The Myth of Disability with BJ Miller
Our podcast is hosted on Spotify and Anchor.
“Disability” covers an enormous range of conditions. It is a dramatically diverse group though you wouldn’t know it from how we talk about it. Despite advances in the last 30 years, society continues to struggle with this issue, which means the people actually living with disability suffer much more than they need to. BJ Miller discusses history, projections of others, as well as answers questions from the audience on the topic.
We discuss:
0:00 Introductions
3:22 Defining “disability”, a physical or mental condition that limits movements, senses or activities - defined as a functinal status
4:24 How did we get here? What is the history of disability and rights for those living with a disability?
9:28 Projections of others: sometimes Christ-like, sometimes monstrous - both are difficult and don’t leave space for the individual’s personality
12:31 How do we define ourselves? Are we our body? Our mind? How does our identity change if our mind or body changes?
15:30 Statistics on disability, it a larger group of people than you may think!
17:00 Disability and chronic illness are different issues, but issues of identity are the same for everyone - who are we comparing ourselves to? There is more medicalization of chronic illness than there is to disability and there is more “community” around disability with a skepticism of traditional medicine
25:14 Having to advocate for yourself or be the expert of your body even when surrounded by clinical experts
30:14 The reciprocity of learning from each-other’s experiences - embracing the idea of being the expert of your own body and experience
36:42 the concept of “anticipatory disability” - how to prepare for physical changes in your body as relates to aging or illness?
38:42 What do you think a designer can do to support the transformation of society as relates to disability?
42:18 Advice for how to support people who are on disability without enough living expenses to fully live on?
48:40 What can employers do to support people with disabilities in the workplace? Or how to think about the idea of “work”, period
50:37 People living with hidden disabilities, and how does chronic pain factor into this group? Pain can be disabling
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