Thursday, 28 July 2011

Could the lack of disability be a disability?

This is great I think.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm

Could this be the step to utopia? Or is it still going to result in a
dystopia? Are the principles going to be ignored when convenient and the
ideals laid waste by pragmatists with small minds? Will the principles
be used for the gain of the selfish power-holding hegemonies just like
ideals have been misued in the past.

From the lives of the saints and prophets to the work of the heroes of
the Communist revolutions the beautiful principles laid down by those
with passion and vision have, historically, been misused. These ideals
and principles are what people fight and sacrifice their lives for in
those brief moments in history where humankind rises above its animal
nature. It is the ideals which caused the sailors on the battleship
Potemkin to revolt, but if those souls could see what Mother Russia had
become they might not have bothered. It is the stuff which Jesus died
for, but if he knew what became of his land and what had been done in
his name then he...he wouldn't be very happy.

I don't know what human process makes it possible for the ideals to be
discarded so easily and the suffering return so quickly. It is perhaps
well expressed in Orwell's book Animal Farm. After the animal revolution
the pigs declare themselves more equal than the others. Perhaps this is
the danger of the CRPD: those labelled disabled may see themselves as
superior or more powerful or to have more worth than those without the
label of disability.

I haev already alluded to the idea of poverty as a disability. It is
associated with a life less lived, a reduced life expectancy and loads
of other bad stuff which equates with the model of social disability
(from my very weak understanding of it).

But what of those born with wealth or who become wealthy? They would, in
the current paradigm, not be labelled as disabled. Their wealth offers
them opportunities and a longer life. They would have positive outcomes
on current measures of social disability. They may experience a life
with less pain, but be the poorer for it in a different way to financial
poverty.

I slate the non-disabled a lot. I label them as automotons - robot-like
humans, and conceptually I use this trickery to portray normality as
unhuman. Perhaps they could be labelled disabled using the concept of
normal disorder. This is probably alien to the thinking within
psychiatry but all I have done is turn a social judgement - a subjective
and temporal judgement - into a label related to illness. Those born
with a lack of uniqueness. Those born without the journey of suffering.
Those who have little heart and little vision. Those who easily fit into
a hierarchy. Those who do not think freely and with open minds. Those
who would be lead rather than lead. Those without courage to stand for
what they believe in or, even worse, those without beliefs.

Perhaps in the future those who do not suffer would be the poorest and
most disabled amongst us. They may live longer and prosper, but their
lifetimes are wasted and their true beauty never seen. This is the
beauty which comes from struggling with a unique disability, from never
having to overcome an obstacle, from never suffering too much nor
knowing what it is like to be subjugated.

This future would not be a state of equality.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive

About Me

We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"