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Able (wo)man's burden

Mar 16, 2023

In a social media site that I shall not name, I came across a screenshot of @noelani@sfba.social's toot:

Car-centrism is depressing and isolating. My grandma has dementia and can't drive anymore so now stays home all day and does nothing. Of course this causes her mental state to rapidly decline even more.

The answer from the site's mostly left-leaning, mostly millenial male audience surprised me. These folks are typically quite enthusiastic of arguments in favor of public transport. But here, the response were of two kinds:

1. We should move women like her into communal living.

2. A person with dementia shouldn't be allowed to walk alone, because they could get lost and die.

Dear reader, you might be tempted to have a similar opinion. In fact, you might be tempted to voice something like this person:

It's way better to have those people with dementia out on the streets, walking around, getting lost, dying in an alley.

There is concern behind the sarcasm. Maybe even pedagogical intent behind the sense of superiority. This person thinks they are right, and that their duty is to convince whoever has a senile grandma that she should stay home.

Just to put it out of the way: people with dementia can certainly have walks in relative safety, especially in less car-centric places, at least until they can't. I've been in many cities in Europe where I can't imagine how someone could get lost—because everyone walks, there's always someone to help. Besides, dementia symptoms vary a lot, and people with early dementia can do quit a lot of things. And as @noelani points out, they should, because it fights further decline.

But there is a sense in this society that we have a duty to protect disabled people, and senile people in particular. And we fear, with reason, that the world around us isn't accomodating for disabled people, so we see it as our duty to protect them from that world, by keeping them out. The issue, of course, is that keeping them out is just as unrealistic is it is often cruel. But we feel we have no control over the world, and thus we go for what feels doable.

It comes from a noble place, but it's a real problem for, say, someone with dementia who is still highly functional. They might live this constant theat over their freedom as harassment. They might fear that because of it, they would be refused, say, equipment like an electric wheelchair. And I'm quite sure that some families will cave in and choose safety over their elder's happiness.

The hopeful lesson I get from this is that, at a certain level, people recognize that the world is not fit for people with dementia. And that, maybe, if they were empowered to change the environment to be more accessible, they might do that instead of trying to control people with dementia.

🏷 disability, ethics

To share a thought or add a comment: locha at rawtext dot club.

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