From a pop-culture and disability perspective, there's a problematic continuity with the whole "find your power" line in #ProjectPower and narratives like Limitless where the drug is used to enhance human capabilities beyond the norm. (1/n)
In my view, these narratives are the conflation of the concerns about doping in sports and popular belief that stimulant medicines like Concerta and Adderall "enhance" cognitive abilities. The concern itself is grounded in the belief of an "unfair advantage."(2/n)
And an "unfair advantage" conferred by the use of the drug. In popular culture, this narrative is reorganized to present the drugs as enabling people to "find their true power," or "find out what they're capable of," through medical intervention. (3/n)
Which is shitty because it leads to popular myths that Adderall or Concerta will provide the same cognitive benefits to neurotypical folks as it does to people with ADHD, which is NOT the case. However, people come to believe this narrative, with pernicious effects. (4/n)
Specifically that a given medical adaptation provides people with disabilities an advantage because of the ways that it enables us to navigate the world better than we normally would. In reality, it makes it easier to adapt to a world not built for us. (5/n)
But also, there's something here that should be said about a drug that grants superpowers developed as a weapon, rather than as an attempt for medical intervention re: disabilities, which says something about our world. (fin)

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More from @shengokai

May 18, 2023
At some point I hope my colleagues whining about the preservation of academic freedom from students realize that the students who're protesting have long since seen the failures of the academy to foster the kinds of good faith engagements these colleagues assume will be lost.
That is, people have tried refutation in print, they've tried addressing the "merits" of arguments, they've tried pointing out the harms and the bad faith of it all and still nothing changes. So the only recourse left is literally deplatforming bigots.
I mean, how do you even have a "good faith" debate when the context of the debate is your very humanity? How do you have a good faith debate when you7r interlocutor has decided that every piece of scholarship that doesn't support their position is a "mistake?"
Read 5 tweets
May 11, 2023
Truth. Goodness. Beauty. We've given up all chance at objective truth. We've made the life of mind a practical space. We share our dreams with ghosts. We wake up every day to a maxim Pierce wrote 150 years ago from which there's only one conclusion, We're damned for what we do.
Our anger, Our ego, Our unwillingness to do abstract inquiry, they set us on a path from which there is no escape. We yearned to return experience to philosophy without contemplating the cost and by the time we looked down there was no longer any ground beneath our feet.
What do pragmatists sacrifice? We're condemned to use the tools of philosophy to defeat it. We burn epistemology for someone else's future inquiry. We burn objectivity to discover a truth in experience that we know we'll never see.
Read 4 tweets
May 11, 2023
The assumption that some of us have a choice between activism and scholarship is hilarious to me.

For some of us, just being in the room, let alone the discipline, is an activist act or the product of a history of activism. Some of our sub-fields are built on activism.
Not to bring the "privilege" discourse into it, but to assuming multiply marginalized scholars have a fucking choice in whether we become activists in the academy means that they have no idea what our experience is like. At some point every marginalized scholar is an "activist."
I'm using quotes here because the form our "activism" might take is as diverse as we are. Shit, merely publishing something that says "this is my experience and I'm going to theorize about it" is an activist act in some* disciplines.

*I'm talking about philosophy.
Read 5 tweets
May 11, 2023
I am reminded of how Peter Singer has drawn the line between activist and scholar where the activist is unwilling to be moved by argumentation and the scholar is willing to consider every possibility, even those deemed abhorrent, so long as the argument is sound.
There's absolutely no daylight between Singer's scholar/activist divide and HLS's tweet, so I'm going to talk about this as a general principle of philosophy which is used as cover to treat people's humanity as open questions because that's, apparently, what philosphy does.
On Singer's view, the unwillingness of the activist to compromise on certain positions means the work they do, nor matter how well researched, is neither scholarly nor eligible for consideration in scholastic debate. All because the activist's position precludes some questions.
Read 25 tweets
Apr 25, 2023
I really think a lot of senior folks in philosophy underestimate just how much they're showing their asses with this whole Byrne publication thing. Just putting that shit on full display for all the world to see.
Many of these same people gave no thought about the rejection rates of marginalized or non-anglo centric philosophy within the discipline. Worse, a quick trawl through the Daily Nous reveals that these folks are usually the first to push back against expanding the canon.
Further, the way in which they doubt that Byrne's book was rejected on its merits demonstrates their steadfast determination to preserve a status quo, a kind of patronage, where publication can be eased through clout and alignment with the "traditional" form of the discipline.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 23, 2023
I've read more of the shit on the Byrne rejection letter and I'm like what the fuck? I've had rejection letters and critical reviews of work that are far, far worse than what Byrne got.

Like, there's no apparent ideological bias there, just a critique of shitty work.
I've also gotten R&Rs about some more controversial work I've written that were much harsher than Byrne's rejection letter and I've taken up their critiques, revised the piece, and resubmitted it.

I didn't throw a tantrum across the internet nor did I accuse reviewers of bias.
Still further, I've gotten some really harsh R&Rs and rejections when trying to publish philosophy in tech related spaces. If Byrne thinks OUP's letter was indicative of bias, god help him if he ever reads reviewer reports from non-philosophy venues.
Read 4 tweets

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