>...I disagree. Impairment is surely dependent on the context and how
you view the world around >you.
Of course, impairments have different effects/consequences in different
environments, societies and so on. That's what I understand by a social
model/social constructionist approach - the extent to which impairment
translates into disadvantage is variable and contingent. But surely,
impairment itself is not context-dependent? For example, epilepsy has,
we assume, always existed in human beings? Has had very different
reactions/consequences/ treatments/cultural valuations, but the brain
state and symptoms surely are largely context free - of course, there is
a feedback loop by which reaction influences symptoms, but is there not
a basic way in which the phenomenology of the disease stands alone?
>I feel that you may be inputting modern values around quality of life
I don't think I said anything about quality of life, or what it was like
to have a particular impairment. I am not saying that people with an
impairment suffer, or are miserable, I don't think...
>as we know evolution does not work when applied to the human species
because of our capacity to think and feel beyond the biological...
Hang on a minute. What do you mean here? We are evolved beings aren't
we? In what sense can evolution not be applied to humans?
I am a Darwinist. But not a Social Darwinist, which is a different
claim, about society itself reflecting Darwinian principles, or about
our values and social rules being derived from Spencerian survival of
the fittest.
>In this sense impairment may neither be worse or better than
non-impairment, it is depedent on the context and value systems that
exist and we need to keep pushing those boundaries so that able-bodied
people understand that impairment does not equal worse than
non-impairment.
I think this is the claim that I am sceptical about. But I don't think
this makes me a determinist.
Tom
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