In a much bigger picture, various bad things happen to people all over the world and all the time. There is no need to specially pick out one bad thing and apply special consideration and treatment while demeaning the rest of the problems that happen to people on a regular basis.
As a race, we humans are dying day by day since the time we are born into this world. If we do not wish to die faster than we can avoid, then we inevitably have to face up to all sorts of risks, internal and external.
When talking about care for the disabled, most people equate “disabled person” to a person who has musculoskeletal disabilities. Marketing materials also often portray handicapped persons on wheel chairs to stir emotions. People tend to empathise and believe we need to cater special arrangements for them because the ill-informed are made to believe that these people are the minorities (we don’t see handicapped persons everywhere) and that they are being ostracized by the society.
However, disability is more than just all the handicapped persons. A disabled person can be in one of the 14 categories recognised and documented in US Social Security Blue Book:
- Musculoskeletal System
- Special Senses and Speech
- Respiratory System
- Cardiovascular System
- Digestive System
- Genitourinary Impairments
- Haematological Disorders
- Skin Disorders
- Endocrine System
- Multiple Body System Impairments
- Neurological Problems
- Mental Disorders
- Malignant Neoplastic Disease
- Immune System Disorders
People with such disabilities can range from unnoticeable to mild to severe; and it is also possibility that many with such disabilities never realise they had it until much later.
Disabled people can exhibit various characteristics which may affect performance of work and its environment such as:
- Inability to learn, integrate, express
- Inability to calculate
- Have to visit toilet very frequently
- Fatigue, tiredness, sleepiness
- Unable to work under certain environments, e.g. sunlight, smoke, low ventilation, high altitudes
- Excessive medical leave, due to weak immune system
- Infectious disease carrier e.g. bronchitis, flu
So then how can we cater to all the disabled in our society? Clearly, there is no other better way than to spare them from the requirements of work. They are pathetic enough.
You see, the human race does not stubbornly, unreasonably and intentionally inflict pain and suffering on itself. Life, aka the process of dying, does it itself.
When we remove all our emotional attachments, we work logically. Logic says that we should mostly leave the disabled people alone and make the others work hard for the economy, for the country and for the world.
We can spare all the disabled persons the hardship of work, but the sad consequence is that more and more people, due to life undoing itself, is claiming social security benefits for their disability (social security claims is made possible due to our emotional calling), but governments and organisations are finding it harder and harder to support these people on top of the aging populations. Alas, we have to rope in the help of the disabled and squeeze every ounce of them still functional.
Look back at the list again and see what we can do. Well, it is a no brainer that the easiest group to target is the handicapped people. We just need to build ramps and lifts to ferry these people to their desk and they will be able to support themselves, and then convince the public and corporations that they are still cognitively functional and adequate to carry out a wide range of tasks.
Quite ironically, somehow most of us have twisted mentalities and doubts about the very society and world that we thrive in: So here we have this system of human treatment whereby through natural, logical selection, we pick the most enabled persons to work. In fact most societies strictly require all abled persons to work otherwise they will be discriminated based on social stigma, but we do not frown upon unemployed persons who are handicapped because we naturally excuse them from work. Then, at the same time, we think that this preferential treatment for the handicapped is a form of ill-treatment just because if they wanted work, they cannot get.
There are many more disabled people than just the handicapped alone, and without doubt, the more “social dependents” we can remove from this group the better. But remember not to be emotional and always be clear of the logical reasons to do this. Do not blame the society, for this is life. Ultimately, rather than we finding ways to help the disabled, the disabled themselves should find their own means to continue this living. They took the risk of living therefore they have to face up to the consequences now (Begs for a whole new topic of “Why and how am I here on earth). I am sorry to say, but most of these people really just cannot stand up to a fair and competitive environment being handicapped. In case a person is really talented, he will have his chance naturally and will not require any social help, for example, Beethoven who is deaf.
Finally, the decision to give special treatment to “disabled persons” in itself is discriminatory. How can we decide if a person is disabled or not; what is the difference between unnoticed, mild and severe conditions? Do we only empathise with the critically ill but overlook the welfare of the potentially ill persons? Do we not judge work performance the same “human” standards but instead have different set of standards based on how many limbs you have; how good your bladder is; or how glucose intolerant you are? The lesser known truth is that there is no clear line between an abled person and a disabled person if look beyond just the set of handicapped persons.
Have you wondered why your some people cannot follow simple instructions; or keeps on making typo mistakes in documents and reports; or cannot deliver a good presentation to clients; or have bad driving skills; or is always sleeping on the job? Unlikely as you may argue, chances are, they may be suffering from symptoms of disabilities that are lesser empathised and publicised by the public. Unfortunately, there is little we can do to help these people and worse of all, we are not even helping at all! Most of these poor folks will be dismissed as incapable, lazy or simply falling below expected performance.
All in all, “helping” the disabled is just a marketing cliché and a tone set to stir emotions and garner support for the real question of “what to do with the disabled” since we cannot and do not want to support them. Any mandatory special treatment given to these people only imposes more burdens for the rest of the human race.
