Read now.

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.

Thanks for doing your homework... :wink:

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.

Thanks for doing your homework... :wink: — Banno

Heh. You're right I ought to have just read them before replying.

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. — 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.

He's talking about the Australian version of this. — frank

I know.

You have disability insurance through Social Security. It's pretty generous — frank

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. — Banno

How would you say it stacks up to the USA's? Looks to be the same in terms of...

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. — Banno

How would you say it stacks up to the USA's? Looks to be the same in terms of... — Moliere

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.

I don't know. Everyone I've ever met who was living "on disability" (receiving SSI payments) was doing pretty well. — frank

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...

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. — Banno

?

I don't think you mean this, but I do wonder what you're getting at.

How would you say it stacks up to the USA's? — Moliere

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.

Everyone I've ever met who was living "on disability" (receiving SSI payments) was doing pretty well. — 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.

We've sent aid packages to folk we know in the US who have not been able to get the support they need. — Banno

You're such a compassionate person Banno. Thank you.

You're such a compassionate person Banno. — frank

Come on, you know me better. Not I, Wife.

I'm not posturing, I'm pointing to a problem. And you did ask.

Come on, you know me better. Not I, Wife.

I'm not posturing, I'm pointing to a problem. And you did ask. — Banno

Your wife is a compassionate person. Hint to her to watch out for scams. It's hard to avoid them these days.

These are people she has met personally.

And yes, we have also been involved in exposing scams.

These are people she has met personally.

And yes, we have also been involved in exposing scams. — Banno

Cool.

Cool. — frank

Yeah, not so much. Leaves me pretty cold, really. :grimace:

Yeah, not so much. Leaves me pretty cold, really. :grimace: — Banno

Maybe if you walkabout in the desert it will help. :grin:

The American version has been around since the 1950s. — frank

Look I'm quoting myself.

I can go in to the deficiencies of the US social security system in more detail, if that's where you want to go. That's usually seen negatively, as bashing America, and would be a bit off-topic, but happy to do so if it serves some purpose.

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.

Fine. Bear in mind that what I said here is in response to a request. In my opinion, the social security system in the US is appalling.

Ok. It was Moliere who asked. I'm sure he will be interested in your perspective.

Well, they suffer 20,000 more points than I, but there are those who suffer 45,000 more points than them so the real need is....


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.

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. — Moliere

Ok. What practical bullet points emerge from this?

Those who live on SSI disability ought share a bond towards the undocumented, and so on, because it's in their own self-interest and basically decent.

This idea of means-testing the suffering is pretty bad.

Definitely worth pondering, yes

"Intersectionality", as it's called.

Central to both the social and critical models of disability, but external to the medical model.

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. — Banno

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).

The presumption that a disability is a deficit does exactly that, no? — Banno

It is a deficit but not in the sense of morals.

To say historically implies that it is a practice put in place. — L'éléphant

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?”

It's about shifting the narrative from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what do you need to thrive?” — Banno

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.

Sure. Acknowledged.

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.