The Ethics of Inclusion: Three Common Delusions by John O'Brien,
Marsha Forest, Jack Pearpoint, Shafik Asante & Judith Snow We
want to begin a dialogue on the expectations about personal
behavior that go along with a commitment to Inclusion.
Unattainable expectations confuse good people and fragment
efforts for change into factions organized around hurt feelings.
We who care about Inclusion can reduce this drain on the energy
necessary to work for justice by being clear about three
delusions which are common, but mostly unconscious among
advocates for Inclusion. When we replace these false and
destructive beliefs with simpler expectations of decency and
working constructively in common, we will all be better able to
live out the real meaning of Inclusion by honoring and growing
from our shared struggle with our diverse gifts, differences,
and weaknesses. [In writing this article, we have struggled for
clarity. We talked about whether to use "delusion" or
"illusion". Delusion means "a mistaken idea or belief". Illusion
a 'false appearance or deceptive impression of reality". They
are synonyms - but we have chosen "delusion" because it is
stronger.] Delusion 1 Inclusion means that everybody must love
everybody else or "We must all be one big, happy family!" (OBHF)
This delusion is at work when people who care about Inclusion
feel shocked and offended to discover that other Inclusion
advocates don't really like one another. Sometimes this delusion
pushes people into pretending, or wanting others to pretend,
that real differences of opinion and personality don't exist or
don't really matter. The roots of this delusion may be in a
desire to make up for painful experiences by finally becoming
part of "one big happy family," (OBHF) where there is continual
harmony and peace. The "one big happy family" (OBHF) delusion is
the exact opposite of Inclusion. The real challenge of Inclusion
is to find common cause for important work that cannot be done
effectively if we isolate ourselves from one another along the
many differences of race, culture, nationality, gender, class,
ability, and personality that truly do divide us. Educating our
children is one such common task. The reward of Inclusion comes
in the harvest of creative action and new understanding that
follows the hard work of finding common ground and tilling it by
confronting and finding creative ways through real differences.
The "one big happy family" (OBHF) delusion destroys the
possibilities for Inclusion in a complex community by seducing
people into burying differences by denying their significance or
even their existence. People in schools or agencies or
associations which promote this delusion lose vividness and
energy because they have to swallow the feelings of dislike and
conflict they experience and deny the differences they see and
hear. Denial makes a sandy foundation for inclusive schools and
communities. Community grows when people honor a commitment to
laugh, shout, cry, argue, sing, and scream with, and at, one
another without destroying one another or the earth in the
process. We can't ever honestly celebrate diversity if we
pretend to bring in the harvest before we have tilled the ground
together. Delusion 2 Inclusion means everyone must always be
happy and satisfied or "Inclusion cures all ills." A group of
good people came together to study inclusive community in an
intensive course. One person, Anne, angrily announced her
dissatisfaction from the group's first meeting on. She acted
hostile to everyone else and to the group's common project. At
first, the group organized itself around Anne's dissatisfaction.
A number of members anguished over her participation. It was
hard for the group to sustain attention on anything for very
long before the topic of how to satisfy Anne took over. The
group acted as if it could not include Anne unless she was
happy. And, they assumed, if they could not be an inclusive
group (that is, make Anne happy) they would be failing to live
up to their values. Two other members dropped out the group,
frustrated by their inability to overcome the power of this
delusion and move on to issues of concern to them. The group
broke through when they recognized that true community includes
people who are angry and anguished as well as those who are
happy and satisfied. After overcoming the delusion of cure, the
group gave Anne room to be angry and dissatisfied without being
the focus of the whole group. Let out of the center of the
group's concern, Anne found solidarity with several other
members, whom she chose as a support circle for herself. In this
circle of support her real pain emerged as she told her story of
being an abused child and a beaten wife. She did not go home
cured or happy, but she did find real support and direction for
dealing with the issues in her life. The delusion that Inclusion
equals happiness leads to its opposite: a pseudo-community in
which people who are disagreeable or suffering have no place
unless the group has the magic to cure them. Groups trapped in
this delusion hold up a false kind of status difference that
values people who act happy more than people who suffer. This
delusion creates disappointment that Inclusion is not the
panacea. Real community members get over the wish for a cure-all
and look for ways to focus on promoting one another's gifts and
capacities in the service of justice. They support, and often
must endure, one another's weaknesses by learning ways to
forgive, to reconcile, and to rediscover shared purpose. Out of
this hard work comes a measure of healing. Delusion 3 Inclusion
is the same as friendship or "We are really all the same"
Friendship grows mysteriously between people as a mutual gift.
It shouldn't be assumed and it can't be legislated. But people
can choose to work for inclusive schools and communities, and
schools and agencies and associations can carefully build up
norms and customs that communicate the expectation that people
will work hard to recognize, honor, and find common cause for
action in their differences. This hard work includes embracing
dissent and disagreement and sometimes even outright dislike of
one person for another. The question at the root of Inclusion is
not "Can't we be friends?" but, in Rodney King's hard won words,
"Can we all just learn to get along - to live with one another?"
We can't get along if we simply avoid others who are different
and include only those with who we feel comfortable and similar.
Once we openly recognize difference, we can begin to look for
something worth working together to do. Once we begin working
together, conflicts and difficulties will teach us more about
our differences. If we can face and explore them our actions and
our mutual understanding will be enriched and strengthened. To
carry out this work, our standard must be stronger than the
friendly feelings that come from being with someone we think
likes and is like us. To understand and grow through including
difference we must risk the comfortable feeling of being just
like each other. The question that can guide us in the search
for better understanding through shared action is not "Do we
like each other?" but "Can we live with each other?" We can
discover things worth our joint effort even if we seem strange
to one another, even if we dislike one another, and it is
through this working together that we can learn to get along.
The delusion of sameness leads away from the values of
Inclusion. It blurs differences and covers over discomfort and
the sense of strangeness or even threat that goes with
confronting actual human differences. Strangely, it only when
the assumption of friendship fades away that the space opens up
for friendship to flower. An ethic of decency and common labor
Inclusion doesn't call on us to live in a fairy tale. It doesn't
require that we begin with a new kind of human being who is
always friendly, unselfish, and unafraid and never dislikes or
feels strange with anyone. We can start with who we are. And it
doesn't call for some kind of super group that can make everyone
happy, satisfied, and healed. We can and must start with the
schools, and agencies, and associations we have now. The way to
Inclusion calls for more modest, and probably more difficult,
virtues. We must simply be willing to learn to get along while
recognizing our differences, our faults and foibles, and our
gifts. This begins with a commitment to decency: a commitment
not to behave in ways that demean others and an openness to
notice and change when our behavior is demeaning, even when this
is unintentional. This ethical boundary - upheld as a standard
in human rights tribunals around the globe - defines the social
space within which the work of Inclusion can go on. This work
calls on each of us to discover and contribute our gifts through
a common labor of building worthy means to create justice for
ourselves and for the earth through the ways we educate each
other, through the ways we care for one another's health and
welfare, and through the ways we produce the things we need to
live good lives together. In this common labor we will find
people we love and people we dislike; we will find friends and
people we can barely stand. We will sometimes be astonished at
our strengths and sometimes be overcome by our weaknesses.
Through this work of Inclusion we will, haltingly, become new
people capable of building new and more human communities.
