3 ms·
That's neurodiversity and the social model of disability in a nutshell. We've defined a very narrow set of neurotypes as normal and treat any divergence from it
by hnbad 3y ago
That's neurodiversity and the social model of disability in a nutshell. We've defined a very narrow set of neurotypes as normal and treat any divergence from it as a disorder. We've additionally structured society in such a way that only this very narrow set is accommodated and provided affordances, making these disorders disabling to those "suffering" from it.
It's worth remembering that ADHD drugs can be an affordance even if we accept a social model of disability and a neurodiverse view of humanity. But the systems we have built drastically exaggerate the degree to which ADHD is "inherently" disabling, e.g. not opening your mail can land you in prison. Yes of course there's more to that than it just being "mail" but the mechanism itself is more dangerous to someone with ADHD traits than someone without them.
The same goes for autism by the way: arguably there are many benefits to autistic traits (which seems odd to explain on a site like this when for the longest time programmers online used to joke that we're all autistic and when the "aspie supremacist movement" is literally a thing) but at the same time it can be extremely disabling simply due to "how we do things", e.g. having to use the phone to book an appointment or being in a noisy office full of other people in order to get paid.
It's interesting to consider not only what we could do to provide affordances and accommodations more equitably but also who else would benefit from this as a kind of inverse collateral damage.