The Problem with Disability Studies
A conversation with James Morris of The ReNeural Project
I was glad of the opportunity to speak about the practical and ethical problems with Critical Social Justice approaches to Disability Studies and activism with James Morris of The Reneural Project. James, who has cerebral palsy, contacted me after being abused by Disability Activists for his work campaigning for biomedical technology to alleviate or even cure conditions like his and then reading Cynical Theories which has a chapter on Disability Studies. Below is his description of our conversation.
Disability Studies derails activism, hinders biomedical progress, and saps the disabled’s resilience. Helen Pluckrose, co-author of “Cynical Theories” with James Lindsay, has traced the development of Disability Studies and other academic disciplines rooted in Critical Social Justice. Helen joined me for a conversation about where the core ideas behind Disability Studies came from and their harmful effects. Together, we pull them apart and suggest a saner approach to improving disabled people’s lives.
I invited Helen because of the reaction I was getting from other disabled people when I launched this channel. The belief that disability is an identity, and that curing disabilities through biotech or neurotech is a form of genocide, has made many activists hostile toward anyone advocating for accelerating progress in these fields. Disabled people like me, who see biomedical technology as essential to true liberation, are often labeled as identity traitors.
This may seem bizarre, but it is rooted in what Helen calls “applied postnodernism.”. In this view, knowledge itself is a social construct, and it is the powerful who determine how it is constructed. The solution is identity politics; to lean into one’s minority status to inspire collective action and agitate for change. Anyone who doesn’t toe the line lessens the group’s bargaining power.
When applied to disability, this worldview collapses into absurdity. If the belief that it is better to have an able body and a sound mind is just a social construct, then curing disabilities merely reinforces this dynamic. This has created an “accommodation-only” mindset in modern disability activism; The Social Model of Disability claims that disability is caused, not by medical conditions, but by a lack of accommodations—so activism focuses only on changing environments and attitudes.
Helen and I expose the conceptual flaws and outright sophistry behind this approach. Disability cannot be a social construct, because it still exists absent of society. While accommodations can mitigate the impact of disability, they’re not enough by themselves. There are both “weak” and “strong” versions of the Social Model, setting up a motte-and-bailey tactic that woke activists use to shield their ideology from criticism.
In “Cynical Theories”, Helen argues that postmodern ideas infiltrated various rights movements once they reached diminishing returns in improving real-world conditions. This was especially true of Disability Rights, given the limits of accommodation,. The result is activism that often derails the push for real solutions.. A more sensible approach would be to accommodate as much as we can while also developing cures and addressing prejudicial attitudes with empirically proven methods. Transhumanism could potentially serve as a more viable second stage of disability activism, treating cures as the ultimate accommodation.
Finally, we talk about the psychological harm this ideology causes. Training disabled people—who already face infantilization—to demand trigger warnings and safe spaces sends mixed messages and prevents the development of resilience. It is evil to do this to disabled people, since they need resilience more than anyone else.
I hope to collaborate with James on bringing together my theoretical knowledge of the scholarship and activism and his practical experience of trying to navigate it while doing evidence-based and ethical campaigning on behalf of disabled people.
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