Blogger Widgets Ender-Chan's Thoughts: Ableism and Cognitive Functions At a Glance

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Ableism and Cognitive Functions At a Glance

Ableism is a means of perceiving the world and understanding others (in a totally misguided and ignorant way), so what better way is there to understand ableism than through Jung's cognitive functions?

Keep in mind that cognitive functions are about how and why you do something, not what you do. Anyone can be ableist no matter what their dominant, auxiliary, tertiary, etc. functions are. This post focuses on dominant and maybe auxiliary functions unlike the martyr mommy post (You know the one.) that I wrote which covers primary functions in a specific pattern.

No cognitive function is more ableist than another. Keep in mind that I understand the cognitive functions through the interface of my own functions. 

The Sensing Functions
  •  Extroverted sensing (Se) is the use of one's sensory perception to gather information that relates to one's present experiences. The ableist Se user acts according to their impulses and creates awkward moments. They focus on the sensory details that are different from what they are used to and, thus, experience fear. Se users tend to ask unwelcome personal questions to understand what they perceive. 
  • Introverted sensing (Si) is the use of one's sensory perception to gather information in order to relate it to past experiences. The ableist Si user stores past experiences when others and feels threatened when presented with someone who deviates from their constructed image of what is safe. Si users tend to stare or make tactless comments while constructing misguided images of disability based on their past experiences.
The Intuitive Functions
  • Extroverted intuition (Ne) is the use of one's intuition to form ideas using immediate contexts together. The ableist Ne user is quick to make assumptions about what someone else can do based on previous notions of their definition of ability. They tend to focus on the idea of disability itself rather than the person and build their perceptions from there.
  • Introverted intuition (Ni) is the use of intuition in order to form ideas using past experiences to form ideas of what is to come. The ableist Ni user will make purely negative extrapolations when presented with disability. Ni users tend to focus on things that will go wrong and feel flustered when they have to compromise on their vision to make it accessible.
The Thinking Functions:
  • Extroverted thinking (Te) is the use of one's current situation in order to organize their surroundings. The ableist Te user will deem disabled people "inefficient" and, thus, a waste of their time. Te users also have the tendency to believe that labels are the sole determiner of a person's identity. 
  • Introverted thinking (Ti) is the use of principled logic to synthesize theories and build original ideas. The ableist Ti user would think of the theory of disability and think of it as only an impedance to someone's life. Ti users condense and reduce information to its perceived essence, so an ableist Ti user would form misguided perceptions from there.
The Feeling Functions
  • Extroverted feeling (Fe) is the function one uses to meet the needs of others. Ableist Fe users over-help without any regard for the person's agency and pass it off as a good deed. Usually, ableist Fe users are well-intentioned, but misguided people. Fe users can also be annoyingly patronizing.
  • Introverted feeling (Fi) is the sense of what one likes and dislikes as well as personal values. The ableist Fi user will reject the disabled (and/or certain types of disability) as a collective entity that they do not like. Ableist Fi users tend to misread criticism from disabled people as attacks, especially if the criticism is against something that gives them comfort.
What have you to say about ableism and cognitive functions? Do you recognize these processes in others? 

4 comments:

  1. Your research and application of all these personality types is very impressive! I've come across a few Fi's and Fe's!

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    1. I have seen Fi and Si ableism the most out of all the types. Inspiration porn is Fe (and possibly Se) ableism to a T, though.

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  2. Fascinating analysis! I found you on Love That Max and I love that you are posting there. I'm not sure how many disability Moms are there like me - that is, interested in theories of disability and perception. But I am definitely going to be a regular visitor here! Have a look at my book and blog - www.donnathomson.com. I used Amartya Sen's capability approach to analyse what kinds of programmes, policies and services helped us have a life that we valued individually and collectively in our family. (Not many did.) Anyway, a fascinating Jungian perspective - thank you for sharing!

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    1. I've never seen anyone else look at ableism through a Jungian perspective, so I decided to do it.

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