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  • The Paradox of Disability: Responses to Jean Vanier and L’Arche Communities from Theology and the Sciences ed. by Hans S. Reinders
  • Adam Clark
The Paradox of Disability: Responses to Jean Vanier and L’Arche Communities from Theology and the Sciences Edited by Hans S. Reinders Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. 191pp. $18.00

Jean Vanier introduces this collection of essays with a concise articulation of the themes that define L’Arche communities: those with impairments “cry out” for loving service, yet love involves the receptivity by which those without obvious impairments learn to claim their own good amid a vulnerability that [End Page 205] appears to be its negation. Subsequent essays expand upon these themes, drawing on a range of theological and social-scientific perspectives. Most could serve as introductions for undergraduate or graduate classes. The volume also invites disability scholars to examine whether and how this “Vanier school” has succeeded in its attempt to reimagine and serve both those with and those without obvious impairments.

For Vanier’s “school,” such reimagining entails perceiving those with impairments as “teachers.” Executing this, however, is difficult. Xavier Le Pichon, for example, argues that “the disabled” help us recover positive views of dependency in “childhood innocence” and “aged suffering” (since they embody both stages). Focusing on the suffering that human beings experience before death, he claims that paleo-anthropological evidence suggests that societies evolved as their care of the disabled taught them to accept suffering. His argument, however, risks strongly identifying persons with their impairments, thus reinforcing the social construction of “disability” as a marginalizing category in discourse and policy.

Moreover, this difficulty is not limited to associations with disvalue. Hans Reinders draws on Søren Kierkegaard and Hans Ulrich in a comparison of the severely disabled to the “teachers” of Matthew 6: the birds and lilies. The disabled, he argues, embody a positive image of “humanity” characterized by dependence on God and a lack of competition with others. Such an image of grace “frees” one from a political economy that drives toward rational mastery of self and world. Yet, do the severely impaired always experience and manifest such dependence? If not, are they not being used to create a “human” image for others in which they, in fact, do not appear?

Kevin Reimer’s essay contains similar difficulties. For him, the instructive values are “trust” and “gracious openness.” Citing studies that demonstrate how these values sustain communities—even absent rational agreement—he argues that they should replace rationality as the chief marker of moral maturity (as exemplified, e.g., in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development). Like Reinders, Reimer clearly wants those with cognitive impairments to be appreciated as teachers of values that displace the rationalist ones that deprecate them. However, like Reinder’s argument, this easily slides toward defining “humanity” under a certain ideal form, thereby still implicitly devaluing those who do not embody that ideal form. Also, one finds here the danger of romanticizing that is often identified with Vanier: one only sees the form and not the real person.

William Gaventa and Brian Brock, however, provide a counterresponse, the first pivotal turn in the book. Gaventa argues that the discovery of another’s value as “teacher” occurs only when one has already acknowledged her as a person (104). In other words, any “form” taught must come only after one has encountered a “person,” which is understood as a complete image of human [End Page 206] value. Here Vanier’s argument for mutual receptivity becomes a fundamental anthropology that grounds an ethic. Love must serve both persons—the teacher with impairments and the learning respondent—along distinct lines of practical action (107). In addition, Gaventa argues that persons need sources of support that are both familial and private, on the one hand, and institutional and public, on the other—thus transcending the usual splits between conservatives and liberals.

Brock develops a similar anthropological ethic drawing on Martin Luther. Being human together simply means “becoming neighbors” through the absolute (Christological) imputation of personal value. Brock criticizes practices that negate this neighborly bond. In particular, he rejects the view, often endorsed by genetic counselors, that bearing potentially impaired...

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