My politics of disablement

On the eve of the Paralympic Games 2024, I want to share some thoughts about my values relating to ability, disability and impairment. I want to make it clear that I am not a recent student of these topics but, rather, wish to write some of the thinking structures that I use as an educator and citizen in relation to disability.

About me

For those of you new to the blog, I am a teacher of PE and science and I am a business owner. In the former, I have worked with young people and colleagues of every kind including having my very first teaching placement in special education. In the latter, I am responsible for ensuring that my publications and wider business are representative of a wide community of people and represent the values of Olympism and Paralympism in equal quantity and reverence.

My aim for this post is simply to explore my own ideas about disability, often in relation to sport and health, and to write down some thoughts that guide me. I do not know if I am “up to date” in my thinking, nor do I believe I am likely to be correct in what I write. Rather, I want to share these points simply as a series of stimuli for readers to ponder their own thinking patterns.

Let’s start here…

I want you to think of a person in your life. It can be you or someone else. It can be a family member or friend but I want it to be someone you know.

Now, in relation to that person, I want you to answer this question in your own mind:

If you only had the categories of “able-bodied” or “disabled”, which category would you place that person in?

I chose to think about myself in relation to the prompt above and my tendency is to think of myself as “able-bodied” amongst the two choices available. Why do I think this? Why do I qualify as “able-bodied” in my mind? I think that, traditionally, I would have not identified a disability in myself and, therefore, I am able-bodied. I can walk on my legs, I can grip things, I can write, draw, run, cook, etc.

But none of these “abilities” are isolated in me as an individual. They all have a social structure to them. For example, let’s take gripping: I can grip pretty much everything that one may need to grip. Door handles, tennis balls, pens, remote controls, mobile phones, etc. But all of these things are approximately the right scale and shape for my hands and my fingers. What if they weren’t? What if my hands remained exactly as they are but the standard tennis ball size was 200% greater or pens and pencils were designed to be far smaller and, as such, my writing technique was no longer functional? In these cases, would I be disabled? The reality is that my hands deviate from the average hands little enough that I can use almost all devices that are built for the average human hand. 

So, where does this leave us? What if I made this statement:

Disability seems to be when a person’s abilities deviate from the average human being’s abilities to a sufficient degree to impair that person.

But there’s a problem here, right? In the description above, the disability does not occupy the individual. The disability occurs between the individual and the society that has structured provision and opportunity at the human average. The disability, arguably, exists because there is an assumption that people only deviate slightly from the average. This is what causes a disability to be perceived by many of us as being located in the person that deviates more from the average. 

Let’s use an example: I am imagining an individual who has experienced a serious accident and has spinal damage to such a degree that they only have minimal movement in their limbs. Is this person disabled? I feel that most people would argue that they are. It is an assumption that a person who is mobile thanks to a wheelchair or who can’t feed themselves with their own hands is disabled. But I believe that I can make at least a reasonable argument that this person is not disabled. 

Let’s take that same example. Let’s say that this person is called David and that David has had a neural transmitter fitted that enables his motor cortex to transmit signals via Bluetooth or Wifi to receivers in the relevant vertebrae that, if connected to the CNS, would allow the limbs to be moved. This person, with training, could walk unaided, feed themselves and, who knows, even run, jump or dance. David would be no different except that society would have produced an enabling solution to his injury. Would he still be disabled? I think that most of us would argue no. 

The problem is that David is still David. He hasn’t changed. He would still have the same injury but now, in my slightly (not very) futuristic description, David’s injury is not linked to an impairment because society has found a solution to this injury.

So, I want to think about what I am arguing. I think I am arguing that a human being cannot be disabled in isolation. I think I am arguing that dwarfism, spinal injury, autism, etc. are not disabilities in and of themselves. Rather, I think that I am arguing, at best, that disability occurs in the space between the individual and society and possibly even in society itself. 

If I am right –and, by the way, I am not claiming to be– no person is disabled. People might experience a disability. But that’s it. The disability is outside the individual. This line of thinking, although rational and considered to some degree, sits very opposed to my experience of the “real world”. In the “real world” I, along with many other people, identify the individual as disabled, not the society being the disabling force. I believe that I have learned or assumed that the model of disability located within an individual is the correct one and that disability or difference or deviation (or whichever term is the better one) is identifiable in the person for the same reason. Therefore, my value system and cognitive experiences differ directly from the assumed or projected societal structure that I –and, I’m guessing, you– have experienced. It is my contention as I write this statement that no individual is disabled but that the interaction of society’s structure of provision based on the average human being is disabling many, many people. 

How does this relate to sport and the Paralympics?

The Paralympics is a brilliant sporting movement and one that I have enjoyed a great deal, not least in 2012, when I spent numerous days in Stratford watching the athletics. But I do have some issues with the Paralympics. Firstly, the first three values of the games are:

• Determination
• Courage
• Inspiration

I struggle with all three because they seem to place a disability or difference in the individual such as “You are determined to compete and excel despite your lower leg amputation.” Or “You are courageous to keep training despite the lack of provision for wheelchair rugby.” I am not comfortable with this. As far as I can tell, Paralympic athletes are athletes. Full stop. Paralympic athletes need determination and courage, of course. Just as Olympic athletes do. Assuming that provision and support is in place for each of us, “extra courage” or “extra determination” should not be a factor other than how it relates to competitive orientation. This would mean that the Paralympic values could be closer to:

• Performance
• Athleticism
• Fairness

These are just examples but I believe they are fair ones. Beyond these examples, I believe it would be more representative to have values such as:

• Activism
• Change

According to my thinking thus far, the Paralympics can be considered to be the pinnacle of competition for athletes who have been disabled, to some degree, by society. This means, in my current thinking, that Paralympic athletes are experiencing unfairness to some degree. 

Furthermore, I encourage readers to consider what is going to happen when a Paralympic athlete breaks a world record in the Olympic games. Let’s imagine a scenario: A 100m sprinter with a lower leg amputation runs a 100m time faster than Usain Bolt’s (for men) or Florence Joyner’s (for women) and wins the gold medal as well as breaking the world record. They achieve this, partially, because of the improvement in blade technology.

What do you think and feel when you read this scenario? What is going around your mind? Is it “fair”? Is it “right”? Is it “good”? Whatever your thoughts, consider why you have those thoughts. 

I’d like to think that I would simply believe that the best athlete won the race. But all of the assumptions about disability and ability would press down on my thinking. Nearly half a century of conditioning about what the Olympics is would be challenged and, despite the staggering achievement of an athlete who happens to use a blade, I believe that I may place this achievement into its own unique category. Why do I think like this? Why can I not simply accept a Paralympic athlete as a fair and just Olympic athlete?

The scenario above will cause many readers to think of Oscar Pistorius. Prior to his murder conviction, Pistorius had raced in the 2012 Olympic Games men’s 400m qualifying rounds but did not manage to make the final. Pistorius is a double below-the-knee amputee. It is my contention that Pistorius was welcomed and celebrated at the 2012 Games specifically because his performances were not yet at the standard to challenge the world’s best Olympic 400m runners. I believe that, if Pistorius had run a qualifying time that put him in contention for a medal, the response to Pistorius would have been far less celebratory. I am confident that his achievement would have been sullied by his “advantage” of blade technology. Whilst it might prove difficult for all of us to separate Pistorius the athlete in 2012 from Pistorius the convicted murderer in 2014, his sporting example is a useful one. What will your own thoughts be when a Paralympic athlete contends for Olympic titles? 

Summary

Having written this post, I want to reflect on what I have stated. I want to remind you that I do not know if I am right or wrong but that I am sharing my opinions and am open to feedback. I think I am claiming that disability does not and has never existed within an individual in isolation. I feel confident in this statement but I am far less confident that others will accept it or agree with me. I guess that’s fine, right? We can disagree. No problem! I think I am claiming that society is the primary disabling variable and we (we are all part of this) disable individuals by accepting “averagarian” structures to almost everything around us. The vast majority of my experiences in life are “able-bodied” experiences because the vast majority of my biology and physiology deviate from the average to a small enough degree to not impair me within society. 

Conclusions 

Firstly, I am really excited by the Paralympics in Paris 2024. As I write this statement, the Games are one day away and this blog post will be published at pretty much the same moment as the opening ceremony. 

Secondly, I am going to change my language to reflect my philosophy and politics of disablement. I am going to stop using terms like disabled and impaired and replace them with terms such as “experiencing disability” or “experiencing impairment” because they place disability, as it should be seen, as both a temporary state but also in the experience of the individual in society, not within the individual themselves. I am also going to stop referring to “Paralympic athletes” and simply replace this with “athletes” or equivalent. 

Thirdly, in a loving and compassionate way, I am going to challenge myself and those around me when conversations turn to the “brave” Paralympic athlete, the “inspirational” amputee, etc. In my opinion, there need be nothing additionally brave or inspirational about athletes at the Paralympic games except their athletic performances IF we manage to structure our society, piece by piece, away from “averagarian” values. I aim to be inspired by the aesthetic beauty of an amazing athlete sprinting in the T11 category or equivalent. I aim to see bravery in the boccia player who competes for every point despite getting off to a poor start in their first match due to nerves.

Finally, I am going to listen to the feedback that I receive for this post. Like in any part of life, I want to do things increasingly better. I want to be a better and better version of myself and I want to assimilate information in a non-assuming way. Once again, I do not know if I am right about what I have written above but I hope that readers may appreciate that discussing such thoughts is not wrong. 

Thanks for reading. 

James