Disability and Normalcy Of Experience -- How We Are All Disabled

(Philosocom's Disability Directory)

(Background music)

“Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone.” -- Martina Navratilova

After attending an online philosophy course about pure idealism (the absence of any physicality), I, as (largely) a physicalist, have come to a possible truth about the concept of disability.... Since we humans are limited beings in our various capabilities, it is safe to assume that many of our limitations are in fact disabilities.

Even if we are functioning, average, or above average individuals. Disability is pretty much individual, whether or not welfare is received for it. It can be innate as well as acquired, like philosophy itself.

How are all of us disabled? If we are to take a look at a textbook-disabled person, some of them are only disabled in comparison to someone else, or more specifically, the archetype of what a normal human being is and what normalcy entails. Disability is not per standards but per personal ability that may or may not be accessible for competence.

However, if most people, if not everyone, had the same disability as the person in question, would we be considered disabled... or normal? After all, the premise about disability is that one who has it cannot function as much as the relative "normal" archetype.

Why do we keep making these irrelevant comparisons when disability only has to do with specific activities we specifically cannot do? Why do we keep treating disabled people as an unseen minority when we are all disabled in our own respective ways?

If we were all blind, for example, that would not necessarily be considered a disability as it is today, simply because it would be the "norm" to not see. The Widemouth Blindcat is a blind fish that lives in total darkness. His blindness isn't even a disability, given his circumstances. Rather, wouldn't vision be the one disabling him, 900 feet below the surface of San Antonio, Texas?

In some way, we humans are also confined to any place with air, which means we are unable to swim or be in outer space for a long time without appropriate equipment. Even if we cannot, the mere fact that we are unable, renders us in a way, to be disabled.

In other words, whether you have no human-relative disabilities or not, you are still disabled—all because you are, by existence, confined as we all are, away from omnipotence. The difference between a "truly" disabled person and someone else is that the latter is as disabled as any human is, while the former is uniquely disabled.

If a cat were able to hear like a human, it would be considered as someone who suffers from a hearing deficiency, as it is not usual for a cat to hear as less as a human. It is not a way to condescend over people, but it is known that a cat's array of senses is far greater than that of a normal human. Thus, they are less "disabled" than we are.

Likewise, should an alien species, capable of flying in the air solely with the power of their minds, integrate fully with our own civilization, then eventually, to be a human would be considered a "disability" just as being autistic or deaf will. Why? Because it would then be normalized to fly without the assistance of vehicles.

Pure humans, who are unable to do so, might be considered as "aerodynamically disabled", like penguins became. And therefore, airplanes might be equal to wheelchairs in this scenario.

We are all disabled in a sense that we are confined to our consciousness. We cannot perceive nor experience anything without the minion that is the mind. Because of that, some thinkers may believe that there is, in fact, no such thing as the "physical reality," just as the solipsist will tell you that only they exist. Why? It's not that they are mentally ill or handicapped just for having these beliefs—after all, who can truly say what lies beyond our subjective experience?

Hence why the mind is like a lifelong caretaker that gives you the newspaper every morning, as you cannot do so yourself. How can we know if the mind does not do things to said papers in some way? How can we know if they write whatever they want and give it to us under the guise of being an actual newspaper?

Our own mind is our cane, our wheelchair, our respirator...