Disability
3rd December is International Day for People with a Disability. Enough reason to start a thread on disability. Further, there is a large and growing body of literature relating to the philosophy of disability to which we might attend. One of the tensions in that literature is around the nature of disability. We might focus on that here.
It might seem obvious that disability is a medical issue. On this understanding, it is the body of the person that is the source of the disability. On this account, an amputee is disabled because they are missing a limb, a para is disabled because they cannot move their legs, the blind are disabled because they cannot use their eyes, and so on.
Some consideration might give us pause here. A wheelchair user is not incapacitated by ramps, but by stairs. Folk with visual impairment can find their way around in spaces that are accessibly designed, but struggle in spaces designed for the sighted. So it’s not their body that is disabling so much as its interaction with its environment.
This has led to disability being seen as a gap between what a body is able to do and what it has been historically expected to be able to do, the gap between body and social expectation.
Hence the commonly advocated alternative to the medical model of disability - the social model; the view that disability is largely created by architectural barriers, institutional practices, and social attitudes that fail to accommodate human variation.
According to the social model, it’s not using a wheelchair that is disabling, but stairs that exclude certain individuals from some spaces. It’s not being unable to hear that disables, but the absence of suitable captions or signing. Disability is a choice made by societal expectations.
All this might be familiar to many. I hope so. The rejection of the medical model is relatively ubiquitous, especially in disability circles and advocacy.
More recent work has centred on the presumption that disability is inherently a bad thing. That rather than being inherently negative, having a disability is just one more way of being a human, not inherently a disadvantage or a negative, but treated as such by many in the community. It’s in this area that perhaps the most interesting recent work in the philosophy of disability is continuing.
So here’s a start. Is there a defensibly “normal” human body? Is disability no more than an issue of welfare and charity, or should we piss on pity? Is disability a social construction? Is there a coherent way to define disability at all?
It might seem obvious that disability is a medical issue. On this understanding, it is the body of the person that is the source of the disability. On this account, an amputee is disabled because they are missing a limb, a para is disabled because they cannot move their legs, the blind are disabled because they cannot use their eyes, and so on.
Some consideration might give us pause here. A wheelchair user is not incapacitated by ramps, but by stairs. Folk with visual impairment can find their way around in spaces that are accessibly designed, but struggle in spaces designed for the sighted. So it’s not their body that is disabling so much as its interaction with its environment.
This has led to disability being seen as a gap between what a body is able to do and what it has been historically expected to be able to do, the gap between body and social expectation.
Hence the commonly advocated alternative to the medical model of disability - the social model; the view that disability is largely created by architectural barriers, institutional practices, and social attitudes that fail to accommodate human variation.
According to the social model, it’s not using a wheelchair that is disabling, but stairs that exclude certain individuals from some spaces. It’s not being unable to hear that disables, but the absence of suitable captions or signing. Disability is a choice made by societal expectations.
All this might be familiar to many. I hope so. The rejection of the medical model is relatively ubiquitous, especially in disability circles and advocacy.
More recent work has centred on the presumption that disability is inherently a bad thing. That rather than being inherently negative, having a disability is just one more way of being a human, not inherently a disadvantage or a negative, but treated as such by many in the community. It’s in this area that perhaps the most interesting recent work in the philosophy of disability is continuing.
So here’s a start. Is there a defensibly “normal” human body? Is disability no more than an issue of welfare and charity, or should we piss on pity? Is disability a social construction? Is there a coherent way to define disability at all?
Comments (220)
Some of the disabled people you might see are there in your world because of advances in medicine that have taken place over the last 100 years (ironically, much of it in response to WW2). And the same medicine that kept people alive to face the challenges of a world that isn't built for them, is investing everyday in technology to give sight to the blind, to give hearing to the deaf, and to give robotic arms and legs to those who survived trauma and spinal injuries. Or do we use stem cells? Is that where our priorities should be?
The raw motivation to save damaged bodies is a kind of love. You're something other than your capabilities. You're a personality. You're a family member. You're a dreamer of dreams. It's love for that conception of personhood that has healthcare workers reflexively reaching to help. But on the other end is a healthcare industry. It's all about money. Who pays for what?
Does it come down to the bottom line no matter how you answer the question in my first paragraph? Should we make laws that require builders to adhere to disability related guidelines? Or should the state pay?
There is ample archaeological and paleopathological evidence that ancient humans, including early Homo sapiens and even Neanderthals, cared for and cared for their fellow tribesmen with serious injuries, disabilities, or illnesses. This is evident in the traces of old injuries on the bones of the inhabitants of that time, and yet, later in life, the tooth enamel of such individuals often appears better than that of their fellow tribesmen (they ate pureed food). This is interpreted by scientists as evidence of healthy group members caring for the sick or disabled.
Quoting Banno
In your initial post, you alienate the problem of disability from the individual and transfer it to society or the environment. However, what if we consider the possibility of continuing to live with an illness as a humane act, an act of caring? What if it is part of a cultural code based on empathy on the one hand, and on the caregiver's desire to insure against their own disability on the other?
In this scenario, care ensures the continuation of life, albeit not a fully fulfilling life. Caring for the disabled is no longer an obligation of the state or society, but an individual interest. It's an investment in one's future safety, making altruism a rational choice for group members, not simply an emotional impulse.
Nevertheless, in many countries around the world, government building codes and regulations require buildings to be constructed with the disabilities of some people in mind.
Caring for the disabled, like the social model of disability, existed long before the advent of modern cities and architectural barriers. Care wasn't simply "fulfilling requirements" but a cultural imperative.
Quoting Banno
If caring is a cultural code or a rational interest, it is not pity. Pity is passive; caring is active and instrumental.
I'm sure that's true. Advances in medicine mean more people will survive the acute phase of trauma, when blood loss, infection, and temporary neurological deficit would take out the average Neanderthal, the result being that we probably have more disabled people among us than in other times in history.
I'd add another layer to this. If we take what I've described about ancient times as a starting point, then in that society, caring for the disabled was a completely understandable and logical phenomenon: it's part of a cultural code based, on one hand, on empathy, and on the other, on the caregiver's desire to insure against their own disability. The modern world is somewhat different. Individualism and organized care for the elderly (for example, pensions) or the disabled (for example, benefits) don't strongly compel a contemporary to contribute to the well-being of such people. "The state will take care of them," or "It doesn't concern me," or "What does this have to do with me?" This is most likely the underlying cause of the problems faced by disabled people today.
Furthermore, I've also noticed that disabled people are portrayed as objects of hate or jokes (in films like "Avatar"). I don't know whether this is truly the norm in society or whether it's a distortion. If this is true, I'd like to point out that the very permissibility of making jokes about people with disabilities was probably perceived differently in earlier times. Furthermore, I think this has become possible due to the secular nature of modern times.
One sociological book which may be relevant is Erving Goffman's, 'Stigma' which looks at how physical characteristics impact on social identity. What is seen as an 'abnormality' often leads people to focus on the characteristic more so than all other features. The book was written a few decades ago, so attitudes may have changed but people I know who are disabled often feel perceived differently in a negative way.
There is also the issue of learning disabilities and how this can be stigmatising, even though there is more understanding of associated issues, such as dyslexia and autism in education. One thing which I have noticed is that some institutions for those with profound learning disabilities is that they are often (in England) in rural, remote locations, as if hidden mainstream communities.
The most obvious is the prominence of the deficit model, in various guises.
The idea that disabilities need fixing.
The idea that a person with a disability cannot pay their way and will require more than they could provide.
And the related way that the focus moved so quickly from disability to care, to re-centring on the able bodied.
Offered as something for consideration, not as a negative. Why did this happen? is it justifiable? How?
No. Though we can still have a norm that functions socially like this.
Nor mind, for that matter, which I'd include with "the body" in terms of the medical model. So a person with depression is not able to want in the manner seen as not-depressive, though with training can be taught to act as if not depressed to fit in with the social expectations of people.
Interesting note there for similarity in terms of ability: a common symptom of depression is feelings of worthlessness or being a burden upon others. Others are able to care for the unable -- in this case largely defined by the economic model. Those with income are not a burden, those without it, or who "need" government assistance to live are the social burdens of the world. Hence the emphasis on curing or restoring ability to some norm, in this case the ability to pull a paycheck large enough to sustain oneself and not have to ask for "handouts", as they're often called by those not-disabled.
Which in a way shows that there's a connection here between body and sociality -- yes, the body feels worthless (mind), and the social world reinforces those feelings by setting up a norm by which to divide the providers from the feeders, the earners from the dependents, the worthwhile from the worthless.
Let me push back on one point:
Quoting Banno
This is true, if the capacity in question is to ascend or descend from level to level. But that's a convenient choice of capacity, because it can be ameliorated. The wheelchair user is also incapacitated by being unable to dance, and that can not be ameliorated. I'm doubtful whether wheelchair dancing could be said to overcome the incapacity. It resembles dancing with the body, certainly, but is far from the same thing, whereas "going up a level" is literally the same, no matter how you accomplish it. So, is there a way of thinking of this incapacity as also social in nature? I don't see it, at first glance, but what do you think?
The reason we use stairs and not ramps in architecture is that stairs take up significantly less horizontal space for the same vertical rise. In other words, stairs are practical and cost less. Not only that, but the physiological cost of stairs is always less than a ramp of equal slope. No doubt, this poses a problem for the disabled, but to argue building stairs is an act of exclusion, or otherwise the failure of an architect to consider human variability, is unjust and absurd.
The real social question ought to be: why are the disabled left to care for themselves?
I think we all wish to do what is best to make everyone's lives easier and not harder, and it's difficult to really to know what to do in contexts one has little famiilarity with. I guess my question is what might you propose the best response to the disabled would be if there are some well intentioned faux pas occuring?
This is just to say that I stand for the elderly on the bus because that's what I have been told to do and it seems the right thing to do, but now that I'm dilgently working on being more elderly, I don't know I'd take a young person's seat. I'd tell the whipper snapper to sit back down while I struggled to stand the whole time in spite of myself.
Quoting Banno
The ‘dis’ in disability can be compared to the dis in dis-ease. It serves different purposes depending on the context of use. It can be a socially imposed determination of failure on the part of the so-labeled individual to fit in. Or it can be an internally generated perception of loss of capability. Instructive here is the difference in perception between someone born without sight or hearing and someone who loses these capacities at some point in their life. The former person has never experienced a loss of sight or hearing, and so never experienced few themselves as having become disabled. The latter individual may eventually transition from mourning such a loss to adapting to a new normal. But this process of normalization may never be complete in some persons, regardless of how accommodating the social environment is to someone the culture is happy to label differently abled rather than disabled.
Interesting and good evidence of our sociability being a core aspect of our nature..
There is something going on here, and I'm not at all sure it is cultural. It is not just in films, I noticed growing up that this attitude was very widespread in children. Rather than something that is socialized in us, it is as if this is something that needs to be socialized out of us. This experience made me wonder if there is a dark side to human nature expressing itself here. A drive to exclude based on perceived lack of fitness and lack of ability of the individual to contribute to the group.
This phenomenon concerns me. I'd like to delve into the descriptive description of the phenomenon (how it happens) rather than the prescriptive (how it should be).
And to what I've said above, I should add this: General indifference, which has become the norm for any individualistic society, continues to be perceived somewhat differently in the case of people with disabilities. It would be interesting to explore this. For example, according to the modern, generally accepted notion in developed countries, we are indifferent to an ordinary person walking towards us. Even if they do something wrong or even violate some norms, look very strange, smoke something illegal, or are simply lounging on the sidewalk after drinking, we calmly tell ourselves, "It's none of my business." And this seems generally accepted.
However, if a disabled person does all of the above, even if they're just walking towards us, we shouldn't seem so indifferent.
You'll agree, even despite our profound individualism, we still have a special attitude toward people with disabilities.
The very fact of indifference toward people with disabilities touches us. Hence, even despite secularism, something still lingers within us at a very deep level. This is a great area for conjecture. And I would suggest that this "special" attitude toward people with disabilities stems from our ordinary unpredictability of existence. We, residents of the 21st century, nevertheless continue to feel vulnerable, and it could easily happen that we ourselves could find ourselves in this position.
Perhaps this feeling among people with disabilities themselves is the root of the protest movement pointed out by the author of the thread: "Piss_On_Pity." Perhaps they don't like being special...
I live with a legally disabled person who cannot stand for more than a bout 45 minutes without searing pain throughout her head, neck and feet. But I meet criteria for legal disability on psychological grounds. Which is utterly preposterous. Having bad mental hygiene, or refusing to go to therapy, or rejecting attempts to have you break bad habits shouldn't ever be considered a disability. They are choices that compound and eventually feel overwhelming. But them stem from refusal to attend to oneself. I also have a son who has been diagnosed with what the kids call 'neurospicy' conditions. Which is bizarre, because I know exactly why he behaves the way he does because I've watched him his entire life. I am slowly ameliorating some of these mental barriers by attending to the events which caused them, and the styles of interaction which he is either leaning into, or away from, for a better outcome as set against his goals in life. This is not news or even interesting - but its a clear example of bad diagnosis in an attempt to label someone 'disabled' when they clearly are not disabled in any reasonable sense. We need to be careful to not over-label behaviour as 'ability'.
We can carve that off, and speak about objective disabilities: 99.9% of people are born with two arms. A vanishingly small number are not. That's a disability against the norm. That is not a social expectation. It is a statistical fact. Similarly, some autism spectrum conditions are absolutely objective, almost unattendable and eventually result in disaster as with PTSD. There's a rather well-known case here in NZ where a mother killed her severely autistic, violent and sociopathic daughter after years of abuse and i want to say neglect from the medical system, but if you read the case, that's not true. The person cost a disproportionate amount to keep both safe and out of prison. The mother got less than two years because the court basically said 'Yep, fair enough, I would too'. There's some ambiguity there now, morally speaking (and, by the by, there's a good reason a lot of the world thinks Canada's MAID system is ridiculous). So we should probably speak about different disabilities differently.
The ones who are physically unable to do that which some extreme majority can are not 'disabled' by anything at all on my view. They are disabled on account of their physical lack. To be clear genital impotence through to missing limbs or organs fit here. The world around them did not cause their disability. They are unable to do x, y and z on account of their *insert description of condition here*. And largely, we deal with this well. Disablement is usually a get-out-free card for most contracts requiring physical performance, including many financial contracts. This is correct, in my view. We also make concessions for the disabled in most physical places we can do. Work to be done, to be sure, but I'm of the opinion we're doing pretty well in the developed world. I don't believe in inherent rights, so I'm always going to be a little off-piste with this topic.
One other interesting question: How to deal with people who are disabled as a result of their own ignorance, stupidity, recklessness or callousness? What's the social expectation there?
So going along with this question -- I'm suggesting that "disability" is largely a social construct based around socially enforced expectations of what an adult ought do: work being the obvious bare-minimum whereby even if someone doesn't accept you you have the ability to tell them to fuck off because you can take care of yourself even if they remain ignorant about the facts of disability.
Those without such autarky are usually who are meant, and that's why pity is frequently offered -- even if it is not desired. (for instance I have no desire for anyone's pity, or any judgment for that matter; I'd much rather be able to take care of myself with reasonable accommodations)
Autarky and work and social expectations of adulthood all look like social structures to me -- so those who are un-able to fit within those molds are given accommodations as seen fit, but they have to argue that they are the exception based on this way of understanding.
Now the Americans with Disabilities Act requires certain things of public buildings like ramps and wheel-chair accessibility and such. So that requirement on others to accommodate isn't absent current practices. But I think it is still largely fought for on the basis of sympathy for the afflicted, and means-testing for the not-afflicted-enough-to-warrant-sympathy.
So I can see the desire to highlight the social practices around disability, regardless of the medical component of disability. Basically I could see still addressing abilities -- for those so distressed -- medically while acknowledging there is also a social dimension (and one that's much larger than the medical concept of disability -- with its norms of the body -- suggests)
Quoting Banno
Its not the gap between body and social expectation, but physical expectations of basic human capabilities. Social expectations bring arbitrary subjective judgements and should not be used for objective analysis.
In general a physical disability is a physical state of being that does not allow you to function successfully in the physical expectation spectrum. Its physically expected that humans have two working legs, so most physically interactable designs are based around this. This is not subjective, but based around observed realities.
In general a mental disability is a mental state of being that does not allow you to function successfully in the mental expectation spectrum. Most people learn a language of some kind. Not being able to learn language is essential to interact with society without assistance, so would be a disability.
Quoting Banno
This is definitely backwards. If you aren't a designer or someone who builds for society, there are often many wants, demands, and desires while designing or building something. A good creator has a limit of time, money, and available materials to them, and part of the challenge of the job is creating a high quality product within these constraints. Designing to the statistical norms of biology is chosen for efficiency. There are 7 foot people walking around, but despite this most doors aren't that high. Taller doors necessitate more materials for the door, weight considerations of the door, and considerations of sturdy framing. So yes, most doors aren't 7 foot because of this.
This is why government has regulations. Because given the capability to do something cheaper and with less time and resources, most are going to choose that every time. As such we decide that society will bear the burden of extra time, resources and cost to keep certain minimum considerations when building things. This doesn't just apply to disabled people, but even everyday people.
Quoting Banno
Of course its a bad thing. It diminishes your quality of life, capabilities, and increases your difficulties in society. Every one given a cost free choice of, "Healthy legs" vs "Stumps that you can't feel or move" would and should take the prior every time. You're still human. You shouldn't be mistreated for it. But yes, you're diminished in capacity. This just sounds like people who don't want to admit they have problems, which is just immature. Accepting the fact you have issues, are less then others in some areas of life, or any other thing you're saddled with that no one rational would choose for themselves, is everyone's responsibility to learn to accept and live with.
Quoting Banno
Yes, based off of the median and/or average of human biology and health. Its what all medical guidelines and construction are based on. If you cannot without outside assistance, meet this statistical norm, then you are deficient or disabled from the norm in some way.
Far from the same thing?
So here's another thing about disability: being told what is possible by the able-bodied. Presumption. As opposed to being allowed to explore what is possible; the capabilities approach.
Stairs take less space than ramps. Seems to be their sole advantage. The presumption is that the facilities at the top of the stair will only be used by the able bodied, or that it's up to the chair user to solve the problem.
Yes, that is a social response. an area is made unavailable to a group of people by choice.
Like these companies?
:wink:
Blamed?
Held accountable for something the individual believed they played no role in or otherwise a state of being or mind that would have been even if same "blamee" (person blamed) was never ever born. Perhaps. Is what the chap means. It's a common viewpoint, unfortunately. No reason not to try and understand the mindset of such in their own words, no?
To listen.
I'm not sure it's the taxes that matter, at large, as much as people perceiving another person as somehow "contributing", whatever that entails. Having an income is seen as "responsible", and so is a marker for whether someone is really disabled vs. someone who can "tough it out" or is "too sensitive". The other marker usually being having a family and children.
Spot on!
And the presumption is, as often as not, that the disabled do not contribute.
But if you can't get up the stairs in order to pay your taxes... are you to blame?
An example. In “False Economy: The Economic Benefits of the NDIS and the Consequences of Government Cost-Cutting" the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the main support for folk with a disability Dow Nunder, the scheme was shown to have a multiplier effect of 2.25, meaning for every dollar spent on NDIS supports, about A$ 2.25 in economic value is generated across the economy.
Now the figure is disputed - but even if such a scheme only break even, should it not be implemented? Doesn't it make the nation better?
And let's question the presumption of deficit.
Osteological studies of Scottish soldiers from the Battle of Dunbar 1650, and The York 113, show that amongst the common soldiery were folk who would now be considered disabled. The presence of individuals with health stress or impairments did not exclude them from being enlisted or captured as soldiers; they were treated as ordinary foot-soldiers, and thrown into the same grave. Their impairment did not exclude them from participation in the social exercise of making war.
Disability is not a natural kind, but a social classification, perhaps a creation of the welfare state. The historical evidence indicates that impairment alone does not create disability. Treating disability as an economic category is a recent development. Disability is like property, citizenship and marriage.
What might stand is a re-focusing away from what is "normal" and towards accomodation, towards what folk are capable of. Variation is normal.
Quoting Banno
I'm wondering if a distinction between impairments/disability might help here?
A person who needs a wheelchair cannot dance like a person who does not -- they are impaired from dancing in certain ways.
But people who need wheelchairs can certainly dance. They are unable to unless people accommodate it and it's often not accommodated for, or seen as different. Here disability is social, where impairment is bodily.
Why not just that some folk dance on their legs, others in their chair?
Note that this removes the impairment?
Hence, re-focus on capabilities.
That view is expounded by Nussbaum in a discussion of disability, in Frontiers of Justice. Taht;s a link to a review you might find interesting. It's an Aristotelian approach...
But quite unlike those Aristotelian approaches usually seen in these fora.
Quoting Jean Chambers
I haven't read the links yet, but to answer: I was thinking of your example of the warriors who were treated the same while being impaired and attempting to generalize.
In the specific case of dancing I think "Some folk dance on their legs, others in their chair" is perfect.
DO you find it interesting how ubiquitous and indelible the idea of deficit is?
Much turmoil was raised because he had to do this. Corrective action was required in the form of staff re-education on the importance of smooth transitions between shifts and what not. New emphasis was placed on shift communication taking place at the bedside, in front of the patient if appropriate so that things like blindness aren't overlooked.
Much eye-rolling did take place among staff, but rules that are enforced are followed, and these new rules were enforced. The question is: why? Why was one unhappy white man cause for such outpouring of regret on the part of the hospital?
Everyone who works at such hospitals knows why. It's because in this community, hospitals compete with one another for business. Hospitals spend money on grand education initiatives of all sorts because patient experience impacts the bottom line.
In short, the hospital reacted this way because money was involved. That's how the world works.
Should it be true that only certain. races are afforded appropriate care, that should be remedied, but the opposite shouldn't be suggested, which is that the privileges should be flipped.
You also needn't reject every aspect of an economic system to where you must reject even its positive outcomes, especially in this instance where you suggest purely altruistic motivations would have left him not fully attended.
The idea of deficits is entirely foreign in systems that place infinite value on human life, with such designations only existing in purely pragmatic contexts, as in, I am wholly insufficient to play short stop for the Yankees, but of exact worth to all others in all ways moral.
Quoting Moliere
Is medical disease also a social construct? If not, how do we draw the line between social construction and empirical fact?
My story was about how accommodations for the disabled come into existence. If you want to change the world, pay attention to how the world works. Philosophical finger wagging doesn't motivate. Money does. That sort of thing. But you glanced at my post from 10 feet away, saw the word "white" and reacted to that. That is a subplot to my story of how the world works.
The study of human anatomy is where to start. If you're missing an appendix since birth, that's not normal. But getting your appendix removed later on doesn't cause any anomaly in bodily functions. In the end, you'd be missing an appendix but that's because you had it removed.
He saved staff time by improving communication at the shift change.
SO a statistical average? And that provides an ought here?
Are you sure that's a good argument? How do we go from "you don't have a hand" to "You ought have a hand"?
I don't know. The day staff may have forgotten to explain how he wants his food tray arranged because they were busy doing CPR down the hall. The library may have put off installing a ramp because the roof fell in on the philosophy section. What's reasonable?
Quoting Banno
The point was to increase staff time at shift change.
Pardon me, but I didn't think you meant morally when you asked that question.
And why is the word normal in quotes? Is this a bad thing now to have normal standards? I think the anatomists speak without invoking the moral ought. If you were told that this baby has a tail, and according to the normal human anatomy, having a tail is an anomaly, why is that a moral/ought stance? I'd say, the doctor would probably tell the parents to get the tail removed. But then if the parents elected not to have it removed, then it should be respected.
In order to save them having to come back when the poor bugger couldn't eat. Call me picky, but being able to eat seems important to patient wellbeing.
True, but I think he'd be able to eat, though he might end up with mashed potatoes on his hands.
The presumption that a disability is a deficit does exactly that, no? Perhaps not moral - although there are those who say disability is caused by the sins of the parents - but it's at least evaluative. This is the experience of folk with disabilities.
Two things. Why should it be you making that judgement rather than him? For you to decide that him getting in a mess is OK? And what hospital is this, so I can avoid it. Sounds like the staff morale is shite.
Added: AS in, this seems not to be an issue of disability, but of hospital management.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
I see a parallel in depression. A person with depression, it could be argued, is not incapacitated by a biomedical abnormality but by a disconnect between themselves and the social world. Depression is the lived form of the contradiction between human needs (for meaning, purpose, agency, etc.) and a society of alienation and domination. This contradictory interaction is constitutive of the personal "condition".
But I don't think this is a "social construct" model. The latter is too ontologically dualist, whereas this view is relational. So maybe it fits disability.
It's a matter of dignity, isn't it?
I just did some light googling and inevitably it turns out there's a lot of work been done around this, all of which I'm ignorant of. For example, there have already been proposed social-relational models of disability, and maybe that's close to what I was getting at (though no doubt mostly without my Adornian dialectical framing).
I understand that. I was just playing around with all the different fictions people want to read into my posts rather than just read what I said.
Given the response to the pretty modest proposals in the OP, the audience here might be a bit too... shocked for a productive discussion.
Interesting. It might even be interesting to see if crip theory and some kind of Aristotelianism might be reconciled, though on the face of it that seems a bit mad.
[hide="I ran it through ChatGPT just to get an outline"]4. Where links could be drawn
Relational flourishing:
Witt’s Aristotelianism already sees flourishing as dependent on social structures and relationships.
Crip theory critiques which structures are assumed “normal” or beneficial. One could interpret Crip theory as offering a critical corrective to Aristotelian flourishing: some “social goods” may harm disabled or neurodivergent people.
Negative capability / non-identical:
Crip theory, influenced by Adorno, highlights that some embodied or cognitive realities resist assimilation into normative categories.
Aristotelianism could, in principle, incorporate this: flourishing might include non-normative capacities as ethically and socially valuable.
Virtue as adaptation vs critique:
Crip theory emphasizes structural change to enable flourishing rather than asking individuals to conform to pre-existing norms.
This can be mapped to Aristotelian virtue ethics if virtues are reconceived not just as personal excellences but as capacities enabled by just social institutions.
5. Key tension
Aristotelianism tends to prescribe a “function” as a normative guide.
Crip theory tends to deconstruct normative function, especially when it enforces ableist or exclusionary ideals.
So the link is subtle: Witt’s Aristotelianism gives a framework for evaluating flourishing relationally, while Crip theory radicalizes the very assumptions about what counts as “flourishing” or “capacity.” The two could enter dialogue if you reconceive Aristotelian function in pluralistic or critical terms.[/hide]
That second tension, the deconstruction of normativity, is something I have time for, and outside of Aristotelian thinking.
In making the distinction between disability and impairment I'm putting the social construct on the side of disability, and the body/mind on the side of impairment.
Here the relationship between doctor-patient is social, and the disease is bodily(or mental, since I see no reason to differentiate between the body and the mind when it comes to a medical model).
I can imagine a person saying they'd rather stay at home than go to the doctor to get antibiotics. That is, they don't want the cure. That one can refuse a cure is part of our social world of the medical model.
So, yes, in part medical disease is also a social construct -- and I'd try to parse it similarly to how I'm trying to parse disability now.
And I'd say both can be investigated empirically as witnessed by our current medical practices.
So we might say a person is impaired from using their legs after some tragic accident, and is disabled because we think of human bodies in terms of norms which include things like the use of legs -- norms which show up in architecture and all the various tools we utilize; in short the entire social-economic environment is reflected by these norms of the body.
Roughly speaking: the medical model entails a doctor who knows about disease and a patient with a condition that needs a cure. Furthermore we generally operate under the notion of informed consent such that the patient's autonomy is respected even though they are in a weaker position with respect to knowledge.
With disability I can imagine people wanting this model in some cases. Nothing wrong with that as long as the patient is truly consenting -- i.e. isn't doing it just because everyone is telling them that they need to be cured when they are content as they are.
So insofar that we're not talking about disability in terms of a disease that needs curing with the assistance of a knower who will help the ignorant through the process of curing the disease I suppose then we're talking about disability in terms other-than-medical, other-than-disease. We might term this remainder, whatever it is, the social aspect of disability.
The state is not a doctor, and the social body can accommodate different bodies. And people ought not to have to prostrate themselves to gain pity and sympathy in order just to exist.
So intuitively I was reaching for something like your first link which explicitly uses "impairments" to mean the bodily reality while "disability" is the social reality of disabled persons.
Nussbaum is always a good read. I found the comparison to contract theorists helpful for differentiating her approach and why there are such-and-such frontiers for justice on that model. I can see calling it a neo-Aristotelian approach -- "capabilities" as a kind of virtue which makes for a eudemon life: though a marked difference is that she is advocating this under a liberal umbrella such that the eudemon life is not only objective, but also universally applicable such that state coercion is justified in obtaining it for everyone.
Makes me want to learn more...
Almost always :D -- it's still fun to pontificate and think on my own, though...
So when I say "social construct" I do not mean that to indicate "not-real", as is commonly thought. I think calling this "relational" works pretty well, too, insofar as we don't stop there. Relational... between what? and what relation? That's where a description of our social conditions can come in to fill in the details.
For what it's wort, the NDIS here differentiates disability/impairment on the one hand form medical issues on the other, using the following criteria:
1. A disability is permanent.
2. A disability involves a substantial reduction in functional capacity.
3. A disability must affect a person’s ability to work, study, or take part in social life, and they must likely need long-term supports.
The impairment must be functional and permanent and require support. That's very much following the medical model. It reinforces the deficit model, framing disability as a problem for an individual body, not as a disjunction between that body and its environment. It presumes the evaluative place of a "normal" body, an unquestioned baseline. It arbitrarily rejects chronic illness, which would otherwise count as a disability. It ignores lived experience of fluctuating or episodic disability.
Now my advocacy has been towards a capabilities focus, looking at the valued human capabilities that are restricted, and what supports enable the person to actually realise them. In this framing consideration of the impairment is replaced by consideration of what supports are needed to allow the person to achieve their capabilities. "assistance with daily living" and "mobility supports" changes to "self-care" and "social participation".
This approach has wide recognition, and underpinned the initial vision of the NDIS, but met opposition in the implementation, the bean-counters not being familiar with capabilities-based metrics. The dynamic between medical and social models is ongoing.
Given that dynamic, considerations involving critical theory are a long way from the centre of the discussion.
Heh. You're right I ought to have just read them before replying.
Quoting Banno
A long way, sure, though sometimes that's an advantage -- less of a dog in the fight between your approach and the bean counters means a possibility for bridge-building.
Especially considering that sympathetic ears towards critical theory are likely to be more sympathetic to disability advocates than bean-counters, the currently frustrating deciders of the world.
You have disability insurance through Social Security. It's pretty generous. He's talking about the Australian version of this. The American version has been around since the 1950s.
I know.
Quoting frank
Quoting Banno
How would you say it stacks up to the USA's? Looks to be the same in terms of...
Quoting Banno
I don't know. Everyone I've ever met who was living "on disability" (receiving SSI payments) was doing pretty well. Now does this mean they'll never have to be humble enough to ask for help? No. This isn't utopia. It's the real world. If you fall out of your power chair you're going to have to ask for help.
Good.
So does that mean we ought reject the social model of disability?
If @frank would say "Everyone I've ever met who was living "on disability" (receiving SSI payments) was doing pretty well" then we ought reject...
Quoting Banno
?
I don't think you mean this, but I do wonder what you're getting at.
We've sent aid packages to folk we know in the US who have not been able to get the support they need.
Yeah, I know. Shocking.
Quoting frank
Not what we see, on various international forums for folk with disabilities. The situation is pretty dire.
And you have a president who openly mocks disability.
Hey, you guys asked.
Quoting Banno
You're such a compassionate person Banno. Thank you.
Come on, you know me better. Not I, Wife.
I'm not posturing, I'm pointing to a problem. And you did ask.
Your wife is a compassionate person. Hint to her to watch out for scams. It's hard to avoid them these days.
And yes, we have also been involved in exposing scams.
Cool.
Yeah, not so much. Leaves me pretty cold, really. :grimace:
Maybe if you walkabout in the desert it will help. :grin:
Quoting frank
Look I'm quoting myself.
All of which is not to say that our system is ideal. Far from it.
You can look up information on it if you think the Australian system could benefit from America's greater experience and wisdom. I work in an emergency room so I'm up close and personal with the needs of my community. I have a list of local charities that I've collected over the years. They're all religious, go figure. People on disability don't need my list. Undocumented people is where the real need is.
Ok. It was Moliere who asked. I'm sure he will be interested in your perspective.
I understand greater need and greater suffering. But lesser suffering is still worth talking about and improving. Comparing suffering as if to triage the worthy from the worthless is counter-productive to building bonds between those who suffer.
Ok. What practical bullet points emerge from this?
This idea of means-testing the suffering is pretty bad.
Definitely worth pondering, yes
Central to both the social and critical models of disability, but external to the medical model.
First, I do not agree with your use of the word 'historically' when referring to human anatomy. To say historically implies that it is a practice put in place. Like a history written based on the events that happened.
No. Humans found themselves in such a constitution that they created their environments to fit into this constitution. Nature created the human constitution. It is our choice to further discover that we can do 'much more' with ease and speed, without disabling ourselves -- for examples, removing our vertebrae so we can slither much smoother through crevices that would otherwise be prohibitive.
Second, I agree that the environment can be, not always, a hindrance to the disabled. (societies acknowledge this by creating building codes to make an environment accessible to the disabled).
Quoting Banno
It is a deficit but not in the sense of morals.
That exactly what the social model suggests: that disability is "a practice put in place" as much as it is a feature of a body. Is disability a property of a body, or a relation between that body and it's environment, including it's social context?
Saying that a particular body has a deficit is making an evaluation, that it ought be otherwise.
But that ought is embedded in an historical and cultural context.
The issue here is perhaps one of presumption, that in the first instance we look at what a disabled body cannot do, when we could look at what the disabled body might require in order to achieve it's full capabilities. to ask, “Given the person’s body and circumstances, what supports or adjustments would allow them to exercise their capabilities?”
So instead of checklists of what a person cannot do, ask which valued activities is the person currently unable to achieve? What barriers (physical, social, environmental) prevent capability realisation? What supports would remove those barriers?
It's about shifting the narrative from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what do you need to thrive?”
This is a short-cut to my reply.
"What do you need to thrive" is what our societies have been communicating by putting in place the regulations that help the disabled. This includes, financial and health insurance support, building codes, and workplace laws to prevent discrimination. The point of all these is to help the disabled thrive.
The social model of disability started in the seventies, as a change in perspective that involved listening to the voices of the disabled, to wha tit was that they needed rather than what others were willing to do for them.
The improvements to how we deal with folk with disabilities is in a very large part down to this move in emphasis. Accessibility standards, anti-discrimination laws, independent-living movements, deinstitutionalisation, personal-assistance schemes, and now programs like the NDIS—owe their momentum to this change. The driving force was disabled activists insisting that disability is not a deviation from the normal human body, but the consequence of social design.
That we now do more to help disabled people thrive is because the social model reframed disability as a matter of rights, participation, and capability, not charity or medical adjustment. Listening to disabled people, not than assuming the abled know what they need, was the hinge on which that change turned.
My ex was an audio describer for blind people attending public gatherings, and gradually came into contact with the 'dis-arts' community and various advocates. One loved to point out that, barring catastrophe, we will all experience some form of disability as we age.
Your OP got me thinking of deaf culture. I have met deaf people that would not use cochlear implants if given the option, because they feared it would interfere with their vibrant deaf culture. This is uncomplicated, but some contend that they would not arrange the procedure for any young deaf children they had, which is more complicated.
Talk of 'normal' has to consider degree of impairment, no? I recall my anger as a 21 year old undergrad listening to a sociology professor tell me that schizophrenics were communicating 'normally' given their standpoint and contrasting this with the difficulties of talking to my brother at all because of his debilitating psychosis.
Expanding 'normal' in that case seemed a political project rather than an attempt to improve dignity for the sufferer. My brother's circumstances improved tremendously when he was medicated, as he himself would often say.
Do 'invisible' disabilities differ from the visible in your schema?
Mental illnesses are 'invisible', and is sure seems that social design is making this worse. Should accessibility consider, say, depression?
The goal of accessibility is wonderful, but it seems impossible to achieve without unlimited financial resources or drawing lines somewhere?
Quoting Moliere
:up:
A counterpoint to consider. I met a gentleman who was deaf from birth, now in his middle years. His parent refused to provide any remediation, including contact with other deaf people, in the belief that this would build his ability to adapt to "normal" hearing society and so position him well for a good life. However the result was that although he could not fit in well with the hearing, he also could not fit in with the deaf community, and so found himself isolated.
The attempt by his parents to maximise his opportunity had the exact opposite result.
There are situations that do not have an unambiguously clear response, situations in which we cannot know hat it is best to do and must muddle through. Seems to me that the best answer in such situations might be to maximise the available alternatives. Hence neither refusing a cochlear implant nor refusing participation in deaf culture would be appropriate.
This sits well with Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, providing the capacities that enable multiple forms of human flourishing.
The sociology professor appears to have privileged the supposed internal coherence of a schizophrenics self-talk over the social function of language. Internal coherence is not sufficient for social or communicative normality in the practical sense that matters for care, welfare, and interpersonal life. Again, your brother's capabilities are limited by his illness.
Mental illness and invisible disabilities do fit in to the social model, and can be dealt with using the capabilities approach. As for cost, I'll point again to the study that showed a multiplier effect of 2.25 for the NDIS scheme. Having folk with disabilities, indeed all folk, participate as fully as there capabilities will permit has a benefit to us all, even in dry economic terms.
I know of a person exactly like this, and it was and remains tragic just due to his social isolation. He did go on to get a cochlear implant, but he still has significant limitations understanding, likely from the limited language skills he obtained prior to receiving it.
The question of the cochlear implant raises is another one as well, which is whether one ought provide a cochlear implant if available. To do so requires a belief that normalization is better than allowing the person remain within the close knit and proud sub-culture the deaf have created. That is, it touches upon your question about whether being normal is the goal. It seems intuitive though to increase one's ability to interact with the world by providing hearing where it was previously lacking. The final rule therefore likely being that one ought do what increases the overall happiness of the individual even if it means tacitly admitting their former state was wanting from the state you are moving them to.
In any event, I draw a rigid distinction between ability and worth, with infinite worth taken as a given, undiminishable and not measurable by ability. That is, to suggest the worth of the deaf person has increased when he has been given the ability to hear is offensive. His worth is not to be measured in terms of the things he can do.
Ok. Good reasoning.
Perhaps look again at the capabilities of the individual - how are they to be maximised? Seems to be by participating as much as possible in both hearing and deaf communities. SO implant the device, and maintain contact with the deaf community.
Notice the absence here of "tacitly admitting their former state was wanting" ? instead we look towards maximising benefit - but not in terms of happiness so much as of capability. It's not worth that has increased, but capacity - they can do more things.
Really, it is an Aristotelian ethic. I find that quite curious.
But how would you justify a cochlear implant in someone feeling full fulfillment within the deaf community, having no desire to leave its comfort? Would you feel justified in insisting upon it even should the person feel overall greater unhappiness for having been pulled into the general world of the hearing?
Measuring "doing more" isn't just in counting new abilities, but in the value the person receives from them. If the person enjoyed that special comraderie of the deaf community, that thing will be lost, and it might have received great weight from him in terms of personal value not gained from hearing.
Consider SRS, for example.
Why would I need to?
Here's another phrase, prominent in the disability community, and promoted, if perhaps not coined by a very dear friend:
If they don't want an implant, I won't make 'em have one.
"Supported Residential Services"?
That is what I was agreeing with and suggesting your comments implied otherwise. You argued the maximization of happiness wasn't a proper objective but instead said maximizing benefit was the objective. While I suppose we could have talked past each other, I read "maximizing benefit" as something that could be measured by some observable criteria, whereas happiness is determined just by asking the person what makes him happy.
So, if you're saying maximizing benefit simply meaning maximizing personal preferences, then the distinction with that and happiness collapses for all practical purposes.
Here's a sample list of capabilities, from Nussbaum:
A bit more than personal preferences.
And includes "bodily integrity".
So there is something a bit more sophisticated here than "happiness".
I'm not trying to over-simplify and can't disagree with Nussbaum's wish list of available capabilities, but I still abstract out the fundamental principle sounds something along the lines of advancing Enlightenment rights for the "pursuit of happiness."
Quoting Banno
Happiness principles aren't unsophisticated. Given the centrality of the concept to Utilitarianism and the role it plays, 1000s of pages have been written trying to explain what happiness is.
But the quibble seems to be the way we wish to portray the same thing, less so the substance.
Quoting Banno
I'm still having a hard time putting it this way. It's the same as saying that the infrastructure in place now is discriminatory towards and/or dismissive of people with disability. Or, the design itself makes them disabled.
But, to borrow a word used for workers, ergonomics is exactly the way we design things for the purpose of reducing or eliminating risk of injury based on the natural functioning of the human body.
Engineering and construction focus towards the functionality and usage by the average population. Which means the majority of the population should be able to use bridges, stairs, doors, roads, buildings, and vehicles with ease.
Why? No one is ever average...
Why not accomodate the wide variety of human lives?
Too much trouble? The engineers aren't up to the challenge? :wink:
Is this such a bad thing?
Hmm interesting thoughts. I think I stick by my initial take there, but I do see the truck in what Banno is getting at. I take it as tongue-in-cheek even if its not properly so.
I don't think it's that it's too much trouble, it's that running at the pace of the slowest drags everyone else down. Do the disabled have that right, in pursuit of their own? I don't have a position because they are in too high-a-tension to me. I am empathetic to the nth for those for whom better design would be advantageous, but I am also empathetic to the fact that those of us who do wish to 'race forward' in historical terms probably shouldn't be beholden to that framework.
This said, I actually agree with Banno on the restriction on enforced surgery. I think consent is fundamental. But this also commits one to antinatalism *shrug*. I don't, prima facie, have any discomfort with eugenics either, if pursuing 'a better life' in some Nussbaumian kind of way. The assumption on the capabilities take tends to be that "life is good". I don't really believe that, so its hard.
There is a pattern here in this thread. Rules are made up as we go.
No, but I wasn't arguing it was a bad thing as much as I was saying we were agreeing with the happiness principle.
Quoting AmadeusD
All of this implies the disabilities we are referencing don't affect one's ability to give consent. Intellectual and psychiatric disabilities raise entirely different questions.
Quoting Banno
If we are to consider disability a spectrum, with no one fully disabled and no one fully abled, but all of us at some point on the spectrum, then it would logically hold that we capture as many people along the line to allow them as full a life as possible, limited by our resources. That is, there is a bell curve of abilities, with most of us grouped in the middle (with me being an outliar of brilliance, a sage of the ages), and so we build a world that attempts to accomodate as much of that bell as we can, moving out to the extremes as much as we can. Those societal accomodations would flatten the curve, offering everyone closer to equal opportunity, leaving as few outside as possible.
I appreciate the generosity principle you identify in characterizing disability in terms of society's ability to accomodate as opposed to referencing the limitations inherent in the individual when compared to others, but I'd leave it at that, which is that the chararacterization is presented in order to provide respect and acceptance. If pressed though, I wouldn't be willing to then start suggesting there really aren't important physical differences that can be chararacterized as being less advantageous just because that position loses credibility in not recognizing certain truth.
Where we do agree is that human worth is not diminished by ability, and so I am in favor of doing whatever is required to keep that clarified, which includes creating a language that preserves that dignity and in modifying the landscape so that it is more universally navigable.
So survival of the fittest?
Well, I'll say "almost" and point out that Nussbaum, perhaps the foremost ethicist here, is a classicist authority on Aristotle, so let's call it "flourishing"?
But cheers to the sentiment.
Quoting Hanover
I don't think anyone is denying that wheelchair users need a wheelchair...
To be clear: You promote the adversarial approach to human interaction. How do you reconcile this with your idea of a person having "infinite worth"?
The adversarial approach to human interaction implies that other people are expendable and can be destroyed; so, obviously, it's not a reflection of the belief that they have "infinite worth".
That's true, but I'm unsure to what degree - which hinges on my having brought up antinatalism in some large way. If we take it back, you shouldn't have kids. Plain and simple. But once they're alive, if they have (and I do think this is the case) interest in continuing to live, then consent is desirable if it will lead to more (quality) life. Whcih then hinges on my bringing up eugenics.
So, in principle yeah there are some tricky cases that will come up - but if one is alive but unable to consent (for instance, to a lung transplant as is in a coma or some such) that's different to one not existing.
Quoting frank
Bit of a black-white fallacy I think. I'm pressing against survival of the least fit as a mode - not suggesting we do the Nazi thing. But I think it patently odd (and probably a bad thing, overall) that we train our best and brightest to put themselves in harm's way (well, 60 years ago this would hit a lot harder) and do our absolute best to pour resources into retaining the worst(you really need to read this word in context and not ascribe some mora position to me because of an emotional reaction here of us, in terms of species-level survival and progress. There is almost no way that doesn't leave a bad taste in mouths - but it seems obvious.
I'll move my response here, since it fits in better with the discussion of disability than of "normal".
That's a good first approximation. And disability is an excellent test for our conception of "normal"
Have a look at 4. Misuses and temptations
Quoting Banno
All of these misuses occur in the medical model of disability.
The social model helps us to recognise this. It's not the wheelchair that is the problem but the absence of a ramp. However the focus remains on what is negative, on the absence of a ramp. The capabilities approach refocuses on what is positive, on what we can do to maximise what we can do.
The medical model asks "What's wrong with you?", invoking the Misuses of "normal". The social model asks "what's wrong with how things are?" shifting the focus from the individual to their environment. The capabilities model asks "How do we support the opportunities you have to lead the kind of life you value?" The language of deficiency is bypassed.
And then we might add in @Jamal's work on Adorno, the suffering of particular beings that are crushed by universalising systems, which one presume continues in the capabilities approach, or the dialectic approach of Crip Theory with the thesis of the medical model and the antithesis of the social model.
The common ground in the criticisms of what folk call "the enlightenment" is of the all-embracing rational model that solves all our problems. The response from Hegelians is the ongoing dialectic. But all this amounts to is our acknowledging that our responses are never compete, that the task and the discussion are ongoing.
I deal with the medical 'industry' regarding disability almost constantly. I do not see most of these occurring. Parochial, to be sure, but relevant to any comments I might make on it. Specifically, reification odes not occur. The concept of disability, medically, is specifically a relative term, to the statistical norm with no moral comment (again, that's my experience). That seems correct regardless of which terms we're using to describe that practice.
As someone else mentioned "tall" is very similar term.
So maybe you'd favor a plan that splits resources between improving access and doing medical research, recognizing that research is expensive up front, but keeps giving downstream.
Btw, there's a disable actress in the recent Wicked movies. She lost the ability to walk when she was 11 due to an automobile accident. So by research, we could also mean focusing on safety issues.
Hello Banno, sorry for the delayed response. The black dog barks loudest this time of the year.
I feel your counterpoint tragic, but I can't tell from this response what your stance is on deaf parents denying an infant cochlear implants? Implants from a young age would avoid some of the concerns with your gentleman. I don't want to overstate things, but it feels, in some ways, different from the idea that even infants can express a gender ideology which trumps parental desires, or on the conservative side, that parents have the right to deny an infant vaccinations, which the child might have wanted?
I recognize that deaf culture is a more substantial form of culture than trans conservatism or 'anti-vax' culture. But it is hard to dispute that this action denies the child opportunities later in life, for the gains of a more substantial connection to the deaf culture of their parents.
Quoting Banno
An entirely reasonable stance. But it is precisely this grey area where I feel the 'capabilities' approach runs into challenges? You note:
Quoting Banno
but elsewhere in the thread seem to discount Aristotelean ethics, which strike me as superior to deontological or utilitarian ethics in the ability to grapple with said situations? Or did I misread that?
Quoting Banno
I take all think tanks with a grain of salt, but I have seen similar work and agree in principle. My problem with such a simple conclusion is that it ignores complexity of blanket accessibility laws. Requiring new corporate businesses, government buildings, transit hubs, etc to be designed and built with ability in mind is different from insisting that all business be retroactively made accessible - a cost that some small businesses simply can't bear. Here in Canada, the deadline for universal accessibility standards came and went without success.
Some accommodations are vastly more expensive than others. A friend of mine who works with DD students talked about the 'million dollar kid' in her class, non-verbal, wheelchair-bound, hugely limited, but the parents and the team wanted the child in 'mainstream' education. My friend could not ascertain what the child wanted. That million dollar cost is not in a vacuum - it reduces the ability to address other social goods.
Last point - 'invisible' disability requires a degree of trust not present in modern society. For example, an individual with PTSD could be triggered by an unfriendly / hostile employee. In such circumstances, it feels unlikely that the sufferer would be able to raise their need for accommodation successfully. You can insist on the 'believe victims' principle, but the disability's invisibility makes this a completely different category from a wheelchair user who has been inconvenienced.
I wasn't really familiar with Nussbaum till reading this thread, but this and some preliminary reading piqued my interest. Any recommendations as to key works appreciated.
Words like "abnormal", "strange," and "deviant" contain negative connotations, but for our purposes we need a word that avoids that so that we can discuss those that simply diverge from the way most are. The term "neuro-divergent" is a word that has become euphamistic for autistic, and so despite it being a euphamism, it has picked up a connotation of someone who thinks differently in a way that challenges them socially. However, I heard someone insist that gifted children be considered neuro-divergent, which is not a typical use of that word, but it makes sense, given those children do think differently than their classmates. This just points out the difficulty in creating language truly intended to be neutral. We might just be inherently judgmental creatures and so purely neutral language offers us little use.
Quoting Banno
I've found myself less and less dialectical of late. It arises out of my theological bent, where I feel the need to leave science in the lab and religion in the chapel, without any real need to figure out how they can mesh to a higher truth, but instead to give them each their time. It's like visiting divorced parents. You care for them both, you visit them both, but you don't put them in the same room.
I don't think it's a euphemism exactly, although maybe some use it that way. It's supposed to be a broader category than autism, to include ADHD, dyslexia, hyperlexia, savantism etc. It may eventually become a replacement for autism and ADHD, as there is some talk of there being a continuum between ADHD and autism, but it's all a bit muddy.
But it's hard to think of medical concept of disability that is normatively neutral. If you just define 'disability' as statistical outliers without making a judgement, then gingers are disabled.
But all of those conditions refer to conditions that are generally thought of disadvantageous, where you could make an argument that Einstein was neurodivergent or someone who was particularly creative would be as well. Something can be said regarding people in this forum in terms of the thought processes being significantly (in a statistical sense) deviating from the norm. It just depends upon what aspect of one's neural processing you're looking at.Quoting bert1I guess the issue is that the word "normal" is not normatively neutral, but it designates someone who is appropriate in some respect.
I don't think that's true among, for example, the autistic community (insofar as there is such a homogenous thing). Autistic people often consider neurotypicals to have communication disabilities, not saying what they mean, not meaning what they say, being obsessed with the weather and what they had for breakfast and talking about it with no awareness of how boring it is. And not taking an interest in fascinating topics like steam engines. Neurodivergence was embraced as a concept as a means of unifying people with different diagnoses who nevertheless shared similar experience. It was (and still is) broadly seen as a positive.
Quoting Hanover
Indeed. 'Typical' is normatively neutral, and is only statistical.
I can't quite understand the question - having red hair is not an ability-related trait. Having a cleft lip also wouldn't be (usually). I have a couple of odd physical features which are generally not visible. They don't affect my abilities. So I think there's just a category issue going on. "most people have brown, black or blonde hair" isn't the type of statistic that gives us a normative fact. Its just a statistical one. "Most people can walk on two legs with aplomb" is normative. It creates an expectation of ability.
I am slightly misusing 'normative'. I just can't think of a better word right now - sorry for that.
Might they be in a society of gingerphobes? The ginger people wouldn't be able to speak perhaps, because everyone knows gingers are incapable of learning, so it would be a waste to try to teach them.
I don't want to go overboard defending the social model - I do think the medical model has its place. For example, a deficit model is appropriate when developing aids for an amputee, perhaps. A peg leg makes a lot more sense than installing foot-high platforms alongside all pavements for amputees to rest their stumps on.
Ahh, that's an awkward one though because it has to assume the social model. In that society, we wouldn't put an amputee in the same category as a ginge, still.
Quoting bert1
100%. This is good, clear indication of what I mean in some significant way.
Maybe, but not if we're gingerphobic. We know, because everyone knows, that gingers are a bit lacking, bless them. Unfortunate genetics. Medical model.
They lack social acceptability.
"We have the right not to be reminded of the ugly sides of life" is the usually unspoken stance underlying this topic.
Sometimes, this stance is even fully verbalized. I remember reading a story where a woman didn't want an autistic (IIRC) relative of her husband to be around her children, calling that relative "an abomination in the eyes of God". Or another one where parents were campaigning against a student with some obvious deformity attending the same school as their children, claiming that their children should not have to be "exposed to this".
What has changed from, say, 50 and more years ago, is that now people with various forms of deformity or disability are now more allowed to live among the abled than they were in the past, where they were often confined to various institutions or private care. So now more people who hold such stances as the parents mentioned above have cause to also utter those stances (not to mention that there are now communication platforms that didn't exist back then).
Quoting Hanover
I've some sympathy for such a view, although I would phrase it quite differently. Scientists and philosophers are engaged in quite different tasks, so we might consider the terms they use as being from distinct language games.
But on the other hand, what is true for the one should also be true for the other. There ought be a way to interpret the work of scientists in philosophical terms, and vice versa, salva veritate.
And we might now agree that here is more here than just maximising happiness?
To make my view explicit, I think the parents are correct in seeking to maximise the opportunities of their child, bit misjudged in denying the implant. The implant increases the available opportunities.
We should acknowledge that there is not always one correct decision. deontological and utilitarian ethics tend to treat ethical decision making as if it were algorithmic, as if there were a black box into which we feed the facts and out of which comes the one true answer. This is how rationality has often been understood... since what folk now sometimes pejoratively call the enlightenment. I think it fundamentally flawed. We very rarely face situations were one alternative stands out as the best; and yet we must nevertheless act. This is recognised in the ad hoc approach of virtue ethics, of which the capabilities approach is an instance.
Quoting Jeremy Murray
I worked in this area. Given the uncertainty and the imperative to act, I would have looked for ways to begin integration while monitoring the result, modifying the process as things proceeded and within whatever budget was available. The process is ad hoc, and one would expect few people to be entirely happy with it. I'd sell this as heading in a direction rather than seeking to achieve an outcome, as making things better when we can't make things perfect.
I have much the same response to whining about the cost of accessible toilets. Fit one accessible ungendered toilet in instead of two small gendered toilets. The cost is comparable.
That is, think it through.
Invisible disabilities require wider compassion. Difficult, not impossible.
Perhaps start with The Ethics Centre's Big Thinker: Martha Nussbaum. Take a look also at The necessity of Nussbaum. Take a direction from the papers and books mentioned therein. Women philosophers seem to have a way of keeping ethics real, gritty and visceral.
Right, ok, I get that. I suggest this isn't a disability and should never be considered one. Social acceptability hinges on essentially infinite different factors and often has nothing whatsoever to do with actual ability - its just a feelies thing. That's not to dismiss isolation and ostracization. I've experienced enough. But its like calling harsh words "violence". It just violates the intension of the word.
Really. Interesting. I would say it is inherently negative for obvious reasons ('dis-'). How does the term translate into other languages? I imagine there's a variety of terms that have no negative elements.
Personally, if I was blind I would not be too pleased with people calling me 'disabled'. I would simply, if necessary, to be referred to as being 'blind'.
I think, from my perspective, is that the whining tends to come from the issue of increased costs for little outcome (meaning, cost x to include an accessible toilet which can only be used by the access-challenged where there exists standard toilets. I think that's a reasonable whine, tbh, and your position is the solution. Although, that then runs into the male/female toilets thing but wrong thread.
Is it illegal in NZ for folk without a disability to use a disabled toilet? That would be odd. How is it policed?
Not strictly, but you can be found to have violated some of our disability legislation if there's any conflict between your use and another, lets say more deserving party.
It's generally policed socially. Plenty will cause more of a legal issue pointing it out, than using htem does. My comment was about the complaints in creating the toilets - where there are already male/female stall toilets. For instance, my office has one. We have never, in over 20 years (i've not been here the entire time) required one for any disabled person. The cost was still required (and for good reason, i'm just delineating between complaining that disabled people get their own toilets or whatever and a purely economical one).
Given that one in six folk have a disability, your organisation might do well to reconsider it's clientele and hiring strategy. Or is your accessible toilet at the top of the stairs?
But here's the reason your contributions are unproductive: they express personal opinions and anecdotes.
Quoting Appendix: disabled people population and life outcome statistics
In the UK there is this definition which seems relevant:
Quoting Equality Act 2010
Although this looks like it has a formal diagnostic element ('impairment') and a functional element, apparently it doesn't in law. A diagnosis isn't necessary although some diagnoses are automatically sufficient. All you really need to show is that there is something about you can name or describe (an 'impairment') that means you are not able to carry out day-to-day activities that most people can manage without much difficulty.
This definition is neutral in terms of the social and medical model. It does require us to come up with a standard of 'normal', but that normality could be in medical terms (P is disabled because of atypical brain function which prevents him doing day-to-day activities) or social (P is disabled because he is in a minority whose day-to-day needs are different and not adapted for by the majority). Where a minority congregate and become the majority, who is disabled and who is not may switch, according to a social conception. At Autscape, neurotypicals can feel very uncomfortable and struggle to integrate in the group.
Regarding the tension between medical and social models, it seems to me the main relevance of the distinction is in deciding what to do about a disability. Sometimes it's better to locate the problem within the disabled individual (medical model) where a relatively simple 'fix' is the best support, e.g. prosthetic limbs, which enables the person to carry out their day-to-day activities. Even then there may be elements of social disability remaining, perhaps the patronising attitudes of others result in the disabled person not developing the skills needed for the day-to-day activities as quickly as they might. The social model is especially necessary for those with invisible disabilities that do not have medical diagnoses, such as autism, where the diagnosis is based on a set of behaviours. On a medical conception, one could suggest that autism is a made-up thing, and as it doesn't really exist, autistic people are delusional and should just snap out of it. Autistic people typically are disabled - there are things they want to do, that most others can do easily, but can't, for example, go to a noisy pub or bar; or wash up before cooking dinner; or change classrooms unexpectedly, etc. The medical model (locating the problem within the autistic person) is useless - there is no pill that autistic people can take, trying harder only works for a limited time before burnout, cognitive behavioural therapy is worse than useless because it teaches them that they can change their abilities by changing their beliefs, and self-hatred results when this fails. The cure for autistic disability is environmental modification - quiet social spaces, avoiding sudden unexpected changes, setting up systems and routines for every task, answering questions with the detail required, and so on.
If a fish jumps out of the water and land on the path and starts exhibiting challenging behaviour, the medical model would have us fit it with artificial lungs and a trolley at great taxpayer expense. Proponents of the social model will pop it back in the water where it is not disabled.
I gave you a fact. Suggesting we 'reconsider' our clientele is bizarre.
The link does not help, either. I am aware of those statistics (roughly). I suggest the lack of productivity around anecdotes and opinions in your approach. That's fine. But it's not my issue.
Thanks. I sincerely believe this to be a reality that gives one a unique perspective on ability, as taken with a broad perspective.
Quoting Banno
Are you a proponent of virtue ethics? Your conceptualization of enlightenment ethical systems feels spot on to me, and I have been struggling to find a solution. Increasingly, I think virtue ethics allows for the nimbleness to make better ethical decisions in our age of rapid social transformation.
Quoting Banno
I'm buying.
Quoting Banno
Both of these look like excellent places to start. Thanks!
Quoting bert1
It is a classic, straight-forward example of the Medical Model.
The Equality Act definition makes disability depend on "an impairment (physical or mental)", and
the "effects of that impairment on the person’s abilities". It sets up disability as something that is wrong with the person. And is "normal day-to-day activities" is explicitly normative, treating deviation from that baseline as a deficit in the individual. As so often, the law adopts a medical model for pragmatic reasons.
That's not just my view. A quick search will find Parliamentary enquiries and academic papers pointing to this issue.
The social model sees disability as when society’s structures, attitudes, and practices create barriers that prevent folk from fully participating in social, economic, and cultural life, regardless of their physical or mental differences. Disability is not caused by the person’s impairment, but by the mismatch between the person and the environment.
The capabilities model sees a person as disabled to the extent that they are unable to achieve or exercise the essential capabilities necessary for living a life they value, due to a combination of personal, social, and environmental factors. Disability is understood not solely as an impairment, but as a constraint on the real opportunities (“capabilities”) available to the person.
Quoting bert1
Yep.
Well, yes - you'd have to change your mind... :wink:
Wouldn't it benefit your organisation to find out why it hasn't attracted anyone, over the last twenty years, who needed an accessible toilet? There's a large part of the population that you are not accessing.
Sometimes. Ethics is not algorithmic.
Seems to me that the history of 'civilization' has always treated those with disabilities as if they did not belong in the same places as 'normal' people. Rather, they've been historically ridiculed and shunned for being different. As if any of us have a choice in the way we're born. There were little to no accommodations for them. This simply exacerbated the difficulties with day-to-day routines as well as helped perpetuate and/or compound the negative mindset towards such people.
I gave evidence earlier that this is not quite so; it's a relatively recent development, consequent on the development of the modern medical system.
On your question; No. That doesn't make any sense.
Good to know. Thanks. Here is one of those times when someone(me) falsely assumes their own personal experience is shared by everyone else far more than it is/was.
I'll need to read through this thread.
I half agree. The wording of it is indeed very suggestive of the medical model - it does appear to locate the issue within the person rather than the environment by the unfortunate and useless use of 'impairment'. But people who are disabled by being in an adverse environment are still protected under the Act - the Act isn't really endorsing a particular model. The duty to make reasonable adjustments (in the same Act) shows it accepts social model analyses. The test is functional - can P do X, where X is something most people can do most of the time? Yes there is a norm, but that makes sense under the social model. Environments are typically adapted to the majority, so social-model disability will only arise in relation to that norm. The norm refers to typical, common activities within a fairly standard enabling environment, not to a 'standard human'. Indeed, even under a medical model, disability doesn't really make sense without a functional test. A functional test will always be context-specific, and take into account an environment. If you simply say "P is disabled if they deviate from the standard human", which is pure medical-model, then people with ginger hair will then be disabled, even if they are functionally able to do all the 'normal day to day activities'.
Any coherent definition of disability must involve a functional test, no? At it's base, P is disabled if and only if P can't do something.
Indeed, a purely medical model approach makes no reference to an environment, and therefore not to the ability to do anything. What is lacking is statistical normality on a wholly medical model.
The distinction between medical and social model is less about the definition of disability (which has to be a function of the relationship between P and his environment), and more about the how we focus our interventions/supports. Do we change P or P's environment? With invisible disabilities like autism, we often get this wrong, trying to either cure P's autism or change P's behaviour. Neither of these will work and can be abusive. Instead, change the environment.
(My previous answer to you was making a different irrelevant point I think, sorry. I think I'd forgotten what my original point was.)
Somebody once said that Germans tend to focus on how we are all alike; the French tend to focus on differences. I guess I am more "German" than "French" on this question.
What matters to the individual persons is that they are able to be physically, emotionally, and mentally participate in the particulars of their lives, whether they are "normal" or not. IF the individual is unable to be an active participant, then they are likely to perceive their body as disabled or not normal and problematic.
I was born with significant visual defects; I wasn't blind, but my vision was quite limited. Was it a significant limitation? It was, and the limitations have endured.
I was also born gay. In 2025 this might not be viewed as a disability, but at the time I was born (1946) it was both a personality abnormality and (if performed) criminal. I grew up in a very small midwestern town; the resources that could have made my physical and emotional characteristics less problematic just didn't exist. (So yes, the human environment can make a particular physical feature more or less problematic.).
Many states have active accessibility rules. Ramps and elevators have to be reasonably convenient for people who can't climb stairs. Digital displays (like computers and tablets) make print much easier to access. Some (by no means all) public events include sign language. Civil rights legislations has reduced discrimination.
Transportation can become a major problem of anyone who can not drive. I have always had to limit jobs to places I could get to by public transit within a reasonable length of time. That ruled out a lot of possible jobs and social opportunities (particularly in a low-density metropolitan area designed for cars).
None of this is equivalent to being a paraplegic / quadriplegic. Poor vision beats blindness. I'd still opt for being gay had I a choice.
The major problem of "normality" is viewing "abnormality" as a degraded state. After all, having a very high IQ is abnormal, and so is being able to run a marathon in about 2 hours (averaging 13 mph). And there certainly are plenty of people who view abnormality as degrading--a quad can't be a real man, for instance, and like bullshit.
But when they identified someone as not belonging, they weren't terribly accommodating.
Well, there's a start... :wink:
The act is a compromise. The definition of disability is uncompromisingly medical. The legal protection is conditional on medical/functional evidence. the obligations it effects reflect social model principles,
reasonable adjustments duties, so that employers, service providers and landlords must take steps to remove barriers that put disabled people at a disadvantage.
Those advocating the medical model included those drafting the policy, whose task was delineated, "boxed", by adopting the medical model, and the Courts, with a history of interpreting statutory thresholds that reinforced the functional/medical approach.
Those advocating the social model included the Trade Union Congress, who explicitly criticise the act on these grounds, a long list of various individual disabilities advocates, charities such as Scope, academics and the Disability Rights Movement.
Quoting bert1
You will no doubt have seen this:
Instead of asking all to climb the tree, we might ask what each would require in order to be able to pick the fruit.
The heart of the issue might be as simple as recognising and providing for the variety of human beings. We exist in many ways that are not white able bodied male cis hetro and middle class.
Another example, I wonder if you've noticed. A recent bugbear of mine is QR codes. Convenient for the sighted, invisible to others. They have become ubiquitous, in cafes and bistros and posters and museums and hospitals, providing access to ordering and advertising and other information. The temptation is to assume that all folk have equal access to them; but it ain't so. There are built in assumptions about vision, fine motor control, access to a smartphone with a camera, and technological literacy, and a potential assumption that if you can’t use this, you are the problem.
Simple accomodations include providing a short URL near the image, a printed menu on request, NFC plus text fallback, or staff assistance explicitly advertised.
OK, so to spell it out, in that cartoon, only two of the animals will be able to get up the tree. Five of them are disabled, no?
Only on the social model are they disabled. They are disabled because of the social environment - the requirement to perform a task without any alterations to the environment.
Then you seem to me to have missed something crucial here.
Suppose they are all perfect specimens. Then their inability to achieve is imposed purely by the choice of test put in place.
Yes, the social model is what shows the bias inherent in the test. While the medical model only sees the inability to climb trees. And the capabilities model looks to see what each might do, rather than imposing something they must do.
EDIT: I think the definition of disability is the same under the medical and social model, but maybe I'm just wrong. For me, P is disabled in relation to x if P can't do x. If that's not the definition, what is? The difference for me comes where we place the problem. Mr Medical must actually have a concept of the social model in order to even assent to the proposition that any of the animals are disabled, because only in the context of the task is a disability even possible. The difference comes in the solution/blame. Mr Medical says the animals are the wrong shape to climb the tree, and he tries to alter them, or to write them off as hopeless. Mr Social puts some concrete blocks for the elephant to climb, and a long sloping water run for the fish to swim up.
There are a lot of people for whom all sorts of barriers have to be navigated (if possible). Why is accommodation so hard to achieve? Well, money of course, the easiest excuse.
A 'deeper' problem is the dominant understanding of "embodiment" -- the manner in which human persons are physical beings. The preferred form of embodiment tends toward the ideal: (for men) tallness, athleticism, rugged features, deep voice, above average IQ, competitive drive, and so on. A real man; a man's man' etc. There is nothing wrong with having ideal embodiment; but not very many people actually meet the ideal, and it's perfectly possible for a person whose embodiment matches the ideal to be a total asshole.
The 'ideal' is a strong enough idea that even those whose embodiment involves missing limbs, poorly functioning sensory organs, failing hearts, degenerative diseases of various kinds, mental health issues, intellectual barriers, and so on have difficulty valuing their own and others' embodiment. They quite often feel not worth of acceptance and being valued, and they may view other persons like themselves in a negative way.
Persons who face barriers are sometimes viewed as "deficient people" rather than embodied beings like themselves and worthy of respect. Why spend so much money on all the accommodations needed? It's a waste of money, and able-bodied people have to put up with the ramps, large font signs, sign language, and so forth -- like the accommodations make their 'normal' lives living nightmares, or something,
First a parable.
The monkey - let's call him Amadeus - gets the job because of his obvious aptitude, and promptly sets up a fruit stall in a treehouse at the top of the tree, and for twenty years makes a comfortable living selling fruit to the birds and the other monkeys.
On his retirement the adjudicator returns and examines the books. He asks Amadeus why he only ever sells fruit to the birds and other monkeys, and never to the fish, elephants, seals, dogs or penguins that live thereabouts.
In a somewhat condescending voice, Amadeus intones: "We have never, in over 20 years (I've been here the entire time) had any fish, elephants, seals, dogs or penguins come in to the treehouse and express any interest in purchasing fruit"
"But..." begins the adjudicator...
"I gave you a fact. Suggesting we 'reconsider' our clientele is bizarre." retorts the monkey.
Yes, against the test.
That's the point; the test is what does the disabling, literally, by deciding who's in and who is out. The social model is a tool that shows this aspect of the medical model. It works in contrast to the medical model.
Quoting bert1
Here's a social model definition from PWDA
Quoting https://pwd.org.au/resources/models-of-disability/
The test is what creates the disability.
Yep. And all that is needed is an awareness of the assumptions underpinning the use of QR codes.
And money is so often an excuse rather than a grounds.
At it's heart disabilities advocacy is another push for recognising the variety of ways of being human.
The distinction between definition and model is important. It is really important for a disabled person to be able to say "I can't do that, that's what being disabled means, that is our starting point" without that prejudicing the response from others. Sometimes a disabled person will want a pill or a prosthetic limb to fix the disability (medical). Sometimes they will want reasonable adjustments to their environment (social). Sometimes they will want to do something else instead that they can do, and challenge any absences of such opportunities in society (capabilities).
Quoting Banno
This is not a definition of 'disability'. It's a description of the social model of disability. It's the difference between theory and definition. The sun is that yellow disc in the sky up there (definition). It goes round the Earth (theory). The Earth goes round it (theory).
But
Quoting Banno
So
Quoting bert1
It's that the test is getting up the tree that is disabling. If the test were instead pushing the tree over...
Quoting bert1
...and stop there. The frame has moved from social expectation to what the person with a disability wants. That's already a step in the right direction. Should we always give them what they want? No - but notice that now we are asking a different question to "how do we fix this broken body?" That's the point.
Quoting bert1
...looks to be a description. The difference between definitions and descriptions may not be as hard-and-fast as some think. Those advocating the social model don't much care about platonic realism, so much as about the way stairs and QR codes disempower some folk more than others. They differentiate the medical and social models in order to question assumptions about what a human body can do.
Yes. P is disabled in relation to task x if and only if P cannot do x.
Are we disagreeing about anything?
So the next step is to see if you can find something that P cannot do, that would not seem to count as a disability in our offhand use of the term - flying, writing a great novel, putting their foot behind their head.
And then ask, does this wayward example show some great misunderstanding in the casual notion of disability? Or does it just show the definition to be somewhat inadequate?
Sure, to capture typical usage, we need to add some standard of typicality or normality, so that the disability is noteworthy, or in need of some kind of adaptation or intervention or whatever. As you say, I wouldn't normally characterise my inability to fly as a 'disability', even though I am unable to do it. But while it would be eccentric to characterise my inability (as a human) to fly as a disability, it would not be incorrect. Especially if I were a bird, where most birds can fly most of the time. So, I'll modify the definition to:
P is disabled in relation to task x if and only if P cannot do x, and x is a task most people can do most of the time.
...and there it is, again.
Let's consider an example: inertia. Many autistic people have extreme difficulty in getting started with something, or changing from one activity to another without external help. Most people don't have this problem most of the time and can get themselves to do stuff without external help. It seems to me that this person, without help, is disabled, and they are disabled because they can't do something that most other people can do most of the time.
And is what more important: what they can't do; or what they might do?
They're both the same. An inert autistic person can't get off the sofa. That 'can't' is real, and reality is important. However they might get off the sofa with help. So they both can't do it (without help), and might do it (with help). Relevantly, they want to do it. But motivation isn't enough to overcome their inertia. So they use me to supply them with the initiative. How have I delimited them in this account? It seems to me that I have helped.
Well, no. The list of things they can't do is not the same as the list of things they are capable of doing.
Okay, P wants to do x, but they can't without help. P can do x with help. x is the same in both instances. The difference is not in P. The difference is not in x. The difference is in the presence of help.
'P' is the person, not the action. x is the action. It's important for P. Much of my work is helping autistic people do the things they want to do, but can't do without help. They make the decisions, but they depend on me to carry them out much of the time. It is well established in the autistic community I am a part of that autonomy is much more important than independence, indeed the two are often in tension.
Now go back to your definition:
Indeed. Quoting bert1
Does it help achieve autonomy? Hence, what is more important: what they can't do; or what they might do?
Yes, it is essential - it's the concept of disability. If someone isn't disabled, they don't need help. We have to able to recognise disability for what it is in order to be able to help. Regarding autonomy specifically, a person cannot make decisions if they do not understand information relevant to that decision, or if they cannot weigh the pros and cons of an option, or if they can't remember relevant information, or if they can't communicate their decision. If they could do all of these things, they would have autonomy and not need support with these functions. By recognising that they can't do these things on their own, we are in a position to put support in place that enables them to do these things and to gain some control over their lives.
Quoting Banno
Again I reject this opposition. A disabled person who can't do x might be able to with help. Not being able to do it is important to recognise so help can be put in place.
EDIT: I should probably add there is of course a danger in focusing on what someone can't do - there is the risk of talking someone into being more disabled than they are. People sometimes talk themselves into being more disabled than they are, and you can get into a bit of a negative spiral. That can happen with any kind of negative self-concept I suppose. There is also the converse trap - denying real disability. This can lead to self-hatred, self-blame, 'if only I tired harder', isolation and frustration. I see more of this latter trap than the former.
This is somewhat tone deaf. It depends on making a hard distinction between the disabled and abled.
Autonomy is not the absence of the need for support. This can be seen in the difference between supporting someone and doing stuff for them.
Again, what is more important: what they can't do; or what they might do?
Well OK, I was just going for conceptual simplicity, but sure, the more disabled someone is in a particular context, the more help they probably need, the less disabled they are, the less help. Now we have a continuum. Is that OK?
Quoting Banno
I know. Often autonomy is only achievable with a great deal of support. That's the point I was making. Wasn't that clear?
Quoting Banno
Again, I reject the distinction. Would you like to try a different sentence perhaps, if there is a point you are making that you think I am not grasping?
So if I've understood, the method you propose is that incapacity is identified first, then support is implemented, and capability appears only as a downstream effect.
A "deficit first" model.
Practically speaking, that's what happens, yes. It would be odd to put in place supports before one identified a need for them, no?
EDIT: Consider Sadie. She can dance, climb, is really good at maths, loves painting, and has a job at the local supermarket that she does really well. What support does she need?
What does she want to do?
And that 's the question to ask first, not what she can't do.
Quoting bert1
How do you identify the need without knowing what Sadie wants.
So let's continue with your approach. She looks on the internet to find a kayaking club. She can do that because she can type and read and understand the words on the screen. Then she phones up the club and arranges a first lesson. Cool! Still no need for support.
Is there an argument here?
Yeah, I am. Maybe not in the way you expected.
A person needs support to achieve some outcome if, as things stand, they are unable to achieve the goal on their own.
No "can't".
OK, we agree. I see no great difference between 'unable' and 'can't'.
Carer training and interaction is usually, mostly medical, as it should be; but this leaves them with only the language of the medical model with which to explain the complex human interactions that they have to deal with directly - doctors and other medical professionals are usually able to abstract themselves from the nitty gritty, nurses and carers have to deal with bed pans and tears.
The social model, and especially the capabilities approach, provide language that can be used to deal with the humanity of those one cares for, in a more "holistic" way. That is, it emphasises the ethical dimension.
It's a different way to think and talk about what you already do.
The US right is coming for disabled people. Here’s why that threatens everyone
It makes pretty sad reading.
This quote struck me as salient to this thread:
I know a couple that do lose a fair bit of nights sleep over their patients. Not the kind of doctors that cut up rat brains, but the ones handling dudes usually strive to abstract themselves but only succeeds so-so.
The definition of 'disability' in terms of things people can't do (or unable to do if you see a distinction) is independent of the models. You can't be disabled if you can do anything without help. This is descriptive. The models embody values that the definition doesn't.
Regarding my training, i have only been trained by disabled people themselves, who freely and happily say they can't do things.
No problem figuring out why it is religious organizations filling a social need. They have an organization and only need to add to what they are doing. Non-religious people fund the efforts made by the religious organization, or they get personally involved when the non-religious person sees someone who can use help.
I joined grandparents, wanting to change how Oregon was managing a bureaucratic foster care program. It was a lot of work, and took a lot of time and money. We were all fighting for custody of our grandchildren. We had to work with the media to make our fight known, so that others could join us. We had to rent a building for a meeting so all us strangers could work together. It is overwhelming, and not everyone has the time and energy to do all that.
But us non religious people show up at demonstrations, and we might contact our representatives on city, county, state, and federal levels. The secular folks use the government and law to get needs met, so I hope your comment was not intended to say we do not care and do not take action.
Interestingly, my local government - I live in the Australian Capital Territory - recently took over control of a large religious hospital because of the incompetence of the Catholic administration. Socialism at work, for the benefit of all.
That's nice. But in the middle of night, some Latina lady is being discharged from the emergency department, and I know she needs some help. I give her a list of groups in the area who she can turn to. None of them are non-religious. I'd be overjoyed to put a non-religious organization on there. There just aren't any. Even freakin' Habitat for Humanity is a Christian organization.
We have transportation for medical needs, and we pay for it in part by taxing cigarettes. I guess that might be socialism. I don't want everyone to know we have free medical care for low-income people because I don't want everyone moving here.
I started the activation for help for the homeless when Reagan was in office. And I sure am not religious, but that is also why I know the difficulty of getting anything done without an organization. My sister has outdone me by doing far more for the homeless than I have. She shows up at the hospital, and she fights for the homeless, getting what they need. She ran into others who help but I don't know if they are religious or not.
We have done so much for the homeless since I began drawing attention to the problem. Back in the day, when everyone believed Reagan was right when he said we don't have homeless people, just bums. Despite all we have done, the problem continues to get worse because when people learn how this area helps people, they come here. Because of the influx of people needing help, you can hear horror stories. We just can not do enough, but right now, we are sheltering hundreds of people in tiny shelters. This is not ideal, but it is better than nothing.
Two things concern me at the moment. So many of the homeless people are like feral cats. I think this because of drug addictions and mental disability, and just being on the street too long. AI says
For many this begins with growing up without learning social skills and an understanding of how we are organized and how to be part of "we". They can not get jobs so they fall further and further outside of the "social we". They are refused help and even rejected from nutrition sites for seniors because they are unpleasant to be around. Our Mission is doing a better job of helping these people, but I don't think we are doing enough.
Jobs are an important part of socializing human beings, and I wish we were more like Germany in this respect. We need to create jobs for low-skilled people. Goodwill and St Vincent stores do that, but it isn't enough.
Here is what Germany is doing....
.
The next disability that directly impacts me is that some of us older people are getting locked out by technology. I tried to address that problem yesterday with our local library, and I totally failed. Here is what AI has to say....
I wish that explanation didn't focus so much on having a job. Being old can suck because of increasing physical problems, and losing family and friends, and therefore being very alone. I keep moving forward because I am terrified of not having a social life. We need places where we can go that do not have barriers to participation, such as the blanket blank technology that is everywhere and the cold, uncaring attitude that if a person can't get past the hurdle, that person can go home and stay there.
Only our community center, which was once a senior center, has employees who understand the importance of including everyone. They are getting old with us. However, the employees at the library are young and clueless, and just "hoping" that everyone gets good service is not going to get the desired result. There needs to be sensitivity training. I want the people at the library to be as sensitive to technology being a barrier as the older employees at what was once a senior center understand the problem and care. Imagine losing your family and friends and reaching out to the community by going to the library, and not being able to get past the technology. :cry:
I think that's the main advantage of religion. It's a ready-made community that's held together by something over-arching. So even if people shout and disagree, grandstand and walk out, the community is still there. I think that kind of community is what made humans what we are today.
People unable to squarely wordify their condition cannot come to terms with it in a way that can lead to actual peace. The only disabled people who, to me, have appeared happy, are those who accept in raw, accurate terms, their lot in life. This is true of every person I've ever met, but this is a thread about disability.
Can you give an example of the kind of thing you have in mind?
:heart: Do you know she knows how to go online and get the information she needs?
Quoting bert1
Excellent! I studied gerontology at the university and thought I knew what aging is all about. :lol: The experience is different from the textbook explanation. Not even working with older people prepared me for the reality.
Experience teaches us things we cannot know without it, and personally knowing someone with an experience we have not had is helpful. But just learning from a book, isn't that helpful. We can learn facts, but that is not equal to understanding them.
This is what I want our local library to understand. Just being nice to everyone is not enough when someone has special needs. Why did an older person not complete an application? Why does the older person not complete the process of checking out books? Or it could be anyone with vision problems or cognitive problems other than old age. The point is that the special need is not always obvious and when people become dependent on technology, those who have trouble using it can be pushed out.
When a person feels like s/he is on the margins of society instead of a participating member of society, it can be very painful to face the technological barrier. So giving up is more than just not putting in the effort. Giving up is pulling away from intense pain.
Society can create or remove the obstacles that disabled people face, and by making the envinoment user friendly, the "disability" is not a barrier to being fully included.
Oh, nicely said. What you said is that the problem today is that we are lost in the crowd. Our moral basis was dependent on knowing eachother and having long-lasting relationships that identified who we were related to and our position in the social group. It is this instinctive need of belonging that leads to the breakup of churches. Of course, there are huge churches, but there are also people who go to the smaller church where they are known and it is easy to know everyone.
If we are trying to build an organization of people to get something done, how do we find like-minded people who join with us? Next, if the group gets fairly large, where will everyone meet? Are we going to pay for the space? Is there an agreement to pay dues? What time of day, how many days a month? A church has all this worked out so it is much easier for a church organization to take care of a social need than for people without a church. It is not that non-religious people are less caring and willing. But it's really hard to get an organization going.
Yes i think that's right. Discrimination is not the same thing as being mean or even prejudiced. It's about unnecessarily disadvantaging someone, and you can do that while trying to be nice to them. And you can also include someone while not being very nice to them.
Well put.
"I gave you a fact" Quoting Banno, not noticing how the "fact" is the result of his own attitudes and presumptions.
Thank you. I did not realize this until technology started marginalizing seniors and other technologically disadvantaged people. Somewhere in this thread, someone said we are not disabled if we do comfort barriers like stairs when we are confined to a wheelchair. The electronic kiosks we must go through to see a doctor or get on the train are unnecessary barriers for many people.
It is not just the technology but the inhumanness of this technology. That screams we are no longer in the caring society we once had. I knew we were in trouble when the receptionist could not answer questions because of the hierarchy of authority we have created since 1958. There was a time when the receptionist knew everything and could help us get past any problems we had. In some ways, she knew more about what was happening than the boss. Then this wonderful system was intentionally destroyed, and today the person who answers the phone is unlikely to be very helpful because the job has been intentionally restricted and departmentalized.
Bottom line is it is not just the technology that is a barrier. It is an impersonal hierarchy of authority that has invaded and taken our homeland from us. Things could not be worse if we had been invaded by aliens from outer space. Our society is not people working together as once did, and our homeland is foreign to us. We are pushed out by this invader and this hurts.
Thank you sooo much. I don't know if any nation has a vocabulary that is better for explaining our experiences. For us, with English, it is often very difficult to convey our experience, including the feeling that goes with it. Everyone at the library is being nice, and they do not understand how an old lady may feel when she is told to use a kiosk instead of having the human experience of being helped that we once had. They are nice people in a dying, impersonal, demanding reality. What it feels like to be a citizen today is not what it used to feel like.
Before AI began taking over, it was how we organized ourselves that was changing. Everything is run by "policy" and that is very dehumanizing compared to the human experience we once had. Now it is policy and technology, and the lockout is much worse.
Whenever someone has control of a resource that others need, there can be a need for support. When I am asked "how do I direct your call", I snap back "How should I know? I don't know how you are organized. " I try to use a nice tone of voice even though I am mad as hell about the world putting policy above my humanness. In my mind, the person who answers the phone should ask, "How can I help you?" and then s/he figures out who I need to speak with.
The circumstance is being human. And I think if we were having the human experience, there would be less killing by people who feel locked out and desperate.
You may. They describe realities. I am extremely reluctant to alter veridicality for purposes of feelings. I am short. That's not a disability. But my friend who is missing his shins (roughly speaking - its not quite that simple) is disabled. No controversy there and a model which seeks to remove that distinction is bunk.
The Post Paralysis Peace Paradox
I don't think it's fire-walled... let me know.