The quote of the week for this week (though it’s only Thursday) extends my examination, in previous “quote of the week” posts, of the distinctly tendentious ways in which philosophers deploy ableist language to signify allegedly natural defect with respect to a purportedly universal intelligence and the material and institutional effects of these discursive practices.

As I indicated in the previous posts (here and here), philosophers (not unlike members of the general public) routinely deploy ableist language in order to add rhetorical force to their arguments and the positions that they endorse, that is, to make their claims seem more compelling, as in, for instance: “How could you not accept this belief/that position/this argumentative claim? You’d have to be an X not to do so”—where X is a disabled person, someone perceived to be naturally defective with respect to cognition and intelligence. Or, as in, for instance: “How could you hold/not hold that view? What are you, an X? Only an X would argue/not argue in that way”—where X is a disabled person, someone perceived to be naturally defective with respect to cognition and intelligence.

One form that this derogatory rhetorical device takes is at work in “The Phantasmagoric World of Judith Butler,” philosopher Alex Byrne’s review essay of Judith Butler’s latest monograph; that is, ableist language can be identified in more than one place in Byrne’s essay, including in the paragraph below. As Byrne’s essay shows, they seem to enjoy playing with fonts and emphases in their writing; thus, I have followed suit:

“Why would anyone be afraid of gender?” is the opening of the book’s lengthy introduction. Afraid of what, though? The expectation that Butler will explain what “gender” means is briefly raised only to be dashed at the end of the first paragraph, where Butler says that the “myriad, continuing debates about the word show that no one approach to defining, or understanding, gender reigns” (3). She is certainly right that “gender” is used in a bewildering variety of ways, but some of her examples in the first paragraph are baffling. Allegedly, some “presume that the word is synonymous with ‘women.’” Others take “gender” to be a “covert way of referring to ‘homosexuality.’” Who are these lunatics? Butler gives no citations.

As with the term idiot that I discussed last Thursday, the term lunatics (or, the singular, lunatic) that Byrne cavalierly invokes in the passage above has notoriously earned pride of place in the histories of the oppression of disabled people. The term is notorious, with a notorious history, due to the discursive and disciplinary social and economic effects to which it has contributed and the attendant material consequences and productive constraints that these effects continue to entail for certain disabled people in the present, including by and through practices of surgical, physical, and pharmaceutical torture; involuntary confinement; humiliation and degradation; segregation and ostracism; homelessness and food insecurity.

Byrne appears indifferent to these histories and their effects or is uninformed about them, seeming to assume that, in the context of their essay, the term lunatics can operate disinterestedly, ahistorically, and inoffensively as parody of the definitive dismissal, of the ultimate disparagement, the ultimate take-down.

In Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability and other contexts, I (by all accounts, convincingly) argue that the prevailing conception of disability in philosophy, according to which disability is a personal defect, natural disadvantage, or personal misfortune, is inextricably intertwined with the exclusion of disabled people from the profession of philosophy. It is likely not a coincidence that there are no disabled philosophers of disability on the faculty of the Linguistics and Philosophy Department at MIT where Byrne is employed to conduct research and teach. Nor are there courses in the MIT Linguistics and Philosophy Department in philosophy of disability or Madness.

Insofar as none of Byrne’s colleagues brings critical philosophical analyses of disability into the MIT Linguistics and Philosophy Department, Byrne may not be familiar with philosophical arguments against ableist language in particular, nor apprised of philosophical arguments about the performative and material constitution of ableism as a form of structural oppression in academia and a structural injustice in society more broadly. If this is the case, then Byrne may also be unaware of the fact that disabled people are regarded as a legally protected class in the United States, both federally and at the state level, that is, are regarded as a class of people protected against discrimination and harassment, which the ableist language deployed in the review seems to contravene.

A restorative-justice approach to Byrne’s ableist transgressions seems apt. Indeed, I would suggest that members of the Linguistics and Philosophy Department at MIT ought to regard the ableism of Byrne’s review as evidence that at least some of the faculty in their department require professional development training with respect to disability and ableism.

Imagine that you are a disabled student in one of Professor Byrne’s seminars and you have been assigned their review essay on Butler’s book as part of your coursework. How would you feel? Would you feel welcome and motivated in that learning environment? Would you feel a sense of belonging in philosophy? Would you feel embarrassed or ashamed? Would you feel respected by your philosophy professor? Would you feel respect for philosophers? (Why) Would you want to continue in philosophy?

Recommendations for Reading:

Chapman, Robert. 2023. Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism. Pluto Press.

Dolmage, Jay T. 2017. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. University of Michigan Press.

Frazer-Carroll, Micha. 2023. Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health. Pluto Press.

Jeppson, Sofia. 2024. Exemption, Self-exemption, and Compassionate Self-excuse. In The Bloomsbury Guide to Philosophy of Disability, edited Shelley Lynn Tremain. Bloomsbury Academic.

Price, Margaret. 2011. Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life. University of Michigan Press.

Tremain, Shelley L. 2017. Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability. University of Michigan Press.