March 28, 2017 - 00:24
"...Imagine a building in which political philosophers are debating the value and the purpose of participatory parity...Now imagine that the building has no access ramps, no Braille or large-print publications, no American Sign Language interpreters, no elevators, no special-needs paraprofessionals, no in-class aides...Only when we have fostered equal participation in debates over the ends and means of democracy can we have a truly participatory debate over what 'participatory parity' itself means." -Berube 198-9
I found this quote particularly striking as a political science major. Especially in my political philosophy class last semester, I sometimes feel as though I am one of those political philosophers debating in an inaccessible room. We discuss politics at length, debating the merits of one system over another, evaluating which ones are "better," or which ones make a society "more equal" -- but how can we be truly critical of structures of oppression when we exist in a space that upholds these structures and excludes many types of people?
One example of this was in the aforementioned political philosophy class, when we discussed Aristotle's idea of "natural slaves." Aristotle categorized humans, distinguishing them from animals for their ability to understand and follow logic. Some humans, he argued, only have the ability to follow logic, not understand it. These humans are still more "rational" than animals, but they are naturally predisposed to slavery, because they can't think for themselves in the way other humans can; therefore, it is the duty of the "more developed" humans to enslave them. This resembles Berube's discussion of how the "ideas of independence and autonomy set performance criteria for being human."
The professor asked us to either refute or support Aristotle's argument, and the recurring theme in almost everyone's argument was that they could absolutely concede that there were some people who were less "intelligent" than others -- who were "natural followers" -- but they did not feel comfortable with saying that that justified slavery.
I think that questions of ability and disability, unspoken, were sitting in everyone's mind -- and that they implictly agreed with Aristotle about the worth of able humans over others. But the class did not include anyone with intellectual disabilities -- and I think that the other students might have hesitated to place humans into boxes of "intelligent" and "unintelligent" or "leader" and "follower" if it had. They may have been more critical of Aristotle's argument -- of the ideal government that he proposed, and of his opinions overall -- after hearing the contributions of an intellectually disabled person.
Without fostering "equal participation" -- or, in this case, even the low bar of "participation" -- we were unable, in my opinion, to have as productive a dialogue on democracy, slavery, and autonomy.