Blindsight, The Movie

     We saw Blindsight on Friday night.  A great film, but one that raises a question about how we understand disability. 

      First, some background on the film, without too much in the way of spoilers.  The story focuses on a school for the blind in Tibet, set up by a remarkable woman from Germany who is herself blind.  She gets in touch with a man who was the first blind person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.  Together they organize an expedition for six of the Tibetan kids to climb a mountain right next to Everest, an extraordinarily challenging trek from anyone.  The movie follows the journey from its inception, showing us how difficult life in Tibet can be for blind people, how the kids gain a stronger sense of their potential in the world from facing the challenge, and how the ideals of American mountain climbers (whose goal it is "to summit") clash the values of Tibetan society (which is generally less concerned about getting to the top).  It's a great story with absolutely stunning cinematography.   Highly recommended.

     Now for the question about disability.  The movie conveys the sense that the kids are seen by society, and see themselves, in a different light because of the courage and persistence they demonstrated on the trip.  And that can be a good thing.  But it makes me wonder: is that the best way for us to understand disability?  I think not.  Generally, this is an consequentialist justification for human worth.  The kids are valued, or are valuable, because they did something or had a certain effect on the world.  Although it is good to realize that people with disabilities can have all sorts of positive effects on the world, it is dangerous to use this as a primary means for appreciating disability.

   The danger lies in the potential that some minimum expectation of effectiveness or productivity could emerge, a standard that would then come to define, implicitly or explicitly, some portion of the population of  disabled people as "ineffective" or "unproductive" or, worse, "useless."  It could then be a short step from that determination to a devaluing of certain disabled lives with all sorts of practical effects: the loss of health insurance, the termination of special education programs, the denial of social services.  We must always be on guard against the grimmer possibilities of utilitarian thinking.  I am against productivity as a standard of human worth.

     Don't get me wrong.  I think what the kids did was great.  And the people who helped them do it, and who made this movie, have rendered an admirable service.  But, at the same time, I also think that the kids would be just as valuable as human beings whether or not they had had this experience.  And the other kids at the school who did not have this kind of opportunity, and disabled people of all circumstances everywhere, are all also as valuable and "useful" as human beings as any other abled person.  Chuang Tzu may have said it best:

Hence, the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing beauty, the noble, the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange - it Tao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole; in wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all things move freely as one and the same again. (23)

Comments

[Zoomzan]

I agree. And I think anyone, who has struggled with a prolonged illness, would agree.

At first, your self-worth plummets. Next, you drown in self-pity. After a while, when you start doing everyday things again, you realise - you do the best you can, and that's the only thing which matters.

Most "normal" people avoid the subject of disability and illness. What can they say, anyway, than "This must be so hard for you."

These "normal" people have a limited understanding of themselves. They can never imagine themselves disabled. Once a person is stricken with disability or sickness, and has learnt to accept it and move on - he realises that health and ability don't define him. Nature gives life, whatever form it takes - you choose what to do with it.

[Chris]

Sam,

I'm thinking about including a day in my syllabus this fall (for "Asian Ethics") to a discussion of disability from a Taoist perspective. Could you recommend a short, not too difficult to get through (undergraduate core curriculum course!) on the subject? If you know of anything, I'd be grateful (perhaps even something you've written -- a chapter from your book that you think would work as a standalone piece?).

Thanks in advance,
Chris

[Ahistoricality]

You're right about the disability issues: there's a long tradition of "self-esteem" tied to functionalist achievements, not to mention the "plucky" and "heroic" disabled narratives which this hooks in to.