The Grandeur of Rejecting a Disabled Person
Being disabled is neither pleasant nor easy in any society, and Britain is a society civilised enough to appreciate the fact fairly in all institutions. Not everyone in Britain shares such civilisation.
I do not know if facial and actual expressions of nobility and meanness are so similar that we can conflate them with each other. All institutions are based on the capacity and discretion of officials to accept or reject requests from members of the public as long as they effectively conform to the ethically consistent goals of the institution. Rules are rules, agreed, but not when applied wrongly or immorally.
I guess everyone an official has rejected whose formal request must have at least once experienced the sudden transforming aristocratic sense of smugness experienced by the official in doing so. The head moves back, the upper lip stiffens, the demeanour becomes dour, the voice thickens and slows, self-satisfaction mixed with contempt over the face, emphasis on the rules to perfection, flaunts the logic of “if I do it for you, I have to do it for everyone else”, an aura of superiority exudes… all because one could reject a request.
It gets disturbing and totally misplaced when the person on the receiving end has a disability and struggles to cope in society. The main culprits of this cheap ‘flash of aristocracy’ at the expense of a disabled person I have observed are ASDA store managers / supervisors. And Post Office counter staff. University security staff. London bus drivers. And most shocking, ambulance drivers, yes ambulance drivers. Parking attendants, perhaps because of cultural differences, will tell you No. However, it is clear they could have said Yes, but without feeling smug about it.
We should not be condemn these people but offer them large doses of sympathy and pity. They are not aristocrats and are eternally oblivious of the fact feelings of aristocracy. Aristocracy is about sensibilities of nobility and a noble spirit rather than unnecessary snobbery. And they do not realise that odd or laughable face pulling and bad ‘received English’ (if they can) is not the things of authority, power or privilege. How the meanness of rejecting or neglecting an disabled person in desperate need when discretion or the letter of the law stipulates that one should give help or make an exception to rule for such person’s beggars belief. Or is evidence that such a person suffer disability themselves, perhaps emotionally or morally?
Rights for disabled people are a fundamental institution of modern day society, but several people living in our “civilised, democratic” country do not get it. They think the legless are ‘taking the piss’, the wheelchair bound are ‘jumping the queue’, the armless are ‘looking for sympathy’, the disabled person seeking to live independently ‘should have come out with a carer’ and the list of insensitivities go on. When the disabilities are not visible but no less debilitating (e.g. when one presents a Medic Alert bracelet or card), the case of ‘what the cheek’ or ‘nothing is wrong with her!’ easily arises.
Something I would not discuss in-depth is my conversation with an “aristocrat because of someone’s disablement” of the worst kind who I met wheelchair bound and distraught in St Thomas’ Hospital, recently. His words were “… if I truly treated a disable person so badly when I should have known, I deserve my disability… disable people are not a really thought about group”. Is that a credible excuse for being unnecessarily mean to a disable person trying to be part of society? Well, at least he now has time to think about the disabled. And he could not reproduce his flash of aristocracy throughout our lengthy conversation.
Something to be genuinely optimistic about is that there are several people in society, perhaps the majority, who respond to the needs of disabled people when they should or can do so, out of internalised moral obligation or common sense. This represents a genuine nobleness in a society of its own.
I agree with all you have said but let us not forget that a few disabled people abuse the privileges and exceptions created for them and this may reflect badly on others with the same condition. It is a disgrace that any one can feel good or powertrip on rejecting a disabled person, regardless.
I think disability rights should be more aggressively undertaken. Too many people especially the current ConDem government have little or no regard for disabled people. Is just that it is too hard for them to turn the clock back or offer mandatory euthanasia as a solution, they would have voted for it.