Disability and American Philosophies

Nate Whelan-Jackson, Daniel J. Brunson, Nate Whelan-Jackson, Daniel J. Brunson

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000543117
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Filosofía
• Categoría: Historia y teoría filosóficas

Given basic commitments to philosophize from lived experience and a shared underlying meliorist impulse, American philosophical traditions seem well-suited to develop nascent philosophical engagement with disability studies. To date, however, there have been few efforts to facilitate research at the intersections of American philosophy and disability studies. This volume of essays seeks to offer some directions for propelling this inquiry. Scholars working in pragmatist and other American traditions consider intersections between American philosophy and work in disability studies. Consisting of three broader sections, one set of essays considers how American philosophies from contemporary Mexican philosophy to classical American pragmatism inform descriptions of disability and efforts at liberation. The next offer accounts of how American philosophies disclose alternative conceptions of epistemic and ethical issues surrounding disability. Finally, a section considers "living issues" of disability, including essays on parenting, immigration policy, and art education. Throughout, these works provide direction and orientation for further investigation at the intersection of American philosophies and disability studies.

1Collective Inferiority Complex as DisabilitySamuel Ramos’ Analysis of the Mexican Psyche

Sergio Gallegos Ordorica

DOI: 10.4324/9780429283161-2

Samuel Ramos (1897–1950) is traditionally considered to be one of the most important Mexican philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century since his thought influenced figures of the Hiperión group such as Jorge Portilla (1918–1963), Emilio Uranga (1921–1988), and Luis Villoro (1922–2014). In particular, one of the most important works of Ramos, El pérfil del hombre y la cultura en México (1932), presents a very interesting thesis, which consists in the claim that the central element that characterizes the Mexican psyche is a kind of feeling of inferiority. This thesis proved quite influential in Mexican intellectual history insofar as several members of the Hiperión group addressed it and either criticized it or partially subscribed to it in various works that they published during the late 1940s and the early 1950, which were geared towards the development of an ontology of Mexicanhood (“lo mexicano”).

Now, though the views of Samuel Ramos about Mexican collective psychology are nowadays far less influential than during the first half of the twentieth century (particularly because Ramos’ views were criticized on the grounds that they promoted a kind of essentialism about Mexicanhood), I believe that they are potentially quite fruitful because they offer an interesting lens to consider the notion of disability. The goal of this chapter is to contend that given Ramos’ characterization of Mexicans as being marked by this feeling and of his view that this feeling has operated as “an obstacle that has retarded the action of positive historical forces” (1962, 24) and as something that has caused psychological harm insofar as it fostered in Mexicans “an irrational distrust that emanates from the depths of his being” (1962, 64), Ramos considers the feeling of inferiority as a type of psychological disability. I also argue that, if Ramos is correct on his assessment (i.e., if this collective feeling of inferiority can be seen as a type of psychological disability), this has some interesting implications. Specifically, I hold that, if collective feelings of inferiority in postcolonial societies such as the Mexican one are a kind of psychological disability and these feelings have been brought about by a history of foreign subjugation and colonialism, Ramos’ analysis can then be seen as anticipating the work of scholars such as Elizabeth Vance (1975, 1977) and Derek Bolton (2013) who have argued that some psychological disabilities (which are primarily manifested in specific psychopathologies) are rooted in the experience of powerlessness of certain groups and in certain failures of competence or incapacities. Moreover, I also argue that, if Ramos’ claim (1962, 59) that collective feelings of inferiority (understood as a kind of disability) have acted to make the life of Mexicans “an irreflexive activity, without any plan” is correct, then Ramos’ views can be seen as prefiguring the thesis recently advocated by Kevin Timpe (2016, 767) that “a number of particular disabilities can impact agency primarily by affecting what psychologists refer to as ‘executive function’.” If my arguments are correct, the upshot of my paper consists in showing that Mexican philosophy (and, in particular, the thought of Samuel Ramos) can be an important historical resource to enrich some current discussions in the philosophy of disability.

I proceed in the following way. After introducing in the second section the historical context in which Ramos lived and which influenced the formation of his views in El pérfil del hombre y la cultura en México, I turn in the third section to a brief presentation of different conceptions of disability. After comparing and contrasting some of the main rival conceptions, I settle tentatively on the welfare conception articulated by Kahane and Savulescu (2009) since it avoids some problems of other views (in particular, of the medical view and the social view) and captures some important features (in particular, the idea that the concept of disability has a normative dimension, the idea that disability is relative to different circumstances and persons and that disability is a feature that admits of degrees). Using the welfare model, I turn in the fourth section to a close textual analysis of the book that shows clearly that Ramos considers this the collective feeling of inferiority of Mexicans as a type of disability. On the basis of this, I then argue in the fifth section that, if these collective feelings can be seen as a type of psychological disability, Ramos’ view can be considered as a prefiguration of the work done by psychologists and psychiatrists such as Vance and Bolton. Subsequently, in the sixth section, I argue that Ramos’ views can also be considered, if collective feelings of inferiority are indeed some kind of psychological disability, as partially anticipating and supporting the work of Kevin Timpe. Finally, in the seventh section, I offer a brief conclusion.

Samuel Ramos’ Historical Context and His Philosophical Project

As I mentioned in the introduction, in order to understand Ramos’ philosophical views, it is important to first situate him in the historical context in which his thought developed. This will allow a better grasp of what kinds of questions or problems he addressed in his work as well as the ways in which he tackled them. Since he was born in 1897, Ramos’ adolescence and early adulthood coincided with one of the most politically turbulent but also intellectually animated periods of Mexican history, i.e., the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Indeed, during this period, the official positivist thought, which had been the dominant philosophical approach during the long presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1910), was vigorously denounced and rejected as having promoted for decades, under the cover of a discourse defending modernization and economic growth, a form of dogmatic scientism in higher education institutions and a series of inegalitarian and repressive policies that widened the abyss between a small elite of wealthy landowners and masses of exploited Indigenous peasants and urban laborers. In particular, during the course of the Mexican Revolution, one of the most severe critics of positivism was Antonio Caso (1883–1946), who taught philosophy at first the National Preparatory High School and then at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Caso’s work was a major influence in the thought of Ramos insofar as he attended his classes between 1917 and 1919. In addition, another point that is key to bear in mind is that, prior to his studying philosophy, Ramos attended medical school from 1915 to 1917 at the behest of his father. This stint in medical school is important since it impressed in Ramos’ mind the view that science (in particular, psychology) could be effectively used to address not just individual pathologies but also societal problems.

Under the mentorship of Caso, Ramos was able to engage the works of several contemporary authors that included his fellow countrymen Ezequiel Chávez and José Vasconcelos but also European philosophers such as José Ortega y Gasset, Max Scheler, and Edmund Husserl. These various influences shaped the thought of Ramos in a very interesting fashion. From Scheler and Husserl, Ramos learned to appreciate the importance of phenomenology as a method to do philosophy in a systematic fashion. Thus, in light of this, his works often display analyses of certain intersubjective structures of experience (in particular, he focuses on the experience of inferiority vis-à-vis others) as they relate to one’s consciousness. From Ortega y Gasset, Ramos inherited his historicism, which manifested itself in a deep skepticism vis-à-vis all attempts to theorize about any subject (in particular, about the structures of experience of certain groups of human beings) in a transcendental and ahistorical perspective. And, as a result of his intellectual interactions with Chávez, Vasconcelos, and his mentor Caso, Ramos developed an enduring fascination with “Mexicanhood” (lo mexicano) given that all these figures were viscerally confronted to the urgent question of what made Mexicans who they were upon witnessing the spectacle of Mexico tearing itself apart for a decade in a protracted civil war.

Considering that the turmoil of the Mexican revolution elicited among the most prominent Mexican intellectuals who lived through it a vigorous reflection about “Mexicanhood” in order to determine what (if anything) unified Mexicans, Ramos was then able to observe the emergence during the 1920s of a series of works that attempted to offer an account of the problems facing Mexico in this period (in particular, bringing together the different political factions and national groups that had battled each other during the Revolution) through the lens of an inquiry about national identity. In this vein, Caso published in 1924 a book titled El problema de México y la ideología nacional in which he argued that the main problem afflicting Mexico, which had led to the Mexican revolution, was a lack of a cultural, social, and racial unity. For Caso, though Mexico had become independent in 1821, it remained to a great degree a fractured and heterogeneous collection of different groups, divided along linguistic, social, and racial lines. In fact, for Caso, this fact explained the internal divisions that had made possible during the nineteenth century successful invasions and temporary occupations by foreign powers (most prominently, the US and France). In addition to Caso, Vasconcelos published in 1925 La raza cósmica, where he also stressed that one of the main problems that Mexico and Latin America in general faced was the preponderance of provincialisms (created by also by cultural, social, and racial divisions) that fostered disunity and made both Mexico as well as the rest of Latin America ripe for foreign (in particular, US) military intervention and economic domination. Considering this, both Caso and Vasconcelos articulated proposals aimed at addressing this problem. In particular, while Caso defended a Christian-inspired metaphysical idealism according to which Mexico should be unified on the basis of a moral sentiment grounded on religious traditions and customs, Vasconcelos defended a secular-minded proposal based on vitalism according to which Mexico should be unified on the basis of a program of cultural and biological mestizaje (i.e., race mixing) that aimed at fusing all the different socio-racial groups living in Mexico into a homogenous whole.

Though the proposals of Caso and Vasconcelos were quite influential during the 1920s (in particular, that of Vasconcelos was partially carried out in virtue of the fact that he was Secretary of Education between 1921 and 1924), Ramos became progressively dissatisfied with them. In his view, both of them exhibited the same shortcoming: though Caso and Vasconcelos agreed on the nature of the problem facing Mexico, they proposed tentative solutions to it without having realized a detailed investigation into the origin of the problem. In contrast to his predecessors, Ramos then set out to undertake, under the influence of his initial medical training, a diagnosis of Mexican society and culture in order to uncover the origin of the problem (which he viewed as a kind of pathology) so that it could be effectively tackled. Since a detailed analysis of Mexican culture and society reveals, according to Ramos, the systematic and widespread prevalence of certain character traits such as a mimetic tendency in some parts of the population (in particular, in intellectual and political elites inclined to adopt uncritically foreign views) and an apathetic submissiveness in others (in particular, among impoverished masses of indigenous peasants and urban laborers), Ramos uses psychology to offer a diagnosis of the origin of the disunity problem faced by Mexico as well as explain the occurrence of these different character traits in different groups. To be specific, by drawing upon Adler’s psychological theories, Ramos proposes the following explanation:

Adler states that the inferiority complex appears in a child as soon as he recognizes the insignificance of his own strength in comparison compared to the strength of his parents. Mexico found itself in the same relationship to the civilized world as that of the child to his parents. (…) This disadvantageous circumstance induced the sense of inferiority that was aggravated by conquest, racial commingling, and even the disproportionate magnitude of nature.

(1962, 56)

Thus, according to Ramos, the source of Mexico’s disunity problem was a feeling of inferiority that emerged as a consequence of the lived experience of the conquest and the subsequent colonial regime imposed on various groups (e.g., Indigenous communities, black slaves, mestizos, mulattoes, and even white creoles) by Spain. This feeling of inferiority explains, for Ramos, the disunity because it promoted in different groups different traits of character. In the case of white creoles and other mixed-race groups, the feeling of inferiority leads Mexicans to “imitate modes of European civilization in order to feel that [they are] equal to the European” (1962, 58). And, in the case of the oppressed and impoverished masses of Indigenous peasants and laborers, the feeling of inferiority has made them adopt “a passive [role] in the life of [their] country” (1962, 63).

After diagnosing the feeling of inferiority as the source of Mexico’s disunity problem, Ramos turns to examine in detail the impact of this feeling in Mexican culture and society by considering the specific effects that it has on collective attitudes and social behaviors. My contention is that, given what Ramos holds about the impact of the feelings of inferiority on attitudes and behaviors, the feelings of inferiority can be properly considered as a kind of psychological disability. In order to make this claim, I turn in the next section to a brief presentation and discussion of different conceptions of disability and I adopt tentatively one for the purposes of my discussion here the so-called “welfare model.”

A Brief Discussion of Disability and the Adoption of the Welfare Model

Having made clear the historical context in which Ramos lived and worked, the intellectual influences that he was subject to as well as the philosophical project that he developed, I consider now the issue of whether his conception of the impacts of the collective feeling of inferiority that Mexicans exhibit may support considering this feeling as a kind of psychological disability. But, in order to do this, it is first imperative to have a working model of disability. This raises a potential difficulty given that there are many different models of disability that have been proposed in the last few decades, and they are often at odds with each other in some respects. For instance, while some theorists consider disability as being primarily a disadvantaging or limitative trait that arises from the impairment or the malfunction of the normal physical or mental operations of some individual, others view disability as a disadvantaging or limitative trait that emerges from the relationship between an individual’s particular state or condition and the structure of the social environment. These two approaches, which have been respectively labeled the medical model and the social model (Wasserman et al., 2016), have both certain advantages but they also present serious limitations. For instance, while the medical model captures the idea that disability is tied to a certain impairment or a loss of function of normal physical or mental operations (e.g., hearing loss caused by old age), it faces limitations since it fails to capture the ways in which the social environment contributes to the disadvantages or limitations created by the impairments or loss of functions. For instance, while hearing loss is certainly a limitation, it has been argued what makes hearing loss a disability is precisely the relation of the trait with an environment that fails to meet the needs of people with hearing loss (e.g., an environment where all alarms are sound based). Similarly, while the social model captures well the respects in which a certain environment makes a trait disadvantaging or limitative (e.g., consider a peanut allergy afflicting a student forced to eat in a school cafeteria with no nut-free spaces), the social model does not capture well the fact that certain traits disadvantage or limit individuals regardless of the structure of the social environment (e.g., even if there is in some context a wide availability of bronchodilators and oxy...