Cool thing about being disabled is you become the one who knows the people with a truck and a couple 20-year old children. Or the person who cuts hair for free. Or the person whose cousin does pro bono legal work for certain requests.
In short, you become the key connector in that network: the Guy Who Knows A Guy.
It sounds like you’re putting a lot of weight in your own experience and assuming every disabled person will have the same experience.
Maybe you or someone you know is disabled and is that connector who knows a guy. But projecting that and assuming every other disabled person will have that same advantage is a wild thing to do, and I’m surprised that more people don’t see through that.
My wife has a physical disability, she is an “asker”, as in knows she will need help from others and so will ask random people, and also connects a lot of people together.
Maybe not everyone becomes that, but it sort of forces you to.
Why is everyone relying so hard on using specific counterexamples as a counterargument?
Counterexamples only refute absolute statements. If I said “no one with a disability can find the help they need in this kind of system,” then sure, listing a few people with disabilities who do find the help they need would be enough to refute that statement.
But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is “not everyone (including, but not limited to people with disabilities) can find the help they need in this kind of system.”
It’s a completely different statement, because it’s not an absolute. I’m not saying that no exceptions exist. I’m saying that exceptions do exist to the opposite statement, i.e. “everyone (including people with disabilities) can find the help they beed in this kind of system.” Which, by the way, is an absolute statement.
So in fact I’m the one arguing against an absolute, and people try refuting me as if I’m stating an absolute when I’m not.
And unless anyone wants to argue that every single person in this system is able to find the help they need when they need it, then there’s really no way to argue against my point, because my entire point is simply that that’s not true. There are people who get left out, and any attempt to claim otherwise is erasure.
Cool thing about being disabled is you become the one who knows the people with a truck and a couple 20-year old children. Or the person who cuts hair for free. Or the person whose cousin does pro bono legal work for certain requests.
In short, you become the key connector in that network: the Guy Who Knows A Guy.
It sounds like you’re putting a lot of weight in your own experience and assuming every disabled person will have the same experience.
Maybe you or someone you know is disabled and is that connector who knows a guy. But projecting that and assuming every other disabled person will have that same advantage is a wild thing to do, and I’m surprised that more people don’t see through that.
My wife has a physical disability, she is an “asker”, as in knows she will need help from others and so will ask random people, and also connects a lot of people together. Maybe not everyone becomes that, but it sort of forces you to.
Why is everyone relying so hard on using specific counterexamples as a counterargument?
Counterexamples only refute absolute statements. If I said “no one with a disability can find the help they need in this kind of system,” then sure, listing a few people with disabilities who do find the help they need would be enough to refute that statement.
But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is “not everyone (including, but not limited to people with disabilities) can find the help they need in this kind of system.”
It’s a completely different statement, because it’s not an absolute. I’m not saying that no exceptions exist. I’m saying that exceptions do exist to the opposite statement, i.e. “everyone (including people with disabilities) can find the help they beed in this kind of system.” Which, by the way, is an absolute statement.
So in fact I’m the one arguing against an absolute, and people try refuting me as if I’m stating an absolute when I’m not.
And unless anyone wants to argue that every single person in this system is able to find the help they need when they need it, then there’s really no way to argue against my point, because my entire point is simply that that’s not true. There are people who get left out, and any attempt to claim otherwise is erasure.
It’s less an advantage and more a necessity. You either become the person who knows people who can do things or certain things don’t get done.
Yes, you’re right about that. And that’s precisely why people who can’t form those connections are at such a disadvantage.