Joseph Ross wrote:
> Re - Pam Thomas and risks of speaking out.
>
> Is change only possible when it is ecconomically driven?
>
> Joseph
Joseph and Pam do touch on the way things are. And I applaud Graeme Innes' action as Deputy Equal Opportunity Commissioner for taken the stance he did as reported by Laurance. We need more of that. Lets see what happens when I speak out in this forum:
Change in our time is more possible when economically justified but what kind of change? Many government funded disability support services have adopted the 'down-sizing-outcome driven-norightswithout responsibility' lingo and practices and treat service as
business and people with human needs as no more than consumers. In the Netherlands where the labour market is hard put to meet demand for workers in a booming economy some disability groups, I understand, hope to see people with with disabilities included
in the workforce with a commensurate rise in their perceived equality as citizen. But what when the economy will, as it will, decline? Who will be 'down-sized' first? And what about those whose disabilities preclude them from any employment? Will they
never be equal citizens?
The disability movement could more coherently fight for an equality based on a paradigm not founded on economic driftsand but on inherent value resident in each human being. Where do we find that inherent value? One avenue to find it is in the dependency
and vulnerability that all human beings experience and people with disabilities do in often heightened degrees. We all depend on others. No one is completely autonomous and independent, in spite of the daily messages in the media. When living in a baby's
body, when ill, when old and frail all people experience a need for assistance from others -through direct hands-on help, through consideration of accessible environments, through attitudes towards each other, through respectful and loving relationships.
Striving for appropriate personal autonomy in balance with acknowledged dependency and vulnerability, as part of the human condition, would see a different world. An interdependent one. We already live in one of course but mostly act as if it is not so.
And we can increasingly see that this is an impoverished, unsustainable way to live.
Could disability movements fight a more coherent fight based on that kind of worldview? There will be difficulties in acknowledging that both autonomy and dependency/vulnerability are valuable, to be acknowledged as our world's realities. In being careful
not to confuse the old pity/victim view with this acknowledged dependency/vulnerability one. And what would disability movements do, on the basis of this paradigm, with pertinent ethical issues such as abortion, genetics and euthanasia issues?
Can disability movements benefit from examining links with environmental change movements and advances in science that show this world is truly interconnected from quantum to biological levels and where each part is part of and affects the whole.
Some of the sources of my inspiration are: MacIntyre's (2000) 'Dependent Rational animals', David Loye's (2000) Darwin's lost theory of love', Hans Reinders (2000) The future of the disabled in liberal society: An ethical analysis, Clive Hamilton's (1996)
The mystic economist' and Elisabet Sahtouris' books and website: http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/
Wishing all a good year where there are plenty of opportunities and occasions to speak out and to give and receive love and respect.
Erik Leipoldt
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