The problem with 'commitment' rhetoric
It can be a gate to keep people out and then devalue them for not participating.
The rhetoric of commitment is problematic for anyone with chronic health issues and/or disability.
The words 'commitment', 'show up', 'motivation' 'consistent' and 'contribution' have become amber warning lights. This rhetoric is zero sum. Hero or Zero. Those Who Can, Do. Go Big or Go Home. That's the rules of the game in so many areas of our society. It's part of what makes work, volunteering or participating in education more difficult than it has to be. You probably don't use these terms, I hope you don't even think them, yet they lurk behind this rhetoric, implicit.
I have an illness / disability that limits my capacities, that is unavoidable.
On top of that are the added barriers put in my path by a society that demands I fit in. I have to contribute and contribute enough, in the right way, at the right time, to prove my worthiness to be included.
Failure to fit in leaves me open to being viewed as a loser, a slacker or broken. Losers, slackers, and broken people have little to contribute and are not welcome. So unless I perform as if I don't have these limits, my worth and my welcome is on the line.
Ableism is pernicious and goes unseen and unremarked. It's in the cultural air that we all breathe. Quick! Easy! Convenient! Available 24/7!
Sexism is the subtle, and not so subtle, ways women are messaged with 'you aren't male enough'.
Racism is the subtle, and not so subtle, ways that people of colour are messaged with 'you aren't white enough'.
Ableism is the subtle, and not so subtle, ways that people with disability are messaged 'you aren't able (well? strong?) enough'.
These -isms all operate with the assumption that the flaw of 'not enough' is fundamental and unfixable.
Changing these -isms requires changing existing systems, practices and thought. Society, and the myriad individuals that make up our society, often find this Too Much Trouble. With a side assumption that the outcome would not be worth the effort, would somehow be a watered down and weaker society, with lower standards, rather than a fairer, richer society.
It makes me sad to see so many resources, so many people with gifts and knowledge and wisdom, thrown out like the proverbial babies with the bath water. It's wasteful but our society does this every. single. day.
I have a lot to contribute. I love to participate: I long to participate and contribute. Yet a few times I’ve had it pointed out both overtly and covertly that unless I can “commit” then “this is probably not for you”.
After some years of experience and experimentation, I've worked out my boundary: I can't and won't ruin myself physically (or emotionally) to meet society's ignorant and unexamined standard of able. I can't and won't be tolerated as a weak link or a charity case.
Thank you for reading, your time and attention are a gift.
Over to You
Do a curiosity challenge this week: find one (or more) example of language like ‘commitment’, ‘showing up’, ‘consistency’, ‘persistence’ or ‘motivation’ being used to valorise (some) people? Is a moral superiority implied by this language?
Who is excluded by this language? Is a moral inferiority implied by this language?
Will you share your example in a comment to get some discussion going? Feel free to de-identify the source.
Michelle I really appreciate your dissection and dismantling of these words and the systemic othering, dehumanising and less-thaning behind them. Consistency is a particularly triggering one for me. So many words have been co-opted by supremacy culture and capitalism and used to exclude and then blame and shame those that don’t meet the narrow definition.