and it is what people of all cultures do when they build civilization.
Human Rights Turn
Development is a human right through which all fundamental freedoms can be fully
realized
United Nations, ‘86
[12-4-86, “General Assembly,” http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r128.htm,
accessed: July 5, 2014, KEC]
Proclaims the following Declaration on the Right to Development:
Article 1
1. The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of
which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in,
contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development,
in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.
2. The human right to development also implies the full realization of
the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes, subject to the
relevant provisions of both International Covenants on Human Rights, the
exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural
wealth and resources.
Only use of the term development is able to present new strategies for resistance.
Naz, M.Phil in Gender and Development (Norway), ‘06
[Farzana, July-September, CDRB Publication, “ARTURO ESCOBAR AND THE DEVELOPMENT
DISCOURSE: AN OVERVIEW,” http://www.cdrb.org/journal/2006/3/4.pdf, accessed: July 5,
2014, KEC]
On the other hand, the identities of development have instilled a degree of inferiority, a longing to
escape the underdeveloped state of affairs, a hierarchy where underdeveloped countries and peoples
are the perpetual losers, to be endlessly reformed, reshaped and improved. This is not to suggest that
the production of subjectivities and identities by hegemonic discourse such as development is
unmediated by or passively accepted by people in the South. Development, for all its power to control
the manner in which the third world is spoken about and acted upon, is not immune to challenges and
resistance. The objects of development are not passive receivers, wholly oppressed by power; they are
active agents who may and frequently do contest, resist, divert and manipulate the activities carried
out in the name of development. In this way, development can be seen as a contested field. Its
constitution of subjects as underdeveloped, poor and illiterate enables the continuation of Western
domination in the third world, while simultaneously opening up new avenues and strategies of
resistance.
Critique of Development Discourse Fails
Development kritik isn’t substantive—fails inevitably
Pieterse, Professor of Sociology, 2000
[Jan, After Post-Development, 180, J.J.]
Escobar’s perspective provides a broad and uneven melange, with exaggerated claims sustained by
weak examples. It is broad in combining vocabularies— poststructuralism, social movement theory
and development—but uneven in that the argument centres on anti-development without giving any
clear delineation between anti-development and alternative development. It is exaggerated in that his
position hinges on a discursive trick, a rhetorical ploy of equating development with ‘Development’.
This in itself militates against discourse analysis, caricatures and homogenises development, and
conceals divergencies within development. Escobar’s perspective on actual development is flimsy and
based on confused examples, with more rhetoric than logic. For instance, the claim that the World
Bank stories are ‘all the same’ ignores the tremendous discontinuities in the Bank’s discourse over time
(e.g. redistribution with growth in the 1970s, structural adjustment in the 1980s, and poverty alleviation
and social liberalism in the 1990s). And while Escobar and Esteva associate ‘Development’ with urban
bias, World Bank and structural adjustment policies in the 1980s have been precisely aimed at
correcting ‘urban parasitism’, which for some time had been a standard criticism of nationalist
development policies (a classic source is Lipton, 1977).
Exploration
Turn – Links to Neg
Colonialism included the colonial expansion of knowledge regardless of whether it not
it was critical of itself – means the alternative links to the K
Mignolo, Duke University professor of Literature and Romance Studies, 2
(Walter, Argentine semiotician and professor at Duke University, Published Winter 2002, “The
Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference”, Pg. 79-80, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Volume
101, Number 1, Winter 2002, Accessed July 10 2013, JB)
It cannot be said of Wallerstein that he, like Vattimo or Habermas, is blind to colonialism. Unlike
continental thought, Wallerstein is not imprisoned in the Greco-Roman–modern European tradition. The
politics of location is [End Page 79] a question valid not just for minority epistemology. On the contrary,
it is the keystone of universalism in European thought. Cornel West's perception and analysis of the
"evasion of American philosophy" speaks to that politics of location that is not a blind voluntarism but a
force of westernization. 66 Although the United States assumed the leadership of Western expansion,
the historical ground for thinking was not, and could not have been, European. The "evasion of
American philosophy" shows that tension between the will to be like European philosophy and the
impossibility of being so. 67 The logic of the situation analyzed by West is similar to the logic underlined
by Bernasconi vis-á-vis African philosophy. The variance is that the evasion of American philosophy was
performed by Anglo-Creoles displaced from the classical tradition instead of native Africans who felt
the weight of a parallel epistemology.
The social sciences do have a home in the United States as well as in Europe, which is not the case for
philosophy. But the social sciences do not necessarily have a home in the Third World. Therefore,
while opening the social sciences is an important claim to make within the sphere of their gestation
and growth, it is more problematic when the colonial difference comes into the picture. To open the
social sciences is certainly an important reform, but the colonial difference also requires
decolonization . To open the social sciences is certainly an important step but is not yet sufficient, since
opening is not the same as decolonizing, as Fals-Borda claimed in the 1970s. In this sense Quijano's and
Dussel's concepts of coloniality of power and transmodernity are contributing to decolonizing the
social sciences (Quijano) and philosophy (Dussel) by forging an epistemic space from the colonial
difference. Decolonizing the social sciences and philosophy means to produce, transform, and
disseminate knowledge that is not dependent on the epistemology of North Atlantic modernity—the
norms of the disciplines and the problems of the North Atlantic—but that, on the contrary, responds to
the need of the colonial differences. Colonial expansion was also the colonial expansion of forms of
knowledge, even when such knowledges were critical to colonialism from within colonialism itself
(like Bartolome de las Casas) or to modernity from modernity itself (like Nietzsche). A critique of
Christianity by an Islamic philosopher would be a project significantly different from Nietzsche's critique
of Christianity. [End Page 80]
Impact Answer
Their root cause claims are false-there is no single cause of events, rather many
different causes
Wallerstein, is an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems
analyst, 97
(Immanuel, an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. His bimonthly
commentaries on world affairs are syndicated, 1997, Binghamton.edu "Eurocentrism and its Avatars:
The Dilemmas of Social Science," http://www2.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/iweuroc.htm, Accessed:
7/6/13, LPS.)
But even if we agree on the definition and the timing, and therefore so to speak on the reality of the
phenomenon, we have actually explained very little. For we must then explain why it is that Europeans,
and not others, launched the specified phenomenon, and why they did so at a certain moment of
history. In seeking such explanations, the instinct of most scholars has been to push us back in history
to presumed antecedents. If Europeans in the eighteenth or sixteenth century did x, it is said to be
probably because their ancestors (or attributed ancestors, for the ancestry may be less biological than
cultural, or assertedly cultural) did, or were, y in the eleventh century, or in the fifth century B.C. or
even further back. We can all think of the multiple explanations that, once having established or at
least asserted some phenomenon that has occurred in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, proceed
to push us back to various earlier points in European ancestry for the truly determinant variable.
There is a premise here that is not really hidden, but was for a long time undebated. The premise is that
whatever is the novelty for which Europe is held responsible in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries,
this novelty is a good thing, one of which Europe should be proud, one of which the rest of the world
should be envious, or at least appreciative. This novelty is perceived as an achievement, and numerous
book titles bear testimony to this kind of evaluation.
There seems to me little question that the actual historiography of world social science has expressed
such a perception of reality to a very large degree. This perception of course can be challenged on
various grounds, and this has been increasingly the case in recent decades. One can challenge the
accuracy of the picture of what happened, within Europe and in the world as a whole in the sixteenth to
nineteenth centuries. One can certainly challenge the plausibility of the presumed cultural antecedents
of what happened in this period. One can implant the story of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in a
longer duration, from several centuries longer to tens of thousands of years. If one does that, one is
usually arguing that the European "achievements" of the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries thereby
seem less remarkable, or more like a cyclical variant, or less like achievements that can be credited
primarily to Europe. Finally one can accept that the novelties were real, but argue that they were less a
positive than a negative accomplishment.
Gendered Language
No Link & Offense No link – language can have different meanings in different context. The K is a
totalitarian attempt at thought policing that should be rejected as dehumanizing
Ross Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, Los Angeles Valley College 2006
(Kelley L. “Against the theory of sexist language”, http://www.friesian.com/language.htm May 26, 2006.
Accessed 7/5/14, ESB)
Such defensiveness and bad faith accompanies the widely held conviction that the theory of "sexist
language" and the program to institute "gender neutral" language are absolutely fundamental to the
social and political project of feminism, to the point where mere criticism of the theory or the project
can themselves be condemned as "sexual harassment" and subject to attempts at legal sanction. The
theory of "sexist language," however, is no credit to feminism, for it is deeply flawed both in its
understanding of the nature of language and in its understanding of how languages change over time.
Since the ideology that there is "sexist language" seeks, indeed, to change linguistic usage as part of the
attempt to change society and forms of thought, the latter is particularly significant. That the public and
the intelligentsia have not been alerted and alarmed long ago that the project of "non-sexist language"
is a clear example of what George Orwell called "New Speak," and is thus the reflex of a totalitarian
ideology, continues to be alarming in its own right. Nor can we be reassured of the innocence of the
goal when the feminist motto, "the personal is political," itself embodies a totalitarian rejection of
privacy, private life, and the domain of civil society -- a Marxist politicization of all human existence.
Nevertheless, the treatment here focuses on the linguistic issues, rather the ideological background, for
which other pages at this site can be consulted.
First of all, the theory of "sexist language" seems to say that words cannot have more than one
meaning: if "man" and "he" in some usage mean males, then they cannot mean both males and
females in other usage (i.e. nouns and pronouns can have both masculine and common gender). This
view is absurd enough that there is usually a more subtle take on it: that the use of "man" or "he" to
refer to males and to both males and females means that maleness is more fundamental than
femaleness, "subordinating" femaleness to maleness, just as in the Book of Genesis the first woman,
Eve, is created from Adam's rib for the purpose of being his companion. Now, the implication of the
Biblical story may well be precisely that Adam is more fundamental than Ev;e, but the Bible did not
create the language, Hebrew, in which it is written. If we are going to talk about the linguistic structure
of Hebrew as distinct from the social ideology of the Bible, it is one thing to argue that the system of
grammatical gender allowed the interpretation of gender embodied in the story of Adam and Eve and
something very much different to argue that such an interpretive meaning necessarily underlies the
original grammar of Hebrew -- or Akkadian, Arabic, Greek, French, Spanish, English, Swahili, etc. -- or
that such a system of grammatical gender requires such an interpretation. What a language with its
gender system means is what people use it to mean. It is an evil principle to think that we can tell
other people what they mean by what they say, because of some theory we have that makes it mean
something in particular to us, even when they obviously mean something else. Nevertheless, there is
now a common principle, in feminism and elsewhere (especially flourishing in literary criticism), that
meaning is only in the response of the interpreter, not in the mind of the speaker, even if the speaker
is to be sued or charged with a crime for the interpreter having the response that they do. There is also
on top of this the Marxist theory of "false consciousness," which holds that "true" meaning follows from
the underlying economic structure, today usually just called the "power" relationships. Most people are
unaware of the power relationships which produce the concepts and language that they use, and so
what people think they mean by their own statements and language is an illusion. The implications of
these principles are dehumanizing and totalitarian: what individual people think and want is
irrelevant and to be disregarded, even by laws and political authorities forcing them to behave, and
speak, in certain ways. But they are principles that make it possible to dismiss the common sense view
that few people speaking English who said "man" in statements like "man is a rational animal" were
referring exclusively to males, even though this usage was clear to all, from the context, for centuries
before feminism decided that people didn't "really" mean that. But even if some speakers really did
mean that, it is actually irrelevant to the freedom of individuals to mean whatever they intend to
mean through language in the conventionally available forms that they choose. What was meant by
the gender system in the languages that ultimately gave rise to Hebrew is lost in whatever it was that
the speakers of those languages were saying to each other; but what we can say about the functioning
of gender systems and about language in general is very different from the claims that the theory of
"sexist language" makes.
No Link - Meanings Fluid
Words are given meaning by their context
Shepherd, Lecturer in International Relations and International Law, 2010
(Laura, March 2010, International Committee Red Cross, “Women, armed conflict and language –
Gender, violence and discourse”, http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/irrc-877-shepherd.pdf,
date accessed 7-4-14, CLF)
This theoretical agenda starts from the premise that no ‘thing’ has a material reality prior to language.
There is no universal and unproblematic initional lexicon to which we as scholars or practitioners can
refer. All concepts come to have meaning through the context of their articulation . This may seem
counter-intuitive. Surely a woman is a woman is a woman, regardless of her ‘context’? This is not in
fact the case, for as we can learn through engagement with poststructural gender theory,11 we can
never ‘fix’ the identity of ‘woman’ independent of context. It may be strategically useful to speak of
women, or directly necessary to speak with women. In some cases it might even be politically
justifiable to speak for women, but we can never assume that we know who we are including and
excluding in the category of ‘women’. Further, we cannot assume that those to whom we speak have
the same understanding of women as we do, that their boundaries of inclusion and exclusion map on
to our own. Finally, even if we were to agree with all concerned that we know what the category of
‘women’ is – that it includes, for example, post-operative male-to-female transsexuals and selfidentified butches and bois12 but excludes, for example, drag queens, female-to-male transsexuals and
self-identified sissies13 – we could not, as the examples given demonstrate, say with any certainty that
we know what ‘woman’ means.
Alternative Fails
Words are fluid and don't just have one meaning – alternative creates linguistic
confusion
Ross PHD Department of Phsycology at Los Angeles Valley College 2006
(Kelley L. “Against the theory of Sexist Language,” http://www.friesian.com/language.htm. May 26, 2006
Accessed 7/4/14, ESB)
The word "sex" -- clearly evocative of an unequivocal demarcation between men and women -- has
been replaced by the pale and neutral "gender," and the words "man" and "he" -- now avoided as if
they were worse than obscenities -- have been replaced by the neuter "person" and by grammatically
confusing, cumbersome, or offensive variants of "he/she" or "she" alone as the pronoun of general
reference. Since it was never even remotely in doubt that when used as a general referent, the male
pronoun included females, this change was never designed to prevent confusion. The change has, on
the contrary, often created confusion. Its purpose is solely ideological. I, for one, want to be free to
refer to "the brotherhood of man" without being corrected by the language police. I want to decide
for myself whether I should be called a chairman, a chairwoman, or a chairperson (I am not a chair). I
want to see My Fair Lady and laugh when Professor Higgins sings, "Why can't a woman be more like a
man?" As a writer, I want to know that I am free to use the words and images of my choosing. It is
common today in public discussion, whether the context is academic, political, or even legal, to take it
for granted that using the word "man," in isolation or as a suffix, to refer to all of humanity, or using
the pronoun "he" where any person, male or female, may be referred to, is to engage in "sexist
language," i.e. language that embodies, affirms, or reinforces discrimination against women or the
patriarchal subordination of women to men. Thus the American Philosophical Association offers
"Guidelines for Non-Sexist Use of Language," which it says is, "A pamphlet outlining ways to modify
language in order to eliminate gender-specific references" -- as though that is an unproblematic, rather
than an Orwellian, goal. Not everyone agrees with this view, and "he" and "man" often seem to creep
inappropriately into the speech of even those who consider themselves above such transgressions;
but the ideology that there is "sexist language" in ordinary words and in the ordinary use of English
gender rarely comes under sustained criticism, even in the intellectual arenas where all things are
supposed to be open to free inquiry. Instead, the inquiry is usually strongly inhibited by quick charges
of "sexism" and by the other intimidating tactics of political correctness.
AT: “Womyn”
Woman is proper and should be accepted—history
Bosustow, Blogger, 13
[Eseld, 6-22-13, Blogspot, “Why I will never use the spelling "womyn”,”
http://eseldbosustow.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-will-never-use-spelling-womyn.html, accessed 7-514, PAC]
One must understand the actual etymology of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) words and their usage in
order to find some sort of gendered issue with a word like "woman". First let me start by pointing out
a fact about Old English and pretty much all Germanic languages: the word "man" has only quite
recently (by standards of language) come to refer to male human beings specifically in the English
language. "Man" has traditional been synonymous with the word "person" in modern usage, or a
human being regardless of sex or gender identity. The modern German word for human beings is
"Menschen".
So in the traditional notion, there's nothing anti-feminine about the word "man", and nothing about it
inherently exclusive of females. The verb "to man", as in "to man the battle stations", comes from this
earlier usage (i.e., "to place persons in the battle stations"). So too is it for some compound words like
"manpower". Even as far back as the early to mid 20th century we understand a more poetic and
archaic usage of "men" to mean "all human beings". Tolkien referred to human begins as the race of
Men. Neil Armstrong references "mankind" in his first steps during his moonwalk, and no one would
make the argument that "mankind" (i.e., the kind of beings known as "men") was in any way exclusive
of females. Gene Roddenberry spoke of worlds "where no man has gone before" despite the fact that
he had women manning his Enterprise (see what I did there?).
This poetical use of "man" is actually the proper use. It can be argued that the current connotation of
"man" as a "male (adult) human being" is actually proper, and I would concede that current usage is
important to consider. But there's no reason why the more ancient usage needs to be forgotten just
because of the current usage of a word, and even contemporary culture is well-aware that "man" can
be used to mean "human" or "person".
So if "man" was never necessarily meant to refer to an adult male, what were the words for adult
males and females? Traditionally these were wīf for what today we call a woman and wer for what
today we call a man, and "man/men" referred to both collectively or as a general word for a person, a
human being. Wīf, of course, is where the modern word "wife" derives, and other derivatives like
"midwife", etc. "Wife" is synonymous with woman (which is why the phrase "man and wife" isn't
entirely offensive except for the misuse of the word "man"... "husband" is the compound word
"house-bond", the person to whose house you were bonded in marriage). We can even see wer still in
use with such words as "werewolf" (i.e., a creature part male human and part wolf... which makes me
wonder if a female werewolf is supposed to be a "wifewolf").
"Woman" is a derivation of the compound word wīfman, which became a necessary distinction once
the word "man" was beginning to replace wer in connotation so that wer would eventually be
redundant. Therefore "woman" is actually redundant as a compound word. It means "female
human-human", since "wife" (or "wo-" in this word) means "female human" and "man" means
"human". Ergo, besides being linguistically and philologically unwieldy, there's nothing offensive about
it, as there's nothing exclusive about the use of "man" in this word.
Ableist Language
No Link
No Correct Rhetoric
Rose, Editor of BBC disability website, 4
(Damon, Oct 4. “Don't call me handicapped!”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3708576.stm, accessed 7/10/12)
But it also raised a thorny question: what words are suitable when talking about disabled people?
The BBC's disability website, Ouch!, regularly get calls about language from people frightened about
"getting it wrong".
Due to popular rubbishing of what is referred to as "political correctness', many disabled
commentators now publicly say they don't care how people refer to them.
But privately they fume if someone calls them "handicapped" or "brave".
Last year Ouch! ran a poll to try and determine what really are the most vilified words and expressions
around disability.
Unsurprisingly "retard" came top as the most offensive followed by "spastic".
TOP TEN WORST WORDS
1. Retard
2. Spastic
3. Window-licker
4. Mong
5. Special
6. Brave
7. Cripple
8. Psycho
9. Handicapped
10. Wheelchair-bound
Worst Words vote in full
When breaking down the figures though, it was interesting to see that disabled people had voted
"special" as fifth most offensive.
"Special service", "special school" and "special needs" are phrases used in an attempt to be positive
about disability.
But in the same way women don't like being elevated to "lady", disabled people find it patronising to be
lifted to the status of special.
It differentiates them from normal, but in a saccharine manner. Disabled people are different, but not
better or more important. Besides, putting them on a pedestal does not appear to be shifting
attitudes or solving the appalling disability unemployment situation.
Clearly, language in this field is a hotch-potch of confusion.
Turn - Policing
Policing of ableist language leaves it unengaged and prevents it from being satirized
and re-deployed by peoples of disability
Vidali, University of Colorado English Department Assistant Professor, 2010
[Amy, 2010, Expertise in Rhetoric and Composition “Seeing What We Know: Disability and Theories of
Metaphor Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, Volume 4, Number 1, page 46-49,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_literary_and_cultural_disability_studies/v004/4.1.vidali.pdf,
Accessed 7-6-14, KMM]
In explaining this project to others, I have found myself saying that I plan to look at why the metaphor of
knowing is seeing is so prevalent, and I have debated the use of such terms as focus, highlight, and clear
as I have drafted and revised. This process has made it obvious that there is no possibility of breaking
the links between metaphor and disability, which is emphasized in a recent discussion of disability
metaphors on the Society for Disability Studies listserv (which generated 19 posts).15 In discussing the
metaphorical concept of “paralysis,” Stephen Kuusisto argued that “disability as a cognitive metaphor is
always pejorative and its use as a trope represents a failure of critical and/or imaginative thinking.” In
response, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson suggested that there is little “‘pure’ language without metaphor” and
that perhaps we can “trope it for new ends.” Growing from this, Anne Finger claimed that she is not
incapable of motion because her right leg is paralyzed, but rather, as she says, “it means I have to find
other, out of the ordinary ways of moving,” and she suggests we avoid taking the “red pencil to all such
language about disability” (Kuusisto, Lewiecki-Wilson, and Finger). This exchange reflects the difficulty
of drawing attention to disability metaphors, as identification can lead to avoidance and the “red
pencil,” rather than thoughtful engagement. To be sure, phrases like totally lame might best be
weeded out of language, but writing off a metaphor like understanding is grasping, because it
assumes a body that can grasp, misses an opportunity to consider the often ignored kinesthetic ways
that many of us learn.
The imperative, then, is not simple avoidance of the knowing is seeing metaphor and other metaphors,
but a willing embrace of the opportunity to diversify our writing to represent a wider range of bodily
and cognitive experience. For example, we can ask students to find the “scents” of previous course
ideas while reading a new article, as an exciting alternative to asking them to “see” the main point. We
might suggest that colleagues taste and digest a new subject, in order to encourage bodily ways of
knowing and interacting that go beyond “witnessing” texts.16 Changing the verb from
see/highlight/envision to a new sensory experience not only recognizes, but creates, new ways of
knowing. In Talking Sketching Moving: Multiple Literacies in the Teaching of Writing, Patricia Dunn
argues that we must engage “visual, aural, spatial, emotional, kinesthetic, or social ways of knowing” (1).
Similarly, so must the language of Disability Studies scholarship and teaching—and the metaphors we
use—represent this diversity, rather than relying on “seeing.”
As May and Ferri note, the disability community must always be “re-deploying disability metaphors in
ironic or agential ways that disrupt simplistic equivalences between disability and social death” (124).
And in a piece on theater and disability, Carrie Sandahl similarly argues, “Exerting some control
overmetaphorical representation in language, theory, politics, and artistic practice is a vital strategy for
radical disability culture,” and she importantly critiques the metaphors that manifest in her own stage
productions (13, also see Tolan). While a mere policing of language is not helpful, disability
communities must actively challenge ableist models and reclaim disability metaphors. Such shifts are
more than playful language: like the impact of she or she or he as third-person pronouns that replace
the supposedly neutral he, these revised metaphors do matter and can facilitate change and awareness,
most immediately in our own communities.
Such reclaiming of disability metaphors is not without controversy. In “An Enabling Pedagogy:
Meditations on Writing and Disability,” Brenda Brueggemann outlines her reclaiming of the “blind
leading the blind” metaphor. She explains that when engaging her students in a discussion of how to
tutor writing, she had two blindfolded students navigate a task together. She quickly explains that this
was “not a sensitivity exercise,” which often leaves those who “simulate” disability “feeling, quite
predictably, lucky and empowered in their ability and full of deeply felt pity for ‘that cripple’” (798).
Instead, she notes how the two blindfolded students worked together to navigate their way across the
quad to a campus building, by asking questions and receiving help from their classmates (799–800). She
claimed that there was an appropriate balance “between enabling their independent success and
fostering a helpful, but not overwhelming, dependence on others,” which models the tutoring
relationship. She concludes that “the blind leading the blind” is a powerful metaphor that indicates that
“[d]isability can create knowledge, open doors wider, build ramps to awareness that we all essentially
have in us anyway. This happens when any body leads anybody” (800).
In an informative footnote, Brueggemann clarifies that some reviewers bristled at the described
exercise, which did have students wearing blindfolds. But I am less worried about the potential harm of
the simulation than I am impressed by what occurred when students enacted this metaphor. Their
behavior contradicted the typical meaning of “the blind leading the blind,” and the metaphor was
claimed, rearticulated, and sent back into the world. As Brueggemann notes, it may be that the “very
negativity” of the “blind leading the blind” metaphor grows from “the fear that when the blind do lead
the blind, they begin to learn from each other; they begin to collaborate, to gain from their shared
knowledge, to grow in and from their widening sense of community” (798). Surely, every disability
metaphor cannot be reinterpreted and reappropriated, and the students may well have silently declared
their appreciation for their sight as they removed the blindfolds. But if such risks aren’t taken, if such
metaphors are not engaged, not only will they not be rearticulated; they will wander further and
further from us. As jokingly suggested by Sobchack in the quote that began this article, our prosthetic
devices and disabilities may not go “dancing without us,” but our metaphors just might, if we do not
actively engage and reinterpret them.
Turn – Commodification
Turn – Making it a voting issue only exacerbates the power relations they claim to
resist – commodifying the lived experiences of PWD for their own academic gain
Kitchin, Prof of Geography, Nat’l Univ of Ireland, 2000
[Rob, “The Researched Opinions on Research: Disabled People and Disability Research,” Disability &
Geography, v15, #1, pp25-47]
Many disabled academics, such as Oliver (1992), are unhappy at the widespread exclusion of disabled
people from disability discourse and call for the adoption of research strategies that are both
emancipatory (seeking 'positive' societal change) and empowering (seeking 'positive' individual change
through participation). They suggest that current research on disability issues is flawed and problematic
in a number of respects. Most crucially, they argue that disability research is not representative of
disabled peoples' experiences and knowledges. This is because, as noted, the vast majority of
research is conducted by non-disabled researchers. They contend that it is only disabled people
who can know what it is like to be disabled and so only disabled people who can truly
interpret and present data from other disabled people. Moreover, they argue that research
concerning disability research is invariably researcher-orientated, based around the desires
and agendas of the (non-disabled) researcher and able-bodied funding agencies, rather than
subject(s) of the research (disabled people; Sample, 1996). Indeed, Oliver (1992) argues that the
traditional 'expert' model of research represents a 'rape model of research' that is alienating, and
disempowcrs and disenfranchises disabled research participants by placing their knowledge
into the hands of the researcher to interpret and make recommendations on their behalf;
that researchers are compounding the oppression of disabled respondents through
exploitation for academic gain.
No Solvency
No solvency, ableist discourses result from views that have been too engrained in
society
MacDougall, McGill University Department of Psychology Associate Professor, 2008
[Jamie C., 2008, Accessibility News, “Disability Metaphors Explained - The Senses Vs. The Brain,”
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/acnews/press/all_articles.php?all=141, Accessed: 7-6-14, KMM]
To summarize, the standard view is that the senses do all the perceiving and thinking. If you lose the
sense - well you have diminished capacity, but if you try real hard you will find other ways to
compensate. As far as language that incorporates this outmoded view, it has been around for so long
and is so thoroughly embedded in all our everyday thinking and great literature, that there is no
reason to give it up. In fact, we would be giving up a substantial part of our literary heritage and
collective identity . Those involved in the long struggle to eliminate sexist language will find this a
familiar refrain.
Generic Answers
Permutation – Do Both
Permutation IS critical discourse analysis - we need to revisit texts on different levels
and ask ourselves if this is the most productive mode of communication and
restructure the texts as need be
McGregor, Mount Saint Vincent University Department of Education Professor, 03*
(Sue, 2003, kappa omicron nu fórum, “Critical Discourse Analysis-- A Primer”,
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
How to Conduct Critical Discourse Analysis
In order to do this, we need some skills to conduct a critical analysis of our own and other’s discourse.
van Dijk (2000) acknowledges that CDA does not have a unitary theoretical framework or methodology
because it is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a range of approaches instead of one
school. The remainder of this primer will draw from these many approaches as it focuses on setting out
some useful skills in critically analyzing written text. One key principle of CDA is that the way we write,
and what we say, is not arbitrary—it is purposeful whether or not the choices are conscious or
unconscious (Sheyholislami, 2001). Also, while CDA can also focus on body language, utterances,
symbols, visual images, and other forms of semiosis (signs and symbols) as means of discourse
(Fairclough, 2002), this paper will be limited to analyzing written language. 2
Huckin (1997) recommends that one first approach a text in an uncritical manner, like an ordinary,
undiscerning reader, and then come at it again in a critical manner. Price (2002) said it well when she
noted that engagement without estrangement is to submit to the power of the text, regardless on
one’s own position, thereby accepting the reading and offering unquestioning support of the status
quo. To offset this "take," coming at it a second time with a critical eye involves revisiting the text at
different levels, raising questions about it, imagining how it could have been constructed differently,
mentally comparing it to related texts. Also, it is important that one does not start to decipher the text
word by word; rather, one should place the text in its genre (type of text including a journal article,
media piece, government position paper, public speech, manual, textbooks, conference paper). Each
genre-orientation has a style of its own set of characteristics that identify it—a template of sorts. We
can all recognize an advertisement (well—it used to be easy until infomercials were invented), a journal
article, a technical manual, a curriculum document, a government position paper--they all have
different building blocks that make them unique from other types of documents. One simple example
is a scientific journal article that typically includes a problem statement, hypotheses, literature review,
theoretical underpinnings, sampling and method, results, analysis and discussion, and conclusions plus
recommendations. Because these rules, for how to structure the genre, belong to the institution that
owns the genre, the genre becomes a means through which the institution extends power.
Power is everywhere and it lies in our discourse—can be both destructive and
productive, creating both power and resistance
Gaventa, European energy infrastructure program Leader, 03
(Jonathan, PowerCube, 2003, “Foucault: power is everywhere”, http://www.powercube.net/otherforms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
Michel Foucault, the French postmodernist, has been hugely influential in shaping understandings of
power, leading away from the analysis of actors who use power as an instrument of coercion, and even
away from the discreet structures in which those actors operate, toward the idea that ‘power is
everywhere’ , diffused and embodied in discourse , knowledge and ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault 1991;
Rabinow 1991). Power for Foucault is what makes us what we are, operating on a quite different level
from other theories:
‘His work marks a radical departure from previous modes of conceiving power and cannot be easily
integrated with previous ideas, as power is diffuse rather than concentrated, embodied and enacted
rather than possessed, discursive rather than purely coercive, and constitutes agents rather than being
deployed by them’ (Gaventa 2003: 1)
Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of ‘episodic’ or
‘sovereign’ acts of domination or coercion, seeing it instead as dispersed and pervasive. ‘Power is
everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure
(Foucault 1998: 63). Instead it is a kind of ‘metapower’ or ‘regime of truth’ that pervades society, and
which is in constant flux and negotiation. Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that
power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’:
‘Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it
induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that
is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances
which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the
techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are
charged with saying what counts as true’ (Foucault, in Rabinow 1991).
These ‘general politics’ and ‘regimes of truth’ are the result of scientific discourse and institutions, and
are reinforced (and redefined) constantly through the education system, the media, and the flux of
political and economic ideologies. In this sense, the ‘battle for truth’ is not for some absolute truth that
can be discovered and accepted, but is a battle about ‘the rules according to which the true and false
are separated and specific effects of power are attached to the true’… a battle about ‘the status of truth
and the economic and political role it plays’(Foucault, in Rabinow 1991). This is the inspiration for
Hayward’s focus on power as boundaries that enable and constrain possibilities for action, and on
people’s relative capacities to know and shape these boundaries (Hayward 1998).
Foucault is one of the few writers on power who recognise that power is not just a negative, coercive or
repressive thing that forces us to do things against our wishes, but can also be a necessary, productive
and positive force in society (Gaventa 2003: 2):
‘We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it ‘excludes’, it
‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact power produces; it produces
reality ; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that
may be gained of him belong to this production’ (Foucault 1991: 194).
Power is also a major source of social discipline and conformity. In shifting attention away from the
‘sovereign’ and ‘episodic’ exercise of power, traditionally centred in feudal states to coerce their
subjects, Foucault pointed to a new kind of ‘disciplinary power’ that could be observed in the
administrative systems and social services that were created in 18th century Europe, such as prisons,
schools and mental hospitals. Their systems of surveillance and assessment no longer required force or
violence, as people learned to discipline themselves and behave in expected ways.
Foucault was fascinated by the mechanisms of prison surveillance, school discipline, systems for the
administration and control of populations, and the promotion of norms about bodily conduct, including
sex. He studied psychology, medicine and criminology and their roles as bodies of knowledge that define
norms of behaviour and deviance. Physical bodies are subjugated and made to behave in certain ways,
as a microcosm of social control of the wider population, through what he called ‘biopower’. Disciplinary and bio-power create a ‘discursive practice’ or a body of knowledge and behaviour
that defines what is normal, acceptable, deviant, etc. – but it is a discursive practice that is nonetheless
in constant flux (Foucault 1991).
A key point about Foucault’s approach to power is that it transcends politics and sees power as an
everyday, socialised and embodied phenomenon. This is why state-centric power struggles, including
revolutions, do not always lead to change in the social order. For some, Foucault’s concept of power is
so elusive and removed from agency or structure that there seems to be little scope for practical action.
But he has been hugely influential in pointing to the ways that norms can be so embedded as to be
beyond our perception – causing us to discipline ourselves without any wilful coercion from others.
Contrary to many interpretations, Foucault believed in possibilities for action and resistance. He was an
active social and political commentator who saw a role for the ‘organic intellectual’. His ideas about
action were, like Hayward’s, concerned with our capacities to recognise and question socialised norms
and constraints. To challenge power is not a matter of seeking some ‘absolute truth’ (which is in any
case a socially produced power), but ‘of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony,
social, economic, and cultural, within which it operates at the present time’ (Foucault, in Rabinow 1991:
75). Discourse can be a site of both power and resistance, with scope to ‘evade, subvert or contest
strategies of power’ (Gaventa 2003: 3):
‘Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it… We must make
allowances for the complex and unstable process whereby a discourse can be both an instrument and
an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling point of resistance and a starting point for an
opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and
exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart’ (Foucault 1998: 100-1).
No Link – Language is Complex
Representations matter, but it is too complex to say that oppression is packaged up
into a single word
Braye, Graduate degree in Communications, 3
[Kerry, 6/20/03, Kelta Advance Learning, “Why do Representations Matter?”,
http://110.164.64.200/FreeWare/program/www.keltawebconcepts.com.au_clipart.htm/www.keltaweb
concepts.com.au/erep1.htm, accessed 7-5-14, PAC]
The world consists of many different cultures involving a diverse range of beliefs, ideas and practices.
Members within these cultures communicate through a system of signs, sharing meanings with each
other and other cultures. These meanings can only be shared through a common access to language
(conceptual maps). However language alone does not produce meaning . Although representation
through language is 'central to the process by which meaning is produced' (Hall, 1997: 1), there are
many other interrelated systems such as discourse and ideology that construct and instruct individuals
in making sense of the world around them, organise and regulate social practices, influence conduct
and have real, practical effects (Hall, 1997: 3). It is the aim of the following discussion to show how
important representation is in constructing not only individual meaning and identity but also the culture
to which those individuals belong, in other words, why representations matter.
The world today and its many technologies have meant that people are exposed to an array of visual
representations representing just about anything. According to Urry (1990), the postmodern person
(post World War II) is a voyeur, someone who sits and gazes. 'This a looking culture' he says, 'organised
in terms of a variety of visual images portraying all things imaginable' in magazines, television, cinema
and the Internet (Urry, 1990: 135) among others. In other words, representations, especially visual,
have become an important part of daily life that influences and constructs meaning about the world
people live in. How meanings are constructed is not a simple process . It is not a simple matter of
gazing at a picture in a magazine, taking meaning from it and then assuming that everyone else will
interpret it the same way. On the contrary, representations change and shift with context, usage and
historical circumstances. They are never finally fixed nor are they always real (fantasies, mermaids,
fairies and so on). Instead 'they are always being negotiated and inflected' (Hall, 1997: 9-10).
Hall's (1997) definition of representation is, 'the process by which members of a culture use language
to produce meaning' (Hall, 1997: 61). This may appear quite simple however the words 'culture',
'language' and 'meaning' involve certain complex systems of representation. Language for example,
involves the process of semiotics (symbols, signs and codes) (Palmer, 1991: 8-9); culture involves the
process of shared sets of concepts, images and ideas (Hall, 1997: 3). It 'is communication', according to
Duncan (1962: 35). Meaning derives from individual experiences, knowledge and understanding,
creating conceptual maps that enable people to relate to 'objects, people, events, abstract ideas' and
so on (Hall in During, 1997: 19). Knowledge and power are related as Foucault (1980) explains. To him,
'elements (discourses, institutions, regulations, morality and so on) are always related to power which in
turn generates knowledge............people acquire their knowledge within institutional frameworks and
this knowledge influenced by power, enables the deciphering, interpreting and understanding of
representations' (Foucault, 1980: 194-196). Institutional frameworks, according to Althusser (1971),
'function by 'ideology'' (Althusser, 1971: 136). They involve apparatuses of culture or what Althusser
refers to as 'ideological state apparatuses' (ISAs). These ISAs are the apparatuses of communication of
which images, meanings and slogans (among others) define the worlds in which people live. Taken as a
whole ISAs guide, define, and expropriate experience; give meaning to them (Denzin, 1992: 98).
Within a constructional approach, systems of representation are 'organised, clustered, arranged and
classified', thus establishing complex relations between them (Hall, 1997: 17). There are many forms of
representation and as Hall (1997) explains, representations may be physical, mental or symbolic and
they vary in abstractness. Physical (visual) representations may be picture-like such as photographs,
drawings, maps and diagrams. They can be language-like, such as natural human languages like English
or French and technical such as computer languages (Hall, 1997: 17-18). These languages may be in the
form of words, facial expressions and gestures (Hall, 1997: 5). Mental representations include emotions,
ideas and concepts. Symbolic representations include any object that symbolises one (sign) or a number
of things (icons) - the simulcra (Palmer, 1991: 8; Denzin, 1992: 98).
Although signs and icons may belong to the same form, they differ in the way they work. A sign such
as the letter 'T' has no meaning in itself; neither does the sign 'R' or 'E'. Even when placed in a
sequence such as 'TREE', the word still has no meaning. It is only when the word is constructed and
fixed by a code, does its meaning make sense and then not to everyone. For example, those who do
not recognise the signs that make up the English language will not recognise the word 'TREE'. It is in the
visual sign of a 'TREE' that concepts may be shared (Hall, 1997: 19-21). The visual sign in this case is
called an icon. Meanings attached to an icon are not fixed. They may be simple such as the 'TREE' (it can
be assumed that most people understand what a tree is) or complex such as sporting champions. For
example, Hayley Lewis (Australian Olympic swimming champion) is often referred to as an Australian
icon. To many subjects, Haley represents success, femininity (textually-mediated discourse), health,
family, motherhood and marriage (positive regimes of representation). For others she represents
depression, obesity (not that she was grossly overweight) and oppression (an object of desire for men
within a patriarchal society) (negative regimes of representation). For any individual, each of these
institutional representations involve different and varied emotional responses. Considered as an
Australian icon, Hayley is required to conduct herself as representative of what constitutes being an
Australian. Shane Warne is perhaps an example of what can happen if this representation is tainted, in
other words, the power within representation (cost him his vice-captaincy and much of his admiring
public, not only within Australia). Whatever the case may be subjects identify with what is being
represented through a process called 'interpellation' (Woollacott, 1986: 206-209; Greenfield and
Williams, 1991: 125).
Language and discourse change depending on context—you cannot pin down the
meaning of words
Lascarides, University of Edinburgh Division of Informatics Professor, 07
(Alex, Nicholas Asher (Department of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin), 2007, The University of
Edinburgh, “Segmented Discourse Representation Theory: Dynamic Semantics with Discourse
Structure*”, date accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
At least two important ideas emerged from research on discourse interpretation in the 1980s.
First, dynamic semantics changed the way linguists think about meaning: instead of viewing
the content of a discourse as the set of models that it satisfies (e.g., Montague (1974), Davidson
(1980)), dynamic semantics views it as a relation between contests knows as the context change
potential or CCP (eg., Kamp (1981), Groenendijk and Stokhof (1991)). Secondly, Al-based research
demonstrated that discourse structure is a necessary component of discourse interpretation (eg.,
Hobbs (1985), Mann and Thompson (1987), Grosz and Sinder (1986)). Both these insights address the
need to model how the interpretation of the current sentence is dependent on the interpretation of
the sentences that precede it, but they differ in their aims and execution. Dynamic semantics typically
explores a relatively restricted set of pragmatic phenomena, focusing on the effects of logical structure
on anaphora of various kinds. For example, it predicts the difference in acceptability of the pronouns in
(1a) vs. (1b): Discourse structure in dynamic semantics is thus determined entirely by the presence of
certain linguistic expressions such as if, not, every, and might. The process of constructing logical form
is equally simple, either using only syntax and the form of the logical forms of clauses but not their
interpretations (e.g., Kamp and Reyle (1993)), or using in addition notions such as consistency and
informativeness (e.g, van der Sandt (1992)). In contrast, many Ai approaches to discourse interpretation
aim to model implicatures generally. Including the interpretation of pronouns (eg., Hobbs et al. 1993)).
These theories emphasize the roles of the commonsense reasoning with non-linguistic information such
as domain knowledge and cognitive states. For example, Hobbs (1985) argues that such reasoning is
necessary for inferring the he in binds to Bill rather than John.
No Link – Meanings Change
The words we use are in a constant state of change—it is impossible to pin down the
meaning of a word—they mean different things for different people
Price, Monash University Language and Learning Service support provider, 99
(Steve, Autumn 1999, TESOL Quarterly, “Critical Discourse Analysis: Discourse Acquisition and Discourse
Practices”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3587683, accessed 7-4-14, CLF)
I have questioned the idea that discourse is an objective entity over which one can attain mastery.
Rather than viewing discourse and the subjects engaged in it as social products (as attaining fixed,
social characteristics), one might see both as constantly open to new forma- tions, that is, in states of
transformation and instability. Any attributed form or stability is an objectifying retrospective
construction, as are the perceived realities in which discourses are embedded. Thus I suggest that
discourse acquisition is a matter of engagement in a productive process rather than of mastery over
and reproduction of constitutive discourse properties. This production is performative in that subject,
discourse, and its reality are produced in the moment of instantiation. The practice here is not a
reproduction and perfecting of independently existing ideal forms by an autonomous subject. The social,
then, does not simply produce discourse types over which subjects obtain mastery. Rather, the social
permeates the productive process itself. The represen- tation of discourse and subject as objects of
understanding privileges and idealises certain elements over others and fails to capture the
contingent convergence of many elements at a unique moment in time and space in which meaning is
enacted. The objective view of discourse subordinates discourse practice to discourse representation. I
suggest here, by contrast, that discourse practice (which is what discourse acquisition entails) cannot be
so subordinated. In acquiring a discourse, one is engaged precisely in taking up a new subject position,
entering a new reality, occupying a new discursive position as subject, and making new
representations.4 The subject does not simply mirror the social (or simply act out social roles;
Widdowson; 1996, p. 58); rather, individual actions are given a meaning in a social context that is
independent of individual intentions 5 and irreducible to individual consciousness. Discourse
acquisition can be seen as a matter of engagement in the social production of such a discourse and its
apparent rules instead of as a matter of conforming to and reproducing the defining features of a
discourse object. The contingency of each instantiation of discourse demands that the differences, as
well as any discernible regularities between such instantiations, be accorded value. Discourse reality
and subject are enacted only at the moment of instantiation. Thus perhaps, as Brandt (1990) suggests,
literacy (and discourse) "is not a matter of learning how statements stick together but rather of how
people stick together through literate (or discursive) means" (p. 6). The descriptions of discourse, which
in critical approaches provide the key for interven- tion, and the rules and conventions often seen as
defining a discourse and therefore as elements to be taught are in turn a metadiscursive construction.6
The force of discourse, then, may lie in what is performed by it, and this is not determined by what can
be said about it or by subject intentions.7 It is not mediated as such by the individual even though the
agency of the subject is crucial to discursive instantiation.
Discourse Doesn’t Shape Reality
Discourse can’t shape reality – 4 warrants
Roskoski and Peabody, Assistant General Counsel, AP, 94
(Matthew, Joe, 10-26-94, Florida State University, “A Linguistic and Philosophical Critique of Language
‘Arguments’”, http://debate.uvm.edu/Library/DebateTheoryLibrary/Roskoski&Peabody-LangCritiques,
date accessed 7-4-14, CLF)
Initially, it is important to note that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis does not intrinsically deserve
presumption, although many authors assume its validity without empirical support. The reason it does
not deserve presumption is that "on a priori grounds one can contest it by asking how, if we are unable
to organize our thinking beyond the limits set by our native language, we could ever become aware of
those limits" (Robins 101). Au explains that "because it has received so little convincing support, the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has stimulated little research" (Au 1984 156). However, many critical scholars
take the hypothesis for granted because it is a necessary but uninteresting precondition for the claims
they really want to defend. Khosroshahi explains: However, the empirical tests of the hypothesis of
linguistic relativity have yielded more equivocal results. But independently of its empirical status,
Whorf's view is quite widely held. In fact, many social movements have attempted reforms of
language and have thus taken Whorf's thesis for granted. (Khosroshahi 505). One reason for the
hypothesis being taken for granted is that on first glance it seems intuitively valid to some. However,
after research is conducted it becomes clear that this intuition is no longer true. Rosch notes that the
hypothesis "not only does not appear to be empirically true in any major respect, but it no longer even
seems profoundly and ineffably true" (Rosch 276). The implication for language "arguments" is clear:
a debater must do more than simply read cards from feminist or critical scholars that say language
creates reality. Instead, the debater must support this claim with empirical studies or other forms of
scientifically valid research. Mere intuition is not enough, and it is our belief that valid empirical
studies do not support the hypothesis. After assessing the studies up to and including 1989, Takano
claimed that the hypothesis "has no empirical support" (Takano 142). Further, Miller & McNeill claim
that "nearly all" of the studies performed on the Whorfian hypothesis "are best regarded as efforts to
substantiate the weak version of the hypothesis" (Miller & McNeill 734). We additionally will offer four
reasons the hypothesis is not valid. The first reason is that it is impossible to generate empirical
validation for the hypothesis. Because the hypothesis is so metaphysical and because it relies so
heavily on intuition it is difficult if not impossible to operationalize. Rosch asserts that "profound and
ineffable truths are not, in that form, subject to scientific investigation" (Rosch 259). We concur for two
reasons. The first is that the hypothesis is phrased as a philosophical first principle and hence would not
have an objective referent. The second is there would be intrinsic problems in any such test. The
independent variable would be the language used by the subject. The dependent variable would be
the subject's subjective reality. The problem is that the dependent variable can only be measured
through self- reporting, which - naturally - entails the use of language. Hence, it is impossible to
separate the dependent and independent variables. In other words, we have no way of knowing if the
effects on "reality" are actual or merely artifacts of the language being used as a measuring tool . The
second reason that the hypothesis is flawed is that there are problems with the causal relationship it
describes. Simply put, it is just as plausible (in fact infinitely more so) that reality shapes language.
Again we echo the words of Dr. Rosch, who says: {C}ovariation does not determine the direction of
causality. On the simplest level, cultures are very likely to have names for physical objects which exist in
their culture and not to have names for objects outside of their experience. Where television sets exists,
there are words to refer to them. However, it would be difficult to argue that the objects are caused by
the words. The same reasoning probably holds in the case of institutions and other, more abstract,
entities and their names. (Rosch 264). The color studies reported by Cole & Means tend to support this
claim (Cole & Means 75). Even in the best case scenario for the Whorfians, one could only claim that
there are causal operations working both ways - i.e. reality shapes language and language shapes reality.
If that was found to be true, which at this point it still has not, the hypothesis would still be scientifically
problematic because "we would have difficulty calculating the extent to which the language we use
determines our thought" (Schultz 134). The third objection is that the hypothesis self- implodes . If
language creates reality, then different cultures with different languages would have different
realities . Were that the case, then meaningful cross- cultural communication would be difficult if not
impossible. In Au's words: "it is never the case that something expressed in Zuni or Hopi or Latin cannot
be expressed at all in English. Were it the case, Whorf could not have written his articles as he did
entirely in English" (Au 156). The fourth and final objection is that the hypothesis cannot account for
single words with multiple meanings. For example, as Takano notes, the word "bank" has multiple
meanings (Takano 149). If language truly created reality then this would not be possible. Further, most if
not all language "arguments" in debate are accompanied by the claim that intent is irrelevant because
the actual rhetoric exists apart from the rhetor's intent. If this is so, then the Whorfian advocate cannot
claim that the intent of the speaker distinguishes what reality the rhetoric creates. The prevalence of
such multiple meanings in a debate context is demonstrated with every new topicality debate, where
debaters spend entire rounds quibbling over multiple interpretations of a few words.1
Language and discourse don’t shape reality—All evidence that says so is flawed
Lund, Manchester Metropolitan University Psychology Senior Lecturer, 03
(Nick, Language and Thought, pg 12-13, (google books), CLF)
The strong version of the LRH has been criticised on a number of grounds. Lenneberg and Roberts
(1956) pointed out that Whorf had put forward a circular argument. He argued that because languages
differ, thinking must differ. However, he did not study thought, and any evidence of differences in
thought came from an examination of language. In other words he proposed that there must be
differences in thought because he had found differences between languages. Another consistent
criticism of Whorf has been of the evidence he used. For example, Garnham and Oakhill (1994) describe
how Whorf translated Native American languages into English in a 'simpIistic, word-by-word’ fashion (p.48). This results in apparently unusual combinations of words which Whorf uses as evidence of
differences in thinking. However, anyone who has studied another language soon realises that wordfor-word translations do not work since they usually result in nonsense sentences. One of the difficult
aspects of learning another language is to understand the meaning of idiomatic phrases since Literal
translations seem meaningless. Imagine, for example, translating the English sentence ‘lt’s raining cats
and dogs’. Any Literal translation would seem to be very strange. The fact that we can translate the
intended meaning from one language to another despite the linguistic differences suggests a
universality of thought. Greene (1975) also criticises the way Whorf' translated Native American
languages into English. She points out that if we were to do a similar translation from English into Hopi
there would be a number of anomalies. For example, English does not use gender terms for objects
except for animals and people yet there is a tendency to refer to boats as female (‘she’s a fast ship’].
Should the Hopi conclude that English speakers have a strange belief that boats are female or should
they regard it as a figure of speech? Garnham and Oakhill (1994) also believe that Whorf’ s use of'
‘evidence’ about the different number of words for snow used in Inuit and English is invalid. They argue
that differing numbers of words are needed because of the needs of the environment not because of
any fundamental differences in thought. They note that one group of English speakers, skiers, do have a
number of' different words for snow, but these are not equivalent to the Inuit terms because of the
differing needs. There is little or no evidence that language determines thought and any evidence that
has been presented is seriously flawed. The strong version of the LRH does not seem to be a plausible
theory.
Discourse doesn’t shape reality – reality is more complex than the words we use
Kocher, Author and Philosopher, 2000
[Robert L., November 13, 2000, The Laissez Faire City Times, “Discourse on Reality and Sanity,”
4 (46), http://members.citynet.net/theanalyticpapers/reality1.htm, accessed 7-6-14, J.J.]
While it is not possible to establish many proofs in the verbal world, and it is simultaneously possible
to make many uninhibited assertions or word equations in the verbal world, it should be considered
that reality is more rigid and does not abide by the artificial flexibility and latitude of the verbal world.
The world of words and the world of human experience are very imperfectly correlated. That is, saying
something doesn't make it true. A verbal statement in the world of words doesn't mean it will occur as
such in the world of consistent human experience I call reality. In the event verbal statements or
assertions disagree with consistent human experience, what proof is there that the concoctions
created in the world of words should take precedence or be assumed a greater truth than the world of
human physical experience that I define as reality? In the event following a verbal assertion in the
verbal world produces pain or catastrophe in the world of human physical reality or experience, which
of the two can and should be changed? Is it wiser to live with the pain and catastrophe, or to change
the arbitrary collection of words whose direction produced that pain and catastrophe? Which do you
want to live with? What proven reason is there to assume that when doubtfulness that can be
constructed in verbal equations conflicts with human physical experience, human physical experience
should be considered doubtful? It becomes a matter of choice and pride in intellectual argument. My
personal advice is that when verbal contortions lead to chronic confusion and difficulty, better you
should stop the verbal contortions rather than continuing to expect the difficulty to change. Again, it's
a matter of choice. Does the outcome of the philosophical question of whether reality or proof exists
decide whether we should plant crops or wear clothes in cold weather to protect us from freezing? Har!
Are you crazy? How many committed deconstructionist philosophers walk about naked in subzero
temperatures or don't eat? Try creating and living in an alternative subjective reality where food is not
needed and where you can sit naked on icebergs, and find out what happens. I emphatically encourage
people to try it with the stipulation that they don't do it around me, that they don't force me to do it
with them, or that they don't come to me complaining about the consequences and demanding to
conscript me into paying for the cost of treating frostbite or other consequences. (sounds like there is a
parallel to irresponsibility and socialism somewhere in here, doesn't it?). I encourage people to live
subjective reality. I also ask them to go off far away from me to try it, where I won't be bothered by
them or the consequences. For those who haven't guessed, this encouragement is a clever attempt to
bait them into going off to some distant place where they will kill themselves off through the process of
social Darwinism — because, let's face it, a society of deconstructionists and counterculturalists filled
with people debating what, if any, reality exists would have the productive functionality of a field of
diseased rutabagas and would never survive the first frost. The attempt to convince people to create
and move to such a society never works, however, because they are not as committed or sincere as they
claim to be. Consequently, they stay here to work for left wing causes and promote left wing political
candidates where there are people who live productive reality who can be fed upon while they continue
their arguments. They ain't going to practice what they profess, and they are smart enough not to leave
the availability of people to victimize and steal from while they profess what they pretend to believe in.
A2: Shapes Reality
Discourse does not shape reality – translation proves that it’s the other way around.
Tuathail, Professor of Government and International Affairs, 1996
[Gearóid, 6/7, “The patterned mess of history and the writing of critical geopolitics: a reply to Dalby,
Political Geography” 15: p 661-5, retrieved 7/5/14, WZ]
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse and
concerns of foreign-policy decision makers are quite different, so different that they constitute a
distinctive problemsolving, theory-averse, policy-making subculture. There is a danger that academics
assume that the discourses they engage are more significant in the practice of foreign policy and the
exercise of power than they really are. This is not, however, to minimize the obvious importance of
academia as a general institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in
particular states. In general, I do not disagree with Dalby’s fourth point about politics and discourse
except to note that his statement-‘Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways
political decisions could be taken, troops and material moved and war fought’-evades the important
question of agency that I noted in my review essay. The assumption that it is representations that
make action possible is inadequate by itself. Political,military and economic structures, institutions,
discursive networks and leadership are all crucial in explaining social action and should be theorized
together with representational practices. Both here and earlier, Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a
form of idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that
his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He analyzes certain CPD discourses, root the
geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration nor its public-policy reasoning on
national security. Dalby’s book is narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan
administration is not dealt with. Second, let me simply note that I find that the distinction between
critical theorists and poststructuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn by Dalby and others.
Third, Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow as heavily
influenced by dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that ignores the
structural and ideological crises facing the Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachev’s reforms and his new
security discourse were also strongly selfinterested, an ultimately futile attempt to save the Communist
Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon Dalby in his
comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics. While I agree
with Dalby that questions of discourse are extremely important ones for political geographers to
engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this concern with discourse so that we neglect the institutional
and the sociological, the materialist and the cultural, the political and the geographical contexts
within which particular discursive strategies become significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words,
should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical cant that sometimes accompanies
‘poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to
always be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
Discourse doesn’t shape reality
Jarvis, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of British
Columbia, 2000
[Darryl, 7/11 International relations and the challenge of postmodernism, p. 190, retrieved
7/5/14, WZ]
The simple and myopic assumption that social change can be engineered through linguistic policing of
politically incorrect words, concepts and opinions, is surely one of the more politically lame (idealist)
suggestions to come from armchair theorists in the last fifty years. By the same token, the suggestion
that we engage in revisionism of the sort that would "undo" modernist knowledge so that we might
start again free of silences, oppressions, and inequalities also smacks of an intelligentsia so idealist as
to be unconnected to the world in which they live. The critical skills of subversive postmodernists,
constrained perhaps by the success of the West, of Western capitalism, if not liberal democracy, as the
legitimate form of representation, and having tried unsuccessfully through revolution and political
uprising to dethrone it previously, have turned to the citadel of our communal identities and attacked
not parliaments, nor forms of social-political-economic organization, but language, communication, and
the basis of Enlightenment knowledge that otherwise enables us to live, work, and communicate as
social beings. Clever though this is, it is not in the end compatible with the project of theory
knowledge and takes us further away from an understanding of our world. Its greatest contribution is
to celebrate the loss of certainty, where, argues John O'Neill, "men (sic) are no longer sure of their ruling
knowledge and are unable to mobilize sufficient legitimation for the master-narratives of truth and
justice." To suppose, however, that we should rejoice collectively at the prospects of a specious
relativism and a multifarious perspectivism, and that absent any further constructive endeavor, the
great questions and problems of our time will be answered or solved by this speaks of an intellectual
poverty now famed perversely as the search for "thinking space."
Policy making comes before discourse
Policy action must come before language discourse—makes worse inequalities
invisible
Taft-Kaufman, CMU Department of speech communication, 95
(Jill, and dramatic arts professor, “Other Ways: Postmodernism and performance praxis,” Southern
Communications Journal, Vol. 60, Iss. 3, Pg. 222, CLF)
The postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by substantial
analysis of the concrete contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The political sympathies of
the new cultural critics, with their ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by
marginalized people, aligns them with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial posture and talk
of opposition, their discourses on intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate them from and ignore
the conditions that have produced leftist politics--conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short, as
Clarke (1991) asserts, postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects , those who
have limited access to good jobs, food, housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the
media that depict them. Merod (1987) decries this situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or
commitment to activism. He notes that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the
absence of focused collective or politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic
manifestations of this problem Di Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a
historical era characterized by as little radical analysis or activism and as much radical-chic writing as
ours? Maundering on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become a lazy
academic substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities of
Western racial minorities, white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of
the postmodern elevation of language to the "sine qua non" of critical discussion is an even stronger
indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The Postmodern Condition in which
Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the
coercion that threatens speech that we enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this
assertion, Clarke replies: I can think of few more striking indicators of the political and intellectual
impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the discursive. If the worst terror we can
envisage is the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate
contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?),
but its projection onto the rest of the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm of the discursive
is derived from the requisites for human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of
ideas or symbols.(4) Nutrition, shelter, and protection are basic human needs that require collective
activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying
analysis of how the discursive emerges from material circumstances hides the complex task of
envisioning and working towards concrete social goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material
conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the purview of the postmodernist, the
situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups. Robinson
(1990) for example, argues that "the justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual"
(p. 571). Lopez (1992) states that "the starting point for organizing the program content of education or
political action must be the present existential, concrete situation" (p. 299). West (1988) asserts that
borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness" blinds us to realities of American
difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986)
acknowledges are "fuzzy about power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255), most
writers from marginalized groups are clear about how discourse interweaves with the concrete
circumstances that create lived experience. People whose lives form the material for postmodern
counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the optimism over the new recognition of their discursive
subjectivities, because such an acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical
and current struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not
appreciate being told they are living in a world in which there are no more real subjects. Ideas have
consequences. Emphasizing the discursive self when a person is hungry and homeless represents both
a cultural and humane failure. The need to look beyond texts to the perception and attainment of
concrete social goals keeps writers from marginalized groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how
power works through political agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.
Alternative Doesn’t Solve
-Languages grow and change constantly— it would take political authority to change
the way we speak grass roots movements won’t solve
Ross, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy retired Professor, 06*
(Kelley L., 2003, Friesian, “Against the Theory of ‘Sexist Language’”,
http://www.friesian.com/language.htm, accessed 7-5-14, CLF)
To reform a natural language like that, we would have to set up some political authority to decide
what changes to make and then spend many decades coercing people into following the preferred
forms: all to produce something that often happens spontaneously anyway, has progressed almost
completely to the loss of gender in English already, and never in the past with the slightest effect on the
structure of society. So why bother with all the grief and recriminations of trying to impose a feminist
New Speak? But perhaps that is the point. All the grief gives ideologues something else with which to
browbeat people and a completely phony issue through which to claim political authority over how
people speak, in all innocence and good will, in natural languages. It can even translate into the
introduction of virtual political commissars, often with punitive powers, into schools, workplaces,
churches, etc. to monitor incorrect speech. And that is the kind of power that ideologues like.
But the conceptual error underlying this kind of thing didn't originate with feminism; it is the heritage of
once popular but now discreditable theories about the nature of language -- that how
we talk determines how we think (to paraphrase something the semanticist S.I. Hayakawa actually said
-- a kind of linguistic behaviorism) and that the structure of language creates the structure of the world
(promoted by the philosopher Wittgenstein and his recent followers). If we talk with grammatical
gender, so this goes, then this determines not only that we think in exactly the same way but that the
grammatical structure is projected into the world.
In fact, as the counterexamples indicate, such linguistic structures as gender determine little about
thought and nothing about the world. Grammar is usually just grammar, nothing else. It is used to
express meaning -- it does not determinemeaning. But the most significant assumption and the
greatest hybris in the theory of "sexist language" is just that language and linguistic change
are controllable, and so can be controlled by us, if we wish to. But language is not anything that can be
planned or controlled. Languages grow and change spontaneously . The kind of theory that properly
can describe the development of language is one that credits events with the capacity for
developing spontaneous natural order. Theorists of such order range from the great naturalist Charles
Darwin, to the great economist F.A. Hayek, and to the great philosopher Karl Popper.
*Last date cited
Censorship DA
Censorship destroys aesthetics and makes us never ask questions about our
discourse—it’s equivalent to burning books
Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, 79
[Ray, “Coda to Fahrenheit 451”, reprinted by cato.org, http://www.cato.org/blog/censoringray-bradbury, accessed 7-4-14, PAC]
About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she
enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles. But, she added, wouldn't
it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women's characters and roles?
A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining
that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn't I "do them over"?
Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the
blacks and the entire story should be dropped.
Two weeks ago my mountain of mail delivered forth a pipsqueak mouse of a letter from a well-known
publishing house that wanted to reprint my story "The Fog Horn" in a high school reader.
In my story, I had described a lighthouse as having, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was
a "God-Light." Looking up at it from the viewpoint of any sea-creature one would have felt that one was
in "the Presence."
The editors had deleted "God-Light" and "in the Presence."
Some five years back, the editors of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume
with some 400 (count 'em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe,
Maupassant and Bierce into one book?
Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that
counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito--out! Every simile
that would have made a sub-moron's mouth twitch--gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit
philosophy of a first-rate writer--lost!
Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepencilled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story.
Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like--in the finale--Edgar Guest.
Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one
instant's attention--shot dead.
Do you begin to get the damned and incredible picture?
How did I react to all of the above?
By "firing" the whole lot.
By sending rejection slips to each and every one.
By ticketing the assembly of idiots to the far reaches of hell.
The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book . And the world is full of people
running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen
Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-Day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels
it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees
himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine
and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by
minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the
books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever.
"Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the
door," are the words to an old song. They fit my life-style with newly arriving butcher/censors every
month. Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine
Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the
novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the
future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is
having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place.
A final test for old Job II here: I sent a play, Leviathan 99, off to a university theatre a month ago. My
play is based on the Moby Dick mythology, dedicated to Melville, and concerns a rocket crew and a blind
space captain who venture forth to encounter a Great White Comet and destroy the destroyer. My
drama premiers as an opera in Paris this autumn. But, for now, the university wrote back that they
hardly dared do my play--it had no women in it! And the ERA ladies on campus would descend with
ballbats if the drama department even tried!
Grinding my bicuspids into powder, I suggested that would mean, from now on, no more productions of
Boys in the Band (no women), or The Women (no men). OR, counting heads, male and female, a good
lot of Shakespeare that would never be seen again, especially if you count lines and find that all the
good stuff went to the males!
I wrote back maybe they should do my play one week, and The Women the next. They probably thought
I was joking, and I'm not sure that I wasn't.
For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant,
orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite,
simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every
group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their
rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons like not my plays, let them
write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar
school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake
dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my
"Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall.
For, let's face it, digression in the soul of wit. Take philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or
Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions,
incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal
winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer--he steps forth like a bridegroom, bits
them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.
In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my
works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or
whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.
All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I
run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try.
And no one can help me. Not even you.
Turn – Trivializes Oppression
Discourse doesn’t change the reality of oppression.
Zavarzadeh, Department of English at Syracuse, 1994
[Mas’ud, “The Stupidity that Consumption is Just as Productive as Production”, The Alternative Orange,
V 4, Fall/Winter 1994, JSTOR, accessed 7-5-14, J.J.]
The unsurpassable objectivity which is not open to rhetorical interpretation and constitutes the
decided foundation of critique is the “outside” that Man: calls the “Working Day” (Capital I , 340-416).
(R-4 willfully misrecognizes my notion of Objectivity by confusing my discussion of identity politics and
objectivity.) The working day is not what it seems: its reality, like the reality of all capitalist practices,
is an alienated reality-there is a contradiction between its appearance and its essence. It “appears” as
if the worker, during the working day, receives wages which are equal compensation for his labor. This
mystification originates in the fact that the capitalist pays not for “labor” but for “labor power”: when
labor power is put to use it produces more than it is paid for. The “working day” is the site of the
unfolding of this fundamental contradiction: it is a divided day; divided into “necessary labor”-the part in
which the worker produces value equivalent to his wages-and the “other,” the part of “surplus labor”-a
part in which the worker works for free and produces “surplus value.” The second part of the working
day is the source of profit and accumulation of capital. “Surplus labor” is the objective fact of capitalist
relations of production: without “surplus labor” there will be no profit, and without profit there will be
no accumulation of capital, and without accumulation of capital there will be no capitalism. The goal of
bourgeois economics is to conceal this part of the working day, and it should therefore be no surprise
that, as a protector of ruling class interests in the academy, R-2, with a studied casualness, places
“surplus value” in the adjacency of “radical bible-studies” and quietly turns it into a rather boring matter
of interest perhaps only to the dogmatic. To be more concise: “surplus labor” is that objective,
unsurpassable “outside” that cannot be made up& of the economies of the “inside” without capitalism
itself being transformed into socialism. Revolutionary critique is grounded in this truth-objectivity-since
all social institutions and practices of capitalism are founded upon the objectivity of surplus labor. The
role of a revolutionary pedagogy of critique is to produce class consciousness so as to assist in organizing
people into a new vanguard party that aims at abolishing this FACT of the capitalist system and
transforming capitalism into a communist society. As I have argued in my “Post-ality” [Transformation I],
poststructuralist theory, through the concept of “representation,” makes all such facts an effect of
interpretation and turns them into “undecidable” processes. The boom inludic theory and Rhetoric
Studies in the bourgeois academy is caused by the service it renders the ruling class: it makes the
OBJECTIVE reality of the extraction of surplus labor a subjective one-not a decided fact but a matter of
“interpretation”. In doing so, it “deconstructs” (see the writings of such bourgeois readers as Gayatri
Spivak, Cornell West, and Donna Haraway) the labor theory of value, displaces production with
consumption, and resituates the citizen from the revolutionary cell to the ludic shopping mall of R-4.
Now that I have indicated the objective grounds of “critique,” I want to go back to the erasure of
critique by dialogue in the post-a1 left and examine the reasons why these nine texts locate my critiqueat writings and pedagogy in the space of violence, Stalinism and demagoguery. Violence, in the port-al
left, is a refusal to “talk”. ’‘To whom is Zavarzadeh speaking?” asks OR - 5, who regards my practices to
be demagogical, and R-3, finds as a mark of violence in my texts that “The interlocutor really absent”
from them. What is obscured in this representation of the non-dialogical is, of course, the violence of
the dialogical. I leave aside here the violence with which these advocates of non-violent conversations
attack me in their texts and cartoon. My concern is with the practices by which the left, through
dialogue, naturalizes (and eroticizes) the violence that keeps capitalist democracy in power . What is
violent? Subjecting people to the daily terrorism of layoffs in order to maintain high rates of profit for
the owners of the means of production or redirecting this violence(which gives annual bonuses, in
addition to multi-million dollar salaries, benefits and stock options, to the CEO’s of the very corporations
that are laying off thousands of workers) against the ruling class in order to end class societies? What is
violent? Keeping millions of people in poverty, hunger, starvation, homelessness, and deprived of
basic health care, at a time when the forces of production have reached a level that can, in fact,
provide for the needs of all people, or trying to over throw this system? What is violent? Placing in
office, under the alibi of “free elections,” post-fascists (Italy) and allies of the ruling class (Major, Clinton,
Kohl, Yeltsin) or struggling to end this farce? What is violent? Reinforcing these practices by “talking”
about them in a “reasonable” fashion(i.e. within the rules of the game established by the ruling class for
limited reform from “within”) or marking the violence of conversation and its complicity with the
status quo, thereby breaking the frame that represents “dialogue” as participation-when in fact it is
merely a formal strategy for legitimating the established order? Any society in which the labor of
many is the source of wealth for the few-all class societies are societies of violence, and no amount of
“talking” is going to change that objective fact.“Dialogue” and “conversation” are aimed at arriving at
a consensus by which this violence is made more tolerable, justifiable and naturalized.
Toxic Dialogue Turn/Apology Good
Policing language is bad—it makes our dialogue toxic and turns effective strategies for
change
Blankenship, Producer at Thought Catalog, 14
[Jessica, 2-11-14, Thought Catalog, “How Language Policing and Hyper-Sensitivity are
Ruining Social Dialogue”, http://thoughtcatalog.com/jessica-blankenship/2014/02/how-languagepolicing-and-hyper-sensitivity-are-ruining-social-dialogue/, accessed 7-5-14, PAC
There’s really no refuting the need for people to be conscientious when discussing things. We should be
as respectful and considerate as possible, especially when it comes to talking or writing about topics
and issues that are emotionally charged for some people. Sensitivity and kindness are immensely
important, and frequently underused components to a healthy dialogue. That said (you knew that was
coming), the internet has become such a hotbed of calling each other out that it’s painfully difficult to
talk about anything of importance at all. Has the policing of how we talk about issues replaced
actually talking about them?
Criticizing what people publicly offer up – writing, speaking, social media, etc. – has always been a
thing. Criticism and discussion are the desired, necessary results of someone putting forth an idea in the
first place, or offering their commentary. It’s how a dialogue starts, and under that best circumstances,
it’s the means by which greater understanding is reached and possibly new ideas are born. As civilized
humans, this is some shit we like to do, and it’s theoretically awesome.
Here’s the problem: Circumstances lately are not the best. In fact, the overall environment for our
collective social and cultural dialogue has become toxic almost to the point of paralysis. It’s getting to
the point where everything – a new book, article, TV show, song, magazine pictorial, and on and on – is
immediately examined, picked apart, and violently criticized for its many failures to be perfectly
adherent to every shade of political correctness (which are innumerable and rapidly multiplying.) Our
filters for seeing things as sexist, victim-blaming, racist, homophobic, transphobic, slut-shaming, rape
culture (to name a paltry few) have become so finely tuned that, at this point, it’s possible to see these
offensive qualities in just about anything. And, naturally, whichever filter corresponds to our personal
identity or experience tends to be the one we see more readily, although that’s not exclusively the
case.
Before I continue, I want to clarify: I think it is invaluable that we are calling attention to how these
super important issues manifest themselves. The myriad ways in which damaging precedents pop up in
every day life are the details where oppression actually happens. Bringing attention to them isn’t being
over-analytical about insignificant details – it’s being appropriately analytical because the details are
the foot soldiers of bullshit. I think it’s amazing that we are seeing these things more, and talking
about them, and de-normalizing things that have heretofore been heinously interwoven into the
common fabric of society. I see through these filters. I have these discussions. I feel outrage. I hope for
better. I am in no way calling for a mitigation of these efforts. I am not telling us to “calm down”
about this stuff. Don’t ever calm down about it.
Here’s what I’m calling for: For us to calm down with each other on a personal level when talking
about sensitive issues. Because that’s where all of our potential for real progress is falling apart. We
are policing each other to death, and forgetting that we are not (most of the time) each other’s
enemies. And when we let someone’s flawed handling of an issue make them an enemy, we might be
costing ourselves a potential ally.
Trolls DA
Policing language generates more jerks who try to hurt with words for fun: turns the K
Shackford, Reason 24/7 Associate Editor, 14
[Scott, 3-28-14, reason.com, “Policing Language Gives Ammunition to the Trolls”,
http://reason.com/archives/2014/03/28/policing-language-gives-ammunition-to-th,
accessed 7-5-14, PAC]
These calls to ban words, these references to all behaviors that make us feel bad as "bullying," and the
very concept of "trigger warnings," an Internet/college phenomenon where the public is expected to
warn adults in advance that they may talk about issues (like assault) where some may have personal,
traumatic experiences, push the responsibility for individuals’ well-being onto the world around them.
Not only is this unrealistic nonsense, it is an abnegation of one’s own ability to thrive and cope in a
complex world. It is the opposite of evolution and maturation.
And it’s dangerous. That is what the trolls know. "Don’t say these terrible things that wound me
psychologically," we say. "I’m going out of town for a week and keeping my door unlocked. Please
don’t rob my house," is what the troll hears. Obviously, we want the people who matter in our lives—
our family, friends, children, co-workers—to respect us and not use hurtful language against us. It’s
perfectly reasonable to ask your significant other or your children not to call you or anybody else
"bossy." But the world at large doesn’t care about your emotional state. They have their own problems
to deal with. Don’t expect strangers to care what you think about the word "bossy" any more than they
care what you think about the weather, the upcoming elections, or last night’s episode of Scandal. The
strangers who do pay attention may well be jerks looking to use your publicly revealed vulnerabilities
to screw with your head.
AT: Butler
Double bind: either our language frames our mindset, which subjugates even further,
or our language frames the subject, which is solved through our mindset
Vasterling, Radboud University Nijmegen, Philosophy and Gender Studies, Associate
Professor, 99
[Veronica, Summer 1999, “Butler’s Sophisticated Constructivism: A Critical Assessment”,
Hypatia vol. 14, no. 3, pg 19 PAC]
Butler's deconstruction of the body as a natural given results in the claim that the body is always
already linguistically constructed. Obviously, this claim evokes the charge of linguistic monism: doesn't
the claim entail a sort of linguistic metaphysics of the body? What needs to be examined, however, is
the exact import of this claim: is it an ontological or an epistemological claim? Does the claim entail
that the body is ontologically coextensive with its linguistic constructions, in other words, that the body
is nothing but a collection of linguistic constructions? Or does it imply that the body is only
epistemologically accessible as a linguistically constructed body? Only the former, not the latter, would
justify the charge of linguistic monism.
I examine two lines of argument that in Butler`s opinion undercut the charge of linguistic monism. The
first one, concerning the notion of referentiability, can be construed as a general epistemological
argument about language and its relation to reality. The second argument is more complex, beginning
from the claim that language is the condition of the appearance of materiality. The import of this claim
is ambiguous; it can be construed as either ontological or epistemological. Though l conclude that
Butler succeeds in refuting the charge of linguistic monism. the way in which she solves this problem
raises new questions. On the one hand, she ends up defending an epistemological position that is not
only too restrictive but also, in my opinion, has negative consequences for a feminist and queer theory
of the body. On the other hand, certain passages suggest another, more phenomenological approach
that, though hardly elaborated, opens an interesting and more fruitful perspective on such a theory.