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And I have not said otherwise. OP's claim was completely different: " someone who is not already inured to their sight would almost certainly feel some level of disgust were he to encounter their average representatives." In other words, that the normal reaction to seeing someone in a wheelchair is one of disgust. That is the claim that I am taking issue with, not with the obvious fact that someone who uses a wheelchair is unable to walk.
The OP explicitly referred not to "the dregs of society" but rather to average handicapped persons.
I have not claimed that tolerating them is a sign of virtue; in fact, I have claimed the exact opposite: That tolerating them, or at least not being disgusted by them, is normal. That which is normal is, by definition, neither particularly virtuous nor particularly lacking in virtue. In contrast, if someone reacts with disgust at seeing someone in a wheelchair, that does seem to me to be indicative of a lack of virtue.
I feel like maybe we're not using terms in the same way.
In my view, disgust is an emotion that one feels, that rises unbidden and cannot be easily extinguished. One can be disgusted by an aspect of someone else's person but still tolerate them. In fact I'd say that most people I know really well have some aspect to their person that causes me some amount of disgust when it becomes salient. The more salient that aspect of their person is to me at a particular moment, the more disgust I feel at that particular moment. This is true of my favorite people in the world, and of me too. No one is perfect, and imperfections by their nature arouse some element of disgust. That disgust doesn't mean that I've written off the person, or don't find other elements of their person to be valuable, or even that I don't like them very much or even love them dearly.
Likewise elsewhere on this thread you protest that it is normal to feel empathy rather than disgust when one encounters someone who is disfigured or whatever. But again, these are not incompatible. Severe physical deformity is innately disgusting, however blameless the person is for having that condition, and however we might empathize with their plight.
Of course, if you create an image of a fictitious person in which the only salient element of their person is an obvious imperfection -- e.g. they are ugly -- then I don't know how a normal person could feel any natural reaction but disgust in response -- even if one is well socialized (even oversocialized) to immediately try to lecture themselves about how the person presumably has various other redeeming traits. But those other redeeming traits are entirely hypothetical, whereas the feature arousing disgust is directly evidenced and centralized by the illustration.
No, we are using the term "disgust" in the same way. But, again, the OP referred to the average disabled person, NOT to someone with a "severe physical deformity" or even any deformity.
As for reacting to a fictitious person whose only salient element is being ugly, one can say that about a stranger on the street. Like the fictitious person, you know nothing about that person other than his or her appearance. Although there might be extreme levels of ugliness bordering on deformity that might be exceptions, I am skeptical that you actually respond with disgust at every ugly person you see on the street. Again, the OP referred to the average example of the class, not an extreme example.
Finally, the person in the illustration is not presented as having only one salient element of their person. She is the owner of what appears to be a happy dog, she herself is smiling, and IIRC she seems to favor brightly-colored clothing. Yes, she is included because she is disabled, not those other attributes, but that is not relevant to how viewers respond to her.
Average disabilities also inspire disgust, and how could they not? Being disabled is awful compared to being fully abled. So does transgenderism -- surely it is far afield from even most liberals' conception of the category to think that having an intractable incongruence between one's body and gender identity is a good thing. Any condition that tips one's cost-benefit analysis in favor of a dramatic and life-altering series of surgeries and permanent medicalization must have a pretty terrible cost to make that dismal path preferable over the status quo, and on that basis alone, we have to conclude that being transgender is innately awful.
Well, contemplating awful conditions, and seeing them in others, naturally arouses disgust. It can also arouse empathy (if we can imagine ourselves having been dealt a hand that put is in a similar position) and sympathy (if we believe the person isn't fundamentally to blame for their condition). Those can inspire charity and the desire to make accommodations. And none of that is inconsistent with also feeling disgust.
But again -- this poster clearly went out of its way to centralize disgust-inspiring conditions in its illustration. Sure, the person is smiling and walking a dog and wearing brightly colored clothing. But any political poster attempting to depict a utopia is going to feature that latter stuff. This one went out of its way to illustrate ugliness and disability, to centralize those and make them the salient element of its depiction. So of course the natural reaction that it inspires is going to be disgust.
Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one. I just don't think that the average disabled person arouses disgust in most people. Disgust is a very specific emotion.
As for the poster, I would suggest that perhaps not all persons, perhaps not most persons, would have a natural reaction of disgust to what is depicted there, or at least that those who produced the poster do not think so, because the poster is meant to attract people -- specifically, to attract voters -- not to disgust them. "Vote for us, and we will create a disgusting world" is not a message that a political party is likely to adopt. So, I would suggest that many people see the world depicted there very, very differently than you do. My initial reaction was a bit of eye rolling at the "kumbayaa, isn't diversity wonderful, 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'" messaging, because it is a bit banal. But certainly not disgust. Nor can you assume that everyone thinks that anyone there is ugly, except perhaps the person with the pink-haired woman. But to me, the pink-haired woman looks pretty attractive, while others specifically singled her out as ugly. And, in real life, some people can carry off purple hair or mohawks or piercings, and others can't, in my opinion. Others find them inherently unattractive. That is what makes horse races.
Anyhow, the idea that Greens or whomever prefer ugliness, which is bandied about quite often here, is rather silly, although I am sure there have been "edgy" people who claim that ugliness is really beauty. People have different aesthetic preferences. I personally like this even though the person depicted therein is not attractive. And, were I to open an art museum, there would be a lot more of stuff like that than works by Rembrandt. That doesn't mean I prefer ugliness to beauty, but rather because I value other things in art in addition to pure aesthetics. In fact, as I understand the left idea of utopia that is captured in that illustration, it is that utopia is a place where people who have traditionally been deemed ugly or weird, or even people who are in fact objectively ugly or weird (to the extent that is possible) are free to live their lives like everyone else. It is not a world where physical ugliness is celebrated; it is a world where physical ugliness is irrelevant. Of course, I am sure that most people here think that is not a utopia. But that is not an excuse to refuse to understand what the claim being made is.
Frankly, it is no different than people claiming that a parent who doesn't want a book with sex scenes in school libraries MUST be motivated by homophobia, just because the book has an LGBTQ theme, or just because the author happens to be gay. Nor it is different from claiming that everyone who opposes affirmative action must be motivated by racism, or that everyone who opposes abortion is trying to oppress women.
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These are the same claims, though, just worded a bit differently. Of course someone in a wheelchair is disgusting, to some extent; their handicap is depressing, their inability to do basic things is shameful. The world would be better, and that person would be better, if they weren't in a wheelchair. They are a permanent sign of something bad.
That doesn't make them the world's worst people. But it does bar them from ever being the best.
Same thing.
Well obviously not, or we wouldn't have needed and still need social campaigns to support them, tolerate them, special olympics to make them feel included, etc., etc. You don't need to try so hard to make people do normal things. Children point and stare and make bad comments; that's normal. We have to chastise them until they learn to hide it.
Now I just suspect that you are yanking my chain.
Honestly, I normally feel like that about what Minotaur writes, him coming off as a little edgy, but he's really explaining my perception of the matter quite correctly.
He is being utterly politically incorrect by the standards of current western society, but he's also very much factually right. Being disabled is a bad thing, and people naturally react negatively to it. The positive reactions we often display, observe and expect are entirely nurture.
But he isn't simply saying that people react negatively, nor that being disabled is a bad thing. He is saying that they are disgusting, that they are the dregs of society, and he likened them to a meth addict who pisses himself on a public bus. Hence, I strongly suspect chain yanking.
I'm really not too clear on what exactly the term implies in this context. If it's taken as implying low socioeconomic productive value (not status, mind - the disabled seem to have fairly high status, at least as an abstract group), then I think it's correct. Many kinds of severe disability will turn an otherwise productive citizen into a net drain, and it takes great effort to compensate if it is not outright impossible. Many disabled people simply cannot overcome their disability and contribute more to society than they cost it, economically and otherwise, and in that sense they are comparable to the meth addict you brought forth.
Still, it's a harsh choice of words.
Well, it is normally not taken merely to mean low value, but rather of no value. A quick Google of the term turns up this definition: "the most worthless part or parts of something. [eg:] 'the dregs of society.'" And the synonyms listed are: scum. refuse, rabble, vermin, down-and-outs, good-for-nothings. And note that the most literal definition of dregs is the stuff you throw out.
As for context, here is his exact quote:
And, of course, when I pointed out that "The OP explicitly referred not to 'the dregs of society' but rather to average handicapped persons," he replied, "Same thing."
So, while I understand the desire to be charitable, it seems pretty clear that he was indeed using the standard definition of the dregs of society, and that he is probably engaged in chain-yanking.
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No. The disabled are in fact on the bottom rung of society. Not the absolute worst -- let's save that for predators, addicts, career criminals, etc -- but low enough to count as dregs.
The ideal society would be a society with no disabled people. How could disability be anything but horrifically low status?
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