Quotations #098

"They are very fond of wine, and drink it in large quantities. It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberation, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine." -- Herodotus, on the Persians

“a heroic tenor, not a hero… A dreamer, a numbskull, a man without ideas, without strength of purpose, in a word: stupid” -- Oswald Spengler, on Adolf Hitler.

"Rationalism is at bottom nothing but criticism, and the critic is the reverse of a creator: he dissects and he reassembles; conception and birth are alien to him. Accordingly his work is artificial and lifeless, and when brought into contact with real life, it kills." -- Oswald Spengler, The Hour of Decision

"Romanticism is not a sign of powerful instinct, but, on the contrary, of a weak, self-detesting intellect. They are all infantile, these Romantics; men who remain children too long (or for ever), without the strength to criticise themselves, but with perpetual inhibitions arising from the obscure awareness of their own personal weakness; who are impelled by the morbid idea of reforming society, which is to them too masculine, too healthy, too sober." -- Oswald Spengler, The Hour of Decision

“Every work of man is artificial, unnatural… This is the beginning of man’s tragedy — for Nature is the stronger of the two.” -- Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics (1931 ).

(Spengler quotes from NYRB)

"Does your Mr. Winkie need upgrading?" -- Anonymous ED Spam

I am a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Objectivist

After posting this, I realized a little editorial commentary might be useful. My comments are in italics

Your Score: N-A-O

You scored 77% Non-Reductionism, 77% Epistemological Absolutism, and 55% Moral Objectivism!

You are an N-A-O: a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Objectivist. If you are simply dying inside to figure out what all this mumbo-jumbo means, then simply continue reading.

Metaphysics: Non-Reductionism (Idealism or Realism) In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or Non-Reductionism. As a Non-Reductionist, you recognize that reality is not necessarily simple or unified, and you thus tend to produce a robust ontology instead of carelessly shaving away hypothetical entities that reflect our philosophical experiences. [I think the test designer has a pretty clear preference here] My test recognizes two types of Non-Reductionists: Idealists and Realists.

1. Idealists believe that reality is fundamentally unknowable. All we can ever know is the world of sense experience, thought, and other phenomena which are only distorted reflections of an ultimate (or noumenal) reality. Kant, one of the most significant philosophers in history, theorized that human beings perceive reality in such a way that they impose their own mental frameworks and categories upon reality, fully distorting it. Reality for Kant is unconceptualized and not subject to any of the categories our minds apply to it. Idealists are non-reductionists because they recognize that the distinction between phenomenal reality and ultimate reality cannot be so easily discarded or unified into a single reality. They are separate and distinct, and there is no reason to suppose the one mirrors the other. Major philosophical idealists include Kant and Fichte.

If your views are different from the above, then you may be a Realist. 2. Realists deny the validity of sloppy metaphysical reductions, because they feel that there is no reason to suspect that reality reflects principles of parsimony or simplicity. Realism is the most common-sensical of the metaphysical views. It doesn't see reality as a unity or as reducible to matter or mind, nor does it see reality as divided into a phenomenal world of experience and an unknowable noumenal world of things-in-themselves. Realist metaphysics emphasizes that reality is for the most part composed of the things we observe and think. On the question of the existence of universals, for instance, a realist will assert that while universals do not physically exist, the relations they describe in particulars are as real as the particular things themselves, giving universals a type of reality. Thus, no reduction is made. On the mind-body problem, realists tend to believe that minds and bodies both exist, and the philosophical problems involved in reducing mind to matter or matter to mind are too great to warrant such a reduction. Finally, realists deny that reality is ultimately a Unity or Absolute, though they recognize that reality can be viewed as a Unity when we consider the real relations between the parts as constituting this unity--but it doesn't mean that the world isn't also made up of particular things. Aristotle and Popper are famous realists.

[This is a tough one. The Idealist position has a strong post-modern feel; the Realist position seems closer to the pragmatic approach which I think represents my position. I'm not entirely sure, from these descriptions, how these two positions are opposed to each other]

*****

Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism) My test measures one's tendency towards Absolutism or Skepticism in regards to epistemology. As an Absolutist, you believe that objective knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test are Rationalists and Pragmatists.
[Maybe it's a measure of my philosophical unsophistication that I think both positions have merit, but I don't see a contradiction between believing that some objective knowledge is possible but that ultimate reality is likely beyond our comprehension]

1. Rationalists believe that the use of reason ultimately provides the best route to truth. A rationalist usually defines truth as a correspondence between propositions and reality, taking the common-sense route. Also, rationalists tend to believe that knowledge of reality is made possible through certain foundational beliefs. This stance is known as foundationalism. A foundationalist believes that, because we cannot justify the truth of every statement in an infinite regress, we ultimately reach a foundation of knowledge. This foundation is composed of a priori truths, like mathematics and logic, as well as undoubtable truths like one's belief in his or her own existence. The belief that experiences and memories are veridical is also part of the foundation. Thus, for a rationalist knowledge of reality is made possible through our foundational beliefs, which we do not need to justify because we find them to be undoubtable and self-evident. In regards to science, a rationalist will tend to emphasize the foundational assumptions of scientific inquiry as prior to and more important than scientific inquiry itself. If science does lead to truth, it is only because it is based upon the assumption of certain rational principles such as "Every event is caused" and "The future will resemble the past". Philosophy has a wide representation of philosophical rationalists--Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz, and many others.
["Self-evident" works best for ethical propositions, and mathematical ones]

If that didn't sound like your own views, then you are most likely the other type of Absolutist: the Pragmatist. 2. Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of a proposition's success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible through scientific reasoning. A pragmatist emphasizes man's fallibility, and hence takes baby-steps towards knowledge through scientific methodology. Any truth claim for a pragmatist is open to revision and subject to change--if empirical observations lead us to call even logical rules into question (like quantum physics has done for the law of the excluded middle), then we can and should abandon even these supposed a priori and "absolutely certain" logical rules if they do not accord with our testing and refuting of our various propositions. As a consequence of this, a pragmatist doesn't feel that scientific knowledge is based upon unfounded assumptions that are taken to be true without any sort of justification--rather, they believe that the successes of scientific inquiry have proved that its assumptions are well-founded. For instance, the assumption of science that the future will be like the past is adequately shown by the amazing success of scientific theories in predicting future events--how else could this be possible unless the assumption were true? Pragmatism borrows elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of philosophical opportunism--it borrows the best stances from a large number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of these systems by combining them with others. Famous pragmatists of this type are Peirce and Dewey.
["Philosophical opportunism": Yup, that's me!]

*****

Ethics: Objectivism (Deontology or Logical Positivism) In Ethics, my test measures your tendency towards moral Objectivism or moral Relativism. As a moral Objectivist, you are opposed to Subjectivist moral theories and believe that morality applies to people universally and actually describes objects and situations out in the world as opposed to just subjects themselves. The two types of moral Objectivists my test recognizes are Kantian Deontologists and Utilitarians.
[I didn't come out strongly Objectivist, which makes sense. This is definitely an area where I'm on the fence. Which is, probably, very ironic.]

1. Kantian Deontologists believe that the one intrinsic good is a good will. As rational beings capable of making decisions, the moral worth of our decisions is ultimately derived from the intentions behind our actions, not their consequences. A moral being does the right thing not out of recognition of any consequences, but out of a sense of moral duty. For Kant, a good will is the ultimate good because to deny the will is to deny the one thing that makes us rational, moral beings. If an act will accord with or further our status as free, rational beings, and it is possible to will the universalization of such a moral principle without infringing upon our good wills, then an act is good. Kant's categorical imperative provides an objective standard to judge moral worth--it is not hypothetical in the sense of other imperatives, which hide a latent if-clause. For instance, "Eating razors is good" is good ONLY if you tack on an if-clause that says something like: "If you wish to destroy your gums." Thus, the categorical imperative is good, not just IF something is the case, but in ALL cases. It requires people to treat others as ends, and not means to ends, for to treat everyone as a means to an ends would be to deny them their ability to function as rational, free beings--which is what makes morality possible in the first place. The major proponent of this view in the history of philosophy is, quite obviously, Kant.
[I've always liked the formulation "treat others as ends, and not means to ends" but the overweening nature of Kant's arguments doesn't help me much.]

If that didn't sound like your position, then you are probably the other variety of moral Objectivist--the Utilitarian. 2. Utilitarians define "happiness" or "pleasure" as the sole intrinsic good, and the principle "The greatest pleasure for the greatest number" best reflects a Utilitarian view of ethics. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral theory, meaning the consequences of an action--not the intentions behind it--determine the act's moral worth. Even if you intended to do great evil with a certain act, if the act produces a net gain of pleasure and happiness for the greatest number, then it was indeed a good act because your intentions weren't realized. What matters in this scenario, obviously, is the consequences of the act. Utilitarianism, of course, can also be reduced to Hedonism. If you do not feel that the greatest happiness of the greatest number matters, but only pay heed to the greatest happiness of individuals, then you are more adequately classified as a Hedonist. But both Utilitarians and Hedonists define "pleasure" as an intrinsic good and determine the moral worth of an act through its consequences. The only difference is whether we measure the collective pleasure of a group or only an individual's pleasure. Prominent Utilitarians include Bentham and Mill.

[Mill -- that's my guy. But John Stuart, not his dad, and there's a healthy dose of rights, not just opportunities, there.]
*****

As you can see, when your philosophical position is narrowed down there are so many potential categories that an OKCupid test cannot account for them all. But, taken as very broad categories or philosophical styles, you are best characterized as an N-A-O. Your exact philosophical opposite would be an R-S-R.

Link: The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test [via]

Funny Quiz, Predictable Result

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com via

The quiz itself is pretty goofy: one book to build a civilization, naked pyramids, historical revisionism. But I can't argue with the result, can I?

This just in....

In 2006, this was a really useful blog. In a calculation based on number of posts, number of inbound links from other blogs and especially inbound links from high-ranking blogs, Ahistoricality was ranked 24th in usefulness to answer the question "If I can read 100 blogs, which should I read to be most up to date?" I actually made the cut for high efficiency, too. It's a good thing I was ranked high, because I don't read any of the other blogs in the top 100, unless someone I do read links to them.

What does it mean? Well, if I ever go looking for a paid blogging gig, it might be worth something, I suppose. Anyone looking to hire a history-minded news junkie with a digital photography habit?

P.S.: All you folks coming here from the various reprints of the list of influential blogs might be a little disappointed to learn that I'm on hiatus, more or less. Sorry, but I highly recommend working through my blogroll if you want to learn something!

Ref: Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks
Jure Leskovec, Andreas Krause, Carlos Guestrin, Christos Faloutsos, Jeanne VanBriesen, Natalie Glance.
ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (ACM KDD), 2007.

Censored Stories: Have you Heard?

As in the past, I give you the Project Censored and WorldNetDaily lists for most underreported stories of the past year or two. Like last year, I'm going to bold the ones I've heard of.

WorldNetDaily, "10 most underreported stories of 2006," January 3, 2007

1. Plans under way for North American Union:
2. Wave of murders and other crimes by illegal aliens
3. Female teachers sexually preying on their students
4. Mideast terror leaders favor Democrats
5. Manipulated war photos by major news outlets
6. New revelation showing that contrary to his claims, Sandy Berger deliberately hid classified documents
7. Iran leader's apocalyptic end-times vision
8. Two border agents face heavy prison time for injuring a drug smuggler they thought was armed
9. Mega-pastor Rick Warren praising Syria
10. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg snoozing for 15 minutes during oral arguments

ProjectCensored, "Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008,"

# 1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
# 2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
# 4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
# 5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
# 6 Operation FALCON Raids
# 7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
# 8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
# 9 Privatization of America’s Infrastructure
# 10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations’ Debt Relief
# 11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan
# 12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
# 13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants
# 14 Impunity for US War Criminals
# 15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a “Second Genetic Code”
# 16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
# 17 Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations
# 18 Mexico’s Stolen Election
# 19 People’s Movement Challenges Neoliberal Agenda
# 20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
# 21 US Seeks WTO Immunity for Illegal Farm Payments
# 22 North Invades Mexico
# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
# 24 Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President
# 25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?

I've heard of seven of the ten WND stories, a strong majority, and about half -- twelve of the twenty-five -- PC stories (six of the top ten, though, which is comparable to the WND list). Most of the WND stories I heard about through mainstream sources, and heard debunked through sources like Orcinus. Most of the PC stories I read through Tom's Dispatch (via HNN) or progressive blogs like Progressive Historians and Sideshow, though a lot of the top ten were reported by mainstream outlets (just not hammered into the ground).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled hiatus.

Kinda Dorky Grammar Nerd, Artiste Demi-god, Founding Emperor and worthless General, worth more than my own car as a corpse

Killing time, clearing out bloglines, that sort of stuff. Haven't done quizzes in a while. Not likely to do them again for a while. Hiatus continues.....

Your Score: Orpheus

0% Extroversion, 66% Intuition, 72% Emotiveness, 71% Perceptiveness

You are an artist, an aesthete, a sensitive, and someone who has never really let go of that childlike innocence. To you, all of life has a sense of wonder in it, and the story of Orpheus was written about someone just like you.

When the Argo passed the island of the Sirens, Orpheus played a song more beautiful than the Sirens to prevent the crew from becoming enticed. When his wife died, he ventured into the underworld to charm Hades but, in his naivete, he looked back becoming trapped there.

You can capture your unique world view and relate it to others with the skill of a master storyteller. Your sensitivity and creativity make you a treasure to the human race, but your thin-skinned nature and innocence can cause you a lot of disenchantment and pain. What's doubly unfortunate is that, if you try to lose those traits, you never will, and everyone will be able to tell that you're putting up an artificial shell to prevent yourself from being hurt.

Famous people like you: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mr. Rogers, Melville, Nick Tosches
Stay clear of: Icarus, Hermes, Atlas

Link: The Greek Mythology Personality Test [via]

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz [via]

[via]

You scored as Augustus, You are Augustus! First emperor of the Romans and one of the greatest statesmen in the ancient world. You brilliantly eased the old Republic into the Principate and set the path for an empire that would last for centuries and form the underpinnings for all western civilization. Hail Caesar! Augustus 86% Antoninus Pius 68% Marcus Aurelius 68% Claudius 64% Hadrian 54% Tiberius 54% Nerva 46% Trajan 43% Vitellius 43% Commodus 39% Vespasian 36% Domitian 36% Nero 36% Caligula 18% Which Roman Emperor Are You? created with QuizFarm.com [via]

You scored as General George McClellan, Beloved by your men and respected by your peers, you are the architect of the grand Army of the Potomac. Too bad you don't like to let it, you know, fight and stuff. I'd be lying if I said I knew where your head was at. General George McClellan 80% William T. Sherman 70% General James Longstreet 65% General Ambrose Burnside 55% General Jeb Stuart 55% Robert E. Lee 50% General Nathan Bedford Forrest 45% U.S. Grant 40% Stonewall Jackson 30% General Phillip Sheridan 15% Which American Civil War General are you? created with QuizFarm.com [via]

$4790.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. [via]

Art or Garbage? A Photo Essay

What is public space? What do we have a right to do in public space? What is art?

Art or Garbarge? This lovely bow was planted firmly in the middle of a parking lot. Accidental, I'm sure, but somehow charming, as though someone tried to make the parking lot pretty as a birthday present.

I've seen people work on cars in auto part store parking lots. I've seen bright, colorful packaging on green grass before. I'd never seen evidence of car servicing in a University parking lot before.

A subtle adjustment to the environment can create mystery, a sense of adventure. In this case, I still wonder what the story is. How did the traffic cone end up under the river? Was it flung from the bridge? From the bank? Brought there just to see if it floated? Removed from a despised repair site?

One of the things I love about the camera is the way in which you can look places you'd never be able to see otherwise. This is looking down an old pipe, probably a defunct water or sewer pipe, which stands open to the sky in a small downtown are. It never ceases to amaze me, really, the creative ways people find for hiding their garbage. It never ceases to amaze me now lazy and unthinking people are about their garbage: there are garbage pails all over downtown....

This was stencil painted on a downtown traffic signal control box (At least, I think that's what it was; it was near a traffic signal, anyway), and it's a clever little piece. The three masked and big-haired women on a three-person bike, how well-armed they are, the money bags in the bicycle's wire baskets at the back. Again, there's a story here, this time a much more deliberate one. Traffic control boxes don't usually tell stories. I found another interesting piece of graffitti here (mildly risque), demonstrating another way to apply art to public spaces quickly: it's drawn on to a sticker (a US mail address label). The two layers of drawing seem to have nothing to do with each other, artistically or thematically (nor do either of them speak to the medium of the address label).

The ark was soundproof?

Continuing our visual series, here is something I saw in a public park playground recently:

Let me repeat, this was a public park, county operated. The text reads as follows:

(upper right): Once there was a man named Noah who was warned by God of a great flood. Noah began to build an ark that was 450 feet long, 75 feet high and 45 feet wide.
(upper center): The ark was built with cypress (gopher) wood that was coated, both inside and outside, with a tar-like substance to make the ark waterproof and soundproof. The ark had three levels with one door.
(upper left): Seven days before the flood came, Noah began to stock the ark with food and he led the land animals, birds, reptiles and his family two by two into the ark.

(middle right): It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and the whole earth was covered with water. With water from the sky and from inside the earth, the flood waters rose more than 20 feet above the highest peak.
(center): Living creatures outside of the ark died from the flood but all that were in the ark were safe. [picture of ark]
(middle left): Once it stopped raining, the ark floated 150 days and nights. Then the ark came to rest upon a large mountain top.
(lower right): After living more than a year inside the ark, Noah sent a raven and a dove out to see if the earth was dry. The dove returned with an olive branch and Noah knew that soon it would be safe to return outside.
(lower middle): When Noah, his family and all the animals left the ark, a large beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. The rainbow signified God's promise that the earth would never again be destroyed by water.
(lower left): Noah took about 100 years to build the ark. Noah was 600 years old when it was completed and 950 years old when he died.

Separation of Church and State, anyone?

I'm trying to figure out some of the odder details. The conversions of cubits to feet is a little haphazard, but not surprising in a child-oriented setting. I don't remember ever hearing about the ark being soundproof before, though, nor that Noah stocked the ark in seven days, after spending a century building it (My JPS version of the text suggests a bit less than a year inside the ark, not a bit more, though). There seems to be some particular tradition here that I'm not familiar with, or else it's both unconstitutional and incompetent.

Pictures: Family Quilts

I thought I'd try something a little different this weekend, and do a series of visual Open Threads over at Progressive Historians based on my own photography and experience. I thought I'd lead off with something I promised I'd share a long time back: some family quilts.

Quilting has a long distinguished tradition in the US, though not as distinguished as some think, and is a fantastic medium. There are a few quilters in my spouse's midwestern family, and a few quilt traditions, as well as interesting innovations.

The first quilt (on the right) was a hand-embroidered (but machine-quilted, for you purists) bedspread given to us for our wedding by my spouse's grandmother. All the siblings in that generation got one, with unique designs. Definitely a family treasure.

The second quilt (on the left) was made by one of my spouse's great-aunts, a lively lady who haunts dollar stores and made quilts incessantly (still, I think, but we haven't visited the homestead in a while) with fabrics that catch her eye. A visit to her home invariably involved a quilt-showing, and if you like something, odds are pretty good that you can take it home. She calls this pattern an "Indian Blanket" though it's obviously a loose interpretation. The bright colors and black/white sections make it a perfect baby quilt, actually, and it still graces our child's bed sometimes. The third quilt (on the right) is another of her productions. I don't think there's any deep meaning to the pattern -- the basic design of triangular pieces is supposed to represent a windmill, I think -- but it's very typical of her tendency to mix and match things that aren't conventionally used in a patchwork.

The last quilt (on the left) was made by my mother-in-law. The print pieces from the Three Bears/Three Pigs stories are from a commercial kit, I'm fairly sure, but the borders, etc, are hand-pieced. If you click on it and look close, you'll see that the words have been embroidered extra-thick to allow my blind spouse to tell which picture is which. We told these stories over and over, of course, using this quilt.

Any interesting quilt stories in your family?

Progressive Engagement With Disability

Penny Richards reminds me that -- as Tom Lehrer so memorably put it long before a disabiilty rights community existed -- the annual "make fun of the handicapped" event is going to happen again. For the last few years, there have been protests against Jerry Lewis and his Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon, and they are going to continue.

I'm something of a neophyte in the area of disability theory, though I have a personal interest as well as a historical one. Scholars who study disability distinguish between three models of disability: charity, medical and social. The Charity model is the oldest: the disabled are seen as being a burden, less than fully human, objects of pity, and their survival and lifestyle is determined by the sufferance and generosity of others. The Medical model is more recent: it defines the disabled as imperfect humans, deviants who should be fixed, to the extent that it is possible. "Find a cure" is the cry, and anything less than a cure is a pity. Perhaps the epitome of this view in recent culture is Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (spoiler alert) in which an athlete chooses death over a disabled life.

The Social model is most recent, and it is at the heart of the disability rights movement. The Social model sees disability in a much more nuanced fashion: disabilities do not affect the whole person (usually), but are part of a continuum (multi-dimensional) of abilities. The "challenge" of disability does not come from the disability itself, but from the ways in which society structures living spaces and habits of interaction with the assumption of ability. That normative assumption of ability is, of course, terribly flawed, because not everyone who's considered "able bodied" is equally so, and the vast majority of the population will experience at least temporary mobility, sensory or cognitive restrictions over the course of a lifetime -- thus the term "temporarily able-bodied." The Social model seeks access, adaptation and accomodation: technological and medical tools to solve problems; architectural, educational and employment changes to increase access for everyone; educating the broader public on the specific nature of disabilities, the essential and full humanity of the disabled, and the general utility of accomodations.

There are two other significant strains within the disability rights movements. The Social theory described above informs a pretty wide swath of disability civil rights activists, but not all of them. There are two other notable positions, each predicated on a negation of an older model: Overcoming/Passing and Separating.

Within the blindness community, activists centered on the National Federation for the Blind approach blindness as an inconvenience equivalent to left-handedness

The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight. The real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of information that exist. If a blind person has proper training and opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a physical nuisance.

That sounds a lot like the Social model, but it's really an inversion of the Charity model: with technology (though the NFB has qualms about it, often pushing traditional low-tech solutions) and good education (emphasizing fully-blind mobility: NFB training centers insist that students with low vision wear blinders and guide dog users abandon them for the duration), the blind can overcome their blindness so they are not at all dependent on the sufferance of others. This extends to an actual philosophical objection to aggressive pursuit of Americans with Disability Act (ADA) "reasonable accomodation" changes, on the grounds that it compromises the independence of the blind to rely on sighted society adapting to their needs. I've heard the organization described as trapped in the "denial" and "anger" stages of grief.

There is also a long-standing tradition, most common among people with limited forms of disability (partial hearing loss, partial vision loss, some mobility issues, etc.) who are the children of "able-bodied" parents, of adapting to the disability by hiding it as much as possible, and "mainstreaming" as many activities as possible. You don't hear it as much any more, but there was a time when it was common for hearing parents of deaf children to refuse to learn sign language, forcing the children to focus on lip reading and vocalization. There was a time when visually impaired children with some sight, or with degenerative conditions, were not taught braille, on the grounds that they should use the sight they have, as much and as long as they have it. In both cases, the families are trying to help -- there's no real malice here, most of the time: we're talking about well-meaning people with flawed ideas -- by keeping their children from acquiring the markers of disability: "passing" instead of adapting. Again, this is an inversion of the Charity model, arguing that the disabled should aspire to emulate ability and eschew adaptation, as though one could "build up strength" and "avoid contagion" and therefore improve one's lot.

Then there is the "Deaf Community"/Pride model: arguing that ASL, etc., constitutes a distinct culture, smaller and different but no less legitimate than the Hearing Culture that surrounds it. This is an inversion of the Medical model: instead of seeing disability as a flawed version of a normative body, disability is a new norm to be celebrated rather than cured. I might include the Paralympics in this model as well, but I'm open to other arguments: my spouse seems to think that it's a reasonably healthy Social model adaptation. (Special Olympics definitely falls in the Charity category) Disability Pride activists strive for separateness: their heroes are the ones who focus their attentions primarily on the disability community itself, who articulate new artistic and cultural forms (or at least themes [or at least identities]) for and about disability. Deaf Pride activists have been known to refuse to authorize cochlear implant surgery which could restore partial hearing; it becomes controversial sometimes when Deaf parents of Deaf children decide to forego the surgery to keep their children within the community.

As a social historian with more than a touch of post-modernism in my system, I suppose that I'm kind of predisposed to see the Social model as "right": Ability and Disability are abstract categories, and the new medical, engineering and digital technologies are blurring the distinction even more than ever. The rising tide of aging Baby Boomers is going to make adaptation to sensory and mobility loss considerably more necessary, common, and economical.

The Medical model, all-or-nothing, cure-or-doom, is grossly outdated. "Lifestyle drugs" and "five-year survivor" and "living with the virus" are the new medical models anyway: everyone needs maintenance and we're still gonna die. The Charity model is just premodern: it's unrealistic and psychologically unsound for everyone involved. The converse positions -- passing/denial and separatism/pride -- are understandable reactions but inflexible and of limited utility to a very small portion of the relevant population.

As an historian, and as a progressive, the Social model and the disability civil rights movements are the key components of the future. If it requires raising loud objections to grossly outmoded public displays of self-indulgent do-gooding, so be it.
[Crossposted to Progressive Historians]