This is part two of a three part series where I am sharing a chapter from my master’s thesis. Part one was a basic introduction to Daoism and Daoistic thought and part two was about the ways that Daoism speaks of disability generally and how it might be interpreted to bear on intellectual disability specifically. This final part is a brief attempt at putting the pieces together to try and synthesize a way or practice to understand and value the experience of intellectual disability using Daoism as a foundation.
There is some language in here about a liberatory theology of disability—this was a master’s thesis for a theology degree after all. But like I said in part one, the thesis as a whole was an attempt to reconcile the faith tradition I was born into, that set of beliefs and worldview I was handed, and my experiences caring for my intellectually disabled brother—experiences that generally problematized, and in some cases directly contradicted, the core assumptions of that inherited belief system. Daoism and how it speaks of disability was one source for reimagining that tradition in a new way.
The preceding examples from the Daodejing and Zhuangzi show not only what sorts of behaviors, attitudes, and abilities Daoists value, but how people with intellectual disabilities can similarly be valued. Ideal human conduct, according to Daoists, “should be informed by both forgetting and knowing.”1 The social norms and mores that typically guide human interaction constrain one from acting spontaneously and in accordance with the dao of any given situation. Infants and those who have fasted their mind are in a position to respond without interfering, to act without acting (wuwei), which allows the spontaneous generation of new possibilities and daos to flourish. These daos arise in each new instant and should guide one’s actions in the world. Persons with intellectual disabilities are, like infants and those engaged in fasting of the mind, open to the movements of the dao, and are free from the constraints that prevent one from responding to each situation. For many persons with intellectual disabilities, especially profound intellectual disabilities, theirs is a state of suspended infancy. “Yet, the infant is one of the modes of Daoist living—free from preconceptions and indoctrination.”2
Most non-intellectually disabled persons view intellectual disability not as freedom, but as a barrier to freedom. The ability to generate ideas and plans, manipulate objects with intent, and act on one’s desires is precious to most people in liberal societies. When viewed in this way, this is precisely the freedom that persons with intellectual disabilities cannot enjoy, given the nature of their disabling conditions.
“The Daoist worldview, however, presents a different picture; outcomes are subject to forces that the individual cannot control but can only react to and enjoy, accepting and also opportunistically making use of circumstance.”3
By valuing the noncognitive, nonlinguistic, and nonsymbolic modes of being in the world, persons with intellectual disabilities can then become exemplars of the dao.
As exemplars of the dao, persons with intellectual disabilities, like the Zhuangzian sages of chapter 5, possess de. The Zhuangzi suggests that not only are those who society has deemed worthless actually the worthiest, but that they possess something that can actually transform those they come into contact with. Ziporyn explains:
“A person’s physical beauty, social status, and moral virtuosity were thought, in Zhuangzi’s time, to have a powerful effect on others, to inspire them, unify them, attract them, transform them. Yet [in chapter 5] Zhuangzi tells us of convicted criminals and physically repulsive people—those lacking in both moral and bodily beauty—who nonetheless seem to have just the same effect on others.”4
Is it not also the case that persons with intellectual disabilities, persons who are considered worthless by society—if they are considered at all—possess the ability to transform those around them? Indeed, it is precisely because of their infant-like freedom that they possess de and are therefore able to transform their environment without coercion (wuwei). The motley crew of Zhuangian sages in chapter 5, because of their de, “come to exercise considerable influence in establishing the importances of their respective worlds.”5 Likewise, persons with intellectual disabilities do not just model the dao, but are actually able to transform the world around them. This is what Andrew Sung Park calls Tao-praxis6.
In developing a theology of dao, Park shows how the praxis of liberation theology can result in a cycle of violence and coercion. A Tao-praxis utilizes wuwei to make social change noncoercively.
“The followers of Tao do not force anything, including social transformation. They know that any forced action will generate a vicious cycle of coercion. Any violent action produces a violent reaction…”7
To avoid this cycle of violence, nonaction (wuwei), must be employed so that genuine transformation can occur. “It is not one’s own action that makes transformation possible but the act of the eternal Tao. The Tao works through people to elicit necessary fundamental changes.”8 Recall the story of Yan Hui and his desire to change the tyrant through his own actions. After pointing out that this would never work, Zhuangzi (as Confucius) said only one thing would lead to a transformation in the tyrant: fasting of Yan Hui’s mind. This fasting of the mind would allow the dao to work through Yan Hui and thereby transform the tyrant. There was nothing Yan Hui could do; it was only by not doing that Yan Hui would be able to transform the world around him. This is the heart of Tao-praxis, and this is how persons with intellectual disabilities can transform the world around them.
This issue of de and transformation through nonaction, or wuwei, has broader implications for a liberatory theology of intellectual disabilities. As we have seen9, justice for persons with intellectual disabilities must include an attitude and virtue of care, not just the labor of care. But to develop this attitude one must be open to receiving something from the disabled person being cared for, that is, one must be open to being transformed by the disabled person. Though, with Tao-praxis in mind, I should clarify that it is not the person with a disability that is making the transformation occur, but the dao working through them. It is not the case the persons with intellectual disabilities are more able than non-intellectually disabled persons to make changes or transformations occur. However, persons with disabilities are uniquely able to allow the dao to work through them, through wuwei. Andrew Lambert suggests that,
“[t]hrough close contact those regarded as disabled can teach others about assumptions toward disability, facilitate the actions and development of others, and even exert influence on other’s actions, though not necessarily in obvious ways. In contrast to brief and superficial encounters, prolonged interaction enables a richer picture of the person to emerge, along with the contribution of the ‘useless’ to the world around them.”10
The transformation that must occur in order for the intellectually disabled to receive good care can, somewhat paradoxically, be facilitated through encountering and developing relationships with persons with intellectual disabilities. Which is to say, establishing relationships with intellectually disabled persons in a posture of openness will allow them to transform nondisabled persons in ways that spontaneously generate the necessary attitudes and virtues needed to care in a just way.
If a liberatory theology of disability only attempts to transform society without also transforming the hearts and attitudes of the people in that society, then it will never succeed. A liberatory theology of intellectual disability, based on Tao-praxis, can succeed not just in finding justice for persons with intellectual disabilities, but also for nondisabled persons as well.
footnotes
- Lambert, “Daoism and Disability,” 75.
- Ibid., 86.
- Ibid., 87.
- “Zhuangzi as Philosopher,” Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings Supplemental Material, Brook Ziporyn, https://www.hackettpublishing.com/zhuangziphil.
- Roger T. Ames, “Knowing in the Zhuangzi: ‘From Here, on the Bridge, over the River Hao,’” in Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, ed. Roger T. Ames (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 225.
- or Dao-praxis. Park uses an older romanization system and renders dao as tao.
- Andrew Sung Park, “A Theology of the Way (Tao),” Interpretation 55, no. 4 (October, 2001), 393.
- Ibid.
- This is referring to the first chapter of my thesis which I have not published yet, but it explores the ethics of care developed by Eva Feder Kittay.
- Lambert, “Daoism and Disability,” 90.