Uncertainty under duress: The distracting certainty of theory

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to distinguish among, what I take to be, a proliferation of ways or forms of social inquiry. I use the term ‘social inquiry’ very loosely as a way to indicate in some broad way the urge and the practice to understand and, in some instances, change the social world in which we find ourselves. I do not intend this use of social inquiry as a definition, but rather as an orientation to the wonder that comes when we are not certain. And yet, I am aware that certitude marks not only the end of much inquiry, but also, in many instances, its beginning. The wonder of theoria of which Plato and other philosophers have spoken has gradually been replaced, at least in the West, by the promise of certitude of theory understood as explanation. With these two broadly stipulated versions of social inquiry as a starting point, I want to explore the difficulty and subsequent unease that has been haunting me.

From The Beginning

There was a time that a good measure of certitude not only oriented me to my world, but governed it as well; this time was childhood. It wasn’t that I was certain of everything, but, of one thing I was – what I saw was what everyone else did. The world in my eyes was the one in everyone’s eyes. Of this, I was certain. Nothing unsettled this certitude, de-centred it, or even disturbed it. Nothing could. My world was more certain than certitude itself.

As it turned out, though, something did unsettle my world. Actually, unsettled doesn’t begin to capture what happened to my world. Its foundations shook so violently that it fell in upon me and I was equally shaken by what had collapsed my world. What caused this catastrophic collapse was my world itself; the certitude of sight turned out to be no more certain than a dream. The world that rested so securely, so certainly in my eyes, fell in upon itself.

My childhood marked the beginning of this collapse. At about the age of 10 or 11, I began to experience a dark speck, a very small one, in my field of vision. Wherever I looked, it was there. Closing my eyes didn’t remove it, nor did rubbing them and, I did plenty of both. Not only did the speck not go away, it grew bigger. Bigger was a radical enough change but, what was more radical still was that the speck turned into colours; hundreds, maybe thousands of bright colours. All colours – blue, red, yellow, orange, purple – all colours. More astonishing still, the colours began to move, shimmer, really. This shockwave continued to rattle my world for many years – from my teens, into adulthood, finally culminating in a field of vision made up solely of what looks like, to me, billions, maybe zillions of bright, shimmering coloured lights. What is certain now is that the world in my eyes is not the world in the eyes of others.

The struggle to sustain a world outside of my eyes became more and more difficult. I had to remind myself and, I still do, that bright, shimmering coloured lights is my world, and mine only — no one else sees it. The only glimpse others have of it is through my descriptions. Other than that, my world is just that – my world.

In and of themselves, bright and shimmering coloured lights are not a problem. There are many situations in which bright coloured lights are appropriate and even enhance aesthetics. Lights of all kinds, including bright shimmering ones, are often used to decorate, to accentuate, to glorify and to make all sorts of things and situations more attractive, compelling, and even mesmerizing. Change the context, though, and bright shimmering coloured lights become unsettling. There are, of course, many responses to unsettling situations and, as a way to return to the increasing difficulty I am having with social inquiry, I want to engage one of these responses.

Responding to the Beginning
One response to my bright coloured lights, a response I have embraced over the last number of years, is disability studies. Now, this field of inquiry isn’t as clearly demarcated as its name may suggest. Beginning with the UK social model of disability and the USA cultural model and moving to what has become known as Critical Disability Studies, this field of inquiry has continually undergone shifts and changes.  These versions have co-mingled at times and, at other times, blended into one another and, at still other times, opposed one another. Whatever the similarities and differences among these versions of disability studies, each of them might be understood as responding to the disabled human and thus to humanity under duress. Their tenuous but unified commitment is marked by a dedication to returning the human to disability and returning disability to humanity.

Although not in some clear way, the commitment of disability studies bears an uncanny resemblance to my engagement with my life in a world of zillions of bright, shimmering, coloured lights. The difficulty I am having, though, is translating my bright coloured lights into the disability imaginary which grounds disability studies. It suggests that disability is a legitimate and valuable life and that the source of any oppression is due to the ableist response of society and its social institutions. This is undoubtedly the case. But, how are we to wrestle with the disappearing sense of the human that often comes along with disability?

When my bright coloured lights appeared, something else disappeared, namely, an un- obstructed sight. With it, a sense of the human also began to disintegrate. There is a dominant sense of the embodiment of the human; it posits a functioning human body, one that, among other things, possesses five working senses, an apparatus through which the external world is perceived, an apparatus that brings the inside in touch with the outside. Disappearing eyesight, then, disappears, in part, the human.

It is relatively easy to dismiss such a disappearance; after all, we can merely dismiss it. Disability studies often does. We might say that disappearing eyesight does not mean or include a disappearing sense of the human and that’s that, the matter is closed. And yet, as certainly closed as this matter appears to be, there remains the remnants of what was dismissed in an uncertain attempt to close the matter.

As bright and as shimmering as my coloured lights are, there remains a strong sense that something has disappeared. It is not difficult to identify it — my sight, no one else’s, only mine. What else? I no longer see and what I do, no one else does, no other human. What has disappeared along with sight, then, is one connection I had with everyone else and, thus, one of the connections with humanity.

Enter the struggle and enter the fold – the human and humanity under duress. Enter, too, the distraction of bright lights, lights that distract us from the focus of our struggle, namely, the duress humanity is facing. It is easy to fall under the mesmerizing spell of bright lights; it is easy to experience them as an obstruction to the world; it is easy to imagine that these lights affect the world only as an obstruction. And, it is easy to focus our struggle on minimizing the obstructive nature of bright lights.

Suppose
Now, suppose we treat bright lights not only as an obstruction, but as an occasion to imagine a world, humanity and all, that generates the need for these bright lights in the first place. Suppose, too, that rather than taking the easy path of minimizing the obstructive feature of these bright lights, we engage with the unease or dis/ease that comes from resisting bright lights as “just the way things are” and “that’s just how it goes.” Suppose that we commit ourselves to not being distracted by bright lights such as mine or by other bright shiny things such as bureaucratic responses to humanity, the exactitude and lightness of theory, the ease of explanation and, of course, the brightness and clarity of certainty itself. Suppose we treat these bright lights and shinny things as obstructions to humanity and that we treat them as the occasion to reveal the version of humanity they conceal and from which they distract us. Finally, suppose we can imagine these shinny things as not only distractions but as part of humanity itself. What then? How shall we theorize and how shall we live with the uncertainty of the brightness that so easily distracts us from the unease of humanity?

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