Modes of Disability

[sqbr]

A bunch of interesting links and ideas seem to be coming out of the Feministe post Thoughts on disability and respectful language.

Reading the comments I finally had an answer to my niggling concern with the social model of disability glossing over the fact that some disabilities really do, objectively, suck, for reasons that have nothing to do with society:

But we need to break out of the model, which undoubtedly has a stronghold on the rest o society, as necessarily always in the negative realm. There is nothing INHERENTLY negative about disability. That doesn’t mean there can’t BE negatives — just that it isn’t necessarily, and always, negative.

Comments

[trouble]

*nodnod* I've tried to talk about that before and been shouted down. It's hard to explain and when one is emotionally exhausted to begin with, almost impossible. Amandaw is awesome.

[sqbr]

Yes, I admired her ability to re-explain and re-think in response to criticism.

[ex_peasant441]

I find that post problematical on so many levels. Given the choice between people putting time an effort into changing their word usage and altering social conventions for my benefit (changes that would then disadvantage far more people in total) or putting time and effort into finding a medical solution that would relieve my condition... well, there is absolutely no question which I would vote for. The social inconveniences of my condition are just that - inconveniences. The medical ones are real every day problems that have completely dominated my life and reduced its quality by an unimaginable amount. The idea there is nothing inherently negative about CFS is insane. The main impression I get from that post is of someone desperately trying to bolster their own self-esteem and lashing out in the process, and I find their arguments poisonous nonsense. Even on the purely social level Pride isn't the answer - pride never helped anyone. What is needed is genuine self-esteem and respect, and that is a far more complex notion that takes far more work.

And I'm tired and already in a bad mood and probably shouldn't be commenting at all.

[sqbr]

That's why I quoted that passage: because yes, having CFS is inherently negative. In a perfect world, social-model-wise, most people would still much rather not have it, and not because of any irrational prejudice. It objectively sucks.

And she says a couple of places that rejecting the "medical model" is not the same as rejecting medicine. It obviously has a huge role to play in helping disabled people cure or at least cope with our symptoms and underlying conditions.

The point is that while SOME of the suckiness of CFS comes from the physiological symptoms (and it's important to do as much as possible to alleviate that suckiness), some of it also depends on social things. For example, suppose you're bedbound and have no family willing to take care of you. Then in the wrong social context? You die. In the right one you get a pension, a carer, meals on wheels etc. Those are two VERY different levels of suckiness resulting from the same physiological symptoms.

Thus when we judge "How sucky is it to have condition X, and how can we best alleviate that suckiness?"(*) we have to look at both the medical AND the social factors. (And yes, the negative social effect of any disability support need to be weighted up against the benefits, the same way as the side effects of any treatment. The point is that they're part of the analysis) It may be that for you, medical help is the most important factor. But that's not true for everyone.

(*)Which in a lot of cases is not necessarily the right way to frame the question anyway, but I'm sleepy so it will have to do

[aris_tgd]

I was actually going to make a post about this, but perhaps I will just make a comment here, instead? My own reaction to reading about the social model over the medical model thing was defensiveness, since I'm a scientist, and my thought was first "But there is something wrong if you are not functioning at optimal performance, and there are ways to make that better."

But I thought about it, y'know, attempting desperately to check my privilege, and I think the big sticking point for me that might seem obvious but is never addressed is that the medical model isn't being dismissed in its place. If you want to go to the doctor and say "Give me medicine to make pain stop" or "Help me fit a brace for my leg" or whatever, the social model doesn't interfere there. The social model is for all the other interactions, which are not about individual action but about guaranteeing access to everyone. Which also helps with the problem that applying the medical model to societal interactions puts the onus on the individual to fix things, which is not always possible, especially since disability is closely entwined with class (either as a cause or an effect.)

[sqbr]

*nods*

Yes, I think it's easy to read criticisms of "the medical model" as criticisms of medicine (as an idea in principle, rather than pointing out flaws in the way it's done in practice), which would be absurd because medicine is obviously hugely important to helping deal with many chronic illnesses.

I'm still getting my head around the social model, especially as it applies to me, I think part of the problem with all these models is trying to describe all disabilities at once means not accurately capturing any one individual's experience and needs. Disability varies from being incurably Deaf where medicine offers nothing and the right social context means you might not want to be "cured", to chronic pain which goes away with a pill, plus there's the physical/mental divide etc.