The politics of Helen Keller, Socialism and disability
Last edited Fri Apr 3, 2015, 02:33 AM - Edit history (2)
In a neoliberal era in which personal choice and triumphs of individual character are heralded above social justice and understandings of structural oppression, I think it useful to examine the historical construction of Helen Keller's life story, a popular interpretation that erases her Marxist activism on disability and supplants it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles.
This is the story that most of us are familiar with: A young Helen Keller contracted an illness that left her blind and deaf; she immediately reverted to the state of a wild animal, as depicted in the popular movie The Miracle Worker; she remained in this state virtually unchanged until she was rescued by her teacher Anne Sullivan, who “miraculously” introduced her to the world of language. Then time passed, and Helen Keller died eighty years later: End of story.
The image of Helen Keller as a gilded, eternal child is reinforced at the highest levels of US society. The statue of Helen Keller erected inside the US Capitol building in 2009, which replaced that of a Confederate Army officer, depicts Keller as a seven-year-old child kneeling at a water pump. Neither the statue itself nor its inscription provides any inkling that the sixty-plus years of Keller’s adult life were of any particular political import.
When the story of Helen Keller is taught in schools today, it is frequently used to convey a number of anodyne “moral lessons” or messages: There is no personal obstacle that cannot be overcome through pluck and hard work; whatever problems one thinks they have pale in comparison to those of Helen Keller; and perhaps the most insidious of such messages, the one aimed primarily at people with disabilities themselves, is that the task of becoming a full member of society rests upon one’s individual efforts to overcome a given impairment and has nothing to do with structural oppression or inequality.
More about the work she did engage in at:
http://isreview.org/issue/96/politics-helen-keller
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to remove her Marxist activism on disability, and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles?
On the surface, this appears like a neoliberal attempt to deliberately rewrite history according to Ayn Rand. But I am open to the possibility that their are more reality based motivations for you posting this OP.
"I think it useful to examine the historical construction of Helen Keller's life story to remove her Marxist activism on disability and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles."
Maybe I misunderstood your intent in writing this post.
Could you please explain, clearly and simply, why you feel so deeply compelled to create an OP that is designed to "remove her Marxist activism on disability, and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles?"
Thanks.
A coma before the word 'to' would entirely change what you were trying to say. Otherwise its sounds as if you are advocating for removing her Marxist accomplishments. 
content of the article.
In a neoliberal era in which personal choice and triumphs of individual character are heralded above social justice and understandings of structural oppression, I think it useful to examine the historical construction of Helen Keller's life story to remove her Marxist activism on disability and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles.
I read the entire article, looking for a correlation between you introductory paragraph and the meaning of the content of the article, and did not see one. From reading your posts over a period of several years, I never got any clue that you were in any way supportive of Socialism or Marxism. Somewhat the opposite, in fact.
Are you a socialist, or Marxist/socialist?
The article is excellent, and I never indicated in any way that it wasn't.
Thank you for clarifying that you recognize and respect Helen Keller's radical socialist activism.
By the way, I have a History Degree, with a minor in Psychology, from a highly esteemed private university on the East Coast, and several years of post graduate study as a migrant worker "road scholar", which was probably the most important part of my education, in the respect that it helped me gain a better understand of what I had been taught in school.
You should be aware that, in reality, you are not wiser, smarter, more literate, or superior to everyone else in the world simply because you (purportedly) have a reasonably decent education.
And by the way, you never gave any indication at all that you "thought the article was good".
Introductory paragraphs generally clearly state the main idea, the intent, of an essay, and do not leave a reader with conflicting interpretations of the message of the body. Even now, after reading all of this, I see little or no reason value in, or reason to, "examinine the historical construction of Helen Keller's life story to remove her Marxist activism on disability and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles".
Given that you have so condescendingly explained to me that the popular conception of Helen Keller in the hero role that Americans are generally famliar with, that of some type of benign, bucolic. struggling but noble hero figure, why did you write that you feel it was important to continue to foster this image, by removing her Marxist activism on disability, and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles?
Is it so we can better understand the neoliberal mind? I'm just not seeing any value in removing the actual facts of her Marxist activism from her history. It just seems so Orwellian. And the author of the article is definitely pushing the fact of her Marxist activism.
Neoliberals need to have the fact that this most excellent woman was a red pinko commie shoved up in their faces. The author of the article seems to believe so as well.
"In a neoliberal era in which personal choice and triumphs of individual character are heralded above social justice and understandings of structural oppression, I think it useful to examine the historical construction of Helen Keller's life story to remove her Marxist activism on disability and instead supplant it with moral tales of overcoming personal obstacles."
Honestly, ^^that^^ just sounds so like Ayn Rand newspeak circa 1984.