The Antisocial Model of Disability
Well, I'm modeling it, so...
This is partly inspired by a recent post over on Astral Codex Ten, Contra the Social Model of Disability, but to be fair, it is mostly inspired by an argument had with an idiot some time ago in a community that should not be named, who was loudly pushing the Social Model and seemingly incapable of grasping that anyone might disagree with it.
And I could go after this with all the conventional examples, talking about how no amount of taking-into-account or accommodation-providing will let the blind see a rainbow, the deaf hear a symphony, or the paraplegic hike the Yorkshire Dales. (Or, to address one sub-branch of the argument, convince the brain of the gender-dysphoric that their body is fundamentally right.)
(This is not to entirely dismiss the value of accommodations and ameliorations. They help the world hurt less. But that is not something on the same damn continent as a cure that makes the issue go away.)
But instead, despite what mostly constitute minor disabilities, and despite by and large considering standpoint theory to be a load of fetid dingo’s kidneys in epistemological terms, I’m going to give you a chunk of lived experience. Specifically, mine.
You see, I want to climb this mountain, as wise men should - once.
And when I say climb this mountain, I mean properly. On foot, collecting the stamps on my walking stick as I go. Arriving at the summit in the pre-dawn hours, to feel the burn in my muscles of achieving the ascent, and the sense of wonder from witnessing the sunrise from such a vantage point.
(The details of how and why I acquired this ambition as quite a young man, despite growing up in the UK and now living in the US for decades aren’t really relevant to this post. Suffice to say that like so many things, it began with a book.)
The only problem is that I can’t do any of that.
I have three things that you might call disabilities. Or limitations, if you prefer.
The first is that my eyeballs don’t work properly. The lesser half of that is that I am very myopic. Without my glasses of a fairly strong prescription, if it’s more than about 18” away, it’s a blur to me. Since that is an accommodation that mostly works (except first thing in the morning or if peripheral vision would be useful), it’s the lesser half.
The greater half is that my retinae lack the proper pigmentation that absorbs “used light”. Without that, even being outside in natural light hurts. Looking in the direction of the sun or at particularly bright reflections hurts the way I imagine having a red-hot needle jabbed into your brain must. So I also look at the world through dark, photochromic lenses all the time, out of necessity.
The second is that my spine doesn’t work properly either. There aren’t really any meliorations for that, except routine doses of painkillers, and society is at least somewhat accommodating of people whose bad backs mean they can’t stand up and walk about for extended periods of time without pain when they’re nearly fifty. (Less so when they’re twentysomething, but so it goes.)
The third, and this is the big one, is that my brain really doesn’t work properly. To an extent, this is fairly general - if I was in the habit of self-diagnosis, I could make a decent case for half the DSM - but I’m not. I’m going to concentrate on the one I do actually have a professional diagnosis for, which would be major depressive disorder.
The one that means I get to take a dozen pills, between prescription and supplement, every day in order to have the ability to feel anything other than apathetic melancholia or intense anger. But, y’know, as long as I keep taking those dozen pills a day, I can approximate a normal mental state, or something that might at least be close to one. It’s hard to tell, for fairly obvious reasons.
What do all these things have in common?
Well, that the problems they cause me have literally fuck-all to do with society not taking my needs into account. I have the finest optical technology on my face, some truly magnificent pharmacology in my bloodstream, and only lack a titanium Titan Spine™ because we haven’t yet invented the damn things. I can see well enough to work outside certain specialist professions where imperfect vision would actually be dangerous, have not been prevented by people from doing any of my sitting-down jobs, and - insofar as I am good at what I do - would not have had my career impaired by my brain had I, at the time, been diagnosed and on my meds.
(Not being, at the relevant time, it was somewhat impaired by them, but frankly, I can understand most employers not wanting to hire Gloomy McDespairPants with an occasional side-order of Rip-Your-Goddamn-Throat-Out-For-No-Reason.)
But let us return to Fuji-san, my eternally unfulfilled ambition.
Because my back wouldn’t let me get through the first segment of the climb without collapsing, and there is no accommodation that I can be given that would fix that. Sure, they can ferry my literally broke ass up to the summit by helicopter, which bypasses the entire experience of the climb that is the damn point of the climb in the first place.
Because I can’t watch the sunrise with my own eyes. I already have the best accommodations available for those, and while I am very appreciative of them, I can still only see that sunrise through my very own glass, darkly.
And because I will never know that awe, that sense of wonder, that I’ve read described so beautifully. My sense of wonder is circumscribed by my ability to correctly and entirely artificially rebalance my neurotransmitter levels with today’s carefully selected handful of pills, and I know that. I can’t not know that. You eventually get used to the notion that so much of your emotional state is sitting in a dish on your desk, but for some things, it matters more than others.
For this, it matters.
So with this piece, I hope I have wistfully and successfully communicated why, exactly, this pile of cod-Marxist claptrap that would blame “society” and “the environment” tends to make me angry enough to want to stab its proponents right in their dumb monkey faces. (And that’s when I’ve been taking my pills.)
Because my problems don’t stem from an unhelpful society (it helped) or from a challenging mountain. They stem from being stuck in a malfunctioning meat-sack. I need cures, not condescension, acceptance, or appeasement.
And thus I implore you, I beseech you, O progressive thinkers, O disability activists, and O other proponents of such notions, bethink you that you might be mistaken.
And if you can’t so bethink, then at least go jump in a fire, and get the hell out of the way of the people who - while no doubt less socially aware - might actually help me to achieve my dream one day.