A realization I've recently had about what "The Social Model of Disability" *means*

[capri0mni]

This is something that's been fermenting in my brain, lately, that I have not gotten around to posting (I don't think? If I have, please excuse the repeat):

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An adherent to the Medical Model believes that "eliminating disability" means curing or treating all the symptoms.

Whereas an adherent to the Social Model (specifically Yours Truly) believes that "eliminating disability" means:

"Allowing all people the freedom to do everything they can do, without shaming them for what they can not do.

Now, that light bulb clicked on a few weeks ago. This morning a second light bulb clicked on regarding the definition of "Shaming":

The noun "Shame" is the emotional pain you feel when you believe (either correctly or incorrectly) that something you've done, or something you are, is Wrong.

The (transitive) verb "To Shame" is what other people do when you don't feel pain about what you've done, or who you are, but they feel you should, so they do everything in their power to convince you to change your mind. And it takes a lot of practice and a good circle of kith and kin (mostly kith) to withstand all that.

I, for example (as my kith know), feel no shame about my disability. But even so, I cannot deny that this visit to our local fine art museum was a fine example of "shaming, the (transitive) verb":

My first impression: not very friendly to people in wheelchairs. The ramp to the door was right next to the parking lot, so it wasn't a long walk. But the door at the top of the ramp is permanently locked. In order to get in, you have to push a button and speak into an intercom... if you have trouble with speaking or hand dexterity (ETA: Or have low vision, and can't read the small sign by the button), I guess you're screwed.

Audrey (Pushes button): Hello, we're at the wheelchair entrance; we need someone to open the door.

Guard: What do you want?

Audrey: We're here with a wheelchair, and we need someone to open the door.

Guard: You need a wheelchair?

Me: No, I'm in a wheelchair. We need to get inside.

Guard: Okay. Hang on, someone will come by to open the door soon.

...and we were left waiting for several minutes. I'm glad we went yesterday, when it was in the 40's, instead of a week ago Tuesday, when it was hovering around freezing...

After we got inside, the guard left us, and we spent several minutes wandering around trying to find the reception desk... So that picture you see in that Wikipedia article? (ETA: Description: A large building with a marble facade and several Ionian [?] columns and arches at the top of a long, wide flight of steps, looking out over a reflecting pool) That's not the view I saw of the museum.
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And no, for the record, I have not gone back since.

It's that social shaming that makes "The Disabled" a distinct (i.e. second -- or third) Class within the society, and what makes Disability an Issue to Deal with instead of just a Difference to Live with.

And eliminating that class distinction within human cultures is what the Social Model of Disability Means to Me...

Comments

[raze]

Oof, I'm sorry you had that experience at the museum - very disheartening. But, I really enjoyed this post; it was thought provoking. This, I find just fantastic: ""Allowing all people the freedom to do everything they can do, without shaming them for what they can not do."

[capri0mni]

Thank You!

Yeah, I'm rather pleased with that insight, if I say so myself. It's all part of that same cluster of thoughts that have been growing, in my brain, like one of those Creative Writing word cluster maps, around the central word "Monster."

It's been growing at vegetative speeds, rather than frogs' eggs speeds, but still (the first seed germinated about 3 years ago, now [??])...

A key part of my definition of shame/shaming is what I mean by "wrong." This is something I learned in my college intro to philosophy course (taught by Doctor Kate Lindeman) and it's stuck with me ever since.

Correct and Incorrect are adjectives referring to factual things (1+3=4 is correct; "It only ever rains on Saturday" is incorrect). Right and Wrong are adjectives referring to moral things (Paying your taxes is the right thing to do. It is wrong to commit murder).

I think the main problem with Ableism stems from the Medical Science (the fact-based explanations for what causes difference) has advanced exponentially further than Medical Ethics (the moral explanations for how we should respond to that difference)... And Political / Social Ethics have lagged a generation or two behind the Medical Ethics.

Science -- 21st Century: \o/
Bio-Ethics -- 19th Century: :-/
Social Policy -- 7th Century: /o\

[raze]

Ooh, I like it when you talk wordy to me XD Seriously though, I love hearing the breakdown of your thought process, as well as how deeply you think about word usage and meaning. It's above and beyond and pretty splendid.

[capri0mni]

Just so you know: it took about three full minutes before it clicked that "Talk wordy to me" was a pun... Shaping up to be one of those days...

[spiralsheep]

The medical model is fine as long as a disability can be successfully cured/managed by medical intervention but when it can't the people with disabilities still have to live and the social model deals with the realities of those situations.

It infuriates me that Unum are using a warped combined model as propaganda to damage disabled people for Unum's profit. They're utter scum.

[capri0mni]

The medical model is fine as long as a disability can be successfully cured/managed . . .

Even there, I have a tiny bit of a problem with that model, because the model itself implies that having a disability is the wrong way to be a human being (and yes, I mean that in the morality sense), and if a cure or management regimen is possible for a person that person is making a morally wrong decision if they choose to forego treatment (you're not considered 'a burden to society' if you stay in hospital for months and months and hours and hours of physical therapy, but you are labeled as a burden if you decide to forego treatment, but then have the audacity to seek assistance with adapting your home to your disabilities... Even if the latter is less expensive). And woe betide the person who can't afford the treatment.

I will have to Google Unum later.

[spiralsheep]

Unum are the USian "health" insurance co currently spending mega-bucks to destroy my country's health and social care systems (amongst their many crimes against humanity). I advise against googling as any trufax you manage to uncover will be extremely depressing. The gist is that they've paid greedy academics to produce an obviously flawed bio-psycho-social model of disability in which people with disabilities are all bad!wrong recidivists whose "chosen" lifestyle focuses on professionally fleecing the rest of society by promoting our/the belief we're disabled when we're supposedly merely workshy and anti-social. There have, as you can imagine, been many academic quality debunkings of these lies but right-wing governments, especially those Unum throw bribes and political donations at, unsurprisingly tend to adopt Unum's lies as their model for welfare reform murdering disabled people.

And, as you'll guess from that rantette, I agree with your first para about societies' attitudes to disability/pwd.

[capri0mni]

Thank you for sparing me the Google-slog; they do, indeed, sound horrid.

I know you know this, but I'll add this reply anyway, so I've put it into words for possible call back later (any time a human being puts something into words, it becomes part of the cultural discourse, because then, it can be remembered and repeated later, even if it's originally spoken in private).

A couple of B.A.D.D.s, or so, ago, I mentioned the Social Model in some LJ community (maybe no_pity or crip_crit) and someone asked what it meant. When I explained that it's the belief that Disability is social construct rather than a medical condition, she got offended and said that was horribly condescending to people with invisible disabilities and/or chronic pain -- that we could completely change our infrastructure and teach tolerance and anti-bigotry all we want, and that still wouldn't make it any easier for her to get out of bed in the morning, or enable her to work 40 hours a week...

And while I acknowledged that was true, I did try to explain that changing society's attitudes would/could prevent the fact that, today --

Having trouble getting out of bed or being unable to work 40 hours a week makes you a second class citizen,* and changing societies' attitudes toward disability would erase its existence as a social caste, even if it doesn't erase the physical reality of disability.

But my attempt was awkward, and she wasn't buying it. And that exchange has been playing as background noise in my mind, ever since. ... And then, a few weeks go, that light bulb lit up that we two had very different assumptions of what what "eliminating disability" meant -- she was focusing on the ease or difficulty of dealing with symptoms, and I was talking about the ease or difficulty of dealing with other people.

So, I would like to state here, officially, and for the record, that, in my understanding:

Holding to the Medical Model of Disability precludes all alternative models (since it defines disability as only a physical, medical, reality and nothing else). But that is Not true the Social Model; "Allowing all people the freedom to do what they can," may, and often does (but not always) mean giving people open and equal access to medical treatment. The key is the absence of shaming people whether or not treatment is available.

*(or, as Dave Hingsburger puts it, a complete non-citizen of any country: Thrown out of the Citizen Ship)