The Consequence of Resistance: Interrogating Heidegger and Butler on the Conundrums of Ableism

Abstract

The Consequence of Resistance is a philosophical investigation into the writings of Martin Heidegger and Judith Butler to unravel the character and disposition of social resistance to the disabled individual. The qualitative analysis moves beyond physical considerations of the dis/abled body to probe, investigate and challenge the essence and performativity of conventional constructions and interpretations of society’s dismissive attitudes, manner and the discriminatory behaviours and language that remain resistant to the ‘Being’ of those Others. The phenomenological nature of the endeavour is underpinned by autobiographical insight offering a ‘counter’ discourse to the sustained systematic careless banter of community and common expectations of ‘rationality’, ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’. The disabled identity is identified and explored through the vested interests and obstinacy of normative/ableist complex institutional, political and cultural structures, and legal ‘mythologies’. Indeed, the persistent discriminatory character of such social limits of ‘disability’, along with its oppressive marginalisation and relentless invisibility, is highlighted and articulated through the lens of Critical Disability Studies and Studies in Ableism. Martin Heidegger’s basic existential ‘Being’, Dasein, in constant interaction with others negotiates its best possibilities of being-in-the-world. Humankind’s pursuit of an ‘authentic’ existence is the struggle for individuality, freedom from submission to uniformity, consensus, passivity and resistance to the social conformity, anonymity and apathy of present organisations and cultural determinants. Individual authenticity lies in the confrontation with ‘truth’ through the Care of Others (Mitsein), making sense of existential possibilities of Self and taking responsibility for one’s involvement in social practices. Resistance to dif-ference as the essence of das Man and its discourse of idle conversation remains restrictive and challenging to the disabled identity. Language for Heidegger is an ontological condition, a sharing of perception and understanding that provides for otherness to be an experience and reflection of undefined spaces rather than definitions framed within oppressive normative classification and expectations.