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THE CONVERSATION AROUND DISABILITY

The Indian society is developing, in this cycle of development it has met with several pitfalls, but it has tried in the past. May it be the acceptance of women, LGBTQIA+ communities, previously lower castes and so on. The evolution of the society has been snail-paced but it surely exists in some ways. Another such disadvantaged group is the ‘disabled’ community. But, are we doing enough to learn and unlearn our biases around it?

This topic means alot to me, one of the closest people to me has quadriplegia, and I have over the last ten years gathered observations from all walks of life, my conclusion? Nobody has the slightest general sense of behaviour.

Now it is imperative to note that the desired behaviour from the people is varied and may differ from one person to another and thus is a tricky situation.

Firstly, my issue lies with the term disabled. Not because it is offensive, not at all, it is plain lazy. When you come across someone who has any sort of disability our first step should not be to label them as simply disabled. The fact is that we as a society use a homogeneous terms for any person going through any issue from mental to physical and label them as disabled. The least we could do is ask. Ask the person what they have in a conversation. Someone might have had an accident, someone might have autism, someone might has paraplegia, quadriplegia, ALS and so on.

It is important to realise that a family of someone with one such issues works for days, months, years to treat their family member with absolute normalcy, driving them away from the label of a ‘disabled person’, but the moment society comes in, it puts a label on them. They are not disabled people, they are people with problems, a human with quadriplegia is not simply a disabled human. When talking about the community a generalised term ensures an ease in use, that is understandable, but in personalised conversations the least we can do is put an effort to ask and be aware. When we meet someone with cancer we say that this person has cancer, we don’t look at him or her and say - this is a sick person. Sick applies to you too, when you had your last viral, you make the effort of giving them the respect of understanding their problem and not simply pushing them under one homogenised label.

The next issue is condescending ways of saying - you are not disabled, you are specially abled. When this line is said to a child, he or she may be empowered and that is a positive outcome but there are people who’ll come up and say such lines to adults. No one asked for your sympathy and your condescending words of wisdom, the line you say will not help an adult suddenly forget the issues in his or her life. You don’t go to someone with diabetes and say “hey, you are not unhealthy, you specially healthy” why does that mean, will always be a mystery to me. Please remember kids and adults are not the same.

The lack of infrastructure, I spent a fraction of my life in Seoul in South Korea, ramps in every possible corner of the city, restaurants, theaters, schools all equipped with ramps, elevators, libraries with braille sections and so on. Sadly, for us India doesn’t pay heed at all. I study in a college without ramps, I go to movie theaters without them, I have not seen bookshops with accessibility to name few instances.

It is as simple as this, when you decide to create an institution without accessibility, you announce that you are shutting your doors to students who cannot access it. I am sorry but we are a society that is unaware to the core.

Lastly, stop staring and stop offering help when no one asked for it. Nobody likes to be stared at, nobody likes to see strangers making expressions of sympathy, pity or surprise when they are seen, so just stop. Also, do not offer help when no one has asked for it, they have lived their without you, a stranger who saw them in the supermarket and decided to forcefully help them in order to fulfill their own biases, don’t do it.

This is just the tip with time I would love to add more articles on this topic till then this is my two cents on the same.

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EXTERNAL VALIDATION,FABRICATED PERFECTION AND MODERN MEAN WORLD SYNDROME (how the internet is making kids underconfident)

The internet is an invention almost exclusive to the formative years of post-millenials, an invention not less of a miracle, it soon created for itself an indispensible space in the world. As it grew, an equally big tower of negativity grew with it.

One of the biggest aspects of the internet today is Social Media, its aim has always been to bring the global community closer - an aim it has successfully met, but in the process of creating global connection it has inadvertently harmed personal ones.

The ‘Internet Paradox’  a 1998 study wrote about the paradox of how ‘social technologies’ made for interpersonal communications increases social isolation. Internet use was connected to heightened symptoms of depression and loneliness. To explain the paradox, the researchers reasoned that superficial relationships (weak ties) formed on line displaced meaningful (strong tie) relationships in the real world.

So what exactly happens?

Exposure to social media at a young age creates a hunger for external validation. When an 11 year old picks up a mobile and posts his/her content online there is a need to see the ‘like’ count go up. This propagates a culture of craving validation, so in contrast to the previous generations the newer generation does not get the time to develop a strong sense of self that is authentic, instead the personality created is a ‘polished version’ one which is fit to be shared with the world. There stays no place for imperfection in a child if he or she constantly tries to meet the ‘standards’ of social media.

A young girl now doesn’t have the comfort of looking like a 12 year old, natural things like acne or facial hair are seen as deviant from the strongly set standards of beauty. A picture put out then either goes through several edits, filters or the girl decides against putting it out because it won’t be liked.

Due to this youngsters develop body image issues, social anxiety, feelings of sadness and so on, this becomes their entry point to a wide range of issues that follow.

The feeling of not being good enough in comparison to standards set by social media, the generation deals with an inability to be happy with oneself.  If this generation was self-satisfied, billion dollar industries that prey on their insecurities would dissolve.

As social media churns out several teen millionaires the pressure of earning money, fame and success onsets at an age which is meant to worry for anything but. The new found profession ‘social media influencer’ is a highly paying position that needs nothing but a big following on your social media accounts, the youth is flooding the internet with content and talent. A handful ‘make it’, millions don’t. This instills in the youth a fear of failure, only a few optimistic ones stay unaffected while the lack of fame jolts others into feeling less than the rest. A simple scroll through the application TikTok, famously known for making many kids under the age of 16 millionaires, showcases the sheer competition the internet creates amongst individuals as young as pre-teens to stand out. All this adds to make an under confident, fearful individual. Things get worse when we see individuals constantly sieving life events, curating an image of perfection and happiness online. As one is surrounded by a community that shows only the best moments of their life, the feeling of sadness of intensifies when something goes wrong. The question often repeated by many - ‘‘ everyone else except me is happy’’. You’re alone in your sorrow, everyone’s happy life is at your fingertips to view, evaluate and envy. 

Talking of the Mean World Syndrome George Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory talked about the Mean World Syndrome. Gerbner worked mainly in the domain of television and its effects on the populace. He coined the Mean World Index which he defined as a cognitive bias wherein consumers of mass media can come to believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is through constant exposure to violent imagery or commentary. The theory from the 70s, based on the violence in television is more than relevant today. The fictional violence from television has seeped into every aspect today in forms of non-fictional news reporting, trending hashtags and so on. Simply put, negativity sells. The previous generations, especially in India grew up in the age where news was not omnipresent. Doordarshan did not telecast 24x7 news, newspapers weren’t 40 pages long and there weren’t any vibrating phones breaking news every second. Today’s generation is growing up in a time where they are aware of every wrong and violent thing happening anywhere in the world. They see the world as an irreparably damaged place. A recent example could be the Me Too movement, thousands of women came forward with their stories of sexual harassment, assault, molestation, abuse and rape. The general sentiment of any woman at this point was to fear if every man is out to hurt them. A counter trend that men rose was the ‘Not All Men’ movement. When young girls believe that every man is capable of hurting them, they inculcate a fear. This manifestation of Phobic Anxiety, becomes a trigger for Secondary Depression. A certain state of sadness that disillusions a kid, that creates a ‘mean world’ belief. The world seems horrible, but there is no alternative to it. This is the most aware generation, but with awareness comes a burden of seeing only evil in the world. This creates unhappiness for the large majority of youth which does not wish to ‘bring change’ or ‘fight the system’.

Somewhere this need of validation and the belief that world is unkind might make our children unhappy. More on this will be discussed in articles I write later.

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ARE WE PROMOTING VOYEURISM? 

TL;DR - Yes, we are.

The definition of the word voyeurism has changed over the last few years. My introduction to the word was through the works of David Foster Wallace, he was convinced of our voyeuristic behavior, and somewhere during reading his work I believed him too.

We gain pleasure viewing the lives of others, and that is a fact. In older times voyeurists were perverts staring into windows, now the windows into these lives have been brought to our screens.

We spend hours, viewing what others are doing, through photographs, videos, even live broadcasting. Sitting in our rooms and scrolling through lives is what we are addicted to. Celebrities for example are paid to put their lives out for the people to view. ‘Celebrity Gossip’ and intrusive paparazzis are heavily followed to track every move of these public figures. But why? What do we get from this?

Wallace in his essay, written in the 90s, speaks of the television show F.R.I.E.N.D.S and talks about the illusion it creates for lonely people of friendships, love, companionship and so on. We are glued to the screens, staring into artificially created lives, living our ideals through these characters. Wallace wrote before the advent of social media websites and streaming platforms. He wrote before the entire world decided to give up real life relations to stare at their screens to view curated images of people’s live or binge-watch relatable content.  The term relatable here is interesting, in the past people wanted to watch content which is far from reality, and escape from the real world, now people want to watch character they can relate to, but why? We love these synthetically manufactured lives that resemble ours just enough to relate to but not enough to be identical. The shift of fame from the Khans to the Khuranna is one such example.

Another proof of intrusiveness lies in the upsurge of the ‘vlogging’ culture. The generation wants youtubers to vlog EVERY DAY of their lives, it tunes in to watch the mundane of other’s lives. David Dobrik is one such example, where his videos are just him and his friends having fun, and people tune in, millions do, to watch someone else have fun.

One big reason behind this is the rural to urban migration, people are lonely, they work the whole day and come back home to empty houses, what do they do? They switch on screens and tune into lives they wish they lived, so they stare at their screens and gain pleasure from a life that is not theirs.

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THE CONCEPT OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

If I had a penny, for each time I heard people misunderstand the concept of affirmative action with equality I’d be a millionaire. The response to this misunderstanding is often hostile from the proposers of affirmative action, but I feel no side takes enough time to understand or explain, the problem with the word ‘equality’ .

Let’s take it from the top - what is affirmative action? Simply put, an action taken to give a compensation, reservation, benefit etc to someone based on their caste, creed, community, gender, race and so on.. But why is this done? How is this equality? If we as a world work to strive towards the notion of equality as a concept what is the need for doling out gestures that are anything but equal?

It is important to understand, for example,  when a feminist social worker pushes for two reserved seats in a classroom, she would more often than not be asked - “why push for a special treatment when all you want is equality”? Similarly when a previously disadvantaged community is preferred more during college admissions we question the lack of ‘equality’ in the same.

This is also the reason why a lot of feminists distance themselves from people who say they are not feminists, they just believe in equality.

Now to clarify, equality is ensured between equals. For example, when two men, not belonging to any disadvantaged community, apply for a job, their applications should be treated equally and only the more deserving candidate should be given the job.

When two people, are not equal or have not been equal when it comes to their position in society a different concept enters. This is known as ‘equitability’. While equal means ‘exactly the same’, equitable means ‘fairly’.

The concept isn’t that hard, just the exposure to the word. equitable is low.  To explain, when two people start off together in a race, your goal as the organiser is to ensure both of them reach the finish line at the same, now the audience of the race (society in the real world) starts putting hurdles on one of the participant's race track what do you do?

The audience then evolves and learns from their mistakes and starts removing the hurdles they added, but the first participant has already reached the last lap. What do you do now? Your end goal is still the same both of them reach the finish line at the same time, you can’t stop the first participant till the other one reaches the same point, because he/she too will not want to stop, the only way out is to push him forward with external help.

The push for the second participant might seem as unfair move, but what about the beginning when the audience added extra hurdles for him/her? That was unfair too, so to undo an unfair one needs to be given a seemingly ‘unfair’ help.

The seemingly unfairness is as fair as it can get. It doesn’t do anything wrong for the first participant it only ensures the second one reaches him or her too. The organisers in this case are not being equal but they are being fair.

So when a woman asks for a reservation in a company, it is not because she wants unequal benefits it is because she wants that reservation to help her cut through the societal hurdles of biases, sexism, past hurdles etc, that a man would not have had to face.

So the next time you hear a feminist sneer at you when you say this is unequal and unfair, know it is BUT the societal backlog was too and to undo that we need to provide external helps. The undoing of historic prejudices is an arduous task, it will take time, the problems of centuries cannot be solved within one lifetime, but when it is achieved and everyone is at the equal point, the notion of equitability will dissolve.

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THE MASS PRODUCED GENERATION

Since the beginning of this century the world has seen a complete change in its functioning. For example we have created and recorded more data in the last few years compared to the entire recorded history combined. We have new content in our hand every second, new trends, fads, shows and movies. We stand at a point where full fledged industries are in place to create content that shapes us. The colour of your last latest dress too was probably decided in the boardrooms of one such

company. Having said that, what does this mean for a generation that plans every move based on the new trend?

A simple scroll through Instagram exposes one to the colours of the season, the clothes of the season, the music, the shows and the movies in relevance, it shapes one’s perspectives of what to wear, how to act, what to create, what to consume, where to go, what to emulate and so on. Now, this same feed is accessible by several people. Several people, incessantly scrolling through the same feeds, gaining the same perspectives. The result is obvious, we have a generation of absolutely identical to each other.

This thought first crossed my mind, when I read multiple introductions by my classmates when the new session started. Ten to Eleven post later, I sensed a pattern. A pattern of likes and dislikes, strikingly apparent through everyone’s introduction passages.

To summarise, individuals of today, that consume the same media, behave so similarly it is baffling. They even dress the same as they buy mass produced clothes from brands with the biggest advertising budget. This could be attributed to mass media and its reach. Statements and trends are not isolated creations anymore that remain within the confines of their vicinity, they also do not take years to spread anymore, they are immediate and short lived, they overwhelmingly proclaim to be followed.

Only time will tell if individuality, much like the independent creators, will survive the mass produced generation.