Erasure as a Lockean Abuse of Language

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke discusses several ways that language and words—and more specifically the signification process behind creating the meaning of words—can fail. This phrasing, however, can be a bit misleading. Many of the failures of language that Locke discusses arise out of user error, and not from the words themselves. He calls these the “abuses” of language. Some of the abuses he discusses include how people use words to signify something they do not really signify—in other words, they make the meaning of the word obscure or difficult to understand on purpose. He also says that language can become obscure when people assume that others know what they mean when they use certain words. This, to me, sounds like one of the problems that Ellen Barton wanted to bring to light in her essay Textual Practices of Erasure.

In her essay, Barton uses the United Way poster campaign to raise money for those with disabilities as a case study. Although on the surface, these posters were campaigning for a righteous cause, Barton argues that they used language that ‘erased’ the complexities of the lives of people with disabilities. They used words in such a way that they came to mean something they usually did not. All three of the examples Barton discusses in her essay correlate to the abuses of language Locke names in his.

First, the idea that the posters use language meant to invoke pity and fear. By centering the ads around children, they invoked pity in the readers. But by leaving adults with disabilities out of the ads, the language they used erased the idea that those with disabilities can be independent. In the same way, it erased any notion that the success of an adult with a disability was because of their hard work—instead, their success was attributed to the generous and able donor. In these ads, words are purposely used to signify incomplete ideas, therefore their meaning is manipulated.

In her second example, Barton states that the United Way ads exalt “supercrips,” which are people who live out the notion that a disability is nothing but an adversity to be overcome and are successful despite their disabilities (Franklin D. Roosevelt is arguably one of them). In this way, the ads actually moved toward a more complex understanding of the lives of those with disabilities, but they allowed the readers to use stereotypes to narrow their thinking about those people. In the exaltation of “supercrips,” the ads set unreasonably high standards for those with disabilities, and severely diminish any smaller successes others may have. After all, not every person with a disability is going to become the president of the United States, but this does not make their successes less valid. It is in this way that words are used again to exclude parts of their meaning. By setting “supercrips” up on a pedestal, they create two different definitions of what it means for a person with disabilities to live a normal life. In other words, the meanings of words like ‘supercrip’ and ‘normal’ are obscured.

Finally, Barton speaks of the misrepresentation of United Way as a business. By using language that portrays it as an efficient and smart business partner which mediates the relationships between donors and those with disabilities, United Way erases any need for reflection on the reader’s part. By using words that constructs them as an efficient business operation and the readers as efficient decision makers, they are again erasing the part of the idea that allows readers to understand the complexity of life with disabilities. 

The words are not being used to signify complete ideas, and are therefore not signifying the “real essence of the thing,” as Locke would say. The signification process, in these instances, is failing because of an abuse of language.

-Jessica Gonzalez